Baldur’s Gate is a video game series based on the Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting Forgotten Realms. The game has generated two series, the Bhaalspawn Saga and the Dark Alliance, both of which take place mostly in the Western Heartlands, but the Bhaalspawn Saga also includes Amn and Tethyr. Let’s see how to best build your Bard for the upcoming patch.
Detailed Bard Class Guide | Patch 8 Version – Baldur’s Gate 3
Why Play a Bard?
Bards are really really good at rolling the dice. You can get extremely good buffs to your rolls that make it look like you can even fail a roll.
Bards are the essential Jack of all Trades. Basically, you will need them in almost all the situations you might find yourself in. They can spell cast, melee, buff, and even heal. They can pretty much everything in a support playstyle, which makes them a must in situations.
Build
Bard is a Charisma-based class so your best-starter race is going to be:
- Tielfing
- Half-Elf & High Half-Elf = Fireball or Shock and Grasp
For Starting Spell Choices you should take:
- Cantrips
- Vicious Mockery – this is an absolute must. It will define you as a Bard
- Friends – it will give you an advantage of persuasion rolls
- Level 1 Spells
- Distant Whispers – it’s flat out your highest single target DPS
- Healing Word – really invaluable for combat resurrections and general healing
- Thunderwave – amazing AoE knockback skill that might change situations to the core
- Speak with Animals
- Tasha’s Hideous
- Vicious Laughter
- Sleep
- Faerie Fire
The first two here are a must. You simply cannot go without them. When it comes to the other ones you are free to pick and choose. The best choices that veteran players would make are the Thunderwave and Speak with Animals. But it’s up to your playstyle.
Skill Proficiencies
Then we come to Skill Proficiencies. You will need to choose one of these:
- Persuasion
- Deception
- Intimidation
- Performance
Basically, you want to go something that will boost up your Charisma. As a bard, you will have so many choices and bonuses for proficiencies that make it so won’t have to worry about it so much.
The stats are pretty simple. You need to pump out as much as you can in Charisma. After this, you will need to focus on the Dexterity and the rest into Constitution.
As soon as you enter the game make sure to switch out the dagger with the Rapier. You will have one in your inventory like a mod. Lots of new players don’t know this. The Rapier will help you get through those difficult first levels you’ll encounter.
When you reach Level 2, and you’ll do this very quickly, you will need to pick out these skills:
- Tasha’s Hideos Laughter
Like Warlocks, Bards do have the skill to replace a spell that you have already picked and decided to change later on. So whenever something that you’ll discover isn’t working anymore, simply go ahead and switch it up later on in the game.
When you hit a Level 3 you will have to choose a Sub-class. This is where you have to make the choice and the road where you’ll be heading on as a Bard in your game. You can choose one of these:
- College of Valor
- College of Lore
- College of Glamour
You can go crazy and read all that they offer you. All of them are very unique and different from each other so it will depend on your play style, whether range, or melee, etc. For the veteran’s play of choice, you can choose the Lore playstyle as it offers the most interesting things.
Bonuses
Here you can add the bonuses again to your roles as previously. So you can double the Skills that you already took before doubling them and becoming much better. The most important of course is the Expertise Persuasion.
For the new Spells which you can take, simply focus on the Shatter one. It is crucial and it will change your life completely as a bard.
Then for the rest of the spells that you can take, go for the Speak with Animals again maybe, or Enhancibility instead.
Feat
For choosing a Feat you can go for:
- Magic Missile
- Chromatic Orb
- Fire Bolt
- Shock and Grasp
- Ray of Frost
- Shield Master
- Martial Adept
- Rally
- Trip Attack
- Disarm Attack
Basically, you can go for every single choice that you might want to take just instead of Riposte. That’s going to be completely useless.
That should be everything to get you going as a Bard. A big and special thank you to Mmogurl from YouTube. You can check out her YouTube channel and videos here.
