BARDLOCK Bard / Warlock Build Guide: Baldur's Gate 3

[@maximillianjayphoenix]

Starting with Bard gives you more weapon proficiencies and dueling fighting style just makes more sense if your not dual wielding light weapons and your bonus action is taken by spell casting. Always take spells from warlock list you cannot get from bard list!

[@JasonDunna]

You get the weapon proficiencies by adding the bard in! You won’t be casting crowd control every turn so having a stronger offhand attack is pretty solid but I see your points! I didn’t have shield proficiency with this character

[@JasonDunna]

All the warlock spells were ones you can’t get as bard

[@maximillianjayphoenix]

@@JasonDunna I had some of the issues I listed building for myself and Wyll before because of those oversights like taking spells that’s were redundant, not picking a race that gave any good bonuses outside of darkvision, as you’ll already have medium armor proficiency from bard level 3 and if you build this for duelist prerogative it can be a truly devastating cc dpr monster. Taking great old one would be great if not for some of the fire spells you get from fiend. Shield is definitely recommended for 1st and 2nd act as flourishes are so good and being able to pact your weapon means you can wield anything in the game with no issues .

[@fabioferreiragomesdias6090]

​@@JasonDunna you dont get all proficiencies adding bard later. If you go sword bard, you only get medium armor and scimitars.

[@jmr90000]

@@fabioferreiragomesdias6090 you can equip any weapon, make it your pact weapon, and you have proficiency with it. the only proficiency that matters is the medium armor

[@DavidVenters]

u forot to mention the synergy between a bards song of rest and a warlock recharging spells on short rest so the more short rests u have the more powerful your warlock

[@JasonDunna]

I thought I mentioned it but yeah that’s huge synergy between the two!

[@fledgling9097]

Helm of arcane acuity is also pretty good for a hunter ranger using volley. Stacks super-fast, then you can use spell scrolls for any spell you cast. It's a different sort of resource management.

[@JasonDunna]

Yeah true and you can use arrow of many targets to stack the arcane acuity

[@fledgling9097]

@JasonDunna you can also damage objects before a fight to stack up arcane acuity, lol. Raphael has some lighting that can take some hits.

[@JasonDunna]

I didn’t even realize that, that’s amazing

[@SkyNinja759]

Having a bard in a -lock based party is amazing. Song of rest doesn't seem like a big deal but the more warlocks in the party the more value the feature has. Refreshing the entire party's warlock spells an extra time per day means more lock-adin smites, more sor-lock spam, and more spell economy synergy with AoA (until long rest spell). Also benefits as another cheap heal a day, but the slots are a major draw for a -lock party that wants to throw darkness or HoH every encounter.

[@paulasquith9342]

Worth using dueling fighting style with a shield as you're using bonus action for spells, so two wpn fighting style is wasted!

[@JasonDunna]

Sword bard doesn’t get shield proficiency, and since I was playing a drow here I don’t get the racial one. Great for humans or half elf’s though! Thanks for sharing that

[@kyleswimming]

​@JasonDunna you can choose a race that gets shield proficiency to make it easier. Interesting build though, keep it up

[@thiernosow11]

slight oversight btw, fiend temp hp and agathys temp hp doesn't stack, if you have 1 temp hp from agathys, and you kill an enemy, you will still have the 1 temp hp from agathys, you dont gain the 4 temp hp from fiend. i just tested it but otherwise i'm stealing the build

[@BeckyYork]

what about picking up a level of wizard instead of getting the 7th level of bard? this way you can get all the level 1-3 wizard spells and really fill up your spell book; ATM I'm 6 levels of valour bard; then I think i will pick up a level of wizard and fill the rest out with warlock. I also picked up Disguise Self and Shapeshifter's Boon for an extra 1d4 bonus to ability checks.

[@Emolilyx]

Omg I literally wanted to change wyll to this yesterday 😁

[@JasonDunna]

I used detect thoughts and predicted the next build guide you wanted!

[@Emolilyx]

@@JasonDunna psychic lol 😂 but have been thinking of changing one of my playthroughs to a bard multiclass for diolouge it's either bard paladin or bard warlock 😂

[@JasonDunna]

@@Emolilyx You could do 6 levels bard, 5 levels warlock 1 level paladin to keep the 3 attacks! Maybe I will come up with a build guide for that hmmm

[@Emolilyx]

@@JasonDunna yeh maybe I'm currently on a tav (for once not durge) moon druid playthrough but wanna either make a bard warlock durge or bard paladin but can't decide 😭

[@Jakey44]

I love your builds! I would love to see what gear you would recommend for each act if it's possible! It would really help make the build even easier to follow :)

[@JasonDunna]

It’s tough recommending gear for act 1 because there’s not much that benefits as much as act 3 gear! Honestly for the first two acts just grab the best armor you can find and you’ll be good, act 3 is when everything all comes together

[@jaehyeokyoung5234]

I'm missing the part about how you can cast after making 3 attacks. What armor is it?

[@JasonDunna]

@@jaehyeokyoung5234 band of the mystic scoundrel lets you cast enchantment and illusions spells as a bonus action after making a weapon attack

[@jaehyeokyoung5234]

@@JasonDunna Thank you!!!

[@JasonDunna]

@@jaehyeokyoung5234 happy to help!

[@felixthescholarlytitan4437]

Don’t think you ever made mention of the chest piece. Is that to say, use the best medium armor you have?

[@JasonDunna]

I have armor of agility here but yea best inslot until you get this one!

[@SolidBold00]

also.. you said not to use your bonus action to attack but dont you automatically attack with both weapons if you're dual wielding?

[@ZeoffArcaneOfficial]

A bit late, but there's a button on the hot bar that toggles that off so that you can manually select the offhand attack

[@RougarouRP]

Loving your videos mate, but please for the love of god take a sip of water 😅

[@themeister7104]

Why -1 to wisdom? Won’t that make splatters wreck him?

[@JasonDunna]

@@themeister7104 you can keep the wisdom a bit higher, but what do you mean by splatters hahaha

[@liberalideas8224]

Why hex dex? The only hex I can think that might come up is strength to reduce their chance to shove and it might affect their jumping range (not sure though).

[@michae976]

Dex counts for armor class and hit chance, so I imagine for that purpose

[@liberalideas8224]

@michae976 that's a very common misunderstanding of the Hex spell. Hex only affects ability checks, not saves nor AC, ect. Just skills such as athletics, acrobatics, and investigation for example.

[@michae976]

@@liberalideas8224 wow I had no idea

[@JasonDunna]

Hex dex can reduce their ability to hide/stealth and hex wisdom can improve your team’s chance of hiding/stealth. Hex strength can reduce the chance of them shoving you to but the BIG focus on hex is the d6 necrotic damage that gets added to attack rolls. Eldritch blast and scorching ray proc that on every beam so it can be decent damage early game

[@liberalideas8224]

@@JasonDunna great list!

[@StephenDeiss]

Only thing i dislike about your videos is you treat honor mode as a secondary when i think you should assume anyone looking for guides want it for the hardest difficulty.

[@JasonDunna]

I understand that, but its actually more like 90% of people are playing for the first time and don't understand the 5e ruleset. I usually list if the build is for honor mode! Warlock pact of the blade does not get the extra attack in honor mod so I note that in any video where I use the extra attack

[@ZMSKfullpower]

So extra attack stacks when between warlock and bard but it doesn't between martials ? Stinks like "favoring" casters to me.

[@JasonDunna]

Extra attack stacks with martial classes, so a fighter theoretically can get 3 attacks before level 11! Honestly everything in Baldur’s Gate 3 can beat the game (except maybe arcane trickster it’s just meh)

[@Olkam-w5u]

@@JasonDunna Bladelock’s extra attack does stack with martial classes’ extra attack in all difficulties except for honor mode! What is your difficulty?

[@ZMSKfullpower]

@@JasonDunna Ok. Thanks for that answer.

[@JasonDunna]

@@ZMSKfullpower no problem! Martial classes are pretty good but due to it being a video game and the layout of combat, ranges options do end up being better, but I think the Monk is the strongest melee class

[@Moka_420]

what was the chest piece? i must have missed it

[@JasonDunna]

Armor of agility!

[@SolidBold00]

why the hell does extra attacks not stack in honor mode? thats such an unnecessary nerf.. if the class gives it to you then it should give it to you, very annoying

[@dododimitrov9657]

The only thing which I don't like is that basically eldrich blast is key warlock skill and makes no sense with dual crossbow for the range attacks. I would rather go lore bard or paladin as second class.

[@JasonDunna]

Dual crossbow lets you use arrow of many targets for stacking arcane acuity, and then you have pact of the blade allowing you to attack 3x with your main weapon. Eldritch blast is good yeah, but there’s better options most times. You still have it to fall back on / if you want to push someone off a cliff

[@balduri45]

Why you don't take it githyanki race for medium armour 😊

[@JasonDunna]

Sword bard gets medium armor proficiency

[@phoenixkipping7070]

Is there a reason you can't talk properly? Genuinely curious

[@JasonDunna]

What do you mean? lol

[@thiernosow11]

probably dehydration, nearly 75% of the planet doen't drink enough water in any given day.

[@mugetsu9393]

@@JasonDunna he prolly means the way u often take a breather or half-choke midsentence due to speaking too fast xD