All Baldur’s Gate 3 abilities

What are Baldur’s Gate 3 abilities? Six key attributes and stats dictate your build and the types of items you can use throughout the game. You earn two ability points for every four levels, which you can either put into one ability or two different abilities.

It’s not just items in Baldur’s Gate 3 which are affected by abilities; they also influence your Baldur’s Gate 3 skills to help you at checks, whether that’s sneaking and hiding past an enemy or brute forcing a door. There are many checks in the RPG game, all of which require different types of these BG3 abilities to pass – and we’ve got the information on all of them.

Best Baldur’s Gate 3 abilities

As always, the best BG3 abilities depend on the way you want to build your character. However, generally speaking, the best abilities to concentrate on first are Constitution, Charisma, and Strength.

Constitution is a very good ability to funnel skill points into, because it can, quite literally, save your life. While other abilities, such as dexterity, are also used for some saving throws, constitution is the most common, used to defend yourself against a number of incoming attacks. The higher your constitution modifier, the better your chances of success.

Charisma, as you see below, is the ability tied to talking your way around things. You will have to make a charisma check for deceiving, intimidating, or persuading a foe to come around to your way of thinking, which can come in very handy in Baldur’s Gate 3, completely changing the outcome of an interaction.

Finally, strength is the ability that applies to most melee weapons, as well as movements such as breaking or bashing things. While you can talk your way around some combat scenes with good charisma, you undoubtedly have to fight at some point, so it’s helpful to have a little bit of strength behind you.

All BG3 abilities

If you pass a certain threshold in the number of points you allocate to your character upon creating them, or if you level up the ability beyond the threshold, you can gain bonuses to check. If they’re too low, you may get a penalty to the roll instead. These are based on your character’s pick of the Baldur’s Gate 3 races and your choice of the many Baldur’s Gate 3 classes. Some items can also potentially affect your stats. Here is when all six abilities come into effect:

Strength

Strength influences your chance to land a hit (attack roll) and your damage with Strength-based weapons. It affects the distance you can jump and the weight you can carry.

Related skills – Athletics

Dexterity

Dexterity influences your chance to land a hit (attack roll) and your damage with Dexterity-based weapons. It also influences your chance of going first in combat (Initiative) and the enemy’s chance of hitting you (Armor Class).

Related skills – Acrobatics, Sleight of Hand, Stealth

Constitution

Constitution influences your max number of Hit Points – the amount of damage you can take.

Intelligence

Wizards use Intelligence as their Spellcasting Ability – the likelihood that spells will land.

Related skills – Arcana, History, Nature, Investigation, Religion

Wisdom

Druids, Rangers, and Clerics use Wisdom as their Spellcasting Ability – the likelihood spells will land.

Related skills – Animal Handling, Insight, Medicine, Perception, Survival

Charisma

Bards, Paladins, Sorcerers, and Warlocks use Charisma as their spellcasting ability – the likelihood that spells will land.

Related skills – Deception, Intimidation, Performance, Persuasion

Ability Modifiers

Thankfully, unlike in Dungeons and Dragons, you don’t really need to know your ability modifiers, since the game does all the hard work for you. However, it is important to know what your ability scores mean when first creating your character – and you’ll see these scores listed in our best BG3 builds, such as the best Druid build and BG3 sorcerer build.

These ability scores relate to the bonus (or nerf) to your roll. For example, if you create your character with a Strength score of 12, you will be able to add 1 to most strength rolls. These scores and modifiers then increase as your character levels up.

As you can see, the more you level up, the more considerable to bonus to your rolls can be, which can even turn an epic fail into a blinding success.

Now you’re up to date on Baldur’s Gate 3 abilities, here’s everything you need to know about every one of the Baldur’s Gate 3 companions, all Baldur’s Gate 3 quests, as well as how to change party members if you need to have a particular friend to overcome an obstacle or help with tense negotiations.