So I decided to roll a Glamour Bard for my latest Baldur’s Gate 3 run after hearing it’s super fun for messing with enemies. Let me tell you, my first attempt? Total mess. Here’s how I flailed around before figuring stuff out.
The Trainwreck Begins
Loaded up the game last Tuesday, picked a Tiefling ’cause they look cool, grabbed the Entertainer background for flavor. Went straight for College of Glamour at level 3 like everyone said. Thought, “How hard can it be? Just dazzle folks, right?” Oh boy.
Picked Vicious Mockery as my go-to cantrip obviously, then grabbed Faerie Fire early. Looked useful! Spoiler: Never landed it consistently. Leveled up, panic-chose spells like Shatter for damage and Cloud of Daggers. Felt totally useless in my first proper fight against those gnolls near the tollhouse. Tried to “Mantle of Inspiration” to boost my allies… they ran straight into bad positions and got smacked. Whoops.
Spells I Tried and Mostly Failed With:
- Dissonant Whispers: Sometimes made a guy run, sometimes did nothing.
- Tasha’s Hideous Laughter: Hilarious when it sticks! Which was maybe 40% of the time.
- Crown of Madness: Sounds awesome? Consumed my action, concentration, and the target just whacked MY party anyway. Waste.
By level 5, I felt like dead weight. My Tav just stood there insulting people or blowing poorly aimed thunderwaves while Karlach and Lae’zel did the real work. Was ready to reroll a basic Fighter out of frustration.
The Glow-Up (Mostly)
Watched one YouTube clip, went back to camp, talked to Withers about a rebuild. Focused this time.
Key Changes:
- Scrapped the damage spells. Seriously. Dumped Shatter and Cloud. Not my job.
- Doubled down on control & charm. Hypnotic Pattern at level 5? GAME CHANGER. Suddenly locking down half a room feels good.
- Embarrassingly forgot Healing Word. Fixed that. Still not a Cleric, but popping someone up from range? Essential.
- Command became my new best friend. Level 1 spell slot? “Grovel!” on the big scary dude. Works wonders.
- Glyph of Warding: Sleep for crowd control? Yes please. More reliable than Faerie Fire for me.
How I Actually Play It Now (Mostly)
Combat starts? My priority:
- Maybe cast Mirror Image BEFORE running in like an idiot (Learned the hard way). Or just hide.
- Scramble for high ground if possible.
- Look for clusters: Hypnotic Pattern if it’s a big group, Command on key threats if it’s smaller.
- Mantle of Inspiration! Now I use it AFTER positioning, to give temp HP and reposition allies out of bad spots or INTO attacks of opportunity. Much smarter.
- Spam Vicious Mockery like crazy when I can’t cast anything better. Disadvantage is always useful.
- Cutting Words! Saved Shadowheart’s life last night by making that critical miss. So satisfying.
Out of combat? Friends cantrip plus high CHA? You rule every conversation. Charm Person? Basically cheat codes for dialogue. Disguise Self? Opens weird paths.
So Was It Worth The Pain?
Yeah, actually! Once I stopped trying to blast things and embraced being the ultimate support/debuffer/flashy distraction machine, it clicked. It’s not braindead easy – positioning and timing your big spells MATTERS. You won’t top the damage charts, but seeing your Hypnotic Pattern shut down an entire ambush? Or Command making the big boss grovel while Karlach smashes his face? Pure joy.
Would I recommend it? If you like chaotic support that makes fights swing wildly in your favor (or sometimes wildly against you when concentration breaks!), yes. Just respec three times like I did and you’ll get there. Maybe read this first and save yourself the headache.