Baldur’s Gate 3: [EN] Honour Mode Archer – A deadly sustained damage build

If you’ve read some of my other guides, you may have noticed my build ideas usually come from a concept. I notice a tiny bit of information in the Barbarian Rage’s tooltip and decide to make a whole build out of it, I ask myself how to make a Paladin Cleric hybrid work and delve into it, etc. This might have very well been the case here as well, but in fact, I initially didn’t plan to make this guide at all.

In fact, I was playing my second Honour run following u/PrestigiousJuice’s excellent Ranger guide when I suddenly realized – this build wouldn’t work in Honour Mode, as they themselves confirmed, since DRS interactions had been vastly nerfed.

But I really wanted to play an archer. So I didn’t give up and made my own build work.

This is why I said in the introduction this build only really shines in Honour Mode. If you’re playing in an environment where you can use and abuse DRS interactions, PrestigiousJuice’s version of the build is much better than mine. Don’t get me wrong, if my version can beat Honour Mode (and believe me, it can), it can beat the lower difficulties as well. But it feels appropriate to give proper credit where it’s due. Also, the leveling process of this build will look very similar to the DRS-using version in the early-mid levels.

Finally, you should know that this build involves a lot of respecs, as in: three to four respecs. It is not a weakness per se, it can be annoying to some players, which I understand. More details and a possible workaround are given in Alternative Approaches.

Anyway, enough foreplay. Let’s get serious.

We’re going to go for 5 Swords Bard / 5 Gloom Stalker / 2 Fighter. You may be surprised to see no Assassin in here. Personally, I think it’s very overrated for an archer build, but it works as well. Assassin/Fighter are both complementary classes on this build. They bring something extra, not a core component. More on that in Alternative Approaches.

The reasoning between the class contributions is as follows:

6 Swords Bard

• Access to the terrifying Slashing Flourish – the Ranged version is especially strong as you can target any two individuals you want or even the same target twice. That is basically equivalent to a Slaying Arrow on any target (but involving two attack rolls rather than one).
• Access to bard utility actions and spells (extra short rest, Longstrider, Enhance ability).
• Access to an extra short rest.
• Access to a feat.
• Level 5 makes your Bardic Inspirations recharge on short rest.
• Level 6 gives us access to extra attack.

4 Gloom Stalker

• Access to the Dread Ambusher passive.
• Access to the Archery fighting style.
• Access to Fire resistance.
• Access to another feat (DEX increase) for consistency and defense.

2 Fighter

• Access to the Defense fighting style which gives us an extra AC point (22 total in late game)
• Access to Action Surge

Important: do not be fooled by half your levels going in Bard – you are not Charisma based, and you are not the best Party face. This can be mitigated with Background, Proficiency and Illithid Powers selection, but otherwise you should not be investing in CHA.

• Excellent sustained damage and AoE damage with the right arrows.
• High initiative, which coupled with the previous point and Dread Ambusher, allows you to take down several foes before they’ve even taken a turn.
• Good defense with high AC, high WIS and fire resistance.
• Good itemization. Most key items are uncontested by other builds, and those that are contested have easy alternatives.
• Comes online relatively early and smooth leveling process (but you will have to respec a lot).
• Good utility with lockpicking skills, spells like Longstrider or Enhance Ability, etc.
• High critical chance.

• Not the best party face.
• Not resourceless – you’ll want to stock up on special arrows. Make sure someone else in the group has high persuasion and charisma to buy them for you at a discounted price.

Open Rogue. Take 16 DEX and 16 CON. The rest is up to you. The reason we take that high a CON score is twofold:

• We don’t need to worry about our spellcasting ability (and scaling with Diadem of Arcane Synergy) just yet.
• We will be squishy early on, so the high CON will mitigate this until our first respec.

Take thieving proficiencies for utility. If you want to delegate lock-picking to someone else, you should keep Stealth which is going to be useful in early fights.

Species is mostly irrelevant as usual. Halfling is amazing as you’ll probably never roll a critical miss in combat. Stealth advantage is also nice in the early game. Wood Elf is good with superior movement, and Githyanki are always great. But any can work.

Our best stat is going to be DEX all game long. Technically, that would be STR, but we’re going to have that fixed to a minimum of 19 for the whole game and without any investment. Our leveling plan is going to follow PrestigiousJuice’s one for most of the game, so credit to them once again.

You will be leveling as Rogue until level 4 included.

At level 3, pick either Thief or Assassin as your subclass. Surprise rounds are actually pretty strong in the early game to clear what could otherwise be pretty tough fights, but Thief’s extra bonus action can give you a lot of movement to get into good shooting position, jump and coat your weapon in the same turn, etc. It’s also pretty good to manage your lightning charges (see How to play the build). Thief is the best option with double hand crossbows since you get 3 attacks a turn.

At level 4, take Sharpshooter.

Fighter isn’t typically what you expect for an Archer, let alone an Archer’s main class. The thing is, the Bard/Ranger combo only makes sense at level 9, up until which both classes have extremely underwhelming or even downright useless levels. Late Act 1 and early Act 2 are arguably the hardest part of the game, even more so in Honour mode. You want a smooth leveling and Fighter, which has amazing levels pretty much all game long, is going to provide exactly that.

Go ahead and respec as Fighter. Take 16 DEX, 16 INT, and 14 CON. Rest is up to you. You can keep thieving proficiencies if you’re the dedicated lock-picker of the party, otherwise take whatever you want. Take the Archery fighting style.

At level 3, pick the Battlemaster subclass. Menacing Attack, Disarming Strike and Trip Attack are good manœuvre choices. Precision attack is also pretty good to help mitigating Sharpshooter’s penalty.

At level 4, get your sharpshooter back.

You’re going to be leveling up as pure fighter until level 9.

At levels 6 and 8, take Ability Score Improvement for +2 DEX.

At level 7, take whatever extra manœuvres you like, so long as they have ranged options.

At level 9, respec once more. This time, open Bard. Take 16 DEX, 16 WIS and 14 CON. Rest is up to you. No, you don’t need +3 CHA. Proficiencies are up to you.

At Bard level 3, take the College of Swords subclass. Fighting style is whatever, but you’re going to be dual wielding weapons, so you might as well get Two Weapon Fighting.

At level 4, guess what… Sharpshooter again.

Keep leveling Bard up until level 6. At level 7, open Ranger. Take Bounty Hunter and Fire Resistance.

At Ranger level 2, get the Archery fighting style back.

At Ranger level 3, take Gloom Stalker.

You should end your respec at 6 Swords Bard / 3 Gloom Stalker. You now have even better Initiative, an extra attack at the beginning of most fights, and the dreaded Slashing Flourish.

We’re going to take one final Ranger level, then two fighter levels.

At Ranger level 4, take Ability Score Improvement for +2 DEX.

At Fighter level 1, take the Defense fighting style.

You should also take +2 DEX from Mirror of Loss in Act 3.

You should end up with 20 DEX and 16 WIS.

If you are still wearing the Diadem of Arcane Synergy, you should respec to make sure you open Ranger last. The Diadem scales with the spellcasting ability of the last class you took, and currently that would be Fighter and INT. You want that to be WIS.

Go ahead and respec a final time. Take everything as you did before, but this time go 6 Bard ⇒ 2 Fighter ⇒ 4 Ranger. You could also drop a Bard level and go Ranger level 5 to get Misty step without losing Extra Attack.

If you’re wearing something else than the Diadem, that respec is unnecessary.

You should always take Enhance Ability. This is an amazing spell to ease dialogue skill checks. You don’t use that many spell slots, so you can take it yourself to free that slot from other more dedicated spellcasters. Knock is nice for the same reasons, but you’re pretty good at lockpicking, so I wouldn’t worry too much. The rest is personal preference.

You should always take Longstrider for a free boost to movement for all your party. Enhance Leap is also pretty good, albeit more situational. The rest is up to you. Mark of the Hunter is somewhat underwhelming and so is Hail of Thorns. Ensnaring Strike is okay.

Within 30-60 minutes of starting the game, you can talk to Auntie Ethel. Start purchasing 3 Elixirs of Hill Giant Strength[bg3.wiki] from her, every day. You’ll want to stockpile roughly fifteen these. We’re not going to use them for a good part of the game, but I like to have a comfortable margin.

Your first priority is to get a +1 ranged weapon, either a Longbow or 2 Hand Crossbows. The latter is by far the best in terms of damage output (especially with Thief’s extra bonus action), but is frankly annoying to get. Dammon is the most reliable source of this (and, to be fair, the only one that’s accessible early) but you might still have to long rest a lot before getting both. I couldn’t be bothered so I just grabbed a +1 longbow, but you do you. You could also get one +1 crossbow and get a bard hireling and steal his starting hand crossbow so you at least have two weapons.

You can also get The Joltshooter[bg3.wiki] very early if nobody in your group needs the staff alternative. The staff is really good for spellcasters however, so I don’t recommand this approach unless you’re absolutely sure you won’t have a dedicated spellcaster in your party.

Get to the Goblin camp quickly and grab the Gloves of Archery[bg3.wiki]. These are going to stay for a long time.

The Watersparkers[bg3.wiki] are great boots for you to get a free +1/+1 on weapon attacks. Make sure you don’t reach 3 lightning charges (see the How to play the build section).

Why do we care about Strength in the first place? Because we’re going to pick up the Titanstring Bow[bg3.wiki] and use it for the whole game. Even with the DRS nerfs in Honour Mode, it’s still the best bow in the game, albeit by a shorter hair, compared to The Dead Shot, than in the standard ruleset. Don’t wear it as soon as you pick it up – wait until your fighter respec (and start using elixirs/club of Hill Giant Strength at that point).

The Club of Hill Giant Strength[bg3.wiki] is an incredibly valuable weapon for you. It’s basically going to mimic a Strength Elixir (giving you +4 instead of +5, which is largely irrelevant) at no cost. It is light, so can (and will) be dual wielded at no cost, and since you’re a ranged martial, you don’t care about having to wear this for a long time.

While in the Underdark, make sure you get Caustic Band[bg3.wiki] as well. It is super expensive in Honour Mode, but so worth it.

The Grymskull Helm[bg3.wiki] is a decent option for access to Hunter’s Mark. Wear this until you’re level 9 (after your respec, you won’t be able to wear heavy armor anymore).

Moving back to melee weapons, the Knife of the Undermountain King[bg3.wiki] will be your off-hand weapon for the whole game. It is just here to increase your critical chance.

A +2 Hide Armour will do nicely for you. If you can’t wear it yet, hold on to it until you respec as Fighter.

The Diadem of Arcane Synergy[bg3.wiki] is very much within the two best possible headpieces for this build. Once we inflict a condition with a weapon attack (basically everytime) Arcane synergy will add the spellcaster ability modifier of the last class we took to our damage. This is why we change ability investment with each respec.

Within minutes of starting the act, you can get the Yuan-Ti Scale Mail[bg3.wiki] which will be your armor for the whole act. If you need it for someone else, stick to the Hide Armor +2 or buy the Sharpened Snare Cuirass[bg3.wiki].

If it is available, you can buy and wear Cloak of Protection[bg3.wiki] and/or Evasive Shoes[bg3.wiki].

Next, head for Moonrise Towers as soon as you can. Two key items are waiting for you there.

The Risky Ring[bg3.wiki] is your best bet to nullify the impact of Sharpshooter. Just remember to swap it out before any dialog with saving throws, like in a certain Distillery. If you need this elsewhere, you can buy the Circlet of Hunting[bg3.wiki] from the same merchant. You will need to use Hunter’s Mark a lot more.

Drakethroat Glaive[bg3.wiki] will allow you to infuse your weapon with elemental damage each day. Considering you’re going to roll more damage rolls than any other martial, you have absolute priority for this item. Just equip the glaive to someone, put the bow on the ground, target it with the elemental infusion (always choose Cold or Lightning since you’ll get double damage on Wet enemies), then put your bow back on. You don’t have to wear the glaive for the effect to stay, so whoever used it can go back to their preferred weapon afterwards. Just remember to do this after each Long Rest.

Callous Glow Ring[bg3.wiki] is a great ring for you. Give Caustic Band to someone else once you get it.

You can now buy Elixirs of Cloud Giant Strength[bg3.wiki] somewhat consistently from Entharl and the alchemist above him. Start stockpiling those, and use them for tougher fights.

Rhapsody[bg3.wiki], while better for spellcasters, is also incredibly powerful for you. If you can wear it, do it. Like usual, kill three barrels and enjoy the bonuses.

Armour of Agility[bg3.wiki] is your best armor and can be bought once you get access to Lower City. If this is given to another character, you can either get the Unwanted Masterwork Scalemail[bg3.wiki] or stick to Yuan-Ti[bg3.wiki].

Legacy of the Masters[bg3.wiki] are basically a better, universal version of Gloves of Archery. You can also consider Helldusk Gloves[bg3.wiki]. If you’re playing with Assassin levels, you can also wear Stalker Gloves.

Sarevok’s Horned Helmet[bg3.wiki] is a decent alternative to the diadem for increase critical chance. Do not wear it if you’re playing with the Assassin subclass and using Surprise attacks.

Cloak of Displacement[bg3.wiki] is an excellent defensive option for you.

Aside from stockpiling Strength elixirs, you’ll want to stock up on special arrows.

First things first: if you intend to wear Club of Hill Giant Strength for the entire game (i.e. no Rhapsody for you), you don’t really have to stockpile strength elixirs (unless other party members need them, of course). In that case, Bloodlust elixir is really good for you. They’re pretty rare, so keep them for Act 3 (and maybe some tough fights in Act 1 and 2, like the Crèche or Moonrise Towers).

In Act 1, you’ll mostly be using Elemental Arrows. Fire Arrows are honestly bad, use them when you want to blow something up or to save the other arrows. Acid Arrows are decent thanks to the Acid surface and -2 AC penalty. But your best arrows will be Cold and Lightning, as Cold and Lightning damage is doubled against Wet enemies.

This build is even better if someone can apply the Wet status for you, ideally with a Create Water spell, or by throwing jars. Combining water and ice arrows will also create an icy surface on the ground, which is excellent at controlling enemy movement. Obviously, you don’t want your party members to be caught in that, too, so careful where you aim.

In Act 2, you start seeing Arrows of Many Targets and Slaying Arrows at merchants. Buy as many Arrows of Many Targets as you can, they are your main source of AoE Damage. As for Slaying Arrows, you’ll want to stock up on Undead, Humanoid and Aberration Slaying Arrows especially. The rest are nice (a couple of Fiend Slaying Arrows is great for a certain Act 3 fight), but not necessarily worth buying on a regular basis, unless you want to dish out absolute max damage on every shot.

Water isn’t only good at debuffing enemies – so long as you have the Watersparklers, it’s also good at buffing you. Just start your turn in a puddle of water, gain 3 lightning charges, and enjoy the free +1/+1. You do not want to reach 5 lightning charges, ever. Get out of the puddle before that happens (using a Jump to avoid electrocution). Once you’re on the brink of losing your charges, jump back in the puddle, etc. This is where Thief’s extra bonus action is very useful in the early game.

Lightning charges become much less noticeable once you get Risky Ring (their main purpose is to boost your attack rolls). Once you get it, you can wear another pair of boots.

The core of your damage comes from three key sources: Arrows of Many Targets, Slaying Arrows and Ranged Slashing Flourish.

Arrow of Many Targets is one of the absolute best AoE damage sources of the game, if not the best. Range is great. No friendly fire to worry about. Enemies get no saving throws. And most importantly, extra damage doesn’t require extra attack rolls, which means if you score a critical hit, the three other hits will be critical hits as well.
Of course, you’re only ever going to hit 4 targets maximum with this, which mitigates your AoE damage ceiling as an archer. But it is so much more consistent and easier to apply than other AoE damage sources, it is absolutely worth it.
Use these arrows whenever there are 10+ enemies in sight and the other two core damage sources are not a better option.

Slaying Arrows are very straightforward to use – just double the number of weapon damage dice you roll against the appropriate target. It also doubles your Sharpshooter bonus, your Strength bonus from Titanstring and the elemental damage given by your glaive. That is a lot of damage. Whenever you want someone dead quickly, and have the appropriate slaying arrow, use it.

Do not use either of these arrows with < 70% chances to hit. If you miss your attack, the arrow is gone for good.

Ranged Slashing Flourish is somewhere between the two. You fire two arrows (which means two separate attack rolls, unlike Arrow of Many Targets), but can actually fire them both at the same target. That makes it excellent at both AoE and single-target damage, and you can use it for both.
Slashing Flourish is actually better than Slaying Arrows for single target damage, provided you hit both arrows. Hitting both shots essentially doubles your damage just like a Slashing Arrow would, but you also get two extra d6 (d8 at Bard level 5), which gives Slashing Flourish the edge. Obviously, you can’t use both Slashing Flourish and any special arrow at once.
Of course, this ability costs Bardic Inspiration, so won’t be able to use it all fight long. Don’t be afraid to use it, though – at Bard level 5, this regenerates on Short Rest, so you will have plenty.

Like Superiority Dice, Bardic Inspiration isn’t expanded if your attack misses. However in this case, that means if both attacks miss, which is actually a fairly less likely event than just on arrow hitting. Let’s assume you have 40% to hit an enemy. The probability of hitting at least an arrow is the probability of not missing both, which 1 – 0.6² = 1 – 0.36 = 0.64 i.e. 64%.
Having a decent chance of dealing at least “half” damage on a tough to hit enemy isn’t bad by any means. Just remember, Bardic inspiration actually goes away pretty fast when using Slashing Flourish, even with a somewhat low chance to hit.

Just ensure you have high STR (through Elixirs or Club of Hill Giant Strength) and fire your arrows. Elemental arrows on Wet enemies, and Slaying/Many Target/Slashing Flourish arrows where needed.

Deactivate Sharpshooter if your chances to hit get too low (< 70%) until you can wear Risky Ring. Don’t forget electric charges and Oil of Accuracy also give bonuses.

Mobile Flourish and Defensive Flourish don’t really see much use in their ranged variations, and Bardic Inspiration should pretty much fuel Slashing Flourish for this build. You could argue that Defensive Flourish can see use, but as a ranged character it’s not like you’re going to be the most targeted person in the world anyway.

Use your special arrows, and go replenish them after each long rest.

Brace can only be used once per day, but is basically a Savage Attacker for ranged attacks and it’s insane. You’ll likely want to use it on your first turn of any combat, when you get one extra attack with Gloom Stalker.

Hunter’s Mark isn’t that useful in Honour Mode because of the DRS nerfs, so don’t feel bad if you’re using your bonus action for something else.

This build’s damage becomes even more insane if someone else in your party can apply vulnerability to piercing damage (Perilous Stakes, Bloodthirst of Bhaalist Armour), but it is not mandatory.

Long story short: in my opinion, Assassin is overrated for this build, unless you absolutely want to trigger surprise round for most fights (which I’ve seen in some solo playthroughs), in which case it’s actually really good.

If you want to play Assassin with this build, you’ll want to go 6 Swords Bard / 3 Gloom Stalker / 3 Assassin. Let’s consider what that exactly entails. First, what Assassin would, or would not, bring to the table:

• Guaranteed advantage against enemies that have not yet taken a turn is at best situational, at worse useless (if you are wearing Risky Ring). If you gave Risky ring to someone else, however, there is a good argument to go Assassin.
• Cunning actions are cute and that’s about it. A ranged character notably needs to dash or disengage much less often than a melee build, if ever (I basically never did in my whole run). Hiding is a weaker source of advantage than Risky ring to proc Sneak Attack
• but then again, this can be useful if you gave it to someone else.
• Sneak attack is a completely different asset in Honour Mode than it is in lower difficulties. By itself, Sneak Attack at Rogue level 3 is +2d6, i.e. +7 damage on average, which simply is inconsequential.
  PrestigiousJuice’s build uses Sneak Attack as a reaction to proc damage riders and duplicate damage sources, which is both excellent and the only thing you’d want to use Sneak attack for. The bulk of your damage is going to come from Sharpshooter, Titanstring, and either Slashing Flourish or Slaying Arrows.
• Guaranteed criticals for successful attacks on Surprised enemies is great… If you can get a surprise round and play before enemies lost their surprised status. You have amazing Intiative, so the latter will almost never be a problem. The former, however, may require some setup (depending on fights) and seems a bit inconsistent to me.
  Needing set up isn’t that bad of a problem (I personally can’t be bothered, but that’s just me), but inconsistency will be the bane of your existence in Honour mode.
• Restoring action and bonus action before the combat begins is basically only relevant if you tried to do a Surprise attack.

Second, let’s consider what losing Fighter and the 4-5th Gloom Stalker level entails:

• We lose access to the Defense fighting style, which means
• 1 AC. This is forgettable.
• We lose access to a feat, which we’d use for +2 DEX. That means less consistency on attack rolls and another
• 1 AC. Already harder to accept.
• We lose access to Action Surge, which can be used 4 times a day (since we have 3 short rests) and is the only effect that still benefits from Extra Attack in Honour Mode. This is a big nerf to our damage burst potential. Obviously the Assassin variant has a much better burst window if you get a surprise round. If.
• We lose access to Misty step (arguably a minor detail, especially as in counterpart we’d get Dash as a bonus action).

At the end of the day, it’s not the end of the world and you should go with what you like most or feel most comfortable with. The choice between Fighter or Rogue dip would come at level 10, at which point our characters are already really strong. The Assassin variant still has 20 AC which is pretty good. But I can’t help but feeling that 6 Bard / 4 Ranger / 2 Fighter is much more consistent. In my opinion, Assassin is only good in the early game or for solo playthroughs.

You could. Compared to the previous Assassin variant, you get back everything that was lost (Defense fighting style, action surge, feat for +2 DEX, Misty Step). It’s up to you to decide whether all this is worth losing the Swords Bard kit, most notably Slashing Flourish and the extra short rest. I, for one, don’t think it is, but you do you.

Yes you do. These respecs are necessary as you would otherwise get a lot of underwhelming (or even downright useless) levels. In Honour Mode especially, you want your leveling process to be smooth and gain something meaningful each time you level up.

If you really don’t want to respec, you can follow PrestigiousJuice’s advice in their guide: start as fighter, level up as Battlemaster until level 12, then do one respec and call it a day.

If something isn’t clear to you, or if you feel like I missed something, let me know in the comments below. I read every single comment I get, and will do my best to answer yours.

Thanks for reading the guide and I hope you have fun with the build!