Jawad Saeed
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a new action-adventure role-playing game based on the Dungeons and Dragons tabletop game. It involves players choosing their characters from various races available and delving into Forgotten Realms Universe to explore it while engaging in battles. This guide will focus on a comparison between the Bard and the Cleric classes to help you choose one.
Bard vs Cleric – Which Is Better?
Cleric Character Creation
Starting with character creation for Cleric, you will be required to choose your Deity. This does not have much impact on the gameplay except that different deity classes will differ in dialogues. The abilities and overall progression of each of the deities will remain the same.
Once the deity has been chosen, the next step is to select a Sub Class. There are seven available sub-classes for Clerics in the game, which include Knowledge, Life, Light, Nature, Tempest, Trickery, and War. The main difference between each of these sub-classes is the spells that you will unlock as you level up.
For example, choosing the Light Domain sub-class will unlock a lot of fire spells. At level 1, you will be able to unlock Burning Hands and Faerie Fire. Moreover, at level 5, you will be able to get access to Fireball, which is a devastating spell. Hence it is important to choose wisely since these choices will impact your gameplay.
Cleric Spells
Despite the sub-class-specific spells, there is a set of spells that each Cleric unlocks at level 1.
Bane
Bane is a spell with a large radius and range. This spell requires concentration to cast and is capable of targeting up to six enemies in one go. Each enemy inflicted with the Bane status receives a penalty in their attack rolls and save rolls. These help yo make the fight significantly easier.
Blast
Bless is the opposite spell as Bane since it grants the players a bonus in attack and saves rolls. However, this spell can be used only on allies.
Command
Command is a very useful level-one spell since you can use it to manipulate the actions of your enemies in various ways. For instance, you can command them to flee from the battle or command them to drop their weapon. When they drop this weapon, you can pick it up and use it.
Create or Destroy Water
The Create or Destroy Water is a level 1 Transmutation spell that allows the user to conjure or remove water. Any creatures within the radius of this spell get the Wet status which grants them resistance against fire-based attacks but makes them susceptible to electric attacks.
Cure Wounds
Cure Wounds is a level 1 Evocation spell that allows you to heal creatures when you touch them.
Guiding Bolt
Guiding Bolt is an Evocation spell that is very overpowered. It is capable of dealing between 4-24 damage and grants the user an advantage on the next attack roll.
Healing Word
Healing Word is a long-distance healing spell that allows you to heal any creature that is in your line of sight. However, this can only be used in Bonus Actions. What this means is that whenever you use a spell that grants a Bonus Action, that action can be used to cast this spell and heal a minor amount of health.
Inflict Wounds
Inflict Wounds is a melee spell that deals Necrotic damage. This spell can deal anywhere from 3 to 30 damage in a single turn, depending on the attack roll. This spell is useful against creatures that have Light damage resistance as they will most likely be weak to it.
Protection from Evil and Good
Protection from Evil and Good is an Abjuration spell that you can cast on allies to protect them from different creatures. However, this spell does require concentration to use.
Shield of Faith
Shield of Faith is an Abjuration spell as well that increases the caster’s Armor stats by 2. This can be used as a Bonus Action but requires concentration to do so. Nevertheless, it is good to boost your armor stats since it allows you to take less damage from enemy hits.
Cleric Cantrips
On creating your character at level 1, you can pick three out of the four available Cantrips. These provide certain bonuses to the character. For instance, the Thaumaturgy cantrip provides a boost in Intimidation techniques and performance checks in dialogues. Resistance boosts defense by providing a bonus to Saving Throws. Guidance cantrip provides a bonus to ability checks which are useful in dialogue rolls.
Lastly, we have the Sacred Flame cantrip, which deals 1-8 Radiant damage that is good for use in cases where you require a minute amount of damage. Similar to Cantrips you can only choose three spells to use when starting off. For this, we recommend having one Range Spell, one Melee Spell, and one Supportive Spell. A good combination would be Guiding Bolt for range, Inflict Wounds for melee, and Shield of Faith/Bane for support.
Cleric Ability Points
In terms of Ability Points, the most important stat for Clerics is Wisdom. That is the reason why we recommend going all in Wisdom. The next stat to invest in is Constitution since concentration is required in spell casting. Constitution helps to preserve concentration allowing you to cast more spells. Lastly, you should invest a little in Strength and Dexterity for boost in melee damage and armor stats. If you have points left over, we recommend investing a little in Charisma.
The above image shows the ideal distribution of ability points for a cleric following the guidelines stated above. Feel free to modify the distribution slightly and let us know your combinations in the comments below.
Bard Character Creation
As compared to the Cleric the Bard class starts with four prepared level 1 spells instead of three like the cleric. Moreover, it also starts with two Cantrips as compared to the three Cantrips that Clerics start with. Lastly, there is no sub-class for the Bards when starting off. However, a sub-class can be acquired as you level up in the game.
When creating a Bard character, you can also choose a starting Instrument. This is purely a cosmetical choice since different instruments influence the soundscape when casting spells with the Bard. Hence you can go ahead and choose an instrument of your liking which can be changed later on. Lastly, Bards comes with a special skill known as Bard’s Inspiration that adds additional dice rolls to Attack Rolls, Ability Checks, and Saving Throws.
Bard Cantrips
Vicious Mockery
The targeted creature will be damaged with 1-4 damage, and the user is granted an advantage on the next attack roll, making it likely that the target misses their next attack. This cantrip is more useful against enemies with lower Wisdom so use it against them.
Blade Ward
The Blade Ward cantrip will provide the user resistance against most weapon attacks making it easier to stay alive for extended periods.
Mage Hand
The Mage Hand is a very versatile Cantrip since it summons a literal hand that can help you move items from one place to another. In addition to that, it can also attack enemies in battle but deal minuscule damage. Lastly, it can also be used to push creatures off surfaces on commands.
True Strike
True Strike simply provides the user with an advantage on the next attack roll.
Friends
The Friends cantrip provides the user with an advantage over Charisma Checks against a creature. But you should be careful when using this ability since when it ends, the target will be aware that they were under the influence of this cantrip. This may cause them to turn hostile.
Dancing Lights
This simply helps to illiminate an area by summoning a few wisps. This does require concentration to use. This can also help to remove the penalty inflicted upon the user for attacking in dark spots.
Light
The Light cantrip can be used to simply light up your weapon or any mushrooms that you can see. This helps to improve visibility in dark areas and provides the same benefits as Dancing Lights.
Minor Illusion
Minor Illusion summons these illusions of the user that can be used to distract enemies or gather them in one position for an area-based attack or spell.
Bard Spells
A few spells are not mentioned here since they have already been explained for the Cleric class. These include Bane, Cure Wounds, and Healing Words.
Animal Friendship
Similar to the Friends cantrip, this makes the animal that is targeted friendly towards you. However, once the effect ends, the animal might become hostile.
Charm Person
Charm Person will give you an advantage over any Ability Checks involved in dialogues. However, the target can also realize that he/she was charmed when the effect ends, and this might result in them becoming hostile.
Disguise Self
Disguise Self allows the user to pretend that they are from another race or gender to change their form using magic.
Dissonant Whispers
The Dissonant Whispers spells deals between 3-6 Psychic damage. Even if the enemy saves this attack if still takes half the damage and gets Frightened. This results in the target having a disadvantage in both Attack and Save rolls.
Faerie Fire
Faerie Fire grants the user attack rolls advantage against the enemies that have been affected by this spell. Affected enemies will be illuminated, making it easier to differentiate them from unaffected enemies.
Feather Fall
Feather Fall is a good utility spell that allows you to negate fall damage for allies. This can be useful when trying to jump down from high places.
Heroism
Heroism inflicts the user and an ally with the Valour buff that makes them immune to being frightened and grants 5 Health Points for the next five turns.
Tasha’s Hideous Laughter
This is a very fun spell to use as it causes the target to have fits of laughter that leaves them Prone and open to attacks. This requires the target to be successful on the Wisdom Saving Throw. If they fail, then this causes them to fall on the ground and laugh.
Longstrider
Longstrider can provide your party members with an additional speed buff that allows them to increase their Movement Speed by 3 meters. This is a very useful spell for Barbarians and Paladins, alongside other characters that prefer to fight on the frontlines.
Sleep
As the name suggests, this spell causes targets to Sleep depending on their health points. This is an area-based spell that has different levels. For instance, at level 3, you can put enemies to sleep with a total of 24 Hit Points. Now if there are 24 enemies, each with one Hit Point, then you can put all of them to sleep in one cast of this spell.
Speak With Animals
Speak with Animals is a useful spell in the sense that it allows you to communicate with animals and experience all the possible character interactions in the game.
Thunderwave
Thunderwave is a useful damage spell as it allows you to heal between 2-8 Thunder damage and push back enemies significantly.
Bard Ability Points
The main stat for Bards is obviously Charisma since it allows them to easily charm different creatures. The next stat to invest in is Constitution since concentration is required for casting some spells. After this, invest equally in Dexterity, Intelligence, and Wisdom. Strength is not required that much when starting off with a Bard, so we do not recommend allocating any points to it. An example distribution of points can be seen in the image below.
Conclusion
In the end, choosing which class to play in Baldur’s Gate 3 comes down to your personal preference. Bards have more utility-based spells and spells that Charm enemies making them characters that like to avoid combat. Clerics, on the other hand, have mostly spells that are useful in combat situations, such as Healing and Damage spells.
If you’re maybe interested in a different class from the two mentioned in the guide, here’s a Class Overview on Baldur’s Gate 3. Let us know in the comments below which class you chose and why.
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