Bard College of Sword. Dueling or Two-Weapon Fighting?

[Ashuran]

Hello everyone. So I just reached lvl 3. Yes I play slow lol. But I am torn between these two fighting style on my bard. Dual wielding is cool and naturally deals more damage but dueling I guess is more defensive since we can equip shield? Can bard veteran give me advice on these two options? Thanks. Really loving the game so far granted I am only at the beginning lol.

[Ashuran]

Originally posted by Szorrin:

Originally posted by Rez Elwin:

No need to apologize, I am letting you know when you level up again, at level 4 you can choose a feat, that is one of them. It will make the most out of fighting with two weapons and makes 2 weapon fighting a solid choice.

Dual Wielder is bait if you're DEX based. It only gives you +1 bonus to AC, and your off-hand can be a 1d8 weapon instead of 1d6. Meanwhile just taking the ASI and pumping DEX would give you +1 AC, +1 to hit and +1 damage.

It's really only decent for STR based Two-Weapon Fighters, who wouldn't be getting any AC from pumping STR.

i plan t o take 4 levels of warlock for pact of the blade. which will make me weapons use charisma for bonuses.

[God of Ultra-Violence]

Originally posted by Ashuran:

Originally posted by Szorrin:

Dual Wielder is bait if you're DEX based. It only gives you +1 bonus to AC, and your off-hand can be a 1d8 weapon instead of 1d6. Meanwhile just taking the ASI and pumping DEX would give you +1 AC, +1 to hit and +1 damage.

It's really only decent for STR based Two-Weapon Fighters, who wouldn't be getting any AC from pumping STR.

i plan t o take 4 levels of warlock for pact of the blade. which will make me weapons use charisma for bonuses.

This is my current build for my character. I went with dueling because the other weapon can't be binded and wont get the charisma bonus. Also you will have a bonus action for spells like misty step or healing. At lvl 6 I believe you get a bonus attack as well for Bard.
And Act 3 side quest has a very nice dueling rapier, perfect for this setup

[Szorrin]

Originally posted by Ashuran:

Originally posted by Szorrin:

Dual Wielder is bait if you're DEX based. It only gives you +1 bonus to AC, and your off-hand can be a 1d8 weapon instead of 1d6. Meanwhile just taking the ASI and pumping DEX would give you +1 AC, +1 to hit and +1 damage.

It's really only decent for STR based Two-Weapon Fighters, who wouldn't be getting any AC from pumping STR.

i plan t o take 4 levels of warlock for pact of the blade. which will make me weapons use charisma for bonuses.

Then you definitely want to take the ASI and pump CHA to 20 before taking any feats. Also quick correction to my earlier reply, Dual Wielder would let both your weapons be 1d8 weapons instead of 1d6, but it still doesn't beat +1 to hit and +1 damage.

[/Uninstall]

Just food for thought here but college of swords doesn't actually require you to use a sword/s. Dual hand crossbows is an option. Bard gets greater invis to allow for excellent use of sharpshooter feat.

[Kay]

Originally posted by Tzyder:

If you want to play a martial charecter you should mutliclass into a fighter or rogue. Bard is a casting class and you are giving up the extra dice rolls or magical secrets for meh weapon skills. Also in the DOS games shield was subpar choice mostly for casters compared to 2hnded or duel. Not sure if that carries over here but something to consider.

Bard (particularly college of swords in this game) is a hybrid, not a pure caster or a pure martial, potentially good at both.

You end up being a mix of battlemaster (thanks to flourishes and extra attack) and an arcane/divine caster, they're a good "do everything" class without being exceptional at any one thing.

On top of that, shields don't work anything like divinity, ignore it when you're deciding what to use in BG3, they're different systems.

Taking a shield is usually a pretty good idea, especially if you have the duelling fighting style which makes up for the lower/fewer damage dice (d8 instead of d12 if you're using a great weapon, or 2d8 if you're duel weilding) and extra AC is nice.

If you pick up 2 weapon fighting and dual weilding however, you still get extra AC (only +1) but you get an offhand attack too (though IIRC it doesn't scale well since it always costs a bonus action to swing your off-hand weapon, so you can only ever swing it once per turn while your main swings twice)

[Szorrin]

Originally posted by BigRockWall:

Just food for thought here but college of swords doesn't actually require you to use a sword/s. Dual hand crossbows is an option. Bard gets greater invis to allow for excellent use of sharpshooter feat.

This is also a great idea, once they actually fix Greater Invisibility to not break upon attacking an enemy.

[Ashuran]

Originally posted by Kay:

Originally posted by Tzyder:

If you want to play a martial charecter you should mutliclass into a fighter or rogue. Bard is a casting class and you are giving up the extra dice rolls or magical secrets for meh weapon skills. Also in the DOS games shield was subpar choice mostly for casters compared to 2hnded or duel. Not sure if that carries over here but something to consider.

Bard (particularly college of swords in this game) is a hybrid, not a pure caster or a pure martial, potentially good at both.

You end up being a mix of battlemaster (thanks to flourishes and extra attack) and an arcane/divine caster, they're a good "do everything" class without being exceptional at any one thing.

On top of that, shields don't work anything like divinity, ignore it when you're deciding what to use in BG3, they're different systems.

Taking a shield is usually a pretty good idea, especially if you have the duelling fighting style which makes up for the lower/fewer damage dice (d8 instead of d12 if you're using a great weapon, or 2d8 if you're duel weilding) and extra AC is nice.

If you pick up 2 weapon fighting and dual weilding however, you still get extra AC (only +1) but you get an offhand attack too (though IIRC it doesn't scale well since it always costs a bonus action to swing your off-hand weapon, so you can only ever swing it once per turn while your main swings twice)

So you feel dueling is more fun and effective that two weapon fighting for bards?

[ComradePreacher]

Bards uses bonus action for bardic inspiration, Dueling is better more damage and you get extra attack at level 6

[/Uninstall]

Originally posted by Szorrin:

Originally posted by BigRockWall:

Just food for thought here but college of swords doesn't actually require you to use a sword/s. Dual hand crossbows is an option. Bard gets greater invis to allow for excellent use of sharpshooter feat.

This is also a great idea, once they actually fix Greater Invisibility to not break upon attacking an enemy.

Oh that is unfortunate indeed. But yeah I am a fan of the deep gnome 3 Thief / 9 Swords. Gets me 4 attacks per turn with the handbows, 6 if hasted. Can drop a level of bard for 1 wiz to shore up spell selection if you want, wasn't necessary in the coop party I made that bard for.

[Szorrin]

As someone else pointed out, you can only bind to 1 weapon with Pact of the Blade, so your off-hand would not be using CHA for its attack and damage rolls. You will also often have better things to use your bonus action for.

[Ashuran]

Originally posted by Szorrin:

Then you definitely want to take the ASI and pump CHA to 20 before taking any feats. Also quick correction to my earlier reply, Dual Wielder would let both your weapons be 1d8 weapons instead of 1d6, but it still doesn't beat +1 to hit and +1 damage.

Yea I plan to take my Charisma to 20. This will be my first time trying to play a game like this with diplomacy etc. I want to experience how the story goes with persuasion, bardic lore etc. Already am happy about a lot of unique dialogue I have come across compared to when I always play the stereotype knight or hero archetypes.

I will definitely make a tiefling paladin though on my second playthrough. Will be interesting to see a demon from hell embracing the light as a paladin hehe.

[Faray]

I'm doing dueling on mine and it works good. Being able to use a shield to up AC is helpful because you can then use more concertation spells with less fear of interruption. I would push DEX up to 20 ASAP though.

[Ashuran]

Originally posted by Szorrin:

As someone else pointed out, you can only bind to 1 weapon with Pact of the Blade, so your off-hand would not be using CHA for its attack and damage rolls. You will also often have better things to use your bonus action for.

Yea after reading through a lot of comments and advice here I think I will go dueling. I do want to hurl some spells like a spellsword adventurer so dueling is better for that. And as ComradePreacher pointed out the pact of blade from warlock will only apply to my main hand weapon.. Thanks all :)

Offtopic: I am loving the shadowheart character and her voice actress suits her character well too. :)

[Kay]

Originally posted by Ashuran:

So you feel dueling is more fun and effective that two weapon fighting for bards?

Yeah, you'll get more out of it in the form of being hit less as the game goes on, and your bonus action can be used for other things

[SOFAGUS]

Originally posted by Szorrin:

Originally posted by SOFAGUS:

To get percs from one handed style you have to have second hand empty

Incorrect, you just need to not wield a 2nd weapon, you can use a shield. +2 damage and +2 AC from a shield is just always better in my opinion.

sorry then, im not very smart
anyway, OP, you can chose whatever and respec later for almost nothing