Since the release of Baldur’s Gate 3, a lot of nippy custom class mods have been released, whether you’re looking for something pretty standard that doesn’t happen to be in the base game, or something that comes from the completely outlandish cauldron of your own DnD exploits. One of the newest games is definitely weirder – it allows you to play in a duo, taking with you a double who shares a turn with you.
Yes, it’s a “don’t ever speak to me or my son again” kind of deal, and it’s exactly the kind of thing you love to see from the BG3 modding community, which seems to be going from strength to strength more than ever since Update 7 dropped everywhere.
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Anyway, this up-to-date mod is “Duet class‘ by modder Cheek, who also uses the Acorntail grip. Creating them allows you to choose a up-to-date class, which allows you to choose one of three types of partners to accompany you on your adventures, each designed to reflect the classic fantasy archetypes of the warrior, mage, and thief.
There is an apprentice, butler, or squire, each of whom will fight in the manner you would expect from their name, share their turn in battle, and take on the appearance of your character’s Dream Keeper, unless you utilize the ability the mod gives you the so-called “imprint” to turn them into a copy of “one of over 120 creatures in the world, each with unique bonus tactics.” So basically a license to steal the souls of people you like, even people like the Emperor and Gortash.
As you gain levels in this class, you will choose an “archetype” for your main character – the Knight, the Leader and the Wizard – each of whom has abilities that mirror those of their mini-selves or that can be used to create one-two punches of varying strength. You know, a ranged mage flanked by a handy warrior, or a heavily armored knight with a sneaky buddy who can do all the shady things you wouldn’t want to get your hands grubby with.
“To compare the Duet to an existing class, it can be considered a much more complex version of the Beastmaster,” writes Cheek, “However, instead of summoning an animal companion that grows in size as you level up, this summoned creature is humanoid and much more of your class’s features are devoted to developing both this summoned creature and your own skills and synergies as a pair.
They add that starting at level three, your duo partner can utilize tactics, powers “that grant him passives or abilities to enhance himself, his Adventure Partner, or both” and function like typical BG3 abilities or spells. Some of them are “fueled by tactical points, the number of which in a duo is equal to his level in the duo, unless something changes this total.”
While it will be useful for your buddy to see more dialogue options, due to the addition of his own sets of specialties to the existing pool of skill checks, he can’t actually talk or access his inventory like a real companion. However, the modder has dealt with this a bit by making sure their inventory is available in the camp and that “you can ‘loot’ them as if they were a container while in the world”, which sounds pretty fun. There’s also a handy spell called Equipment Transfer, which will allow you to swap your equipment for theirs, in case you get jelly from the up-to-date sword they picked up.
All in all, a pretty fascinating 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 finish us off.
