Baldur's Gate 3: 10 Best Feats For Bard

Summary

• Bards in Baldur's Gate 3 are powerful musicians offering boosts to party members & spells for enemies.
• Feats like Lucky, War Caster, and Defensive Duelist can enhance a bard's gameplay and survivability.
• Improving stats like charisma and dexterity, choosing the right feats, and managing spells wisely are key for bards.

Bards are the musicians of Baldur’s Gate 3. From playing tunes for all your companions back at camp after a long day to sounding war music during an intense battle, they’ve always got a good tune on hand. That’s not all they’re there for, obviously. Bards are a pretty powerful class and are incredibly useful at providing boosts to party members and casting spells on unsuspecting enemies.

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The best feats for a bard mostly focus on boosting charisma and helping maintain concentration on spells. There are other feats to consider using to protect a bard since they can’t take as many hits as other classes, allowing you to use your weapons in combat, as well.

Updated on August 14, 2024, by Lucas Olah: Feats are a difficult thing to choose in Baldur's Gate 3. There are many feats you can choose from, and you don't have many opportunities to take one - not without compromising your Ability Score Increases. Not to mention that it also depends on what you're focusing on. A lore bard and a swords bard have different priorities. Still, we have interesting options here that you may want to get once you decide your charisma is high enough.

11 Actor

Lie Your Way Out Of Trouble

Pros

Cons

It gives you expertise in Deception and Perception checks, even if you didn't have the proficiencies beforehand.

It also comes with a +1 to charisma.

It won't majorly increase your success in all dialogue rolls, only Deception and Performance.

It's not relevant for combat.

Actor gives you a point for your charisma stat and doubles your proficiency bonus for deception and performance checks. Increasing charisma can help a bard out in many ways. If you don’t want to fight and would rather talk about your problems, increased charisma will help you through performance or deception checks.

More importantly, charisma is the spellcasting modifier for bards, so improving that will be a big boost during fights. Making attack rolls with spells will add the spellcasting modifier, meaning increased charisma will make it easier for you to hit targets.

If you want this feat, leave your charisma at an odd number during character creation, like 15 or 17, so the +1 will make a difference. Also, don't get proficiencies in Deception or Performance since the feat will give you expertise in them. This way, you can focus on your class' proficiencies and expertise elsewhere.

10 Ability Improvement

Become More Charismatic

Pros

Cons

You can potentially increase two stats.

It's a quick way to improve a specific stat.

It takes the space of a unique feat.

Ability Improvement is only useful if you're increasing to an even number, so it's very dependent on your beginning stats.

The Ability Improvement is a great first feat to get if you want to just boost your stats a little higher. The best stats to improve are going to be charisma and dexterity, but it really depends on what route you're taking. Since bard comes with different subclasses, some stats are going to be more important than others.

It’s important to read through the subclasses and find out how you’re going to improve them. College of Swords will be more focused on dexterity, whereas College of Valor and College of Lore will want more points for charisma. Our recommendation would be putting your main ability score at 20.

9 Lucky

Skills Are For Losers

Pros

Cons

You can re-roll almost everything with Lucky.

The feat especially helps in areas that you're not proficient or skilled in.

You only have three uses per long rest.

Lucky is a great feat for any class of the game. If you’re unsure of what feat to choose or simply don’t like the look of any, then Lucky is a good feat to grab early on.

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The feat gives you three luck points that can be used to gain advantage on attack rolls, ability checks, and saving throws, and can also be used to make an enemy re-roll their attack rolls. It’s a nice feat that gives you a hand in nearly any situation, whether you’re in the middle of a fight that isn’t going well or you’re just exploring, it can give you a boost anywhere.

8 Magic Initiate

Whether It's Bard, Sorcerer, Or Warlock

Pros

Cons

Increase the number of spells and cantrips you have access to.

The level one spell can only be used once per long rest.

The Magic Initiate feat gives you a level one spell, along with two cantrips from the class you chose. Since your spellcasting ability score is charisma, then we recommend getting a variation of Magic Initiate from a class that also uses charisma, such as bard, sorcerer, or warlock.

This way, you can have a cantrip that causes more damage than Vicious Mockery, such as Eldritch Blast or Fire Bolt, or you can even get more bard spells out of it if you want to, increasing your magical repertoire.

Magic Initiate: Cleric or Druid can still be useful. They'll use your wisdom, meaning attack spells won't be helpful, but you can be a better support by getting things such as Guidance, Resistance, Sanctuary, Fog Cloud, and Enhance Leap, among others.

7 Spell Sniper

For Critical Magic Hits

Pros

Cons

It lets you get great cantrips, and it lowers your necessary number to land a critical hit

You'll only get one extra cantrip.

Spell Sniper follows a similar idea to Magic Initiate, allowing you to get magic from other classes. The downside here is that all you'll get is a cantrip, and it's from a pre-established list. All of them are cantrips that involve attack rolls, and the list is Fire Bolt, Ray of Frost, Bone Chill, Eldritch Blast, Shocking Grasp, and Thorn Whip.

The fun thing here is that you'll land a critical hit whenever you roll 19 or 20 instead of only 20, meaning that your attacks will have a ten percent chance of being a critical rather than the usual five percent. And since there are items that also let you roll critical hits with lower numbers, you can stack these effects and increase your chance to land critical hits.

6 Skilled

The True Jack-Of-All-Trades

Pros

Cons

You can choose what to increase your proficiency in, making it a versatile feat.

It helps during conversation and exploration, but it won't help you in combat.

Skilled is another great feat for classes who aren’t picky about feats or just want something that can help both out of combat. The skilled feat gains you three skill proficiencies of your choice.

Since bards are a more chatty class, focusing on charisma skills will give you a nice boost during any kind of dialogue. If you don’t fancy that, then putting points into any dexterity skills can help out as well, especially if you need someone for sleight-of-hand checks.

5 War Caster

Keep Your Concentration

Pros

Cons

It'll be harder for enemies to break your concentration.

Gives a charisma-based opportunity attack.

If you're not using concentration spells or fighting in melee combat, the feat isn't worth getting.

War Caster gives you an advantage on concentration saving throws and allows you to use your reaction to cast Shocking Grasp as an opportunity attack. A bard’s damage output isn’t exactly the top priority, so having Shocking Grasp on hand for enemies that step a little too close can be really helpful.

Since most bard spells use concentration, having those saving throw advantages can give you a huge boost during a fight if your bard is being attacked. With some spells like Confusion or Hold Person being able to take some enemies out for a few turns, saving those concentration throws is really important.

4 Tough

Be Less Squishy

Pros

Cons

It increases your total HP, so you can survive longer in fights.

The feat only helps when you're being attacked, which you could avoid using other spells like Invisibility or Misty Step.

Tough is a decent feat for bards since they’re a bit more on the squishy side. If you find some enemies focusing on your bard, the extra hit points can come in handy for helping them stay in the fight until help arrives.

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The Tough feat gives two points in the maximum HP score for every level. While it might not seem like a lot at first, it definitely adds up later on in the game and can help during bigger fights. Since bards don’t focus on constitution, it’s good to increase their defense any way you can.

3 Alert

Never Be Taken By Surprise

Pros

Cons

Stops you from missing a turn if your party is surprised.

It gives you a nice initiative bonus.

You won't be able to protect yourself much if the rest of your party is also surprised.

If your party is focusing on stealth, the feat isn't worth it as you'll be surprising the enemies.

Alert is another feat that is really useful for those beginning turns during a fight. Being surprised gives the enemy a huge advantage, so it’s important to avoid that when possible. The Alert feat stops you from being surprised and gives you a plus five to the initiative roll, so you can attack sooner.

You can use certain spells like Concentration or Hold Person to give your other party members a few more turns to get out of their surprised state without taking too much damage, so you have the potential to really save a fight before it even starts.

2 Sharpshooter

Who Needs Magic?

Pros

Cons

Removes the low ground penalty so you can attack anyone higher up.

If you already have a high hit chance, using the passive can increase your damage massively.

Not very useful if you're not using ranged weapons.

If your chance of hitting a target is already low, toggling the passive to be on might not help.

Depending on what subclass you focus on, bards are more likely to sit further back in battle and cast spells to help out other party members. Sharpshooter is a feat that gives bards an advantage in ranged weapon attacks to give some extra damage to enemies.

The feat eliminates the disadvantage ranged weapon attacks get if the target is higher up. You can also increase the damage output of ranged attacks by ten but at the cost of a -5 penalty to your attack roll. Even if you’re not too bothered about increasing the damage of a bard, it’s a nice feat to have to give them a little more defense.

The Sharpshooter passive can be toggled on/off in the passive section below your hotbar.