Hope you enjoy this Act 1 legendary technique and all the other goodies, really appreciate your suggestions on these team!

There’s actually a cape in Act 2 that lets you cast a smaller version of fog cloud just by disengaging. Saves a spell slot, great addition to any thievery set

As I commented on the last video earlier: You can heal yourself with potions twice in one round if you need it! Bonus action chug healing potion, action throw potion on the ground at your own feet to heal yourself!

8:23 FYI: by your character portrait by your action bar, there is an icon for all your concentration spells currently active. On this icon is a small white X. Pressing this icon cancels your concentration ending the spell early.

Picking items up, even looting mid battle, unless they just changed it with patch 1, does not require an Action, it is free to do as long as you have the movement. A bunch of things are like that. What DOES use an Action however, is changing your gear, so equipping a weapon you just Disarmed will require an Action. No need to “waste” your Bonus Action on a Shove. Sometimes the Sword bugs out in Act 1 and Voss holds a Crossbow instead. But I can see this being a speedrun strat for some categories. For the Transmuter’s Stone, it doesn’t give a bonus to Con Saves, it give Proficiency in Con Saves. So if your Class or the Resilient Feat already give you that, it doesn’t stack.

That halfling "bard" rogue/ wizard companion could also learn spells like longstrider to buff your actual travelling companions before you leave her at camp

So....I tried the infinite hold person and pickpocket trick on a Lady Esther in the mountains and something even more interesting happened. Apparently, doing this allows you to just drag the merchant's saleable items to your side of the barter screen once you're in the trade. Once they are on your side, you can just drag them back over to your inventory without any pickpocketing checks needed. If someone could confirm on another merchant, that'd be awesome.

long lasting weapon coating tip, rather than using the coat weapon option that only lasts ten turns, some coatings like simple toxin can be thrown on the ground to leave a puddle. i like to do this at camp and then have the party dip their melee and ranged weapons. The weapon buff will last atleast until a long rest unless you have the wet status, that will wash off the buff from the melee/ranged weapon you currently have out.

to make the alchemy even more likely to succeed you can go 3 levels into bard instead of 1 into rogue. This still gives you expertise from level 3 bard while also giving you enhance ability on your alchemist, letting them get advantage on all wisdom checks without taking up the concentration or spell slot of a main party member. You can then even use guidance from another party member (optionally enter turn base mode to keep the timer from falling) for +1d4, advantage, lucky, and expertise on double alchemy by character level 5

If we think of Withers as a Gandalf type of character who wants to see the party succeed and aid them, but he can't do anything or provide any services that a mortal couldn't, it makes sense that being pickpocketed would fall within those mortal limits. In fact, he might even want to be pickpocketed if it helps the party succeed.

Instead of bard, take a cleric hireling, they have a ton of "until long rest" non-concentration buffs, and if you give them ritual caster, they also get longstrider. They are able to mass buff your party, warding bond, aid etc. and go back to camp, taking your other character instead. At higher level they can even cast feast that gives a lot of immunities and camp supplies.

You can separate gold stacks in an NPCs inventory to make stealing them easier

Elixir of bloodlust obviously works on melee characters but it also works on spell casters as well. Pair that with call lightning and you can summon two bolts a turn as long as you manage to kill something with the first bolt. This can be great for clearing minion swarms and summons which are incredibly prevalent in Act 2

There are actually 4 elixirs of Arcane Cultivation up to 4th level spells slots, which are great, but in addition to that there are obviously the giant elixirs. Hill Giant for a flat 21 strength until long rest and Cloud Giant for a flat 27 strength until long rest. Both being very good for martial classes, especially if you want to put more points into Dex or Con instead of strength. There's also the Elixir of the Colossus which increases your size, gives you an extra 1d4 of weapon damage, advantage on strength checks/saves and also allows you to pick up and shove larger creatures. There is a vendor in-game (Act 2) that can turn the blood of any character's race into a potion that you can give to anyone else. One that's particularly good is the Elixir of Githyanki Providence, which you can get by using Lae'zel's blood (or your own if you play gith) which gives you Misty Step (60ft teleport), Invigorate Leap (3x jump distance), and Blur (disadvantage on attacks against you) to use once until your next long rest. There's no real limit on how many of these you can get. For tactical purposes, there are the potions of Animal Speaking and Mind Reading which grant you...animal speaking and mind reading until your next long rest. You can have both at once. There are also the Angelic Potions, Reprieve and Slumber, which grant you the full effect of a Short or Long Rest respectively in exchange for you character being asleep for 2 turns. To note: this works on Fey creatures such as elves who normally can't sleep (because it was made for them), but also this does NOT remove any bonuses that normally go away upon resting in-game. SO you can have your buff til long rest and still restore your spell slots and other abilities. Honorable mentions: Elixir of Barkskin (flat 16 AC), Elixir of Viciousness (-1 to roll needed to crit, stacks with other bonuses), Elixir of Vigilance (grants Alert, +5 to initiative and can't be surprised), Elixir of Guileful Movement (can't be restrained, paralyzed, or affected by terrain), Tadpole Elixir (disadvantage on Con/Wis/Int saves, but advantage on all attacks for 3 turns after using a tadpole power), and Elixir of Universal Resistance (grants resistance to all damage for 10 turns). Every one of these can be bought or crafted.

Tip for pickpocketing: You can use turnbase mode to steal multiple items giving you have a good rolls on everyone of them. Opening the pickpocket menu is count as action not the stealing itself. So in one turn you can sneak to someone start pickpocketing him and clear his whole inventory. If you close that menu you can't do it again and you need to wait for the next turn. It's useful when you want to steal from venders with many people around and you have only one or two seconds when you can sneak behind someone before someone will see you.

It doesn't cost an action to pick up an item so after disarming an enemy just pick the weapon up .

After disarming, you can click and drag the weapon as much as you want without expending actions or even movement (provided your character does not move), this will often be more effective than just shoving. Applies to any item your character is strong enough to move, and can be used to move (timed) explosives into/out of position as well.

Aid is an AMAZING spell. You can upcast for 5 temp hp/lvl and it STAYS UNTIL LONG REST. So my bard upcasted a level 5 using the spellcrux necklace and give my ENTIRE party 20 extra hp for the whole day. That may not sound good until you realize that the toughness feat gives you roughly the same hp but it costs an entire feat and it's only for one person. Mix this with the Camp Caster hireling and suddenly the spell is insane.

Like healing potions you do not need to drink Elixirs, you can hit someone with them. it hits a box like 1.5 wide and 2m long. Group all 4 characters close together, and toss it and you can get a buff until long rest for 1 potion/elixir. You want everyone to have Giant strength, Smash it on everyone. I use the overhead/tactical to align people in a diamond it tends to work better.

You can heal/revive an ally for free if they're standing on or beside a burning terrain by placing the health potion on top of the terrain making it explode right away. You can also do this with other potions/bottles to instantly use it without using any action/bonus actions

elixir of angelic slumber lets you mimic the DnD 'coffeelock' sorcerer warlock trick with massive amounts of sorcery points. You empty out all of your spell slots (BG3 takes warlock slots last) into sorcery points, take the potion and refill spell slots without losing sorcery points. using the better version of the elixir my coffeelock was sitting on 30+ sorcery points most of the time late game, pretty handy to quicken and twincast!

you can stack all the transmutation stone powers if you send the stone back to camp after each cast and you get a charge back on a transmutaion spell cast like longstrider a free ritual spell. You can also make a life cleric hireling to buff your entire party with aid and warding bond then leave them at camp in return theyll take half the damage of each bonded target. Give your cleric the adamantine splint and get them heavy armor master then give them all the resistance stones and a con save stone from your transmutation wizard, with that theyll halve the damage they receive from 5 elements then subtract a flat 2 and theyll subtract a flat 5 from all psychical damage they receive, with that and max con mine stays alive between each long rest. These 2 help make summons alot better aswell since summons can benefit from aid warding bond and death ward (for mephits since warding bond doesnt remove or lessen vulnerabilities) and your tansmuter can mage armor any summon with less then 13 ac wich will stack with any summons dex mod.

The hold person trick, you can use it on priestress Gut in act 1 goblin camp, get your companions hidden or invisible, and during conversation you cast hold person with shadowheart, you can retry because of high miss chance, but when it is in effect laezel or karlach hits her and she dies during canversation and noone in the camp turns hostile to you.

2 tips: 1: if you knock out a ventor, you can loot all the items you sold to him, for example Amon in the grove is standing alone, sell everything to him and by act 2 he will have 10k worth of junk you can loot, dont kill him or you wont loot anything, knock out and after a long rest he is back on his feet. 2: at act 1.5 at the gith base, there is a pazzle with weapons, when you complete it you get an extra 1d4 dmg with all attacks, if you go back and loot a weapon and put it back you can get the buff again.

The elixirs that give a bonus spell slot, have a range between 1-6. Also you can have someone with a magical racial ability, and they get an extra use, such as a tiefling with tiefling smites. Works nicely with karlac.:). Then replace it with a better elixir after use.

I wish I could like this video a million times. The tip on pickpocketing the vendors led me to pickpocket the oathbreaker knight. I has to respec a couple times and spend 3000 with him and got it all back. Thank you for the video!!!!

08-28 and it is still working. works well with Laezael Ranged disarm, halfling bard using invisibility skill and picking up weapon. This was after patch, but the save file was made way before the major patch so Voss is not holding the crossbow but the legendary sword. Dont let your character that is alone faraway south of the Waukeen rest, there are monsters that will engage you automatically. Thanks Rage for this awesome guide.

You can use Command: Drop on Voss to get the sword, but getting the sword early in any way screws up the quest progression. It seems inconsistent - depending on exactly what you've done with Lae'zel but sometimes it can lock you put of content.

The one where you held them in place to pickpocket. You can technically get vendors by themselves i.e. the Gnome in Act 1 especially if the Tiefs all leave, and then you can just turn on the passive non lethal damage and attack then vendors, steal all their crap, long rest and they will be awake and you can trade with them and their inventory will reset

Heh, i was randomly watching BG3 content, and i wandered back onto this channel! Glad to hear your voice again, hope you are well!

"the downsides? there are none!" could be applied to 90% of the decisions after act 1

By now most people have heard about the classic Gloomstalker/Assassin/Fighter build, especially if you're coming from DND. At high levels, the Elixir of Bloodlust is particularly potent with that build. The damage output is so high that you are basically guaranteed to get a kill each turn, doubly so on your first turn of combat - and if the enemy is "surprised" the combat may just be over instantly. With everything setup properly before the fight, with haste pre-cast on you, the first turn of combat goes something like this: - Bonus Action: Hunter's Mark ( this can also be bonus action off hand attack if you are dual wielding) - Action: Attack twice (one with sneak attack) - Dread Ambusher Attack - Hasted Action: Attack twice again (if you have not killed an enemy at this point) - Action Surge: Attack twice again - Eventually the Bloodlust kicks in and you get to Attack twice again Feel free to throw in any additional bonuses like oils on your weapon, or special arrows if you are using a bow and you will easily be putting out upwards of 500 dmg in a single round. Enjoy

Elixir tip: you can get an unlimited supply of elixir of hill giant strength from partial resting and purchasing from auntie Ethel in the Druid grove. I usually don’t invest in str in my char builds bc they can have 21 str til long rest everyday so those points can go in other stats

Elixir of the colossus makes u big and works well with any melee build. Also if u cast enlarge while having the elixir on the person u can become a huge creature. U sadly can't become gargantuan. But this elixir worths also with that 1 sword that makes u bigger and gives you an extra 1d6 damage. It's really funny being huge in fights.

One great tip to expand on the Transmutation stone thing: Hire 4 hirelings at level 6, swap out each one every long rest to give all 4 companions the stone of your choice, Darkvision, Con saves etc, then just leave them in your camp while your main party does it's thing with the stones still active. They persist so long as the hirelings are in your camp. Unless they have patched this out of course, but pretty sure it still works.

The elixers that recover everything like a short or long rest! Multiplying those would be really insane because they are incredible rare

Nice! :) Plus love the utility aspect of alter self spell! :)

For your question about elixir : it is so cheated because it happen that there is better version of elixir of arcane cultivation (level 1 - 2 - 3 - 4) as well as some oil or poison for increasing precison or damage or debuff to trigger additional effect for melee combat. So it is a definitive setup for me starting each day after a long rest (who doesn't want elixir of 27strenght or a potion to make you even tankier ?)

Half orc crit stacking seems to have potential. Already get double the crit range, add in viciousness and armor that does the same thing, I wonder what you could get the crit range up to, 15+ maybe? And with the three dice instead of two on a crit, seems like it could roll into each other really well.

Elixir of Colossus allows you to pick up and throw targets that would be too heavy to pick up regularly. I have it on Karlach most of the time and it made some supposedly tough fights laughably easy.

Elixir of Cloud/Hill Giant Strength, lets me respec and make STR my dump stat for extra stats, cause I'll always be at flat 27/21 STR thanks to the Elixir anyway. And with my tendency to not long rest much because I'm running a lone wolf Rogue in my playthrough, its basically a permanent buff that lets me carry tons of stuff, while jumping like Superman in the battlefield.

Thanks for the vid!

When disarming you can just loot and pick-up the weapon without using a bonus action as it counts as looting you don't even have to use shove or trow it away just make sure you aren't overencumbered after so you dont suffer a movement speed penalty

So I managed to knock the sword out of his hand, he ran away, I picked it up, died and got revived in camp. Now the Gith are in all of my combats trying to chase after me. LOL. I'm at the goblin camp and they're walking turn by turn somewhere...

I don't remember the location but there is a ring that does not do it's effect as written. The Whispering Promise says that it gives "you" the effects of Bless. What it actually does is apply Bless to anything you heal without using a spell slot or needing Bless prepared. Goes great with The Reviving Hands gauntlets that give Blade Ward on heal.

The elixir that makes you one size bigger is great with throwing builds. You get to start chucking enemies around.

The companion alchemy tip was insane, Like it's simple and yet so complex. And the investment is so small compared to what you gain.

You can use summons to distract guards as well. I used it to rescue the tieflings and gnomes in moonrise. Never had to fight. The warden gave up on life, and was ready to die by Balthazar guy.

Sorry if mentioned already or in previous vid. Once you reach level 10 you can get the cleric hireling to use their Devine intervention for legendary weapon etc rather then your own party. Not tested if you reclass the other hirelings as clerics so you can do the same for each of them but I assume you could.

Speaking of disarmament assuming you have multi attack you can also then throw the weapon at another enemy so it’s like the shove but you can get some damage out of it

Side note on disarm, it Never costs an action to pickup stuff only Movement. It do however cost an action to equip an item from your inventory

I'm a big fan of the Elixir of the Colossus, personally. I enjoy stacking that with Enlarge, and (when I get to it) hopefully the giantslayer blade from act 3. I know the first two stack making you hilariously big, hopefully the sword does, too!

If you pick pocket Withers in front of the Oath Breaker Knight in camp he will turn hostile. Depending on how early into the play through you are he can wipe your entire camp as he is max level and very strong.

Potions of speed. After I go through the risen road and loot every single hyena ear I am definitely doing the hireling trick. Potions of speed are fantastic but hard to find after act 1.

You can also use all spell slots of Druid hirelings to cast good berries for out of combat healing.

The potion that gives an action when you kill someone is VERY strong. And ofc giving the potions pf strength to your summons are a must

haven't seen this name pop up since the old quick build days... nice to see this man still out and about

I am very reluctant to steal the gold off the immortal mummy that can get me back to level 1 with a snap of his fingers... :D

the arcane elixirs come in 3 versions, lvl 1, 2 and 3 spell slots. elixir of viciousness is insane on a barb with lowered crit roll gear, ive gotten to the point where im hitting crits more often than regular hits, im thinking it will be my lone wolf build so i can just 1 shot most enemies elixir of peerless focus is amazing on clerics for stuff like spirit guardians

I was able to one turn kill every single encounter in the game so far(just entered act 3) using blood lust elixer on lae'zel + hasting her and my self using sorcerer meta magic just before every fight.

you can cancel effects like fog cloud, cloud kill, darkness etc. below the avatar of the character you have casted the spell with there's an icon with a little 'x' button

nice idea for the potion-making, to notice that you can pickpocket Withers, quite easily and without any inconveniences

You can end any spells you are concentrating on by clicking it on the bottom just left of your character portrait (if you wanted to end your fog early as an example)

There's an item that makes a mini Fog Cloud called the Cloak of Cunning Brume. I can't recall exactly where I got it but I think it was in the Underdark. It makes a small Fog Cloud whenever you Disengage, including Cunning Action: Disengage. I use this for looting bodies that aren't mine to loot. Activate turn based mode, Cunning Action: Disengage, loot, end turn based mode. Move to the next body. It's infinitely reusable, and may be useful for other types of acquisition too. The Potion of Angelic Reprieve claims to give all the benefits of a Short Rest and recover all 1st and 2nd level spell slots. It does NOT count as a Short Rest for restoring once per short rest abilities like Action Surge, which may be a bug. It does recovers all spell slots for Eldritch Knights, Arcane Tricksters, and Paladins and Rangers up to level 8. I've only found 4 of the potions and can't seem to craft them, but I don't buy potions and haven't used any methods of restoring vendor inventories to try to get more (taking a long rest or leveling up a character restores their inventory, so you can respec and level up one at a time to do this many times). There is also a rare Potion of Angelic Slumber, crafted from Planetar Feathers, that supposedly gives the benefits of a Long Rest after a 2 turn nap. It also does not count as a real Long Rest, however it does restore some things. I have personally observed it restoring Channel Divinity charges, Spell Slot Restoration from the Spellcrux Amulet, and Moonbeam from a certain legendary spear, however it did not restore War Priest Extra Attack Charges. Sounds like it's really meant to restore everything, but probably bugged or not fully implemented.

You can gather your party to be close to each other and throw a haste potion at their feet, you can haste your whole party for 1 potion. It also does not require concentration to maintain that haste.

In act 3 you can always come back to Raphael's baths and have unlimited spells. Great sinergy for buffing summons (since even with hirelings you can fall short) and saving camp supplies. You can have 60 hp ghouls and 150 hp elementals

My tip: early game beast master can summon a wolf spider and this gives you a pet that can cast web every turn for free. Web is difficult terrain and has a chance to enweb an enemy, which gives you advantage on your attacks against them. So mix that with sneak attack with a bow (and maybe hunter’s mark) and you can breeze through some encounters

I used shadowheart and used command spell drop weapon on him to drop the sword same with the commander on the ship at the start of the game to get his sword

Kudos to you that hold person pickpocket trick is gold, Going to try that now.

Pickpocketting withers is hilarious. I never thought of that

You can do disarming strike with bows too so you don't need to sneak behind the guy to get the legendary sword in act1. Just hit him with an arrow from afar

Greater elixir of arcane cultivation. Gives u an additional lvl 2 spell slot. Really really good.

Elixer of hill giant strength, they are cheap and easily available (even without cheesing it) mats are available at many vendors and there are 4 available in act one per long rest (or more with cheesing). Lets you use Str as a dump stat but still have insane mele damage for act one. Or a massively over powered monk or throw build with tavern brawler.

Give your hireling Enhance ability Owl to gain advantage on your craft checks

3:35 you can use Shadowheart to use Command: Drop

A build that i do is any melee character with a potion of colossus (That enlarge you) and a spell/spell scroll of enlarge, it give you 2 enlarge you can shove anything and you got 2D4 adding to you damage !! it was really great on my fighter battle master with de D10 of damage adding to it too when you use maneuvers !!!!

FYI at 8:21 there was one person who had a problem with gale taking stuff after the fog spell stopped. But yes fog does work well for stealing

Want to make those gold pickpockets easier? This is how. First, of course, get the gloves of thievery... make your rolls at advantage, because with this method you will be making a lot of them. Then, because the DC on pickpocket is based on how many gold are in the stack, while bartering with the person, *split* *the* *stacks* in their inventory. Get every stack under 50 gold per, and even someone with a moderate dex and proficiency can steal HUGE sums all at once. As per usual, be in turn based mode... They no doubt miss that money fast, so flee as far as you can away from them while they have their brain melt about the 10k gold they just lost somehow....

Elixir of Cloud Giant Strength can be acquired infinitely by reseting the alchemy vendor in act 3, cloud giant finger to craft them as well. It gives you a 27 Strength score which is insane for berserker, im using the Steel Watcher greatword i picked up from the foundry with the Eldritch Knight weapon bond. The elixir give me enough strength to throw the sword, hilarious combined with weapon bond so it returns to you.

You can just slide the sword to a companions bag before they get killed, then if it is a merc you abandon them instead of reviving them. Also if you make a merc to do it and they are level 4 take the awareness perk then you have a full action before you die.

you could also dual spec the hierling as druid and make camp food from the berries skill also if you get a 2nd hireling you can get all skills that focus on long rest buffs without concentration and use them to buff your party as well.

Arcane cultivation is good but the 3rd level one is best andi think they may be a lvl 4 spell slot one. Furthermore I was able to use Brianna to make 25 blood lust elixirs in act 2 which basically gives lae'zel the bloodlust ability that karlach has without wasting 2 levels of multiclassimg. It's easily the most broken elixir in the game

That silver sword trick is bloody brilliant!

Here's one I haven't seen anywhere, which can be pretty nice. If you learn a spell from a scroll as a wizard, if you respec, you don't "unlearn" the spell. So if you respec your wizard to 1, you can see all of the spells that you have learned from scrolls. What's really fun here is that you can see spells from ANY level you have learned. So if you learn a level 6 spell from a scroll, you'll see that spell listed under the wizard's spellbook even though they cannot cast it...yet. Then if you spec into sorc, or even cleric, you get all of your "spell slots" from that class as usual. If you put on something like the int headband from the blighted village, you'll have 4 or 5 wizard spell slots available even as a level 1 wizard. So you get a level 4 spell slot from your cleric's levels, you can also cast any of those level 4 spells from the wizard having learned the spells from a scroll. Sure, your spell saves are still going to be based on the int, which you are somewhat low on, but you'll also have all of the big utility spells like dimension door, blink, gaseous form, etc. I have a sorc with a HUGE spell library and metamagic. Bonus action cloudkill on round 1, no problem. Bless your party before the fight and dimension door to the far back line where the evil caster is safe behind all of his minions...not anymore. It is somewhat limited, but you can get a HUGE spell library on any spell casting class EXCEPT warlock, since the wizard spells still require a "normal" spell slot and not a warlock spell slot. Plus you can get the arcane recovery for even more spell slots on top of the sorc points to spell slots if needed...or vice versa. Also, if you go evoc specialization on your wizard at level 2, you don;t need to use the sorc metamagic for safe spells. I haven't tested it yet, but i can't imagine it wouldn't work: twin spell your conjure elemental/animate dead/wall of fire or ice. Or just have your storm cleric with their own lightning bolt spells.

omg thank you!

You can also use Brianna to give everyone a 3m movement increase which is very OP on lae'zel and astarion

Elixirs of Bloodlust are my go-to for hasted melee beaters. Karlach has run through entire encounters by herself.

I found a chupacabra that you can summon with a scroll and he can go invisible whenever. He stays with you until it dies and its the coolest thing ever

I love the idea of the battlemaster disarm attack. But it fails sooooooo much that I either have to save scum it or just be happy with not relying on it in my tactics. It's a STR save, so the enemies you'd most care about (strong ones) have the best chance of resisting. If you have curse/hex you can give them disadvantage on STR saves, so you could try that if your party has those spells.

Pretty sure it doesn't require an Action to PICK UP the item, only to EQUIP it, so you can pick up any item you disarm off of people on the same turn

Those tips are huge! :)

Hi! If you want to end a concentration spell fast out of combat(or even in it) the bottom left of the screen at your character portrait is where the concentration icon is. Simply turn it off! No more waiting for it to end I. 10 turns. 😂

I actually found a cloak that generates a fog cloud when I disengage and a ring that prevents me from being blinded. As a monk, I fart on people and use my bonus attacks to attack with more of a guaranteed hit because they are blinded and I'm not. I can also stay in the cloud to make it harder for people to hit me.

I started as a monk, at the beginning you basically ignore strength and use dex w a bit of wisdom for ac, when you get to the grove you can buy unlimited hill giant potions as long as you don’t start Ethel’s quest. So you basically have 21 strength, 16-18 dex and 16 wisdom at like lvl 3 or 4 lol

If u cast owls wisdom enhance ability on brightsong she pretty much doubles potions every time. I also give her mage armor spell to cast on gale which means he doesn’t have to cast it on himself.

A game breaking exploit: elemental and undead summons make almost all non aggressive npc either run from or chase the summon (guard like npcs will chase and non combat will run). This can be used to lure/heard npcs somewhere else. One at a time even. Example would be moonrise tower where I lured all the non story related guards out of the tower to the bridge near the waypoint one by one and killed them out of aggro range of their friends. Trivialised the most fights in the game even on tactician.

Regarding the legendary weapon: you can drop the weapon, shapeshift into a gith, pick it up and equip it, then shapeshift back to your normal form and you will keep the gith specific bonuses. Regarding the Hireling: You can pickpocket withers and he will never get annoyed at you if you fail. So you can always get your money back from buying hirelings or respeccing your class.

There's a trick you can do at level 10. You can hire a cleric mercenary, level him to 10 and use divine intervention spell to get a legendary +3 mace (or a handful of useful potions). You can repeat it with all 12 mercenaries, if you respec them to be clerics. The mace is kinda bad, but potions are ok. Another tip - use your level 11 cleric (or druid) to cast Heroes' Feast in camp every time you rest. It will provide you with enough food for another rest and will give your party great bonuses for the entire day and you don't even have to take said cleric or druid with you. It also works on summons, so summon anything you want before casting it, just make sure everybody in your camp is in range of the spell. I started doing it and forgot poison even existed in this game.

Fog Cloud also works for Murder, infact, if you want to break the game involving a certain Dark Urge, Fog Cloud got you covered.

The Withers one is such a sick exploit, that means you get infinite amount of times to alter characters classes ECT.. thank you for the info