This is a speculative build for my main character on my initial BG3 playthrough. It is a Swords Bard with dips into the Thief subclass of Rogue and the Gloom Stalker subclass of Ranger. The intention is a jack-of-all-trades character who does considerable damage on the first turn of combat.
It also fits
my original NWN concept of Ember a little better than the
Bard/Rogue version or the
Bard/Rogue/Fighter version.
NOTE: I ended up going withn the dip into Fighter instead of Ranger.
| Character Level |
Class Level |
Attributes |
Skills |
Proficiencies |
Other |
| 1 |
Rogue 1 |
STR: 8 (-1)
DEX: 16 (+3)
CON: 14 (+2)
INT: 10 (+0)
WIS: 10 (+0)
CHA: 16 (+3)
|
Acrobatics (via Entertainer)
Performance (via Entertainer)
Stealth (via Half Wood Elf)
Perception (via Rogue)
Persuasion (via Rogue)
Sleight of Hand (via Rogue)
Insight (via Rogue)
Expertise (Perception, Stealth) |
Light Armour
Simple Weapons
Shield
Hand Crossbow
Longsword
Rapier
Shortsword
Spear
Pike
Halberd
Glaive |
Sneak Attack (1d6)
Darkvision
Fey Ancestry |
| 2 |
Ranger 1 |
|
Survival (via Ranger)
Investigation (via Bounty Hunter) |
Martial Weapons
Medium Armor |
Favoured Enemy: Bounty Hunter
Natural Explorer (Beast Tamer)
Cantrips |
| 3 |
Bard 1 |
|
Deception (via Bard) |
Musical Instrument Proficiency |
Bardic Inspiration (d6)
Initial Instrument (Lute)
Cantrips
Level 1 Spells |
| 4 |
Bard 2 |
|
|
|
Jack of All Trades
Song of Rest
|
| 5 |
Bard 3 |
|
Expertise x2 (Persuade, Sleight of Hand) |
Scimitars (CoS) |
Level 2 Spells
College of Swords (CoS)
Fighting Style (CoS) (Two-Weapon Fighting)
Slashing Flourish (CoS)
Defensive Flourish (CoS)
Mobile Flourish (CoS)
Extra Attack (CoS) |
| 6 |
Ranger 2 |
|
|
|
Fighting Style: Archery
Level 1 Spells |
| 7 |
Bard 4 |
|
|
|
Feat (Sharpshooter) |
| 8 |
Ranger 3 |
|
|
|
Subclass: Gloom Stalker (GS)
Dread Ambusher (GS)
Dread Ambusher: Hide (GS)
Superior Darkvision (GS)
Umbral Shroud (GS)
Disguise Self (GS) |
| 9 |
Rogue 2 |
|
|
|
Cunning Action: Dash
Cunning Action: Disengage
Cunning Action: Hide |
| 10 |
Rogue 3 |
|
|
|
Sneak Attack (2d6)
Subclass: Thief
Fast Hands (Thief)
Second Story Work (Thief) |
| 6 |
Bard 5 |
|
|
|
Improved Bardic Inspiration (d8)
Font of Inspiration
Level 3 Spells |
| 7 |
Bard 6 |
|
|
|
Countercharm
Extra Attack (Cos) |
That's probably not all quite correct. I'm still learning how the game mechanics work. Hopefully it is close.
This isn't a min/max optimized one-turn-kill (OTK) build. Assassin would probably be better for that. The whole point of Ember is to be reasonably effective in combat, while also being pretty good at just about everything else. There's no way to do that without giving up a few things.
Order matters here, at least a little. At least one level of Rogue and Ranger should be taken before any levels of Bard, so that CHA sticks as my Spellcasting Ability when using items.
The additional Ranger and Rogue levels can be taken pretty much whenever. I put the second Ranger level just after the Bard level where College of Swords is gained, in order to get Fighting Style: Archery quickly. But you do you.
Favoured Enemy choice isn't essential and could be changed. I mostly picked Bounty Hunter because it fit this character best from a roleplaying perspective.
Urban Tracker wouldn't be a bad alternative for Natural Explorer choice. It gets Slight of Hand, allowing you to use that Rogue skill for something else you might prefer. But taking Beast Tamer gives Find Familiar, and your familiar (as long as it is alive...) can be used to trigger Sneak Attacks (by having an ally in melee range). So it seems like the best choice. I didn't actually play it to see how well that'd work, though.
Hunter wouldn't be a bad subclass. Colossus Slayer seems useful. I felt like Gloom Slayer worked better with Rogue, but either would probably be viable.
Rogue 4 instead of Bard 6 would net an additional feat, but would give up the additional attack. Probably not worth it.
I didn't try this with Ranger first then Rogue. In the similar build that dips into Fighter instead of Ranger, that lost me a skill proficienty and didn't gain me anything I cared about. At a glance, the situation would be similar with Ranger, so I only worked out the details for starting with Rogue.
Compared to the version that dips into Fighter, this build gets two more skill proficiencies (I put them into Deception and Survival). Rangers also get a few more buttons to click than Fighters, which is fun. The main places it loses is that activating some of the Ranger goodies takes away from first-turn damage (for example, Hunter's Mark is nice, but takes a Bonus Action). And it takes three levels of Ranger to get enough goodies to make the dip really worth it, versus two for Fighter (I'm considering Dread Ambusher and Action Surge to be rougly equivalent in power). You minimally need two Ranger levels to get Archery, which is essential to the build. But if you don't care about Dread Ambusher, you probably don't care about Action Surge, and you could therefore get Archery with just one level of Fighter.
The Ranger dip is still very viable, and there probably isn't all
that much difference between this and the Fighter one unless you're a hard-core min-maxer with strong opinions.