Baldur's Gate 3 Bard Guide - College of Swords Subclass - Level 1-12 Guide

hey everybody it's Leroy from lyricgaming and in today's Builders Gate 3 guide we're going to be looking at the College of the sword subclass for The Bard so if you want a support Caster that likes to get their hands dirty and melee this may very well be the option for you in this video we're going to cover features at level 1 of character creation including ability recommendations we're going to give you a full level 2 to 12 breakdown and I'm going to show you all the Spells available as you level up I'm going to give you some general equipment recommendations and also my thoughts on multi-classing the College of Swords Bard you can use the timestamps below to jump to areas that most interest you and remember drop a like and leave a comment below with your thoughts feedback and questions and I without further Ado let's check out the College of the sword bard okay so here we are at level one and just like with all the other barge subclasses we start by getting two cantrips four level one spells we're gonna get the amazing bardic inspiration you get your own Bardock inspiration points for this and you're going to basically be able to provide other people with a bonus that gives you a 1d6 role bonus to your attack roll ability check or saving throw this will level up later to be 1d8 and 1d10 you're also going to get two level one spell slots as far as your cantrip options I'm going to Mouse over all the can trips you will pick two feel free to pause the video if you want to read any of the descriptors and you also get arguably the most diverse spell book in the game you're gonna get some spells from clerics and Druids some from Wizards and sorcerers in a lot of cases The Best of the Best so if you want some great spell options you can't really go wrong with The Bard now as a Bard your primary ability is going to be charisma you're gonna have saving through a proficiencies and dexterity and charisma your hit die is 1d8 hit points and you're going to have proficiencies of simple weapons hand crossbows long swords rapierce short swords and light armor you get to pick your own starting instrument but really that's just for looks and you can get any type of instruments as you level up when it comes to Ability points we're going to want to do eight strength 16 to 30 14 Constitution 10 intelligence 10 wisdom and 16 Charisma because we're gonna be more in melee and potential so using some ranged weapons that high dexterity is important also as a reminder just like the other bars you're gonna have a tremendous amount of choices when it comes to skill proficiencies in fact you can pick to be proficient in any skill period now at level two you're gonna get to replace the spell you're gonna get to add another level one spell you will receive one level one spell slot and you're gonna get Jack of all trades this lets you add half of your proficiency bonus right on how to Ability checks that you are not proficient in and then you're going to get song of rest so you and your allies are revitalized as though you have taken a short rest so basically unlike any other group you will get three short rests basically every long rest instead of two not level three you finally get to pick your subclass and you're gonna choose College of the swords you will receive one level one spell slot and you're gonna receive two level two spell slots you're gonna get to pick two skills to become expert in which is basically doubling your proficiency bonus in those specific skills you're gonna get to gain a spell and now you have access to level two spells as well here are your level two spells then I'll Mouse over and again feel free to pause to read the descriptors now you're also going to get a variety of actions here so slashing flourish melee this does use one of your bardic Inspirations but it lets you to attack two enemies at once within a two meter radius you can also choose to use defensive flourish for melee and you attack defensively increasing your armor class by four if you hit for one turn you can also actually do this with ranges attacks so again if you hit your AC goes up you can also use your Bardock inspiration for mobile flourish you thrust your weapon of enough Force to push your targets back six meters and afterward you can teleport to the Target so imagine pushing somebody off a big ledge down below and then harmlessly teleport down to them to finish them off and then you actually have mobile flourish for range as well which is quite interesting and you can also do slashing flourish believe it or not with a range weapon as well that's where you get to attack up to two enemies at once I also get to pick a fighting style and this is a little different than what Fighters and Rangers get you don't get nearly as many options that you can either choose dueling so if you're gonna wield a melee weapon that is not two-handed or versatile remember versatile weapons that can be held in one or two hands so it has to be a pure one-hander weapon if you have no weapon in the other hand you deal additional 2 damage with that weapon and do note that you can use a shield if you are proficient with one and off hand and still get this or you can get too up and fighting and with this when you make attack if you're offhand you can add your ability modifier to damage of that attack additionally at level 3 you also get weapon proficiencies with scimitars and medium armor instantly making you more tanky at level four you're gonna get another level 2 spell slot you're going to get another can trip you can replace the spell you can add another level one or two spell and then you can add a feat now ability improvements will be great because you want both High Charisma and dexterity if you are going to be going for the dual wield setup then dual wielder is great it gives you more variety of the type of weapons you can do wield and gives you a plus one to your AC bonus which is great defensive duelist is quite good as well if you're gonna go for the Duelist setup you are going to be using finesse weapons those are the ones that allow you to use dexterity instead of strength for your two hidden two damage and when you do that you can use a reaction to add your proficiency bonus to your armor class so it can again helps you get much more tanky now because you're going to be casting a lot of spells and potentially have some concentration suppose going but you're also likely to be in a melee warcaster is great in that case you get advantage on saving throws to maintain concentration on spells which is the main portion of this remember anytime you take damage you have to make a concentration check and if you fail you lose focus on that spell at level five you're gonna get to level three spell slots you're going to get font of inspiration here again all your vertic inspiration after a long or short rest now and you're going to get an approvedic inspiration so the bonus gain for vertic inspiration increases to Plus 1d8 but do note for this build you may be using those points for the special attacks instead you can replace a spell but you're also getting access to level three spells and again a great variety of spells from different spell books at level six you're gonna get one more level three spell slot you're gonna get counter charm so as an action you and any allies within nine meters of advantage on saving throws against being charm refrained and it does last three turns you're also going to be able to replace the spell and gain another spell of level three or less and last but not least at level six you also get the extra attack now normal martial classes get this at level five but normally casters do not get it all so this you can make an additional free attack after making an unarmed ore weapon attack and this works for melee as well as ranged attacks now level seven you're gonna get a level four spell slot you can replace the spell and you'll get access to level 4 spells and here are the options for you greater invisibility is amazing basically you can attack or cast spells while invisible you have a chance to maintain your invisibility at level eight you're gonna get another level four spell slot you're gonna replace the spell potentially you're gonna get to add another spell and then you're going to get another feat a level nine you're gonna get a level 4 spell slot a level five spell slot you have the chance to replace a spell and then you get to add a level five spell here are your options at level 10 you're gonna get another can trip you're gonna get another spell of a five or below you will also get the ability to gain expertise and two more skills that you're proficient in additionally robotic inspiration gets better now it's a plus 1d10 and then you finally get two spells from the magical secrets now these are spells that are from cancer level all the way to level five this will this will take a moment so please be patient but these are some of the best spells in the game across a variety of categories so Choose Wisely as this can be defining to your build also note as we approach the cantrip category this is one of the few ways that a non-warlock can get not only hex but also Eldritch blast at level 11 you're gonna get a level 6 spell slot it can replace a spell and you get access to to level six spells you can of course pick a level five or lower spell as well and then at level 12 you're going to pick one more spell level six or lower you can replace a spell and you're gonna get to pick your final feet all right now let's go ahead and talk equipment for the College of Swords Bard again this is meant to be a much more Hands-On Bard you do get access to medium armor proficiency so you can get that better armor your dexterity modifier will max out at 14 unless you get the special armor that makes it so that there are no maximum penalties and that's the armor I recommend you get there's versions that are blue and then all the way through epics I'm not sure if there's a legendary version or not but those specific ones are made of a special material and you get all the AC bonuses of medium armor but you can have as much of a DEX bonus for AC as you want also there's no penalty for stealth that's pretty much perfect for this bard as far as Weapons go you can either use like a Rapier would be really good now again the big thing is that you're going to want to have finesse weapons if you're going to go dexterity built like this so sticking to finesse weapons I think is going to be the smart move and depending on which fighting style you chose either going a Rapier for example and a shield or a Rapier maybe a short sword for example or a dagger could work really really well I highly recommend getting as many items that boost your AC so for example cloco protection ring of protection and so forth anything that will give you more spell slots will help out as well you're going to have a tremendous amount of casting for support either healing yourself buffing yourself allowing you to teleport you name it extremely Diversified at high levels you'll be able to you know summon Elementals Etc so just any kind of items that are going to help you get more spells off since they're so powerful or just giving you extra cast of specific spells will help out a lot you can also get a really nice Vote or crossbow since you have a high dexterity and take advantage of your special abilities from range as well don't forget that all of these specific verdict abilities are good with melee as well as range attacks so whether it's teleporting adding to your AC and so forth you have options to do it either way very very powerful now let's quickly talk about multi-classing and it's a little tricky here because the Bard really gets a huge power Spike at level 10. so the real question is are you gonna pick up another class for one or two levels I would say you can take three levels of Rogue and maybe pick up Thief to get an extra bonus attack there's just a lot of ways you can combo of that you already have pretty much the best Spellbook in the game as far as diversity so multiclassing of other casters I don't know how effective that would be I could see maybe a multi-classing with a warlock could be interesting and of course you can pick up a couple levels of Paladin that could be hilarious because you are going to have high charisma I've never seen a dexterity Paladin before but you could definitely pick up three levels and then utilize all these crazy spell slots for divine smites that would be pretty funny so those are just some of the ideas that you could play around with but remember just going all the way to 12 with this board is not bad either you get some amazingly powerful spells and you're not really missing out on that much if you're gonna go melee since you get up to medium armor I guess you're missing out on a shield so that's one thing that could be of interest all right guys so that brings us to the end of my guide for the College of Swords Bard subclass I hope you found it helpful if you did drop a like of course if you want to see more content from me do subscribe let me know your thoughts in the comments thank you for all your support as always I'll see you in the next video

Channel: Leeroy Gaming

Views: 3,907

Keywords: baldurs gate 3, baldurs gate 3 class guide, baldurs gate 3 classes, baldurs gate 3 Bard, bg3 Bard, baldurs gate 3 Bard guide, baldurs gate 3 Bard class, baldurs gate 3 Bard build, bg3 Bard guide, baldurs gate 3 College of Swords Bard guide, bg3 College of Swords, bg3 Bard College of Swords guide, best Bard subclass bg3, bg3 Bard subclasses, baldurs gate 3 Bard subclasses, baldurs gate 3 Bard College of Swords

Id: Le7n80HiCoQ

Length: 17min 27sec (1047 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 18 2023