Clown College

The finest clowns understand that foolishness is not the absence of skill. It is skill hidden beneath painted smiles, ill-fitting shoes, ridiculous props, and carefully rehearsed catastrophes.

Bards of the College of Clowns practice acrobatics, slapstick, physical comedy, and the ancient art of being underestimated. They stumble away from killing blows, tumble beneath towering monsters, distract enemies with perfectly timed disasters, and transform the battlefield into a stage where their foes are always the butt of the joke.

Some members of this college are beloved entertainers who bring laughter to frightened communities. Others are sacred fools, masked wanderers, eerie carnival performers, or survivors who learned to laugh when the alternative was despair.

Regardless of their appearance, these bards know that every fall can become an escape, every mistake can become a distraction, and every battle is only one banana peel away from disaster.

Level 3: Clowning Around

You gain proficiency in Acrobatics and with the disguise kit. If you are already proficient in Acrobatics, you instead gain proficiency in another skill from the bard skill list.

You are also proficient with improvised weapons.

You can use a clownish performance prop as a spellcasting focus for your bard spells. Suitable props include juggling pins, puppets, masks, toy instruments, oversized flowers, painted canes, slapstick paddles, or similarly ridiculous objects.

Additionally, standing up from prone costs you only 5 feet of movement, rather than half your speed.

Pratfall

You can transform an incoming attack into a spectacular failure.

When a creature you can see within 60 feet of you makes an attack roll against you or another creature you can see, you can use your reaction and expend one use of your Bardic Inspiration.

Roll your Bardic Inspiration die and subtract the number rolled from the attack roll.

You can use this feature after seeing the attack roll but before the DM determines whether the attack hits or misses. The attacker must be able to see or hear you.

Your interference might take the form of a sudden pratfall, a piercing horn blast, an impossible facial expression, a thrown prop, or a warning shouted several seconds too late.

If your Pratfall causes the attack to miss, the target of the attack may immediately move up to 10 feet without provoking opportunity attacks. This movement does not require the creature’s reaction, but the creature cannot move this way if its speed is 0.

The creature may choose to fall prone at the end of this movement.

Level 6: Rubber Bones

Your body has acquired the improbable durability of a seasoned slapstick performer.

You can move through the space of any creature that is no more than one size larger than you. A hostile creature’s space is difficult terrain for you, and you cannot willingly end your movement there.

Additionally, when you take bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage, you can use your reaction and expend one use of your Bardic Inspiration. Roll your Bardic Inspiration die and reduce the damage by the number rolled plus your Charisma modifier.

After the damage is resolved, you can move up to 10 feet without provoking opportunity attacks, provided your speed is not 0.

This movement can include passing through another creature’s space as permitted by this feature. It may appear that you bounce off the attack, fold around it, tumble between an enemy’s legs, or are launched away with an undignified squeak.

Level 14: Bottomless Bag of Tricks

 

You have accumulated an apparently endless supply of horns, ribbons, juggling pins, collapsing stools, fake flowers, and other tools of expertly performed disaster.

When you use your Pratfall feature, you can roll a d6 instead of expending a use of your Bardic Inspiration. Subtract the number rolled from the triggering attack roll as normal.

When you expend a Bardic Inspiration die to use Pratfall and cause the attack to miss, choose one of the following additional effects:

• The attacker cannot take reactions until the start of its next turn.
• The target of the attack can move up to half its speed instead of 10 feet.
• The attacker must succeed on a Dexterity saving throw against your bard spell save DC or fall prone.