History GameBreaker / BaldursGate

* Stack enough Sleight of Hand and Dexterity bonuses and it becomes trivially easy to use the Pickpocket skill to rob any merchant in the game blind (literally if you cast something like Fog Cloud or Darkness to hide your illicit activities), giving you access to expensive equipment that you might not otherwise be able to afford.

* Storm Sorcerers are extremely strong, and easily the strongest of the different Sorcerer subclasses. All of their abilities are based around maximizing thunder or lightning damage, as well as flying after every thunder or lightning spell action. While their focus on thunder and lightning damage can make them somewhat limited, it turns out that few things are resistant to thunder or lightning damage at the same time, allowing them to focus on one damage type if the other is resisted. They also get Create Water as a spell once they hit level 6, allowing them to use it to either remove enemy lightning resistance or make them vulnerable to lightning, all in the same turn due to their access to Quickened Spell (cast a spell using your bonus action instead of your action). While there are potentially more powerful damage casters in the game, the easy access to lightning vulnerability, as well as their lack of gear dependency, makes Storm Sorcerers a very plug and play and self sufficient class that you can add to basically any party. They can make great use of all of the Lightning Charge equipment the player finds throughout Act 1.

* Storm Sorcerers are extremely strong, and easily the strongest of the different Sorcerer subclasses. All of their abilities are based around maximizing thunder or lightning damage, as well as flying after every thunder or lightning spell action. While their focus on thunder and lightning damage can make them somewhat limited, it turns out that few things are resistant to thunder or lightning damage at the same time, allowing them to focus on one damage type if the other is resisted. Even still, they can always take Elemental Adept to immediately remove all Resitances to Thunder or Lightning, allowing them to deal absurd damage without worrying about optimization. This allows them to be a versatile, evasive, and highly daming sorcerer type that easily trumps both Wild Magic and Draconic Bloodline in effectiveness, making them the go-to for Sorcerers. They can make great use of all of the Lightning Charge equipment the player finds throughout Act 1.

** While all of the above is rather strong, what really kicks it over the edge is the "Tavern Brawler" Feat. While it was a so-so feat in the tabletop version, this game buffed it to insane levels. When a character with Tavern Brawler makes an unarmed attack, uses an improvised weapon, or throws something, the strength modifier is added twice to the damage and attack rolls. This meant classes like monks can easily annihilate almost every enemy just by either punching them to death, while Frenzied Barbarians (who specialize in improvised weapons and throwing weapons) can stack their absurd bonuses to chuck things wherever they want. Even better, dump Strength and put it somewhere else like Dexterity (for faster initiatives and Armor Class), pop an Elixir of Hill Giant Strength or Elixir of Cloud Giant Strength to fix your strength stat at 20 and above until you long rest, and behold as your extremely tanky melee fighter cleans house. The feat also benefits [[{{Animorphism}} Circle of the Moon Druids]]. While Wildshaped Druids with Tavern Brawler still only apply their strength modifier to their damage roll once, they apply it to their attack roll ''twice''. An owlbear with a ninety-five percent chance to hit is as intimidating as it sounds. And as of Patch 5, the damage bonus applies correctly to all applicable wildshapes.
** And it gets even better! Perilous Stakes is an illithid power you can get after just 2 tadpoles that makes the target roll an intelligence save. If it fails, it gains 2d8 healing on all attacks but it also becomes vulnerable to all damage for 3 turns. If you can get it off, even on higher difficulties, any of the Chosen can be made into an absolute joke as a single monk absolutely '''ruins''' their health bar.

** The strongest Illithid ability of all is easily '''Mind Sanctuary'''. A passive AOE spell, Mind Sanctuary creates a small bubble where actions and bonus actions can be taken interchangeably. While the ability for actions to be used as bonus actions is decent, the ability for bonus actions to be used as actions is straight up broken. Have you ever wanted to cast two fireballs in one turn? What about your Level 10 fighter getting four attacks in a single turn? What about your Cleric casting huge AOE heals, and then following up with Spirit Guardians and other passive buffs to increase parties' defensive abilities? The possibilities are endless with this power, making it easily the most desirable ability in the game.

* Before the Enhanced Edition nerfed it, Algernon's Cloak - which you can get in chapter 1 by pickpocketing or killing a very weak NPC - could be used to charm NPCs. Without breaking stealth or invisibility. An infinite number of times per day. And charm spells used to last for an absurdly long time. The player could easily charm the entire map, then have the charmed creatures kill each other until only one was left. Or at least charm themselves a dangerous front line that could be instantly replaced.