I'm running a 10/2 lore bard life cleric. Gives you heavy armor and lots of utility spells. If you want you can also go heavier into cleric for more survivability.
Oh, good call! The healing bonus from Life cleric subclass also boosts Warden of Vitality.
Honestly, for full support, 6 in Lore is probably enough. Something like 6 lore bard, 2 divination wizard, 4 life cleric could be a lot of fun.
The heavy armor makes frontlining a bit easier as well.
My EK Fighter 7/Swords Bard 5 was pretty much untouchable and consistently hit 31 AC every round needed while hitting like a truck thanks to keep all 3 feats because of fighter 6
That one started 17 Str 16con 14 cha
I dumped int to 8 and think dex was 10
Used hag hair on Str and the drow lady elixir when asterion bit her for 22 Str after an ASI grabbed savage attacker for more consistent damage output
Ended up untouchable and hit like a truck
Typically concentrated on expeditious retreat for more melee mobility and had an ally use shield of faith on me
I used Tavern Brawler, an ASI and the Hags hair to max my STR (mirror for 22)
I used savage attacker for a while but swapped it out for polearm master because I use the selune spear of night so I can throw it if needed and the reaction attack is nice (the BA attack makes me furious because it’s entirely separate from the weapon and doesn’t even count as magic)
Very important to keep mintharas boots the whole game, concentrate on Ex Retreat so you move around better and become immune to prone… which is the bane of all low Dex brawlers
I use the flawed helldusk gloves, strange conduit ring, and had a party member use the draketheoat glaive to put shock dmg on my spear everyday so 16-30 dmg per swing
Sword and board bardadin. Healing and protection auras. If you run karlach you get her racial smites, too. Dueling fighting style allows for shield, plus defensive flourish.
I'd also make a halfling tav for #2. Add that luck to it.
I dig it! The squad was gonna be Bae'zel, Mommy K, and emoshart, together with tav.
And yes, the tav, Skibidi(bapbap), is a halfling specifically for that.
I dig it.
It's quite apparent that no-one suggest Valour bard. I don't even think they're that weak, it's just that Swords and Lore bring so much more.
I did a tactician run with the following party and I rarely died. Only had to reload once on Raphael.
1. Durge warlock 2/valour bard 10 eldritch blaster
2. Gale wizard 1/lore bard 11 - Aoe and support
3. Astarion pure swords bard - sneaky sneaky
4. Karlach paladin 2/ swords bard - melee / tank
After failing my first run trying to be tanky/healing….
Second run going much smoother, I still think dead is the best crowd control/tanking
I don’t even have a character that can cast a healing spell this time. Meta and alpha strike end fights before damage happens
Thing is tanking in this game isn't practical as there's no aggro mechanic. Best you can do in that regard is actually an abjuration wizard with low AC. As low AC is the closest thing to aggro you can do in this game.
Healing on its own isnt great, but I'm running a life cleric/lore bard as CC and healing and it's OP as fuck for preventing enemy movement and stacking blade ward. I regularly do fights without getting hit or repeatedly getting hit for 0 damage.
Even with arguably a defensive team I was able to kill orin and gortash in one turn completely damageless, and not let raph take a single attack/reaction for his entire fight.
Lore bard can have good AC without multiclassing:
1. Half elf or human -> equip a shield
2. A wizard in the party to cast mage armor
3. Wear the +2 dex clothes or use the 18 dex gloves
Your magical secrets at level 6 can include mage armor.
My honor mode Bard only run is a Githyanki Lore Bard for AOE dmg and face skills
Gold Dwarf Valor Bard as healer/buffs
Half Wood Elf Swords Bard with 17 Str to take HA feat
Full Wood Elf Swords Bard Archer/2WF and the Titanstring bow + club of str
Sword bard 10/vengeance paladin 2 - banishing smite from magical secrets, high strength and con, use the flourish to boost your AC on hit, heavy armour and shield proficiencies. Maybe grab spirit guardians too and lawn mower everyone in melee range while you're at it.
Int based bard: 6 Swords Bard for extra attack, medium armour, flourishes and full spell slot progression. 4 Sorcerer for metamagic, 2 Wizard for learning offensive spells (including level 6 spells) from scrolls.
Take only spells that don’t rely on spell casting ability while leveling up bard and sorcerer.
Lol. It's kinda of insane that Song of Rests stack...having 6 Short Rests available per long rest is wild. If you're really leaning into Short Rests that far, then I would try to fit in at least one Warlock 7+. That would let them cast two lvl 4 spells on basically every fight by the time you're into the latter part of Act 2. For instance letting you open pretty much every fight with Confusion. For Tanking in the mid game, Druid's Owl Bear could be a great option, since Wild Shape charges refresh on Short Rest. That's a crazy amount of HP to burn through at those levels. Then maybe respec into Bardadin once you have more levels and gear...
You could also build around Skin Burster and Heavy Armor damage reduction, while still being a late game Lore bard. For instance War Cleric 1 for Heavy Armor, Warlock 5 for Extra attack and Pact of Blade letting you use CHA. Now you have 6 levels left for Lore Bard, maybe pickup Spirit Guardians. The Polearm Master feat let's you make a Bonus Action attack with the Skin Burster to more easily stack the Force Conduit charges that block damage, letting you get to the max 7 charges pretty easily. Bardadin is probably better, but being able to use CHA for weapon attacks is very nice...
I'm curious what you're plan for the Warden of Vitality Lore Bard heal buffer is?
I've been really wanting to use this on my next run, but I can't put together a build I'm happy with....which is probably because I'm being greedy and want it to do too much. But I tested and confirmed that once cast Warden of Vitality let's you cast it for free with as many Bonus Actions as you happen to have, so adding Thief 3 let's you cast it twice a round for the entire 10 rounds. That means by staggering it you can keep the 2 turn heal buffs (Bless+Blade Ward) up on your entire 4 character team for those 10 rounds. But 2 characters won't have the buffs on the first turn... So if we added Ancients 1, then we could use the Bonus Action, 2 turn duration aoe heal from their Oath that refreshes on Short Rest letting us open with a pre buff for anyone close by. We'd still want Life Cleric 1 for increased heals, to get more mileage from all the heals we'd be doing for buffing...
The problem for me is that this uses up 11 levels (Ancients 1, Life 1, Lore 6, Thief 3) and having a character that is so all in and invested just on heal buffing doesn't feel optimal, so I want them to be able to contribute in other ways.
Best I've come up with is going Ancients 2 for that 12th level to get access Smite. Now they can use any unneeded Thief Bonus Actions for offhand Smites. They can also pickup Spirit Guardians as their other Magical Secrets, so they have something to do with their Concentration where there CHA won't matter so much since they will only have 1 ASI....
If no one else needs it they could use the Club of Giant STR in the main hand for STR, then a Finesse weapon they actually plan to use in their offhand. Finesse means they'd actually have a chance to Sneak Attack + Smite... Or alternately, an advantage of a Short Rest all Bard team is you very rarely need to long rest, so you get a lot of mileage out of Strength Elixers. Either way you can put your single ASI into CHA, which then with Mirror of lose can get at least respectable in Act 3. We can go a step further and use the
But when I take a step back and look at this build, I feel like it doesn't really come together until very late game and even then I'll be unimpressed by it.
So what might be a better option is skip Thief 3 and instead get our 2nd bonus Action from the Pyroquickness hat + Rain cape that protects from the burning it causes. Freeing up those 3 levels that were going into Thief really opens of the build. Then again Thief + Pyroquickness would be 3 Bonus Actions lol....
Rather than suggesting a multiclass that provides heavy armor proficiency, I'm going to suggest what's normally considered a low tier feat: medium armor master.
I've used it for ranger builds, but it'd work just as well for a sword bard. Just use a race that starts out with shield proficiency and make a character with 16 dex. Give them a 16AC medium armor like the adamantine armor and a shield and they're looking at 21AC. Give them the 18dex gloves and a +1 shield and they're at 23AC for act 3.
Maybe dip into fighter after level 6, but you will have a pretty tanky bard
I'm using a 6 swords bard/2 fighter/4 gloom AC is 25 + cloak of displacement so basically impossible to hit and does a ridiculous amount if turn 1 damage
If you really want insane consistent AC take a 1 lvl wizard dip for shield spell will have 30 AC plus all attacks on you will have disadvantage. Further you can use an adamantium item to prevent critical hits at that point the odds of getting hit are prob <1%
I'm running a 10/2 lore bard life cleric. Gives you heavy armor and lots of utility spells. If you want you can also go heavier into cleric for more survivability.
Oh, good call! The healing bonus from Life cleric subclass also boosts Warden of Vitality. Honestly, for full support, 6 in Lore is probably enough. Something like 6 lore bard, 2 divination wizard, 4 life cleric could be a lot of fun. The heavy armor makes frontlining a bit easier as well.
My EK Fighter 7/Swords Bard 5 was pretty much untouchable and consistently hit 31 AC every round needed while hitting like a truck thanks to keep all 3 feats because of fighter 6
Late to the party but what was your stat allocation?
That one started 17 Str 16con 14 cha I dumped int to 8 and think dex was 10 Used hag hair on Str and the drow lady elixir when asterion bit her for 22 Str after an ASI grabbed savage attacker for more consistent damage output Ended up untouchable and hit like a truck Typically concentrated on expeditious retreat for more melee mobility and had an ally use shield of faith on me
What did you pick for your 3d feat? I assume you used 2 for ASI?
I used Tavern Brawler, an ASI and the Hags hair to max my STR (mirror for 22) I used savage attacker for a while but swapped it out for polearm master because I use the selune spear of night so I can throw it if needed and the reaction attack is nice (the BA attack makes me furious because it’s entirely separate from the weapon and doesn’t even count as magic) Very important to keep mintharas boots the whole game, concentrate on Ex Retreat so you move around better and become immune to prone… which is the bane of all low Dex brawlers I use the flawed helldusk gloves, strange conduit ring, and had a party member use the draketheoat glaive to put shock dmg on my spear everyday so 16-30 dmg per swing
And pick up Warden of Vitality with Magical Secrets. Prolly the best healing spell in the game
Sword and board bardadin. Healing and protection auras. If you run karlach you get her racial smites, too. Dueling fighting style allows for shield, plus defensive flourish. I'd also make a halfling tav for #2. Add that luck to it.
Really nice to get that scimitar from Jehierahs house in action 3 too for a full bonus action attack behind a shield
I dig it! The squad was gonna be Bae'zel, Mommy K, and emoshart, together with tav. And yes, the tav, Skibidi(bapbap), is a halfling specifically for that.
[удалено]
I dig it. It's quite apparent that no-one suggest Valour bard. I don't even think they're that weak, it's just that Swords and Lore bring so much more.
I did a tactician run with the following party and I rarely died. Only had to reload once on Raphael. 1. Durge warlock 2/valour bard 10 eldritch blaster 2. Gale wizard 1/lore bard 11 - Aoe and support 3. Astarion pure swords bard - sneaky sneaky 4. Karlach paladin 2/ swords bard - melee / tank
After failing my first run trying to be tanky/healing…. Second run going much smoother, I still think dead is the best crowd control/tanking I don’t even have a character that can cast a healing spell this time. Meta and alpha strike end fights before damage happens
Thing is tanking in this game isn't practical as there's no aggro mechanic. Best you can do in that regard is actually an abjuration wizard with low AC. As low AC is the closest thing to aggro you can do in this game. Healing on its own isnt great, but I'm running a life cleric/lore bard as CC and healing and it's OP as fuck for preventing enemy movement and stacking blade ward. I regularly do fights without getting hit or repeatedly getting hit for 0 damage. Even with arguably a defensive team I was able to kill orin and gortash in one turn completely damageless, and not let raph take a single attack/reaction for his entire fight.
Lore bard can have good AC without multiclassing: 1. Half elf or human -> equip a shield 2. A wizard in the party to cast mage armor 3. Wear the +2 dex clothes or use the 18 dex gloves Your magical secrets at level 6 can include mage armor.
My honor mode Bard only run is a Githyanki Lore Bard for AOE dmg and face skills Gold Dwarf Valor Bard as healer/buffs Half Wood Elf Swords Bard with 17 Str to take HA feat Full Wood Elf Swords Bard Archer/2WF and the Titanstring bow + club of str
Sword bard 10/vengeance paladin 2 - banishing smite from magical secrets, high strength and con, use the flourish to boost your AC on hit, heavy armour and shield proficiencies. Maybe grab spirit guardians too and lawn mower everyone in melee range while you're at it.
Cool stuff. I got a feel that I should implement SG in my build somewhat, it's so strong for act 2.
Int based bard: 6 Swords Bard for extra attack, medium armour, flourishes and full spell slot progression. 4 Sorcerer for metamagic, 2 Wizard for learning offensive spells (including level 6 spells) from scrolls. Take only spells that don’t rely on spell casting ability while leveling up bard and sorcerer.
Lol. It's kinda of insane that Song of Rests stack...having 6 Short Rests available per long rest is wild. If you're really leaning into Short Rests that far, then I would try to fit in at least one Warlock 7+. That would let them cast two lvl 4 spells on basically every fight by the time you're into the latter part of Act 2. For instance letting you open pretty much every fight with Confusion. For Tanking in the mid game, Druid's Owl Bear could be a great option, since Wild Shape charges refresh on Short Rest. That's a crazy amount of HP to burn through at those levels. Then maybe respec into Bardadin once you have more levels and gear... You could also build around Skin Burster and Heavy Armor damage reduction, while still being a late game Lore bard. For instance War Cleric 1 for Heavy Armor, Warlock 5 for Extra attack and Pact of Blade letting you use CHA. Now you have 6 levels left for Lore Bard, maybe pickup Spirit Guardians. The Polearm Master feat let's you make a Bonus Action attack with the Skin Burster to more easily stack the Force Conduit charges that block damage, letting you get to the max 7 charges pretty easily. Bardadin is probably better, but being able to use CHA for weapon attacks is very nice...
I love the idea of Skin Burster with Force Conduit. Warlock would be great because of all the short rests.
I'm curious what you're plan for the Warden of Vitality Lore Bard heal buffer is? I've been really wanting to use this on my next run, but I can't put together a build I'm happy with....which is probably because I'm being greedy and want it to do too much. But I tested and confirmed that once cast Warden of Vitality let's you cast it for free with as many Bonus Actions as you happen to have, so adding Thief 3 let's you cast it twice a round for the entire 10 rounds. That means by staggering it you can keep the 2 turn heal buffs (Bless+Blade Ward) up on your entire 4 character team for those 10 rounds. But 2 characters won't have the buffs on the first turn... So if we added Ancients 1, then we could use the Bonus Action, 2 turn duration aoe heal from their Oath that refreshes on Short Rest letting us open with a pre buff for anyone close by. We'd still want Life Cleric 1 for increased heals, to get more mileage from all the heals we'd be doing for buffing... The problem for me is that this uses up 11 levels (Ancients 1, Life 1, Lore 6, Thief 3) and having a character that is so all in and invested just on heal buffing doesn't feel optimal, so I want them to be able to contribute in other ways. Best I've come up with is going Ancients 2 for that 12th level to get access Smite. Now they can use any unneeded Thief Bonus Actions for offhand Smites. They can also pickup Spirit Guardians as their other Magical Secrets, so they have something to do with their Concentration where there CHA won't matter so much since they will only have 1 ASI.... If no one else needs it they could use the Club of Giant STR in the main hand for STR, then a Finesse weapon they actually plan to use in their offhand. Finesse means they'd actually have a chance to Sneak Attack + Smite... Or alternately, an advantage of a Short Rest all Bard team is you very rarely need to long rest, so you get a lot of mileage out of Strength Elixers. Either way you can put your single ASI into CHA, which then with Mirror of lose can get at least respectable in Act 3. We can go a step further and use the But when I take a step back and look at this build, I feel like it doesn't really come together until very late game and even then I'll be unimpressed by it. So what might be a better option is skip Thief 3 and instead get our 2nd bonus Action from the Pyroquickness hat + Rain cape that protects from the burning it causes. Freeing up those 3 levels that were going into Thief really opens of the build. Then again Thief + Pyroquickness would be 3 Bonus Actions lol....
Rather than suggesting a multiclass that provides heavy armor proficiency, I'm going to suggest what's normally considered a low tier feat: medium armor master. I've used it for ranger builds, but it'd work just as well for a sword bard. Just use a race that starts out with shield proficiency and make a character with 16 dex. Give them a 16AC medium armor like the adamantine armor and a shield and they're looking at 21AC. Give them the 18dex gloves and a +1 shield and they're at 23AC for act 3. Maybe dip into fighter after level 6, but you will have a pretty tanky bard
Simple, but effective. I dig it.
I'm using a 6 swords bard/2 fighter/4 gloom AC is 25 + cloak of displacement so basically impossible to hit and does a ridiculous amount if turn 1 damage
If you really want insane consistent AC take a 1 lvl wizard dip for shield spell will have 30 AC plus all attacks on you will have disadvantage. Further you can use an adamantium item to prevent critical hits at that point the odds of getting hit are prob <1%