AL legal valor bard

[Klorox]

I need some tips on making a rocking valor bard.

I think they look like tons of fun but I can't even figure out a good stat array with these guys (you want STR, DEX-14, CON, CHA).

Any help would be appreciated.

[ShirAhn]

**I can't read apparently, you are not playing lore bard, so OEPS and forget my reply.**


I need some tips on making a rocking valor bard.

I think they look like tons of fun but I can't even figure out a good stat array with these guys (you want STR, DEX-14, CON, CHA).

Any help would be appreciated.

I play a lore bard myself and Im only lvl 5 so far. Considering most of your spell rely on DC checks I would highly recommend getting MAX charisma as fast as possible. After that I would say DEX is the highest rated secondary stat. It helps with AC, Initiative and allot of saves. Third I would rate CON, cause it gives more health. I find it allot easier to do battle when Im not constantly on the floor bleeding out. The other stats are what bests suits your character I guess. I play a halfling so I have 8 strength and around 10-12 for Wisdom and Int.

[Arkhios]

Valor Bards (I prefer calling them Skalds, because how cool is that!? :smallbiggrin:) rely on weapons more than Lore Bards, so you'll want at least decent strength (or dexterity if you prefer using finesse weapons). Charisma is still an important stat, and in my opinion you should aim to have at least 16 in charisma. Whether you wish to increase it from there, is completely up to you and depends on your play style. Technically, you could choose spells that mostly buff you and your allies, or spells that don't require saving throws or spell attack rolls, and otherwise focus on your combat skills. The primary reason for a Skald to have Charisma at least 16 is, however, Bardic Inspiration.

For AL legal stats I'd start with the following order for standard array and adjust it depending on race choice.

Note: this is my personal preference because I like the idea of a Skald being a viking poet, who prefers non-finesse melee weapons, for example a Battleaxe and a Shield. As a result I would focus on physical stats over mental stats.

Str 15, Dex 14, Con 13, Int 8, Wis 10, Cha 12

If I followed my instincts further, I'd choose Variant Human, placing racial modifiers into Strength and Constitution, resulting with Str 16 and Con 14, then take the War Caster as the bonus feat. I'm aware that the suggestion has relatively low Charisma, but you can always increase Charisma later (and you should, too). However, the first two levels might require a bit more patience than normally, to survive to 3rd level and beyond. Luckily, 3rd level comes quickly enough. (Unless, of course, you rebuilt an existing character to Skald, in which case this is slightly moot point).

At 4th level, I would personally use an ASI to improve Charisma to 14, and probably again at 8th level to increase it to 16. After that, I would likely focus on strength. But that's just me, I suppose.

Then there's also the best bard race available: Half-elf. You could start with Str 16, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 10, Cha 14; unfortunately you'd have to wait for a while longer to get the War Caster feat (if you want it, that is), but otherwise you would be more effective as a bard few levels earlier.

Another choice for race could be Mountain Dwarf, if you want that medium armour proficiency as soon as possible. You could drop both Str and Con by 1, resulting with 3 spare points and use them to improve your Charisma to 14 (12 = 4 points, 14 = 7 points), and start with same end result as with Half-elf (Str 16, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 10, Cha 14)

A Half-orc Skald could be interesting too, starting with slightly higher strength than usual, and might even consider planning ahead for taking Heavily Armored at 4th level, favoring a heavy two-handed weapon over sword and board. Stats at start could be as follows: (Str 17 (18 after Heavily Armored), Dex 12, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 10, Cha 14).

[deathadder99]

You probably want to grab a finesse weapon like a shortsword or rapier and use Dexterity and light armor rather than go strength. Or even go for a bow or crossbow. If you're going melee, grab Warcaster ASAP. Maybe grab Sharpshooter or Xbow expert if range. Variant Human and Half Elf are the best races by far for this. You wanna pump Dex > Cha.

You probably don't need to multiclass, although some levels of rogue might be good. Sword Coast Adventurer's guide could be a good sourcebook to choose as Swashbuckler is a nice dip for +Cha to initiative. You can also grab Greenflame or Booming Blade as a magical secret, which really ups your DPR with war magic (and combos w/ warcaster), but it's not really required. Swift Quiver is also an excellent pickup if you go archer as you can get it at level 10. There are also are many other good level Ranger/Paladin spells that are especially good at that level.

If you want to go strength, I'd absolutely recommend starting 1 level in fighter, as you get Con saves and heavy armor, which will patch up your poor dex. Otherwise you need to grab 14 Dex and go medium armor but makes until getting medium armor pretty dicey.

[PeteNutButter]

You probably want to grab a finesse weapon like a shortsword or rapier and use Dexterity and light armor rather than go strength. Or even go for a bow or crossbow. If you're going melee, grab Warcaster ASAP. Maybe grab Sharpshooter or Xbow expert if range. Variant Human and Half Elf are the best races by far for this. You wanna pump Dex > Cha.

You probably don't need to multiclass, although some levels of rogue might be good. Sword Coast Adventurer's guide could be a good sourcebook to choose as Swashbuckler is a nice dip for +Cha to initiative. You can also grab Greenflame or Booming Blade as a magical secret, which really ups your DPR with war magic (and combos w/ warcaster), but it's not really required. Swift Quiver is also an excellent pickup if you go archer as you can get it at level 10. There are also are many other good level Ranger/Paladin spells that are especially good at that level.

If you want to go strength, I'd absolutely recommend starting 1 level in fighter, as you get Con saves and heavy armor, which will patch up your poor dex. Otherwise you need to grab 14 Dex and go medium armor but makes until getting medium armor pretty dicey.

Basically if you want to use str, dump dex and take first level in fighter, or first two in paladin. Cleric is also an option, essentially replacing the 14 dex "requirement" with a 13 wisdom requirement, but still MAD for want of strength con and cha. The fighting style from fighter or paladin is also a solid boost to combat efficiency.

Otherwise use a finesse weapon and dump str. The stats are too MAD otherwise. If going archer, I'd still want first level in fighter, just because +2 to hit is amazing-sauce with SS. Swift Quiver with Magical Secrets is the usual tactic in this case, but takes 10 levels in bard.

Stat arrays:

Fighter 1/bard x or Paladin 2/bard x: 16, 8, 14, 8, 10, 16 (V Human); 16, 8, 16, 8, 10, 16 (Half-Elf)
Dex build: 8, 16, 14, 8, 10, 16 (V Human); 8, 16, 16, 8, 10, 16 (Half-Elf)

I'd highly recommend keeping cha high, as valor bards are full casters, and they don't get nearly enough combat boosts to keep up pure martial characters. I know from experience with valor bards, that dumping cha to 13 feels awful by about level 8.

[JAL_1138]

Basically if you want to use str, dump dex and take first level in fighter, or first two in paladin. Cleric is also an option, essentially replacing the 14 dex "requirement" with a 13 wisdom requirement, but still MAD for want of strength con and cha. The fighting style from fighter or paladin is also a solid boost to combat efficiency.

Otherwise use a finesse weapon and dump str. The stats are too MAD otherwise. If going archer, I'd still want first level in fighter, just because +2 to hit is amazing-sauce with SS. Swift Quiver with Magical Secrets is the usual tactic in this case, but takes 10 levels in bard.

Crossbow Expert plus Sharpshooter plus Elemental Weapon is an alternative to Swift Quiver, and can sort of get going a little bit earlier by using Greater Invisibility instead of Elemental Weapon until you get Magical Secrets. The extra feat for the crossbow build is tough to deal with statwise though--it'll delay your stat bumps considerably and you'll cap at 18 instead of 20 in either Dex or Cha [Edit: derp].

Either way, archery valor bards work quite well.



Stat arrays:

Fighter 1/bard x or Paladin 2/bard x: 16, 8, 14, 8, 10, 16 (V Human); 16, 8, 16, 8, 10, 16 (Half-Elf)
Dex build: 8, 16, 14, 8, 10, 16 (V Human); 8, 16, 16, 8, 10, 16 (Half-Elf)

I'd highly recommend keeping cha high, as valor bards are full casters, and they don't get nearly enough combat boosts to keep up pure martial characters. I know from experience with valor bards, that dumping cha to 13 feels awful by about level 8.

Definitely agreed about keeping Charisma high. A lot of your best spells are debuffs, and there will be plenty of times they're a better option than pure damage, so a good save DC will be important.

One other stat line would be for Half-Elf: 8 16 14 10 12 16. Lower Con and thus a worse save and lower HP, but not having the penalty to Int and a small bonus to Wis helps a little bit with skills, and a better Wis save can be really helpful. I'd probably recommend going with PeteNutButter's suggestion of 8 16 16 8 10 16, though. Higher Con is likely to be more useful in the long run.

[deathadder99]

Crossbow Expert plus Sharpshooter plus Elemental Weapon is an alternative to Swift Quiver, and can sort of get going a little bit earlier by using Greater Invisibility instead of Elemental Weapon until you get Magical Secrets. The extra feat for the crossbow build is tough to deal with statwise, though--it'll delay your stat bumps considerably and you'll cap at 18 instead of 20 in either Dex or Cha.


You can get Crossbow Expert, Sharpshooter, 20 Dex, 20 Cha with a VHuman. You get 5 ASIs(@4,8,12,16,19) and one feat. So you just scrape it at level 20.

[Specter]

A Valor Bard really benefits from starting as a Fighter. You get CON save proficiency (no need to blow a feat on Resilient), heavy armor from the start (no need to blow a feat on Heavily Armored), +2HP and a fighting style. Then, Valor Bard all the way. You should find that one level delay nothing compared to what you get.

[JAL_1138]

You can get Crossbow Expert, Sharpshooter, 20 Dex, 20 Cha with a VHuman. You get 5 ASIs(@4,8,12,16,19) and one feat. So you just scrape it at level 20.

True, I derped on my math. Haven't had my coffee yet :smalltongue: Good catch, thanks for the correction.

[krunchyfrogg]

The valor bard makes the best arcane archer IMHO. IDK about melee, because I worry about stat distribution, unless you're going finesse. You'll be fine with a rapier.

[JAL_1138]

The valor bard makes the best arcane archer IMHO. IDK about melee, because I worry about stat distribution, unless you're going finesse. You'll be fine with a rapier.

They make a good gish with two Paladin levels to start. Polearm Master for two attacks and a bonus action attack, plenty of slots to Smite with, maybe GWM or Sentinel in there somewhere. Long-rest dependent to a fault, but still competent. Bless, Greater Invisibility, or Elemental Weapon for extra accuracy (and damage in the case of EW), which especially help with GWM but are still good regardless. Stat distribution is basically the same as Fighter/Bard except with Str instead of Dex, you lose the level 19 ASI though.

[RipTide]

There are a few ways to build a good Valor bard. The easier way is to go pure dex but you seem to want str so I'll go with that first.

STR build -
You are probably going to want to multiclass for your first level or two here to get heavy armor prof. otherwise valor bard is pretty MAD, needing str, dex, con, and cha. So getting heavy armor can let you dump dex entirely. My suggestion would be 2 levels of pally for those smites with full caster progression, you will only be 1 level behind in terms of getting spell slots which isn't to bad and gain on command radiant damage nova, a fair trade I say. Other wise just 1 level of fighter for the proficiency's.

Going strength with heavy armor means you can go for a 2h weapon so you don't have to worry about warcaster for casting spells, it's still nice if you get the SCAG cantrips for AOO's and the advantage on con checks, but not as vital as if your going sword and board so the race is up to you but as far as stats go I would prioritize like this str > con >= cha. You probably want to try for at least str 18, con 16, and cha 16 eventually, and you could start with 16 in all 3 if you start halfelf and don't mind a 10 and 2 8's in your other stats but that's up to you.

Use mostly buff and support spells and rely on pally smites when you need to bring the damage. Some useful feats if you want to pick them up would be Warcaster, Great Weapon Master, Lucky (never a bad idea), and Magic Initiate to grab hex and Eldritch Blast form Warlock (if you want some magic range damage).

Dex build -

There are 2 ways to go with dex builds, sword and board or bow and arrow.

For sword and board build almost the same as the str build with dex > con >= cha but start V human for warcaster right off the bat so you don't have to fumble with shuffling whats in your hands every time you want to cast a spell. The advantage here is that you don't need to multiclass so you aren't behind at all as far as spells go, but you wont be as big of a damage dealer (you have better spells at all times, more slots and higher level spells, but only have your 1d8 rapier compared to 2d6 greatsword + smite + GWM). The suggested feats are pretty much the same except you don't want GWM here and warcaster is near mandatory.

Bow and arrow lets you focus on cha over con a bit because you won't be in the thick of the battle like the other 2 builds. This pretty much lets you focus on spell casting and have your bow as at will damage. This can be pretty sweet at level 10 when you get swift quiver with magical secrets but for this build there isn't much of a reason to not just go elf (for the long bow prof.) lore bard. For a valor bard you would want to work with crossbows and the crossbow feats but I'm not to familiar with the ins and outs of it.

I would suggest one of the melee builds and will say that the str build is better early levels and the dex build is better later levels. I like the dex build because bards are great buff/support/utility casters and the str build delays that, but right now i'm playing a palladorc (lvl 2 pally level 2 sorc currently) and the smites are so nice. So if you want to be a damage dealer with good utility go str. If you want to be a utility caster with some ok damage go dex.

[JAL_1138]

There are a few ways to build a good Valor bard. The easier way is to go pure dex but you seem to want str so I'll go with that first.

STR build -
You are probably going to want to multiclass for your first level or two here to get heavy armor prof. otherwise valor bard is pretty MAD, needing str, dex, con, and cha. So getting heavy armor can let you dump dex entirely. My suggestion would be 2 levels of pally for those smites with full caster progression, you will only be 1 level behind in terms of getting spell slots which isn't to bad and gain on command radiant damage nova, a fair trade I say. Other wise just 1 level of fighter for the proficiency's.

Going strength with heavy armor means you can go for a 2h weapon so you don't have to worry about warcaster for casting spells, it's still nice if you get the SCAG cantrips for AOO's and the advantage on con checks, but not as vital as if your going sword and board so the race is up to you but as far as stats go I would prioritize like this str > con >= cha. You probably want to try for at least str 18, con 16, and cha 16 eventually, and you could start with 16 in all 3 if you start halfelf and don't mind a 10 and 2 8's in your other stats but that's up to you.

Use mostly buff and support spells and rely on pally smites when you need to bring the damage. Some useful feats if you want to pick them up would be Warcaster, Great Weapon Master, Lucky (never a bad idea), and Magic Initiate to grab hex and Eldritch Blast form Warlock (if you want some magic range damage).

Dex build -

There are 2 ways to go with dex builds, sword and board or bow and arrow.

For sword and board build almost the same as the str build with dex > con >= cha but start V human for warcaster right off the bat so you don't have to fumble with shuffling whats in your hands every time you want to cast a spell. The advantage here is that you don't need to multiclass so you aren't behind at all as far as spells go, but you wont be as big of a damage dealer (you have better spells at all times, more slots and higher level spells, but only have your 1d8 rapier compared to 2d6 greatsword + smite + GWM). The suggested feats are pretty much the same except you don't want GWM here and warcaster is near mandatory.

Bow and arrow lets you focus on cha over con a bit because you won't be in the thick of the battle like the other 2 builds. This pretty much lets you focus on spell casting and have your bow as at will damage. This can be pretty sweet at level 10 when you get swift quiver with magical secrets but for this build there isn't much of a reason to not just go elf (for the long bow prof.) lore bard. For a valor bard you would want to work with crossbows and the crossbow feats but I'm not to familiar with the ins and outs of it.

I would suggest one of the melee builds and will say that the str build is better early levels and the dex build is better later levels. I like the dex build because bards are great buff/support/utility casters and the str build delays that, but right now i'm playing a palladorc (lvl 2 pally level 2 sorc currently) and the smites are so nice. So if you want to be a damage dealer with good utility go str. If you want to be a utility caster with some ok damage go dex.

Str build with a Paladin dip can out-burst-damage the Sharpshooter VB, but the accuracy boost from a Fighter dip for Archery style nets the ranged bard with Sharpshooter (and potentially Crossbow Expert) and Swift Quiver/Elemental Weapon a really solid average damage, better than "ok." It's not Fighter damage, but it's higher than a Thief rogue without Magic Initiate, at least until accounting for crits.

You'd go Vhuman or half-elf VB over elf Lore due to Extra Attack, which makes a huge jump in average damage due to Sharpshooter. The rough equivalent of an extra 17th-level cantrip's worth. And Valor gets Battle Magic, which lets them make a weapon attack as a bonus action after casting a bard spell, which can be quite potent with something like Sharpshooter/GWM and Elemental Weapon and/or Smites stacked on it.