Who is Gale in Baldur’s Gate 3? You’ll have plenty of ways to make use of BG3 Gale in your party in his default role as a Wizard, especially when it comes to selecting from the many spells in Baldur’s Gate 3 – spells that will allow him to deal massive damage or control the battlefield.
Reading up on the what to do in your Baldur’s Gate 3 camp will ensure you don’t neglect any companion quests, and studying up on all the BG3 classes in the RPG game will help you use them to their maximum potential. Outside of your own character though, your Baldur’s Gate 3 Companions are one of the best things about the game – you can read more about them in our Baldur’s Gate 3 review. The more knowledge you have about these companions, such as BG3’s Gale, the more successful you’ll be in the world of Faerun.
How to recruit Gale
Like most companions, Gale is hard to miss. North of where you crash land at the end of the prologue, Gale can be found in the Roadside Cliffs area on your map. He pops out of a magic, purple portal, and what happens from there is up to you.
If you want to recruit Gale, help him out of the portal and follow the dialogue sequence where he want to join forces with you in order to remove the insidious tadpole from both your brains. If you are playing as a Dark Urge character, there is a very interesting, and violent, dialogue option you can choose upon meeting Gale, but doing so will prevent him ever joining your party.
Gale’s attributes, starting equipment, and skills
Gale has well-rounded stats that make a bit of investment into intelligence not a bad idea at some point.
Here are Gale’s stats:
- Strength: 8
- Dexterity: 13
- Constitution: 14
- Intelligence: 17
- Wisdom: 10
- Charisma: 13
Here is Gale’s starting equipment:
- Quarterstaff
- Simple Robe
- Simple Boots
Here are Gale’s skills:
- Arcana
- History
- Insight
- Investigation
- Persuasion
All of these skills, except for insight and persuasion, are based on his intelligence, so he will certainly be valuable when researching magical items or checks on Faerun’s bloody past.
How to complete Gale’s companion quest
Titled The Wizard of Waterdeep, this quest will become active when he joins your party. Eventually at camp, he will reveal that he needs to consume rare magical objects in order to keep a catastrophe at bay. During your adventures, you’ll come upon magical items that you can give to him to consume, which will progress his quest to its conclusion in chapter one. These items include:
- The Amulet of Selune’s Chosen in the Shattered Sanctum
- The Disintegrating Night Walkers in Grymforge
- The Idol of Silvanus in the Druid Grove
- The Iron Flask in The Risen Road
- The Necromancy of Thay in the Blighted Village
- The Shadow of Menzoberranzan in the Underdark
- The Staff of Crones in the Sunlit Wetlands
- The Sword of Justice in the Risen Road
How to raise Gale’s approval rating
Gale is primarily concerned about removing the tadpole from his head; anything concerning finding a healer to remove it or killing other tadpoles you come across will increase his approval of you.
As a nicer person than most of your other companions, Gale will appreciate you helping others with sympathetic behaviors, such as healing an Owlbear cub or helping Wyll rescue the refugees in Druid Grove. On the other hand, embracing the tadpole’s powers will result in negative approval, along with otherwise dishonest deeds.
How Gale gains inspiration
Inspiration points can be gained by both your own character and your companions based on your background. These points then can be used to reroll ability checks during key moments.
Gale has the Sage background, which means learning about magical means will often net your party an inspiration point. This involves solving magical puzzles and most often reading ancient texts. If you remember that Gale has a penchant for ancient magic, you’ll definitely net a few inspiration points with him in your group.
How to romance Gale
To romance Gale and his handsome head of hair, you must have a high enough approval rating with him. For more on approval, read the above sections on how to increase his approval and inspiration.
Speak with Gale during the celebration. He will be deep in thought, practicing an incantation. Show interest in his love of magic to progress the dialogue; eventually, he will offer to let you experience connecting to the Weave yourself. This will then trigger a handful of different skill checks – just about any build should have proficiency in one skill or another to clear them, but to be certain you get Gale’s pants off, save beforehand. Following this, he will help you channel the Weave and you’ll share a literally magical moment. You can imagine kissing him or holding his hand, to which Gale will respond favorably.
You must approach him on another night to see him attempting to cast magic on a campfire. Comfort him in his frustrations. Afterward, approach your bedroll and select the option to romance Gale. He will sit beside you as the two of you appreciate the deep evening. Kiss him, and thus commences Gale’s romance cutscene.
Best Gale build
As you’d expect, the Wizard class comes with an overwhelming amount of spells to choose from and prepare upon each level up. However, the most important choice comes at level 2 when you must choose either the Abjuration Wizard or an Evocation Wizard subclass.
The differences between the two are straightforward: the Abjuration School focuses on banishing enemies, and nullifying magic, and other spells that help protect companions and control battles. The Evocation school has more damaging spells, making Gale more offensive. The choice is yours; either way, Gale will be a force to be reckoned with.
For the Abjuration school, these spells stand out as the best to choose to give Gale quite a lot of utility, especially with Misty Step working as a defensive escape tool:
- Level 2: Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, Magic Missile
- Level 3: Fog Cloud, Misty Step
- Level 4: Mage Hand (Cantrip)
- Level 5: Counterspell, Fly
For the Evocation School, choose these spells to make sure your enemies die, and die quickly:
- Level 2: Magic Missile, Burning Hands
- Level 3: Witch Bolt, Misty Step
- Level 4: Shocking Grasp (Cantrip)
- Level 5: Fireball, Counterspell
Upon reaching level 4 in both subclasses, choose ability score improvement instead of another feat to raise Gale’s intelligence score to 18.
The great thing about Wizards, however, is they can permanently learn spells from scrolls you find out in the world; this allows you to experiment with which spells you have Gale learn as you can shore up any mistakes. This costs gold and needs to be prepared from the spell menu.
With a properly built Gale by your side in Baldur’s Gate 3, the varied creatures of Faerun don’t stand a chance from all the powerful Baldur’s Gate 3 spells he has at his disposal. Wizards are quite squishy, so be sure to read up on how to revive characters in Baldur’s Gate 3 to fully enjoy burning Bugbears and Goblins to a crisp with this handsome lad.