College of Pain

Of all emotions in the Multiverse, pain is perhaps the easiest to tap into.

Some creatures haven't been in love.  Some creatures don't have a dream to achieve.  But, every creature knows pain.  The loss of love, the loss of a dream, the loss of a person: each creature has an inward pain that defines who they are.  As a bard from the College of Pain, you embrace the "blues" in yourself and others, looking to connect and share in that sorrow and grief; through that sharing, you lessen the pain and immortalize the importance of that pain.

Or, you are following the recordkeeping and historical viewpoint of the bardic traditions.  You are looking for the deepest, darkest parts of the world and sharing them to make sure the tragedies never happen again and that the loss is never forgotten.  If that means sometimes you reawaken the guilt of genocides and terror of tyrants into a people over time, then so be it.  Next to death, Pain is the ultimate bonding agent of all creatures.

Life is pain.  No life deserves to be forgotten.

Pathetic Powers

When you join the College of Pain at 3rd level, you begin to fully embrace your scars and the associated experiences.  You begin to harden your body against those very same events as best you can and develop a traumatic resistance to either psychic, necrotic, or radiant damage (you make this choice when selecting this college).

When giving Bardic Inspiration, the chosen creature also gains the same resistance of your scars until the die is spent or 5 minutes passes, whichever comes first.

Emotional

The traumas you have experienced, whether first-hand or second-hand, have slowly begun to heal through the powers of your art.  The magic has suffused your being and begun to shore up your scars: you have gained resistance to radiant damage.

Mental

The traumas you have experienced, whether first-hand or second-hand, have slowly begun to heal through the powers of your art.  The magic has suffused your being and begun to shore up your scars: you have gained resistance to psychic damage.

Physical

The traumas you have experienced, whether first-hand or second-hand, have slowly begun to heal through the powers of your art.  The magic has suffused your being and begun to shore up your scars: you have gained resistance to necrotic damage.

Tears & Pangs

At 3rd level, your experiences have taught you the meanings of pain, yours and others.  Through these experiences you have developed techniques of healing and harm, to protect yourself and others from further trauma.  You can cast cure wounds and inflict wounds once each without expending a spell slot per long rest.  You can cast these spells to a range of 30 feet that you can see, and you can cast these spells with any available spell slots.

Through the Pain

At 6th level, you know how to use pain to your advantage. 

By expending a Bardic Inspiration die as part of a Bonus Action, you grant a number of creatures of your choice equal to your proficiency bonus plus your Charisma modifier temporary hit points equal to the Bardic die plus your Charisma modifier. Whenever a creature, including you, has a critical failure or success while retaining those temporary hit points you can regain the spent die.

Share in The Pain

At 14th level, you have mastered your empathetic and pathetic abilities.  As an Action, you let loose a powerful burst of your bardic abilities.  All creatures within 60 feet that can see or hear you must make a Charisma saving throw, they make this saving throw at disadvantage if they have damaged you or any of your allies within the last minute.  On a failed save, each creature is subjected to all of your pains, taking 14d10 of the type of damage you chose at level 3 when taking this College and is stunned and knocked prone, even if they would normally have immunity to this condition, for the next minute.  On a successful save, each creature takes half damage and is stunned, but not prone.

You can do this once per long rest.