Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion Please help me playing a bard

I want to play Balanced once again, this time on PC (still miss many Steam achievements because I mostly played on PS5 last time) and I want to play a bard.

I would like to have more options when it comes to party composition so I'm thinking about College of Lore (Sleight of Hand, so I'm not that dependend on having Astarion with me all the time and can take Wyll or Gale instead).

Can you please give me a few ideas what to build and what is useful?

Storywise I want to go ultra-CG and having a lot of typical CG fun with party when doing fights and conversations, etc... character should also be "face of the party".

Just to give you ideas... I'm currently playing a Bardadin, meaning 2 levels of Oath of Vengeance Paladin and 10 Levels College of Swords Bard. This build is utterly viscious and there is not much he can't do.

My main damage ability is obviously divine smite, as Bard is a full spell caster you get lots of (high level) spell slots and can smite all day long. If you are running out of smites, or you want to save them, you have the flourishes, which can deal quite a lot of damage and have high utility. I have also 2 hand crossbows equipped (and use gloves of dexterity), ranged slashing flourish is really good (if you choose 2 weapon fighting style). As divine smite only scales up to 4th level spell slots, you could add in 2 levels of figher for action surge.

As a Bard you get sleight of hand, with high dex I can pick locks easily as good as Astarion, no need to keep him around.

As Paladin and Bard both use charisma the build also works really well as the face of the party.

An finally Bard has some high utility e.g. providing an additional short rest.

Lore bard was my first playthrough. I used Hypnotic Pattern and Dissonant Whisper a lot, when you get your first magical Secret take Counterspell and Misty Step. Use your bardic inspiration to buff your frontlines.
As weapons I used two hand crossbows ( you get a really good one from the demon guy in the Gauntlet in act 2) and Phalar Aluve, one of the best bard weapons. It gives your performance a buff and has a special song, that can buff allies and debuff enemies.
Use Vicious Mockery to debuff enemies, it works even on bosses like Raphael.
Bard is the most fun class to play, you won't have a lot of trouble with conversation checks at all.

For Dex use the Dex gloves from the vendor in the Githyanki crèche.

Great, I thank you so much!

I'm currently in the ruins now, at level 2 and I have Shadowheart, Lae'zel and Gale in the party and it's smooth, really smooth, so far.

I use this campaign now as my final preparation for my "tactician" playthrough, I tried tactician already but it was still a bit too hard for me, but next time I will know what to do.

May I ask at which level(s) you added the two levels of Paladin? This would match the character I play very well and sounds juicy.

I'm similar to fylimar.
My bard uses Harold the Xbow with Gloves of Dex and was using Phalar Aluve but has moved to something else now. He has the adamantine shield so he can't be critted and it has the shield bash thing. So he's mostly ranged, can survive melee, uses spells as required, can buff and heal, disarms traps and lockpicks and can persuade like a good 'un.

I tried a bard in EA but I couldn't really get my head around it. This time I'm having a hoot. Rest of the party is Lae'zel, Karlach and Shadders. Just done the Nightsong and am ready for Moonrise Towers.

I start with 2 levels of Paladin.

Yeah I did the same, ran Gale, Karlach, and Shadowheart and filled the rogue role with Halfling Lore Bard (Main)/Trickster Rogue (Secondary). Shadowheart helps with stealth play & perception (Wis), other than that character was more skill focused than combat. Think I got 10 skill prophecies and 4 expertise, been a bit.

Also debated on picking up a cleric level just to have a deity choice but never did.

I've got a Gith Bard College of Lore 7/Warlock GOO Pact of the Tome and really like it.

Started with two Warlock to get Eldritch Blast, then six Bard and then Warlock. Stays at range blasting and casting in medium armour, awesome skills, lots of proficiencies from Bard and the Gith Astral Knowledge. Has lots of free casts from Pact of Tome, fourth level spells, can pick from secret list of spells, cutting words and gets lots of things back on a short rest. Plus Gith has a lot of extra flavor in conversations and such.

Much different than my Pally who just uses spells for smites.

My main bard went Lightfoot Halfling, Urchin (Stealth, Sleight of Hand), Str 9, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 17

Level 1: Class Skills: Insight, Perception, Persuation

Level 3: College of Lore: Acrobatics, Survival, Intimidation

Level 3: Expertise: Sleight of Hand, Persuation

Level 4: Feat: Actor (Expertise Deception, Performance)

Level 8: Feat: Lucky

Level 10: Experise: Perception, Insight

Level 12: Feat: Ability Score Improvement: Cha +2

Spells:
Level 1: Blade Ward, Vicious Mockery; Dissonant Whispers, Faerie Fire, Healing Word, Longstrider [Ritual]
Level 2: Speak With Animals [Ritual]
Level 3: Detect Thoughts [Ritual]; Longstrider -> Hold Person [Concentration]
Level 4: Light; Heat Metal [Concentration]
Level 5: Hypnotic Pattern [Concentration]
Level 6: Magical Secrets(2): Counterspell, Eldritch Blast
Level 7: Dimension Door
Level 8: Confusion(?)
Level 9: Hold Monster; Hold Person -> ?
Level 10: Friends(?); Magical Secrets(2): Conjure Elemental, Magic Missle
Level 11: Otto's Irresistible Dance
Level 12: ?


Variation 1:
Sacrifice Cha +2, take one level of Cleric of Mystra, Knowledge Domain, Expertise: History, Arcana

Variation 2:
Str 9 -> Str 8, Wis 12 -> Wis 13, Level 12: Feat: Resilient: Wisdom (instead of Cha +2)

Variation 3:
Both previous variants, but also sacrifice Lucky to get Resilient: Wisdom instead

bard is bad hybrid, everyone doing better than him

support/heal cleric/druid is better
ranged psysical ranger/fighter/rouge
ranged magic any magic class wizard/sorc/warlock
melee fighter/paladin/barb

bard is trash in this game

Why, even purely in regards to combat abilities I have no complaints about Bard.

The only pure spellcaster who may get a second attack. Also wear medium armor and even use shields.

Strong crowd control and support spells, including healing if you want to save on potions.

Strong disruption abilities, too. My build doubles down on that by going for College of Lore and Lucky.

All in all Bards gets pretty close to the specialists.

Not to mention Bardic Inspiration can allow even someone who doesn’t specialize in something to succeed at it in a pinch. Tough to beat having guidance and bardic inspiration handy when a dialogue option comes up you want to choose but it involves a tough check. Lots of sources of guidance out there, no replacements for bardic inspiration though to my knowledge.

There are 2 options that buff up the bard to make the bard more useful with spells... 1 level in wizard so you can use any wizard spell in the game by memorizing scrolls. You need the int amulet off the ogres to make it viable. Another is 2 levels of sorcerer to get more spells and metamagic... most importantly Twinned Spells. Or both if you don't mind losing the 3 top levels of bard spells. My favorite builds in the game.

The bard can do:
support better than ranger/fighter/paladin/mage/rogue/warlock
ranged physical better than a fighter/barbarian/paladin/druid/mage/warlock
ranged magic better than warrior classes/rogue/
melee better than druid/rogue/mage
and do them all in a single character without putting in any great effort into the build or arsing about with buffs.


You think they are 'trash' because you are a numpty who thinks that min-maxing damage is the be all and end all of RPGs.

So far I've been running a College of Swords archery Bard for my first playthrough, a blind Tactician run, and he became my main damage dealer after he hit level 6.

- He spent most of act 2 with 22 AC thanks to shield and medium armor proficiency. Now he has 24 with Act 3 gear.

- Ranged Flourish lets him strike an enemy twice per action as long as he has inspiration die, and inspiration die recharge on short rest after level 5. This + Sharpshooter + Haste means he's potentially shitting out 200+ damage opening rounds, and he can split that across multiple enemies from range. That's before we get into talking about multiclassing.

- Risky Ring from act 2 makes the Sharpshooter penalty nonexistent, and there are very few things in the game that will attempt to hit you with any ranged saving throw effects worth a damn.

- You can do an optional 1 level dip in Fighter to gain longbow proficiency to wield the crit longbow in act 3, along with the archery fighting style so your sharpshooter shots damn near never miss by endgame.

- Magical Secrets at level 10 lets you pick up two useful spells from other classes, which includes things like Counterspell and Haste.

- There is a ring in act 3 that lets you cast Illusion or Enchantment spells as a bonus action after a successful weapon attack. Bard has a lot of useful Illusion and Enchantment spells, one of which is a damaging psychic damage cantrip if you don't want to use any spell slots that turn, another a single target spell that can be upcasted for up to 7d6 damage (not that I recommend this, see below).

- There is a helmet that boosts your spell DC by +2 for every successful weapon attack you make, stacking up to +7. After a round of attacking, hardly anything short of outright immunity will be able to resist your bonus action Illusion/Enchantment spell, which includes extremely powerful crowd control options like Hold Person, Hypnotic Pattern, Hold Monster and Otto's Irresistible Dance.

If Larian continues updating the game to add more 5th and 6th level spells, Bard might get a crazy AoE damage/debuff 5th level Enchantment spell: Synaptic Static, one of the few spells targeting Intelligence saving throws and it really screws up enemy rolls if it takes hold.

One level of tempest cleric gives you all weapons and armour + two types of damage reaction... I mean if you just want it for the unlock I don't see fighter as the best option

How to say "I have no idea what I'm talking about" without saying "I have no idea what I'm talking about". Dude, if you haven't realized it on your own, due to tweaks to 5e and the crazy itemization of this game literally every pure class or multiclass has god slaying potential way before mid game

How you say you don't know how to play bard without actually saying, you don't know how to play bard.

Can't find that one in any wiki. Do you remember the name / where to find it?