Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Build Discussion Which college for bard

I plan on taking Karlach, Shadowheart and Gale most of the time. I don't have much interest in Lae'zel, although I plan to use her before getting Karlach, Astarion or Wyll. I like idea of playing with Jaheira, Minsc and Halsin, but of course, we're limited on party members.

So, which college should I go? I'm definitely taking persuasion, but I though of skipping Arcana skill till I pick college of Lore, but now I worry college of Lore isn't good choice. What do you think? I don't like idea of bringing party members that I don't like, so I would like to be pulling my own weight.
I'm playing on balanced, but don't tell me my build doesn't matter in balanced. I still struggle.

Lore bard is typically regarded as the best choice for spell casting bard (and best overall bard subclass). Valor if you want to get your hands dirty and use melee attacks. That being said I haven't played one in BG3, though my brother is playing one and he loves it (he has one my PnP campaign as well).

Valor Bard would be my pick for BG 3.

Lore Bard is GREAT in Tabletop both for Cutting Words, the extra Skills and the free Spells, but between Magical Secrets and the extra Skills being predefined and most magical bard items only working when you give an ally your Bardic Inspiration BG3s LOre Bard falls off rather steeply.

Similarly Swords Bard has seen some buffs with his Blade Flourishes working with ranged (why are we calling it College of SWORDS again?) but again it uses your Bardic Inspiration and so many magic items are not gonna work for you.

College of Knowledge is a great choice, especially if you take Karlach.

A Lore Bard is easiest to play, as it is a spell-spamming bot.
The other two lores create a dilemna - two attacks or one spell?

Depends on your playing style. You need to start from that.
College of Knowledge is a great choice, especially if you take Karlach. I am currently thinking about a second higher education. I am currently studying to be a doctor, recently I was looking for nursing help, I used https://ca.edubirdie.com/nursing-help for this. Has anyone heard anything about this service? I simply have no other options, I do not have time to do anything. I will definitely not quit playing.

Bard is the queen of choice... there isn't a bad one
lore = skills and extra spell picks
Valour = gear options like shield, armour or weapons
sword = special attacks

This is exactly what I was alluding to - Lore is a caster, Valour and Sword are tanks with full caster capability.

That was exactly what I was going to say. All bard subclasses are good, you just have to choose, what you want your bard to be able to do.

Pah!

Lore & Valour. College of Nerds & College of Goodie Two Shoes.

Let’s see you get your backpack off the roof of the geography building with no mobile flourish, Nerd bard.

College of Swords are the cool kids.

But seriously, they are very good for ranged and melee and the extra abilities are fun to play on top of all the general bard stuff.

I don't know which is the best but flourishes plus smites is always fun.

Paladin and bard seems an odd combination though. For role playing I mean.

Eh, start as a bard then decide to take an oath after seeing something or experiencing something.

Imagine the Paladin being a Holy Warrior of one of the more extrovertic, uninhibited, fun loving Goddesses - Tymora, Eilistraee, etc.

Yep, loved my swords bard/oath of ancients dex-based paladin of Eilistraee with flourishes for extra smiting.

But I agree any college can work, it just comes down to how you want to play.

I guess with a party of Karlach/Astarion/Wyll as the OP mentions, I’d perhaps be tempted to go for a more spell-focused lore bard as the companions can cover melee and if Wyll is staying as a warlock then he doesn’t get many spell-slots per battle so bard spellcaster would be handy for crowd control, AoE, buffing and some healing so you’re not totally reliant on potions, but given there are lots of ways to build and use those companions too, that’s by no means necessary.

Indeed.

You can play a bookish bard who studies hard and joins Gale in the poindexter club, casting spells from a safe distance.

You can play a solid all rounder who’s quite good with shield and all weapons, and uses their inspiration to … Urgh… buff other party members.

Or you can play a show off bard who leaps heroically into the fray, dancing awesomely around the battlefield with a mixture of magic and cool tricks of blade of bow. But sometimes gets squished by tougher opponents and needs rescuing.

They are all viable, and I’m not sure which is “better”, but for MY bard, there was only one possible choice.

Other opinions may vary.



Fair. Also what Buba said. Just pointing out the classic archetype personalities are a bit opposite each other.

[b][/b]Yup - Paldain had to be Lawful, Bard IIRC had to be Chaotic - or at best Neutral.

Sure but that's changed. I haven't played tabletop D&D since the mid '80s and that's how it was back then. But as far as I know it's changed for quite some time.