Unveiling the Overpowered Bard Build Guide in Baldur's Gate 3 (2024)

Bard is one of the most versatile classes in Baldur’s Gate 3. It is sorely underplayed because newer players of Dungeons and Dragons tend to see Bards as the “joke” character. Veteran players know, however, that Bard meshes very well with other classes and can be multiclassed to become extreme powerhouses.

This guide will show you how to turn your Bard into an absolute powerhouse of damage and carnage. It is my personal favourite Bard build. We will go through the process of building your character step-by-step in each level, and will also talk about bonuses you can get in-game and gear you should get as you progress.

Each level will include the things you get for that level, as well as when you should begin multiclassing. I will also include things you can get in the game and where (while trying to avoid too many spoilers) so that you can get the maximum value out of this build that you can.

The Sword Bard Build

Out of all the three schools of Bard you can pick in Baldur’s Gate 3, Sword Bard has a special place in my heart. It is the default one I run if I am the only Bard in the team. It is a Solo-tactician-ready build that can devastate.

This Bard will run dual-hand crossbows. This is non-negotiable. The idea behind this build is to turn your Tav into a turret, getting 10 to 15 attacks in each turn. In most battles, you will not have to even use all of your resources to win.

Character Creation

See Also

Baldur's Gate 3: Best Equipment For Bard And Where To Find It

Half-Elf, and the not-as-recommend-but-still-good Wood Elf, are the races I recommend most for this build. Half-Elf is nice because it gets bonuses from both the Elf and Human side – including Dark Vision, Fey Ancestry, and an increase to your base racial speed if you choose Wood Elf as your subrace.

Another decent race for this build is Halfling. Halflings are an often overlooked race, but their ability to not fail a roll because of their Lucky racial trait is a lifesaver in some cases. I prefer to have the base racial speed increase over Lucky, but it is entirely up to you what you want to play.

From here, design your character and get yourself nice and ready to min-max.

Level 1

You will pick all of your Cantrips and Spells for Level 1 during Character Creation. Let’s start with Cantrips:

• Blade Ward
• Minor Illusion

These two Cantrips are useful for defence and stealth situations respectively.

We will not be taking Vicious Mockery even though it does damage, because we want to focus on being a turret and getting a ton of hits out with our dual crossbows.

Secondly, we have your 1st-level Spells. You get 4 at this level. You should pick the following Spells:

• Faerie Fire (can force advantage on all attacks, so it is worth it for the late game)
• Sleep
• Longstrider
• Speak With Animals (useful and it gives you some fun extra dialogue)

Stats

Firstly, dump your Intelligence as low as it will go. We want to be as stupid as we can be so we can do stupid amounts of damage. Dump Strength, too, because we will be Dexterity-based. Your stats should look like this:

• Strength: 8
• Dexterity: 17 (15 + 2 from Racial Bonus)
• Constitution: 14
• Intelligence: 8
• Wisdom: 10
• Charisma: 16 (15 + 1 Racial Bonus)

We recommended in our character creation guide for Bard not to put any number at an odd number to begin with. This is true for min-maxing, and in truth, you should do that to get the maximum benefit from your stats right away. However, if you are lazy and do not want to re-work your character with Withers later on, just go ahead and do this sub-optimally. You will get gear to cap your important stats fairly quickly – as early as Act 1, even.

Background

You will want to pick a Background that complements your build. A safe bet is any background that incorporates a Charisma-based dialogue skill like Deception, Intimidation, Performance, and Persuasion. These are just nice bonuses to have and add a roleplaying flair to your Bard.

Criminal is the best choice because Deception and Stealth are useful in dialogue and combat respectively (and I always prefer a combat edge). Charlatan is another decent option. It used Sleight of Hand instead of Stealth, so you may prefer to take that if you would prefer to not have Astarion around in your party.

Level 2

At the second level, Bard gets the very useful Song of Rest. This is a free short rest that affects the whole party. Running Wyll in your party will see that his Warlock spell slots get renewed when you use this action.

You will also get Jack of All Trades, which lets you add half of your proficiency bonus to ability checks in which you are not proficient.

You also get another spell. Pick Healing Word, because the extra health regen is always useful. This one will give you the most value in the end game. Heroism is a good second option, too, for the 5 temporary hit points.

Level 3

At Level 3, you can pick your Subclass. Pick College of Swords. This subclass gives you a passive fighting style as well as a slew of actions – the ranged variant of Slashing Flourish is our best friend here. It can attack 2 enemies at once and uses a Bardic Inspiration. This gives you a huge number of attacks you can do per long rest. Defensive Flourish is also useful for the +4 increase to your Armour Class. Mobile Flourish lets you teleport away after hitting, which is great for a hit-and-run style.

For your fighting style, pick Two-Weapon Fighting. Unfortunately, Swords Bards do not get the ability to choose an Archery fighting style, so we pick Two-Weapon Fighting for the bonus damage to our off-hand weapon.

You also get another spell, and have access to second-level spells. Pick Cloud of Daggers – the AoE is infinitely useful. Hold Person is also good, especially later on.

Level 4

You gain access to another Cantrip at level four and you can pick any one that you want, really. Friends can be useful here for the advantage of Charisma checks with non-hostile creatures.

You get another second-level spell slot also. Pick the spell you did not pick at level 3 – either Hold Person or Cloud of Daggers.

At level 4, you get your first feat. We will, of course, go with Sharpshooter for the potential additional +10 damage to our attacks as well as removing our penalty from High Ground Rules.

At this level, you should also go and beat up the Hag. This is a boss you have access to during the Save Mayrina questline. When you fight the Hag, whittle her down until you get a dialogue with her. She will bargain with you to let her go in exchange for something – and you should do this. Let her go, and she will give you an item that will give you a permanent +1 bonus to any stat of your choice. Choose Dexterity. This will round you to 18 Dexterity, and bump up your bonus.

Level 5

At level 5 you will get Font of Inspiration, which restores your Bardic Inspiration after a short or long rest. This gives you 16 Bardic Inspiration dice, letting you max out your Flourish.

You will also get access to third-level spells. Pick one of these: Fear, Glyph of Warding, or Hypnotic Pattern. The others are simply not as useful.

Level 6

Level 6 is the last Bard level we want to take. We get another spell slot here, as well as the Subclass feature, Extra Attack. This does exactly what it sounds like – it gives you an extra attack. Keep in mind that Extra Attack bonuses from all classes do not stack with one another.

For the spell, pick any of the other level 3 spells you did not pick before. Or just any for flavor, because the three spells mentioned before do a lot of the same type of thing.

Level 7

At level 7 we will be taking our first level in Rogue. Our goal is to build towards the Thief subclass for the next three levels.

Rogue also gives you access to sneak attacks. You will also be able to enhance another skill. I recommend the dialogue ones, but stealth and sleight of hand are also good (pick the one that your background does not already increase).

Level 8

Level 8 will give you your Cunning Actions. These will allow you to Hide, Dash, and Disengage from enemies as a Bonus Action. These can be nice, but there is not much of anything special to them. We would probably rather just attack anyway.

Level 9

At this level, we finally get our Thief subclass. We want to go with Thief for its Fast Hands ability, which gives us additional bonus actions that we can use for more off-hand attacks.

Level 10

For this level, we want to stay a Rogue, so that we can get another Feat. From the Feats list, you should pick Ability Improvement, to put 2 extra points into Dexterity, giving us 20 Dexterity.

Level 11

At this level, we switch from Rogue and go to Fighter. Fighter will be our last two levels, for its Action Surge ability.

At level 1 Fighter, you get to pick a Fighting Style. You will, of course, be picking Archery.

Level 12

At level 12, and Fighter 2, we end our build with Action Surge, which gives us an extra action – and therefore, an extra attack – in a turn. It recharges on a short rest, of which we have 3 because of Song of Rest.

Final Gear

The gear you will want to use is a mix of end-game gear that you can only get in late game as well as some stuff you can get early on. The gear is as follows:

• Helm: Sarevok’s Horned Helmet (Act 3, looted from Sarevok)
• Cloak: Shade-Slayer Cloak (Act 3, sold by Sticky Dondo in the Guildhall)
• Chest: Armor of Agility (Act 3, sold by Gloomy Fentonson at Stormshore Armoury)
• Gloves: Hell Dusk Gloves (Act 3, dropped by Haarlep in House of Hope)
• Boots: Disintegrating Night Walkers (Act 1, looted from Nere in Grymforge)
• Amulet: Surgeon’s Subjugation Amulet (Act 2, looted from Malus Thorm in House of Healing)
• Rings: Risky Ring (Act 2, sold by Araj Oblodra in Moonrise Towers) and Caustic Band (Act 1, sold by Derryth in the Underdark - Myconid Colony) or any other ring that adds another damage type
• Hand Crossbows: Hellfire Hand Crossbow (Act 2, looted from Yurgir in Gauntlet of Shar) and Firestoker (Act 2, found in a chest in Grymforge) or Ne’er Misser (Act 2, sold by Roah Moonglow at Moonrise Tower) for off-hand
• Melee weapons: Knife of the Undermountain King (Act 1, can be bought or looted from A’jak’nir in Crèche Y'llek) and Blade of the First Blood (Act 3, looted from Orin)