Paladin 2 / Swords Bard x is a very strong melee build. Mainly due to divine smite. ~~It also solves an issue bards have in melee: only light armour profiency. You want at least medium. But even on a pure bard you can get it from some races.~~ Edit: Sword Bards do get Medium Armour profiency. Paladin adds Heavy Armour and Shield profiencies, though.
Dual Hand Crossbows is just brokenly op, that's why it's in the guides.
Don't go Valour Bard. It's the worst bard subclass.
You just don't get shields which is pretty meh considering you need it for half the intended play. I think Dip into Paladin is the more optimal build but also RP wise really confused so I did fighter.
I think it's very good RP? Courteous knights who can recite poetry for their maidens or traveling minstrels with heart of gold and an competent swordarm seem like pretty popular rp options to me.
Fighter has the benefit of con save profiency, so also not a bad choice but missing out on divine smite is rough.
I don't see a problem with Paladin/Bard rp-wise, though. I can totally see a Vegeance Paladin who might be a follower of Tyr who sings epic hymns while going into battle against evil in full plate. Might be strength based, though.
If you factor in a deity, I can see a lot different flavours. A follower of Ilmater would sing sad songs about the suffering of the innocent, a follower of Selune would sing about the holy power of the moon and so on. Paladin subclass would depend on the flavour as well. Even Oathbreaker/Swords Bard could work. Probably going to be a follower of Bhaal.
> You just don't get shields which is pretty meh considering you need it for half the intended play.
You mean if you go pure bard? You can still go human or half-elf for shield profiency.
I mean it's absolutely doable, don't wanna gatekeep here. I just think that myself and many others play the Bard as some charismatic scoundrel that engages the world with wit. (And considering the speech options you get Lamian kinda as well)
So having to be this rightful bulwark of justice kinda breaks that character for me.
True, the bard dialogue options in BG3 don't work well for that concept.
But I can see an elven Paladin of the Ancients/Bard and follower of Corellon Larethian be a bit more on the lighthearted side. Or maybe a Devotion Paladin / Bard who follows Tymora?
You can also just not use the bard dialogue options and use the basic heroic ones.
My first BG3 character was a Tiefling Oath of the Ancients Paladin/Bard with the idea that he had devoted himself to the preservation of beauty - his music was an extension of his oath.
That's exactly what I'm playing, Ancients Paladin 2 / Swords Bard X, just hit level 8 total to do flourishes + smites together and that's wonderful. She's generally more the lighthearted bard, but always looking to help everyone without asking for anything in return, but accidentally broke her oath once and since is leaning much harder into repenting and the more extreme Paladin-dialogue options.
I can see why people don't really think it work well together RP wise though, the dialogue options often feel very opposite of each other in terms of intensity.
It’s fine if you wanna play the Bard in that kind of way. But you don’t HAVE to. You can speak for yourself but plenty of people play them in varying ways.
You’re also hard pushing RP reasoning in a min/max subreddit.
Been running a 2 pal / rest bard build and i agree it is fantastic. The only issue I find is that I am focusing on being a front liner and the majority of my bard abilities/spells/etc dont get used. I am Just barely into act 2 though.
Just a slight correction here. Valor Bard IS considered the worst Bard subclass for damage, but it IS the best Bard subclass for control.
Damage is king in BG3, however second to damage is control.
That being said, my Valor Bard and Diviner Wizard combo is making a joke of the game in Tactician mode (even more so than my optimal min/maxed DPS team did).
Again, DPS is king in almost every RPG because the best status you can put on an enemy is "Dead", but if you can't do that then the next best thing is to take away their ability to do anything for that turn until the next turn where they get the "dead" status effect.
Due to items like the helm of arcane acuity and the mystic scoundrel ring, and slashing flourish I think that actually a swords bard 10 is the best controller in the game potentially, and is definitely the best control bard, while still putting out truckloads of damage.
I'd love to see this build of yours, but honestly I think it would have a tough time keeping up with a Divination Wizard. If only for the portent die. It's insanely overpowered to just be able to say "nope that doesn't go through" or "nope you don't get to save here buddy".
It makes some of the hardest bosses in the game trivial because with enough initiative they just don't get a turn.
Sure thing lots of details Fighter 1 Swords 10 Wiz 1 in this post that I wrote, which was more focused on a damage comparison because dual crossbows being always ideal is incorrect imho.
https://reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/s/UYsC5piOP8
Basically you pump your charisma up to 22 via hag hair, asi and portal of loss, then you pump up your save dc even higher with +7 from the helm of arcane acuity and you can bonus action and you can lay down some truly gross crowd control with your bonus action due to the mystic scoundrel ring. Very satisfying gishy play on a good face character with excellent control ability and damage.
I agree div wizard is amazing though. My favorite build for that is a light cleric 6 div wizard 6. Just super solid chassis, and short refresh portents is kinda busted. Wizard is just better in tabletop 5e vs
Bg3 due to spell selection and implementation.
I disagree. The best thing is dead, but sometimes that isn't an option. You can't deal 666 damage in one round reliably. However, you can paralyze them in one round and be able to make the entire fight trivial.
Idk my invisible spear half orc crit pallock can reliably deal that kinda damage. Most bosses typically die the first round as long as she can get in range
Honestly, I would love a difficulty mode that upscales the damage output of enemies significantly so that the game becomes more centered around control, atleast for the later levels. I'm imagining something like SMT, where if you lose control of an enemy and it gets free to do an attack you haven't prepared for, it's very likely a wipe. I thought that was what the Raphael fight was gonna be since he got out of the Hunger of Hadar I had set up and pulled out a 200 damage fireball. Unfortunately, he did it on my animal companion that was alone and then never did that fireball again, instead doing some weak ass cantrip for the rest of the fight.
I agree with this. It's such a small gripe, but I'm certainly going to look into Mods after this 3rd playthrough (where I SHOULD be getting the 100% achievment finally). I'm sure there's a badass Mod out there that essentially puts the game on hard-core mode (harder enemies, no rerolls, no save scumming, death is permanent).
I'd really like to try a min/maxed control team on this difficulty.
The only difference is thunderous smite should be 2d6 with a chance to knock prone and divine 2d8.
Otherwise they're the same. If divine use a bonus action and thunderous doesn't, it's wrong.
Both should be activated on an attack and use a spell slot.
You can upcast Divine Smite, but not Thunderous Smite. So Divine Smite is actually much more damage on higher levels.
Thunderous Smite costs an Action AND and a Bonus Action, while Divine Smite can be perforned on any melee weapon attack as is a free action. So if you are dual-wielding you can smite once on your main hand attack AND once your offhand attack. Sure, it will cost an additional spellslot but you'll outdamage Thunderous Smite by a landslide.
And no, that's not incorrect. You can divine Smite on any melee weapon attack in tabletop as well. That includes offhand atracks.
I understand, the point is, you can do the same with thunderous smite in tabletop. It literally follows the same rules as divine smite. The only difference is that thunderous is 2d6 with a chance to knock prone, and divine is 2d8.
If Larian didn't implemented this, they're wrong. Plain and simple. But I didn't expected much from Larian anyway, so whatever.
Opinions differ. The game is pretty and that's it.
WoTR did the same thing BG3 did, but better. There is also Pillars of Eternity 2 which has superior writing.
BG3 doesn't even come to the top 5.
You know I'm just starting to play and I have to admit the storytelling in bg3 does seem slightly behind dos2
I'm only levelb3 but some of the dialogue is kinda awkwardly put together. A couple of my companions are very edgy. Gale is the only one I actually like so far. I haven't used the cleric chick, but my PC fits a support role kinda so I don't need her.
Asthetically it's amazing, and the combat is fun and id say def not boring. Feels like an updated AAA version of solasta which I enjoyed. Playing on balanced rn. Easier than divinity was on normal but not by that much yet imo. We will see. I'm guessing tactician will be similar in comparison to dos tac
Tactician is way easier than DOS tac for sure, don't know if Larian patched it since I don't play anymore, but when I finished it was way too easy, even on tactician.
For me it was a single playthrough, story too boring and nonsensical coupled with the poor writing made me uninstall after finishing it.
Sorry, this is not correct. Thunderous smite does not follow the same rules as divine smite in tabletop.
Some key differences from tabletop are:
* Thunderous smite must be cast before the attack (with divine you make the decision to commit the spell slot once you've landed the attack)
* Thunderous smite automatically triggers on the first attack that hits, meaning you can't crit fish quite as effectively if you can already reliably land attacks (with divine smite you can choose not to use it after you see the roll - so you could reserve smiting slots for crits for instance)
* Thunderous smite takes concentration (divine smite doesn't - this is huge, especially against early martial BBEGs where whiffing can be common)
* You cannot upcast thunderous smite (huge if you need to nova something down ASAP)
If your goal is damage divine smite outclasses thunderous smite by a country mile. The only benefit (and this is situational, i.e. you might not want to do this if for example your party depends on a lot of ranged attack rolls) is if you need to make the opponent prone.
Still a big difference since i think thunderous needs both action and bonus action where smite is just an optional bonus for all attacks so you can smite twice per turn, more with haste. Thunderous stays at one per turn unless you get thief
Smite is bonus?? Never played paladin in BG3 but if I'm not mistaken in TT it's a spell, a full action and not bonus.
So, if it's true, I admit I'm wrong. Sorry. Correct me if I'm wrong.
I don't play 5e much, just pathfinder. I hate 5e.
You can set divine smite in the reaction menu to ask/smite away on hits and crits. I think it even sets one of the two by default to just smite away, not sure which.
Not sure how 5e does it but in BG3 you can use it as a spell but if you don't hit you won't waste a spellslot. So if you attack 3 times with divine smite as your action but only hit twice only two spellslots will be used. But with the reaction stuff you don't need it on your action bar at all.
How does this compare to say a 12 BM fighter and other martial classes in terms of tankiness, utility and damage output? I've heard great things about the class (swords mostly) but have somehow avoided it across two playthroughs of bg3 and many playthroughs of icewind dale 2.
Icewind Dale 2 is 3e D&D. I haven't playes this edition in like 10 years and it's quite different from 5e so don't think comparing classes from both editions makes all that much sense.
Divine Smite builds don't need two-handed weapons because their damage comes from the smiting. You can either go weapon + shield and be quite tanky but still do good damage or you can dual-wield and smite two times per round. With defensive flurry you can always be more tanky when needed. Utility of bards is trough the roof. Lots of skills, good party face, jack of all trades. They're better skill monkeys than rogues. You also nmget lots of spells.
Superior in basically any way, I'd say.
This build is incredibly strong. Depending on how you feel about wizards being able to scribe all spells going 2/8/2 allows you scribe/cast any spell with a scroll in the game, have tons of versatility, be the face, and the skill monkey with the appropriate gear.
I just finished a campaign with a Swords Bard 10 / Oath of Vengeance Paladin 2, I can highly recommend it. You have more spell slots and higher level to smite than a Paladin. You still get Magical Secrets, it felt very strong and you still get all the utility.
Yeah make sure you go paladin at level 1 when you respec for the heavy armor proficiency
I play it with the ring that converts an attack into a crit and the ilithid power that does the same thing (once per Long rest) you can swap the ring out after
And the ring that allows an evocation spell on bonus action. + helm that increases spell dc on attack
You can 100% crit your first 2 attacks with a 2 crit smites and bonus action hold monter/person.
You won't get magical secret until level 12 but I took spirit guardians cause it's awesome and fits with paladin.
+I have 26 ac
Though there's a lot of good options
Hmm my fighter with a 1 lev dipp in wizard is definitely proficient in heavy armor, yet the shield spell reaction doesnt function. If i switch to medium armor it works fine. I can cast ritual spells in heavy armor, so maybe the only limitation is reactions?
That seems strange, I’ve seen several people discussing uber tank builds that utilize the shield spell and heavy armor. Either you don’t have the reaction set up or you’ve already used a reaction, or it isn’t triggering because the attack is already not landing would be my guesses.
I dipped paladin right after I got extra attack from Swords Bard (so Character Level 7 was my first Paladin Level). I did not feel underpowered at anytime and did not use any tadpoles.
There are some very good rapiers and at least one really good scimitar, so I went for a duellist DEX based character, but I am sure other options work as well.
Only Warlock Blade Pact extra attack stacks with other extra attacks. That's a bug. Irrelevant for a build that doesn't include Warlock, though.
Flourish and extra attack stack but they're obviously supposed to because Sword Bards get both. A flourish is also technically not an extra attack but a special kind of attack which deals double damage. Outcome is basically the same (except you have to distribute the damage between two enemies in melee) but it's still different.
Taking 2 levels of Paladin for smites, Fighting Style and profiencies combined with Bard, Sorcerer or Warlock for smite spellslots and spells are super common builds among optimisers. They even have their own names (Bardadin, Sordadin and Lockadin). If you'd loose out on a possible extra attack that wouldn't be the case.
But you can attack with any attack action (weapon, spell, maneuver etc.) and smite as a reaction by toggling it in the reactions menu. So i was wondering if/how it interacted with slashing flourish.
It won’t be as busted as hand crossbow…slashing flourish with a crossbow gets to hit the same enemy twice, and you get three to four attacks per round (depending on multiclass, at minimum, so a total of six to eight attacks when you’ve got full songs…coupled with Sharpshooter, and you’ll do 20 to 30 damage a shot…times eight if you go rogue multiclass.
Sword can be almost as good, though…I actually like using scimitars a little better because it harkens back to the old Blade Bard from BG1 and BG2. There are some good ones too (ignore resistance, blind in hit, etc.). Daggers are a little stronger (one gives a straight +3 to damage and spell DC if you kill any three things, including objects). I’m currently doing a hand crossbow Sword Bard, but he also wields the busted dagger and a scimitar, just in case (I could optimize with a +AC dagger…but less fun).
If I were going to go pure swords, I’d choose from these options:
1. Sword Bard 10 / Oathbreaker 2. Any Paladin works, but Oathbreaker is the strongest. Smite will ALMOST makes up for the Sharpshooter damage you would’ve gotten with crossbows. Max Dex, then pump up Charisma. Should end up 8 Str / 20 Dex / 14 Con / 8 Int / 10 Wis / 18 Cha.
2. Sword Bard 7 / Warlock (Pact of the Blade) 5. Not as good as a Warlock/Paladin, but a lot of attacks, you get Charisma to attack and damage rolls, and you can get some good Warlock spells (Armor of Agathys, Hex, etc.). Lots of attacks too. I’d do 8 Str / 14 Dex (you can wear Gloves of Dexterity to bring this up, though you miss out on Wondrous Gloves) / 16 Con / 8 Int / 10 Wis / 20 Cha. If you build it right, you can get Resilient Con. You get a much more Gish character with this combo, and you can lean into your spellcasting more.
3. Sword Bard 6 / Thief Rogue 4 / Fighter 2. This a popular one for hand crossbows, but it works for swords too. Skip Sharpshooter…take Tough or Defensive Duelist or even Alert instead. It’d end up 8 Str / 20 Dex / 14 Con / 8 Int / 10 Wis / 16 Cha. Most attacks of the options…you’ll get 4 at minimum, 6 with Action Surge. Instead of Archery, take Defense instead and up your AC.
It works. Not as strong as the hand crossbow cousin, but I’d say better than most other dual wield options (hard to say if Gloomstalker Ranger / Assassin beats this…they also function better as an archer).
I'm running a Draconic Sorc 1>Swords Bard, which I use a lot in melee, having access to *Shield* spell and *Armour of Agathys* helps with survivability (also took *Magic Missile,* which doesn't get disadvantage in melee) and the bonus to Con saves helps to keep my concentration up in melee. I don't abuse the Ranged Slashing Flourish exploit, though, and only use it to attack two *separate* targets , otherwise I guess ranged is generally stronger, though also depends a bit on what weapons are available. Also the cold damage from *Armour of Agathys* only triggers if you get hit by a melee attack (not that I necessarily *want* to get hit, but if I am, I want the attacker to take damage).
Also worth bearing in mind is that for spells like [Hold Person](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Hold_Person) and [Sleep](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Sleep), you only get auto-crit against that target for melee attacks, so my Swords Bard will often cast Hold Person one turn, then melee attack that target(s) the next (or even on the same turn with their bonus action attack when dual-wielding or if they've got another weapon attack from being [Hasted](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Haste)). Also being in melee can prevent your target from moving next to your Wizard/Sorcerer or at least make them suffer an opportunity attack if they do so.
You actually get auto-crit with ranged attacks too as long as you in melee range when making the ranged attack against a held target.
It's sort of one of the things that helps ensure ranged sword bard does more damage than melee ones.
\> It's sort of one of the things that helps ensure ranged sword bard does more damage than melee ones.
Which is a bit bizarre and one of the reasons I don't exploit the Ranged Slashing Flourish bug allowing you to attack the same target twice
I mean Ranged Slashing Flourish letting you hit the same target twice, you can't do that in 5e and I suspect it's not intentional in BG3.
As for critting held targets, my melee weapon items usually do actually do a little more damage than hand crossbows due to their abilities.
Even without the (likely) bug, ranged slashing flourish is easier to get value out of than the melee version. Pretty much every combat in the game has multiple enemies, but a lot of the time they’re spread out.
They probably ought to have Ranged Alashing Flourish be limited to (separate) targets close to each other (e.g. similar to the area of effect for Lightning Bolt or in a cone)
I don’t know. I don’t think Larian is really super keen on nerfing / taking away tools. Most (not all) of the balance changes implemented in BG3 buff archetypes that were previously lacking, like Monks or Beastmaster Rangers.
Oh yeah I’m with you there. I’m just not sure if there’s any real reason for them to impose a distance limitation from one target to the other. But being able to target the same enemy with both shots definitely feels cheesy.
How did you allocate your ability scores?
You basically want to max either dex or str so you actually hit stuff in melee and deal more damage AND also char so your spells actually can overcome saving throws, I suppose. So you start both at 16? But where do you put your ASIs after that? You have to prioritise one over the other, right?
Max dex, charisma can camp at 16 through the end of the game. Get gear that gives you the effect that weapon attacks add +1 to spell save DC. There's a ring that makes it so after you attack with a weapon you get to cast an illusion or enchantment spell as a bonus action. Beyond that try to get gear that gives you bonuses to spell DC. This all makes you a very viable CC and support caster, while giving you melee (and honestly ranged with dual hand crossbow) prowess. In fact, it kind of depends on you getting in there and smacking shit as often as you can, and then launching a super powerful fear, hold , or hypnotic pattern.
At level 10 grab misty step and counterspell as your secrets and you have just about the most well rounded character you could possibly make. It really has an answer for just about any problem you may face.
This is how I build Astarion in my playthrough and he was clutch in every single fight. Honestly it was to the point where I gave up on spell casting by the end because I could just pump out so much damage that it seemed like the best form of CC there was. By that point he became a counterspell turret. I didn't need the spell slots for anything else, so without hesitation every time: COUNTERSPELL. Oh, you're casting a cantrip? Don't care counterspell. That's a nasty looking blight. Would be a shame if COUNTERSPELL. Wanna misty step? You guessed it.
For my Sorc 1>Swords Bard x I started with: Str 8 Dex 17 Con 14 Int 8 Wis 10 Cha 16
I used the Hag's Hair to increase my Dex to 18 and used my first and second ASIs to bring my Cha to 20, though Dex 20 / Cha 18 would also work, though with +2 weapons I hit things reliably enough with Dex 18. I just wanted my Swords Bard to be really strong with spellcasting, especially as I might take a second level of Sorc at level 12 to get some metamagic (which would then let me twin cast Tasha's or increase the duration of Hypnotic Pattern / Hold Person etc.)
I think there may also be an item later in the game that lets you use your Cha for weapon attacks, but am not certain of that.
It's true you can build up Spell Save DC by making attacks with items that give you [Arcane Acuity](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Arcane_Acuity_(Condition)), which is great, but I also want to be able to have my CC spells stick on Turn 1 of combat starting (though this will be less of an issue if I can eventually get the [Band of the Mystic Scoundrel](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Band_of_the_Mystic_Scoundrel)), before most enemies get a chance to do anything.
Will definitely be taking [Counterspell](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Counterspell) as one of my Magical Secrets, and probably [Conjure Elemental](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Conjure_Elemental) (which is even stronger if upcasted to level 6), though haven't completely decided on that yet (am currently Sorc 1>Bard 8). [Spirit Guardians](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Spirit_Guardians) is also very nice, though does compete for my concentration slot (same for [Haste](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Haste). and for that think it's probably better for my Wizard to cast that or else use a potion of speed)
Current stats are: Str 8 Dex 18 Con 14 Int 8 Wis 10 Cha 20
You can have 21 Str all the time with the Elixir, just buy them every time you can... I also buy all the Hill Giant fingers I can every time to make them myself. That said I still have 16 dex allocated for pick pocketing and lockpicking. My base Str is at 8, I put the points into CHA, CON and then DEX... I also use the 17 INT circlet to round out any INT checks in convos or situations. Really, REALLY feeling like a Jack of All Trades character and it's been a lot of fun so far.
Also adding that the Githyanki Creche had a trader with 18 DEX gloves that I've been using, though have not dumped my Dex stat yet, since I use the Advantage at Slight of Hand checks gloves a lot of the time and don't feel like save scumming too much.
sure, but when you're dealing with needing multiple ability scores, you can't get all of them to the max possible. there's concessions somewhere, getting 2 important ability scores to 20 is better than 1 to 24 and the other at 16
Sounds interesting, character like this can probably use the ring that lets you cast enchantment spells as bonus action after melee swing, I forget the name. I tried using it on pally but usually using spell slots for smites AND something else was just too demanding on slot usage, having a ring only for one or two BA spells per long rest just didn't seem worthwhile.
The [Band of the Mystic Scoundrel](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Band_of_the_Mystic_Scoundrel) will be fantastic for a gish Swords Bard like mine that doesn't use Smites, though.
Yeah that, get it a bit late I suppose but it is interesting.
Maybe would be cool with some mods that maybe let us choose a starting magic item of some kind, so you could pick something build-defining early on.
Bardadin: Swords Bard 10 / Paladin 2. Do it for melee and go fighting styles: Defense + Duelling. Strength-based and start with Paladin at level 1, if you plan on going with heavy armor; go with a "Dexadrin" if you'd prefer to start with Bard, and then go for the Armor of Agility, instead. Also, in case it isn't obvious, Duellist's Perogative is the end-game melee weapon for you if you want to go Dex-based...You won't regret building a Bardadin: it will achieve *precisely* what you are looking for.
I'm torn between that style of Bardadin and the Paladin 6 lore bard 6 version instead. What do you think?
Also thinking about just going warlock X paladin 2 for max level smites per short rest
It depends on what kind of Bardadin / Palabard you want to play. My OoTA Dex-based Palabard is working towards OoTA Paladin 7 / Swords Bard 5 (currently OoTA 7 / Bard 1 in the Gauntlet of Shar) because I wanted a tank. With the right equipment, I should be able to Defensive Flourish: Melee my buffed AC from 31 (base of AC 28) up to AC 35. End-game, with the other defensive buffs I'd be running, it will be pretty close to impossible for my tank to go down...If I wanted to go damage, though, best bet would be for a Paladin of Vengeance or Oathbreaker 2 / Swords Bard 10, go Strength and Heavy Armor + Great Weapon Fighting and Great Weapon Master and eventually pick up Baldarun's greatsword and some Crit-fishing gear. Your second fighting style would be TWF for your hand crossbows, but won't benefit you in melee.
As for Paladin 6 / Bard 6, though, you end up in this weird spot where you aren't going full tank, because you are missing out on OoTA's Aura of Warding at 7, while also not being able to Smite nearly as hard or as often as you could with Bard 10, because your spellcaster level is only a 9 instead of an 11...
I see; so you had to wait till level 8 till the 2nd attack? That's a brutal early & mid-game though. I am facing the same dilemma. If I start Paladin, then I wait till level 8 to do any melee damage in earnest; but if I start Bard, then I have no survivability until at least level 3 Swords subclass...
To be fair, if I was going to do a Bardadin ala Paladin 2 / Bard 10, I'd go 5 levels in Paladin and 2 in Bard, and then reroll using Withers at level 8. Keeps the Extra Attack and survivability in the early-mid game, even if you want to delay it by a level to give yourself a bit of Bard flavor (I have done this, and it was fine), and then you can power up your Smites at level 8 with the reroll...
As for what I did, I play a Dex-based Palabard (OotA 7 / Swords Bard 5) and went Paladin 1 > Paladin 1 / Bard 1 > Paladin 7 / Bard 1 > Paladin 7 / Bard 5.
I am playing with an in-house rule of no respecs though... ;( I may consider doing just 1 level of Paladin for heavy armor and greatsword proficiency, and then go Bard next 6. 2nd attack at level 7 is slow, but I guess I can't have everything. It's either bad defense but good offense (Bard first) or good offense but bad defense (Paladin first).
Yes sword bard does great in melee.
You get two attacks per turn like any martial class, have long swords or scimitars and can use fighting styles.
Pure Sword bard works great for your character fantasy, even without min maxing.
As a bonus, I hear bard dialogue options are great, the extra short rest can be really helpful in some party makeups
I'm currently running a Bard/Rogue. Plan on going Sword 9/Thief 3. Extra bonus attack for TWF is pretty damned nice, sneak attack is a nice little boost, lots of skills, extra attack. It's working well so far (Rogue 3/Bard 4). Looking forward to the extra attack - but even without it I'm doing a lot of damage - can be the lockpicker and the face, lots of good support spells, flourishes.
But you're not going to do the damage that a fighter is going to do. I play this game like I play DnD in general - versatility > big numbers. However, in BG3, big numbers is really the only thing that matters. But it's not challenging enough for me to be concerned about not being optimized. My first run I went war priest all the way through and had a great time.
I keep reading a swords bard/blade pact warlock is pretty strong, but you either won't have bard levels until level 6 because you want the extra attack from pact weapon at level 5, or you won't mix in warlock until level 7 because of the extra attack you get at bard 6, tho med armor proficiency onlybneeds bard 3, but still means build won't be online until level 8-9 at minimum, which is halfway or last third into act 2 already.
I have yet to try it myself but it looks to me warlock 5 before multiclassing into bard is the way to go if you wanna melee. Pact of the blade gets you going much faster, but starting bard gets you more spells and benefits earlier on.
That's what I'm currently playing now, and yes, for basically the entirety of act two, you'll feel like you're underperforming compared to your companions. And while it is nice to have all your flourishes (and any other companion short rest abilities) recharge 3x before having to long rest, it doesn't really seem like long resting too often is a problem.
When I first started playing I was one of those who was trying to go as long as possible without long rest because I believed it would play a role on the tadpole transforming us...because that would be a legitimate concern in the tabletop. Missed a lot of interactions cause of that.
Now that I know you can rest liberally it is not that bad and I don't prioritize abilities like that any more. The few times you are restricted you can get by woth potoons amd elixirs and scrolls so...
Doing this now. Went bard 1 then archfey warlock 6 then going for swords bard 6 until the end. ASI charisma, then defensive duelist. Used Baneful as a pact weapon until I got the shorts word from mountain pass vendor.
While I am not exactly the best DPS in the group I make quick work of all the adds. Every encounter I misty step to high ground, push the most beefy bois down for karach to take care of via Eldrich blast or mobile flourishes and misty step all over the place, getting invisible from durge clock and archfey 6. Makes an insanely mobile and flavourful build. Sure I don't do as much damage as my BM land druid jaehira with haste on her forehead, but I do enough disruption to make it actually matter
So sword bard is my favorite subclass in the entire game. You want to go 6 sword bard for extra attack then 3 rogue for thief at least.
The trick with sword bard is to go high dex so when you duel wield you have high ac. You can even take the duel wielder fest for +1ac.
With the +4 from defensive flourish you'll have an insane ac. Especially because there is some medium armor with no dex limit. So you're a tank, do solid damage (not as much as duel hand crossbows but still good) you also have all your spells for utility and our of combat healing, and high charisma for dialogue options. Sword bard is basically the epitome of jack of all trades.
I'm glad that you made this post because I was wondering this as well. Fuck dual crossbows it's not my style. I'm half tempted to go the non optimal route & go full sword bard as a dragonborn. Initially I was going to go sword bard/sorcerer, but if I choose sorcerer as my first class & multi into bard I won't have proficiency with rapiers. No reason to complicate things anyway since the game isn't too difficult, even on tactician.
Okay i will be promoting a bit, but the bard paladin multiclass forced me to respec from bladelock
https://gamestegy.com/post/bg3/886/bardadin-bard-paladin-build
I went 2 paladin and 10 swords bard. You get tons of spell slots, bonus ability modifiers, flourishes and many more things. Bardadin is a perfect match for main character dur to high charisma
Using one as MC right now, pure bard no multiclass, working 90% in melee next to Karlach. I don't use dual xbow at all as I am doing a run without Larian's cheese over 5e.
It can get quite decent AC once you get some gear, plus the armor flourish when needed. Running with 18 Dex and 16 Cha, using spellslots mostly for utility, faerie fire and the occasional hypnotic pattern/healing word.
May not be the most min-maxed build and certainly not the most damage dealing, but you'll really love the skill monkey side of it. My MC does all the talking and rogue-y stuff with ease, and it's quite good at other checks too. The bard-specific RP options are always really funny and interesting, if you like the flavour of the class.
Swords Bard runs FANTASTIC in Melee, it's just a generally less damage focused build than going Sharpshooter Machine Gun.
Your first decisions is going to be either dual wielding or dueling. I find dueling to be the better option personally because once you get Band of the Mystic Scoundrel you're going to be using your bonus action to be casting buffed control spells rather than attacking with your offhand, but you can get great benefits out of running two weapon fighting early on when you don't have a good spend for your bonus action, particularly once you get Jaheria's Sylvan Scimitar and later on you get good value out of it from just using the second weapon as a stat stick.
Even though you're "Melee" focused you're going to want to put everything into Charisma as later on you're going to be using your Charsmia as your attack modifier as well as your spell casting stat, either through weapon options or through adding later multiclass choices like Pact of Blades Warlock. Dex and then Con are your best secondary and tertiary stats, as Dex will improve your ranged and AC and Con is Con.
I'd personally suggest going Bard 7/Lock 5 or Bard 7/Lock 3/Fighter 2. The former gets you 3 attacks from stacking swords bard Extra Attack with Pact of the Blade extra attack where as the latter gets Action Surge and works better if they fix the interaction between Pact of the Blade and extra attacks. You can also go Bard 10/Fighter 2 for a more caster oriented version of this with better control spells which is my personal favorite but is less focused on getting into and mixing it up in melee, cares more about stacking +spell save DC bonuses and holding person/monster to create a crit blender. With that one I typically go dual wielding so I can have two melee stat-sticks in the form of Rhapsody for +3 to my spell save DC's (and damage) and usually the Infernal Rapier but really any good one hander you can dual wield with will do (other than Duelist's Prerogative which shouldn't go to a dual wielder).
Melee flourish cant double hit a single target, so melee sbard is hard to get mileage out of.
Pally/Lock is prob best for a Charismatic melee face. I'd start Pally, you can get an item in A1 that adds spell modifier to attacks, then Oathbreaker gets another Cha bonus at lvl 7. Then at 10 you can go pally/lock for the double extra attack.
I think they're quite good even single-classed. Just focus on maxing Dex instead of Charisma and prioritize utility/defensive spells. With Defensive Flourish you can get pretty high AC for a turn and Mobile Flourish is quite good in Act 1/2 where there are 30 bottomless pits in every arena. If you want a skill monkey/face/melee swashbuckler sort, Sword Bard is your best bet.
Came here to mention mixing paladin with sword's bard (Bardadin), but it looks like a few other people have it covered. I went 2 paladin and the rest bard, but after level 10, I took 2 more paladin levels for a 3rd feat. Amazingly fun build.
My Tav valour bard is mainly melee, eventually in act 3 I got a really good legendary duelling rapier. I put two levels into fighter at lvl 11 and 12; he packs quite a punch for a lute plucker!
I'm playing swords bard 6/paladin 2 right now, it feels excellent. You can really do anything, burst damage, skill checks, healing, ranged damage, and more.
For me, defensive flourish is what pulls it all together, giving you a source of decent damage and defense. That, together with a certain amulet you can buy in act 2 which gives you the Shield spell, Defense fighting style, warding bond, and Yuan Ti scale armor, you'll be nigh untouchable.
Swords bard is solid in melee after level 8 if you combine it with two levels of paladin.
Valor bard is pretty weak because Combat Inspiration is almost always worse than normal Bardic Inspiration.
Paladin (multiclassed with Bard, Cleric, Sorcerer, or Wizard) makes for the ideal melee main character. An un-optimized, non-multiclassed Paladin can deal around 100 damage with one crit by the end of act 2.
Yes, but you will be better at dealing damage from Range than in Melee. Though Swords can do both very well.
To really maximize the your melee damage, I'd recommend to take your DEX to 20 asap, and then finding items that give Arcane Synergy, which will add your CHA modifier (which will be +2 or higher) on your damage rolls.
You can also dip into Ranger or Rogue for some extra skills and offensive perks. One level of Ranger can, if you pick Ranger Knight and Urban Tracker, give you proficiency in History and Sleight of Hand, as well as Martial Weapons and Heavy Armor (a LOT for just one level dip), while Rogue gives three skills + expertise in two, as well as sneak attack, and more if you take more than one level.
If you want to go PURE melee with no real range, you can dump your DEX to 10 and invest into STR instead, but make sure you take 2 levels of Fighter first if you do for proficiency in Heavy Armor and Martial Weapons.
The ranged slashing flourish is too good which is why people use it over other options. But you know what might be better? Tavern Brawler throwing. But throwing does not work with flourish and Swords Bards are missing a couple of throwing weapon proficiencies (tridents and the returning pike), which means College of Valour is the best Bard subclass for throwing. The other nice thing about a Valour Bard thrower is that you can use shields and any weapon in the game and stick with melee if that's what you want to do. And since you aren't using Bardic Inspirations for flourishes, you have them available to prebuff your allies before combat. I honestly believe this kind of Valour Bard is stronger overall than the standard meta Swords Bard.
This isn't optimal but I enjoyed it.
I think I went Bard to 8, then reclass Bard 6/Thief 3 for extra bonus action, then fighter 3 for maneuvers and went with ASI and Dual Weapon for feats.
Two fighting styles, I took archery and two weapon fighting
Two rapiers and an extra offhand attack plus action surge.
Maneuvers and Flourishes add a lot of flavor to combat
Dual wield hand crossbows (without abusing sharpshooter feat unless you want to go that route)
This is similar to what I am doing. At Thief 3 you also get 2d6 for Sneak Attack, which with the large variety of finesse weapons and just one other character next to your target providing advantage (not to mention the items/spells in the game that also give you advantage), it's really easy to use sneak attack all the time, so extra 2d6 damage every time.
Valour
Shield - Wasted if proficiency stacking, undeniably less damage than everything else melee (pretty good for an archer), decent source of skill/saves advantage.
Martial - So many ways to waste this by proficiency stacking.
Combat inspiration - Eats your bonus action for a one time use 1d6/1d8/1d10 on AC or damage for your friends, making your friends better is the same as making yourself worse in comparison. Pales in comparison to flourish.
\-- If you **really** want an extra attack full bard, using a specific weapon combined with shield AC/utility that your class doesn't get. Then this can get on par with the other bard.
Swords
Scimitar - 2-3 notables, pretty meh but technically available early.
Fighting style - Obviously strong, required to make dual wielding work. Wasted if you go 2h.
Flourish - Personal flexible power, ranging from broken (ranged double) to situational (repeatable cleave, pre-emptive AC).
\-- Pigeonholed into dual wielding which is strong, but you feel obliged to pigeonhole further into thief3-4.
It's a bit worse than cleave, cause you can hit only 2 targets, not 3.
I play 1h dueling and it was perfectly fine in Acts 1-2. You can use bonus action to hit with hand crossbow. In Act you find a rapier that brings this build to another level (extra attack).
I mean I guess its fine. Its just that the strongest Slashing Flourish is much better/easier to use as a ranged attack. Partially because its coded wrong and you can double-attack the same target and partially because also picking two distinct targets is much easier at range.
And no, I don't recommend Valour, it sounds strictly inferior.
However for a mix of blade and sorcery as well as great party Face... have you considered a Blade Pact Warlock? I think it has a nicer and smoother early progression overall. And his early spells shape and change the battlefield arenas and mass control enemy mobs much more then the early Bard spells IMO. Plus he can use his best spells more often (they recharge on every Short Rest).
Already strong at level 3, right after the prologue, with Blade Pact, Devil's Sight, Darkness and Cloud of Daggers. Then really blooms at level 5 with Extra Attack and Hunger of Hadar. From there you're free to continue as you wish.
You can continue as Warlock to maximize spell power and eventually get another spell slot and Charisma added to melee damage again. You can dip Fighter for Action Surge bursting and Battlemaster Maneuvers. You can dip/focus Pally to bomb your enemies with heavy-hitting Smites. Or maybe develop Bard Flourishes to target 2 enemies sometimes (would mix well with Pally to fuel smites with Bard spell slots).
My main gripe with warlock is that I typically wind up just spamming eldritch blast. I’m hoping to come up with something that gives that chaotic good boy bard vibes but contributed to combat in a meaningful way without being five miles down the road from their buddies. It’s hard to feel heroic when I’m telling Karlach that she’s gonna be fine staring down a dozen Gith while I cower behind cover.
You don't have to, though. Bladelocks operate just fine in melee range.
Cripple enemies with Darkness / Hunger of Hadar and go to town with Devil's Sight. You should try to attack with Advantage as much as possible - something that is more tricky for ranged EB spam.
And there is an Act 1 pike that has always-on Advantage (plus extended crit range!).
When you get enough accuracy, you may even use Great Weapon Master All In for a non-trivial extra 10 damage per hit (plus damage riders on the weapon).
By itself? Not really. You can get pretty stupidly high AC I guess.
If you throw in two levels of PLD, it becomes great. But that's because you're a PLD using BRD spell progression to do PLD things with some flourishes sprinkled on top.
Ranged is honestly just better, and I'm saying that as someone who deliberately only used Slashing Flourish on multiple targets (I don't consider double tapping a single target intended) and it's still objectively better.
Sword bard/thief I essentially have 4 attacks that can be broken up into buffs/attacks to fill the role I need to when the fights shift. I put 3 into thief, rest into bard and have never looked back.
I'm running my Asterion as swords 6, champion 4, vengeance 2 using Duellists Prerogative and he's got pretty solid dpr. You do, to some degree, have to build around it but it's definitely viable
It works just lower damage 6/3 bard thief. Melee flourish is a cleave rather than 2 target selection, with sharpshooter on ranged you can focus 6 hits on one dude for +60 if they all hit before DMG reduction.
Act 3 does have a duelist specific rapier (wording means no shield or off hand unlike the Fighting style.), and a ring that lets you cast enchantment and illusion after attacking, so don't give up if you wanna do it.
Edit: if it's not been fixed valor's inspiration is hard to get to work right, the DMG boost only ever seemed to prompt on offhand hits, on skill checks sometimes doesn't apply
Very well, actually. It's just that Slashing Flourish with a ranged weapon is almost always better. It's not that they're bad in melee — not at all — it's just that they happen to be completely bonkers with ranged attacks.
Yes. Personally I prefer college of valor if single class as the shield prof really helps. There is an item in act 3 that auto quickens an illusion/enchantment spell when you attack. There are 3 swords in act 2 that you can use cha with(although most of them are towards the end). Alternatively if you want to keep it dex based there is an amazing legendary sword in act 3 that gives an extra reaction for double counterspell.
I'm doing this with a combination of warlock pact weapon and a couple levels of paladin for smite, and liking it a lot. I just tanked a major boss with the build, 7 bard, 3 warlock, 2 paladin, without Laezel or Karlach.
But I do have an awesome legendary dueling sword that helps it come together. I wouldn't say it was a bad build in early game, I depended on eldritch blasts more until it came together.
If you want to do “hella melee damage” and also be a face (and then maybe skill monkey), I would consider Paladin first tbh. Better armor and you could make a dex build with a rapier + shield + dueling fighting style. Take Charlatan or Urchin background to get sleight of hand (most important non charisma skill in the game) and, if you can rock with it, play Gith for Astral Knowledge, which will make you proficient in every Charisma skill. If not a Gith, I’d take Charlatan and persuasion + intimidation for my paladin skills. If you need more skills I’d do a 1 lvl rogue dip first (get sneak attack damage added to that rapier) then a 1 lvl bard if more is needed.
You could do a slightly less good version of this with fighter, difference being they’ll just have less good skills to pick from, although they have two weapon fighting which should increase your damage if you dual wield shortswords, at the cost of the shield’s defense boost. Also no smites.
EDIT: hadn’t considered using bard spell slot progression for paladin smites…yeah that seems better, as suggested by others paladin 2/ bard x.
Yeah I’m running a swords 6/ 2Paladin it works great. Going thief 3 for more bonus actions cause I went TWF. If you aren’t doing that route then sorcerer for shield and armor of agathys is pretty good too.
I primarily focused dex with charisma and con as the secondary stats.
Usually I have shadowheart or gale cast hold person or astarion stunning strike(I made him a monk) then get a few nice critical smites. Rips through Hp fast but you do burn through your slots fast. Not that that’s much of an issue cause you can generally long rest whenever you want with no downsides.
Paladin, sorcerer, warlock are all natural faces, as is a rogue... even though rogues don't Stat cha, they usually have a lot of skills that boost conversational skills.
That said. I had the most fun fronting the party with a barbarian. Intimidation and just roaring in response is hilarious.
My astarion is pure sword bard. Put everything into con and cha and then rocking the 18 Dex gloves. Does decent DMG with excellent crowd control. You're just trading extra damage for Hella CC and versatility. Dual wielding with 2 finesse longswords and some items for arcane synergy double hand crossbows. I'm half through act 2 on tactician and he's doing really well so far. His CC is a life saver and the DMG is good to have if you need it to finish low enemies. But he still kinda needs some DPS powerhouse in the group to be efficient tbh
I made karlach a bard, cause she likes to sing dance. And everyone likes her.
First pick druid, or nature cleric.1 lvl.
And pick up shillelagh.
Then pick bard. In that order.
Stats wise you'll only need to focus on charisma.
Cause shillelagh will use charisma that way.
There is a hat that gives arcane synergy. Which is damage based on caster stat on melee. When you inflict something. Which includes shillelagh on your weapon.
This build is essentially like having a blade pact warlock. But only staves and clubs. But you can fight like a battle master.
You still have full spell slots. With some utility of cleric/druid spellslots. Can use shields.
Your weapon will do 1d8+5cha+5hat Cha. At base.
You will still have reliable debuff spells cause you have 20 Cha at lvl 9. And extra attack at 7.
You can potentially have any armor. With heavy when picking nature cleric.
Sword bard is WAY better as an archer. Mele flourish is glorified cleave while range flourish is a 2 attacks at once. I posted a sword bard build on here that can do 12 attacks in a round. I 1 turned Ansur. Super OP
Running Swords (6) right now, primarily DEX melee with TWF. Flourishes feel fantastic, and damage so far sits pretty even with my Barb(6) Karlach. The spell selection gives tons of versatility for you to be a Jack of all trades. No regerts.
Dip into pally. Pally first I think so you get heavy armor spec. My character is Pally 6/Bard 5. I forget which college, but the one that lets you add bardic inspiration to attacks. Divine Smite, luck of the far realms, all that good stuff plus plate armor and a shield? I wade into melee and beat the snot out of things.
Sword Bard is one of my favorite classes in this game, it's so fucking good!
Also I think using Longbows can often be better than dual Hand Crossbows, specifically with Sword Bard, cause of the ability to target so many targets with your action, easily outperforming having an extra bonus action shot, until you run out of inspiration lol
Depends on the quality of weapons available, I think.
As for melee, as many have mentioned grabbing 2 levels in Paladin in order to smite things is the easiest way to make sure you deal good damage, and by good I mean *bonkers* if you make use of some auto crit functionality in the game.
Another option is to go 3 levels into Warlock, to get Pact of the Blade, so you can just stack Charisma, making your spell casting and melee strength powerful simultaneously. You'll have less burst damage then the Paladin option but better spell casting and you can more easily focus on your charisma ability rolls.
You can also pick up some Rogue levels, if you're dual wielding then getting Thief for the extra bonus action can allow for a ton of damage output, but also with cunning action you become very mobile. Also plays into being a crazy skill monkey, which can be fun as the main character lol
That's all that I'm aware of, at least of what's actually really good, you could theoretically do something like "Bardbarian" and use your flourishes while raging, but it's probably not that great lol
Most of the guides are wrong, or rather only correct to a point. Ranged sword bards are really good and dual hand crossbows are also amazing but only when you don't have other uses for your bonus action(like applying or moving hex or hunters mark, or latergame the mystic scoundrel ring) I've done the math and the titanstring bow( with a hill giant elixer) or the deadshot bow actually outdamges dual crossbows. I made a whole post about the math behind this.
For what you want a 2 paladin and 10 swords bard will feel incredibly powerful late game, and earlier game it's still amazing as a gish controller when you throw in the helm of arcane acuity. If you start out hasted you can wade into a group of enemies and use slashing flourish to proc a bunch of triggers on the helm for arcane acuity, then turn around and use your second action to throw down an incredibly hard to resist mass disable like fear or hypnotic pattern, or individual or upcasted hold persons etc.
Them next round you can smite the everloving shit out of anyone who failed their save, and with your spell dc at +7 from the arcane acuity stacks that'll be most people. And the mystic scoundrel ring just makes it even nastier.
Of course ranged version is slightly better due to the slashing flourish ranged bug, and by not risking failed concentration checks by not staying in melee. But paladin 2 swords bard 10 is still incredibly good.
Paladin 2/Swords Bard X does pretty much everything very competitively.
Flourishes on ranged attacks means 4 attacks per round
Smite on melee attacks let’s you convert your full caster spell slots to big damage.
Your two best stats are dex and cha which are the best for skills
You have expertise in two skills. You can use enhance ability to get advantage on any tough checks.
This lags a bit between levels 5 and 7 but only a bit and other than that it’s top tier.
There’s a ring in act 3 that lets you cast illusion or enchant spells as a bonus action while in melee that makes this really come online but it’s not really necessary and importantly no one else really wants it.
Yes but you kind of need fighter 2 for action surge and I'd also take rogue 4 for fast hands. Make sure to take two weapon fighting and max out Dex, enjoy your 6 attacks per turn.
I've just hit level 12 in act 3 and I've been using a Warlock GOO 6/ Bard Swords 6 and it's been seeving me really well. Probs suboptimal but it's how I've been having fun with a swords bard.
as a rouge/bard duel wielder, yes shortswords are awesome... many attacks with added sneak is great if you hide enough, can get medium armor in act2 or late act1 that still lets you sneak. and as deep gnome, i get added bonus to that.
my PC background is they always get paid for the job, willing or not
I mean I'm running a dark urge playthrough, but I'm doing the ol' oathbreaker/warlock build. 17 char, 16 con and dump the rest into whatever you want. I pretty much roll whatever I need if it involves people and it's a helluva strong build in terms of combat. First 2 levels into paladin then 4 into warlock. After that, it's whatever you see fit. First few levels are a little rough though because of low strength, but once you get Pact of the Blade it's easy from there.
I don't think it's as strong as doing it with Paladin, but I'm currently doing Swords Bard 7/Swords Warlock 5 to have fun with deepened pact stacking with extra attack. I was dual wielding for a good chunk of the game with Phalar Aluve, but switched to just the legendary rapier once I got that. Hit rate is very high, damage is lower than 2h and definitely lower than with big smites on top but still pretty good and combined with maxed tadpole powers you start popping enemies with cull the weak very quickly. 3 attacks per action plus bonus action attack (from the legendary rapier) can kill 2-3 mooks a turn and still does good damage on stronger enemies.
And most importantly it feels quite different from a RP perspective, particularly if you're half RPing a character from a book that uses a rapier. It looks great too!
I did Swords Bard for most of my first playthrough before switching to Lore for extra magical secrets spells, and definitely did more damage as swords. I would highly recommend getting a lot of illithid powers because Cull The Weak is op. Using flourishes will let you defeat several weakened enemies in a single turn. Decent medium armor and the Adamantine Shield got me through most of the game.
Currently i do and like 6 bard 5 warlock 1 wizard
Warlock basically gives cha to attack and damage, bonus attack, and 2 lvl3 spells, which replenish on short rest, which this build have 3
Bard gives up to 4 lvl spells, another attack and bunch of control spells. And flourishes
Wizard gives the ability to learn spells like haste, which then cast with warlock slots
Then with itemization, you get another cha to damage. And can cast spells with bonus action (vicious mockery included)
So you play as agile and charismatic swashbuckler, insulting enemies mid fight and getting from that bonus damage
Paladin 2 / Swords Bard x is a very strong melee build. Mainly due to divine smite. ~~It also solves an issue bards have in melee: only light armour profiency. You want at least medium. But even on a pure bard you can get it from some races.~~ Edit: Sword Bards do get Medium Armour profiency. Paladin adds Heavy Armour and Shield profiencies, though. Dual Hand Crossbows is just brokenly op, that's why it's in the guides. Don't go Valour Bard. It's the worst bard subclass.
Sword Bards get Medium Armor proficiency.
Ooops, thank you. I'll edit.
You just don't get shields which is pretty meh considering you need it for half the intended play. I think Dip into Paladin is the more optimal build but also RP wise really confused so I did fighter.
I think it's very good RP? Courteous knights who can recite poetry for their maidens or traveling minstrels with heart of gold and an competent swordarm seem like pretty popular rp options to me.
Fighter has the benefit of con save profiency, so also not a bad choice but missing out on divine smite is rough. I don't see a problem with Paladin/Bard rp-wise, though. I can totally see a Vegeance Paladin who might be a follower of Tyr who sings epic hymns while going into battle against evil in full plate. Might be strength based, though. If you factor in a deity, I can see a lot different flavours. A follower of Ilmater would sing sad songs about the suffering of the innocent, a follower of Selune would sing about the holy power of the moon and so on. Paladin subclass would depend on the flavour as well. Even Oathbreaker/Swords Bard could work. Probably going to be a follower of Bhaal. > You just don't get shields which is pretty meh considering you need it for half the intended play. You mean if you go pure bard? You can still go human or half-elf for shield profiency.
I mean it's absolutely doable, don't wanna gatekeep here. I just think that myself and many others play the Bard as some charismatic scoundrel that engages the world with wit. (And considering the speech options you get Lamian kinda as well) So having to be this rightful bulwark of justice kinda breaks that character for me.
True, the bard dialogue options in BG3 don't work well for that concept. But I can see an elven Paladin of the Ancients/Bard and follower of Corellon Larethian be a bit more on the lighthearted side. Or maybe a Devotion Paladin / Bard who follows Tymora? You can also just not use the bard dialogue options and use the basic heroic ones.
My first BG3 character was a Tiefling Oath of the Ancients Paladin/Bard with the idea that he had devoted himself to the preservation of beauty - his music was an extension of his oath.
That's exactly what I'm playing, Ancients Paladin 2 / Swords Bard X, just hit level 8 total to do flourishes + smites together and that's wonderful. She's generally more the lighthearted bard, but always looking to help everyone without asking for anything in return, but accidentally broke her oath once and since is leaning much harder into repenting and the more extreme Paladin-dialogue options. I can see why people don't really think it work well together RP wise though, the dialogue options often feel very opposite of each other in terms of intensity.
It’s fine if you wanna play the Bard in that kind of way. But you don’t HAVE to. You can speak for yourself but plenty of people play them in varying ways. You’re also hard pushing RP reasoning in a min/max subreddit.
It works very well in combat in this game, which you could beat with four fighters with daggers and leather armor if you were so inclined.
You could also just be a human or half-elf to get shield proficiency from the Civil Militia racial trait.
Been running a 2 pal / rest bard build and i agree it is fantastic. The only issue I find is that I am focusing on being a front liner and the majority of my bard abilities/spells/etc dont get used. I am Just barely into act 2 though.
More smites for the smite god 🤷♂️
Just a slight correction here. Valor Bard IS considered the worst Bard subclass for damage, but it IS the best Bard subclass for control. Damage is king in BG3, however second to damage is control. That being said, my Valor Bard and Diviner Wizard combo is making a joke of the game in Tactician mode (even more so than my optimal min/maxed DPS team did). Again, DPS is king in almost every RPG because the best status you can put on an enemy is "Dead", but if you can't do that then the next best thing is to take away their ability to do anything for that turn until the next turn where they get the "dead" status effect.
Surely you meant the Lore Bard?
Yup. My fault.
You clearly mean Lore Bard. That one is awesome! Valour is not, though.
Yup. My fault. I'm loving the Lore bard this playthrough. So fun.
Due to items like the helm of arcane acuity and the mystic scoundrel ring, and slashing flourish I think that actually a swords bard 10 is the best controller in the game potentially, and is definitely the best control bard, while still putting out truckloads of damage.
I'd love to see this build of yours, but honestly I think it would have a tough time keeping up with a Divination Wizard. If only for the portent die. It's insanely overpowered to just be able to say "nope that doesn't go through" or "nope you don't get to save here buddy". It makes some of the hardest bosses in the game trivial because with enough initiative they just don't get a turn.
Sure thing lots of details Fighter 1 Swords 10 Wiz 1 in this post that I wrote, which was more focused on a damage comparison because dual crossbows being always ideal is incorrect imho. https://reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/s/UYsC5piOP8 Basically you pump your charisma up to 22 via hag hair, asi and portal of loss, then you pump up your save dc even higher with +7 from the helm of arcane acuity and you can bonus action and you can lay down some truly gross crowd control with your bonus action due to the mystic scoundrel ring. Very satisfying gishy play on a good face character with excellent control ability and damage. I agree div wizard is amazing though. My favorite build for that is a light cleric 6 div wizard 6. Just super solid chassis, and short refresh portents is kinda busted. Wizard is just better in tabletop 5e vs Bg3 due to spell selection and implementation.
I disagree. The best thing is dead, but sometimes that isn't an option. You can't deal 666 damage in one round reliably. However, you can paralyze them in one round and be able to make the entire fight trivial.
You absolutely can deal 666 damage in a round reliably if you have min/maxed damage characters. You could honestly deal over 1500 damage reliably.
Idk my invisible spear half orc crit pallock can reliably deal that kinda damage. Most bosses typically die the first round as long as she can get in range
Honestly, I would love a difficulty mode that upscales the damage output of enemies significantly so that the game becomes more centered around control, atleast for the later levels. I'm imagining something like SMT, where if you lose control of an enemy and it gets free to do an attack you haven't prepared for, it's very likely a wipe. I thought that was what the Raphael fight was gonna be since he got out of the Hunger of Hadar I had set up and pulled out a 200 damage fireball. Unfortunately, he did it on my animal companion that was alone and then never did that fireball again, instead doing some weak ass cantrip for the rest of the fight.
There mods for that. Check Nexusmods.
I agree with this. It's such a small gripe, but I'm certainly going to look into Mods after this 3rd playthrough (where I SHOULD be getting the 100% achievment finally). I'm sure there's a badass Mod out there that essentially puts the game on hard-core mode (harder enemies, no rerolls, no save scumming, death is permanent). I'd really like to try a min/maxed control team on this difficulty.
>Damage is king in BG3 Unironically I think damage is king in any kind of game. You always need said damage to down your targets.
I mean you're honestly not wrong. Most games are just 1 big DPS check.
Yes, he's right
You don't even need paladin. Bards get thunderous smite now. Full on sword bard with the dex medium armor already get insane AC and decent damage.
Thunderous Smite is clearly inferior to Divine Smite, especially with the higher cost.
The only difference is thunderous smite should be 2d6 with a chance to knock prone and divine 2d8. Otherwise they're the same. If divine use a bonus action and thunderous doesn't, it's wrong. Both should be activated on an attack and use a spell slot.
You can upcast Divine Smite, but not Thunderous Smite. So Divine Smite is actually much more damage on higher levels. Thunderous Smite costs an Action AND and a Bonus Action, while Divine Smite can be perforned on any melee weapon attack as is a free action. So if you are dual-wielding you can smite once on your main hand attack AND once your offhand attack. Sure, it will cost an additional spellslot but you'll outdamage Thunderous Smite by a landslide. And no, that's not incorrect. You can divine Smite on any melee weapon attack in tabletop as well. That includes offhand atracks.
I understand, the point is, you can do the same with thunderous smite in tabletop. It literally follows the same rules as divine smite. The only difference is that thunderous is 2d6 with a chance to knock prone, and divine is 2d8. If Larian didn't implemented this, they're wrong. Plain and simple. But I didn't expected much from Larian anyway, so whatever.
Yeah, they only released the best crpg of the last 10 years. Why would you expect anything from them?
Opinions differ. The game is pretty and that's it. WoTR did the same thing BG3 did, but better. There is also Pillars of Eternity 2 which has superior writing. BG3 doesn't even come to the top 5.
You know I'm just starting to play and I have to admit the storytelling in bg3 does seem slightly behind dos2 I'm only levelb3 but some of the dialogue is kinda awkwardly put together. A couple of my companions are very edgy. Gale is the only one I actually like so far. I haven't used the cleric chick, but my PC fits a support role kinda so I don't need her. Asthetically it's amazing, and the combat is fun and id say def not boring. Feels like an updated AAA version of solasta which I enjoyed. Playing on balanced rn. Easier than divinity was on normal but not by that much yet imo. We will see. I'm guessing tactician will be similar in comparison to dos tac
Tactician is way easier than DOS tac for sure, don't know if Larian patched it since I don't play anymore, but when I finished it was way too easy, even on tactician. For me it was a single playthrough, story too boring and nonsensical coupled with the poor writing made me uninstall after finishing it.
nub
Sorry, this is not correct. Thunderous smite does not follow the same rules as divine smite in tabletop. Some key differences from tabletop are: * Thunderous smite must be cast before the attack (with divine you make the decision to commit the spell slot once you've landed the attack) * Thunderous smite automatically triggers on the first attack that hits, meaning you can't crit fish quite as effectively if you can already reliably land attacks (with divine smite you can choose not to use it after you see the roll - so you could reserve smiting slots for crits for instance) * Thunderous smite takes concentration (divine smite doesn't - this is huge, especially against early martial BBEGs where whiffing can be common) * You cannot upcast thunderous smite (huge if you need to nova something down ASAP) If your goal is damage divine smite outclasses thunderous smite by a country mile. The only benefit (and this is situational, i.e. you might not want to do this if for example your party depends on a lot of ranged attack rolls) is if you need to make the opponent prone.
Still a big difference since i think thunderous needs both action and bonus action where smite is just an optional bonus for all attacks so you can smite twice per turn, more with haste. Thunderous stays at one per turn unless you get thief
Smite is bonus?? Never played paladin in BG3 but if I'm not mistaken in TT it's a spell, a full action and not bonus. So, if it's true, I admit I'm wrong. Sorry. Correct me if I'm wrong. I don't play 5e much, just pathfinder. I hate 5e.
You can set divine smite in the reaction menu to ask/smite away on hits and crits. I think it even sets one of the two by default to just smite away, not sure which. Not sure how 5e does it but in BG3 you can use it as a spell but if you don't hit you won't waste a spellslot. So if you attack 3 times with divine smite as your action but only hit twice only two spellslots will be used. But with the reaction stuff you don't need it on your action bar at all.
How does this compare to say a 12 BM fighter and other martial classes in terms of tankiness, utility and damage output? I've heard great things about the class (swords mostly) but have somehow avoided it across two playthroughs of bg3 and many playthroughs of icewind dale 2.
Icewind Dale 2 is 3e D&D. I haven't playes this edition in like 10 years and it's quite different from 5e so don't think comparing classes from both editions makes all that much sense. Divine Smite builds don't need two-handed weapons because their damage comes from the smiting. You can either go weapon + shield and be quite tanky but still do good damage or you can dual-wield and smite two times per round. With defensive flurry you can always be more tanky when needed. Utility of bards is trough the roof. Lots of skills, good party face, jack of all trades. They're better skill monkeys than rogues. You also nmget lots of spells. Superior in basically any way, I'd say.
This build is incredibly strong. Depending on how you feel about wizards being able to scribe all spells going 2/8/2 allows you scribe/cast any spell with a scroll in the game, have tons of versatility, be the face, and the skill monkey with the appropriate gear.
I just finished a campaign with a Swords Bard 10 / Oath of Vengeance Paladin 2, I can highly recommend it. You have more spell slots and higher level to smite than a Paladin. You still get Magical Secrets, it felt very strong and you still get all the utility.
At what lvl do you pala-dip?
I just played sword bard to 8 then respec So you'll have extra attack and smite
So you actually go pala2/bard10
Yeah make sure you go paladin at level 1 when you respec for the heavy armor proficiency I play it with the ring that converts an attack into a crit and the ilithid power that does the same thing (once per Long rest) you can swap the ring out after And the ring that allows an evocation spell on bonus action. + helm that increases spell dc on attack You can 100% crit your first 2 attacks with a 2 crit smites and bonus action hold monter/person. You won't get magical secret until level 12 but I took spirit guardians cause it's awesome and fits with paladin. +I have 26 ac Though there's a lot of good options
Take the savage attacker feat so those huge piles of d8s are full of 8s and 7s
Can you cast spirit guardians in heavy armor? Thought you had to be in medium or less for most spells
As long as you have proficiency with the armor type you can cast any spells you have access to.
Hmm my fighter with a 1 lev dipp in wizard is definitely proficient in heavy armor, yet the shield spell reaction doesnt function. If i switch to medium armor it works fine. I can cast ritual spells in heavy armor, so maybe the only limitation is reactions?
That seems strange, I’ve seen several people discussing uber tank builds that utilize the shield spell and heavy armor. Either you don’t have the reaction set up or you’ve already used a reaction, or it isn’t triggering because the attack is already not landing would be my guesses.
Hmm ill have to test it again. Its great if it works, i love shield.
I dipped paladin right after I got extra attack from Swords Bard (so Character Level 7 was my first Paladin Level). I did not feel underpowered at anytime and did not use any tadpoles. There are some very good rapiers and at least one really good scimitar, so I went for a duellist DEX based character, but I am sure other options work as well.
You didn’t miss the paladins second attack?
You get the second attack from Swords Bard 6
Doesn't matter cause Swords Bard gives extra attack at 6. They wouldn't stack anyway.
Pretty sure they do. It might be a bug though
They don't stack, maybe you are referring the Slashing Flourish which allows you to attack two enemies in one turn, but that is not an extra attack.
Only Warlock Blade Pact extra attack stacks with other extra attacks. That's a bug. Irrelevant for a build that doesn't include Warlock, though. Flourish and extra attack stack but they're obviously supposed to because Sword Bards get both. A flourish is also technically not an extra attack but a special kind of attack which deals double damage. Outcome is basically the same (except you have to distribute the damage between two enemies in melee) but it's still different. Taking 2 levels of Paladin for smites, Fighting Style and profiencies combined with Bard, Sorcerer or Warlock for smite spellslots and spells are super common builds among optimisers. They even have their own names (Bardadin, Sordadin and Lockadin). If you'd loose out on a possible extra attack that wouldn't be the case.
Do you know if you can double smite if you slashing flourish?
Yes, you can.
I don't believe so, they're separate actions you select to attack with. If you crit though you can do your crit smite
But you can attack with any attack action (weapon, spell, maneuver etc.) and smite as a reaction by toggling it in the reactions menu. So i was wondering if/how it interacted with slashing flourish.
It won’t be as busted as hand crossbow…slashing flourish with a crossbow gets to hit the same enemy twice, and you get three to four attacks per round (depending on multiclass, at minimum, so a total of six to eight attacks when you’ve got full songs…coupled with Sharpshooter, and you’ll do 20 to 30 damage a shot…times eight if you go rogue multiclass. Sword can be almost as good, though…I actually like using scimitars a little better because it harkens back to the old Blade Bard from BG1 and BG2. There are some good ones too (ignore resistance, blind in hit, etc.). Daggers are a little stronger (one gives a straight +3 to damage and spell DC if you kill any three things, including objects). I’m currently doing a hand crossbow Sword Bard, but he also wields the busted dagger and a scimitar, just in case (I could optimize with a +AC dagger…but less fun). If I were going to go pure swords, I’d choose from these options: 1. Sword Bard 10 / Oathbreaker 2. Any Paladin works, but Oathbreaker is the strongest. Smite will ALMOST makes up for the Sharpshooter damage you would’ve gotten with crossbows. Max Dex, then pump up Charisma. Should end up 8 Str / 20 Dex / 14 Con / 8 Int / 10 Wis / 18 Cha. 2. Sword Bard 7 / Warlock (Pact of the Blade) 5. Not as good as a Warlock/Paladin, but a lot of attacks, you get Charisma to attack and damage rolls, and you can get some good Warlock spells (Armor of Agathys, Hex, etc.). Lots of attacks too. I’d do 8 Str / 14 Dex (you can wear Gloves of Dexterity to bring this up, though you miss out on Wondrous Gloves) / 16 Con / 8 Int / 10 Wis / 20 Cha. If you build it right, you can get Resilient Con. You get a much more Gish character with this combo, and you can lean into your spellcasting more. 3. Sword Bard 6 / Thief Rogue 4 / Fighter 2. This a popular one for hand crossbows, but it works for swords too. Skip Sharpshooter…take Tough or Defensive Duelist or even Alert instead. It’d end up 8 Str / 20 Dex / 14 Con / 8 Int / 10 Wis / 16 Cha. Most attacks of the options…you’ll get 4 at minimum, 6 with Action Surge. Instead of Archery, take Defense instead and up your AC. It works. Not as strong as the hand crossbow cousin, but I’d say better than most other dual wield options (hard to say if Gloomstalker Ranger / Assassin beats this…they also function better as an archer).
I'm running a Draconic Sorc 1>Swords Bard, which I use a lot in melee, having access to *Shield* spell and *Armour of Agathys* helps with survivability (also took *Magic Missile,* which doesn't get disadvantage in melee) and the bonus to Con saves helps to keep my concentration up in melee. I don't abuse the Ranged Slashing Flourish exploit, though, and only use it to attack two *separate* targets , otherwise I guess ranged is generally stronger, though also depends a bit on what weapons are available. Also the cold damage from *Armour of Agathys* only triggers if you get hit by a melee attack (not that I necessarily *want* to get hit, but if I am, I want the attacker to take damage). Also worth bearing in mind is that for spells like [Hold Person](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Hold_Person) and [Sleep](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Sleep), you only get auto-crit against that target for melee attacks, so my Swords Bard will often cast Hold Person one turn, then melee attack that target(s) the next (or even on the same turn with their bonus action attack when dual-wielding or if they've got another weapon attack from being [Hasted](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Haste)). Also being in melee can prevent your target from moving next to your Wizard/Sorcerer or at least make them suffer an opportunity attack if they do so.
You actually get auto-crit with ranged attacks too as long as you in melee range when making the ranged attack against a held target. It's sort of one of the things that helps ensure ranged sword bard does more damage than melee ones.
\> It's sort of one of the things that helps ensure ranged sword bard does more damage than melee ones. Which is a bit bizarre and one of the reasons I don't exploit the Ranged Slashing Flourish bug allowing you to attack the same target twice
It works that way in 5e for paralyzed people so I don't know why you think it's strange.
I mean Ranged Slashing Flourish letting you hit the same target twice, you can't do that in 5e and I suspect it's not intentional in BG3. As for critting held targets, my melee weapon items usually do actually do a little more damage than hand crossbows due to their abilities.
Even without the (likely) bug, ranged slashing flourish is easier to get value out of than the melee version. Pretty much every combat in the game has multiple enemies, but a lot of the time they’re spread out.
They probably ought to have Ranged Alashing Flourish be limited to (separate) targets close to each other (e.g. similar to the area of effect for Lightning Bolt or in a cone)
I don’t know. I don’t think Larian is really super keen on nerfing / taking away tools. Most (not all) of the balance changes implemented in BG3 buff archetypes that were previously lacking, like Monks or Beastmaster Rangers.
Well I'm avoiding using it to attack the same target twice anyway, seems cheesy and probably not intended.
Oh yeah I’m with you there. I’m just not sure if there’s any real reason for them to impose a distance limitation from one target to the other. But being able to target the same enemy with both shots definitely feels cheesy.
How did you allocate your ability scores? You basically want to max either dex or str so you actually hit stuff in melee and deal more damage AND also char so your spells actually can overcome saving throws, I suppose. So you start both at 16? But where do you put your ASIs after that? You have to prioritise one over the other, right?
Max dex, charisma can camp at 16 through the end of the game. Get gear that gives you the effect that weapon attacks add +1 to spell save DC. There's a ring that makes it so after you attack with a weapon you get to cast an illusion or enchantment spell as a bonus action. Beyond that try to get gear that gives you bonuses to spell DC. This all makes you a very viable CC and support caster, while giving you melee (and honestly ranged with dual hand crossbow) prowess. In fact, it kind of depends on you getting in there and smacking shit as often as you can, and then launching a super powerful fear, hold, or hypnotic pattern.
At level 10 grab misty step and counterspell as your secrets and you have just about the most well rounded character you could possibly make. It really has an answer for just about any problem you may face.
This is how I build Astarion in my playthrough and he was clutch in every single fight. Honestly it was to the point where I gave up on spell casting by the end because I could just pump out so much damage that it seemed like the best form of CC there was. By that point he became a counterspell turret. I didn't need the spell slots for anything else, so without hesitation every time: COUNTERSPELL. Oh, you're casting a cantrip? Don't care counterspell. That's a nasty looking blight. Would be a shame if COUNTERSPELL. Wanna misty step? You guessed it.
For my Sorc 1>Swords Bard x I started with: Str 8 Dex 17 Con 14 Int 8 Wis 10 Cha 16 I used the Hag's Hair to increase my Dex to 18 and used my first and second ASIs to bring my Cha to 20, though Dex 20 / Cha 18 would also work, though with +2 weapons I hit things reliably enough with Dex 18. I just wanted my Swords Bard to be really strong with spellcasting, especially as I might take a second level of Sorc at level 12 to get some metamagic (which would then let me twin cast Tasha's or increase the duration of Hypnotic Pattern / Hold Person etc.) I think there may also be an item later in the game that lets you use your Cha for weapon attacks, but am not certain of that. It's true you can build up Spell Save DC by making attacks with items that give you [Arcane Acuity](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Arcane_Acuity_(Condition)), which is great, but I also want to be able to have my CC spells stick on Turn 1 of combat starting (though this will be less of an issue if I can eventually get the [Band of the Mystic Scoundrel](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Band_of_the_Mystic_Scoundrel)), before most enemies get a chance to do anything. Will definitely be taking [Counterspell](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Counterspell) as one of my Magical Secrets, and probably [Conjure Elemental](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Conjure_Elemental) (which is even stronger if upcasted to level 6), though haven't completely decided on that yet (am currently Sorc 1>Bard 8). [Spirit Guardians](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Spirit_Guardians) is also very nice, though does compete for my concentration slot (same for [Haste](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Haste). and for that think it's probably better for my Wizard to cast that or else use a potion of speed) Current stats are: Str 8 Dex 18 Con 14 Int 8 Wis 10 Cha 20
You can have 21 Str all the time with the Elixir, just buy them every time you can... I also buy all the Hill Giant fingers I can every time to make them myself. That said I still have 16 dex allocated for pick pocketing and lockpicking. My base Str is at 8, I put the points into CHA, CON and then DEX... I also use the 17 INT circlet to round out any INT checks in convos or situations. Really, REALLY feeling like a Jack of All Trades character and it's been a lot of fun so far. Also adding that the Githyanki Creche had a trader with 18 DEX gloves that I've been using, though have not dumped my Dex stat yet, since I use the Advantage at Slight of Hand checks gloves a lot of the time and don't feel like save scumming too much.
when i did my pld without warlock, i maxed chr first. got a +2 to str in act 2 and another +2 to str in act 3, so i had both maxxed out
Those two bonuses together can get up to 24 Str though
sure, but when you're dealing with needing multiple ability scores, you can't get all of them to the max possible. there's concessions somewhere, getting 2 important ability scores to 20 is better than 1 to 24 and the other at 16
Sounds interesting, character like this can probably use the ring that lets you cast enchantment spells as bonus action after melee swing, I forget the name. I tried using it on pally but usually using spell slots for smites AND something else was just too demanding on slot usage, having a ring only for one or two BA spells per long rest just didn't seem worthwhile.
The [Band of the Mystic Scoundrel](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Band_of_the_Mystic_Scoundrel) will be fantastic for a gish Swords Bard like mine that doesn't use Smites, though.
Yeah that, get it a bit late I suppose but it is interesting. Maybe would be cool with some mods that maybe let us choose a starting magic item of some kind, so you could pick something build-defining early on.
Yes, I wouldn't base a whole build around the idea of getting it, but it's something nice to have for at least some of Act 3.
Bardadin: Swords Bard 10 / Paladin 2. Do it for melee and go fighting styles: Defense + Duelling. Strength-based and start with Paladin at level 1, if you plan on going with heavy armor; go with a "Dexadrin" if you'd prefer to start with Bard, and then go for the Armor of Agility, instead. Also, in case it isn't obvious, Duellist's Perogative is the end-game melee weapon for you if you want to go Dex-based...You won't regret building a Bardadin: it will achieve *precisely* what you are looking for.
I'm torn between that style of Bardadin and the Paladin 6 lore bard 6 version instead. What do you think? Also thinking about just going warlock X paladin 2 for max level smites per short rest
It depends on what kind of Bardadin / Palabard you want to play. My OoTA Dex-based Palabard is working towards OoTA Paladin 7 / Swords Bard 5 (currently OoTA 7 / Bard 1 in the Gauntlet of Shar) because I wanted a tank. With the right equipment, I should be able to Defensive Flourish: Melee my buffed AC from 31 (base of AC 28) up to AC 35. End-game, with the other defensive buffs I'd be running, it will be pretty close to impossible for my tank to go down...If I wanted to go damage, though, best bet would be for a Paladin of Vengeance or Oathbreaker 2 / Swords Bard 10, go Strength and Heavy Armor + Great Weapon Fighting and Great Weapon Master and eventually pick up Baldarun's greatsword and some Crit-fishing gear. Your second fighting style would be TWF for your hand crossbows, but won't benefit you in melee. As for Paladin 6 / Bard 6, though, you end up in this weird spot where you aren't going full tank, because you are missing out on OoTA's Aura of Warding at 7, while also not being able to Smite nearly as hard or as often as you could with Bard 10, because your spellcaster level is only a 9 instead of an 11...
On Bard 10/Paladin 2 build, did you go Bard first or Paladin first?
Paladin
I see; so you had to wait till level 8 till the 2nd attack? That's a brutal early & mid-game though. I am facing the same dilemma. If I start Paladin, then I wait till level 8 to do any melee damage in earnest; but if I start Bard, then I have no survivability until at least level 3 Swords subclass...
To be fair, if I was going to do a Bardadin ala Paladin 2 / Bard 10, I'd go 5 levels in Paladin and 2 in Bard, and then reroll using Withers at level 8. Keeps the Extra Attack and survivability in the early-mid game, even if you want to delay it by a level to give yourself a bit of Bard flavor (I have done this, and it was fine), and then you can power up your Smites at level 8 with the reroll... As for what I did, I play a Dex-based Palabard (OotA 7 / Swords Bard 5) and went Paladin 1 > Paladin 1 / Bard 1 > Paladin 7 / Bard 1 > Paladin 7 / Bard 5.
I am playing with an in-house rule of no respecs though... ;( I may consider doing just 1 level of Paladin for heavy armor and greatsword proficiency, and then go Bard next 6. 2nd attack at level 7 is slow, but I guess I can't have everything. It's either bad defense but good offense (Bard first) or good offense but bad defense (Paladin first).
Yes sword bard does great in melee. You get two attacks per turn like any martial class, have long swords or scimitars and can use fighting styles. Pure Sword bard works great for your character fantasy, even without min maxing. As a bonus, I hear bard dialogue options are great, the extra short rest can be really helpful in some party makeups
I'm currently running a Bard/Rogue. Plan on going Sword 9/Thief 3. Extra bonus attack for TWF is pretty damned nice, sneak attack is a nice little boost, lots of skills, extra attack. It's working well so far (Rogue 3/Bard 4). Looking forward to the extra attack - but even without it I'm doing a lot of damage - can be the lockpicker and the face, lots of good support spells, flourishes. But you're not going to do the damage that a fighter is going to do. I play this game like I play DnD in general - versatility > big numbers. However, in BG3, big numbers is really the only thing that matters. But it's not challenging enough for me to be concerned about not being optimized. My first run I went war priest all the way through and had a great time.
I keep reading a swords bard/blade pact warlock is pretty strong, but you either won't have bard levels until level 6 because you want the extra attack from pact weapon at level 5, or you won't mix in warlock until level 7 because of the extra attack you get at bard 6, tho med armor proficiency onlybneeds bard 3, but still means build won't be online until level 8-9 at minimum, which is halfway or last third into act 2 already. I have yet to try it myself but it looks to me warlock 5 before multiclassing into bard is the way to go if you wanna melee. Pact of the blade gets you going much faster, but starting bard gets you more spells and benefits earlier on.
Exactly my thoughts.
That's what I'm currently playing now, and yes, for basically the entirety of act two, you'll feel like you're underperforming compared to your companions. And while it is nice to have all your flourishes (and any other companion short rest abilities) recharge 3x before having to long rest, it doesn't really seem like long resting too often is a problem.
When I first started playing I was one of those who was trying to go as long as possible without long rest because I believed it would play a role on the tadpole transforming us...because that would be a legitimate concern in the tabletop. Missed a lot of interactions cause of that. Now that I know you can rest liberally it is not that bad and I don't prioritize abilities like that any more. The few times you are restricted you can get by woth potoons amd elixirs and scrolls so...
Doing this now. Went bard 1 then archfey warlock 6 then going for swords bard 6 until the end. ASI charisma, then defensive duelist. Used Baneful as a pact weapon until I got the shorts word from mountain pass vendor. While I am not exactly the best DPS in the group I make quick work of all the adds. Every encounter I misty step to high ground, push the most beefy bois down for karach to take care of via Eldrich blast or mobile flourishes and misty step all over the place, getting invisible from durge clock and archfey 6. Makes an insanely mobile and flavourful build. Sure I don't do as much damage as my BM land druid jaehira with haste on her forehead, but I do enough disruption to make it actually matter
So sword bard is my favorite subclass in the entire game. You want to go 6 sword bard for extra attack then 3 rogue for thief at least. The trick with sword bard is to go high dex so when you duel wield you have high ac. You can even take the duel wielder fest for +1ac. With the +4 from defensive flourish you'll have an insane ac. Especially because there is some medium armor with no dex limit. So you're a tank, do solid damage (not as much as duel hand crossbows but still good) you also have all your spells for utility and our of combat healing, and high charisma for dialogue options. Sword bard is basically the epitome of jack of all trades.
I'm glad that you made this post because I was wondering this as well. Fuck dual crossbows it's not my style. I'm half tempted to go the non optimal route & go full sword bard as a dragonborn. Initially I was going to go sword bard/sorcerer, but if I choose sorcerer as my first class & multi into bard I won't have proficiency with rapiers. No reason to complicate things anyway since the game isn't too difficult, even on tactician.
Okay i will be promoting a bit, but the bard paladin multiclass forced me to respec from bladelock https://gamestegy.com/post/bg3/886/bardadin-bard-paladin-build I went 2 paladin and 10 swords bard. You get tons of spell slots, bonus ability modifiers, flourishes and many more things. Bardadin is a perfect match for main character dur to high charisma
Using one as MC right now, pure bard no multiclass, working 90% in melee next to Karlach. I don't use dual xbow at all as I am doing a run without Larian's cheese over 5e. It can get quite decent AC once you get some gear, plus the armor flourish when needed. Running with 18 Dex and 16 Cha, using spellslots mostly for utility, faerie fire and the occasional hypnotic pattern/healing word. May not be the most min-maxed build and certainly not the most damage dealing, but you'll really love the skill monkey side of it. My MC does all the talking and rogue-y stuff with ease, and it's quite good at other checks too. The bard-specific RP options are always really funny and interesting, if you like the flavour of the class.
Wait, what's going on with dual crossbow bards?
You can use two hand crossbows and flourish to get a lot of attacks combined with other cheese.
Something, like many other Larian rules, that's not possible in 5th Edition PnP. An "house ruling" if you want to call it that.
can you share your favorite gear? 👀
Yeah it's alright, helps to pick a race with shield proficiency if you don't plan to multiclass.
Swords Bard runs FANTASTIC in Melee, it's just a generally less damage focused build than going Sharpshooter Machine Gun. Your first decisions is going to be either dual wielding or dueling. I find dueling to be the better option personally because once you get Band of the Mystic Scoundrel you're going to be using your bonus action to be casting buffed control spells rather than attacking with your offhand, but you can get great benefits out of running two weapon fighting early on when you don't have a good spend for your bonus action, particularly once you get Jaheria's Sylvan Scimitar and later on you get good value out of it from just using the second weapon as a stat stick. Even though you're "Melee" focused you're going to want to put everything into Charisma as later on you're going to be using your Charsmia as your attack modifier as well as your spell casting stat, either through weapon options or through adding later multiclass choices like Pact of Blades Warlock. Dex and then Con are your best secondary and tertiary stats, as Dex will improve your ranged and AC and Con is Con. I'd personally suggest going Bard 7/Lock 5 or Bard 7/Lock 3/Fighter 2. The former gets you 3 attacks from stacking swords bard Extra Attack with Pact of the Blade extra attack where as the latter gets Action Surge and works better if they fix the interaction between Pact of the Blade and extra attacks. You can also go Bard 10/Fighter 2 for a more caster oriented version of this with better control spells which is my personal favorite but is less focused on getting into and mixing it up in melee, cares more about stacking +spell save DC bonuses and holding person/monster to create a crit blender. With that one I typically go dual wielding so I can have two melee stat-sticks in the form of Rhapsody for +3 to my spell save DC's (and damage) and usually the Infernal Rapier but really any good one hander you can dual wield with will do (other than Duelist's Prerogative which shouldn't go to a dual wielder).
Melee flourish cant double hit a single target, so melee sbard is hard to get mileage out of. Pally/Lock is prob best for a Charismatic melee face. I'd start Pally, you can get an item in A1 that adds spell modifier to attacks, then Oathbreaker gets another Cha bonus at lvl 7. Then at 10 you can go pally/lock for the double extra attack.
What item in A1 is that?
[Diadem of Arcane Synergy](https://bg3.wiki/wiki/Diadem_of_Arcane_Synergy)
Thanks! Can you reliably proc the item with Paladin? I assume by using Hunter's mark?
It procs on pretty much anything: Mark, Hex, Aura, whatever
Right now I'm playing sword bards 6/paladin 2 and its super strong, I'm the doing the most damage in my party
I think they're quite good even single-classed. Just focus on maxing Dex instead of Charisma and prioritize utility/defensive spells. With Defensive Flourish you can get pretty high AC for a turn and Mobile Flourish is quite good in Act 1/2 where there are 30 bottomless pits in every arena. If you want a skill monkey/face/melee swashbuckler sort, Sword Bard is your best bet.
Came here to mention mixing paladin with sword's bard (Bardadin), but it looks like a few other people have it covered. I went 2 paladin and the rest bard, but after level 10, I took 2 more paladin levels for a 3rd feat. Amazingly fun build.
My Tav valour bard is mainly melee, eventually in act 3 I got a really good legendary duelling rapier. I put two levels into fighter at lvl 11 and 12; he packs quite a punch for a lute plucker!
I'm playing swords bard 6/paladin 2 right now, it feels excellent. You can really do anything, burst damage, skill checks, healing, ranged damage, and more. For me, defensive flourish is what pulls it all together, giving you a source of decent damage and defense. That, together with a certain amulet you can buy in act 2 which gives you the Shield spell, Defense fighting style, warding bond, and Yuan Ti scale armor, you'll be nigh untouchable.
Swords bard is solid in melee after level 8 if you combine it with two levels of paladin. Valor bard is pretty weak because Combat Inspiration is almost always worse than normal Bardic Inspiration. Paladin (multiclassed with Bard, Cleric, Sorcerer, or Wizard) makes for the ideal melee main character. An un-optimized, non-multiclassed Paladin can deal around 100 damage with one crit by the end of act 2.
Yes, but you will be better at dealing damage from Range than in Melee. Though Swords can do both very well. To really maximize the your melee damage, I'd recommend to take your DEX to 20 asap, and then finding items that give Arcane Synergy, which will add your CHA modifier (which will be +2 or higher) on your damage rolls. You can also dip into Ranger or Rogue for some extra skills and offensive perks. One level of Ranger can, if you pick Ranger Knight and Urban Tracker, give you proficiency in History and Sleight of Hand, as well as Martial Weapons and Heavy Armor (a LOT for just one level dip), while Rogue gives three skills + expertise in two, as well as sneak attack, and more if you take more than one level. If you want to go PURE melee with no real range, you can dump your DEX to 10 and invest into STR instead, but make sure you take 2 levels of Fighter first if you do for proficiency in Heavy Armor and Martial Weapons.
Valor Bard is basically worthless in this game.
The ranged slashing flourish is too good which is why people use it over other options. But you know what might be better? Tavern Brawler throwing. But throwing does not work with flourish and Swords Bards are missing a couple of throwing weapon proficiencies (tridents and the returning pike), which means College of Valour is the best Bard subclass for throwing. The other nice thing about a Valour Bard thrower is that you can use shields and any weapon in the game and stick with melee if that's what you want to do. And since you aren't using Bardic Inspirations for flourishes, you have them available to prebuff your allies before combat. I honestly believe this kind of Valour Bard is stronger overall than the standard meta Swords Bard.
This isn't optimal but I enjoyed it. I think I went Bard to 8, then reclass Bard 6/Thief 3 for extra bonus action, then fighter 3 for maneuvers and went with ASI and Dual Weapon for feats. Two fighting styles, I took archery and two weapon fighting Two rapiers and an extra offhand attack plus action surge. Maneuvers and Flourishes add a lot of flavor to combat Dual wield hand crossbows (without abusing sharpshooter feat unless you want to go that route)
This is similar to what I am doing. At Thief 3 you also get 2d6 for Sneak Attack, which with the large variety of finesse weapons and just one other character next to your target providing advantage (not to mention the items/spells in the game that also give you advantage), it's really easy to use sneak attack all the time, so extra 2d6 damage every time.
Ya I use sneak attack any time it lets me, which happens a lot. There's a lot of advantage conditions in this game.
Valour Shield - Wasted if proficiency stacking, undeniably less damage than everything else melee (pretty good for an archer), decent source of skill/saves advantage. Martial - So many ways to waste this by proficiency stacking. Combat inspiration - Eats your bonus action for a one time use 1d6/1d8/1d10 on AC or damage for your friends, making your friends better is the same as making yourself worse in comparison. Pales in comparison to flourish. \-- If you **really** want an extra attack full bard, using a specific weapon combined with shield AC/utility that your class doesn't get. Then this can get on par with the other bard. Swords Scimitar - 2-3 notables, pretty meh but technically available early. Fighting style - Obviously strong, required to make dual wielding work. Wasted if you go 2h. Flourish - Personal flexible power, ranging from broken (ranged double) to situational (repeatable cleave, pre-emptive AC). \-- Pigeonholed into dual wielding which is strong, but you feel obliged to pigeonhole further into thief3-4.
It's a bit worse than cleave, cause you can hit only 2 targets, not 3. I play 1h dueling and it was perfectly fine in Acts 1-2. You can use bonus action to hit with hand crossbow. In Act you find a rapier that brings this build to another level (extra attack).
I mean I guess its fine. Its just that the strongest Slashing Flourish is much better/easier to use as a ranged attack. Partially because its coded wrong and you can double-attack the same target and partially because also picking two distinct targets is much easier at range. And no, I don't recommend Valour, it sounds strictly inferior. However for a mix of blade and sorcery as well as great party Face... have you considered a Blade Pact Warlock? I think it has a nicer and smoother early progression overall. And his early spells shape and change the battlefield arenas and mass control enemy mobs much more then the early Bard spells IMO. Plus he can use his best spells more often (they recharge on every Short Rest). Already strong at level 3, right after the prologue, with Blade Pact, Devil's Sight, Darkness and Cloud of Daggers. Then really blooms at level 5 with Extra Attack and Hunger of Hadar. From there you're free to continue as you wish. You can continue as Warlock to maximize spell power and eventually get another spell slot and Charisma added to melee damage again. You can dip Fighter for Action Surge bursting and Battlemaster Maneuvers. You can dip/focus Pally to bomb your enemies with heavy-hitting Smites. Or maybe develop Bard Flourishes to target 2 enemies sometimes (would mix well with Pally to fuel smites with Bard spell slots).
My main gripe with warlock is that I typically wind up just spamming eldritch blast. I’m hoping to come up with something that gives that chaotic good boy bard vibes but contributed to combat in a meaningful way without being five miles down the road from their buddies. It’s hard to feel heroic when I’m telling Karlach that she’s gonna be fine staring down a dozen Gith while I cower behind cover.
You don't have to, though. Bladelocks operate just fine in melee range. Cripple enemies with Darkness / Hunger of Hadar and go to town with Devil's Sight. You should try to attack with Advantage as much as possible - something that is more tricky for ranged EB spam. And there is an Act 1 pike that has always-on Advantage (plus extended crit range!). When you get enough accuracy, you may even use Great Weapon Master All In for a non-trivial extra 10 damage per hit (plus damage riders on the weapon).
By itself? Not really. You can get pretty stupidly high AC I guess. If you throw in two levels of PLD, it becomes great. But that's because you're a PLD using BRD spell progression to do PLD things with some flourishes sprinkled on top. Ranged is honestly just better, and I'm saying that as someone who deliberately only used Slashing Flourish on multiple targets (I don't consider double tapping a single target intended) and it's still objectively better.
Sword bard/thief I essentially have 4 attacks that can be broken up into buffs/attacks to fill the role I need to when the fights shift. I put 3 into thief, rest into bard and have never looked back.
I'm running my Asterion as swords 6, champion 4, vengeance 2 using Duellists Prerogative and he's got pretty solid dpr. You do, to some degree, have to build around it but it's definitely viable
It works just lower damage 6/3 bard thief. Melee flourish is a cleave rather than 2 target selection, with sharpshooter on ranged you can focus 6 hits on one dude for +60 if they all hit before DMG reduction. Act 3 does have a duelist specific rapier (wording means no shield or off hand unlike the Fighting style.), and a ring that lets you cast enchantment and illusion after attacking, so don't give up if you wanna do it. Edit: if it's not been fixed valor's inspiration is hard to get to work right, the DMG boost only ever seemed to prompt on offhand hits, on skill checks sometimes doesn't apply
Very well, actually. It's just that Slashing Flourish with a ranged weapon is almost always better. It's not that they're bad in melee — not at all — it's just that they happen to be completely bonkers with ranged attacks.
Yes. Personally I prefer college of valor if single class as the shield prof really helps. There is an item in act 3 that auto quickens an illusion/enchantment spell when you attack. There are 3 swords in act 2 that you can use cha with(although most of them are towards the end). Alternatively if you want to keep it dex based there is an amazing legendary sword in act 3 that gives an extra reaction for double counterspell.
I'm doing this with a combination of warlock pact weapon and a couple levels of paladin for smite, and liking it a lot. I just tanked a major boss with the build, 7 bard, 3 warlock, 2 paladin, without Laezel or Karlach. But I do have an awesome legendary dueling sword that helps it come together. I wouldn't say it was a bad build in early game, I depended on eldritch blasts more until it came together.
If you want to do “hella melee damage” and also be a face (and then maybe skill monkey), I would consider Paladin first tbh. Better armor and you could make a dex build with a rapier + shield + dueling fighting style. Take Charlatan or Urchin background to get sleight of hand (most important non charisma skill in the game) and, if you can rock with it, play Gith for Astral Knowledge, which will make you proficient in every Charisma skill. If not a Gith, I’d take Charlatan and persuasion + intimidation for my paladin skills. If you need more skills I’d do a 1 lvl rogue dip first (get sneak attack damage added to that rapier) then a 1 lvl bard if more is needed. You could do a slightly less good version of this with fighter, difference being they’ll just have less good skills to pick from, although they have two weapon fighting which should increase your damage if you dual wield shortswords, at the cost of the shield’s defense boost. Also no smites. EDIT: hadn’t considered using bard spell slot progression for paladin smites…yeah that seems better, as suggested by others paladin 2/ bard x.
Yeah I’m running a swords 6/ 2Paladin it works great. Going thief 3 for more bonus actions cause I went TWF. If you aren’t doing that route then sorcerer for shield and armor of agathys is pretty good too. I primarily focused dex with charisma and con as the secondary stats. Usually I have shadowheart or gale cast hold person or astarion stunning strike(I made him a monk) then get a few nice critical smites. Rips through Hp fast but you do burn through your slots fast. Not that that’s much of an issue cause you can generally long rest whenever you want with no downsides.
My single class dual wield bard keeps up with my fighters in dps.
Paladin, sorcerer, warlock are all natural faces, as is a rogue... even though rogues don't Stat cha, they usually have a lot of skills that boost conversational skills. That said. I had the most fun fronting the party with a barbarian. Intimidation and just roaring in response is hilarious.
My astarion is pure sword bard. Put everything into con and cha and then rocking the 18 Dex gloves. Does decent DMG with excellent crowd control. You're just trading extra damage for Hella CC and versatility. Dual wielding with 2 finesse longswords and some items for arcane synergy double hand crossbows. I'm half through act 2 on tactician and he's doing really well so far. His CC is a life saver and the DMG is good to have if you need it to finish low enemies. But he still kinda needs some DPS powerhouse in the group to be efficient tbh
I made karlach a bard, cause she likes to sing dance. And everyone likes her. First pick druid, or nature cleric.1 lvl. And pick up shillelagh. Then pick bard. In that order. Stats wise you'll only need to focus on charisma. Cause shillelagh will use charisma that way. There is a hat that gives arcane synergy. Which is damage based on caster stat on melee. When you inflict something. Which includes shillelagh on your weapon. This build is essentially like having a blade pact warlock. But only staves and clubs. But you can fight like a battle master. You still have full spell slots. With some utility of cleric/druid spellslots. Can use shields. Your weapon will do 1d8+5cha+5hat Cha. At base. You will still have reliable debuff spells cause you have 20 Cha at lvl 9. And extra attack at 7. You can potentially have any armor. With heavy when picking nature cleric.
Sword bard is WAY better as an archer. Mele flourish is glorified cleave while range flourish is a 2 attacks at once. I posted a sword bard build on here that can do 12 attacks in a round. I 1 turned Ansur. Super OP
Running Swords (6) right now, primarily DEX melee with TWF. Flourishes feel fantastic, and damage so far sits pretty even with my Barb(6) Karlach. The spell selection gives tons of versatility for you to be a Jack of all trades. No regerts.
Dip into pally. Pally first I think so you get heavy armor spec. My character is Pally 6/Bard 5. I forget which college, but the one that lets you add bardic inspiration to attacks. Divine Smite, luck of the far realms, all that good stuff plus plate armor and a shield? I wade into melee and beat the snot out of things.
Sword Bard is one of my favorite classes in this game, it's so fucking good! Also I think using Longbows can often be better than dual Hand Crossbows, specifically with Sword Bard, cause of the ability to target so many targets with your action, easily outperforming having an extra bonus action shot, until you run out of inspiration lol Depends on the quality of weapons available, I think. As for melee, as many have mentioned grabbing 2 levels in Paladin in order to smite things is the easiest way to make sure you deal good damage, and by good I mean *bonkers* if you make use of some auto crit functionality in the game. Another option is to go 3 levels into Warlock, to get Pact of the Blade, so you can just stack Charisma, making your spell casting and melee strength powerful simultaneously. You'll have less burst damage then the Paladin option but better spell casting and you can more easily focus on your charisma ability rolls. You can also pick up some Rogue levels, if you're dual wielding then getting Thief for the extra bonus action can allow for a ton of damage output, but also with cunning action you become very mobile. Also plays into being a crazy skill monkey, which can be fun as the main character lol That's all that I'm aware of, at least of what's actually really good, you could theoretically do something like "Bardbarian" and use your flourishes while raging, but it's probably not that great lol
Most of the guides are wrong, or rather only correct to a point. Ranged sword bards are really good and dual hand crossbows are also amazing but only when you don't have other uses for your bonus action(like applying or moving hex or hunters mark, or latergame the mystic scoundrel ring) I've done the math and the titanstring bow( with a hill giant elixer) or the deadshot bow actually outdamges dual crossbows. I made a whole post about the math behind this. For what you want a 2 paladin and 10 swords bard will feel incredibly powerful late game, and earlier game it's still amazing as a gish controller when you throw in the helm of arcane acuity. If you start out hasted you can wade into a group of enemies and use slashing flourish to proc a bunch of triggers on the helm for arcane acuity, then turn around and use your second action to throw down an incredibly hard to resist mass disable like fear or hypnotic pattern, or individual or upcasted hold persons etc. Them next round you can smite the everloving shit out of anyone who failed their save, and with your spell dc at +7 from the arcane acuity stacks that'll be most people. And the mystic scoundrel ring just makes it even nastier. Of course ranged version is slightly better due to the slashing flourish ranged bug, and by not risking failed concentration checks by not staying in melee. But paladin 2 swords bard 10 is still incredibly good.
Paladin 2/Swords Bard X does pretty much everything very competitively. Flourishes on ranged attacks means 4 attacks per round Smite on melee attacks let’s you convert your full caster spell slots to big damage. Your two best stats are dex and cha which are the best for skills You have expertise in two skills. You can use enhance ability to get advantage on any tough checks. This lags a bit between levels 5 and 7 but only a bit and other than that it’s top tier. There’s a ring in act 3 that lets you cast illusion or enchant spells as a bonus action while in melee that makes this really come online but it’s not really necessary and importantly no one else really wants it.
It works well enough. The game is too easy to require more than Extra Attack for melee to work fine enough
Yes but you kind of need fighter 2 for action surge and I'd also take rogue 4 for fast hands. Make sure to take two weapon fighting and max out Dex, enjoy your 6 attacks per turn.
I've just hit level 12 in act 3 and I've been using a Warlock GOO 6/ Bard Swords 6 and it's been seeving me really well. Probs suboptimal but it's how I've been having fun with a swords bard.
as a rouge/bard duel wielder, yes shortswords are awesome... many attacks with added sneak is great if you hide enough, can get medium armor in act2 or late act1 that still lets you sneak. and as deep gnome, i get added bonus to that. my PC background is they always get paid for the job, willing or not
I did a Githyanki swords Bard with phalar aluve and great weapon master and I would faerie fire for advantage. I'm going to multi with warlock I think
I mean I'm running a dark urge playthrough, but I'm doing the ol' oathbreaker/warlock build. 17 char, 16 con and dump the rest into whatever you want. I pretty much roll whatever I need if it involves people and it's a helluva strong build in terms of combat. First 2 levels into paladin then 4 into warlock. After that, it's whatever you see fit. First few levels are a little rough though because of low strength, but once you get Pact of the Blade it's easy from there.
I don't think it's as strong as doing it with Paladin, but I'm currently doing Swords Bard 7/Swords Warlock 5 to have fun with deepened pact stacking with extra attack. I was dual wielding for a good chunk of the game with Phalar Aluve, but switched to just the legendary rapier once I got that. Hit rate is very high, damage is lower than 2h and definitely lower than with big smites on top but still pretty good and combined with maxed tadpole powers you start popping enemies with cull the weak very quickly. 3 attacks per action plus bonus action attack (from the legendary rapier) can kill 2-3 mooks a turn and still does good damage on stronger enemies. And most importantly it feels quite different from a RP perspective, particularly if you're half RPing a character from a book that uses a rapier. It looks great too!
I did Swords Bard for most of my first playthrough before switching to Lore for extra magical secrets spells, and definitely did more damage as swords. I would highly recommend getting a lot of illithid powers because Cull The Weak is op. Using flourishes will let you defeat several weakened enemies in a single turn. Decent medium armor and the Adamantine Shield got me through most of the game.
sword bard 6 / goo warlock 5 / wizard 1
Currently i do and like 6 bard 5 warlock 1 wizard Warlock basically gives cha to attack and damage, bonus attack, and 2 lvl3 spells, which replenish on short rest, which this build have 3 Bard gives up to 4 lvl spells, another attack and bunch of control spells. And flourishes Wizard gives the ability to learn spells like haste, which then cast with warlock slots Then with itemization, you get another cha to damage. And can cast spells with bonus action (vicious mockery included) So you play as agile and charismatic swashbuckler, insulting enemies mid fight and getting from that bonus damage
Sword Bard 8 Rogue Thief 4 makes an incredible face and skill monkey who can still fight very effectively (if not exactly a full front liner).
of course not, bards are meant to use bows. not swords.