Astarion as a College of Swords Bard..

[Moonbane]

I am looking into playing him out a dual wielder, but where I am wracking my mind is his proficiencies. So easy for a Lore bard in comparision.

8 Strenght
16 Dex
14 Con
10 Int
10 Wis
16 Cha

Locked to Charlatan, he gets Sleight of Hand and Deception. Which leaves 3 skill proficiencies. Acrobatics and Perfomance seems a given. But what I am waffling on is Stealth or Persuation.

There is many medium armors that is not friendly to stealth play.

[FunkyMonkey]

Also, stealth as a skill is almost unnecessary. If you are out of the red vision cones and not in full light, you don't even roll a stealth check. You just stealth. So no skill or proficiency needed. You only need the skill and proficiency if you want to move around the red vison scones and stay stealthed, which usually can be avoided anyway. So, go with Persuasion.

[Kernest]

The skill choices should be based on what you need him for.

Sleight of Hand + expertise for lockpicking/disarming traps seems like the obvious choice, and that's how I use him (also as a Swords Bard), but my char is also charisma based, so I don't plan to use him for conversations.

Except I'll maybe have to re-think that in Act 2 depending on whether I want to fight the Thorms, as those conversation checks are quite something.