College of Swords | Baldurs Gate 3 Wiki

Really strong sub, incress your combat options, and its the way to go if you want to be a archer, this is way better than ranger.

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The way the ranged Mobile Flourish works is so stupid, I'm going to be shooting it FROM RANGE (a long way away) and then they are going to be PUSHED BACK (even farther away) so why is the teleport radius so tiny?

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You can use Slashing Flourish (Ranged) to shoot 2 arrows at the same enemy. With extra attack, you can basically shoot the same enemy 4 times. If you multiclass to a fighter, you can shoot even more with Action Surge and easily spend all your Bardic Inspirations on first turn.

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Really good class if you like to play solo. You can get Expertise twice for better rolls and Blade Flourish is pretty good, especially the defensive one. Using gear that provides AC + Defensive flourish can get you to 27 AC by the end of act 1 if i remember correctly (+2 if you use Haste)

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For all the Bards wishing they have something more, Rogues have nothing but sneak attacks, no style, less Proficiency, no extra attack, no level 6 perks, level 9 perks are less impressive than a level 1 spell, only level spells, and even less versatile as a skill monkey.

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Wish it got at least defense fighting style so I didnt feel like I was wasting a level when I'm an archer or 2h bard

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Very good with Wondrous Gloves (looted from mimic in grymforge). Adds you 1 more flourish use per short rest (if you are lvl5 at least) and bumps armour.
Also (bug or feature?) when you have a second bard in your party, you can cast inspiration on your college of swords bard and he'll receive another use of inspiration for flourish. But you need to actually spend it before getting the second one this way.

I made a party with 3 bards, one main sword bard dueller wearing this gloves, so I can have 13 flourishes per short rest now + 3 songs of rest, so i basically have 5 short rests. Which means 13+13*5=78 flourishes per Long Rest if done right. That means almost 100% uptime for Defensive Flourish (+5 AC).

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It's a real shame we can't choose Archery as a fighting style, I'd like to picture my Bard as the type to do daring displays of marksmanship like the whole "shooting an apple off someone's head" sort of thing

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A traditional BG2 "blade" character is actually possible with College of Swords. Interestingly, the best and most unique advantage the dual-wielding College of Swords character possesses is his defense - Defensive Flourish, combined with medium armor and a buff spell makes your bard *really* difficult to hit as early as level 3, and you have Heroism on top of all that as an HP buffer for when you *do* get hit. As you gain access to better items and buffs that AC advantage can get pretty crazy.
Your damage will come from stacking +weapon damage bonuses and (upscaled) Cloud of Daggers. You NEED to max out your DEX with this character (to max out your attack and AC bonus - you can do this as early as level 4 by starting with 17 DEX, using Ethel's Hair and using your first feat to max out your DEX) so you need access to a no-save spell that does reliable damage, at least for early game. Enter Cloud of Daggers - this is your equivalent to BG2's Skull Trap. The best thing about Cloud of Daggers is that it complements your being a melee character with regards to enemy placement. Protip: you can walk around enemies and shove them back inside the spell AoE (with Mobile Flourish and your spells you can REALLY abuse this because enemies take damage both from entering the spell AoE and from starting their turn from inside it) so make sure you don't gimp your athletics.

As far as stacking +weapon damage goes, you actually do have an early game advantage in this through weapon dipping. It wastes your first bonus action if you do it during combat, yes, but the buff lasts three rounds and thankfully affects BOTH of your equipped weapons. Easiest way to do is by dipping your weapon in candle flame (bring one with you at all times) for 1d4 extra fire damage per weapon.
Note that you can dig dipper into weapon dipping - right now, for example, you can dip your weapon in a poison puddle and the buff lasts until you use your long rest (note that these puddles also stay forever unless removed by Create Water, and you can create them yourself using poison vials). There are more powerful toxins and dippable surfaces, like the Wyvern Toxin you get from Nettie (which buffs your weapon damage by 1d8). This, combined with your spells, gives you competitive DPS.

All in all, what you get is a character that somehow maintains the spirit of the BG2 blade by being a defensive powerhouse of a spellsword that is capable of dishing out immense pain with the right setup. It's not broken like some Tavern Brawler builds and some archer Blade Flourish builds, but it's a fun take on the "conditional tank" character build. You can even get Warden of Vitality on your level 10 Magical Secrets to turn your bard into a support powerhouse, when combined with the Whispering Ring and Hellrider's Pride/Reviving Hands/Ring of Regeneration in the spirit of BG2's Enhanced Bard Song. There is, however, no equivalent for Tenser's Transformation.

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Swords bard 6 warlock 6 (any subclass) pact of blades is fun for the 3 melee attacks (pact extra attack stacks with normal apparently unless patched) while scales with cha so eldritch blast for range and some support spells still accessible even if lvl 3 slots. Wylls rapier from personal quest (persuasion success needed iirc) and dual wield feat for phalar aluve off hand for aura and ASI for cha and hair +1 was fun all around .

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My favorite early/mid game build with everything available in Act 1:

Sword Bard, Titanstring bow, Club of Hill Giant Strength, gloves of archery, Caustic band & Ethal's hair for 18 Dex.

Club gives 19 str while Titanstring Bow gives extra damage from Str multiplier. Does insane damage with slashing flourish.

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Sword bard + gloves of archery + Titanstring Bow + Club of Hill Giant Strength + hag hair for 18 Dex.

All item available early Act 1. Club gives 19 str and Bow gets extra damage from Str multiplier.

Does insane damage with slashing flourish.

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sword bard 8/thief 4, helmet of arcane acuity, ring of arcane synergy, band of the mistyc scoundrel.

2 action attack per turn and two spells as a bonus action per turn (most of your spells are illusion or enchantment anyway). Your attacks buff your spell casting, and your cantrips buff your attacks (vicious mockery is your best friend here).

would work quite well with a bard 12 too, you would just trade one spell per turn for higher rank spells.

it's a good alternative to the the classic dual crossbow, and allows to fully use everything the class offers.

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Which is more worth doing? (10 Bard Sword + 2 Paladin) or (8 Bard Sword + 2 Paladin + 1 Cleric War + 1 Wizard). It's really cool to have Banishing Smite, but having sanctuary + shield is definitely better.

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slay.

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Human or half elf + college of swords is interesting for the flourish synergies

Use a glaive and force melee opponents into attacks of opportunity with polearm master, or use a glaive to do a huge sweep attack

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Bard Simpson 10 / Action Surgery 2

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make ranger nothing but a joke.

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yet another martial class that has a bug that makes it broken as hell. one wonders why wizard, druid and sorcerer didn't get any overpowered 'bugs'.... and warlock got a bug that doesn't benefit itself but only makes paladin super strong...

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Ranged slashing flourish can be used twice on the same target, practically doubling your attacks and damage. On lvl 6, If you combine this with haste, action surge and bonus action attack from war cleric you can shoot 11 projectiles in one round. Wonder if thats Intentional seems a bit broken.

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Yeah, this Wiki is showing quite a few inaccuracies now the full version is released. I just picked up the game and wasted about 10 hours of my life getting to level 3 only to then find out I needed to restart as I'd wasted my skill proficiency selection at character creation. Larian really aught to put a progression preview button on their character creator pages like Solasta: Crown Of The Magister did. With an out of date Wiki and no in game way to plan your character... in a game like this it is a deal breaker. Gonna have to hang up my adventuring cape until Larian put out some official way to plan a character.

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I'm playing the full release version and I didn't get Deception and Perfomance proficiencies at lvl 3 choosing the College of Swords subclass.

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