Man, let me tell you, I was just completely stuck. My whole playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3 was going great until I hit Act 3 and ran into a certain loud-mouthed devil—you know the one. I was getting my butt handed to me, turn after turn. I realized my previous “roleplay-first” build philosophy was dead. I needed pure, unadulterated damage output. I needed to know exactly which classes gave those precious extra swings and how to stack them like groceries. So, I dumped a save and decided I was going to practically run this thing into the ground to find the definitive answer.

The Great Experiment: Finding “Extra Attack”

I didn’t want to rely on some spreadsheet I found online; I wanted to see the combat log light up myself. I started by isolating the mechanic everyone talks about: the standard Extra Attack. This is the simplest way to get two or more hits from one single action, which is the cornerstone of any heavy hitter. I rolled up a fresh party just for testing and started leveling them up, paying close attention to the Level 5 milestones.

• Fighter: I hit Level 5 on the Battle Master and bam, there it was. Two attacks per action. Clean. Simple. Then, just for kicks, I pushed him all the way to Level 11 and watched the magic happen again. Three attacks per action! That Level 11 spike is brutal and immediately makes the pure Fighter the gold standard for attacks-per-action. This was my first core finding.

• Barbarian & Paladin: These guys were next. Both hit Level 5, both instantly got the Extra Attack. They keep it simple—just two swings, not three like the Fighter—but they’re consistent. It’s what you expect. The damage comes from their main class abilities (Rage, Smites) not the sheer number of base attacks. Still, a solid two hits for one action.

  

• Ranger & Monk: Same story, Level 5, Extra Attack granted. The Monk felt different because half their damage is tied up in their Bonus Actions anyway, but the base class still got the two swings from the Action. College of Swords Bard? Yeah, they get it too, which is handy if you want to multiclass out early.

My conclusion from this first round of testing? To get two attacks per Action, you basically just need to take any martial class to Level 5. If you want three, you gotta stick it out to Fighter Level 11. That covered the ‘Extra Attack’ part of the equation.

The Bonus Attack Hunt: The Real Double Attack

Okay, so that’s the Action economy sorted. But the title of my little project here was “Double Attacks Every Turn.” To really maximize damage, I needed to figure out how to leverage the Bonus Action (BA) slot to get another meaningful attack, essentially giving me a second Action’s worth of damage. This is where the practice log got interesting because the Bonus Action is usually for shoving or jumping, not swinging.

I cycled through a bunch of options I heard about:

• Dual Wielding: Equip two light weapons. I made my Fighter swing, and sure enough, a bonus action attack popped up. The damage is a bit weak because it doesn’t add your Ability Modifier unless you take a specific fighting style. It works, but it’s a bit of a low-roller.

• Monk Flurry: This is powerful, sure, but it eats Ki points, and it’s not really a straight-up extra attack in the way I was looking for. Good, but not universal.

• Polearm Master (Feat): Tried this. It gives a bonus action attack with a specific weapon type (Glaive, Quarterstaff, etc.). It’s consistent and strong, but it costs a whole Feat, which is a major sacrifice. I wanted something more flexible.

Then I remembered the one class everyone keeps talking about for action economy manipulation: the Rogue. Specifically, the Thief subclass.

I respecced one of my test characters. I ripped out three levels and put them into Rogue, selecting the Thief specialization at Level 3. I gave this guy just a simple sword and shield. I attacked once, using the Action slot. Then I looked at the UI—two Bonus Action slots were available!

The magic phrase is “Fast Hands,” the Thief feature. It doesn’t give you an attack per se, it gives you an extra Bonus Action. This, combined with any of the other BA attack methods (like dual wielding an off-hand weapon, or using a specific class feature like a Potion of Speed) is how you truly maximize the attacks per turn.

The final, brutal combination I settled on and tested, which achieved maximum swings with minimal effort, was 5 Levels of Paladin (for Extra Attack) and 3 Levels of Rogue: Thief (for the extra Bonus Action). This setup gave me:

Action: Two attacks (from Paladin’s Extra Attack).

Bonus Action 1: Off-hand attack (from dual wielding).

Bonus Action 2: Can be another off-hand attack, or a shove, or throw a potion—but with the right gear, I could get a second full weapon attack using that BA slot.

I reloaded my main game, respecced my main damage dealer, and went back to face that devil. The difference was night and day. Going from two or three swings a turn to four or five meant I could burst him down before he could start all his annoying chanting and summoning. The theory-crafting and testing paid off. That’s how you get the real double, triple, and even quad attacks every single turn.