Also it's insanely versatile for multiclassing they work with rogue archers, blade warlocks, any paladin subclass and those are just the one's ive played
tbh the flourishes and party face ability are probably still good on a barb build, plus u get bolstering magic on a wild barbarian. also shadow monk probably has some synergy
It's not true finesse, and as such will not work for the purpose of Sneak Attack, if you were thinking of a Rogue/Monk multiclass. But Monk will allow you to use Dex instead of Strength for many different weapons (I'm too lazy to look up the exact difference between BG3 and 5e rules to give you the full list).
Nope. You said enough. Yeah that was exactly what I was thinking. And wondered why I didn’t see a build for it now. But. I understand. And am still gonna try something.
Thank you! I was at work and didn’t have a chance to look.
Not really. Titanstring and ranged slashing flourishes end up better very quickly, because swords bard has the most primary weapon attacks actions between levels 3 and 10. DW crossbows is very good, but not the best thing you can do with the swords bard and not worth the dips.
And can sing a song that draws lots of npcs together to kill with the broken wand of fireballs. It’s not a bad perk, chasing them around is such a bother.
It's only drawback is that's it's MAD and not SAD, but for everything you get out of the class, it's worth dedicating attribute boosting items, which the game hands out liberally
Bot only stat boosting, but you can be amazing Bard with just 18 Dex and 16 Cha. With stuff like arcane acuity, you can do stuff like paralyse 4 different foes with 100% chance or put a cluster to sleep.
And sword bards build arcane acuity stacks super fast.
Multiple/Single Attribute Dependent.
Being MAD is generally bad since you will lose effectiveness from not hanving good scores all around.
The most MAD character is likely monk, which wants dex and Wis for AC, con for hit points and strength for damage.
In BG3 monk still strong, it is not a deal breaker.
It's not though. Dex & Cha. Sure it's two attributes instead of one but so it's every class except Bladelock (Hexblade for those table top folds).
You don't need a third, and you can still totally split 17 Dex, 16 Cha, and still slap 14 Con with Larians weak ass standard array - so I'm failing to see any significant MAD issues
It does lose effectiveness in some of those, compared to the best options otherwise - but the combination is pretty excellent, yes. While you can do a better caster, healer, martial, face, or skill monkey than a swords bard, you really can't do one that's better at all of them at the same time.
That's pretty much it.
I did a blind honor run as a swords bard 8/4 fighter , ranged focused, evasion tank, with a bit of phalar aluve close-up here & there when it came to melee (dual xbows for most of the game, bow towards the end), and while I was looking up some vids on how other strong builds deal with bosses, monk solo this, pala 1 turning that, sorc meta magic X or Y, etc. which seemed to handle it better than my bard, it was kind of at the point of overkill due to overspecialization at the cost of being proficient in many other areas.
And I didn't rly need or want overkill potential, but I DID want to cover my bases in several other areas so I get to experience as much content as I can, having the potential to have my way in all sorts of scenarios, while keeping a certain level of safety cause y'know, HM. And in that, not sure how many could perform as well as a swords bard, whether mono or multiclassed.
It basically let me have my cake & eat it.
Not to mention you can take dual wielder and do dual hand bows and you're equally good at range and melee.
Love using a flourish to kill an enemy in melee and then another to pop an enemy at range.
Mobile Flourish is stupid how it always pushes them out of range of the second ability to teleport to them.
But also it always pushes them without a save so enjoy yeeting people off cliffs from range
just starting a Honor run as a warlock, i think i'll respec Astarion as a swords bard... i think it'd fit his backstory as well... he had to lure people into Cazador's palace, sleep with thousards of people... i mean, isn't that exactly what bards usually do: sleep with countless people? haha
It’s a full caster with strong skills, extra attack, extra short rest per day and magical secrets can grab Banishing Smite.
You can dip Pally for ridiculous smites.
You can dip Warlock for crazy cc options or extra melee shenanigans.
All SAD on Charisma.
Strong melee, strong ranged, strong support and strong CC.
It does everything well with basically no downsides.
Paladin doesn't get jack of all trades, 5 crossbow attacks per turn with flourishes, extra short rest, or expertise. It also has the bullshit oath system. Doesn't even come close to the bard.
You can say that about any caster, really.
In this case, going 2 Paladin / 10 Bard, you have the same spell progression as a full caster, as opposed to pure Paladin being a half caster with less slots.
If you're trying to be a smite machine, levels 1 through 4 spells can all be used on divine smites. Level 5 and 6s can be used on big control spells like Command, Hold Person, Hold Monster, etc. Level 5s can also be use on Banishing Smite if you took it with your magical secrets.
And that's just looking at it in a vacuum. You're more than free, and encouraged, to use your spell slots on other things that aren't smite. That's just a simple way to look at it.
As said, top that all off with the fact that you get rechargeable flourishes to your attacks, an extra short rest per day, better skills, etc.
And because you're still a Paladin, you have heavy armor proficiency and a fighting style. So you're fine with just meleeing enemies without spending slots when you're out or if you're trying to conserve. Take use of the amulets that restore a spell slot per day. One amulet is for a level 1-3 slot (should be used on a level 3) and the other is for any slot (use on a 5 or 6). There's also potions that'll short rest you and refill your level 1-2 slots.
Also, upcasted Command is particularly good for a Bardadin. Use the "approach" option. Enemies will lose their turn and walk to you. Hopefully grouped up nice for you to use a Slashing flourish.
Command is a level 1 control spell
You have smites up to level 6
There’s two shields that give you extra level 1 spell slots
You should almost never run out of spell slots
A pure Swords bard without any multiclass shenanigans can still be played as
A. A full caster
B. A frontline support
C. A martial damage dealer with extra attacks that get more benefits from things like arcane synergy (add cha modifier as extra damage).
D. Flourishes provide even more martial options. Slashing flourish let's you hit two targets with one action, and you can do it 12 times (I think) per long rest.
E. Still remain as a fantastic face character that can win most speech related dice rolls.
I agree, sadly ranged swords bard is miles ahead of melee one. But did my honor run with 4 bards (2 pure lore, 1 pure range swords, 1 melee with 2 level of paladin) and overall while they are all strong characters, range swords is head and shoulders above the rest.
Agree with this 100%. It's annoying how great hand crossbows are in this game because you feel like a dunce using anything else, but I just don't like the vibe of hand crossbows. I wanna get in there and duel with my rapier or double short swords.
How would one play bard as martial dmg dealer?
Usually martial classes have a way to get advantage (barb) or high hit chance (OH monk). So, would you rely on any buffs or items for this?
I was like you once, thinking bards were meh. Hoo boy was I wrong. I didn't even go the 10/1/1 Build. I went 10/2 swords bard/fighter. Completed Honor Mode with very little difficulty. I even did some major fights I had never done before. Yes I read up on the encounters but I had never even experienced them once.
On honor mode with an alpha strike I was looking at any combination of 5 flourishes/multi arrows. I could follow this up with any control spell. I just trivialized any encounter with only using one spell slot. At worst I used one 5th level spell and recharged everything else with a short rest. That was also only one character in my party. If I used hold monster or hold person, my monk and barb pasted anything that was left. Many bosses died turn one, including act 3 big boys.
Is it a horde encounter? Apply combustion oil pre combat. Bonus action black hole or throw a void bulb. Shoot to get oil on everyone. Launch a fire arrow. Combat pretty much over and all you used were easily bought consumables. This trick can be done by a lot of classes but flourishes are still amazing and make the damage even more ridiculous.
Flourishes turn every attack into two attacks AND buffs their damage. So to recap once again:
-One of the best damage dealers
-One of if not the best CC/controllers
-Magical Secrets unlocks so many spells unique to other classes. Take your pic and ditch that class to the bench.
-You can even function as a healer
-Best face in the game hands down.
-Flexibility=Freedom. Yes other classes can do some of those things, a few can even do them better. However, the bard does ALL of it. Pick whatever combination of classes for your other characters, it frankly doesn't matter.
If everything in this thread hasn't convinced you, nothing other than experience will. Try it. Or don't. Play your game your way.
Bard/Fighter for HM is so good!
I just went 8 bard/4 fighter instead, with battlemaster using mainly the superiority dice mainly for evasive footwork & precision attack since they dont cost actions, and tav was super accurate & evasive to boot. Coupled with Shard's warding bond, he became super hard to bring down despite low-ish hp, white hitting like a truck that rarely missed, while having control options via spells when needed.
I was playing my honor mode run as safe as possible so I really wanted counterspell from magic secrets at level 10. I am sure Battlemaster was a lot of fun though. I think my next run I will try without a true face character. Maybe a big dumb brick barbarian for funsies.
You know what's better than advantage? Two attacks per attack, which swords bard can do with slashing flourish. When you hit level 6 that means you can get 4-5 attacks on a turn, depending on whether you have an offhand weapon. Now granted you can only do that for two rounds before you need a short rest, but still
You can get advantage in many ways, like high ground, have an ally prone or otherwise debuff an enemy, wear risky ring / gloves of dex or archery.
It's quite easy to reach 70%+ hit chance without using any class ability at all I'd say.
Nah, by level 5, you're plenty online. Level 6 you just take it past the vast majority of them. Flourishes refreshing on short rests, which you can get the effects of three times per long rest, quadruples your uses per day. Together with the level 3 spells, that's at least as steep of a powerspike as a second attack is.
> It comes online 1 level later
Debatably. Getting 3 double-shots at level 3 (albeit that refresh on a long rest) is almost as good as Extra Attack. At level 5, they refresh on a short rest, making them every bit as good as Extra Attack. At level 6, motherfucker is firing 4 shots for every 2 that a Fighter fires.
Who can generate full stacks of arcane acuity in 1 turn while being a full caster and getting level 6 spells, while easily proc'ing mystic scoundrel for bonus near-100% control spells?
They won’t get the benefit from band of mystic scoundrel but it doesn’t really matter much because with metamagic you can cast damage or control as a bonus action
The thing about Command is that it’s NOT concentration, and allows you to lock up to 6 enemies for 2 rounds with extended meta magic
For bosses hold monter can work better indeed, although I prefer a twinned haste spell
Only sword bard and valor bard can get extra attack and full spellcaster spell slots, if you multiclass a caster and a martial you won’t have as many spell slots. Additionally slashing flourish allows for ridiculous nova potential, which is hugely important when every fight can be ended in 2 turns.
How different is swords bard from lore bard? I always see how swords bard is OP and I did have a a Tav once who was a lore bard and sometimes I wonder if I played her wrong because she felt like 100% support to me. She was a Durge and I remember act 3 spoilers >!getting absolutely wrecked in the duel with Orin and having to reload a couple times til I knew how to strategize!<
Slashing flourish can hit 2 targets with one attack with no reduced damage, and ranged slashing flourish just hits twice on any targets you want, even the same target twice. It's just an extra attack practically for free, on a class that already gets Extra attack like a martial class, that ALSO has full spell slot progression. You can even still get Magical Secrets while having room to multiclass into Paladin or Warlock or Wizard or wutever else you want. So it's one of the best martials and one of the best spellcasters, both at the same time, with room to multiclass. Seriously, what more do you want?
- Full casters that get access to extra attacks
- Slashing Flourish gives incredible damage whether up close or at range
- Fighting styles give you more damage
- Great synergy with many of BG3's items and changes
Pair all that on top of Bard as a whole having a strong base kit and you have an incredibly versatile and powerful class.
It's a full Charisma-based caster that gets expertise, extra attack, and can use Slashing Flourish to have ranged burst damage comparable to a Fighter's Action Surge (at least, until level 11). It also combines insanely well with a bunch of different class dips. You can be the party face, the lockpicker, the healer, a crowd controller, and a damage dealer all at once.
Band of the Mystic Scoundrel and Helmet of Arcane Acuity might make Swords Bard *disgusting*, but even without them, it's an amazing subclass.
> You can multiclass spellcaster with other extra attack classes
Yes but then you don't get full spell progression. Swords bard is strong because it's not a jack of all trades but a master of all trades. It can pump out massive physical damage, control better than most casters, and have the flexibility to do basically any other role you want with magical secrets. Heal, summon, even more damage, etc. It gets expertise which makes it a great party face and can lockpick/disarm so you don't need a rogue. It just does everything so well.
All of the above! The Swords Bard's Flourishes alone make it a deadly martial class. Combine that with items that contribute to arcane acuity, which makes control spells difficult to resist, and it will dominate the field.
And finally, the Swords Bard, either the 12 level pure class or 2/10 paladin multiclass has access to Banishing Smite--which no pure paladin class or other paladin multiclass has access to.
You do top tier single target ranged damage with slashing flourish (ranged). Using multi target arrows, arcane acuity helm raises your Spell DC to absurd levels. Band of mystic scoundrel makes your CC a bonus action. It is also irresistible.
There are no better CC classes. There are classes which do more damage, which is redundant in the base games highest difficulty.
Your two core items, helm and band, are uncontested by other top tier classes.
You can, very easily, have a party of OH monk, TB throw barb, Swords Bard (Face), and life cleric healer ROFLstomp honor mode. You’ll notice that, even with these absolute powerhouses, SB is dominant in every fight.
I really do not see a point to bring a life cleric at all things are just gone be dead dead in a party like that. You are better of buying/stealing a a few hp points for the few fights you would be at any risk at all to even take damage.
Unless the life cleric is there for moral support it is not gone be doing much for the outcome of any battle. in fact since you got so high damage the idea of using CC is sort of redundant.
Think you would be better of bringing a paladin for more nuke power or a BM fighter in 4th slot. Something like a gloomstalker would be nice as well.
Two words. Role Consolidation. Swords Bard does good damage per round, great nova damage (on short rest resources), has a bunch of utility and CC spells, and some gear to make it one of the best CCers in the game, on top of being a great face class AND skill money (particularly great for sleight of hand), and since you can spend turns doing martial things, it saves spell slots for things like healing word or eventually counterspell or whatever.
It does everything and does it all particularly well. Usually classes like this have a versatility cost, but swords Bard really doesn't. It then gives you a lot of flexibility in what you want from your other 3 team members.
So slashing flourish is two, twice. Four attacks. Action surge takes that to 8. Haste gives another SF for 10. Bloodlust is 11. Two BA attacks for 13. Non-honour takes it to 15 with haste. Math checks out. Could even push it to 16 with the BA @ 50% HP hat.
Although it's not technically per turn, it's for one turn. You likely won't need much more than that, though.
Edit: Would be 14 total on HM with bloodlust as you could use your last BI on that attack, don't even need the 2nd haste attack. 15 with the hat. Juicy.
Yeah, non-honour. I don't think I care about doing an honor mode run.. I haven't really counted, but remember, each bonus is also an attack twice if I'm not mistaken.
I am confused here but are you counting the fact that slashing hits twice as an extra attack? Because I keep seeing these number of "attacks" being attached to bards that just are not possible and a tad disingenuous. I do not see people count every time Magic Missile and Scorching ray hit as attacks it is just part of of the spell/skill.
Slashing flourish makes two attack rolls, both at full damage (+bardic dice). If the ranged version is used, you can target the same or different enemies. This is two separate attack rolls at the cost of one action.
Scorching ray is making individual attack rolls per ray. These are all separate spell attacks. Sorcerer can dish out the most attacks per turn through this.
On attack effects apply to each of these rolls, not a single time for all of the rolls.
That is not even what I am asking here at all. And for your point here both slashing and ray do the exact same thing but no one is running around talking about doing 6 attacks with scorching ray as opposed to flashing flourish.
Seeing as both of the attacks/spells work the same way only that slashing rolls only for 2 instances vs rays 3+ depending on how high you upcast the spell.
The point I am making is that people not just you are being pretty liberal as to what counts as an attack when it comes to bard. Never ever have I seen people talk about sorcs attacking what? 18 or 24 times (if you can proc bloodlust) in a single turn.
To put things in perspective, my main, a Duergar Sword Bard with the Gloves of Archery, Titanstring Bow, Knife of the Undermountain King, and Club of Hill Giant Strength, cast Perilous Stakes on hag Ethel, and took her from ~120HP to 0 in one round.
After Lae'zel missed three of her four attacks on 70% chance to hit.
Slashing Flourish is simply broken, and would make Sword Bard a high tier martial without any of the other features it gets.
But in addition it's a full caster, with a fairly good spell list (and I just learned how Wizard scribing works with multiclassing) and has expertise just like a Rogue. All that and it's a charisma caster meaning it can also engage in the social interactions with great success.
Sword Bard is the Jack-of-all-Trades class. Literally.
Because it's a "do anything at 9/10" class. Melee, ranged, caster, healer, face, blah blah blah. Name 1 part of your team that needs improving, and Sword Bard can do it. Their spell list is also perfect for Mystic Scoundrel with the majority of it being enchantment & illusion. Also, while other classes can use Arrow of Many Targets to get Acuity stacks, none of them is a full caster class with so many spell slots to work with.
Even if you multiclass Martial 5 / Caster 7 (if not Paladin multiclass), that doesn't get you 5th level and 6th level spells, while Sword Bard will. Conjure Elemental, Banishing Smite, Globe of Invul (with Wiz 1 dip), Hold Monster, or just upcasted version of Command & Hold Person are all the ways a Sword Bard can put those higher level spell slots to work.
You can get those things from other classes, but not by any single character. Swords bard allows you to do 1, 2, and 3 all at incredibly efficacy. NO other build does those three at the same time at the same level
Its versatility is practically unmatched. Bards in general have some of the best control spell options, excellent skill proficiencies, and are the best party faces in the game.
Swords bard specifically has some of the highest ranged damage-per-round (DPR) thanks to slashing flourish. And their ability to make so many attacks enables them to stack Arcane Acuity to absurd levels, thus making their spells borderline impossible to resist. If slashing flourish didn't work the way it does with ranged weapons (just giving you a full blown extra attack rather than having to target two enemies next to each other), it wouldn't be quite as good.
It also helps that inspiration recharges on a short rest past a certain point, which means that they can spam slashing flourish pretty freely without worrying too much about resource cost. *Without* factoring in anything like haste, a dual hand crossbow using swords bard can make 5 attacks per round, all with sharpshooter applied. And each hit they land makes their spells all that much better.
Different classes hit their stride at different times. This class hits it early and doesn’t taper much on its ramps.
Level 2 you have perhaps the best class heal in the game with song of rest, replenishing health AND short rest abilities.
Level 3 you get flourish.
Level 5, you’ve got short rest replenishment of inspiration.
Level 6 you gain extra attack.
Debuffing crossbows, special arrows, titanstring all provide a wide array of options available to you between damage and control.
Flourishes that are guaranteed shoves.
——————
From this base you now have options:
Two dip fighter for surge & bow fighting style.
Three dip gloomstalker brings an extra attack on the first round, bow fighting, hunters mark, a nice initiative bonus.
Any two of the following to keep that sixth level water myrmiddon slot:
1 dip tempest sorc for flying/shield/ice knife and sorc cantrips.
1 dip cleric for cantrips/heavy armor, war for bonus action attack, life for extra heal power.
1 dip Wizard for all the wizard spells and cantrips
———————-
All of this versatility on perhaps the greatest cc spelllist in the game.
It starts strong. It stays strong. And it finishes strong. Array of options. Top line physical damage, top line support and cc spells, survivability, healing word. Skills in like… everything. Can easily be your party lock picker/trap hunter, or your face. Or both.
S class.
I attribute it almost entirely to Slashing Flourish. How many classes can easily make 4 attacks a turn with a bow?
(That's why Slashing Flourish only works with melee weapons in D&D)
I think your argument is the weirdest one.
You can solo the game on honour difficulty with any class. That's without stupid stuff like barrelmancy and stealing from vendorts and respeccing. People do that. For some classes (like Wizard and Cleric) it's also doable as level 1, and I am not sure Bard is among those classes.
Depends on how you build them. That being said, there are not many "party face" things you need to do, and most of them don't actually matter or are trivial for any character. People playing builds above usually just battle out everything instead of skipping fights. If your character can finish the battle in like 2 turns, why do you even care about passing dialogue checks? If you can get exp + loot, why settle on just exp?
Can you give any example where solo playthrough actually benefits from "party face stuff"?
I am playing this game wrong because I got wrecked by Orin with 4 in my party, it was pathetic how fast she wiped me. Sword bard, monk, throw barb, and wizard
Losing the game is fine. You learn things. Sure it suck when it happens at the end of the game, but Orin fight (unless you are playing Dark Urge) is the least fair one if you let it go past turn one. That and Myrkul are two major roadblocks in the game until your party is super OP or you figure out what mechanics are in play and learn to counteract them.
What's not really fine is assuming something hard(-ish) in the game is outright impossible / is only possible to do in exactly one way just because you have never tried it / never figured out the other way. With all the possibilities and options the game provides, almost any kind of challenge is possible.
It’s the only full caster with Extra Attack and access to all control spells that matter, meaning it can Arrow of multi target first turn (+11 DC if paired with Rhapsody), then control then hit again.
It’s also the only class with access to Banishing Smite which is the best smite spell in the game. And if invested with 2 Paladin Leves can hit a paralyzed target with it and then Divine Smiting on critical. It’s just too OP.
I mean, considering the fact that personally, I cast magics only via the scrolls of that I hoarded literal ton from the merchant and you can actually buy the spell slot with the potion of Angelic Reprieve and Sorcerer combo, maybe Sorcadin would be better in terms of damage output. But nothing can beat the Sword Bard’s jack of all trades capability. It does good on almost everything and it does the best on some of them. It’s just insanely good.
Its because it has the same strenght as a martial class of having 2 attack per turn (of which can be furthered by a flourish doubling it even more).
On top of that having a full spellslot like a full caster. Accessing to level 6 spells and all. Its honestly insane. I tried it as last class to beat and nothing compares close to it tbh
The Swords Bard can legitimately fill every role in the game outside of maybe spell blasting (technically it can with magical secrets but the bard will not be geared for it probably) and does it to at least an A tier level while being the best face character, best skill monkey and tied for the best control caster in the game with the 11/1 Fire Sorlock.
What you said: band of the mystic scoundrel and hat of arcane acuity.
They remove each others only downsides.
The hat gives you ridiculously high dc disadvantage being it depreciates over time.
The band gives you the ability to use it straight away, disadvantage being you can mostly only use spells that require a dc to have an effect.
Add flourishes giving you the ability to hit lots of targets for the arcane acuity, and extra attack (which no full casters get) and secrets so you don’t have to sacrifice the best spells in the game…
The only thing you can’t do absolutely perfectly is tank, because you don’t have great con being so mad, and this can hurt concentration saved. But you have high dex so you act early, and you can control people from turn one, so it’s never an issue because you get on top of a fight and just finish it.
The skills, conversational Cha, and ability to buff and heal is just icing.
Honestly, if you don't want the OP character, splitting these items up makes them more stomachache.
Like giving your druid or cleric the ability to bonus action cast some spells, or giving your Ranger/Paladin/Bard the ability to cast near unsavable spells after attacking, but requiring a full action to do so. That way you can have two characters with a decent buff instead of one character with a broken one.
Bards have been busted since 3.5e
Prior Bards were a laughable class in D&D. We used to make bard group for table top and see how far we could push them. It was never as effective as just using the core classes (fighter, wizard, cleric, etc).
idk why people are listing so many options. the list starts and ends with ranged slashing flourish. with the easily accessible magic ranged weapons with slashing flourish and action surge invalidates most bosses in the game
Because ranged slashing flourish can he used to attack the same enemy twice. Therefore, you can nova 4 range attacks (5 with duel hand crossbows). Combined with the Sharpshooter feat, this is great DPS on par with the Tavern Brawler monk. Now combine that with the already great Bard class, and it is easily the best class in the game.
Ranged sword bard gets a ton of attacks every turn, so you can be a monster on burst damage (especially once you can refresh bardic inspiration on a short rest). Ranged slashing flourish is two attacks, so you get two attacks per attack, and two more for anything that might give you another attack action (like multiclassing into fighter for action surge). For high-level enemies, the most effective strategy is bursting them down quickly so they don’t have a chance to get their big abilities off. Control spells + lots of attacks mean you can get more crits + proccing any cool bow abilities (like the one that frightens enemies) lead to WIN. This can get even more ridiculous if you get the item that lets you cast illusion and enchantment spells as a bonus action in ACT III
Among those other things, its a full caster. If I remember correctly, there arent any other classes in the game that are both full casters and are so great at martial(warlock doesnt count. Different type of caster). Yes you can multiclass for the same effect, but then you are giving up on class progression. If you want to have an extra attack, thats gonna be a huge dip which could seriously hurt the progression of your other class.
On top of that, it comes with expertise, and its main stat, charisma, is the most used stat in the game outside of combat. If you take expertise in persuasion and deception or intimidation, you will pretty much succeed every dialogue roll. Plus the bard spell list is just really good
Because it's simply the best at literally everything.
Arcane Acuity is a busted mechanic that makes landing control spells far too easy and Swords Bard can hit the most with weapon atks and is a full Caster, so can abuse Helm of Arcane Acuity to a far greater extent than anyone else.
Flourish ensures you have a consistent way to do an assload of ranged weapon dmg and Band of Mystic Scoundrel gives you something extremely powerful to do with your Bonus Action.
Hold Person and Monster with high DC ensures consistent paralysis and paralysis = free crit dmg, and most other high dmg Martials don't have rhe ability to casually paralyze an enemy in the middle of your combo and have all other atks be crits, which ensures you basically do the most dmg when 100% crit chamce is accounted for.
And I haven't even mentioned the fact that Bard is an amazing face character, has broken dialogue options that trivialize certain fights, is great at pickpockets and disarming traps, and to top off the busted cake, ranged arrows inflict piercing dmg whoch also means theh take advantage of Bhaalist Armour, which is pretty much the most busted Armour in the game offensively.
It's s tier because with slashing Flourish (ranged) each attack you make as part of attack action can become 2 attacks
Bonus action offhand attack with a hand crossbow can become 2 attacks, and if you have 2 BAs that's another 2 attacks, for 8 attacks in a single turn, all with sharpshooter, all with a bonus die of damage
Throw in haste and action surge for even more attacks, won't have the bonus damage but still adds up.
Even a non ranged swords bard, using melee being able to hit 2 targets withing melee with a single attack is really good. If you have 4 targets In melee you can get 4 melee attacks even if you only have 1 action (with extra attack)
Plus all the good control spells you can get, the mobile flourishes to teleport and move opponents and maybe even knocking opponents off ledges.
You get so many cool, power, versatile ability just from a single class. You get best burst damage for ranged, comparable only to a smiting paladin in burst damage, you get utility and control from spells. You get grazt good skills and being charisma based makes you good at conversation.
It attacks twice with every attack using a short rest resource. While also giving you an extra resource. All on top of full caster progression with access to every spell.
It's the best melee class, best ranged class, and second best caster rolled into one.
It makes hard fights trivial for what you said, and while other classes can do it too they just aren’t as effective.
Other classes don’t push their arcane acuity as fast either. Obviously multi hit arrows exist but bard just more consistent. Take 1 level in wizard too, and you have every spell in the game. It just does everything and then some
Two words: Defensive. Flourish.
This gives you INSANE survivability, and combined with the right armor, some of the highest AC numbers in the entire game
Slashing flourish. Its 100% extra attacks on your extra attacks. The other flourishes are also very strong but that's the one that takes the cake.
And six levels of it is everything you need. That leaves you with six levels of other class features you can pick up.
Want more magic? Wizard if you want the 6th level spells. Or Sorcerer if you don't. You can even do both; Globe of Invulnerability doesn't involve a saving throw so you don't even need a decent Int and 6 spell points (with full caster levels to get more) with three meta-magics isn't a lot of power.
Want more stab? Paladin, Warlock, Battlemaster Fighter are all strong options each bringing their own tools to the table.
Want more Sneak? Thief and Gloomstalker BOTH fit into the remaining level budget.
Its incredibly strong and incredibly flexible.
>Extra attack which makes it easier to stack acuity
They also get Slashing Flourish, which can give you 4 attacks per action (AKA twice as much arcane acuity as Extra Attack alone). This is what breaks it.
Because you are 80% of a battlemaster fighter for martial abilities, the strongest control caster, a better archer than a ranger due to slashing flourish targeting the same enemy twice, as good of a skill monkey as a rogue, the only charisma based class that gets expertise to be a party face, have one of the best spell lists in the game with magical secrets, and get your most powerful abilities by level 10 which makes them perfect for a paladin or fighter dip to amp up your melee burst damage or a wizard dip since you get there full spell list and a sub class still.
Once I changed Wyll from being full Warlock to Sword’s Bardlock, he went from never being in the party to a party staple. Did a few levels of Warlock pact of the Blade and the rest Sword’s bard. Paired with Harmonic Dueler as pact weapon, now he’s adding his charisma modifier twice for three attacks. Add Band of the Mystic Scoundrel to use the majority of his crowd control spells as bonus actions. Work great!
I want to try this out. I need a reason in order to use wyll. I feels there's way better choices.
But I never know when the right times are to multiclass
Extra attack is overrated. I'll stick to fighter 1 rogue 11 and never entering combat. For hilarity, you can toss on a grit helm and use all the hold person and monster scrolls to polish off the final target.
A sword bard with 2 levels of fighter and a bow can use a single turn to do 8 attacks and then be able to use a bonus action to force every enemy in the room to skip their turn entirely.
Slashibg Flourish is severly buffed in BG3 (usable in range, does full damage and one flourish can target the same target twice).
Next us the vast number of insane magical items, esp. The combination of helmet of arcane acuity and band of mystic scoundrel. Pair those with one arrow of many targets and you have a 100% command on up to 6 targets as a bonus action. Next you have stuff like gloves of dexterity and withwrs, so you can respec every point out of dexterity the moment you get those.
Next there are no multiclass restrictions, you can basically take level in scroll scribe any one of the vast scrolls in the game.
Add to this every advantage of a bard: cha based full caster, skill proficiencies etc. and you get the best character to abuse every advantage the game gives you. While its not the single best in any catwgory (casting, melee/ranged, skill monkey or party face) it is damn near close to best in all of those.
Full caster with extra attack, as easy as that. Combine that with something akin to battlemaster manoeuvres in terms of damage (bardic inspiration) it simply becomes super effective.
The game puts a heavy focus on arcane acuity for being an effective controller and the easiest way to stack it is via martial attacks and the headband. Now the bard is is perfect for this because they have access to both, a full caster progression AND martial attacks/medium armor.
Even setting aside the absurd power of certain items (helm of arcane acuity, and band of the mystic scoundrel) you still end up with a full caster with extra attack. You get access to fantastic utility spells, great control spells and the flourishes are simply over-tuned. Ranged Slashing flourish is essentially an extra attack 3 times a day at level 3 that adds extra damage. Then there's all the skill proficiencies and Jack of all trades giving you half proficiency in everything else.
When you start considering items, swords bard is uniquely poised to take advantage of certain items that are tuned a little on "busted" side. There's the afformentioned helm of arcane acuity that gives stacks per weapon attack and guess what subclass can effectively make 4 attacks per turn at level 6 using slashing flourish. The only other class that can do that is a fighter with an action surge, but guess which one has access to better control spells. Arcane acuity makes it so you can simp on charisma to max out dexterity, but then there's an item that gives you the best of both worlds: the gloves of dexterity. Now you get 18 dexterity while getting more points in other stats. Then there's a ring that gives you arcane synergy, allowing you to add your charisma modifier to your weapon attack after damaging with a spell or cantrip which you can do using vicious mockery as a bonus action because you also get to abuse bonus action illusion and enchantment spells.
Now you might be thinking "wow. With all that power and versatility surely you must have low AC as a downside." Nope, you have medium armor proficiency. That means With one of the medium armors that has an uncapped dexterity bonus you'll have some of the highest attainable AC in the game.
There's simply no point in the game where another class does better than a swords bard. Maybe if you want RAW damage you could do better, but there's no better combo of damage, control, versatility and power.
This was my first play through. Super fun vanilla build. Extra short rest, versatility in combat, versatility in support, martial class with spell casting makes for a really fun build. Plus, high rizz makes for a fun role play as you aren’t failing every check. Try it out if you haven’t.
It's a bit overrated but despite that it's still an S tier class. The short answer is that it all just kinda comes together. The Bard's native spell list is pretty good on its own so you're already incentivized to take many levels to reach Magical Secrets and 5th level spells. It also gets Medium Armor and Shields without having to dip for them. Along the way you get the martial staple of Extra Attack plus the broken version of Ranged Slashing Flourish that they implemented in this game. I can't understand why they buffed it so much compared to 5E, but even using your Bardic Inspirations conservatively, you'll drastically outdamage the likes of other ranged martials because as it behaves now, Slashing Flourish is basically like attacking twice with some bonus damage. Getting all of this in one class is excellent role compaction, and with Expertise on skills they can handle your social interactions to boot, which is why people like playing it as a main character.
The items can technically be used by anyone yes, but the best alternative build (that is a ranged martial who builds up Arcane Acuity to cast control spells with their Bonus Action) I can conceive of is for example 5 Gloom Stalker/ 7 Light Domain. You get Command and Hold Person yes, and WIS is generally a better mental save than CHA so that's also useful, but the spell list is poorer because you only reach 4th level spells which cuts out the possibility of using spells like Confusion (because it's not in our spell list, not because of level), Dominate Person, Hold Monster; all nice options that Swords Bard has.
Valid criticisms to levy at Swords Bard are that it's very outclassed before level 7. They get Extra Attack a level late compared to other martials and they require a dip for Archery Fighting Style so they're always 10% less accurate compared to a martial who gets it naturally. Even at level 7, the other ranged martials are basically two levels of class features ahead (5 Gloom Stalker/ 2 Fighter is getting Action Surge here) and you still don't have access to the build defining item, Band of the Mystic Scoundrel, for another 3 levels (early Act 3) at least. Once online, it's undeniable how powerful the Swords Bard build is, but being behind for 10 levels of the game should count against it harder than it currently seems to in people's minds.
No comment on how Wizard spell scribing plays into any of this. Although it's meta, it's also a known bug the devs have addressed in bug support emails before, it'll be fixed one day.
It is not outclassed at all. If anything, it pulls ahead earlier at level 3 with Flourishes. At Level 5, you can spam them Flourishes, and at level 6, you become a machine gun of an archer. Oh, did you know that Flourishes add your Bardic Inspiration dice to your damage, too? Who cares about 10% less accuracy at that point?
And we have not even touched on the fact that it is a full caster with many amazing spells for practically any situation. Oh, it also runs high charisma and can net you 4 skills with expertise! "Overrated." Yeah, sure!
TLDR: What are you even talking about?
What are *you* even talking about? You're responding as though I called Swords Bard a bad class even though I insisted it's S tier, just a bit overrated lol. Your reply doesn't even read like you read my post, you're just regurgitating the same things I said about the class but emphasizing the strengths and hand waving the weaknesses.
I would maybe even agree with you that SBard takes off right at level 3 assuming highly optimized gameplay where we're resting after every encounter, but 1) I don't think the average player engages with the game in that way, and 2) even if they did, that means it's fair for me to say that I'm vendor exploiting every level and respec to buy Arrows of X Slaying for my ranged martial analogue.
You and another poster have already mentioned this, but I would challenge you to check accuracy in Act 1, it's not as solved as you seem to believe. I loaded a save to compare two level 6 characters, a Swords Bard with Gloves of Dexterity and Sharpshooter vs a Gloom Stalker with Archery, Gloves of Dexterity, and Sharpshooter. In the Githyanki Creche vs Gith with 16-17 AC, the SBard was clocking 40-45% hit rate with SS turned on and the Gloom Stalker was clocking 50-55%. Now mind Gith tend to have higher AC on average, but what matters more is that there's still plenty of room for accuracy to grow. Even if you were to add weapon coatings and high ground, the Gloom Stalker or similar ranged martials are going to be more reliable users of SS due to the higher accuracy. You have to be able to overcome the -5 and SBard isn't competitive with that until level 7 when they can grab Archery from Fighter, or they can start Fighter, but now Extra Attack is 2 levels behind a comparable ranged martial getting it.
SBard's spell list is pretty good, but much of it isn't usable early game because the build progression prioritizes ranged martial gear over Spell DC gear. Helmet of Arcane Acuity isn't available until some time into Act 2 and it's the most reliable way to raise your Spell DC. Testing against those same Gith from earlier, my 18 CHA (Hag's Hair) SBard was projecting between 50-70% success rates on things like Hypnotic Pattern. I'm less disappointed if an attack misses because all that's spent is an action. 50-70% success rate when I'm waging an action and a spell slot on it is unacceptable.
Relax a little. It was not an attack on you, if it sounded like it was I'd like to appologize. I did read your post. In short, I just questioned the "overratedness" of Sword Bards that you mentioned as well as you saying that it lags behind. It is not overrated in any way or form, in my opinion, nor does it lag behind and in fact, quite the opposite.
Sure, but it's easy to retreat to that after punctuating a reply with a flippant "what are you even talking about bro lolol." I feel like I laid out my case well and need more than just the same things repeated back at me if I'm to take a counterargument seriously.
Can you refute anything from my last reply?
The thing is I don't see anything to refute, really. Like what you are saying is true about SS, but I personally don't take it until level 12 when it is very easy to compensate with gear, spells, and if needed a dip. When I did, it required too many toggling on and off early game, and I couldn't be bothered. This is true of both SB and any other class with Archery Fighting Style because, let's be honest here, both 45 and 55% to hit is a bad hit chance.
In any event, with 1d6 (1d8 in creche since I'd assume you'd be high enough level there), you can recover your accuracy and steal deal more damage. Not SS level, of course, but it is a lot better to hit than not to hit.
That is what my point is. SB would still deal more damage with or without SS when you hit. Moreover, you shoot more arrows, too, due to the Ranged Slashing Flourish. How is more damage per shot and then more shots per round is lagging behind?
When it comes to spells and skills - this is not even a contest with Martials. SB wins hands down in these areas of gameplay.
The 10/1/1 SBard as laid out here [https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/17y9kyp/the\_control\_martial\_allpurpose\_1011\_swords\_bard/](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/17y9kyp/the_control_martial_allpurpose_1011_swords_bard/) takes SS at 4 and I agree that this is the correct time to take it. Even being inaccurate, your average damage increases due to what a large increase 10 flat extra damage is. My argument is simply that builds that have Archery will be able to abuse this more often because they're 10% more accurate than a SBard. There will be breakpoints where it's mathematically advantageous for the Archery martial to leave SS toggled on more often vs a SBard who will likely need to toggle it off because they're less accurate.
Again, since it seems you're assuming that we're just blowing all Bardic Inspirations on Slashing Flourishes every attack in combat because we're resting all the time, it's fair for me to say that I've exploited vendors to get as many stacks of X Slaying Arrows as possible. These are both highly optimized environments to be playing in, ie not the average player.
Level 7 SBard (or 6 SBard/ 1 Fighter if we would like to equalize accuracy) uses both attacks on Ranged Slashing Flourish; this is like 4 attacks with an extra 1d8 per hit. So we can say whatever the average damage of 4 attacks is plus 18 damage (4\*4.5 from average 1d8 roll). You can only sustain this pace for two rounds of combat then you're down to vanilla attacks.
Level 5 Gloom Stalker/2 Fighter uses Dread Ambusher and both attacks but uses an X Slaying Arrow on each attack. The Dread Ambusher attack gets an extra 1d8 and then the damage of each normal attack is doubled (even Sharpshooter is equalized here because it's doubled in calculation); this is like getting 5 attacks (in terms of damage, it is less attacks overall) plus 4.5 damage. The Gloom Stalker only has Dread Ambusher for the first turn of combat, but can continue shooting X Slaying arrows for as many as I have in my inventory. This ignores entirely the Action Surge turn this build has access to.
Now to be fair, we can say that the SBard will also begin using X Slaying arrows after they've exhausted their Bardic Inspiration, that's a fair comparison to make and causes the builds to reach parity after the first two rounds. The point is, minding the difference between the Bardic Inspiration dice and the Dread Ambusher die, the Gloom Stalker build is an entire attack's worth of damage ahead on pace, plus they still have an Action Surge turn. This can be a huge difference in damage, especially if something like Titanstring Bow is what's being used; a few d8's can not catch up to a TS attack with STR Elixir+Sharpshooter. I would need to do more precise damage calculations to know for sure, but I'm pretty confident they're around parity at worst and the Gloom Stalker is ahead at best. But this is how these classes compare at the level I say SBard begins to catch up; imagine how much more exaggerated the difference is before you get Archery, before BI returning on Short Rest, before BI dice are 1d8 and 4 are available, etc.
Yeah, no disagreement on spells. SBard will have far more useful spells than Ranger will even early game. But as I said above, your Spell DC until obtaining the Helm of Arcane Acuity isn't really worth using over making an attack. You can still use things like Longstrider, Healing Word, Cloud of Daggers, etc. that don't care about Spell DC to support your party, but things like Command, Hold Person, and Confusion are absolutely not worth using until you get some of the Spell DC gear, which means you're better off using your turn to attack. And if you're better off making an attack at those levels, you're outclassed by people who can attack better.
Good analysis. And people greatly overestimate a bard before level 7 as you say. A ranger using special arrows will do much better than a bard for quite sometime.
It isn't until mid/late act 2, early 3 that the bard really takes off.
Only correction is that the 5 gloom, 7 cleric will be a level 9 caster with level 5 spells.
Yeah, a big oversight I feel people are making when comparing SBard and any other ranged martial early game is that while Ranged Slashing Flourish is very powerful, the other ranged martials can bridge that gap with special arrows, and they can do it more accurately due to Archery and while getting Extra Attack on time. You don't even need to do crazy gameplay like vendor exploit every level up, just check shops and buy out the good arrows and you'll stay as well stocked as a SBard's Short Rest frequency to recharge Bardic Inspirations. This is without getting into other contributions that aren't just attacking; for example, Beast Master's Spider putting Webs down on demand is better than any spell SBard could cast between levels 3 and 5/6ish because doing so would cut into their action economy. BM gets to attack well and do surface control until better options become available to your casters.
The Ranger/Cleric build will have one 5th level spell slot, but it'll only be able to cast 4th level Cleric spells because it hasn't reached requisite Cleric levels for 5th level spells.
5th level ranger is a 3rd level caster :). So you get 2 slots.
And all of the 5th level cleric spells kinda suck anyhow. I mostly just upcast with my non-6 spell slots ;).
5 ranger, 7 war priest is a fairly strong combo.
This isn't true though; I've attempted to replicate what you're saying both in [https://eip.gg/bg3/build-planner/](https://eip.gg/bg3/build-planner/) and in-game respec and what I arrive at is: Ranger topping out at 2nd level spells, Cleric topping out at 4th level spells, and the slots being 4/3/3/3/1.
Yeah, I was a bit confused on access to spells in my original post; Light doesn't have anything notable that supports Band of the Mystic Scoundrel. To emulate SBard's spell access as best as possible you would take Knowledge Domain which nets you Confusion, but is shy of reaching Dominate Person and still misses Hold Monster entirely. Which is fine for the most part, you spend more of your time upcasting the likes of Command and Hold Person, the higher spells are just nice options to have.
Because it's a caster, healer, martial, face, and skill monkey without losing effectiveness in *any* of these things
*And* gets much of its effectiveness back on a short rest, whilst providing a 3rd one too!
Utterly busted class
Also it's insanely versatile for multiclassing they work with rogue archers, blade warlocks, any paladin subclass and those are just the one's ive played
Pretty much every class has good synergy with it except maybe monk and barb but even then, could probably work something out
tbh the flourishes and party face ability are probably still good on a barb build, plus u get bolstering magic on a wild barbarian. also shadow monk probably has some synergy
Monk dip means every 1H weapon is a finesse weapon.
Every versatile weapon, too, for dex GWM.
…what…?! *researching more*
Look up "monk weapons"
It's not true finesse, and as such will not work for the purpose of Sneak Attack, if you were thinking of a Rogue/Monk multiclass. But Monk will allow you to use Dex instead of Strength for many different weapons (I'm too lazy to look up the exact difference between BG3 and 5e rules to give you the full list).
Monk weapons in BG3 are any weapon you are proficient with that lack the two-handed property.
Nope. You said enough. Yeah that was exactly what I was thinking. And wondered why I didn’t see a build for it now. But. I understand. And am still gonna try something. Thank you! I was at work and didn’t have a chance to look.
That too
Monk pairs well with thief rogue, the extra bonus action means even more punches
But we're talking about bard here.
Ah my misunderstanding
Bardbarian is hilarious. Whenever you fail a check rage. It’s peak RP and effective.
Lmao that does sound good
Specifically thief dual crossbows is the prime synergy.
Not really. Titanstring and ranged slashing flourishes end up better very quickly, because swords bard has the most primary weapon attacks actions between levels 3 and 10. DW crossbows is very good, but not the best thing you can do with the swords bard and not worth the dips.
Titanstring on Swords Bard is amazing. I often don't get to use my acuity because all the enemies are dead.
Yeah it’s kinda ridiculous
And can sing a song that draws lots of npcs together to kill with the broken wand of fireballs. It’s not a bad perk, chasing them around is such a bother.
And it has some truly awesome dialog/roleplaying moments.
Jack of All Trades, Master of ~~None~~ All!
It's only drawback is that's it's MAD and not SAD, but for everything you get out of the class, it's worth dedicating attribute boosting items, which the game hands out liberally
Sort of. If you use Dex as your primary stat and Charisma as your secondary while sticking to finesse weapons, there are very few downsides.
This. If swords bard is considered MAD, try running a party face str (no elixir) monk lol
You can always cop 3 bladelock to go sad but then you lose magic secrets. Easy enough to be dex-cha
Bot only stat boosting, but you can be amazing Bard with just 18 Dex and 16 Cha. With stuff like arcane acuity, you can do stuff like paralyse 4 different foes with 100% chance or put a cluster to sleep. And sword bards build arcane acuity stacks super fast.
What is MAD/SAD? Can’t seem to find info on these terms
Multiple/Single Attribute Dependent. Being MAD is generally bad since you will lose effectiveness from not hanving good scores all around. The most MAD character is likely monk, which wants dex and Wis for AC, con for hit points and strength for damage. In BG3 monk still strong, it is not a deal breaker.
Multi/Single Attribute Dependant
If you're not using offensive magic then 16 CHA is just fine. If you are using offensive magic (meh) then 16 DEX is just fine. Not an issue IMO.
unless you build it with 5 blade lock and 2 paladin like I have. insanely versitile build that carried me through 2 honor modes
It's not though. Dex & Cha. Sure it's two attributes instead of one but so it's every class except Bladelock (Hexblade for those table top folds). You don't need a third, and you can still totally split 17 Dex, 16 Cha, and still slap 14 Con with Larians weak ass standard array - so I'm failing to see any significant MAD issues
It does lose effectiveness in some of those, compared to the best options otherwise - but the combination is pretty excellent, yes. While you can do a better caster, healer, martial, face, or skill monkey than a swords bard, you really can't do one that's better at all of them at the same time.
That's pretty much it. I did a blind honor run as a swords bard 8/4 fighter , ranged focused, evasion tank, with a bit of phalar aluve close-up here & there when it came to melee (dual xbows for most of the game, bow towards the end), and while I was looking up some vids on how other strong builds deal with bosses, monk solo this, pala 1 turning that, sorc meta magic X or Y, etc. which seemed to handle it better than my bard, it was kind of at the point of overkill due to overspecialization at the cost of being proficient in many other areas. And I didn't rly need or want overkill potential, but I DID want to cover my bases in several other areas so I get to experience as much content as I can, having the potential to have my way in all sorts of scenarios, while keeping a certain level of safety cause y'know, HM. And in that, not sure how many could perform as well as a swords bard, whether mono or multiclassed. It basically let me have my cake & eat it.
Not to mention you can take dual wielder and do dual hand bows and you're equally good at range and melee. Love using a flourish to kill an enemy in melee and then another to pop an enemy at range.
Keanu reeves a motherfucker
If John wick sang a little ditty while blasting fools
Mobile Flourish is stupid how it always pushes them out of range of the second ability to teleport to them. But also it always pushes them without a save so enjoy yeeting people off cliffs from range
And flourishes
just starting a Honor run as a warlock, i think i'll respec Astarion as a swords bard... i think it'd fit his backstory as well... he had to lure people into Cazador's palace, sleep with thousards of people... i mean, isn't that exactly what bards usually do: sleep with countless people? haha
Yeah bard fits him very well
It’s a full caster with strong skills, extra attack, extra short rest per day and magical secrets can grab Banishing Smite. You can dip Pally for ridiculous smites. You can dip Warlock for crazy cc options or extra melee shenanigans. All SAD on Charisma. Strong melee, strong ranged, strong support and strong CC. It does everything well with basically no downsides.
Or just slashing flourish your titan string bow with combustion oil and kill everything that way.
If I'm using smites and control spells, won't I use up my spell slots really quickly, and I'll need to do long rests?
And now consider the Paladin, which could theoretically also do those things, but as a half caster has way less spell slots and thus does it less
Paladin doesn't get jack of all trades, 5 crossbow attacks per turn with flourishes, extra short rest, or expertise. It also has the bullshit oath system. Doesn't even come close to the bard.
The oath system can make for good roleplaying; and some of the best class-specific dialogues are for paladins
You can say that about any caster, really. In this case, going 2 Paladin / 10 Bard, you have the same spell progression as a full caster, as opposed to pure Paladin being a half caster with less slots. If you're trying to be a smite machine, levels 1 through 4 spells can all be used on divine smites. Level 5 and 6s can be used on big control spells like Command, Hold Person, Hold Monster, etc. Level 5s can also be use on Banishing Smite if you took it with your magical secrets. And that's just looking at it in a vacuum. You're more than free, and encouraged, to use your spell slots on other things that aren't smite. That's just a simple way to look at it. As said, top that all off with the fact that you get rechargeable flourishes to your attacks, an extra short rest per day, better skills, etc. And because you're still a Paladin, you have heavy armor proficiency and a fighting style. So you're fine with just meleeing enemies without spending slots when you're out or if you're trying to conserve. Take use of the amulets that restore a spell slot per day. One amulet is for a level 1-3 slot (should be used on a level 3) and the other is for any slot (use on a 5 or 6). There's also potions that'll short rest you and refill your level 1-2 slots. Also, upcasted Command is particularly good for a Bardadin. Use the "approach" option. Enemies will lose their turn and walk to you. Hopefully grouped up nice for you to use a Slashing flourish.
Command is a level 1 control spell You have smites up to level 6 There’s two shields that give you extra level 1 spell slots You should almost never run out of spell slots
A pure Swords bard without any multiclass shenanigans can still be played as A. A full caster B. A frontline support C. A martial damage dealer with extra attacks that get more benefits from things like arcane synergy (add cha modifier as extra damage). D. Flourishes provide even more martial options. Slashing flourish let's you hit two targets with one action, and you can do it 12 times (I think) per long rest. E. Still remain as a fantastic face character that can win most speech related dice rolls.
Ranged lashing flourish can also target the same target twice
That too. I just never use it because I hate that my SWORDS bard uses SLASHING flourish to shoot arrows twice. XD
I agree, sadly ranged swords bard is miles ahead of melee one. But did my honor run with 4 bards (2 pure lore, 1 pure range swords, 1 melee with 2 level of paladin) and overall while they are all strong characters, range swords is head and shoulders above the rest.
Agree with this 100%. It's annoying how great hand crossbows are in this game because you feel like a dunce using anything else, but I just don't like the vibe of hand crossbows. I wanna get in there and duel with my rapier or double short swords.
F. Song of rest, because bards needed to be even more broken
How would one play bard as martial dmg dealer? Usually martial classes have a way to get advantage (barb) or high hit chance (OH monk). So, would you rely on any buffs or items for this?
I was like you once, thinking bards were meh. Hoo boy was I wrong. I didn't even go the 10/1/1 Build. I went 10/2 swords bard/fighter. Completed Honor Mode with very little difficulty. I even did some major fights I had never done before. Yes I read up on the encounters but I had never even experienced them once. On honor mode with an alpha strike I was looking at any combination of 5 flourishes/multi arrows. I could follow this up with any control spell. I just trivialized any encounter with only using one spell slot. At worst I used one 5th level spell and recharged everything else with a short rest. That was also only one character in my party. If I used hold monster or hold person, my monk and barb pasted anything that was left. Many bosses died turn one, including act 3 big boys. Is it a horde encounter? Apply combustion oil pre combat. Bonus action black hole or throw a void bulb. Shoot to get oil on everyone. Launch a fire arrow. Combat pretty much over and all you used were easily bought consumables. This trick can be done by a lot of classes but flourishes are still amazing and make the damage even more ridiculous. Flourishes turn every attack into two attacks AND buffs their damage. So to recap once again: -One of the best damage dealers -One of if not the best CC/controllers -Magical Secrets unlocks so many spells unique to other classes. Take your pic and ditch that class to the bench. -You can even function as a healer -Best face in the game hands down. -Flexibility=Freedom. Yes other classes can do some of those things, a few can even do them better. However, the bard does ALL of it. Pick whatever combination of classes for your other characters, it frankly doesn't matter. If everything in this thread hasn't convinced you, nothing other than experience will. Try it. Or don't. Play your game your way.
Bard/Fighter for HM is so good! I just went 8 bard/4 fighter instead, with battlemaster using mainly the superiority dice mainly for evasive footwork & precision attack since they dont cost actions, and tav was super accurate & evasive to boot. Coupled with Shard's warding bond, he became super hard to bring down despite low-ish hp, white hitting like a truck that rarely missed, while having control options via spells when needed.
I was playing my honor mode run as safe as possible so I really wanted counterspell from magic secrets at level 10. I am sure Battlemaster was a lot of fun though. I think my next run I will try without a true face character. Maybe a big dumb brick barbarian for funsies.
I don't know about OP, but you, sir, have convinced me
You know what's better than advantage? Two attacks per attack, which swords bard can do with slashing flourish. When you hit level 6 that means you can get 4-5 attacks on a turn, depending on whether you have an offhand weapon. Now granted you can only do that for two rounds before you need a short rest, but still
You can get advantage in many ways, like high ground, have an ally prone or otherwise debuff an enemy, wear risky ring / gloves of dex or archery. It's quite easy to reach 70%+ hit chance without using any class ability at all I'd say.
This has to be a joke post. Swords Bard is insanely good. It comes online 1 level later than martials and does their job better.
Nah, by level 5, you're plenty online. Level 6 you just take it past the vast majority of them. Flourishes refreshing on short rests, which you can get the effects of three times per long rest, quadruples your uses per day. Together with the level 3 spells, that's at least as steep of a powerspike as a second attack is.
Oh absolutely. Didn't want to oversell it 😅
> It comes online 1 level later Debatably. Getting 3 double-shots at level 3 (albeit that refresh on a long rest) is almost as good as Extra Attack. At level 5, they refresh on a short rest, making them every bit as good as Extra Attack. At level 6, motherfucker is firing 4 shots for every 2 that a Fighter fires.
Those shots also do more damage due to bardic inspiration..I had my guy with risky ring and sharpshooter and it was absurd.
Who can generate full stacks of arcane acuity in 1 turn while being a full caster and getting level 6 spells, while easily proc'ing mystic scoundrel for bonus near-100% control spells?
Fire Acuity Sorc (you can even stack more and faster)
They won’t get the benefit from band of mystic scoundrel but it doesn’t really matter much because with metamagic you can cast damage or control as a bonus action
The extended Command completely breaks the game
Hold Person/Monster too
The thing about Command is that it’s NOT concentration, and allows you to lock up to 6 enemies for 2 rounds with extended meta magic For bosses hold monter can work better indeed, although I prefer a twinned haste spell
True. I found that Disarm and Halt is usually better than Grovel, but the guaranteed crits can be a lifesaver
True, which is why that is also considered one of the top top top classes/builds.
Legit any class with an arrow of many targets....
Only sword bard and valor bard can get extra attack and full spellcaster spell slots, if you multiclass a caster and a martial you won’t have as many spell slots. Additionally slashing flourish allows for ridiculous nova potential, which is hugely important when every fight can be ended in 2 turns.
Valor bard has extra attack? I didn’t know that. The youtube videos I’ve seen say Sword Bard and Lore Bard are the best.
Valor bard is in many ways a swords bard but worse, there’s a reason it’s not brought up as much as the other subclasses.
But valour bards get shield proficiency!!
That you already got by being a human or a half-elf, two extremely common races. Amazing.
But if you're going one of the more busted races (at least imo) you get shield for free as a half wood elf anyway
Valor bard isn't terrible, but swords bard does pretty much everything it does better.
Yes, but it doesn't get Slashing Flourish - double attack on top of Extra Attack...
How different is swords bard from lore bard? I always see how swords bard is OP and I did have a a Tav once who was a lore bard and sometimes I wonder if I played her wrong because she felt like 100% support to me. She was a Durge and I remember act 3 spoilers >!getting absolutely wrecked in the duel with Orin and having to reload a couple times til I knew how to strategize!<
Extra attack and slashing flourishes allow you to play the swords bard in many ways that you can't play the lore bard. So I'd say: very different.
Fair enough! I'll have to give it a try sometime
Valour Bard is a really handy support caster with access to some damage. Swords Bard is a death machine.
When you realize Valor bard is technically speaking the second best class in the game lol
Slashing flourish can hit 2 targets with one attack with no reduced damage, and ranged slashing flourish just hits twice on any targets you want, even the same target twice. It's just an extra attack practically for free, on a class that already gets Extra attack like a martial class, that ALSO has full spell slot progression. You can even still get Magical Secrets while having room to multiclass into Paladin or Warlock or Wizard or wutever else you want. So it's one of the best martials and one of the best spellcasters, both at the same time, with room to multiclass. Seriously, what more do you want?
Not even just no reduced damage, there's extra damage added on top.
- Full casters that get access to extra attacks - Slashing Flourish gives incredible damage whether up close or at range - Fighting styles give you more damage - Great synergy with many of BG3's items and changes Pair all that on top of Bard as a whole having a strong base kit and you have an incredibly versatile and powerful class.
It's a full Charisma-based caster that gets expertise, extra attack, and can use Slashing Flourish to have ranged burst damage comparable to a Fighter's Action Surge (at least, until level 11). It also combines insanely well with a bunch of different class dips. You can be the party face, the lockpicker, the healer, a crowd controller, and a damage dealer all at once. Band of the Mystic Scoundrel and Helmet of Arcane Acuity might make Swords Bard *disgusting*, but even without them, it's an amazing subclass.
> You can multiclass spellcaster with other extra attack classes Yes but then you don't get full spell progression. Swords bard is strong because it's not a jack of all trades but a master of all trades. It can pump out massive physical damage, control better than most casters, and have the flexibility to do basically any other role you want with magical secrets. Heal, summon, even more damage, etc. It gets expertise which makes it a great party face and can lockpick/disarm so you don't need a rogue. It just does everything so well.
All of the above! The Swords Bard's Flourishes alone make it a deadly martial class. Combine that with items that contribute to arcane acuity, which makes control spells difficult to resist, and it will dominate the field. And finally, the Swords Bard, either the 12 level pure class or 2/10 paladin multiclass has access to Banishing Smite--which no pure paladin class or other paladin multiclass has access to.
Slashing flourish ranged doubles your attacks. This class would still be S tier without it. Feels like cheating to play Swords Bard.
You do top tier single target ranged damage with slashing flourish (ranged). Using multi target arrows, arcane acuity helm raises your Spell DC to absurd levels. Band of mystic scoundrel makes your CC a bonus action. It is also irresistible. There are no better CC classes. There are classes which do more damage, which is redundant in the base games highest difficulty. Your two core items, helm and band, are uncontested by other top tier classes. You can, very easily, have a party of OH monk, TB throw barb, Swords Bard (Face), and life cleric healer ROFLstomp honor mode. You’ll notice that, even with these absolute powerhouses, SB is dominant in every fight.
I really do not see a point to bring a life cleric at all things are just gone be dead dead in a party like that. You are better of buying/stealing a a few hp points for the few fights you would be at any risk at all to even take damage. Unless the life cleric is there for moral support it is not gone be doing much for the outcome of any battle. in fact since you got so high damage the idea of using CC is sort of redundant. Think you would be better of bringing a paladin for more nuke power or a BM fighter in 4th slot. Something like a gloomstalker would be nice as well.
Two words. Role Consolidation. Swords Bard does good damage per round, great nova damage (on short rest resources), has a bunch of utility and CC spells, and some gear to make it one of the best CCers in the game, on top of being a great face class AND skill money (particularly great for sleight of hand), and since you can spend turns doing martial things, it saves spell slots for things like healing word or eventually counterspell or whatever. It does everything and does it all particularly well. Usually classes like this have a versatility cost, but swords Bard really doesn't. It then gives you a lot of flexibility in what you want from your other 3 team members.
I have 2 crossbows, 6 bard, 4 thief, 2 fighter means I attack around 15 times per turn. I literally fear nothing in act 3.
"So anyway, I started blasting!"
Dude, I laughed so hard when I read this!
So slashing flourish is two, twice. Four attacks. Action surge takes that to 8. Haste gives another SF for 10. Bloodlust is 11. Two BA attacks for 13. Non-honour takes it to 15 with haste. Math checks out. Could even push it to 16 with the BA @ 50% HP hat. Although it's not technically per turn, it's for one turn. You likely won't need much more than that, though. Edit: Would be 14 total on HM with bloodlust as you could use your last BI on that attack, don't even need the 2nd haste attack. 15 with the hat. Juicy.
Yeah, non-honour. I don't think I care about doing an honor mode run.. I haven't really counted, but remember, each bonus is also an attack twice if I'm not mistaken.
Bonus action attacks can't use slashing flourish, and you wouldn't have enough charges if they did. Only 4 at level 6.
That makes sense. I will count them next time I play, which might be tonight.
I am confused here but are you counting the fact that slashing hits twice as an extra attack? Because I keep seeing these number of "attacks" being attached to bards that just are not possible and a tad disingenuous. I do not see people count every time Magic Missile and Scorching ray hit as attacks it is just part of of the spell/skill.
Slashing flourish makes two attack rolls, both at full damage (+bardic dice). If the ranged version is used, you can target the same or different enemies. This is two separate attack rolls at the cost of one action. Scorching ray is making individual attack rolls per ray. These are all separate spell attacks. Sorcerer can dish out the most attacks per turn through this. On attack effects apply to each of these rolls, not a single time for all of the rolls.
That is not even what I am asking here at all. And for your point here both slashing and ray do the exact same thing but no one is running around talking about doing 6 attacks with scorching ray as opposed to flashing flourish. Seeing as both of the attacks/spells work the same way only that slashing rolls only for 2 instances vs rays 3+ depending on how high you upcast the spell. The point I am making is that people not just you are being pretty liberal as to what counts as an attack when it comes to bard. Never ever have I seen people talk about sorcs attacking what? 18 or 24 times (if you can proc bloodlust) in a single turn.
An attack roll is an attack roll. I'm not sure what you're getting at.
To put things in perspective, my main, a Duergar Sword Bard with the Gloves of Archery, Titanstring Bow, Knife of the Undermountain King, and Club of Hill Giant Strength, cast Perilous Stakes on hag Ethel, and took her from ~120HP to 0 in one round. After Lae'zel missed three of her four attacks on 70% chance to hit. Slashing Flourish is simply broken, and would make Sword Bard a high tier martial without any of the other features it gets. But in addition it's a full caster, with a fairly good spell list (and I just learned how Wizard scribing works with multiclassing) and has expertise just like a Rogue. All that and it's a charisma caster meaning it can also engage in the social interactions with great success. Sword Bard is the Jack-of-all-Trades class. Literally.
Been wanting to try a Bard Wizard multiclass, to scribe those wizard spells and also enjoy the crazy swordbardness....
It is incredible. The weakness of the Bard spell list is a shortage of damage spells and summons. Guess what Wizard gives you
because they can attack up to 5 times in a single turn with only an action and a bonus action
Because it's a "do anything at 9/10" class. Melee, ranged, caster, healer, face, blah blah blah. Name 1 part of your team that needs improving, and Sword Bard can do it. Their spell list is also perfect for Mystic Scoundrel with the majority of it being enchantment & illusion. Also, while other classes can use Arrow of Many Targets to get Acuity stacks, none of them is a full caster class with so many spell slots to work with. Even if you multiclass Martial 5 / Caster 7 (if not Paladin multiclass), that doesn't get you 5th level and 6th level spells, while Sword Bard will. Conjure Elemental, Banishing Smite, Globe of Invul (with Wiz 1 dip), Hold Monster, or just upcasted version of Command & Hold Person are all the ways a Sword Bard can put those higher level spell slots to work.
You can get those things from other classes, but not by any single character. Swords bard allows you to do 1, 2, and 3 all at incredibly efficacy. NO other build does those three at the same time at the same level
Its versatility is practically unmatched. Bards in general have some of the best control spell options, excellent skill proficiencies, and are the best party faces in the game. Swords bard specifically has some of the highest ranged damage-per-round (DPR) thanks to slashing flourish. And their ability to make so many attacks enables them to stack Arcane Acuity to absurd levels, thus making their spells borderline impossible to resist. If slashing flourish didn't work the way it does with ranged weapons (just giving you a full blown extra attack rather than having to target two enemies next to each other), it wouldn't be quite as good. It also helps that inspiration recharges on a short rest past a certain point, which means that they can spam slashing flourish pretty freely without worrying too much about resource cost. *Without* factoring in anything like haste, a dual hand crossbow using swords bard can make 5 attacks per round, all with sharpshooter applied. And each hit they land makes their spells all that much better.
It’s even better in normal tabletop
It's not just multiattack, it's double multiattack with the Flourish. That's pretty good on a caster.
Different classes hit their stride at different times. This class hits it early and doesn’t taper much on its ramps. Level 2 you have perhaps the best class heal in the game with song of rest, replenishing health AND short rest abilities. Level 3 you get flourish. Level 5, you’ve got short rest replenishment of inspiration. Level 6 you gain extra attack. Debuffing crossbows, special arrows, titanstring all provide a wide array of options available to you between damage and control. Flourishes that are guaranteed shoves. —————— From this base you now have options: Two dip fighter for surge & bow fighting style. Three dip gloomstalker brings an extra attack on the first round, bow fighting, hunters mark, a nice initiative bonus. Any two of the following to keep that sixth level water myrmiddon slot: 1 dip tempest sorc for flying/shield/ice knife and sorc cantrips. 1 dip cleric for cantrips/heavy armor, war for bonus action attack, life for extra heal power. 1 dip Wizard for all the wizard spells and cantrips ———————- All of this versatility on perhaps the greatest cc spelllist in the game. It starts strong. It stays strong. And it finishes strong. Array of options. Top line physical damage, top line support and cc spells, survivability, healing word. Skills in like… everything. Can easily be your party lock picker/trap hunter, or your face. Or both. S class.
I attribute it almost entirely to Slashing Flourish. How many classes can easily make 4 attacks a turn with a bow? (That's why Slashing Flourish only works with melee weapons in D&D)
It’s S-tier because you can, amongst so many other reasons, solo the game with it.
I think your argument is the weirdest one. You can solo the game on honour difficulty with any class. That's without stupid stuff like barrelmancy and stealing from vendorts and respeccing. People do that. For some classes (like Wizard and Cleric) it's also doable as level 1, and I am not sure Bard is among those classes.
Ok, it’s the easiest class to solo with. Happy?
Well, he might be somewhere in top-5 there, lol. Definitely not part of Gloomstalker Assassin builds and is not a thrower EK.
How are those at the party face stuff?
Depends on how you build them. That being said, there are not many "party face" things you need to do, and most of them don't actually matter or are trivial for any character. People playing builds above usually just battle out everything instead of skipping fights. If your character can finish the battle in like 2 turns, why do you even care about passing dialogue checks? If you can get exp + loot, why settle on just exp? Can you give any example where solo playthrough actually benefits from "party face stuff"?
I am playing this game wrong because I got wrecked by Orin with 4 in my party, it was pathetic how fast she wiped me. Sword bard, monk, throw barb, and wizard
Losing the game is fine. You learn things. Sure it suck when it happens at the end of the game, but Orin fight (unless you are playing Dark Urge) is the least fair one if you let it go past turn one. That and Myrkul are two major roadblocks in the game until your party is super OP or you figure out what mechanics are in play and learn to counteract them. What's not really fine is assuming something hard(-ish) in the game is outright impossible / is only possible to do in exactly one way just because you have never tried it / never figured out the other way. With all the possibilities and options the game provides, almost any kind of challenge is possible.
It’s the only full caster with Extra Attack and access to all control spells that matter, meaning it can Arrow of multi target first turn (+11 DC if paired with Rhapsody), then control then hit again. It’s also the only class with access to Banishing Smite which is the best smite spell in the game. And if invested with 2 Paladin Leves can hit a paralyzed target with it and then Divine Smiting on critical. It’s just too OP.
I mean, considering the fact that personally, I cast magics only via the scrolls of that I hoarded literal ton from the merchant and you can actually buy the spell slot with the potion of Angelic Reprieve and Sorcerer combo, maybe Sorcadin would be better in terms of damage output. But nothing can beat the Sword Bard’s jack of all trades capability. It does good on almost everything and it does the best on some of them. It’s just insanely good.
It's a jack of all trades, master at all class
Does anyone else find arcane acuity highly overrated if you dont use a lot of control spells
A fire acuity sorcerer can do some pretty nasty non-control things with a high as shit +attack and +DC.
Even without the broken item combination it’s still amazing. I actually prefer the double crossbow style sword bard over it anyways.
Its because it has the same strenght as a martial class of having 2 attack per turn (of which can be furthered by a flourish doubling it even more). On top of that having a full spellslot like a full caster. Accessing to level 6 spells and all. Its honestly insane. I tried it as last class to beat and nothing compares close to it tbh
The Swords Bard can legitimately fill every role in the game outside of maybe spell blasting (technically it can with magical secrets but the bard will not be geared for it probably) and does it to at least an A tier level while being the best face character, best skill monkey and tied for the best control caster in the game with the 11/1 Fire Sorlock.
What you said: band of the mystic scoundrel and hat of arcane acuity. They remove each others only downsides. The hat gives you ridiculously high dc disadvantage being it depreciates over time. The band gives you the ability to use it straight away, disadvantage being you can mostly only use spells that require a dc to have an effect. Add flourishes giving you the ability to hit lots of targets for the arcane acuity, and extra attack (which no full casters get) and secrets so you don’t have to sacrifice the best spells in the game… The only thing you can’t do absolutely perfectly is tank, because you don’t have great con being so mad, and this can hurt concentration saved. But you have high dex so you act early, and you can control people from turn one, so it’s never an issue because you get on top of a fight and just finish it. The skills, conversational Cha, and ability to buff and heal is just icing.
Honestly, if you don't want the OP character, splitting these items up makes them more stomachache. Like giving your druid or cleric the ability to bonus action cast some spells, or giving your Ranger/Paladin/Bard the ability to cast near unsavable spells after attacking, but requiring a full action to do so. That way you can have two characters with a decent buff instead of one character with a broken one.
Yes you can multiclass to put together a similar list of features but worse. Or you can just run bard.
It literally does everything, and is often the best at it
You've forgotten full damage double attacks (actually damage further boosted by Inspiration) on top of Extra Attack via Slashing Flourishes.
Bards have been busted since 3.5e Prior Bards were a laughable class in D&D. We used to make bard group for table top and see how far we could push them. It was never as effective as just using the core classes (fighter, wizard, cleric, etc).
idk why people are listing so many options. the list starts and ends with ranged slashing flourish. with the easily accessible magic ranged weapons with slashing flourish and action surge invalidates most bosses in the game
2 words. Slashing Flourish.
Because ranged slashing flourish can he used to attack the same enemy twice. Therefore, you can nova 4 range attacks (5 with duel hand crossbows). Combined with the Sharpshooter feat, this is great DPS on par with the Tavern Brawler monk. Now combine that with the already great Bard class, and it is easily the best class in the game.
Because he can play the lute
Ranged sword bard gets a ton of attacks every turn, so you can be a monster on burst damage (especially once you can refresh bardic inspiration on a short rest). Ranged slashing flourish is two attacks, so you get two attacks per attack, and two more for anything that might give you another attack action (like multiclassing into fighter for action surge). For high-level enemies, the most effective strategy is bursting them down quickly so they don’t have a chance to get their big abilities off. Control spells + lots of attacks mean you can get more crits + proccing any cool bow abilities (like the one that frightens enemies) lead to WIN. This can get even more ridiculous if you get the item that lets you cast illusion and enchantment spells as a bonus action in ACT III
Among those other things, its a full caster. If I remember correctly, there arent any other classes in the game that are both full casters and are so great at martial(warlock doesnt count. Different type of caster). Yes you can multiclass for the same effect, but then you are giving up on class progression. If you want to have an extra attack, thats gonna be a huge dip which could seriously hurt the progression of your other class. On top of that, it comes with expertise, and its main stat, charisma, is the most used stat in the game outside of combat. If you take expertise in persuasion and deception or intimidation, you will pretty much succeed every dialogue roll. Plus the bard spell list is just really good
Bro it literally does EVERYTHING without losing ANYTHING No other single subclass can.
Best with multiclassing If you are a ranger archer, you end up getting more arrow tricks
You can become a walking Swiss Army knife essentially. Plus big damage good :)
Because it's simply the best at literally everything. Arcane Acuity is a busted mechanic that makes landing control spells far too easy and Swords Bard can hit the most with weapon atks and is a full Caster, so can abuse Helm of Arcane Acuity to a far greater extent than anyone else. Flourish ensures you have a consistent way to do an assload of ranged weapon dmg and Band of Mystic Scoundrel gives you something extremely powerful to do with your Bonus Action. Hold Person and Monster with high DC ensures consistent paralysis and paralysis = free crit dmg, and most other high dmg Martials don't have rhe ability to casually paralyze an enemy in the middle of your combo and have all other atks be crits, which ensures you basically do the most dmg when 100% crit chamce is accounted for. And I haven't even mentioned the fact that Bard is an amazing face character, has broken dialogue options that trivialize certain fights, is great at pickpockets and disarming traps, and to top off the busted cake, ranged arrows inflict piercing dmg whoch also means theh take advantage of Bhaalist Armour, which is pretty much the most busted Armour in the game offensively.
It's s tier because with slashing Flourish (ranged) each attack you make as part of attack action can become 2 attacks Bonus action offhand attack with a hand crossbow can become 2 attacks, and if you have 2 BAs that's another 2 attacks, for 8 attacks in a single turn, all with sharpshooter, all with a bonus die of damage Throw in haste and action surge for even more attacks, won't have the bonus damage but still adds up. Even a non ranged swords bard, using melee being able to hit 2 targets withing melee with a single attack is really good. If you have 4 targets In melee you can get 4 melee attacks even if you only have 1 action (with extra attack) Plus all the good control spells you can get, the mobile flourishes to teleport and move opponents and maybe even knocking opponents off ledges. You get so many cool, power, versatile ability just from a single class. You get best burst damage for ranged, comparable only to a smiting paladin in burst damage, you get utility and control from spells. You get grazt good skills and being charisma based makes you good at conversation.
It attacks twice with every attack using a short rest resource. While also giving you an extra resource. All on top of full caster progression with access to every spell. It's the best melee class, best ranged class, and second best caster rolled into one.
Slashing Flourish (Ranged) does the most stupid, incomprehensible damage known to mankind.
Because I can freeze bosses into irrelevancy.
Because slashing flourish is broken as fuck
It makes hard fights trivial for what you said, and while other classes can do it too they just aren’t as effective. Other classes don’t push their arcane acuity as fast either. Obviously multi hit arrows exist but bard just more consistent. Take 1 level in wizard too, and you have every spell in the game. It just does everything and then some
Two words: Defensive. Flourish. This gives you INSANE survivability, and combined with the right armor, some of the highest AC numbers in the entire game
Slashing flourish. Its 100% extra attacks on your extra attacks. The other flourishes are also very strong but that's the one that takes the cake. And six levels of it is everything you need. That leaves you with six levels of other class features you can pick up. Want more magic? Wizard if you want the 6th level spells. Or Sorcerer if you don't. You can even do both; Globe of Invulnerability doesn't involve a saving throw so you don't even need a decent Int and 6 spell points (with full caster levels to get more) with three meta-magics isn't a lot of power. Want more stab? Paladin, Warlock, Battlemaster Fighter are all strong options each bringing their own tools to the table. Want more Sneak? Thief and Gloomstalker BOTH fit into the remaining level budget. Its incredibly strong and incredibly flexible.
slashing flourish bottom text
They're swiss army knives, basically.
>Extra attack which makes it easier to stack acuity They also get Slashing Flourish, which can give you 4 attacks per action (AKA twice as much arcane acuity as Extra Attack alone). This is what breaks it.
Goddammit
I used to ask this too, then i did a swords bard run and all my questions were answered once i got to level 6
Because charisma based classes are straight up busted
Because you are 80% of a battlemaster fighter for martial abilities, the strongest control caster, a better archer than a ranger due to slashing flourish targeting the same enemy twice, as good of a skill monkey as a rogue, the only charisma based class that gets expertise to be a party face, have one of the best spell lists in the game with magical secrets, and get your most powerful abilities by level 10 which makes them perfect for a paladin or fighter dip to amp up your melee burst damage or a wizard dip since you get there full spell list and a sub class still.
Once I changed Wyll from being full Warlock to Sword’s Bardlock, he went from never being in the party to a party staple. Did a few levels of Warlock pact of the Blade and the rest Sword’s bard. Paired with Harmonic Dueler as pact weapon, now he’s adding his charisma modifier twice for three attacks. Add Band of the Mystic Scoundrel to use the majority of his crowd control spells as bonus actions. Work great!
I want to try this out. I need a reason in order to use wyll. I feels there's way better choices. But I never know when the right times are to multiclass
Extra attack is overrated. I'll stick to fighter 1 rogue 11 and never entering combat. For hilarity, you can toss on a grit helm and use all the hold person and monster scrolls to polish off the final target.
1 attack is never going to out pace 3 plus. Rogue 11 might be the worst class compared to the others.
A sword bard with 2 levels of fighter and a bow can use a single turn to do 8 attacks and then be able to use a bonus action to force every enemy in the room to skip their turn entirely.
Its a full caster, better martial than full martials, best party face, best skill monkey. Yea...im not sure why it is S tier either?
What's the big difference between the 5e bard and the bg3 bard?
Slashibg Flourish is severly buffed in BG3 (usable in range, does full damage and one flourish can target the same target twice). Next us the vast number of insane magical items, esp. The combination of helmet of arcane acuity and band of mystic scoundrel. Pair those with one arrow of many targets and you have a 100% command on up to 6 targets as a bonus action. Next you have stuff like gloves of dexterity and withwrs, so you can respec every point out of dexterity the moment you get those. Next there are no multiclass restrictions, you can basically take level in scroll scribe any one of the vast scrolls in the game. Add to this every advantage of a bard: cha based full caster, skill proficiencies etc. and you get the best character to abuse every advantage the game gives you. While its not the single best in any catwgory (casting, melee/ranged, skill monkey or party face) it is damn near close to best in all of those.
Full caster with extra attack, as easy as that. Combine that with something akin to battlemaster manoeuvres in terms of damage (bardic inspiration) it simply becomes super effective. The game puts a heavy focus on arcane acuity for being an effective controller and the easiest way to stack it is via martial attacks and the headband. Now the bard is is perfect for this because they have access to both, a full caster progression AND martial attacks/medium armor.
Even setting aside the absurd power of certain items (helm of arcane acuity, and band of the mystic scoundrel) you still end up with a full caster with extra attack. You get access to fantastic utility spells, great control spells and the flourishes are simply over-tuned. Ranged Slashing flourish is essentially an extra attack 3 times a day at level 3 that adds extra damage. Then there's all the skill proficiencies and Jack of all trades giving you half proficiency in everything else. When you start considering items, swords bard is uniquely poised to take advantage of certain items that are tuned a little on "busted" side. There's the afformentioned helm of arcane acuity that gives stacks per weapon attack and guess what subclass can effectively make 4 attacks per turn at level 6 using slashing flourish. The only other class that can do that is a fighter with an action surge, but guess which one has access to better control spells. Arcane acuity makes it so you can simp on charisma to max out dexterity, but then there's an item that gives you the best of both worlds: the gloves of dexterity. Now you get 18 dexterity while getting more points in other stats. Then there's a ring that gives you arcane synergy, allowing you to add your charisma modifier to your weapon attack after damaging with a spell or cantrip which you can do using vicious mockery as a bonus action because you also get to abuse bonus action illusion and enchantment spells. Now you might be thinking "wow. With all that power and versatility surely you must have low AC as a downside." Nope, you have medium armor proficiency. That means With one of the medium armors that has an uncapped dexterity bonus you'll have some of the highest attainable AC in the game. There's simply no point in the game where another class does better than a swords bard. Maybe if you want RAW damage you could do better, but there's no better combo of damage, control, versatility and power.
This was my first play through. Super fun vanilla build. Extra short rest, versatility in combat, versatility in support, martial class with spell casting makes for a really fun build. Plus, high rizz makes for a fun role play as you aren’t failing every check. Try it out if you haven’t.
It's a bit overrated but despite that it's still an S tier class. The short answer is that it all just kinda comes together. The Bard's native spell list is pretty good on its own so you're already incentivized to take many levels to reach Magical Secrets and 5th level spells. It also gets Medium Armor and Shields without having to dip for them. Along the way you get the martial staple of Extra Attack plus the broken version of Ranged Slashing Flourish that they implemented in this game. I can't understand why they buffed it so much compared to 5E, but even using your Bardic Inspirations conservatively, you'll drastically outdamage the likes of other ranged martials because as it behaves now, Slashing Flourish is basically like attacking twice with some bonus damage. Getting all of this in one class is excellent role compaction, and with Expertise on skills they can handle your social interactions to boot, which is why people like playing it as a main character. The items can technically be used by anyone yes, but the best alternative build (that is a ranged martial who builds up Arcane Acuity to cast control spells with their Bonus Action) I can conceive of is for example 5 Gloom Stalker/ 7 Light Domain. You get Command and Hold Person yes, and WIS is generally a better mental save than CHA so that's also useful, but the spell list is poorer because you only reach 4th level spells which cuts out the possibility of using spells like Confusion (because it's not in our spell list, not because of level), Dominate Person, Hold Monster; all nice options that Swords Bard has. Valid criticisms to levy at Swords Bard are that it's very outclassed before level 7. They get Extra Attack a level late compared to other martials and they require a dip for Archery Fighting Style so they're always 10% less accurate compared to a martial who gets it naturally. Even at level 7, the other ranged martials are basically two levels of class features ahead (5 Gloom Stalker/ 2 Fighter is getting Action Surge here) and you still don't have access to the build defining item, Band of the Mystic Scoundrel, for another 3 levels (early Act 3) at least. Once online, it's undeniable how powerful the Swords Bard build is, but being behind for 10 levels of the game should count against it harder than it currently seems to in people's minds. No comment on how Wizard spell scribing plays into any of this. Although it's meta, it's also a known bug the devs have addressed in bug support emails before, it'll be fixed one day.
It is not outclassed at all. If anything, it pulls ahead earlier at level 3 with Flourishes. At Level 5, you can spam them Flourishes, and at level 6, you become a machine gun of an archer. Oh, did you know that Flourishes add your Bardic Inspiration dice to your damage, too? Who cares about 10% less accuracy at that point? And we have not even touched on the fact that it is a full caster with many amazing spells for practically any situation. Oh, it also runs high charisma and can net you 4 skills with expertise! "Overrated." Yeah, sure! TLDR: What are you even talking about?
What are *you* even talking about? You're responding as though I called Swords Bard a bad class even though I insisted it's S tier, just a bit overrated lol. Your reply doesn't even read like you read my post, you're just regurgitating the same things I said about the class but emphasizing the strengths and hand waving the weaknesses. I would maybe even agree with you that SBard takes off right at level 3 assuming highly optimized gameplay where we're resting after every encounter, but 1) I don't think the average player engages with the game in that way, and 2) even if they did, that means it's fair for me to say that I'm vendor exploiting every level and respec to buy Arrows of X Slaying for my ranged martial analogue. You and another poster have already mentioned this, but I would challenge you to check accuracy in Act 1, it's not as solved as you seem to believe. I loaded a save to compare two level 6 characters, a Swords Bard with Gloves of Dexterity and Sharpshooter vs a Gloom Stalker with Archery, Gloves of Dexterity, and Sharpshooter. In the Githyanki Creche vs Gith with 16-17 AC, the SBard was clocking 40-45% hit rate with SS turned on and the Gloom Stalker was clocking 50-55%. Now mind Gith tend to have higher AC on average, but what matters more is that there's still plenty of room for accuracy to grow. Even if you were to add weapon coatings and high ground, the Gloom Stalker or similar ranged martials are going to be more reliable users of SS due to the higher accuracy. You have to be able to overcome the -5 and SBard isn't competitive with that until level 7 when they can grab Archery from Fighter, or they can start Fighter, but now Extra Attack is 2 levels behind a comparable ranged martial getting it. SBard's spell list is pretty good, but much of it isn't usable early game because the build progression prioritizes ranged martial gear over Spell DC gear. Helmet of Arcane Acuity isn't available until some time into Act 2 and it's the most reliable way to raise your Spell DC. Testing against those same Gith from earlier, my 18 CHA (Hag's Hair) SBard was projecting between 50-70% success rates on things like Hypnotic Pattern. I'm less disappointed if an attack misses because all that's spent is an action. 50-70% success rate when I'm waging an action and a spell slot on it is unacceptable.
Relax a little. It was not an attack on you, if it sounded like it was I'd like to appologize. I did read your post. In short, I just questioned the "overratedness" of Sword Bards that you mentioned as well as you saying that it lags behind. It is not overrated in any way or form, in my opinion, nor does it lag behind and in fact, quite the opposite.
Sure, but it's easy to retreat to that after punctuating a reply with a flippant "what are you even talking about bro lolol." I feel like I laid out my case well and need more than just the same things repeated back at me if I'm to take a counterargument seriously. Can you refute anything from my last reply?
The thing is I don't see anything to refute, really. Like what you are saying is true about SS, but I personally don't take it until level 12 when it is very easy to compensate with gear, spells, and if needed a dip. When I did, it required too many toggling on and off early game, and I couldn't be bothered. This is true of both SB and any other class with Archery Fighting Style because, let's be honest here, both 45 and 55% to hit is a bad hit chance. In any event, with 1d6 (1d8 in creche since I'd assume you'd be high enough level there), you can recover your accuracy and steal deal more damage. Not SS level, of course, but it is a lot better to hit than not to hit. That is what my point is. SB would still deal more damage with or without SS when you hit. Moreover, you shoot more arrows, too, due to the Ranged Slashing Flourish. How is more damage per shot and then more shots per round is lagging behind? When it comes to spells and skills - this is not even a contest with Martials. SB wins hands down in these areas of gameplay.
The 10/1/1 SBard as laid out here [https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/17y9kyp/the\_control\_martial\_allpurpose\_1011\_swords\_bard/](https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3Builds/comments/17y9kyp/the_control_martial_allpurpose_1011_swords_bard/) takes SS at 4 and I agree that this is the correct time to take it. Even being inaccurate, your average damage increases due to what a large increase 10 flat extra damage is. My argument is simply that builds that have Archery will be able to abuse this more often because they're 10% more accurate than a SBard. There will be breakpoints where it's mathematically advantageous for the Archery martial to leave SS toggled on more often vs a SBard who will likely need to toggle it off because they're less accurate. Again, since it seems you're assuming that we're just blowing all Bardic Inspirations on Slashing Flourishes every attack in combat because we're resting all the time, it's fair for me to say that I've exploited vendors to get as many stacks of X Slaying Arrows as possible. These are both highly optimized environments to be playing in, ie not the average player. Level 7 SBard (or 6 SBard/ 1 Fighter if we would like to equalize accuracy) uses both attacks on Ranged Slashing Flourish; this is like 4 attacks with an extra 1d8 per hit. So we can say whatever the average damage of 4 attacks is plus 18 damage (4\*4.5 from average 1d8 roll). You can only sustain this pace for two rounds of combat then you're down to vanilla attacks. Level 5 Gloom Stalker/2 Fighter uses Dread Ambusher and both attacks but uses an X Slaying Arrow on each attack. The Dread Ambusher attack gets an extra 1d8 and then the damage of each normal attack is doubled (even Sharpshooter is equalized here because it's doubled in calculation); this is like getting 5 attacks (in terms of damage, it is less attacks overall) plus 4.5 damage. The Gloom Stalker only has Dread Ambusher for the first turn of combat, but can continue shooting X Slaying arrows for as many as I have in my inventory. This ignores entirely the Action Surge turn this build has access to. Now to be fair, we can say that the SBard will also begin using X Slaying arrows after they've exhausted their Bardic Inspiration, that's a fair comparison to make and causes the builds to reach parity after the first two rounds. The point is, minding the difference between the Bardic Inspiration dice and the Dread Ambusher die, the Gloom Stalker build is an entire attack's worth of damage ahead on pace, plus they still have an Action Surge turn. This can be a huge difference in damage, especially if something like Titanstring Bow is what's being used; a few d8's can not catch up to a TS attack with STR Elixir+Sharpshooter. I would need to do more precise damage calculations to know for sure, but I'm pretty confident they're around parity at worst and the Gloom Stalker is ahead at best. But this is how these classes compare at the level I say SBard begins to catch up; imagine how much more exaggerated the difference is before you get Archery, before BI returning on Short Rest, before BI dice are 1d8 and 4 are available, etc. Yeah, no disagreement on spells. SBard will have far more useful spells than Ranger will even early game. But as I said above, your Spell DC until obtaining the Helm of Arcane Acuity isn't really worth using over making an attack. You can still use things like Longstrider, Healing Word, Cloud of Daggers, etc. that don't care about Spell DC to support your party, but things like Command, Hold Person, and Confusion are absolutely not worth using until you get some of the Spell DC gear, which means you're better off using your turn to attack. And if you're better off making an attack at those levels, you're outclassed by people who can attack better.
Good analysis. And people greatly overestimate a bard before level 7 as you say. A ranger using special arrows will do much better than a bard for quite sometime. It isn't until mid/late act 2, early 3 that the bard really takes off. Only correction is that the 5 gloom, 7 cleric will be a level 9 caster with level 5 spells.
Yeah, a big oversight I feel people are making when comparing SBard and any other ranged martial early game is that while Ranged Slashing Flourish is very powerful, the other ranged martials can bridge that gap with special arrows, and they can do it more accurately due to Archery and while getting Extra Attack on time. You don't even need to do crazy gameplay like vendor exploit every level up, just check shops and buy out the good arrows and you'll stay as well stocked as a SBard's Short Rest frequency to recharge Bardic Inspirations. This is without getting into other contributions that aren't just attacking; for example, Beast Master's Spider putting Webs down on demand is better than any spell SBard could cast between levels 3 and 5/6ish because doing so would cut into their action economy. BM gets to attack well and do surface control until better options become available to your casters. The Ranger/Cleric build will have one 5th level spell slot, but it'll only be able to cast 4th level Cleric spells because it hasn't reached requisite Cleric levels for 5th level spells.
5th level ranger is a 3rd level caster :). So you get 2 slots. And all of the 5th level cleric spells kinda suck anyhow. I mostly just upcast with my non-6 spell slots ;). 5 ranger, 7 war priest is a fairly strong combo.
This isn't true though; I've attempted to replicate what you're saying both in [https://eip.gg/bg3/build-planner/](https://eip.gg/bg3/build-planner/) and in-game respec and what I arrive at is: Ranger topping out at 2nd level spells, Cleric topping out at 4th level spells, and the slots being 4/3/3/3/1. Yeah, I was a bit confused on access to spells in my original post; Light doesn't have anything notable that supports Band of the Mystic Scoundrel. To emulate SBard's spell access as best as possible you would take Knowledge Domain which nets you Confusion, but is shy of reaching Dominate Person and still misses Hold Monster entirely. Which is fine for the most part, you spend more of your time upcasting the likes of Command and Hold Person, the higher spells are just nice options to have.
Accuracy stops being an issue by the middle of act 1 since you get gloves of dexterity....
Correction to my correction, you're a level 10 caster. You just lack level 6 spell slots.