The director of Baldur's Gate 3 is not a fan of bards

Baldur's Gate 3 offers a variety of classes to choose from, and they significantly influence your gaming experience. You can be anything from a muscle-bound barbarian who hurls enemies around for fun to a patient cleric who ensures their allies are always fully healed with a range of support abilities. One class that seems to evoke a sort of love-hate relationship among fans of Baldur's Gate 3 and the broader Dungeons & Dragons community is the bard.

The creative director of Baldur's Gate 3, Swen Vincke, seems to be on the hate side of this relationship, as he recently revealed in an interview with Wizard of the Coast reporter Todd Kenreck that he would "never play a bard in his life." Vincke talks about the effort Larian has put into ensuring the playability of the bard class in Baldur's Gate 3 and expresses his happiness that the class is included. However, at the same time, he admits that he wouldn't even consider trying it out.

"The bard also, when you see how much effort was put into the bard," Vincke said. "I would never play a bard in my life, I wouldn't even try it out." He then tells the story of how the bard class was dropped in favor of the Polymorph class in Divinity: Original Sin 2 because that's what the fans wanted, but also because he thought "nobody likes to play a bard." Vincke admits that his attitude has changed since then, and he loves all the options bards have in Baldur's Gate 3, but you still won't see him playing one.

The type of character Vincke actually enjoys playing is the wizard, all day, every day, mainly due to the complexity of the class. Specifically, Vincke explains that he enjoys playing as an evocation wizard, thanks to their access to all elemental spells and their resilience. However, he admits that necromancy is a close second choice. After all, who doesn't enjoy raising an army of the undead to do their bidding?

In the same video, Vincke also revealed some tricks that Larian used to ensure that some of the more ambitious spells in Baldur's Gate 3 don't get out of control, particularly the Speak with Animals and Speak with Dead spells. It would be an incredibly difficult task to make every single corpse an NPC with its own dialogue, so Larian simply decapitated the characters with whom you can no longer speak. It's a rather simple trick, but effective, as you definitely need your head to have a conversation with someone.