Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion question about lore bard

Hallo everyone
I wanted to be a bard now. A bard was the most useless party member in BG1 and I often avoided them in later games but now I want to try one.
I had a lore bard in my party in Solasta and he was very good. A full caster with lots of skills who can learn spells from other classes.
I want to stay single class and keep companions in their original class too.

stats: str 10, dex 14, con 12, int 10, wis 14, cha 16
I wanted to avoid stat dumping. I chose wis over con because I want perception, insight and defense against mind effects. More HP would be nice but concentration sucks in any case if the full game is like EA.

race: githyanki
Originally I wanted drow (perception, superior darkvision and bonus to dex and cha). But stat distribution was changed and elves seem to have lost their keen senses in character creation.
Gith gives me
- medium armor ( I was told many things outside of body armor require profiency)
- sword profiency ( I don´t think I use large swords with my low strengh)
- profiency in all skills of one ability of my choice (good for a skill monkey)
- mage hand, jump and another spell
- no darkvision but a bard can have the light cantrip

background: guild artisan
I wanted to be a charlatan but Larian gives lore bards a fixed set of skills (shame on you)
I hope I will be able to select sleigh of hand as expertise at lv3, somebody needs to take care of traps and locks and I don´t really like Astarion

skills: persuation and insight from background,
deception, perception and something else (acrobatics?) at the start
sleigh of hand, arcane and intimidation from lore bard ( I really wish you could chose any 3 skills)

magical secrets
lv6: fireball (bards are great but lack damage) and counterspell (preventing enemies from casting saved me a lot in Solasta)
lv 10: haste (best buff for damage dealers) and something else (until then I will find out which spells are most useful)

I wanted to max out cha on lv 4 and 8. Lets see what feats we have at lv 12

I play on the default difficulty and may switch to easy if things get too hard. Role playing wins over min/maxing. I was able to finish EA without problems though. (with another char)
Bards can replace almost any caster and a rogue, so it will be 2 martial chars for damage (two from Lae´zel, Karlach, Minsc) and one other char (probably Shadowheart of Gale unless I need somebody else for a specific task)
I will be good in talking my way out of things but bad on the damage side (poor physical stats, no darkvision, no extra attack). I hope this will work.

Any comments or advice?
I want to stay single class and no respec.

Elves still get the perception skill (Keen Senses) free. It's just not called out with their racial abilities.

Concentration is very important, especially for a caster. May wanna up your constitution. Although u could get warcaster-feat, or pickup armor that gives advantage on con checks.

Have u looked into maybe 10bard/2cleric?.
Maybe go 6bard, then 2cleric. (Knowledge?)
U can gain a lot from it. Dunno what u miss out on.

I am atm a 3bard of swords,2 nature cleric( u can pick other cleric ofc). So much utility added, it's insane!
Great cantrips, bless, decent spells, heavy armor(still using medium), animal speaking/handling, rp flavor. Probably forgetting something..
I lose out on extra attack+lvl3spells, wich is huge ofc..But...
it's balance difficulty. My other party members are doing the DPS/big spells.I compensate this a bit with being the jack of all trades. We need something, I can do it. It's great.

I'd probably dump STR and maybe INT (assuming you have someone with okay INT) and boost CON to 14. Could possibly dump wisdom depending on party characters.

Taking 1 level of life cleric is really good with lore bard also, regardless of your wisdom score, since your casting is tied to CHA and disciple of life will boost your healing without ultimately losing bard spells (though slows you down a bit).

I think gith is a really good choice for lore bard, probably the best. Darkvision is not a big deal, just have someone you leave in camp cast it on you per long rest.

I'm playing a gith atm, not a bard but a rogue, but some item concepts are probably similar like certain equipment. Mask of the shapeshifter (or any source of disguise self like the necklace) + the ring you get from killing the strange ox gives you +1d4 on all ability checks when shapeshifted or disguised. So you can disguise self (even as a gith to keep things consistent) and you get +1d4 which stacks with guidance

i'd drop the 14 dex and take 14 str instead... i'd also put the con into intel because Bard is about skills not armour

Why? Bard's generally use finesse weapon (rapier) and bow.


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@Madscientist


I'm currently getting things set up for my first run on the full game and I intend going with a College of Valour bard, probably half-elf. Bard's aren't really my thing but the lack of choice with regards to the companions reduces options.

Sleight of Hand is for thieving/pickpocketing so if you don't intend doing a lot of that it isn't a must have. Shadowheart can do traps and locks thanks to her Trickery domain.

College of Valour bard gets medium armour.

my Bard uses a longsword and to be clear, a rapier doesn't HAVE to use dex it can still hit with str if thats the higher stat

also weapon skills changed in release because Larian now gives them to you by race to make up for redoing the stats example a human now gets light armour so Gall can cast his spells in leather instead of that dress

imo 2 hand crossbows are better than a bow because you get two shots but yes it does use your bonus action as well

@ Beechams: Bards are great skill wise but their main problem is damage.
They have lots of spells but very few of them do damage, they focus mainly on buffs and CC.
I want to chose lore bard because it improves the stuff that bards are good at: skills and magic.

Valor and swords get an extra attack, lore gets fireball at lv6 (you can chose another spell but I definitely recommand one damage spell)
Bards are "Jack of all trades, master of none"
It is good that BG3 has tons of uses for all kinds of skills, thats why I want to be a bard, among other reasons.
It is bad that BG3 combat is obsessed with max damage alpha strike before the enemy can act.
You can instantly die when you run into combat and the enemy acts first or you can kill everything with 3 fireballs or 6 attacks per character in the first round.
BG3 is based on DnD 5E but Larian puts their own idea of fun over DnD rules.
I like their approach out of combat, but in combat it seems to be: Do the maximum amount of actions and damage in the first round, then rest.

back to bards in general:
You can surely make a bard with lots of strengh and non finesse weapons.
Best result may be a bard10/fighter2: Then you have a "fighter" with way more spells and skills than an eldritch knight.
But I chose a regular single class bard as caster and skill monkey instead. Not because it is the most effective char ever but simply because I want to.