Baldur’s Gate 3 – Jaheira’s Build / The Sylvan Scimitar

Jaheira’s Build

When High Harper J arrives, you can respec her in whatever way you wish. So asking “whats a good Jaheira build?” is a bit goofy. But that’s the question here. So the caveat is that it’s meant to keep a foot in the door on her lore and current presentation, while pulling her weight effectively in a Tactician+ group.

One of the biggest touchstones is the weapon she’s got. The special mechanics suggest it could be used as a build-guiding item. A “+1 Scimitar that allows its wielder to use their Spellcasting Ability modifier instead of their Dexterity modifier to determine their Attack Roll bonus.” Meaning that she could connect reliably in melee while continuing to pump Wisdom.

So I’ve been trying to imagine the utility here, and I suspect that it’s actually not very good. After all, it doesn’t say anything about the weapon’s damage. Melee hits will only get more damaging via gear, or boosting dex which defeats the purpose. So I’m trying to explore what is the potential purpose of connecting in melee with low damage?

I rule out wildshape, because that’s redundant with Halsin, and it doesn’t do anything with her High Harper identity nor that iconic sword.

Some things I’m looking at so far: Oil of Bane, Oil of Diminution, Ensnaring Strike(Ranger). These lead me to consider the potential of a melee controller, a Bounty Hunter Gloomstalker, who misty-steps around the space, goes in on a target for the setup, so that someone else can dunk on the mob.

Their use of Concentration is typically on Entangle, Ensnaring Strike, sometimes Hold Person, and if not, then Enhance Ability.

The gearing direction is focused on items with Arcane Acuity(+Spell Attack & DC) with a dose of Elixir of Battlemage Power, and then an item with Arcane Synergy(+Spellcasting Ability Modifier), in order to make sure that the CC is as hard as possible to resist.

As for dual wielding, just no. Dueling Style seems good though.

Leveling breakdown I’m not sure about. 1 is locked to druid because that’s how she’s presented. Maybe ranger for either 3 or 5 levels, then dip 1 rogue for stealth specialties and a sneak attack die, then stick with Land Druid to max utility.

Alternately, stick with ranger, but it doesn’t seem like much more is gained this way.

So I’m interested in what other routes people have used with Jaheira? And if you can think of improvements on the general idea of the ensnaring high harper.

Or whether banking on this sword and the approach is just not worthwhile? Because I’m on the fence.

Started testing and although it’s not mentioned in the item description, the sword DOES gain damage from wisdom. So this is a top notch item.

So far it looks like she will be able to keep up somewhat with melee damage output. Particularly with Arcane Synergy and other wisdom bonuses. There’s further melee damage boosting options: hunters mark, sneak attack, Duelling.

So far the general idea seems to work: If you can keep afflicting a condition with a weapon attack(like ensnaring strike, or various druid spells), that should keep boosting weapon damage and spell DC and spell damage in a sort of feedback loop.

Seems solid so far. Might not even need to do any multiclassing to keep this working, if you just want full & pure druid caster power at the expense of some melee damage. Which in turn restores the viability of wildshape, but that still doesn’t really fit into the playstyle.

Either way, the combination of arcane synergy+acuity, debuff weapon oils, and the Sylvan Scimitar seems like a winner. Feels like a proper Jaheira Gish to me.