Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks Multiclassing Bard (College of Blades or Lore)

Hey everyone,

it's another of those posts

I've decided to play a Bard in my first playthrough, either College of Blades or Lore, though I tend to the Blade Bard, due to melee capabilities.

Would it be viable to multiclass the character with something else? Warlock maybe? If so, what levels, build it anything might be fun? Does not have to be Warlock and since I'll play on easy mode, really anything fun is good.

I mean it would go well with Pact of the Blade warlock. I would take at least two levels of the warlock class.

In general, I would advise against it, unless you have a very deep knowledge of game systems, multiclasses are usually weaker, because you lose spell progression etc.

Otherwise, the obvious contenders are all the cha based classes, in particular Paladins, with at least 2 levels (better armor proficiencies, smites, ...) and warlocks (esp. with pact and the blade, and for eldritch blast + agonizing blast)

Warlock sounds nice tbh, especially since Eldritch Blast was fun in EA xD
At what level can you use a pact and what's the difference from the subclass you choose initially?

The obvious multiclass option would be sword bard x/ bladepact warlock 3. You could even make this character with Wyll. Any patron will do.

So, starting as Bard, multiclassing into Warlock 3, then Bard until max level :3 Sounds fun.

Warlock is A bad choice because it doesn't scale well and Bard already has most options covered

Pally (single level) is a popular choice to unlock all weapons / armours

As for sword vs lore, I'm going with lore because the current system doesn't really allow for other party members helping you out and it's really only your skills for most of the games checks

Could you explain the Warlock being a bad choice bit? Don't quite understand that being not exactly D&D familiar

Can you explain that a bit. You can choose what character picks a lock, disarms a trap, who starts a conversation, and it seems like everyone in range gets to roll a Perception check. I am a newie learning. But it definitely hasn't felt that way to me and in fact I was trying to plan a party that had all of the bases combined. It didnt seem like having them all on the PC was that important.

So the bardlock and palock builds have taken a hit in BG3 since the big benefits of the dip in warlock seems to have changed from first level hexblade warlock to 3rd level pact of the tome. This doesn't make them unusable though, just less broken.

The primary reason players used the single level combos was that a character could focus their stats on just Charisma, which meant that they could spend two ASIs on buffing the stat and just take feats for the rest. It also meant that their support and casting abilities didn't have to take a hit in order to be a good melee combatant.

Which bard you choose should be dependent on your goals and the level split you want. Basically, if you want to smack things, you need to get your warlock pact of the blade to the level where you get multi-attack before going lore Bard, or vice versa and do Swords bard until you get multi-attack and switch to pact of the chain or tome for your warlock.

You can do both pact of the blade and swords bard, but you are doubling up on some of the abilities, so it isn't quite as gishy as taking one caster and one martial subclass. However some people don't mind that and really want to double down on the melee and just focus on how hard and fast they can hit things.

Regarding paladin's the general guideline is take 2 levels or 6/7 of Paladin and then warlock the rest of the way. Or with BG3 take 3 levels in Pact of the tome warlock and the rest as Paladin, which will get you the most smites. (2 level 2s instead of 1 level 3 if you went full Paladin.)

So you aren't ruining your character by mixing the two together, especially with 3 pact of the tome warlock and 9 swords bard, you are only losing 1 5th level and your only 6th level spell slots. Which is a tradeoff you will have to make if you want to go SAD with you character and make them a beat stick.

(SAD is an acronym for Single Ability Score, the opposite of MAD, which is a Paladin's main weakness. Here is a breakdown which is probably more than you wanted to know: https://thinkdm.org/2021/11/20/sad/#:~:text=D%26D%20players%20use%20the%20terms,for%20Multiple%20Ability%2DScore%20Dependent. )

What they mean is many skill checks happen within conversations and can only be done by the character in that conversation. For example say you wanted to start a conversation with Wyll since he has high Charisma, and during the conversation there's an option for a history check which Gale would be better at with his high Intelligence; You would be forced to make that check with Wyll's history skill and Gale would likely not get another chance to attempt that check.

Cleric knolwedge domain 2 levels... is also really good for skills... as you get two lore skills free with expertise... and at second level, you can use your channels to get a profesion in any skill for 10min... wich is kinda funky... combine that with advantage, and your good !

A College of Swords Bard with 3 levels in Warlock will be great since you'll be able to wear medium armor with 14 DEX for max AC bonus and use CHA for your weapon attack and damage using Pact of the Blade, giving you lots of skill points to funnel into the attributes you want. The addition of Hex to your arsenal will also pair well with Flourishes for respectable damage output. You're not going to match the potential of a Fighter but you'll have a whole ton of utility, and extra short rest to recharge your warlock spell slots, and be very tanky when needed. Plus you get Expertise and Jack of All Trades for those dice rolls.

in 5e d&d there is a differece between class levels and character levels
eg Warlock L1 Bard L2 casts eldritch blast at the bad guy another Warlock L3 does as well... the first one hits as L1 and the other guy hits as L3

even if we assume Larian makes their own house rules [a safe bet] to give muliclass extra dice they still are swapping Bard levels every time they take a Warlock one and a Bard wants at least 10 of the avalable 12 levels to get all their goodies
the key point is "who starts a conversation" as Larian changed this last major patch to make your character the one talked to even if you are controlling a different character

eg you are playing Tav as a elf druid and currently in combat controlling Wyll... when this combat ends a cut scene kicks in and you druid is auto selected for the talking ... any checks are made using her stats not Wyll

this system was changed untested and is buggy as hell but unless your druid is well back away from the talker at end of combat or somehow still under a spell effect like being asleep or dead she will be the one doing the talking now

a Lore Bard gets more skill points than anyone else in the game so if you want the option to talk bosses out of fighting you, guards into letting see behind that locked door and Orgres into joining you then Lore bard IS the best option... if you are more about climping up on rooftops and zapping people off then a Warlock is prob best and it boils down to how you want to play

I manage to play well with them, good luck.

My advice:

1. Just try it out. You can always respec (= redo all your stats, classes etc.)

2. Maybe don't worry too much about 'efficiency' unless you play Tactician Difficulty.
It's a roleplaying game. I want to play a character with specific background, personality + abilities, even if they don't neatly line up in every conceivable way. No interesting character in reality or fiction is such a "perfect construct".

So personally I aim to go 8 LoreBard / 4 GOOlock because that's my very own "character fantasy" of a character I've been playing for 20+ years now in various settings. It has grown on me.
I don't care if minmaxers scream their faces off reg. how "inefficient" that build may be. I don't think in "builds" or "efficiency" at all when playing D&D. It's not Diablo or WoW, but it's an actual roleplaying game. Meant to tell a story about your character and their journey through the world(s), and not just a an action game where the only meaningful choices are "how do you kill things?"

No, this is not correct. Eldritch blast is a cantrip, so it scales on character levels. These two characters would cast the same level spell.

The char versus class lvl makes me dribble me brains outta me ears!
Imma ignore it!

Most things are based on class level; there are only a few things that change based on Character level (most importantly):
Cantrip Damage
Total Spell slots
Proficiency bonus

Thanks - I'm good now!