Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Help Tips & Tricks Bard Question

Hello,

I am a beginner playing a custom party on Balanced mode. I basically bult my party from a light role-playing perspective. My main is a barbarian based on Conan, I have a rogue, a cleric, and a wizard. I basically pick skills, feats, and spells based on best guys as I play. I really do not like researching the meta for best builds.
Even though I don't want to chase the meta, I have seen a l0t of videos on how fun and good Bards are. I am slightly considering changing my half-elf to a Bard but I need her to be my lock-picker, sneaker, and sometimes assassin.

My question is: Can a Bard make a good thief?

Thank you for any help,
Amanar

in many ways a bard is better... have a single thief level will open anything you find before act 3


also as you don't know the game understand Larian design their games that the player should be the party face for any talking/ skill tests... it is pssible to work around that but much better to just go with it at first

Bards are pretty much the best at being a thief because unlike any other class;

• They get to almost immediately max out their Sleight Of Hand by picking a proficiency at level 1 and at level 3 picking an Expertise.
• Have access to Disguise, Minor Illusion, and Invisibility.

Disguise while pickpocketing does not drop NPC attitudes, Minor Illusion is useful if the target is being watched over by other NPCs, and Invisibility is useful when combat triggers if a pickpocket attempt fails.

A Bard with max Dexterity and items that boost Sleight Of Hand will be able to steal and open anything in the game pretty much from the very get-go. They're pretty much the best main character class due to how versatile they are, both in terms of dialogue and gameplay. And they absolutely excel when paired with other classes like Cleric and Paladin, the roleplay is insane.

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer:

Any class can be a good "Thief" in the sense that it's easy for anyone to get good Dexterity scores and Proficiency in Sleight of Hand (And Stealth if you care for it and don't just use Invisibility) so they can open locks, disarm traps and pickpocket to their hearts content. Hell, I've had parties where my character with 8 Dexterity was good enough to open every lock and disarm every trap in the game thanks to items to buff them up.

Bard is able to get an extra bonus, much like a Rogue, with their Expertise allowing them to gain additional proficiency bonuses for a selected skill (Such as Sleight of Hand). Though, this isn't particularly necessary most of the time.

In terms of "Assassination", Bards do have some capacity for that. Between things like using Thunderwave (Or College of Swords Blade Flourish) to knock enemies into insta-death pits or using Hold Person/Monster to stun a target and make every melee range attack guaranteed critical they can quickly remove a target.

Thank you for the quick and great responses! I am going to change class tonight and give it a spin.