Baldur's Gate 3 adapts Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition's character creation and combat well to a video game RPG. Not every D&D 5e option is available in BG3, but the most crucial and core features are there. This extends to many of D&D 5e's feats, used to improve a character's capabilities every four class levels.
Baldur's Gate 3 transplants many of D&D 5e's best feats as they are. The designers at Larian Studios, however, changed some of the other feats' rules to account for the difference between mediums. Others are better or worse due to the game's other rules tweaks. As a result, some feats stand out as especially good in Baldur's Gate 3.
10 Great Weapon Master
There are many ways to excel in Baldur's Gate 3 combat, but hitting enemies hard is as popular as ever. Great Weapon Master is one of the best feats available for melee fighters. Its passive ability lets the player take a -5 to hit with heavy weapons in exchange for +10 damage. When a player scores a critical hit or a kill with a heavy weapon, this gives them a bonus action attack as well.
An additional 10 damage is a substantial amount that can turn the tides of battle in Baldur's Gate 3. It's easy to mitigate the accuracy penalty with advantage, spells like Bless, or the Baldur's Gate 3 barbarian class' Reckless Attack. The bonus action strike helps cement Great Weapon Master as one of Baldur's Gate 3's best feats for Barbarians.
9 Actor
Baldur's Gate 3 has in-depth and exceptionally fun combat, but it also gives the player alternate solutions to almost every encounter in the game. The Actor feat offers no direct combat benefits — instead, it gives a Charisma boost and double proficiency bonus in Deception and Performance checks.
The Performance checks are more of a fringe benefit. However, a player can avoid many dangerous Baldur's Gate 3 combat encounters with a successful Deception check. Furthermore, the Charisma boost helps with all social skills and can make a Baldur's Gate 3 sorcerer, bard, warlock, or paladin more effective when casting their spells.
8 Ability Score Improvement
Baldur's Gate 3 simplifies D&D 5e's character progression by folding Ability Score Improvements into feats. Rather than gain a unique new feature, players can instead increase one ability score by two or two ability scores by one. As fun as many Baldur's Gate 3 feats are, ability scores form the core of the game through ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws.
A player will never regret increasing their primary ability score or something vital like Constitution. Hitting more with attacks, passing ability checks, and having more hit points are all very beneficial in Baldur's Gate 3. Most players should consider getting their primary ability score to 20 before they take on more feats.
7 Sentinel
Even the sturdiest Baldur's Gate 3 characters can have trouble tanking. The Sentinel ability allows players to attack an enemy within melee range if that enemy attacks one of their allies. This feat makes a sturdy Baldur's Gate 3 character much more effective at forcing enemies to stick near them, and at doing some extra damage as well.
Sentinel has uses for a solo melee character or one who is part of a team. It gives advantage on opportunity attacks and reduces enemy movement to 0. When an enemy hits another character while they're next to a character with Sentinel, that character can take a reaction attack. It's one of the best abilities for forcing enemies to prioritize one character and punishing them if they don't.
6 Sharpshooter
Sharpshooter is the ranged counterpart to Great Weapon Master in Baldur's Gate 3. Its weakest ability cancels out low-ground penalties for ranged attacks. This is helpful for less mobile ranged characters or early combat turns, particularly in battles where the terrain hinders the player's party.
However, Sharpshooter's other feature is its main selling point; -5 to hit for +10 damage is an excellent trade-off in most Baldur's Gate 3 battles. This feat's downside that affects hit rate is mitigated by the Archery Fighting Style and the high-ground accuracy bonus. This is on top of Bless, advantage, and other ways to buff accuracy while retaining excellent damage.
5 War Caster
War Caster has been slightly nerfed as one of the D&D 5e rules that were changed in Baldur's Gate 3. It no longer lets a character replace their opportunity attack with any spell that targets only the retreating creature. Instead, it gives a caster a unique form of Shocking Grasp that they use as a reaction.
This feature is valuable but isn't why War Caster is one of Baldur's Gate 3's best feats. It's very easy to lose Concentration on spells in Baldur's Gate 3, particularly for frontline characters. However, this feat's power comes from its advantage on Concentration saving throws, which avoids wasting spell slots and valuable actions recasting buff spells, particularly when taken in conjunction with a high Constitution score.
4 Lucky
Lucky doesn't synergize especially well with any specific Baldur's Gate 3 builds. Instead, it's a very general feat that is beneficial to literally any character in the game. Baldur's Gate 3 characters with Lucky have three Luck Points. They can use these to give themselves advantage on ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws, or force enemies to reroll successful attacks.
Succeeding more often or avoiding more enemy attacks are worthwhile uses of a feat in Baldur's Gate 3. Lucky's main appeal comes from its flexibility. Players can keep luck points in reserve if they think significant ability checks are coming up, or they can use them all on attacks and saving throws if they're anticipating a lot of combat.
3 Tavern Brawler
Tavern Brawler is far and away the most-changed feat between Baldur's Gate 3 and D&D 5e. It provides none of its original benefits, but instead gives unarmed strikes and thrown weapons an attack and damage bonus equal to twice the character's Strength bonus. No other ability in Baldur's Gate allows for attack or damage rolls this absurd.
Tavern Brawler is particularly vicious on a monk or a barbarian build. A Baldur's Gate 3 monk with Tavern Brawler will rarely miss using Flurry of Blows while doing immense damage with every hit. This has quickly become one of Baldur's Gate 3's best builds off of Tavern Brawler's strength.
2 Magic Initiate
Magic Initiate is one of Baldur's Gate 3's most flexible feats and is even presented as six different options. It lets players learn one first-level spell and two cantrips from a class's spell list and cast that spell once per day. This opens up many unconventional options for Baldur's Gate 3 builds, such as clerics or rangers using Shillelagh from Magic Initiate: Druid.
Most Baldur's Gate 3 spellcasters can benefit from access to spells from another list. Many spells are excellent for martial characters, even in small amounts. No one version of Magic Initiate is better than the others in Baldur's Gate 3 due to the sheer variety of builds that can benefit from different spells.
1 Polearm Master
Polearms deal less damage than other Baldur's Gate 3 heavy weapons as a trade-off for their increased range. The Polearm Master feat makes them more damaging. Polearm Master lets Baldur's Gate 3 characters make a weaker bonus action attack with their polearm and make opportunity attacks when creatures enter their range.
This high volume of extra attacks causes a polearm's damage to skyrocket in Baldur's Gate 3. It gets even better with spells like Hunter's Mark or Hex that deal additional damage on every attack. Furthermore, Polearm Master is vicious when it's combined with Sentinel, stopping opponents dead when they approach before they can even reach the character.