There’ve been a lot of cool custom class mods released for Baldur’s Gate 3 since it came out, no matter whether you want something pretty standard that just doesn’t happen to be in the base game, or something that comes from the utterly bizarre cauldron of your own DnD exploits. One of the latest to arrive is defintely on the weirder side – allowing you to play as a duo by bringing along an understudy who shares your turn.
Yep, it’s a ‘don’t talk to me or my son ever again’ kinda deal, and exactlky the kind of thing you love to see from a BG3 modding community that looks to be going from strength the strength more than ever since Patch 7 dropped everywhere.
Anyway, this new mod is ‘The Duo Class’ by modder Cheek, who also goes by the handle Acorntail. Their creation allows you to pick a new class that lets you choose one of three types of adventuring partners to accompany you on your adventures, each designed to mirror the classic warrior, mage, and thief fantasy archetypes.
There’s an apprentice, a lackey, or a squire, each of which will fight in the way you’d expect given their names, share your turn in combat, and take on the appearance of your character’s Dream Guardian, unless you use a ability the mod gives you called “imprint” to turn them into a copy of “one of 120+ creatures in the world, each with a unique bonus tactic”. So, basically a licence to steal the souls of folks you like, or even the likes of The Emperor and Gortash.
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As you level with this class, you’ll choose an “archetype” for your main character – the Knight, Ringleader and Spellslinger – all of which come with abilities mirroring those of their mini-me, or which can be used to create a one-two punch with different strengths. You know, ranged mage flanked by a handy warrior, or heavily armoured knight with a sneaky buddy to do all the dodgy stuff they’d not want to dirty their own hands with.
“To compare the Duo to an existing class, you can consider it a much more complex version of the Beastmaster,” Cheek writes, “However, rather than summoning an animal companion that grows as you level up, this summoned creature is humanoid, and much more of your class features are devoted to developing both this summoned creature and your own abilities and synergy as a pair.
They add that, starting from level three, your duo buddy can use tactics, powers “which grant them passives or abilities to improve either themselves, their Adventuring Partner, or both at once”, and work like tyical BG3 abilities or spells. Some of these “are fuelled by Tactic Points, of which a Duo has a number equal to their Duo level, unless something changes this total”.
While your buddy will be handy for seeing more dialogue options, due to adding their own set specialties to your existing skill check pool, they can’t actually talk or have their inventory accessed like a proper companion. However, the modder has gotten around this a bit by ensuring their inventory is available in camp, and that “you can ‘loot’ them as though they were a container while in the world”, which sounds pretty funny. There’s also a handy spell called Transfer Equipment that’ll allow you to swap your equipment with theirs, in case you get jelly of the new sword they’ve picked up.
All in all, a pretty interesting-looking mod, especially for us cowards who like the idea of keeping as many bodies as possible between us and the giant brain that’s trying to do us in.