Our Editor-in-Chief Stacey Henley has been easing TheGamer intoDungeons & Dragonsthis year. For her campaign, I made a bard called Gerard of Way (who isn’t the real Gerard, just a stand-in who took his place a la the Paul McCartney and Avril Lavigne conspiracies). He casts cure wounds, the odd illusion, and, though never successful, vicious mockery. It’s… dull, frankly. I love the campaign and the nights spent adventuring, but my class always felt half-baked, the best moments coming from the limitless possibilities of minor illusions, conjuring up mating horses that would fizzle away at the slightest touch to distract enemies.
I thought it was a problem with how I was playing or how I’d constructed my character, so I put together a bard inBaldur’s Gate 3to test that theory. After reaching the end of Act 2 and, again, fully enjoying the experience but not my own character, I realised the class just wasn’t for me. I was dying incredibly fast, the charisma checks in dialogue could be done by others like Astarion the rogue, and I didn’t feel useful to my teammates. All my healing abilities paled in comparison to that ofShadowheart, our cleric, making me little more than dead weight.
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I found myself playing as the other characters more, like Lae’zel the fighter or Gale the warlock, doing anything I could to avoid my useless, no-good bard. The most interesting thing I could do in combat was bust out the lute and play a tune, which did absolutely nothing, harking back to all the times in our homebrew campaign when I would start playing the bagpipes just to feel something. Usually regret.
Stacey took a couple of weeks off for a holiday, which gave me enough time to get through Baldur’s Gate 3 and try other classes that might be more enjoyable during our D&D nights. So, I scrapped my bard and started over asKarlach the barbarian, a class Iadoredso much thatI wrote about the perks of yelling your way through every scenario possible.
I mashed up enemies into a paste as if they were flies on a window sill, brute forced my way through puzzles, ripped doors off their hinges, and tanked death blows, magical missiles, eldritch horrors, and all other manner of ungodly incantations across myriad carnage from the shimmering coast to the towering walls of Baldur’s Gate. My little bard would’ve tripped over a rock and needed reviving.
With Stacey back from her holiday, the campaign started up again. But going into a Dungeons & Dragons session as a meek, useless bard—especially when our Lead Guides Editor Meg Pelliccio had, by complete coincidence, made the same character—was something I couldn’t bring myself to do again. However, I still wanted to take part and our lord Editor-in-Chief is, thankfully, merciful. Gerard fell into a vat of lava and his flesh melted away, along with his bagpipes. In stepped Gertrude, my 67-year-old tiefling cleric who has the hots for everyone, apparently. Oh, and she tried to impress a shopkeeper by summoning three skeletons through his floorboards. Surprise surprise, it went horribly wrong. Clearly, Gerard’s spirit of recklessness lives on through Gertrude.
Barbarian is my go-to now, but I always enjoyed taking Shadowheart’s turns and our campaign was in need of a healer. To feel useful in combat is a much more thrilling experience than waiting for it to reach your turn just to cast the same bland cantrips on repeat. It’s telling that the onebardyou keep in your camp in Baldur’s Gate 3 can’t join your party, and always ends up in peril and in need of saving. Sorry, Meg, but bards are a nuisance, and I’m glad to be rid of mine.
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