If you want to optomize your build to have every skill, do this:
Wood elf (2)
Background (2)
Ranger 1 (5)
Knowledge Cleric 1 (2)
Lore Bard 3 (4 +2e)
Lore Bard 4 pick Skilled feat (3)
Whatever else you want 6
If you go full caster for your whatevers, you'll still get lvl 6 spells.
Rogue also gets 4 skills and 2expertise at level 1, though at least in D&D it's less if Rogue isn't the first class you take at level 1, not sure how BG3 will handle it but could be less effective to multiclass into...and is much better at killing than Bards. I'll have Shadowheart as cleric as a support character in my group so I am absolutely not making my character support as well.
4 is less than 5? If you don't have Ranger you don't get all 18 skills and still level 6 spells. You can start Bard, instead it would end up getting you more options for two of your skills.
If you don't care about spell slots, then you can possibly swap rogue in for cleric. That depends on how they implement getting multiples of skills.
It seems like they universally swapped any mentions of thieves tools proficiency with sleight of hand. The assumption then is that rogues get any one skill plus sleight of hand as a multi-class. However, to get that 5th ranger skill you have to take sleight of hand. So that drops you to 17 skills if you can't replace sleight of hand.
Unless they fix half-elves to have their 3 skills, then you can swap to rogue instead of ranger or cleric, no problem.
