As fun as the many different party members in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Baldur's Gate 3 might be, none of them take up the Bard class. If you want to fill that game in party balance, why not do so as a College of Lore Bard? This subclass offers a more support-centric option, providing a wide varietಌy of spells and abilities perfect for hindering your enemies. Blind, hypnotize, and insult your enemies into submission while your tank goes in for the easy kill.

RELATED: 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Baಞldur's Gate 3: Complete Guide To Bards

But with all of the various debuff options available, it can be tough to decide how to best go about building your character. Sleep or laughter? Hold Person or Crown of Madness? How should you spend your precious Bardic Inspiration?? Fear no longer. Read a little further to learn everything you could need to know about making the best College of Lore Bard builওd.

Updated September 29, 2023, by Branden Lizardi: Act 3 is full of new things to fight, loot, earn, and steal. Now that the game has been out a while, our overall context has expanded, and secret, harder to find items have become aware to us. As such, we're updating this guide to include only the best gear, spells, and weapons for your time as a trash talking College of Lore Bard.

College Of Lore Bard Overview

The College of Lore Bard, thematically, shifts focus away from the idea of music and more toward the idea of storytelling. Words are your weapon more than a song is. This is primarily represented with the Cutting Words subclass feature, which allows you to use a reaction to hinder enemies.

Beyond that, you'll also be given access to additional spells otherwise unavailable to the Bard class.

With that, this subclass is often played in a more defensive, supportive, or utilitarian role. It also gives them access to some potentially powerful spells, opening the door for a more offensive build. Remember that much of this can change depending on your party composition. Don't be afraid to tweak the build further to make the most of your overall team.

The Best Starting Stats, Species, And Spells For A College Of Lore Bard Character

Building the initial character is vital in setting them up for success further down the class line. While 𓂃you won't have access to the College of Lore subclass just yet, we can start laying the groundwork for your benefit later.

Species

Because there are no stat differences between species, none play a168澳洲幸运5开奖网: major influence in your class. For this reason, we recommend playing as a human. Their Human Versatility means more skills to be proficient in, supporting the all-arounder style they're good for. More importantly, it comes with Civil Militia, which will expand your weapon abilities and give you proficiency with a shield.

Cantrips And Spells

Start with Vicious Mockery and Mage Hand. Vicious Mockery is a Bard-only spell that, while not heavy on damage, can inflict disadvantage on attacks from the target. This is a great way to debuff enemies from the start. Mage Hand is useful in the overall game. It can be, however, replaced with another cantrip of choice if you intend on keeping Gale in your party since he already 🦩knows it.

For starting spells, w🦂e recomme🐎nd the following spells for the following reasons:

Instrument And Background

The instrument you choose makes zero difference, so go with whatever one you fancy most.

168澳洲幸运5开奖网:As for Background, while Entertainer may make sense, Performance and Acrobatics checks are much less common. Instead, try Guild Artisan. Insight Proficiency is helpful in dialogue, and the many opportunities to use Persuasion checks will help wi🐓th both dice rolls and Inspiration🐬 rewards.

Stats And Skills

The recommended stats for a Bard are close but not quite ideal. With🌸 that in mind, we recommend the following starting stats.

By taking one point off charisma and moving it to dexterity, we can get a better Dex score, boosting AC and weapons without lowering your charisma modifier. You can then increase your charisma more 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:with a feat later on.

As for Skills, this will mostly depend on playstyle, but we recommend the following skills.

Tips To Best Play A College Of Lore Bard

The best way to play a College of Lore Bard is as a powerful supportive role. You want to utilize both your Cutting Words feature and wider variety of spells to debuff or disable opponents, making them easy targets for 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:your damage-dealing party members. Stay in the background instead of on the front lines, and choose sp🎶ell📖s that complement that playstyle.

Don't dish out Bardic Inspiration. Instead, save it for Cutting Words. This subclass-exclusive reaction allows you to roll your bardic dice as a reaction to an enemy's attack, ability check✤, or damage. Thiꦇs can be the difference between life and death in some moments.

Once you reach level 5, be more liberal with your usage since you can restore bardic inspiration from a short rest. This pairs very well with your Song of Rest ability, whic⭕h is essentially an extraꦺ short rest.

Go to your character's info screen and find the reactions panel. Set Cutting Words to ask for confirmation first, or you'll burn through them in early encounters.

College of Lore Bards also get an extra instance of Magical Secrets. For h♍ow to make the most of that, consult our Best Spells section below.

The Best Spells For A College Of Lore Bard

Following the aforementioned theme of being a support role that debuffs and hinders the enemy, we recommend the following spells. This will be how it looks when you've reached a maximum level of 12. For details as to why for🥂 each spell, c🐽onsult the recommended levels to learn each spell in the Level Up Choice section below. Otherwise, pick them at your leisure.

RELATED: 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Baldur's Gate 3: The Best Cantrips

The Best Equipment For A College Of Lore Bard

Best Weapons

For your main hand, you should start a . Already dealing 1d8 damage, the finesse quality means you can still use dexterity as your attack modifier. It also comes with two debilitating weapon skills and Flourish. Flourish lets you make an attack as a bonus action and potentially inflict yet another debuff.

For magical options, the can be found early in the Underdark, and it's an amazing weapon that will carry you to the end of the game. It's Sing and Shriek abilities provide excellent buf💦fs and debuffs respec𝓡tively, and it's one of the only longsword weapons with the finesse quality.

For ranged attacks, we recommend a . It deals more damage than the starter Hand Crossbow, hitting for 1d8. You can also find a magic very earlꦰy, purchased from Dammon at Druid Grove,

Best Armor And Accessories

While there are arguably better pieces of equipment available, those will be better suited for your other party members, whereas this setup is designed to make the most of your support-role position on the team. The only hard 'must-have' on this build is the .

If you want to swap out defensive cover for extra health and damage, you can replace the Studded Leather Armor +1 for the Potent Robes. While your AC will be notably lower, it adds your charisma modifier to cantrip attacks and grants Temp HP every turn. We only recommend this if you🍬 don't have a Warlock on your team, however, since they would make greater use of the robe's effects.

It's common to wear the since it gives Temp HP when you give someone bardic inspiration. But since this build focuses on using Cutting Words instead, we don't recommend this armor. But if you like how fancy it looks,🔯 don't let us stop you.

If you'd like some easy healing, the Circlet of Mental Anguish will heal your for 1-4 hit points every time someone fails a saving throw you inflict on them. But given the heavy potential of the Coldbrim Hat in this context, we recommend stic🥂king to that.

The Cloak of Elemental Absorption is another possible choice, allowing you to reduce incoming elemental damage, and applying it to yo🅠ur next attack. But since the focus is to not get hit, instead of taking hits, it may be better worn by the party tank.

Every Level Up Choice For A College Of Lore Bard

Want a level-by-level guide for accomplishing this build? Here's how to do that. Each table will represent reaching that level, citing the new things unlocked and what spells we recommend taking. Note that it will skip level o🌟ne since that is ꦿcovered above.

Things earned at every level, like more health and a greater number of spell slots, are assumed and will not be included in the table.

NEXT: 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Baldur's Gate 3: Class Tier List