Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Open-Hand Monk or College of Swords Bard for my 1st Playthrough

Hi,

I have not progressed very far in Act 1 at all in the few previous playthroughs I started (maybe 10-15 hours). I want to properly play the game and have a great experience as I really love the game. I have narrowed the classes I want to play to the Open-Hand Monk and the Swords Bard. Could you please help me decide?

Thanks in advance

Of these two, I would choose the Swords bard, it's a great class.

How difficult would you saying playing Swords Bard is? I've never played Bard before so I don't have much of an idea. Also, if you have any tips for not messing up Swords Bard (I don't really care about min-maxing) they would be much appreciated.

Another vote for Sword bard. As a bard, you truely feel like a main character: you are the party face, have a lot of skills and sword bard is a good martial and caster with really great spells. It is especially fun with two hand crossbows.

Thank you so much. Could you please elaborate about the two hand crossbows? Somehow, this is the first time I've heard of it.

You can dual wield hand crossbows as bard. They are pretty versatile and you can use your bonus action for that (since you don't use your bardic inspiration for anything but flourishes). You can take feats to help you with that, like crossbow expert or dual wield and there is gear that lets you you add your ability modifier to offline attacks.
You get your first handcrossbow with character creation and one of the first two merchants, you will meet, has another one (if not directly, look after every long rest).

Edit: you get a pretty great hand crossbow in act 2, after defeating a certain character and that can be used until the end of the game.

For this to work, will I have to take the dual wielder feat and/or the two-weapon fighting style at lvl 4?

You don't need that so soon. You can take your ability improvements, if you like and have a high Dex. I would go with Dex and Char 16. You get at the last map in act 1 the gloves of dexterity, that set your Dex to 18. They are sold by a vendor.
You will already do a lot of damage, especially when you have your subclass and use slashing flourish ( ranged).

Ah ok. Could you just exaplain briefly then how to get the dual crossbow working? I'm still a bit confused. Sorry if I sound like an idiot; I'm still wrapping my head around spell slots and resting.

If you want a cake walk, then open hand monk with a tavern brawler feat demolishes everything. High DEX, high WIS, dump STR and find a way to increase it later with an item or a potion of hill giants str. Kill everything.

If you want more of a balanced experience, then go bard. Choice of spells would be the trickiest part, but I believe you'll figure it out. If you take a bad spell, game allows you to replace one spell with another each time you level.

You put one crossbow in the right hand and one in the left and then pew pew - it is really simple. It's just two small weapons one in each hand.

If I go Bard, I plan to make Karlach an Open-Hand Monk when I respec her (also Shadowheart to a Life Cleric for healing).

Ah ok. How do you fire both in one turn though? Doesn't firing one cost an action point? Or is there some mechanic I'm not aware of?

You can btw always respec , if you realise, you don't like a class. For example, if you start bard, but don't like it, you can go with another class instead.

Using an off-hand weapon costs you a bonus action, not an action. Bard also has a class feature called fighting style at level 3, it allows your off-hand attack to be as powerful as your main hand attack. This means you can cast a spell and use an off-hand attack at the same turn. Very flexible.

I assume that would be the two-weapon fighting style, right?

Correct, that is the one!

What effects would picking the two-weapon style have on my melee fighting ability? I'm planning for my character to be more of a frontliner

Give them two shortswords for example and it's the same as with the handcrossbows.

Btw (don't answer if there are spoilers involved) when do you unlock Withers so you can respec?