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Bladelocks also need only Charisma to attack with weapons, so attribute spread is easier. I'd go with Medium armor for being a Gith so 14 DEX, then 16 CHA. And after that CON. Raise CHA when leveling up and pick up either Savage attacker or Great weapon master at some point.
Also, if you are patient enough to wait for the next Patch, there is going to be a new subclass for Warlocks that is even better for melee Warlocks which is the Hexblade. Any of the existing ones still are good, especially with Gith because you get the armor proficiency.
Edit. Sorry, missed where you said you don't want to play Warlock. Feel free to ignore this post if you want :D
Wrong on so many levels, chief.
OP: I'll leave below the recipe for my melee bard that won me Honor mode.
College of the Lore (I disliked the Valor one): Medium Armor + Martial Weapon proficiency (yes, GS are included in martial weapon).
STAT distribution:
Depends on where you’re in the adventure. I min-maxed the build to hell and back.
INT and STR are your dump stat (headband of warped intellect) but dex can temporarily become a dump stat too as soon as you get the gloves of dexterity, to be respecced back in ACT III.
In the end, this is what a melee bard would looks like, stat wise (again: min-maxed).
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3456052016
Without the equipment, stats are:
8, 18, 8, 8, 16, 22
Spell:
Until level 10, thunderwave /dissonant whispers are your main option for spell damage.
Heat metal, hold person / hold monster are more situational but equally important to shut down quickly priority targets.
Plant Growth is a nice terrain manipulation that doesn’t require concentration.
To maximize your damage, at level 10, take at least a smite (I choose thunderous smite for RP reasons).
Congratulations: you’ve a bard that can smite, with medium armor and martial weapon proficiency without multiclass.
You mean longswords, right? You can get one of them pretty early if you're careful. Might require a bit of metagaming, though. But it's a pretty OP weapon, particularly if you stack the right gear to proc with its ability. (There is also a finesse glaive in act 3, FWIW.)
If you're going for STR for attacking, you probably should start F1, dump DEX, and wear heavy armor. That would give you a more efficient stat spread. But then you're delaying your second attack to character level 7, which will be a long wait. Going to L2 for Action Surge and L3 for battle master makes things even worse. I think that's the sort of build you respec into rather than playing.
Unless you have fighter levels, you won't have Shield Proficiency. This raises the question of what to do with your off hand.
The point of CON saves is to not lose Concentration. I don't think this makes too much sense for your play intent here; since you don't want to be casting much in the first place, building around making the casting better doesn't seem productive.
Personally one of my favorite builds is just a battlemaster 8/ rogue 4, and i like to go with dual wield swords. If you build your cha up to like 14 you still can get plenty of cha checks successes, especially because as rogue you can get bonuses to all those skills. This build is pretty much the same idea as a swords bard, but just minus the "meh" tier spells and much, much stronger in battle.
Also bard's jack of all trades skills always seemed bugged to me, it's supposed to give half your cha bonus to skills, but for me it always just gave +1 and that's it, even if I had like 18 cha it should have given +2 but it was always just +1.
Thank you! I hadn't even thought about learning smite from magical secrets. A lot of what your character is and does is what I'm looking for so I will take your information into careful consideration.
Yes, sorry. As a versatile weapon I could wield a longsword in both hands but I definitely would like to use a two handed sword.
For RP reasons it would make much more sense to start as a bard and multiclass into fighter. I have considered heavy armor but also for RP reasons I think that adventuring in anything heavier than half plate and less than the strength of a giant would be unreasonable. I know that in traditional DnD there is a strength requirement to even use heavier armor without a penalty. My first character did use heavy armor and with the low dex saves and poor armor selection in the first half of the game I found medium armor to be comparable. The mirror of loss becomes available around the same time that medium armor starts to fall behind heavy without substantial dex investment. I do think it will be less restrictive to have some amount of dexterity than to use a feat or multiclass for the exclusive purpose of gaining heavy armor proficiency, especially if I only need say 16 or 18 dexterity. I will take more time to re-read the replies when I have more time available and give my character some more consideration before starting my campaign. Thank you all for the feedback and information and if anyone would like to include more I will be back later to read it.
You're welcome.
And with 18 in DEX, and the "armor of agility" you've 21 AC without the need to use a heavy armor. You need some serious frickery happening to get hit in a normal fight.
A two-handed sword, but not a greatsword, right. That would leave your bonus action open for other things besides an off-hand attack.
Not really: bards, outside College of Lore (only them are spellcaster bards), are quite adept at melee. College of Swords, even, has techniques MADE to go in melee (Flourishes).
Both college of Valour and Swords get an extra melee attack at level 6.
College of swords gets proficency on scimitars and medium armor. College of Valour gets proficency on medium armor AND martial weapons (you can use a greatsword with a college of valour). Which is what brought me to it, in the end: all the plus of a paladin (bar heavy armor) without the fastidiousness of enforced morality.
This without considering "magical secret" where you can add everything from smites to "enlarge" to hasten to double your melee attacks (or "great weapon master" for an extra reaction on kill)
Yes, I agree on the general terms, for all but one thing: fiend bladelock are kings of "shock and awe" in battle. Melee Bards are more on the crowd control side of the equation, with the ability to outlast bladelock thanks to more spell slots. In short, fae bladelocks are the crowd controller to the fiend shock and awe approach.
With melee bards being, imo, an enhanced version of fae bladelocks: stat efficiency is meaningless when you can bridge the difference with potions/equipment (see image attached in previous posts).
Well, without multiclass, there are precious few classes which offer a mix of blade and spells at the same time.
On the tip of my tongue:
Spore Druid with dexterity-based weapons (tank/area denial/AoE)
Bard (of Swords and Valour)
Bladelock (further augmented by races/patron)
…SOME sorcerers and in a conditional way (draconic gith sorcerer /the incoming P8 Bladesinger Wizard and MAYBE the Shadow sorcerer)
Or wisdom-based weapons if you just use Shillelagh all the time. Fades a bit in the late game, but by then I wouldn't be using melee as much anyhow.
Past that, a dual wielder needs rogue 3 multi class, really. You can manage without it, but its a big deal.
there isn't really any sort of weapon master / sword saint type thing in this game. After you have the stats to use the weapon well (str or dex) and the attacks to use it often (3-4 shots per round), that is all you get. The rest is just buffs and itemization.
if no one said it you can get part of the battle master tool with a cross class feat; you get a couple of the moves & dice to use them. Most medium armor is fine with a 14 dex as it is capped at +2 ac from dex. 1 level of fighter gets you all weapons shields and armor and a self heal. 2 levels gets you action surge.
Anyway, my ideal bard would just dual wield with 3 levels of rogue and call it good (this grants a 2nd offhand attack, giving you 4 total attacks or extra dashes to close the gap to your target faster). I think the college of swords is your go to, granting scimitars, two weapon fighting style, medium armor, and stuff like range flourish (has a teleport to enemy feature for stabbity), on top of your spells. Forget the fighter/battle master stuff or use that feat to get a taste of it for emergencies or strategic abuse.
To make a Sword user work, if you're panning on using a one handed sword I'd recommend really shopping around for equipment. The Issue with melee bard is the melee part. You're always putting yourself at a disadvantage when you're jumping into melee. You're having to use actions/bonus actions to get into combat rather than using those actions for damage, support or control and a lot of enemy abilities are designed to really punish melee, especially at higher difficulties. Melee can work but right off the bat you're making the game harder.
IF you really want to go melee bard instead of Paladin, Warlock, Ranger, Fighter, Barbarian, Monk or Druid then some pre planning is in order. First thing, Swords bard gets access to medium armor but not shields. Shields are a massive power boost in this game so if you're not interested in two handing a weapon anyway, than pick up a shield. You can get some great ones which can do many different things like give you extra spell slots, increase your initiative, grant you extra resistances, give you other defensive utility. There is a lot to choose from which can really aid you.
Fighter first level gives you access to All armor and weapons in the game. Which Swords bard doesn't get access to even if you multiclass into fighter later. Plus a fighting style you could take Defense for a +1 ac along with the +2 to damage you might want with your long sword. 2 levels of fighter is recommended for actions surge which gives you a full action to do with what you want. Beyond that fighter doesn't provide much for the bard that is worth giving up.
Bard does have utility spells which can be useful if you don't want to focus on spell casting although I'd still recommend having a high charisma because its really the best way to get decent damage out of the bard. 16 dex is solid I wouldn't go beyond that but Charisma I'd pump higher. There is an Item in act 1 which you can get, its a head piece which if you inflict a condition on an enemy you'll gain Arcane synergy charges which will boost your damage based on your casting modifier. And at base that's a +5 to damage with potential for +7. This is similar to great weapon master.
I'd also respec later. Start with bard then once you get to level 7 respec to Fighter then go 6 levels in bard. The reason to do this is because magic items use the saving throw of your most recent class added. So if you grab fighter levels later you could lose that +5 damage from the head piece I suggested along with other benefits. The other issue is you wont be able to wear heavy armor so its advantageous to do so.
While a 16 Dex doesn't seem like a lot in the late game, it'll do just fine. Take Wyll with you for the final fight in act 2 and convince Minthara to give you an extra reward for freeing her(don't kill her), and you'll get a +2 rapier that boosts your spell save DC but also uses your superior charisma stat. It also allows you to summon an ally.
There are also a few gloves such as the helldusk gloves which grant bonus damage so having those extra riders will be invaluable. Buy the Drakethroat glaive. Each day enchant your sword with its special action to give you a +1 to attack roles and a +1d4 to damage of the element of your choice. Another item to consider is a piece of gear which blocks critical. There is also a helm hidden on a skeleton right before you encounter the Kuo Toa which can give you wisdom saves which are the most dangerous save to fail.
If you don't want your melee to be outshined by the ranger don't focus on ranged combat.
Picking spells is importatnt. Pick rituatl spells and other utility spells so you can focus more on combat than trickery. Trickery is stupid strong but you aren't all that interested so I wont sugest it.
I'll respon more with further tips in the future but right now the room is spinning so I'm goign to lay down.