My first play through was with a Bard and I chose the School of Lore. I used my Bard as a "light" Rogue for locks and traps and as a Dex building using a hand crossbow. He carried a lot of "special" arrows and then was heavy for support spells. Was VERY effective.
Same here with the "Thief Light"-thing... Astarion's been out of a job for my entire run. Even before I bought/used the Gloves of Thieving, this Tav was quite good at doing all the Rogue stuff - and with the gloves and inspiration, he's *nearly* as good as a Rogue would be at this level.
I also did the dual crossbow gunslinger thing initially, but it felt a bit too cheesy to me. I've since switched to the Bow of the Banshee. Luckily the game *will* apply effects like that bow's Fear to both your targets when you're using the multiple-target flourish. So with the extra attack you're getting at...err lvl5? lvl6? you can hit four enemies per round and also, potentially, apply a pretty serious de-buff to all of them. I just wish I could wear both the Gloves of Wonder and the Archery Gloves at the same time..
Haven't found any other, non-glove gear yet that will grant me additional Bard-charges, so the Wonder-gloves are a bit of a must.
I'm still a bit all over the place WRT melee vs ranged play-style, but I figure it's just a "jack of all trades"-thing and fits a Bard. If the encounter allows for it, I will go melee (ideally "wasting" a turn by activating the shrieking sword), but going crowd-control/mass debuff spell first and then ranged flourishes also works quite nicely.
While all classes only seem to get into their own beyond a certain level, I will say that this class really needs a few levels more before that happens. I just made level 8, but even at 6 or 7 my Bard felt way more useful and powerful than at lower levels. Almost feels like a different character. I suppose extra attack and the fact that he now gets back his inspirations during short rests really make the difference. Plus the access to some more useful spells like Hypnotic Pattern or Confusion.
I still don't know what to do on my next level up (8 > 9). From all I've been reading, Bards drop off a bit beyond a certain level (either 8 or 10, depending on the source), so I might have to really do multi-classing for the first time ever in this game. Not a huge fan of the concept, but since I plan to re-spec Jaheira to a (Spore-)Druid/Fighter to stick with her original lore and make her more viable as a permanent team-member, I'm not ruling out multi-classing on my Bard-Tav.
S.
