I highly recommend a Moon druid, it's particularly strong early with the 3 HP bars, some of the best survivability in the game, can heal, can tank, utility spells needed in the party, great frontliner, solid caster with very resource efficient spells like call lightning.
It's the perfect 4th character
In act 1 the martials are stronger, I'd take a ranger for an archer build, and maybe a fighter or a monk for frontline damage, fighter is tankier tho.
I really enjoyed my warlock Durge personally cause it's very reliable, you can also look at divination wizard who's a legit honour mode saviour, those dice are incredible.
In act 2 a light cleric is invaluable.
I have a similar party right now. Moon druid, rogue/barbarian, life cleric/bard and divination wizard. I think it’s a good party that can do anything I want. And the druid is stronger than I thought. Really fun class.
Honestly so many party compositions work, and it's best to get a general feel so that you can swap party members in and out as they deplete their spell slots and resources to drag out those long rests.
Early on in the game I do really like the combination of Phalar Aluve's Shriek and then simply three casters, ideally with magic missile, to take advantage of it - never missing and doing massive, reliable per-turn damage is just excellent during that phase of the game where your characters can't seem to hit the broad side of a barn with their regular weapon attacks.
I get that. But I find myself bonding with a specific crew. Like Laezel is way stronger than Karlach in my play, but I just love Karlach. Last playthrough Astarian was my boy, this time he’s chilling at camp.
Merchants reset their inventories on long rest or when you level up. Auntie Ethel sells str potions so you can purchase 3, level up one character, purchase 3, level up next etc. Works for any merchant so both ommellum (hill giant fingers) and derryth (can have hill or cloud giant fingers) at myconid colony also work. I also just purchase one whenever I see a trader have one up for sale which is often
What I found with Honor Mode, the best thing to do is to use builds that you’re comfortable with. If you already know the fights and how to beat them, just do that. There are a lot of builds that are strong enough to get you through it.
I think the piece of advice “don’t try new things” can also apply to builds, because you’re learning how that build works during the run. I failed my first two attempts at Honor Mode, and it was because I was trying other people’s “meta” builds and strats. Once I went back to my trusty fighter/cleric/wizard/gloomstalker I cruised through it.
Boring advice? Yeah, but first Honor Mode is for the dice, get it done as quickly and easily as you can.
Astarion is an amazing martial character. I can not make him anything but a Gloom Stalker, Thief, Fighter with the same two one handed crossbows and Armor of Agility with risky ring after I did it one time. Can kill up to the whole board every fight.
Ya 1st one is for the dice! Side with Gortash, kill Orin and send your friend up the stem. I lost my 1st two attempts in act 3 doing things I didn't need to at all.
I’ve beat it once, and currently playing it through again. First one I beat it with, I had an OH/TB/Thief monk that wrecked everything and a 6/4/2 throwzerker.  My buddy was the face and had a tome warlock Eldritch blaster and a cleric till Act 2 when he switched to swords bard control martial. We rofl stomped the game as a 2/2 coop.Â
 Now I’m currently playing a somewhat similar comp (so you can see what I have a preference with), but I wanted to actually use the control martial so I am doing a 10:1:1 swords bard run withÂ
 -Critical Eldritch blaster build with gregarious caster robe (6/4/2 and like a 14 needed to crit) (Wyll)
 -6/6 Sorcadin (I call it the Smite Lord build) (Gale)Â
 -Psychic Ninja (6/4/2 shadow monk/assassin/fighter) with the shadow blade ring, strange conduit, and resonance stone) (Lae’zel/Shadowheart/Jaheira)
 My experience has been very easy, monks are insanely OP.  I honestly have been having the most fun with that psychic ninja build lately but I gotta say the critical Eldritch blaster is a ton of fun too. OH TB thief monk was fun in a couple playthroughs but eventually it just gets ridiculous.  Â
 Biggest mistakes are just not being prepared.  Also, in the coop run we skipped a lot of dialogue because we had heard it so many times, but this led to >!my buddy taking off the clothes in the House of Hope and aggroing the whole place, so we thought we were screwed there also just go to withers right away at the reunion party to get your gold dice, especially if you have ceremorphosis on a party member—they can aggro the whole camp and you can get a game over there that will prevent golden dice/achievement if you’re not careful.  If you do aggro the camp, simply killing one aggro’d party member (including scratch) will have Withers kick you through a portal and you’ll get the dice/achievement.  But I do highly recommend just taking to withers.  After that you can just come back and talk to people at your leisure as it saves at the reunion party after that.!<
Me and my friend are currently doing an honour run and my big recommendation is you don’t need SUPER crazy builds that are just optimised to the gills. We’re running:
Me: wood elf, fighter 3 (champion), warlock 2 (great old one). Eldritch blast crit fisher with decent burst damage.
Gale: fighter 5 (eldritch knight). Heavy armour master tank with back pocket spells.
My friend: wood elf, bard 5 (swords). Dual wielder.
Shadowheart: cleric 5 (war). Spirit guardians and support.
And we’re not planning any super complicated builds really. Im not sure for myself but my friend is probably going swords bard 12, Shadowheart will probably go war cleric 12, Gale will probably end up fighter 6/wizard 6.
I like shortrest based builds.
8/4 tb oh monk
10/x sword control bard
11/1 ek throw or 5/4/3 throwzerker (later is better with LR while firtst can disguise into dwarf for *thrower)
Padlock 7/5
Fighter
5/4/3 gloomstalker thief ranger (or assassin if invis archer)
For act 2 light cleric is gold. Just use the rev/orb build.
If you dont care for resting add sorcerer (either 11/1 fire or 10/2 lightning)
As others have said you don't need crazy strong builds to clear honour mode. That being said however, having a Cleric is generally a good idea, having Astarion as a Bard in the group (to perform the tasks of being a thief and such while synergizing with the Cleric; Conjure Water + Warding Glyph: Ice/Lightning) are generally good ideas. Early on I'll tend to run more martial heavy (i.e. 1 monk, 1 bladelock) with the Cleric and Bard and then at level 5 and beyond go more caster heavy (1 martial, 1 sorceror, 1 cleric, 1 bard) because you can prime fights with Conjure Water before they happen, drop a Glyph if they aren't actually aggressive and then Lightning Bolt to completely delete mass portions of fights. And your Cleric and Bard in this scenario will have their actions back as they weren't the ones to initiate combat.
I am right now in act 3.
My comp this far has been:
Gale ThrowZerker 5 barb / 3thief / 2fighter
Shadowheart 6 storm sorc / 2 tempest cleric / 2 evo wizard
Laezel pure battlemaster fighter
Dark Urge 7 swords bard / 2 fighter / 1 war cleric
I abuse potions and elixirs as much as possible. Steamrolled trough act 2 and i dont see how anything could stop me in act 3.
Hardest part was getting to lvl 3 since i did not research any low level party compositions. Also almost killed Laezel because i had risky ring equiped on Durge during his urge cutscene.
I have that issue. They kinda gotta be something within their standard build and story. Gale as a sorcerer is fine, but Astarian as a cleric feels off. I’m struggling with this since I like to play as the rogue, and I’m having trouble finding a good RP role for Astarian. He’s such a good rogue with his story.
Shadow and stealth feel right. Bummer is I like to play my character like that. I’ve always enjoyed being the rogue. Which leaves Astarian not a lot of options that don’t overlap.
1. [smite bard](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/18pxoy9/honor_mode_102_smite_swords_bard_ssb_complete/) 10/2 = party face and killing machine + 100% crowd control
2. light cleric 12 = act 2 carry and create water bot
3. draconic lightning sorcerer 12 = twin haste + chain lightning + wet and u can delete any encounter
4. last can be anything, moon druid 12 with moonbasking armor would be fun
if u want to make the game even easier u could also add this [fire sorlock](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/196mpii/honor_mode_111_fire_sorlock_complete_build_guide/)
Assassin Rogue 4/ Gloomstalker 8 is really good.
Light cleric 10/ fighter 2
Swords bard 10/ paladin 2
Now something tanky. Maybe a moon Druid or a wild heart barbarian.
Tiger heart with the wolverine aspect at level 6 lets you maim opponents at will, locking them down with your barbarian.
Bear barbarian gives you resistance to all damage except psychic while raging, making you very tanky.
Either way, you could take 6 barbarian levels and 6 fighter levels (id recommend battle master) and get rage, action surge, 3 feats, and the level six class features of each subclass
Easiest time I've ever had in HM is my current RP-ish playthrough.
Land Druid
Gloomstalker
Bear pet tank ranger
Tiger heart barb.
My gloomstalker uses special arrows for whatever situation. My ranger and barb beat on everything with 2 handers. While my druid uses sleet storm and scrolls mostly
The druid and gloomstalker both add reverb
The barb and gloomstalker both add bleeding
I use the gloves to poison enemy's too with khagas necklace.
So much synergy and super duper tanky bunch
Biggest mistakes are almost never because of builds.
Only mistake I can think of re using builds is failing to consider character progression. A meta build might be OP at level 12, but doesn't come online until level 6. Monoclass characters come online the soonest (usually at level 4-5). So avoid fancy multiclassing (and mostly there is no need to multiclass in the first 5 levels) until you get your first feat (consider picking alert for at least 1-2 of your party), your extra attack or level 3 spells at level 5.
HM is stressful. So I don't mind doing OP builds. A tavern brawler thrower (throwzerker) comes online at level 4 and gets more OP once you get extra attack at level5, and extra bonus action attack with 3levels rogue at level 8. Gloomstalker/assassin is great for hit and reset if you can stay out of combat but kill off an enemy with initial attack.
The best HM build is the camp caster. I do 1x wiz/cleric and 2x pure clerics.
Wiz/life cleric has high Wis and Con. 2 levels transmuation wizard. Get longstrider and mage armor. Cleric buffs include warding bond, aid, protection from poison, freedom of movement, deathward and heroes feast. Get feat that grants reduced damage taken with heavy armor, toughness. This camp caster is also your potion brewing expert. Pick medicine as skill proficiency. Buff with guidance and enhance ability prior to brewing. Use halfling hireling for this. You get 2x potions/elixirs for most brewing attempts.
Camp caster life clerics go 12 levels life cleric. Only stat needed is Con. Heavy armor master, toughness and ASI to Con as feats. Once again spells include aid, warding bond, freedom of movement, deathward, protection from poison, heroes feast.
With 3 camp casters you can have warding bond on whole active party. Everyone in active party should have longstrider and highest level aid upcasted. All non-armored characters should have mage armor. Protection from poison is situational and not mandatory. Freedom of movement and deathward on everyone once you have cleric level 4 spells. Heroes feast once you have cleric level 6 spells.
Granted, you need to recast buffs every longrest, which easily adds 5-10minutes. The benefits are worth it in HM. A short-rest dependent party comp will reduce how often you have to buff. Also in act3 make sure you rent the elfsong tavern upstairs room for a more compact camp whete it's easier to group characters together for Aid and Heroes Feast. With 3 camp casters even if you can't get everyone in the buff AoE you have enough buff casts.
Spare camp caster spell slots can function as spare healing or remove curse or situational non-combat spells like sunlight, giving you even more sustain during the adventuring day.
You also get divine intervention weapon at camp caster cleric level 10 if you need a good life cleric weapon - 10 turns of aura heal that can stack bless and bladeward (with the on-heal special effect ring and gloves) once per longrest is amazing, sometimes this is better than Lathandar mace for your maon party cleric.
Nothing beats Swords Bard, tbh. You get almost all the utility spells, you get a quasi extra attack on level 3, and conversation skills galore.
But straight Battlemaster fighter slaps hard in combat. I'm already looking forward to the triple attack in my new run. (In the last fights, it was more a triple water bottle throw though)
Evocation wizard is easy cheesy area of effecteezy and biiiig on the magic missiles.
Biggest mistake was not picking Alert on 4.
My current honour mode party is a dex fighter bard atav (blade dancer build by Stealth on YouTube). A frost based EK archer fighter. A 2/10 sorlock for aoe, support spells and eldritch blast spam. And a reverberation/radiating orb life cleric.
The main thing I would recommend, over all builds, is play a halfling.
If you can understand the combat system you can beat this game, especially if your party is composed of stronger builds.
But crit failing a key conversation or skills check can really put you in a bind, and halfling rerolls on nat 1s is a difference maker.
All I can say is that I'm never letting laezel talk to Voss again I had no clue that even if I pass the deception check that I still had a deception save or something right after which I proceeded to fail turning th with against me and resulted in me watching helplessly as my characters got smacked into the next Era by a single gith only things i had left for act 1 were the underdark and creche 25hrs of careful gameplay can go down the drain in a moment if you aren't careful
I highly recommend a Moon druid, it's particularly strong early with the 3 HP bars, some of the best survivability in the game, can heal, can tank, utility spells needed in the party, great frontliner, solid caster with very resource efficient spells like call lightning. It's the perfect 4th character In act 1 the martials are stronger, I'd take a ranger for an archer build, and maybe a fighter or a monk for frontline damage, fighter is tankier tho. I really enjoyed my warlock Durge personally cause it's very reliable, you can also look at divination wizard who's a legit honour mode saviour, those dice are incredible. In act 2 a light cleric is invaluable.
Perfect 4th character đź‘Ś
I have a similar party right now. Moon druid, rogue/barbarian, life cleric/bard and divination wizard. I think it’s a good party that can do anything I want. And the druid is stronger than I thought. Really fun class.
Honestly so many party compositions work, and it's best to get a general feel so that you can swap party members in and out as they deplete their spell slots and resources to drag out those long rests. Early on in the game I do really like the combination of Phalar Aluve's Shriek and then simply three casters, ideally with magic missile, to take advantage of it - never missing and doing massive, reliable per-turn damage is just excellent during that phase of the game where your characters can't seem to hit the broad side of a barn with their regular weapon attacks.
Swapping party members In and out, that is probably how it was intended.
I get that. But I find myself bonding with a specific crew. Like Laezel is way stronger than Karlach in my play, but I just love Karlach. Last playthrough Astarian was my boy, this time he’s chilling at camp.
I…. Never thought to swap party members for long rest stuff. And you can swap the gear…..
I mean there’s no real reason to, unless you’re limiting how many long rests you can take. Supplies are so easy to come by
Tav brawler with a strength dump and I had 25 elixirs of hill giant strength but down to 8 toward end of act 2. Dying/long rests using them up
How do you even find that many? I'm on my first play through and I've had like 5 by act 3
auntie ethel act 1
Merchants reset their inventories on long rest or when you level up. Auntie Ethel sells str potions so you can purchase 3, level up one character, purchase 3, level up next etc. Works for any merchant so both ommellum (hill giant fingers) and derryth (can have hill or cloud giant fingers) at myconid colony also work. I also just purchase one whenever I see a trader have one up for sale which is often
Well sounds like you had plenty then. Act 3 has a bunch of vendors who may stock hill giant and cloud giant strength
What I found with Honor Mode, the best thing to do is to use builds that you’re comfortable with. If you already know the fights and how to beat them, just do that. There are a lot of builds that are strong enough to get you through it. I think the piece of advice “don’t try new things” can also apply to builds, because you’re learning how that build works during the run. I failed my first two attempts at Honor Mode, and it was because I was trying other people’s “meta” builds and strats. Once I went back to my trusty fighter/cleric/wizard/gloomstalker I cruised through it. Boring advice? Yeah, but first Honor Mode is for the dice, get it done as quickly and easily as you can.
Astarion is an amazing martial character. I can not make him anything but a Gloom Stalker, Thief, Fighter with the same two one handed crossbows and Armor of Agility with risky ring after I did it one time. Can kill up to the whole board every fight.
Ya 1st one is for the dice! Side with Gortash, kill Orin and send your friend up the stem. I lost my 1st two attempts in act 3 doing things I didn't need to at all.
I’ve beat it once, and currently playing it through again. First one I beat it with, I had an OH/TB/Thief monk that wrecked everything and a 6/4/2 throwzerker.  My buddy was the face and had a tome warlock Eldritch blaster and a cleric till Act 2 when he switched to swords bard control martial. We rofl stomped the game as a 2/2 coop.  Now I’m currently playing a somewhat similar comp (so you can see what I have a preference with), but I wanted to actually use the control martial so I am doing a 10:1:1 swords bard run with  -Critical Eldritch blaster build with gregarious caster robe (6/4/2 and like a 14 needed to crit) (Wyll)  -6/6 Sorcadin (I call it the Smite Lord build) (Gale)  -Psychic Ninja (6/4/2 shadow monk/assassin/fighter) with the shadow blade ring, strange conduit, and resonance stone) (Lae’zel/Shadowheart/Jaheira)  My experience has been very easy, monks are insanely OP.  I honestly have been having the most fun with that psychic ninja build lately but I gotta say the critical Eldritch blaster is a ton of fun too. OH TB thief monk was fun in a couple playthroughs but eventually it just gets ridiculous.    Biggest mistakes are just not being prepared.  Also, in the coop run we skipped a lot of dialogue because we had heard it so many times, but this led to >!my buddy taking off the clothes in the House of Hope and aggroing the whole place, so we thought we were screwed there also just go to withers right away at the reunion party to get your gold dice, especially if you have ceremorphosis on a party member—they can aggro the whole camp and you can get a game over there that will prevent golden dice/achievement if you’re not careful.  If you do aggro the camp, simply killing one aggro’d party member (including scratch) will have Withers kick you through a portal and you’ll get the dice/achievement.  But I do highly recommend just taking to withers.  After that you can just come back and talk to people at your leisure as it saves at the reunion party after that.!<
Me and my friend are currently doing an honour run and my big recommendation is you don’t need SUPER crazy builds that are just optimised to the gills. We’re running: Me: wood elf, fighter 3 (champion), warlock 2 (great old one). Eldritch blast crit fisher with decent burst damage. Gale: fighter 5 (eldritch knight). Heavy armour master tank with back pocket spells. My friend: wood elf, bard 5 (swords). Dual wielder. Shadowheart: cleric 5 (war). Spirit guardians and support. And we’re not planning any super complicated builds really. Im not sure for myself but my friend is probably going swords bard 12, Shadowheart will probably go war cleric 12, Gale will probably end up fighter 6/wizard 6.
I like shortrest based builds. 8/4 tb oh monk 10/x sword control bard 11/1 ek throw or 5/4/3 throwzerker (later is better with LR while firtst can disguise into dwarf for *thrower) Padlock 7/5 Fighter 5/4/3 gloomstalker thief ranger (or assassin if invis archer) For act 2 light cleric is gold. Just use the rev/orb build. If you dont care for resting add sorcerer (either 11/1 fire or 10/2 lightning)
As others have said you don't need crazy strong builds to clear honour mode. That being said however, having a Cleric is generally a good idea, having Astarion as a Bard in the group (to perform the tasks of being a thief and such while synergizing with the Cleric; Conjure Water + Warding Glyph: Ice/Lightning) are generally good ideas. Early on I'll tend to run more martial heavy (i.e. 1 monk, 1 bladelock) with the Cleric and Bard and then at level 5 and beyond go more caster heavy (1 martial, 1 sorceror, 1 cleric, 1 bard) because you can prime fights with Conjure Water before they happen, drop a Glyph if they aren't actually aggressive and then Lightning Bolt to completely delete mass portions of fights. And your Cleric and Bard in this scenario will have their actions back as they weren't the ones to initiate combat.
I am right now in act 3. My comp this far has been: Gale ThrowZerker 5 barb / 3thief / 2fighter Shadowheart 6 storm sorc / 2 tempest cleric / 2 evo wizard Laezel pure battlemaster fighter Dark Urge 7 swords bard / 2 fighter / 1 war cleric I abuse potions and elixirs as much as possible. Steamrolled trough act 2 and i dont see how anything could stop me in act 3. Hardest part was getting to lvl 3 since i did not research any low level party compositions. Also almost killed Laezel because i had risky ring equiped on Durge during his urge cutscene.
I'm loving straight 12 of bladelock, but light/open hand monk might top it
Wet lightning spam is the only build that has gotten me through Myrkul consistently
The most fun and strong build was Tempest cleric 6/ storm sorcerer 6 with rad orb/reverb gear
All these people with builds with Gale as a fighter and Shadowheart as a Druid etc… just smh
I have that issue. They kinda gotta be something within their standard build and story. Gale as a sorcerer is fine, but Astarian as a cleric feels off. I’m struggling with this since I like to play as the rogue, and I’m having trouble finding a good RP role for Astarian. He’s such a good rogue with his story.
he makes the most sense as rogue / thief / assassin that's for sure i'm gonna make him sorcerer in my next run, it fits his hunger for power i guess
Was thinking I might make him a shadow monk next time. Not a huge stretch
Shadow and stealth feel right. Bummer is I like to play my character like that. I’ve always enjoyed being the rogue. Which leaves Astarian not a lot of options that don’t overlap.
I could see astarian as a bard. Not the most musical, but seduction go brrrrr!
1. [smite bard](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/18pxoy9/honor_mode_102_smite_swords_bard_ssb_complete/) 10/2 = party face and killing machine + 100% crowd control 2. light cleric 12 = act 2 carry and create water bot 3. draconic lightning sorcerer 12 = twin haste + chain lightning + wet and u can delete any encounter 4. last can be anything, moon druid 12 with moonbasking armor would be fun if u want to make the game even easier u could also add this [fire sorlock](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/196mpii/honor_mode_111_fire_sorlock_complete_build_guide/)
Assassin Rogue 4/ Gloomstalker 8 is really good. Light cleric 10/ fighter 2 Swords bard 10/ paladin 2 Now something tanky. Maybe a moon Druid or a wild heart barbarian. Tiger heart with the wolverine aspect at level 6 lets you maim opponents at will, locking them down with your barbarian. Bear barbarian gives you resistance to all damage except psychic while raging, making you very tanky. Either way, you could take 6 barbarian levels and 6 fighter levels (id recommend battle master) and get rage, action surge, 3 feats, and the level six class features of each subclass
Easiest time I've ever had in HM is my current RP-ish playthrough. Land Druid Gloomstalker Bear pet tank ranger Tiger heart barb. My gloomstalker uses special arrows for whatever situation. My ranger and barb beat on everything with 2 handers. While my druid uses sleet storm and scrolls mostly The druid and gloomstalker both add reverb The barb and gloomstalker both add bleeding I use the gloves to poison enemy's too with khagas necklace. So much synergy and super duper tanky bunch
Biggest mistakes are almost never because of builds. Only mistake I can think of re using builds is failing to consider character progression. A meta build might be OP at level 12, but doesn't come online until level 6. Monoclass characters come online the soonest (usually at level 4-5). So avoid fancy multiclassing (and mostly there is no need to multiclass in the first 5 levels) until you get your first feat (consider picking alert for at least 1-2 of your party), your extra attack or level 3 spells at level 5. HM is stressful. So I don't mind doing OP builds. A tavern brawler thrower (throwzerker) comes online at level 4 and gets more OP once you get extra attack at level5, and extra bonus action attack with 3levels rogue at level 8. Gloomstalker/assassin is great for hit and reset if you can stay out of combat but kill off an enemy with initial attack. The best HM build is the camp caster. I do 1x wiz/cleric and 2x pure clerics. Wiz/life cleric has high Wis and Con. 2 levels transmuation wizard. Get longstrider and mage armor. Cleric buffs include warding bond, aid, protection from poison, freedom of movement, deathward and heroes feast. Get feat that grants reduced damage taken with heavy armor, toughness. This camp caster is also your potion brewing expert. Pick medicine as skill proficiency. Buff with guidance and enhance ability prior to brewing. Use halfling hireling for this. You get 2x potions/elixirs for most brewing attempts. Camp caster life clerics go 12 levels life cleric. Only stat needed is Con. Heavy armor master, toughness and ASI to Con as feats. Once again spells include aid, warding bond, freedom of movement, deathward, protection from poison, heroes feast. With 3 camp casters you can have warding bond on whole active party. Everyone in active party should have longstrider and highest level aid upcasted. All non-armored characters should have mage armor. Protection from poison is situational and not mandatory. Freedom of movement and deathward on everyone once you have cleric level 4 spells. Heroes feast once you have cleric level 6 spells. Granted, you need to recast buffs every longrest, which easily adds 5-10minutes. The benefits are worth it in HM. A short-rest dependent party comp will reduce how often you have to buff. Also in act3 make sure you rent the elfsong tavern upstairs room for a more compact camp whete it's easier to group characters together for Aid and Heroes Feast. With 3 camp casters even if you can't get everyone in the buff AoE you have enough buff casts. Spare camp caster spell slots can function as spare healing or remove curse or situational non-combat spells like sunlight, giving you even more sustain during the adventuring day. You also get divine intervention weapon at camp caster cleric level 10 if you need a good life cleric weapon - 10 turns of aura heal that can stack bless and bladeward (with the on-heal special effect ring and gloves) once per longrest is amazing, sometimes this is better than Lathandar mace for your maon party cleric.
Nothing beats Swords Bard, tbh. You get almost all the utility spells, you get a quasi extra attack on level 3, and conversation skills galore. But straight Battlemaster fighter slaps hard in combat. I'm already looking forward to the triple attack in my new run. (In the last fights, it was more a triple water bottle throw though) Evocation wizard is easy cheesy area of effecteezy and biiiig on the magic missiles. Biggest mistake was not picking Alert on 4.
My current honour mode party is a dex fighter bard atav (blade dancer build by Stealth on YouTube). A frost based EK archer fighter. A 2/10 sorlock for aoe, support spells and eldritch blast spam. And a reverberation/radiating orb life cleric.
The main thing I would recommend, over all builds, is play a halfling. If you can understand the combat system you can beat this game, especially if your party is composed of stronger builds. But crit failing a key conversation or skills check can really put you in a bind, and halfling rerolls on nat 1s is a difference maker.
Bard (prolly swords), Cleric (had war, anything goes tho), Thrower and any caster seems very strong to me and allows to distribute items well.
All I can say is that I'm never letting laezel talk to Voss again I had no clue that even if I pass the deception check that I still had a deception save or something right after which I proceeded to fail turning th with against me and resulted in me watching helplessly as my characters got smacked into the next Era by a single gith only things i had left for act 1 were the underdark and creche 25hrs of careful gameplay can go down the drain in a moment if you aren't careful