My take on Vicious Mockery is that it hasn't been a useful action for my bard to take since about level 4 or so. Disadvantage on a single attack is kind of meaningless when I can take my action to do more than that, and *kind of have to* do more than give disadvantage to a single attack of theirs. If they fail their save. It doesn't hit hard enough to be worthwhile as a whole turn's action, and the debuff doesn't do enough when monsters typically attack 2-3 times in a round. It's just... bad. It's fun! But it's not good.
I don't think there is anything radical about adding a better cantrip to the Bard list, and I think if there was something there (or if VM was better), you wouldn't see as many people consider a dip in the first place.
Still, every time you do the math on a dip, it works out to be a very powerful choice for the Bard (because bards suck at low cost sustainable damage).
Level 1 - Variant Human bard of Lore (or Whispers, or Swords) with Eldritch Adept - Devil's Sight.
Do Bard1-6 (maybe 5 with Whispers).
Hexblade 1 - Swap Devil's Sight for Agonizing Blast.
Now you have a single level drop Hexblade with full EB damage and you lose only one level in spell progression. Med armor, shields... That level stings at times (no Secrets till 11th, 5th level spells wait for 10th, etc). Still, it's a one level investment for 2-4 blasts at 1d10+1d6 (because you took Hex) + CHA + Prof Bonus (because you cast Hexblade's curse), and you get Shield and hex at 1st level every rest (or whatever you want to cast at 1st off your spell list). Is the delay ever going to hurt more than just blasting bad guys in the face after you Hypnotize, Hold, Fear, or Slow them? If you want to devote your Bardic dice to killing stuff you can go whispers and make like a psychic rogue. Or you can go swords and play with cantrips and flourishes and the like. In any case, you're basically a full bard but with the amazing benefits of Hexblade's overloaded level 1.
I kind of feel like I wouldn't be longing for that one if my Lore bard didn't have to trade counterspell or fireball off for flame bolt. :P
Honestly, Bards should have access to Booming Blade and Mind Sliver as baseline cantrips as I think about it.
I would point out that at low levels there's no difference in damage. Your hexblade who does d8+3 isn't doing more than the bard using a weapon doing d8+3 ;-)
Make the same variant human, use the feat for moderately armored for the same AC and you have sleep available immediately and no level delays. You can pick up eldritch blast through secrets too and agonizing blast via any ASI/feat level you like.
Hexblade is a better dip than fighter but still has those delayed levels that hurt.
My other thoughts....
Devil's sight is over-rated in a party.
Counterspell has issues because there are too many ways around it and needing to use your reaction to identify a spell being cast makes the reaction no longer available to cast counterspell in the first place causing forced blind counterspelling. I prefer dispel magic without needing secrets. Counterspell is good when it's good but it's too situational.
Hex loses value quickly because bards carry too many competing good concentration spells and using rituals (or any spell with a casting time more than 1 action) also breaks hex. Renewing hex repeatedly becomes hard on spell slots.
If you don't mind a build that takes a long time to come online you can go valor bard for the armor and then use magical secrets at some point for shield and eldritch blast. Still use a feat to pick up agonizing blast. Strong defensively and at 14th level your pure bard casts agonizing EB's and then also gets to add a bonus action weapon attack every time for better at-will damage than your splashed option, and you can still add hex by then if you do want it.
It's a long time to wait though. That's why I'm more likely to make a valor bard who takes advantage of his extra attack feature using weapons, or just pick up a damage cantrip on non-weapon focused bards, or just ignore the damage because I'm spending my action economy on healing, control, and status effects.
this is why there's no need to "fix" College of Lore.
Now, I won't argue vicious mockery has its time and place, and in the case of a straight bard, that time and place is most of the time and in most places. But to say it has an advantage over eldritch blast is largely a matter of opinion, for I could just as easily assert that eldritch blast has the advantage of dealing damage that actually matters.
I argued it, but that's because it's about the weakest damage in the game and the benefit (disadvantage) is available from many other resources. Minor illusion or mage hand are more useful when cantrips known are limited.
It's definitely not the best most of the time and in most places on a bard. That's just an option and an opinion I do not share. I wouldn't stop someone from using vicious mockery if he/she/they is having fun but I don't think it's worth the action cost because more damage dropping an opponent prevents less damage in the long run. ;-)
The issue I have with multi-classing is waiting for the good stuff. Hypnotic pattern, slow, fear, etc prevent a lot more damage faster than doing more damage or spamming vicious mockery.
Now, I won't argue vicious mockery has its time and place, and in the case of a straight bard, that time and place is most of the time and in most places. But to say it has an advantage over eldritch blast is largely a matter of opinion, for I could just as easily assert that eldritch blast has the advantage of dealing damage that actually matters.
I argued it, but that's because it's about the weakest damage in the game and the benefit (disadvantage) is available from many other resources. Minor illusion or mage hand are more useful when cantrips known are limited.
It's definitely not the best most of the time and in most places on a bard. That's just an option and an opinion I do not share. I wouldn't stop someone from using vicious mockery if he/she/they is having fun but I don't think it's worth the action cost because more damage dropping an opponent prevents less damage in the long run. ;-)
The issue I have with multi-classing is waiting for the good stuff. Hypnotic pattern, slow, fear, etc prevent a lot more damage faster than doing more damage or spamming vicious mockery.
You familiar with that one scene from The Fairly OddParents, where Timmy asks his parents when are they getting on the ride in Escalator Land? He's then told "this IS the ride." Multi-classing IS the good stuff.
Now, minor illusion or mage hand are indeed really good cantrips that I believe are better than vicious mockery... outside of combat. If you want to argue about how those cantrips are better IN combat, well, you're entering the realm of DM fiat and we can't make concluding generalizations on such grounds. Now, if you want to go on about these sources of disadvantage, I can guarantee you they either aren't coming from a cheap resource, or would place the bard in excessive risk. Grappling and shoving is a cheap way to impose disadvantage, but you do so at your own peril. Off the top of my head, I'm unable to name some concentration spells for imposing disadvantage, but I'd chalk that up to my own fault. If there were, it would not change the decision to use and maintain concentration on a different spell, for whatever reason it may be. Outside of grappling and shoving, I'm having a hard time of listing a reliably cheap method of imposing disadvantage.
VM then provides a way to impose disadvantage both cheaply and safely, without using concentration. If you want to decide that the few, minuscule points of damage shooting a crossbow is worth trading away disadvantage on an attack, be my guest. You still ain't doing much either way, so you might as well impose disadvantage. If you want to run in melee as a lore bard with two-weapon fighting in some attempt to deal damage that maybe barely inches its way out of single-digits DPR territory, sir, I tip my hat to you in a brave salute.
Now, you're right about hypnotic pattern, slow, fear etc all doing a better job than a single cantrip does at preventing damage... but you know what's even better at preventing damage? Using VM while you're concentrating on hypnotic pattern, slow, fear, etc. Fact.
Now, I won't argue vicious mockery has its time and place, and in the case of a straight bard, that time and place is most of the time and in most places. But to say it has an advantage over eldritch blast is largely a matter of opinion, for I could just as easily assert that eldritch blast has the advantage of dealing damage that actually matters.
I argued it, but that's because it's about the weakest damage in the game and the benefit (disadvantage) is available from many other resources. Minor illusion or mage hand are more useful when cantrips known are limited.
It's definitely not the best most of the time and in most places on a bard. That's just an option and an opinion I do not share. I wouldn't stop someone from using vicious mockery if he/she/they is having fun but I don't think it's worth the action cost because more damage dropping an opponent prevents less damage in the long run. ;-)
The issue I have with multi-classing is waiting for the good stuff. Hypnotic pattern, slow, fear, etc prevent a lot more damage faster than doing more damage or spamming vicious mockery.
You familiar with that one scene from The Fairly OddParents, where Timmy asks his parents when are they getting on the ride in Escalator Land? He's then told "this IS the ride." Multi-classing IS the good stuff.
Now, minor illusion or mage hand are indeed really good cantrips that I believe are better than vicious mockery... outside of combat. If you want to argue about how those cantrips are better IN combat, well, you're entering the realm of DM fiat and we can't make concluding generalizations on such grounds. Now, if you want to go on about these sources of disadvantage, I can guarantee you they either aren't coming from a cheap resource, or would place the bard in excessive risk. Grappling and shoving is a cheap way to impose disadvantage, but you do so at your own peril. Off the top of my head, I'm unable to name some concentration spells for imposing disadvantage, but I'd chalk that up to my own fault. If there were, it would not change the decision to use and maintain concentration on a different spell, for whatever reason it may be. Outside of grappling and shoving, I'm having a hard time of listing a reliably cheap method of imposing disadvantage.
VM then provides a way to impose disadvantage both cheaply and safely, without using concentration. If you want to decide that the few, minuscule points of damage shooting a crossbow is worth trading away disadvantage on an attack, be my guest. You still ain't doing much either way, so you might as well impose disadvantage. If you want to run in melee as a lore bard with two-weapon fighting in some attempt to deal damage that maybe barely inches its way out of single-digits DPR territory, sir, I tip my hat to you in a brave salute.
Now, you're right about hypnotic pattern, slow, fear etc all doing a better job than a single cantrip does at preventing damage... but you know what's even better at preventing damage? Using VM while you're concentrating on hypnotic pattern, slow, fear, etc. Fact.
Vicious mockery vs weapon damage isn't a miniscule difference just because you say it is. It's more than twice the damage easily. Check your math. ;-)
Your DC is 13 at that low tier. With no bonus to saves at all 65% chance for an average of 2.5 damage and averages 1.6 damage per round. The damage is absolute trash. Disadvantage is the only reason to use it at all, which doesn't stack with other sources of disadvantage that are available.
That goes down with save bonuses.
The common 13 AC with a crossbow hits 65% of the time as well. 5% of that chance is a crit. That averages 5.1 damage per round or a bit more than 3x the damage. This also goes down as AC goes up but requires comparing a high AC target and a low save target to become a small difference.
Before anyone claims that the weapon damage is weak it's not. It's the same damage options most classes are using for weapons outside of a small bonus possible in fighting styles.
It's extra attack and bonuses that make the diffey later, when more spell slots become available and the hard is less likely to be spamming cantrips or weapon attacks.
Claiming weapon attacks in that 1st tier aren't worthwhile is basically the equivalent of saying most weapon attacks aren't worthwhile when clearly damage does need done.
The difference is also dropping those low CR monsters.
The average 7.5 damage hit one-shots goblins and kobolds. The 15 AC on a goblin means typically 55% one-shot in the first attack and high chance in the second attack.
That same goblin actually has a penalty to the save so the bard has 70% chance to do 2.5 damage and inflict disadvantage on attacks. This takes 4 rounds on average to drop the target with disadvantage on 2 of those rounds and no effect on the other round.
The crossbow method drops the target in 1-2 rounds denying all attacks for 3-4 of the same rounds. The crossbow method would drop a second target while the vicious mockery method is still working on the first. No attacks is better than attacking with disadvantage.
The crossbow prevents more damage than vicious mockery against those low hit point targets. That breaks the "lore bard should use vicious mockery most of the time" argument. The better approach depends on the target, making vicious mockery situational.
For vicious mockery to become more useful the increased DC at higher levels helps and the damage becomes better against lower hit point targets. Taking it at 10th level is when it's becoming more useful because of damage and DC by then but it's also when the need to spend actions on cantrips or attacks has greatly diminished.
Even at 4th level preparing for 5th level the chance to on-shot trash mobs is better than a chance to inflict 5 damage and disadvantage on a single attack.
For vicious mockery to do much there needs to be a target that cannot be quickly dispatched through damage or other means and that action cannot have a better choice at the time. It does become better at dealing with trash mobs with that 3rd die but still situational.
Damage is always applicable to combat and the crossbow comes with with no opportunity cost that the limited selection of cantrips does.
I never got into the benefits of mage hand or minor illusion in combat because we were comparing vicious mockery to weapon damage as the action in combat. I explicitly called them out as out-of-combat benefits at some point.
Since you brought it up, however, mage hand can be used to hold the torch or lantern a character would need for a light source to enable two handed weapons or fighting with two weapons for the damage benefit or a shield and weapon for the defensive benefit in addition to other uses. No DM fiat on light rules.
My minor illusion can be used to replicate cover as an illusion. Until the opponents figure out the illusion they will aim for the portion showing or possibly move. There are cover, line of sight, and hiding in combat rules that can be applied by using minor illusion.
Vicious mockery has no out-of -combat application.
And as I also said, there are other ways to inflict disadvantage. A lot of them because it's a common mechanic.
You guys can have fun with it, but it doesn't seem to be worth selecting over other cantrips.
Your DC is 13 at that low tier. With no bonus to saves at all 65% chance for an average of 2.5 damage and averages 1.6 damage per round. The damage is absolute trash. Disadvantage is the only reason to use it at all, which doesn't stack with other sources of disadvantage that are available.
What other sources of disadvantage? I think you've said this a few times now but I'm unclear what other sources you're thinking of; the most widely available one would be a shove but your average Bard isn't going to be good at that (and you or an ally have to trade an attack to do it in most cases). Otherwise it's things like reaction abilities on a Steel Defender or specific fighter builds, none of which are guaranteed.
Even if you assume you've got some of those in the party, you're wrong to thing of it as not stacking because it's giving you another way to impose disadvantage on a different enemy. As I've said already, it's a good one to combo with your big control spells as (because of the DC you yourself mentioned) not every enemy is likely to be caught by those, so Vicious Mockery is a good way to debuff any that pass the save.
The common 13 AC with a crossbow hits 65% of the time as well. 5% of that chance is a crit. That averages 5.1 damage per round or a bit more than 3x the damage. This also goes down as AC goes up but requires comparing a high AC target and a low save target to become a small difference.
What crossbow? Bards don't start with a crossbow, and only have proficiency in crossbow, hand which costs 75 gp to buy (if you can even get to a place that sells them). While it'll be a great option for raw damage dealing if your DM lets you get one, I wouldn't assume that they will just let you magically have one whenever it will be most optimal to get one.
It's also worth reminding you that the same enemies that are harder to hit with a weapon tend to have worse Wisdom saves; if your entire party is reliant on attack rolls and an enemy rocks up with high AC what exactly do you intend to do? It's good to have a mix of defences (AC and saves) that you can target. While your weapon characters go after the lower AC targets, you can focus on the high AC ones to mitigate or diminish its attacks and chip away at its HP until the party can focus on them.
Claiming weapon attacks in that 1st tier aren't worthwhile is basically the equivalent of saying most weapon attacks aren't worthwhile when clearly damage does need done.
Damage needs to be done, but not necessarily by the Bard; this is why you can't just consider it without thinking about the party.
If you've got a Barbarian/Fighter/Paladin/whatever in your party then the best way for the Bard to deal damage is to help them deal damage (possibly even using the literal help action), or by keeping them in the fight (e.g- imposing disadvantage on enemies so they don't hurt your bruisers).
Compared to that a non Swords/Valor Bard's ability to deal damage with or without a weapon can be somewhat inconsequential.
That breaks the "lore bard should use vicious mockery most of the time" argument.
Has anyone actually made such an argument? I've seen people (myself included) point out that Vicious Mockery actually stacks up well enough that you don't need to invest into getting Eldritch Blast, but that's not the same thing at all.
You seem to be approaching the whole discussion from the mentality that the only thing of value in D&D is maximising damage and nothing else matters, but that's not what the OP asked for at all, they asked how to play their Bard in combat. This "discussion" has gone well past helpful advice into rants about how VM is apparently trash, which isn't helping anyone.
But the silliest part of this whole tirade against Vicious Mockery is that taking it does not prevent you from also having a weapon. A Bard can have both. For most Bards that'll be a rapier, because for a crossbow you'll need to actually obtain one somehow, along with any extra proficiencies you might need, but taking Vicious Mockery does not prevent you from doing so, so why are you treating this as if taking Vicious Mockery means you're not allowed to ever do anything else?
Even at 4th level preparing for 5th level the chance to on-shot trash mobs is better than a chance to inflict 5 damage and disadvantage on a single attack.
And yet trash mobs are not the only enemies a party will face; imposing disadvantage on a high AC, high damage enemy can easily result in more damage prevented than the extra damage you might (but probably won't) have caused with a weapon. Again, this is why it may be better to take both.
Though against trash mobs it's unlikely to be your weapon attack that will be making the difference, but the control spell you throw down, probably giving your allies advantage so they can scythe them down like wheat. While they are the ones making the attacks, if they hit because of you then that's damage that you caused, which is why control characters can actually technically be the highest damage characters in the game. 😝
Even if you assume you've got some of those in the party, you're wrong to thing of it as not stacking because it's giving you another way to impose disadvantage on a different enemy. As I've said already, it's a good one to combo with your big control spells as (because of the DC you yourself mentioned) not every enemy is likely to be caught by those, so Vicious Mockery is a good way to debuff any that pass the save.
But only for a single attack. At low levels (1-3), that's OK (but the save is really low, so it's also ignored and a wasted action, quite often). But after level 3, when more and more monsters have multi attack, it doesn't matter anywhere near as much. It doesn't scale well, alongside the other combat cantrips.
What crossbow? Bards don't start with a crossbow, and only have proficiency in crossbow, hand which costs 75 gp to buy (if you can even get to a place that sells them). While it'll be a great option for raw damage dealing if your DM lets you get one, I wouldn't assume that they will just let you magically have one whenever it will be most optimal to get one.
Bards are proficient with simple weapons, which includes the Light Crossbow.
It's also worth reminding you that the same enemies that are harder to hit with a weapon tend to have worse Wisdom saves; if your entire party is reliant on attack rolls and an enemy rocks up with high AC what exactly do you intend to do? It's good to have a mix of defences (AC and saves) that you can target. While your weapon characters go after the lower AC targets, you can focus on the high AC ones to mitigate or diminish its attacks and chip away at its HP until the party can focus on them.
Weapon attacks, in my experience, are *always* better than spells that ask for saves when you're at the beginning. You're a lot more likely to hit with a weapon than an enemy is to fail a saving throw of 13-14. It isn't until your saves start pushing 16 that enemies really start to struggle against the saves they're weak with.
Damage needs to be done, but not necessarily by the Bard; this is why you can't just consider it without thinking about the party.
The bard does not exist only to make everyone else into heroes. They, too, are a hero, and they deserve good things to do on their turn when they've done their control or augmentation (or debuff) job and are holding concentration on their important contribution to the battle. There's a reason the incentive is so strong to dip - Bards have a glaring problem, and dipping Warlock or even Sorcerer helps mitigate it and make the play experience better for the Bard player. You only *add* to the party's effectiveness when your contribution outside of your concentration spell is powerful.
“The bard does not exist only to make everyone else into heroes. They, too, are a hero, and they deserve good things to do on their turn when they've done their control or augmentation (or debuff) job and are holding concentration on their important contribution to the battle.”
Are you suggesting that a support class supporting other characters isn’t a good thing? If so, how often do you actually play a bard? Maybe support classes aren’t something you find fun (which begs the question why you are trying to tell someone else how to play them).
I guarantee you that, for players who enjoy playing support characters, nothing is funner when playing them than supporting the party.
A fighter carries a weapon. To a Lore Bard, ever other member of the party is a Lore Bard’s weapon and there are few things more satisfying than watching a plan come together.
“The bard does not exist only to make everyone else into heroes. They, too, are a hero, and they deserve good things to do on their turn when they've done their control or augmentation (or debuff) job and are holding concentration on their important contribution to the battle.”
Are you suggesting that a support class supporting other characters isn’t a good thing? If so, how often do you actually play a bard? Maybe support classes aren’t something you find fun (which begs the question why you are trying to tell someone else how to play them).
I guarantee you that, for players who enjoy playing support characters, nothing is funner when playing them than supporting the party.
A fighter carries a weapon. To a Lore Bard, ever other member of the party is a Lore Bard’s weapon and there are few things more satisfying than watching a plan come together.
The key word is "only." Read that again. Supporting others is a good thing. No one is saying that's bad, so hold your horses. If others enjoy playing support in such a way, that's them! But if others want more options, it's nothing to accuse them of not actually wanting to supporting.
But only for a single attack. At low levels (1-3), that's OK (but the save is really low, so it's also ignored and a wasted action, quite often). But after level 3, when more and more monsters have multi attack, it doesn't matter anywhere near as much.
Taking less damage is taking less damage. Feel free to explain to a downed player how actually they're better off being hit by an extra attack every turn.
Weapon attacks, in my experience, are *always* better than spells that ask for saves when you're at the beginning. You're a lot more likely to hit with a weapon than an enemy is to fail a saving throw of 13-14. It isn't until your saves start pushing 16 that enemies really start to struggle against the saves they're weak with.
As I've already pointed out, weapons are not mutually exclusive with having Vicious Mockery. Why do you keep acting like you can't have both? What's more, you're just flat out wrong. Let's take a few examples:
Goblin (CR 1/2): AC 15, Wisdom 8. If you can wrangle a +5 to hit then you're hitting them on 10's (11/20 odds), but they're failing DC 13 Wisdom saves on 13's or lower (13/20 odds).
Bandit Captain (CR 2): AC 15, Wisdom 11. Same odds to hit, still slightly better odds for them to fail their save (12/20).
Chuul (CR 4): AC 16, Wisdom 11. Even odds to hit, same odds to fail as the Bandit Captain.
I picked these at random; there are of course monsters with better Wisdom and worse AC against whom a Bard still has a weapon they can also use.
This remains true no matter what level you go to; try telling the Bard they're not helping when they're inflicting disadvantage onto an attack from an Adult Black Dragon. Feel free to tell the rest of the party actually they should prefer to take that extra 20 damage each round because it gave you the opportunity to miss with a piddling little crossbow instead.
Besides which, you still can't easily start with a crossbow, so you'd have to get one from somewhere. But it also doesn't mesh super well with Bard in the first place, as your casting focus is a musical instrument that you need to be holding to use, which means you can't reload the crossbow unless you limit yourself to only spells with vocal components.
No matter which way you look at it Vicious Mockery is still a perfectly fine choice for a Bard; I'd like to also have Mind Sliver as an option but not having it isn't the end of the world. As with most spellcasters, flexibility is king, so having VM and a decent weapon is a perfectly valid option, but against many enemies VM will actually outperform a small amount of extra damage.
The bard does not exist only to make everyone else into heroes. They, too, are a hero, and they deserve good things to do on their turn when they've done their control or augmentation (or debuff) job and are holding concentration on their important contribution to the battle. There's a reason the incentive is so strong to dip - Bards have a glaring problem, and dipping Warlock or even Sorcerer helps mitigate it and make the play experience better for the Bard player. You only *add* to the party's effectiveness when your contribution outside of your concentration spell is powerful.
So you want to be a Bard, but also want to be the party's Fighter, but for some reason don't want to be College of Swords or Valor? Gotcha. 🤔
Dealing damage is not the only way to be heroic; helping others is about as heroic as you can possibly get. Exhorting your comrades to do more together than they could do alone is peak heroism. You have access to a spell that is literally calledHeroism.
Seriously, the idea you must do the maximum amount of damage each turn to have any value as a player is the single most toxic thing in D&D today.
Even from that limited perspective though, and as I have said now multiple times, for every attack that hits because of something you did that is damage that you caused, an extra few points from a weapon attack is meaningless by comparison to both helping your party deal loads more damage, while keeping them from taking as much in return. Support is not a do-nothing role, it's one of the most powerful in the game, and VM actually synergises with it. By helping the rest of your party to be heroes, you can be an f'ing god of heroism. 😝
“The bard does not exist only to make everyone else into heroes. They, too, are a hero, and they deserve good things to do on their turn when they've done their control or augmentation (or debuff) job and are holding concentration on their important contribution to the battle.”
Are you suggesting that a support class supporting other characters isn’t a good thing? If so, how often do you actually play a bard? Maybe support classes aren’t something you find fun (which begs the question why you are trying to tell someone else how to play them).
I guarantee you that, for players who enjoy playing support characters, nothing is funner when playing them than supporting the party.
A fighter carries a weapon. To a Lore Bard, ever other member of the party is a Lore Bard’s weapon and there are few things more satisfying than watching a plan come together.
The key word is "only." Read that again. Supporting others is a good thing. No one is saying that's bad, so hold your horses. If others enjoy playing support in such a way, that's them! But if others want more options, it's nothing to accuse them of not actually wanting to supporting.
You were doing the equivalent of criticizing a screwdriver for making a bad hammer
don't complain that a class meant for support focuses on support. It's like criticizing a screwdriver for being a screwdriver.
If you really want a hammer then go get yourself a hammer
I'm seeing a lot of desire to have one's cake and eat it too. The Bard has been designed to be a below average damage dealer, and an above average problem solver. One could imagine a universe where the ratio was flipped, but then the parallel universe Bard would in practice be a Rogue or Ranger or something. You can only push your limits so far before you're stealing someone else's shtick. In harsh terms, "stay in your lane."
The turns where you can't find anything useful to do by giving advantage (Help) or disadvantage (Mockery) to one target, AND you can't cast a useful spell, should be the exception. They are in my experience. Just like the turns where the sword boi can't get close enough to hit something, or the turns where the sneaky sniper can't find cover. They happen, but they don't happen with enough frequency to claim it's a problem with the class's design. Everyone has to waste a turn sometimes. I'm not convinced Bards have to do it more than anyone else.
To be clear, these are the things I'm hearing: 1. Infinite use damage? Not as strong as other classes' infinite use damage, thus not good enough. 2. Limited use damage? Not infinite enough. 3. Branching out with feats, multiclassing, or Magical Secrets? Not as strong as the classes you're copying, thus not good enough. 4. Subclass damage options? Not as strong as dedicated damage classes, thus not good enough.
Bards can be played as hipsters under pill effects buffing here & there, as a tricksters with a rapier, or as malicious cowards with a knack of music. The possibilities are counted by thousands, and those who always plays as a traditional bard are so much.
I suspect this class grows better with skills and elses ( at level 20 and so on ), because if at lower levels this class just takes proficiency with almost everything, I can launch an hypothesis about what could happen at Epic levels. Obviously I don't gonna break the spoiler here, but I'm a bit tempted... you know ??
“The bard does not exist only to make everyone else into heroes. They, too, are a hero, and they deserve good things to do on their turn when they've done their control or augmentation (or debuff) job and are holding concentration on their important contribution to the battle.”
Are you suggesting that a support class supporting other characters isn’t a good thing? If so, how often do you actually play a bard? Maybe support classes aren’t something you find fun (which begs the question why you are trying to tell someone else how to play them).
I guarantee you that, for players who enjoy playing support characters, nothing is funner when playing them than supporting the party.
A fighter carries a weapon. To a Lore Bard, ever other member of the party is a Lore Bard’s weapon and there are few things more satisfying than watching a plan come together.
The key word is "only." Read that again. Supporting others is a good thing. No one is saying that's bad, so hold your horses. If others enjoy playing support in such a way, that's them! But if others want more options, it's nothing to accuse them of not actually wanting to supporting.
You were doing the equivalent of criticizing a screwdriver for making a bad hammer
don't complain that a class meant for support focuses on support. It's like criticizing a screwdriver for being a screwdriver.
If you really want a hammer then go get yourself a hammer
All my other casters are like swiss army knives. They got a whole bunch of other tools built in. I'm not criticizing the bard for being a bard, I'm criticizing it for it's ability to only be a screw driver by chassis alone. But, that's okay... cause the bard chassis doesn't know any better... I can fix that...
I'm seeing a lot of desire to have one's cake and eat it too.
Is that so wrong? I like what bard has to offer as a chassis. I don't love it though, but that has no relevancy here. Yet, I could easily patch up whatever personal discrepancy I may have with a dip here, a feat there, some itemization, and boom! Now I've got something I really like!
Granted, that part about staying in one's lane is advice I personally heavily adhere to, believe in, and assert. I 100% agree that we should give others their spotlight. For example, if I'm entering a party with a bunch of utility casters, and I'm playing a damage dealer, I will entirely forgo any utility cantrip and instead opt for damage ones, or avoid any skill proficiency/language others in my party have. But let's be real, you're not really stepping on anyone's toes if your bard has a competent eldritch blast or decent melee option. That's like saying any party that includes both a fighter and barbarian has one stealing the spotlight from the other just because they're both melee martials.
Why is it so wrong to customize the bard in a way to give us better damage options? No one bats a single eye if look at the other side of the spectrum. Take the fighter, for example. It's designed to do damage, and not much else-- yet we could build it to gain utility. A purple dragon knight can easily be built to start with high charisma without hindering our main stats, and with expertise in persuasion, one could argue is at risk for stealing the spotlight from the skill monkey of the party who was intended to be the party face. Yet, no one would criticize the fighter for doing so. What if the fighter took the feat skill expert, and later dipped a single level into rogue? Neither of those things are very demanding (and with planning may be not even detract from our intended main purpose), yet turn the fighter into a really good "problem solver" while also retaining the core of its chassis, which is to be a top-tier martial.
This is a game where we can customize our PCs to be all sorts of varying degrees of unique and powerful. Why shouldn't we be able to have and eat our cake?
Why would anybody want the same thing out of a Bard that they want out of a Wizard or Sorcerer for Warlock?
Damn,that sounds boring and unimaginative!
My Lore Bard has 10 skills, four with expertise, he has a Bardic instrument which forces Charm spells to be rolled at a disadvantage, he has cutting words, he has a lot of abilities and I do mean A LOT OF abilities that a Wizard doesn't.
Now he's supposed to have the flexibility with magic that a Wizard has on top of that?
That's like saying any party that includes both a fighter and barbarian has one stealing the spotlight from the other just because they're both melee martials.
Actually they kind of are, though it depends a lot on sub-class and build specifics; if you boil down just the Fighter and Barbarian class they both do basically the same thing, they go into combat and they fight, and they have poor out of combat utility. The main difference is that the Fighter deals more damage, and the Barbarian takes more damage, but they otherwise fill basically the same role.
So if you already have a Fighter in your party, and add a Barbarian, then you're not gaining as much as if you added say… a Guardian Armorer built for tanking. Sure the latter isn't quite as good at tanking as a Barbarian naturally is, but they can add a bunch of utility, horde damage etc. that the Barbarian does not. Now if your party is well covered for this but doesn't have enough frontline fighters then it doesn't really matter, a Barbarian is a fine pick, but if you're thinking about ideal party balance then Fighter + Barbarian isn't usually the best choice IMO.
Similarly you get issues with role overlap in groups; if you already have two or three melee fighters, then you don't really want casters who are going to be rushing into melee as well because they just create a crush of players all doing basically the same thing 90% of the time, with some doing better at it than others. This is why I wouldn't necessarily take a Swords/Valor Bard if the party is already good for melee fighters, as you either feel like you're not as good, or you make others feel the same, and that's no fun.
A purple dragon knight can easily be built to start with high charisma without hindering our main stats, and with expertise in persuasion, one could argue is at risk for stealing the spotlight from the skill monkey of the party who was intended to be the party face. Yet, no one would criticize the fighter for doing so.
People should criticise that (I would); if you already have someone building a character to be the party's face and somebody else builds a character to do the same then I would expect the face player to be annoyed by that and want to discuss how they can make it work.
However when it comes to skills the situation is more complex, as there's a difference between having the skill and how you actually intend to use it as a player. For example, if the Purple Dragon Knight is built and RPed to be a noble who ingratiates the party with other nobles then that's different to the Bard who deceives and persuades their way into or out of every other situation.
This is a game where we can customize our PCs to be all sorts of varying degrees of unique and powerful. Why shouldn't we be able to have and eat our cake?
Because the OP did not ask what they should multiclass into in order to maximise their damage; they asked how to play their Bard in combat.
Because the OP did not ask what they should multiclass into in order to maximise their damage; they asked how to play their Bard in combat.
Well, good thing I'm not talking about maximizing damage. OP asked how to utilize a bard in combat, and I'm glad to see they've made their decision. But, for posterity's sake, my answer is not just for OP, but for any bard who wonders if there's more to combat than casting a big concentration spell followed by a combination of help, dodge, VM, bardics, and of course, the singular shot from a +1 or +2 crossbow shot cause that's super important to mention.
For if someone is asking how to perform in combat, it's because a bard's given tools are not so intuitive. Nobody asks a wizard, for example, how to play during combat. You got your trusty firebolt in that case in between control spells. No one asks how you play a cleric in combat, even when that class is purported as a support class, because it has an intuitive sustainable damage option like toll the dead or sacred flame. But bard? Well dude, if someone asks me how to play a bard in combat, my answer's going to be "look at light multiclassing options, because the chassis doesn't quite do it." And you know something? It's a very valid argument with few holes, aside from the accusations of being a power gamer or irrelevant opinions of calling it boring (as if declaring "I use the help action" is very fun for the sake of fulfilling a ""support"" role) or homogenized.
But let's get something straight, what I suggested ultimately results in a bard that can deal the bare minimum of acceptable damage. If a bard gained access to EB+AB via multclassing and feats, you know something, it's still A sub-par damage option. Rangers, one of the classes you see a lot of people give flack for being weak, are capable of some serious numbers via CBE+SS+archery fighting style that completely outstrips whatever EB+AB does, with hex. If I build a swords bard multi'd with fighter to make use of a GWM build, well, it's still inferior compared to a specialized martial. Still, it has the option to use GWM for something decent.
And that's all I'm arguing for. Minimal investment for something decent. Let's not get ahead of ourselves and start flashing our crosses at the argument by saying it's propagating a powergamer's message.
But let's get something straight, what I suggested ultimately results in a bard that can deal the bare minimum of acceptable damage.
And this is where you're going so wrong; you're not in the least bit interested in considering what a Bard's abilities actually do.
If I Cutting Words an enemy attack to prevent an ally from being downed, then I've not only saved myself a casting of Healing Word on a later turn, I may have also given that ally an entire extra turn to deal damage. That's extra damage that I've caused as a Bard. That's my damage. This is why College of Lore is one of my favourite sub-classes for Bard, even though I've played just about all of them.
Same if I give use regular inspiration to let an ally turn a miss into a hit. That hit is mine, I as a Bard did that. Their damage on that hit is my damage.
Same rule applies to Vicious Mockery; if an enemy attack misses because of it, and an ally stays in the fight as a result then their damage is mine, or at the very least I've saved on healing that needs to be done later. While taking an enemy out sooner can achieve a similar result, doing extra damage yourself isn't going to hasten it along all that much as we're not talking big differences here even with VM's small damage dice. Meanwhile your allies are taking more damage, probably a lot more damage than the extra damage you're doing in return. This is where the value of Vicious Mockery comes from; it doesn't matter if enemies get multiattack (because actually you get enemies with multiattack really early on), because the damage that those enemies are doing per hit is getting higher as well, so forcing misses still matters. While the tipping point is complicated (since VM's damage is the part that scales, and that part hardly matters), we're also talking about a class that can take spells (including cantrips) from other classes at higher levels as standard, so if you really need a better cantrip. Take one.
Or you can just use your weapon, because this a perfectly valid use of your action as a Bard if there's nothing to Countercharm.
And these are all examples on top whatever control spell you're using, not instead of.
This is why it's so, so wrong to look at per round damage from a Bard directly, because your damage is every extra point of damage your party deals because of you. Again, Bard is arguably one of the highest damage classes in the game if you pay attention to what it actually does in combat.
Now I'm not saying a Warlock dip is a bad option, but if you're doing it just to do some extra direct damage then it's not a price you should pay IMO; if it's for theme, or for certain fun combos or extra spells you can get access to then have at it, go nuts, have fun. But sacrificing your Bardic level progression to "fix" a problem that doesn't really exist is a lot less valuable than you may think.
Cgarciao, I really think and correct me if I'm wrong but I really think that you have spent too much time thinking about one-on-one fights or reading people who analyze one-on-one fights and somehow have forgotten that a party doesn't fight as a bunch of one-on-one fights. They fight as a party
Haravikk is right in that damage which might appear to be some other PC's is actually yours if it wouldnothavehappened without you
"Why is it so wrong to customize the bard in a way to give us better damage options? No one bats a single eye if look at the other side of the spectrum. Take the fighter, for example. It's designed to do damage, and not much else-- yet we could build it to gain utility."
Way to misread me. There's absolutely nothing wrong with building towards a certain speciality. Where you're going wrong is thinking that you ought to be able to do more than you already can. A utility-focused Fighter is going to be about as good at utility, as a damage-focused Bard would be at damage. If your straw man was real, he'd be saying "Fighters should be allowed the entire Bard spell list and slots progression, plus Expertise and Jack of All Trades. Sure, I can get some of that by taking feats and multiclassing, but it's not good enough. Why should Fighters be locked out of one of the core pillars of the game?"
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My take on Vicious Mockery is that it hasn't been a useful action for my bard to take since about level 4 or so. Disadvantage on a single attack is kind of meaningless when I can take my action to do more than that, and *kind of have to* do more than give disadvantage to a single attack of theirs. If they fail their save. It doesn't hit hard enough to be worthwhile as a whole turn's action, and the debuff doesn't do enough when monsters typically attack 2-3 times in a round. It's just... bad. It's fun! But it's not good.
I don't think there is anything radical about adding a better cantrip to the Bard list, and I think if there was something there (or if VM was better), you wouldn't see as many people consider a dip in the first place.
I would point out that at low levels there's no difference in damage. Your hexblade who does d8+3 isn't doing more than the bard using a weapon doing d8+3 ;-)
Make the same variant human, use the feat for moderately armored for the same AC and you have sleep available immediately and no level delays. You can pick up eldritch blast through secrets too and agonizing blast via any ASI/feat level you like.
Hexblade is a better dip than fighter but still has those delayed levels that hurt.
My other thoughts....
If you don't mind a build that takes a long time to come online you can go valor bard for the armor and then use magical secrets at some point for shield and eldritch blast. Still use a feat to pick up agonizing blast. Strong defensively and at 14th level your pure bard casts agonizing EB's and then also gets to add a bonus action weapon attack every time for better at-will damage than your splashed option, and you can still add hex by then if you do want it.
It's a long time to wait though. That's why I'm more likely to make a valor bard who takes advantage of his extra attack feature using weapons, or just pick up a damage cantrip on non-weapon focused bards, or just ignore the damage because I'm spending my action economy on healing, control, and status effects.
I argued it, but that's because it's about the weakest damage in the game and the benefit (disadvantage) is available from many other resources. Minor illusion or mage hand are more useful when cantrips known are limited.
It's definitely not the best most of the time and in most places on a bard. That's just an option and an opinion I do not share. I wouldn't stop someone from using vicious mockery if he/she/they is having fun but I don't think it's worth the action cost because more damage dropping an opponent prevents less damage in the long run. ;-)
The issue I have with multi-classing is waiting for the good stuff. Hypnotic pattern, slow, fear, etc prevent a lot more damage faster than doing more damage or spamming vicious mockery.
You familiar with that one scene from The Fairly OddParents, where Timmy asks his parents when are they getting on the ride in Escalator Land? He's then told "this IS the ride." Multi-classing IS the good stuff.
Now, minor illusion or mage hand are indeed really good cantrips that I believe are better than vicious mockery... outside of combat. If you want to argue about how those cantrips are better IN combat, well, you're entering the realm of DM fiat and we can't make concluding generalizations on such grounds. Now, if you want to go on about these sources of disadvantage, I can guarantee you they either aren't coming from a cheap resource, or would place the bard in excessive risk. Grappling and shoving is a cheap way to impose disadvantage, but you do so at your own peril. Off the top of my head, I'm unable to name some concentration spells for imposing disadvantage, but I'd chalk that up to my own fault. If there were, it would not change the decision to use and maintain concentration on a different spell, for whatever reason it may be. Outside of grappling and shoving, I'm having a hard time of listing a reliably cheap method of imposing disadvantage.
VM then provides a way to impose disadvantage both cheaply and safely, without using concentration. If you want to decide that the few, minuscule points of damage shooting a crossbow is worth trading away disadvantage on an attack, be my guest. You still ain't doing much either way, so you might as well impose disadvantage. If you want to run in melee as a lore bard with two-weapon fighting in some attempt to deal damage that maybe barely inches its way out of single-digits DPR territory, sir, I tip my hat to you in a brave salute.
Now, you're right about hypnotic pattern, slow, fear etc all doing a better job than a single cantrip does at preventing damage... but you know what's even better at preventing damage? Using VM while you're concentrating on hypnotic pattern, slow, fear, etc. Fact.
Vicious mockery vs weapon damage isn't a miniscule difference just because you say it is. It's more than twice the damage easily. Check your math. ;-)
Your DC is 13 at that low tier. With no bonus to saves at all 65% chance for an average of 2.5 damage and averages 1.6 damage per round. The damage is absolute trash. Disadvantage is the only reason to use it at all, which doesn't stack with other sources of disadvantage that are available.
That goes down with save bonuses.
The common 13 AC with a crossbow hits 65% of the time as well. 5% of that chance is a crit. That averages 5.1 damage per round or a bit more than 3x the damage. This also goes down as AC goes up but requires comparing a high AC target and a low save target to become a small difference.
Before anyone claims that the weapon damage is weak it's not. It's the same damage options most classes are using for weapons outside of a small bonus possible in fighting styles.
It's extra attack and bonuses that make the diffey later, when more spell slots become available and the hard is less likely to be spamming cantrips or weapon attacks.
Claiming weapon attacks in that 1st tier aren't worthwhile is basically the equivalent of saying most weapon attacks aren't worthwhile when clearly damage does need done.
The difference is also dropping those low CR monsters.
The average 7.5 damage hit one-shots goblins and kobolds. The 15 AC on a goblin means typically 55% one-shot in the first attack and high chance in the second attack.
That same goblin actually has a penalty to the save so the bard has 70% chance to do 2.5 damage and inflict disadvantage on attacks. This takes 4 rounds on average to drop the target with disadvantage on 2 of those rounds and no effect on the other round.
The crossbow method drops the target in 1-2 rounds denying all attacks for 3-4 of the same rounds. The crossbow method would drop a second target while the vicious mockery method is still working on the first. No attacks is better than attacking with disadvantage.
The crossbow prevents more damage than vicious mockery against those low hit point targets. That breaks the "lore bard should use vicious mockery most of the time" argument. The better approach depends on the target, making vicious mockery situational.
For vicious mockery to become more useful the increased DC at higher levels helps and the damage becomes better against lower hit point targets. Taking it at 10th level is when it's becoming more useful because of damage and DC by then but it's also when the need to spend actions on cantrips or attacks has greatly diminished.
Even at 4th level preparing for 5th level the chance to on-shot trash mobs is better than a chance to inflict 5 damage and disadvantage on a single attack.
For vicious mockery to do much there needs to be a target that cannot be quickly dispatched through damage or other means and that action cannot have a better choice at the time. It does become better at dealing with trash mobs with that 3rd die but still situational.
Damage is always applicable to combat and the crossbow comes with with no opportunity cost that the limited selection of cantrips does.
I never got into the benefits of mage hand or minor illusion in combat because we were comparing vicious mockery to weapon damage as the action in combat. I explicitly called them out as out-of-combat benefits at some point.
Since you brought it up, however, mage hand can be used to hold the torch or lantern a character would need for a light source to enable two handed weapons or fighting with two weapons for the damage benefit or a shield and weapon for the defensive benefit in addition to other uses. No DM fiat on light rules.
My minor illusion can be used to replicate cover as an illusion. Until the opponents figure out the illusion they will aim for the portion showing or possibly move. There are cover, line of sight, and hiding in combat rules that can be applied by using minor illusion.
Vicious mockery has no out-of -combat application.
And as I also said, there are other ways to inflict disadvantage. A lot of them because it's a common mechanic.
You guys can have fun with it, but it doesn't seem to be worth selecting over other cantrips.
What other sources of disadvantage? I think you've said this a few times now but I'm unclear what other sources you're thinking of; the most widely available one would be a shove but your average Bard isn't going to be good at that (and you or an ally have to trade an attack to do it in most cases). Otherwise it's things like reaction abilities on a Steel Defender or specific fighter builds, none of which are guaranteed.
Even if you assume you've got some of those in the party, you're wrong to thing of it as not stacking because it's giving you another way to impose disadvantage on a different enemy. As I've said already, it's a good one to combo with your big control spells as (because of the DC you yourself mentioned) not every enemy is likely to be caught by those, so Vicious Mockery is a good way to debuff any that pass the save.
What crossbow? Bards don't start with a crossbow, and only have proficiency in crossbow, hand which costs 75 gp to buy (if you can even get to a place that sells them). While it'll be a great option for raw damage dealing if your DM lets you get one, I wouldn't assume that they will just let you magically have one whenever it will be most optimal to get one.
It's also worth reminding you that the same enemies that are harder to hit with a weapon tend to have worse Wisdom saves; if your entire party is reliant on attack rolls and an enemy rocks up with high AC what exactly do you intend to do? It's good to have a mix of defences (AC and saves) that you can target. While your weapon characters go after the lower AC targets, you can focus on the high AC ones to mitigate or diminish its attacks and chip away at its HP until the party can focus on them.
Damage needs to be done, but not necessarily by the Bard; this is why you can't just consider it without thinking about the party.
If you've got a Barbarian/Fighter/Paladin/whatever in your party then the best way for the Bard to deal damage is to help them deal damage (possibly even using the literal help action), or by keeping them in the fight (e.g- imposing disadvantage on enemies so they don't hurt your bruisers).
Compared to that a non Swords/Valor Bard's ability to deal damage with or without a weapon can be somewhat inconsequential.
Has anyone actually made such an argument? I've seen people (myself included) point out that Vicious Mockery actually stacks up well enough that you don't need to invest into getting Eldritch Blast, but that's not the same thing at all.
You seem to be approaching the whole discussion from the mentality that the only thing of value in D&D is maximising damage and nothing else matters, but that's not what the OP asked for at all, they asked how to play their Bard in combat. This "discussion" has gone well past helpful advice into rants about how VM is apparently trash, which isn't helping anyone.
But the silliest part of this whole tirade against Vicious Mockery is that taking it does not prevent you from also having a weapon. A Bard can have both. For most Bards that'll be a rapier, because for a crossbow you'll need to actually obtain one somehow, along with any extra proficiencies you might need, but taking Vicious Mockery does not prevent you from doing so, so why are you treating this as if taking Vicious Mockery means you're not allowed to ever do anything else?
And yet trash mobs are not the only enemies a party will face; imposing disadvantage on a high AC, high damage enemy can easily result in more damage prevented than the extra damage you might (but probably won't) have caused with a weapon. Again, this is why it may be better to take both.
Though against trash mobs it's unlikely to be your weapon attack that will be making the difference, but the control spell you throw down, probably giving your allies advantage so they can scythe them down like wheat. While they are the ones making the attacks, if they hit because of you then that's damage that you caused, which is why control characters can actually technically be the highest damage characters in the game. 😝
Characters: Bullette, Chortle, Dracarys Noir, Edward Merryspell, Habard Ashery, Legion, Peregrine
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But only for a single attack. At low levels (1-3), that's OK (but the save is really low, so it's also ignored and a wasted action, quite often). But after level 3, when more and more monsters have multi attack, it doesn't matter anywhere near as much. It doesn't scale well, alongside the other combat cantrips.
Bards are proficient with simple weapons, which includes the Light Crossbow.
Weapon attacks, in my experience, are *always* better than spells that ask for saves when you're at the beginning. You're a lot more likely to hit with a weapon than an enemy is to fail a saving throw of 13-14. It isn't until your saves start pushing 16 that enemies really start to struggle against the saves they're weak with.
The bard does not exist only to make everyone else into heroes. They, too, are a hero, and they deserve good things to do on their turn when they've done their control or augmentation (or debuff) job and are holding concentration on their important contribution to the battle. There's a reason the incentive is so strong to dip - Bards have a glaring problem, and dipping Warlock or even Sorcerer helps mitigate it and make the play experience better for the Bard player. You only *add* to the party's effectiveness when your contribution outside of your concentration spell is powerful.
“The bard does not exist only to make everyone else into heroes. They, too, are a hero, and they deserve good things to do on their turn when they've done their control or augmentation (or debuff) job and are holding concentration on their important contribution to the battle.”
Are you suggesting that a support class supporting other characters isn’t a good thing? If so, how often do you actually play a bard? Maybe support classes aren’t something you find fun (which begs the question why you are trying to tell someone else how to play them).
I guarantee you that, for players who enjoy playing support characters, nothing is funner when playing them than supporting the party.
A fighter carries a weapon. To a Lore Bard, ever other member of the party is a Lore Bard’s weapon and there are few things more satisfying than watching a plan come together.
The key word is "only." Read that again. Supporting others is a good thing. No one is saying that's bad, so hold your horses. If others enjoy playing support in such a way, that's them! But if others want more options, it's nothing to accuse them of not actually wanting to supporting.
Taking less damage is taking less damage. Feel free to explain to a downed player how actually they're better off being hit by an extra attack every turn.
As I've already pointed out, weapons are not mutually exclusive with having Vicious Mockery. Why do you keep acting like you can't have both? What's more, you're just flat out wrong. Let's take a few examples:
I picked these at random; there are of course monsters with better Wisdom and worse AC against whom a Bard still has a weapon they can also use.
This remains true no matter what level you go to; try telling the Bard they're not helping when they're inflicting disadvantage onto an attack from an Adult Black Dragon. Feel free to tell the rest of the party actually they should prefer to take that extra 20 damage each round because it gave you the opportunity to miss with a piddling little crossbow instead.
Besides which, you still can't easily start with a crossbow, so you'd have to get one from somewhere. But it also doesn't mesh super well with Bard in the first place, as your casting focus is a musical instrument that you need to be holding to use, which means you can't reload the crossbow unless you limit yourself to only spells with vocal components.
No matter which way you look at it Vicious Mockery is still a perfectly fine choice for a Bard; I'd like to also have Mind Sliver as an option but not having it isn't the end of the world. As with most spellcasters, flexibility is king, so having VM and a decent weapon is a perfectly valid option, but against many enemies VM will actually outperform a small amount of extra damage.
So you want to be a Bard, but also want to be the party's Fighter, but for some reason don't want to be College of Swords or Valor? Gotcha. 🤔
Dealing damage is not the only way to be heroic; helping others is about as heroic as you can possibly get. Exhorting your comrades to do more together than they could do alone is peak heroism. You have access to a spell that is literally called Heroism.
Seriously, the idea you must do the maximum amount of damage each turn to have any value as a player is the single most toxic thing in D&D today.
Even from that limited perspective though, and as I have said now multiple times, for every attack that hits because of something you did that is damage that you caused, an extra few points from a weapon attack is meaningless by comparison to both helping your party deal loads more damage, while keeping them from taking as much in return. Support is not a do-nothing role, it's one of the most powerful in the game, and VM actually synergises with it. By helping the rest of your party to be heroes, you can be an f'ing god of heroism. 😝
Characters: Bullette, Chortle, Dracarys Noir, Edward Merryspell, Habard Ashery, Legion, Peregrine
My Homebrew: Feats | Items | Monsters | Spells | Subclasses | Races
Guides: Creating Sub-Races Using Trait Options
WIP (feedback needed): Blood Mage, Chromatic Sorcerers, Summoner, Trickster Domain, Unlucky, Way of the Daoist (Drunken Master), Weapon Smith
Please don't reply to my posts unless you've read what they actually say.
You were doing the equivalent of criticizing a screwdriver for making a bad hammer
don't complain that a class meant for support focuses on support. It's like criticizing a screwdriver for being a screwdriver.
If you really want a hammer then go get yourself a hammer
I'm seeing a lot of desire to have one's cake and eat it too. The Bard has been designed to be a below average damage dealer, and an above average problem solver. One could imagine a universe where the ratio was flipped, but then the parallel universe Bard would in practice be a Rogue or Ranger or something. You can only push your limits so far before you're stealing someone else's shtick. In harsh terms, "stay in your lane."
The turns where you can't find anything useful to do by giving advantage (Help) or disadvantage (Mockery) to one target, AND you can't cast a useful spell, should be the exception. They are in my experience. Just like the turns where the sword boi can't get close enough to hit something, or the turns where the sneaky sniper can't find cover. They happen, but they don't happen with enough frequency to claim it's a problem with the class's design. Everyone has to waste a turn sometimes. I'm not convinced Bards have to do it more than anyone else.
To be clear, these are the things I'm hearing: 1. Infinite use damage? Not as strong as other classes' infinite use damage, thus not good enough. 2. Limited use damage? Not infinite enough. 3. Branching out with feats, multiclassing, or Magical Secrets? Not as strong as the classes you're copying, thus not good enough. 4. Subclass damage options? Not as strong as dedicated damage classes, thus not good enough.
Bards can be played as hipsters under pill effects buffing here & there, as a tricksters with a rapier, or as malicious cowards with a knack of music. The possibilities are counted by thousands, and those who always plays as a traditional bard are so much.
I suspect this class grows better with skills and elses ( at level 20 and so on ), because if at lower levels this class just takes proficiency with almost everything, I can launch an hypothesis about what could happen at Epic levels. Obviously I don't gonna break the spoiler here, but I'm a bit tempted... you know ??
My Ready-to-rock&roll chars:
Dertinus Tristany // Amilcar Barca // Vicenç Sacrarius // Oriol Deulofeu // Grovtuk
All my other casters are like swiss army knives. They got a whole bunch of other tools built in. I'm not criticizing the bard for being a bard, I'm criticizing it for it's ability to only be a screw driver by chassis alone. But, that's okay... cause the bard chassis doesn't know any better... I can fix that...
Is that so wrong? I like what bard has to offer as a chassis. I don't love it though, but that has no relevancy here. Yet, I could easily patch up whatever personal discrepancy I may have with a dip here, a feat there, some itemization, and boom! Now I've got something I really like!
Granted, that part about staying in one's lane is advice I personally heavily adhere to, believe in, and assert. I 100% agree that we should give others their spotlight. For example, if I'm entering a party with a bunch of utility casters, and I'm playing a damage dealer, I will entirely forgo any utility cantrip and instead opt for damage ones, or avoid any skill proficiency/language others in my party have. But let's be real, you're not really stepping on anyone's toes if your bard has a competent eldritch blast or decent melee option. That's like saying any party that includes both a fighter and barbarian has one stealing the spotlight from the other just because they're both melee martials.
Why is it so wrong to customize the bard in a way to give us better damage options? No one bats a single eye if look at the other side of the spectrum. Take the fighter, for example. It's designed to do damage, and not much else-- yet we could build it to gain utility. A purple dragon knight can easily be built to start with high charisma without hindering our main stats, and with expertise in persuasion, one could argue is at risk for stealing the spotlight from the skill monkey of the party who was intended to be the party face. Yet, no one would criticize the fighter for doing so. What if the fighter took the feat skill expert, and later dipped a single level into rogue? Neither of those things are very demanding (and with planning may be not even detract from our intended main purpose), yet turn the fighter into a really good "problem solver" while also retaining the core of its chassis, which is to be a top-tier martial.
This is a game where we can customize our PCs to be all sorts of varying degrees of unique and powerful. Why shouldn't we be able to have and eat our cake?
Why would anybody want the same thing out of a Bard that they want out of a Wizard or Sorcerer for Warlock?
Damn,that sounds boring and unimaginative!
My Lore Bard has 10 skills, four with expertise, he has a Bardic instrument which forces Charm spells to be rolled at a disadvantage, he has cutting words, he has a lot of abilities and I do mean A LOT OF abilities that a Wizard doesn't.
Now he's supposed to have the flexibility with magic that a Wizard has on top of that?
Actually they kind of are, though it depends a lot on sub-class and build specifics; if you boil down just the Fighter and Barbarian class they both do basically the same thing, they go into combat and they fight, and they have poor out of combat utility. The main difference is that the Fighter deals more damage, and the Barbarian takes more damage, but they otherwise fill basically the same role.
So if you already have a Fighter in your party, and add a Barbarian, then you're not gaining as much as if you added say… a Guardian Armorer built for tanking. Sure the latter isn't quite as good at tanking as a Barbarian naturally is, but they can add a bunch of utility, horde damage etc. that the Barbarian does not. Now if your party is well covered for this but doesn't have enough frontline fighters then it doesn't really matter, a Barbarian is a fine pick, but if you're thinking about ideal party balance then Fighter + Barbarian isn't usually the best choice IMO.
Similarly you get issues with role overlap in groups; if you already have two or three melee fighters, then you don't really want casters who are going to be rushing into melee as well because they just create a crush of players all doing basically the same thing 90% of the time, with some doing better at it than others. This is why I wouldn't necessarily take a Swords/Valor Bard if the party is already good for melee fighters, as you either feel like you're not as good, or you make others feel the same, and that's no fun.
People should criticise that (I would); if you already have someone building a character to be the party's face and somebody else builds a character to do the same then I would expect the face player to be annoyed by that and want to discuss how they can make it work.
However when it comes to skills the situation is more complex, as there's a difference between having the skill and how you actually intend to use it as a player. For example, if the Purple Dragon Knight is built and RPed to be a noble who ingratiates the party with other nobles then that's different to the Bard who deceives and persuades their way into or out of every other situation.
Because the OP did not ask what they should multiclass into in order to maximise their damage; they asked how to play their Bard in combat.
Characters: Bullette, Chortle, Dracarys Noir, Edward Merryspell, Habard Ashery, Legion, Peregrine
My Homebrew: Feats | Items | Monsters | Spells | Subclasses | Races
Guides: Creating Sub-Races Using Trait Options
WIP (feedback needed): Blood Mage, Chromatic Sorcerers, Summoner, Trickster Domain, Unlucky, Way of the Daoist (Drunken Master), Weapon Smith
Please don't reply to my posts unless you've read what they actually say.
Well, good thing I'm not talking about maximizing damage. OP asked how to utilize a bard in combat, and I'm glad to see they've made their decision. But, for posterity's sake, my answer is not just for OP, but for any bard who wonders if there's more to combat than casting a big concentration spell followed by a combination of help, dodge, VM, bardics, and of course, the singular shot from a +1 or +2 crossbow shot cause that's super important to mention.
For if someone is asking how to perform in combat, it's because a bard's given tools are not so intuitive. Nobody asks a wizard, for example, how to play during combat. You got your trusty firebolt in that case in between control spells. No one asks how you play a cleric in combat, even when that class is purported as a support class, because it has an intuitive sustainable damage option like toll the dead or sacred flame. But bard? Well dude, if someone asks me how to play a bard in combat, my answer's going to be "look at light multiclassing options, because the chassis doesn't quite do it." And you know something? It's a very valid argument with few holes, aside from the accusations of being a power gamer or irrelevant opinions of calling it boring (as if declaring "I use the help action" is very fun for the sake of fulfilling a ""support"" role) or homogenized.
But let's get something straight, what I suggested ultimately results in a bard that can deal the bare minimum of acceptable damage. If a bard gained access to EB+AB via multclassing and feats, you know something, it's still A sub-par damage option. Rangers, one of the classes you see a lot of people give flack for being weak, are capable of some serious numbers via CBE+SS+archery fighting style that completely outstrips whatever EB+AB does, with hex. If I build a swords bard multi'd with fighter to make use of a GWM build, well, it's still inferior compared to a specialized martial. Still, it has the option to use GWM for something decent.
And that's all I'm arguing for. Minimal investment for something decent. Let's not get ahead of ourselves and start flashing our crosses at the argument by saying it's propagating a powergamer's message.
And this is where you're going so wrong; you're not in the least bit interested in considering what a Bard's abilities actually do.
If I Cutting Words an enemy attack to prevent an ally from being downed, then I've not only saved myself a casting of Healing Word on a later turn, I may have also given that ally an entire extra turn to deal damage. That's extra damage that I've caused as a Bard. That's my damage. This is why College of Lore is one of my favourite sub-classes for Bard, even though I've played just about all of them.
Same if I give use regular inspiration to let an ally turn a miss into a hit. That hit is mine, I as a Bard did that. Their damage on that hit is my damage.
Same rule applies to Vicious Mockery; if an enemy attack misses because of it, and an ally stays in the fight as a result then their damage is mine, or at the very least I've saved on healing that needs to be done later. While taking an enemy out sooner can achieve a similar result, doing extra damage yourself isn't going to hasten it along all that much as we're not talking big differences here even with VM's small damage dice. Meanwhile your allies are taking more damage, probably a lot more damage than the extra damage you're doing in return. This is where the value of Vicious Mockery comes from; it doesn't matter if enemies get multiattack (because actually you get enemies with multiattack really early on), because the damage that those enemies are doing per hit is getting higher as well, so forcing misses still matters. While the tipping point is complicated (since VM's damage is the part that scales, and that part hardly matters), we're also talking about a class that can take spells (including cantrips) from other classes at higher levels as standard, so if you really need a better cantrip. Take one.
Or you can just use your weapon, because this a perfectly valid use of your action as a Bard if there's nothing to Countercharm.
And these are all examples on top whatever control spell you're using, not instead of.
This is why it's so, so wrong to look at per round damage from a Bard directly, because your damage is every extra point of damage your party deals because of you. Again, Bard is arguably one of the highest damage classes in the game if you pay attention to what it actually does in combat.
Now I'm not saying a Warlock dip is a bad option, but if you're doing it just to do some extra direct damage then it's not a price you should pay IMO; if it's for theme, or for certain fun combos or extra spells you can get access to then have at it, go nuts, have fun. But sacrificing your Bardic level progression to "fix" a problem that doesn't really exist is a lot less valuable than you may think.
Characters: Bullette, Chortle, Dracarys Noir, Edward Merryspell, Habard Ashery, Legion, Peregrine
My Homebrew: Feats | Items | Monsters | Spells | Subclasses | Races
Guides: Creating Sub-Races Using Trait Options
WIP (feedback needed): Blood Mage, Chromatic Sorcerers, Summoner, Trickster Domain, Unlucky, Way of the Daoist (Drunken Master), Weapon Smith
Please don't reply to my posts unless you've read what they actually say.
Cgarciao, I really think and correct me if I'm wrong but I really think that you have spent too much time thinking about one-on-one fights or reading people who analyze one-on-one fights and somehow have forgotten that a party doesn't fight as a bunch of one-on-one fights. They fight as a party
Haravikk is right in that damage which might appear to be some other PC's is actually yours if it wouldnothavehappened without you
"Why is it so wrong to customize the bard in a way to give us better damage options? No one bats a single eye if look at the other side of the spectrum. Take the fighter, for example. It's designed to do damage, and not much else-- yet we could build it to gain utility."
Way to misread me. There's absolutely nothing wrong with building towards a certain speciality. Where you're going wrong is thinking that you ought to be able to do more than you already can. A utility-focused Fighter is going to be about as good at utility, as a damage-focused Bard would be at damage. If your straw man was real, he'd be saying "Fighters should be allowed the entire Bard spell list and slots progression, plus Expertise and Jack of All Trades. Sure, I can get some of that by taking feats and multiclassing, but it's not good enough. Why should Fighters be locked out of one of the core pillars of the game?"