The Bard: College of Swords in 'Xanathar's Guide to Everything'

Todd Kenreck: The Bard College of Swords has its roots in Second Edition D&D. I talked to Mike Mearls about [sinclusion 00:00:05] in Xanathar's Guide to Everything.

This is a little bit of a deviation for Bards. The Bard College of Swords-

Mike Mearls: Yeah.

Todd Kenreck: ... performing with a weapon, not so much a song.

Mike Mearls: Yeah, but it's not really a deviation because in Second Edition, this was the blade, the kit. So, this is in the book because back in the day when we first started doing surveys, we did a survey asking, "What kits and prestige classes for prior editions did you miss?" For the Bard, the blade was super high. Everyone missed the blade. I guess, apparently from what I could tell, if you played Second Edition and you liked Bards, you'd love the blade. The idea behind the College of Swords is that you perform with weapons, like you said. You use your blade to do tricks and things like that.

This was actually a very interesting piece of design. If you followed my sort of internet presence, you might know that I don't like bonus actions. I think they're hacky, and I'd like to get them out of the game. Don't worry, we're not going to the part of the game that's Fifth Edition. Everyone loves Fifth Edition. It's so awesome, everyone loves it. So, I'm not in any rush to change that, but-

Todd Kenreck: Oh, it's hard being a victim of your own success.

Mike Mearls: Exactly. Right? The College of Blades showed why bonus actions were such a pain in the ass, because we had a character that we wanted to do these blade flourishes. Since the Bard already has stuff that sits on the bonus action, then trying to work in the blade flourishes, the two were clashing in ways we didn't want them to, like, "No, these shouldn't compete, but they're competing." Then it also touched on the two had been fighting and all this other stuff. So, it was the exact kind of work that is like you have to do when you're dealing tabletop system when you can't predict everything you're going to do.

We had to kind of finagle the rules to make sure the phrasing was right to do what we wanted. I love this class. I think it's really fun, because I think it kind of captures a real sense of the Bard as the swashbuckler and sort of gives it a lot of a panache as you're fighting and things like that. I think that's a mode of Bards that people like to play. I know in D&D novels if there is a main character who's a Bard, almost invariably you'd say, "Yeah, there probably should be a blade the way they operate, or a College of Swords the way they operate." They're good at fighting, and they have some magic, they have some lore, and that's kind of what we were really shooting for and really using that Bard College to make the Bard better at fighter rather than necessarily be someone who's buffing the rest of the party.

That, to me, was really fun to get across. I love the idea of the swashbuckling campaign. You might have a rogue swashbuckler, and then a College of Swords, and other characters that are all fitting that Errol Flynn kind of swashbuckling feel.

Todd Kenreck: Why did you gravitate towards this subclass in particular?

Mike Mearls: Oh, because it kind of, for me ... Like I mentioned in the novels, this is kind of how Bards are presented, I like that feel of the Bard as more of a swashbuckler, the charismatic sword fighter who's always got a trick up his sleeve. That just feels fun. That just appeals to me, that archetype fighting with finesse. The trick with it ... The Rogue has a swashbuckler subclass. The challenge with the Rogue is you're always getting pulled by D&D in the direction of like, "Oh, you're the trap guy?"

There's a little bit of a tension in the game that the sort of scoundrel-like archetypes that should all maybe be filed under Rogue clash with the old school kind of Rogue is trap guy. It's not always necessarily makes sense in terms of archetypes, so some of them kind of migrate, like in this case, migrate over to Bard. It also fits in Bard as performer, so that fits in pretty well with the concept.

Todd Kenreck: You can find the Bard College of Swords in Xanathar's Guide to Everything. You can buy that book on dndbeyond.com by following the link in this video description and earn pre-order bonuses as well. I'm Todd Kenreck. Thank you for watching.