Hiho,
With multiclassing in the game, my hopes of playing an Eilistraee cleric have gone up, after some frustration during EA.
I’m thinking about starting as a Bard, to later add Cleric, but either would work for me. Any suggestions on how to “spec” them? Also, which respective subclass would work best? She’d obviously want to use swords and fight with as little armour as possible. Are there any important cutoff points to be aware of, in terms of level and important spell/skill?
I’ve played my share of CRPGs over the years, but this one seems to actually make some interesting choices possible.
Bard and Cleric don’t really work that well together except as a one lvl dip into Cleric for armor proficiencies due to conflicting spell casting stats and delayed spell progression.
Clerics will multiclass best with Monks and Druids and even these are a dubious improvement over pure Cleric. Though there is the niche case for the Tempest Cleric 2/Storm (or Blue Draconic) Sorcerer 10 build.
Bards will want to multiclass with Warlock, Paladin, or Rogue. These can go in a ton of directions depending on what you want the build to do.
To offer a dissenting opinion, I do think you can make this work if you want to. You will be MAD (Wis, Cha and Dex will all need to be high, which means Str, Int and Con will have to be dumps). But it’s not impossible. Colledge of Swords is likely a must for the bard part, to get a fighting style and Flourishes. Cleric is more open-ended; War would likely synergize best with what you seem to want to do, but Light, Life and Nature are Eilistraee’s traditional domains. Of those, I would probably recommend Life, although Nature is also an option. (Light is more of a caster, and what you’re describing sounds more like a melee-support?)
As for the exact split, I’d probably recommend 8/4; with three important stats you’ll need all the ASIs you can get. Either way works; if you’d rather prioritize Bard, you get an extra attack and better Flourishes, if you prioritize Cleric, you get Divine Strike and better Channel Divinity.
Alternatively, you could go Bard 10/Cleric 2, largely ignore Wisdom, and just dip primarily for cleric utility spells. (Worth noting, if interviews are to be believed, delayed spell progression is not a thing in BG3 like it is on tabletop, making this a very powerful option, as you will be able to prepare cleric spells up to sixth level.)
I’ll try the 10 Bard/2 Cleric route, sounds like a fun option. It’s a roleplaying thing, I’m not playing this to be exceptionally good, but it helps if the char isn’t the runt of the litter ;) Thank you, you helped a lot.
