HOW I BEAT HONOUR MODE DEATHLESS - Bow Bard Build Guide - Baldur's Gate 3

after an 80-hour campaign I just beat balers Gate's new honor mode without a single death in just my second ever full playthrough in today's video we're going to take a look at my main character's build and class and also talk about how you can adapt it into your own campaign this is the [Music] [Music] Boward [Music] for [Music] if you want to check out the full camp campaign I streamed my entire honor mode playthrough both here on YouTube and on Twitch and I'll put a link to both down in the description below you might not expect it but with enough levels a college of Swords barard is probably the best archery class in the game the reason being their range slashing flourish which is available at level three this ability lets you fire two arrows in one attack dealing not only full damage with each hit but also adding a Bic inspiration die to each Arrow's damage you can combine slashing flourish with extra attack from Bard level six to fire four enhanced arrows per turn and action Surge from fire level two to make it eight this build gives you an absolutely insane amount of single Target burst damage from close mid or long range and because you can recover baric inspiration on short rest at Bard level five it's easy to deal this burst damage consistently fight after fight after fight as the face of my party I gave my Bard 16 in Charisma but if you don't want this character to do the talking it's fine to dump Charisma all the way down to an eight and put the extra points towards Constitution and wisdom Charisma can be useful for spell casting and dialogue checks but the damage aspect of this build focuses on dexterity and potentially strength to deal massive range damage with bow attacks for normal starting stats I'd recommend either this or this the second option lets you add a plus one to both dexterity and Constitution with ability Improvement at level four but you do end up eating a big hit to your wisdom modifier if you're planning to use Ethel's hair you can take just a couple points out of wisdom to add one extra point to dexterity and between the plus one for methyl's hair and your first ability Improvement you can potentially have 20 dexterity by level four your race shouldn't matter too much for this build most races don't have Longbow proficiency and neither to bars but you can easily remedy that by purchasing a pair of gloves from the goblin Trader at the goblin camp that gives you proficiency with long bows as well as two extra range damage per hit these gloves are strong enough to be your go-to all the way until act three and by then you'll be multiclassing into a fighter which gives you Longbow proficiency anyways it is worth noting that elves are the only race naturally proficient with long bows and wood elves specifically have a couple of really nice subrace features for an Archer I personally went halfling and found that halfling luck felt really strong because it practically removes the possibility of rolling a natural one and therefore increases your hit Chance by a few percent it's also really nice for the face of the party to pass skill checks you can also consider going a race such as Dr that have Superior dark vision to give you better range in dark environments and of course any other race should be fine as well these are just the standout options in my opinion for class leveling order you have a few options the normal leveling order would be to start with Bard take the College of sword subass at level three and then continue leveling Bard up to level six at which point you multic class into fighter take the archery fighting style at fighter level one the champion subass at level three and then a feat with fighter level four put your last two levels back into Bard to reach Bard level eight for your final feat another way to do it is to start with Bard at level one and then multiclass into fighter at level two for Longbow proficiency and archery fighting style then continue the rest of the build as normal leveling barred up to six fighter to four and then finally barred to eight personally I wouldn't recommend doing this because even though the archery fighting style is really strong you also delay the rest of your build by an entire level which ends up mattering a lot in the early game levels four five and six in Bard are all really important for your first feat recovering Bic inspiration on short rest and extra attack respectively but if you do want to do it anyways this is still an option let's talk about spells for the most part spells aren't particularly important for this build because you shouldn't be relying on them in combat but there are still some potentially very helpful options for level one spells the main standout is long Strider although it typically doesn't show it in the UI long Strider is a ritual spell that you can use to increase you and your allies movement speed by 3 m without consuming a spell slot this spell effectively gives your party about 30% more movement for free so it's ridiculously strong other than that your level one options shouldn't matter too much Tasha's hideous laughter occasionally can be really helpful for temporarily controlling an enemy that's otherwise really dangerous speak with animals is good for talking to animals which while not important for winning is one of my favorite parts of the game you can also find a billion potions to do that though dissonant Whispers and Thunder Wave can both get a little bit of use as well but typically they shouldn't really matter level two spells offer two really helpful utility spells invisibility and enhan ability invisibility is obviously great for stealth but it's also a great way to initiate fights by giving you advantage on your first attack and also making it easier to surprise your enemies enhance ability is incredibly strong for a variety of skill checks typically lockpicking dexterity checks or dialogue Charisma checks level three spells offer a few different control spells which can potentially be useful if your charisma's high enough hypnotic pattern fear and plant growth give you a few different methods to control enemies both your emphasis on bow attacks typically it'd be better to leave the casting to a different member of the party finally level four spells again give you two very powerful utility spells greater invisibility and dimension door greater invisibility is essentially the combat upgrade to the regular invisibility giving you the opportunity to fire off multiple attacks while Invisible by passing increasingly harder stealth checks dimension door is the strongest movement ability in the game allowing you to teleport yourself and a nearby Ally to a place that you can see this is a great panic button type of spell where if you and or an ally are in serious trouble you can just use dimension door to reposition to a much better location this build gets 3 ft one from Bard level four at level four another from fighter level four at level 10 and finally a third feat from Bard level 8 at level 12 in most situations the Feats to choose should be ability Improvement to reach dexterity 18 another ability Improvement to reach dexterity 20 and then finally Sharpshooter for 10 flat extra damage per shot in act three for most of the game Sharpshooters minus 5 to attack rolls will make it underwhelming but in act three you can get a few different powerful bows that are capable of compensating for that minus five penalty to attack rolls if if you use Ethel's hair and or a robe called the graceful cloth you might reach dexterity 20 without using two ability improvements and want some different options for Feats or maybe you just want some different ideas anyways the other possible Feats that stand out to me are alert dual wielder lucky and tough in my opinion alert is the most underrated feat in the game because the massive boost to initiative means that you pretty much always get attacked first before your enemies it's kind of hard to quantify just how valuable that can be but simply put getting to act first puts a lot more control over the fight in your hands and also continues to let you deal damage before enemies turn after turn after turn potentially giving yourself an extra turn that the enemy doesn't get to have dual wielder is mostly useful as a way to gain plus one to your armor class when wielding two melee weapons there are a lot of powerful daggers in act three that can boost your stats just by having them equipped so dual wielder is a great way to get that stat boost and add plus one to your armor class on the top it does hypothetically let you dual wield a lot of other weapons as well but typically that shouldn't end up mattering in this build is the big stat weapons happen to mostly be daggers anyways I haven't actually used lucky personally so for all I know it might be bugged but on paper you can use one of your three luck points to roll a failed attack ability check or saving throw with advantage on the occasional miss that should be really helpful especially if you're in a difficult fight it can also be used to roll an enemy attack roll which would be really helpful if they crit finally tough simply gives you two extra HP per level which eventually adds up to 24 extra HP at level 12 for most builds that's about a 25% boost in HP which will certain make you noticeably tankier now let's talk about equipment I'm not going to say where every piece of equipment can be found but I will add a link to the description with a really helpful Google spreadsheet that contains information and the location of every unique piece of equipment in the game the balers Gate 3 Wei is also a great source of information and an easy way to search for gear so I'll put a link to that as well in the description starting with Act One the hunting short bow can be purchased from Damon in The Druids Grove the standout feature of this bow is the ability to cast Hunter Mark once per long rest as long as you don't break concentration or if you save the mark for important fights this spell can be a huge boost to your early game damage gloves of archery can be purchased from the goblin Trader at the entrance to the goblin Camp these gloves Grant Longbow proficiency and two extra damage per Arrow which is a massive early game boost and they're strong enough to last you until act three the Titan string bow can be purchased in The zenam Hideout after completing their Quest it's an enchanted long bow that also deals extra damage equal to your strength modifier by drinking an elixir of Hill giant strength you can deal five extra damage per shot with this bow which makes it ridiculously powerful another way to increase its damage is by equipping the club of Hill giant strength this club Only grants 19 strength compared to the 21 from The Elixir but it also allows you to drink other useful Elixir such as blood lust costic band is a ring that deals two extra acid damage per attack I think it costs a few thousand gold to buy on honor mode though so keep that in mind finally the last gear piece for act one are nears disintegrating night Walkers These Boots let you cast Misty step once per short rest and I personally use these for the entirety of my campaign now on to act 1.5 which is basically just the GI yane crush and Lady esler the graceful cloth is a clothing piece that gives plus two dexterity up to a 20 dexterity maximum as well as cat's Grace for Advantage on dexterity checks for a small hit to your armor class you can use the extra dexterity for a plus one to attack rolls and damage until you finally reach 20 dexterity with your second feet knife of the under Mountain King increases your critical it chance and it can also roll any low damage rolls Amulet of branding can be used once per long rest to temporarily make an enemy vulnerable to piercing damage now heading into act two callus glow ring is a ring that deals an extra two radiant damage to illuminated creatures it's worth noting that this ring is typically much better on a Frontline character who can light up nearby enemies but it is especially powerful on the Boward as long as you have some method to reliably illuminate your enemies Killer's sweetheart gives you access to a toggleable crit once per long rest which can also be be tactically used to replace a missed attack with a critical hit surgeon's amulet can paralyze a humanoid enemy on a critical hit once per long rest and can be combined with Killer's sweetheart to absolutely destroy certain boss fights risky ring gives advantage on attack roles in exchange for disadvantage on saving throws a trade-off that's typically really strong but occasionally can be really punishing Marksmanship hat gives you a plus one bonus to your range attack roles cloak of protection grants a plus one bonus to Armor class and Save throws I never found a cloak that felt particularly valuable for the build compared to this one so I kept using it throughout the entire Campaign Act three has a lot of powerful gear but the most powerful item here is actually an item worth equipping on a different party member if possible ballist armor makes enemies within 3 m vulnerable to piercing damage unless they're already resistant or immune for my composition I was able to give this to my Barbarian carlac and position her close to targets to double the damage of both her spear throws and my arrow attacks it's worth noting that the passive on this armor was really buggy for me and frequently didn't work but I did find that if I toggled the passive off and then back on again that it would consistently work for at least the remainder of the fight the Deadshot increases crit chance and provides ridiculous accuracy thanks to its Keen attack passive which will give you a plus four to attack rolls this passive almost offsets the minus five to attack rolls from Sharpshooter entirely so that you can keep your accuracy ridiculously high even with Sharpshooter toggled at level 12 Legacy the Masters is just a ridiculously strong parag gloves giving you a plus two to attack rolles and damage the Amulet of ball might not seem particularly strong at first glance but the bleeding it applies can be used to give enemies disadvantage on Constitution checks which is really useful for applying powerful poisons like Carabas poison which both paralyzes and poisons an enemy that fails their constitution save gter mile is another bow that can be used over the Deadshot this bow is capable of dealing more damage than the Deadshot and is typically better for boss fights but it does have a significantly lower accuracy rapity is probably the most consistently powerful item across any build in the entire game personally I would typically rather put this on a different character because the increase to attack rolls is a lot harder to find with most other build types if you do want to put it on your B though it can give you a plus three to attack and damage rolls which is incredibly strong bloodthirst could be equipped in your offhand slot to increase your crit chance and your armor class by one serox horned helmet increases your critical it chance armor of agility can give you an armor class of 22 at dexterity 20 mask of Soul perception increases your attack roles initiative and perception by two and finally band of the Mystic scoundrel allows you to cast an illusion or enchantment spell is a bonus action after landing a weapon attack this item has some insane potential with a variety of bar builds but I didn't personally find or use it in my playthrough the simplest use would be to cast invisibility as a bonus action after using up all of your attacks in a turn however with a high enough spell DC you could also Land one attack and then follow up with powerful spells like hold person or hold monster is a bonus action to set up guaranteed crits for the remainder of your attacks and that pretty much wraps up the build this is the first build video that I've made so if you'd like to see anything different feel free to let me know down in the comments if you want to see more like this I'll be posting the other three builds that I used in this playthrough over the next week or two thanks for watching

Channel: Mast

Views: 97,648

Keywords: mast, callmemast, gameplay, new, guide, commentary, live, tutorial, how to play, bg3, baldurs gate 3, baldurs gate, bard, class, ranger, rogue, archer, assassin, bow, swords bard, college of swords, fighter, multiclass, build, build guide, bow bard, honor, honour, mode, honor mode, honour mode, honour mode build, bard build, bard guide, bg3 build, bg3 guide, baldurs gate build, baldurs gate guide, bardic inspiration, slashing flourish, best build, best class, how to beat honour mode, 5e, dnd

Id: IC_n01yGQiA

Length: 15min 20sec (920 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 17 2023