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. 😝
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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 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. 😝
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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?
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.
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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.
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"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?"
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
Believe me when I say that's just not the case at all. Sure, I've only been playing this game for about a year now, but in that time I've played (thanks to AL) in so many tables with so many different compositions. It's remarkable what you learn from that kind of experience, and you know something? You learn that no matter the composition your party has, you're gonna be fine. You're gonna make it! Things will work out, one way or another.
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 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.
Well, it's a good thing bardic inspiration is a bonus action to use, eh? Now I can use my action to do something cool instead of some whedon-esque, quippy, cringey remark. My party's damage can still be "mine." I can also do good damage too! I can have my cake and eat it too. Oh, what's that? Someone took damage? Oh no! Anyways, nothing a short rest/healing word/potions can't fix. Moving on!
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.
You can't take an invocation that has a prerequisite (like Agonizing Blast) unless you take a level in Warlock.
Well, it's a good thing bardic inspiration is a bonus action to use, eh? Now I can use my action to do something cool instead of some whedon-esque, quippy, cringey remark.
This. This is your problem right here. The idea that playing your Bard as being a Bard is somehow not "cool". If the only thing that's "cool" in your mind is dealing direct damage yourself then you should not be playing a Bard; a fighter with a big axe or a blaster caster instead.
My party's damage can still be "mine." I can also do good damage too! I can have my cake and eat it too. Oh, what's that? Someone took damage? Oh no! Anyways, nothing a short rest/healing word/potions can't fix. Moving on!
Sure, because Healing Word doesn't require a finite resource, administering potions doesn't require your action, and you can 100% take a short rest in the middle of a fight. Right? 🤔
Do you really not understand the benefit of preventing an ally from going down as opposed to wasting a spell slot or your action (plus probably their entire turn as well in both cases) just to get them back into the fight? By focusing on doing a tiny bit of extra direct damage because apparently that's the only thing that's "cool" in your mind, you've potentially cost your party far more damage lost due to damage sustained.
If you can't enjoy being a Bard without dealing a tiny amount of extra damage personally then have at it, it's your choice to make (but again, not what the OP was asking about); however, you need to understand that if you're not doing it for clear character driven reasons then you're doing it for the wrong reasons, and you don't optimise a Bard by being less of a Bard. And once again, for the hundredth time now, you don't even need to multiclass to get the cantrips you're obsessed with, and if you need a damage dealing option you can already use a weapon against targets that aren't susceptible to Vicious Mockery (or if you decide not to take that).
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
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Well, it's a good thing bardic inspiration is a bonus action to use, eh? Now I can use my action to do something cool instead of some whedon-esque, quippy, cringey remark.
This. This is your problem right here. The idea that playing your Bard as being a Bard is somehow not "cool". If the only thing that's "cool" in your mind is dealing direct damage yourself then you should not be playing a Bard; a fighter with a big axe or a blaster caster instead.
My party's damage can still be "mine." I can also do good damage too! I can have my cake and eat it too. Oh, what's that? Someone took damage? Oh no! Anyways, nothing a short rest/healing word/potions can't fix. Moving on!
Sure, because Healing Word doesn't require a finite resource, administering potions doesn't require your action, and you can 100% take a short rest in the middle of a fight. Right? 🤔
Do you really not understand the benefit of preventing an ally from going down as opposed to wasting a spell slot or your action (plus probably their entire turn as well in both cases) just to get them back into the fight? By focusing on doing a tiny bit of extra direct damage because apparently that's the only thing that's "cool" in your mind, you've potentially cost your party far more damage lost due to damage sustained.
If you can't enjoy being a Bard without dealing a tiny amount of extra damage personally then have at it, it's your choice to make (but again, not what the OP was asking about); however, you need to understand that if you're not doing it for clear character driven reasons then you're doing it for the wrong reasons, and you don't optimise a Bard by being less of a Bard. And once again, for the hundredth time now, you don't even need to multiclass to get the cantrips you're obsessed with, and if you need a damage dealing option you can already use a weapon against targets that aren't susceptible to Vicious Mockery (or if you decide not to take that).
Why are we still bringing up OP's initial request when he's long since been satisfied and made his mind? Again, this is going beyond that and into the realm of advice in general. Anyways.
Wrong reasons, right reasons, none of that is relevant here. What I should or should not be playing is my business, and my business alone. You want combat advice? I got combat advice. You want to adhere to some construct of what should or should not be a bard, you can look anywhere else. You know what prevents an ally from taking damage more than vicious mockery? Killing it. You could either prolong a fight and impose disadvantage, or you could become a contributing member of the firing squad.
Suppose you are ahead of initiative, followed by an enemy, then your ally. Somewhere in tier 2. Now, imagine that creature had 15 HP remaining, and it has multi attack. Let's assume your VM works, and your turn ends. Now, the creature goes for your ally, and misses his first attack, then lands the second. Sure, you prevented some damage, but if you had EB+AB, you'd likely have prevented all the damage. See how that works? Then your ally just sighs and finishes the job you couldn't, all the while you think to yourself "Yup, his damage? All mine, baby!" but everyone quietly knows the truth. that's action economy 101, Brah!
Also, how many times do I need to repeat myself that 1, not every bard is a lore bard, and 2, taking a cantrip like EB via secrets is bad and sub-optimal due to no agonizing blast invocation?
Pretty much where I'm at. Support character is fine, but should not be all-encompassing, completely defining, and so restrictive. Wizards are support characters. Clerics are support characters. Both of those classes also have easily obtained consistent direct damage cantrips that make them useful at all times in all circumstances in combat.
What if you come up against monsters that are immune to charm? Hypnotic pattern becomes useless then. You can cast Bane or Bless. OK, that's your concentration slot. Now what do you do round to round? Deliver Shakespearean insults and do 2d4 damage and grant disadvantage to a single attack? Weeee! The Swords bard can attack. The Whispers Bard can use their inspiration die to give a sort of sneak attack (so they can do cool stuff with their action when they've done their job as a Bard).
Damage dealing should be as much a part of the job as any other aspect of playing a Bard. If we're jacks of all trades, we're kind of missing a trade. Mind Sliver would solve it.
I literally didn't do so once in the entire post you quoted.
Wrong reasons, right reasons, none of that is relevant here. What I should or should not be playing is my business, and my business alone.
Not when you're proposing it as a solution to a problem that doesn't exist; again, I have said multiple times that I'm not opposed to multiclassing, but if you're doing it just to get a little extra damage that you think you're lacking then you're doing it for the wrong reason. If it's for character reasons, or because you want to get access to a feature you can't with Bard alone, then fine (though again, there's no spell that you can't already get as a Bard), but those need to the be the reasons, not "here is how to 'fix' Bard".
You want combat advice? I got combat advice. You want to adhere to some construct of what should or should not be a bard, you can look anywhere else. You know what prevents an ally from taking damage more than vicious mockery? Killing it. You could either prolong a fight and impose disadvantage, or you could become a contributing member of the firing squad.
You are a contributing member of the squad; why is this so difficult for you to grasp? Why are you here posting on a thread about a support class if you don't understand the concept, role, function or abilities of support classes?
Sure, killing something can prevent damage, but you can't guarantee that, especially not with a Bard's single weapon attack which is in most cases more likely to miss than a target is likely to fail its Wisdom saving throw. And yet again, for what feels now like the billionth time; Vicious Mockery and weapon attacks are not mutually exclusive, a Bard can 100,000% have access to and use both, and pick the one that fits the current situation.
Eldritch Blast may have the virtue of multiple beams at later levels, but until it does it's basically equivalent to a weapon attack, even with Agonizing Blast. Not only can you get it without multiclassing, you can also do it without making yourself worse as a Bard (i.e- delaying access to better control spells). This is why multiclassing isn't a quick fix, especially if you need two levels, a feat or a race to get Agonizing Blast as well.
Suppose you are ahead of initiative, followed by an enemy, then your ally. Somewhere in tier 2. Now, imagine that creature had 15 HP remaining, and it has multi attack. Let's assume your VM works, and your turn ends. Now, the creature goes for your ally, and misses his first attack, then lands the second. Sure, you prevented some damage, but if you had EB+AB, you'd likely have prevented all the damage. See how that works? Then your ally just sighs and finishes the job you couldn't, all the while you think to yourself "Yup, his damage? All mine, baby!" but everyone quietly knows the truth. that's action economy 101, Brah!
Sure, let's assume the most favourable possible scenario for your argument and ignore the rest.
Let's imagine instead that you're facing off against an enemy with three attacks, and way more hitpoints than you can kill in one round. Your ally can survive two hits but they'll go down if they take three (or six, or nine, over however many rounds the fight will last). By dealing damage instead of helping your ally you'll let them go down, lose their entire turn, then waste your turn bringing them back up. In return for a small amount of extra damage dealt you've done far less.
You also can't assume that the enemy's second attack is the one that will hit after the first misses; or that you'll hit with Eldritch Blast. Again, many enemies are more likely to fail their Wisdom save than you are to hit them; that won't be true of all enemies (in which case have at it, you can take weapons, and you can even take other cantrips at certain levels including Eldritch Blast).
And let's also remember that to get your Eldritch Blast you've delayed your spell progression, so your control spells are worse, meaning you have to work twice as hard to cover for the gaps you've left; it's strange to try and argue that you can do more with Eldritch Blast if you only need to do more because you've multiclassed to get it. Because additional levels in Bard progression make you a stronger caster, with better control spells, so you shouldn't have to kill as many enemies. 😝
And let's be absolutely clear here; I am not advocating that every Bard should take Vicious Mockery (I haven't on several of my Bards) and I have repeatedly said that I do not advocate using it exclusively (you can and should have other options). What I am sick of is people undervaluing what it does, and how it synergises with what Bards do best, because all those people care about is damage and nothing else, and don't seem to value any of what can Bards do to begin with.
Also, how many times do I need to repeat myself that 1, not every bard is a lore bard, and 2, taking a cantrip like EB via secrets is bad and sub-optimal due to no agonizing blast invocation?
Except it's not, because taking the level to do it means losing out on your Bard feature and spell progression; you get all new spell levels every two levels you take, and these represent major increases in strength, your Bardic inspiration increases, you gain new abilities etc. Multiclassing always means sacrificing something, it's not a zero-cost operation; you may want to focus only on what you gain, but that doesn't change the fact that you do lose things in return.
Magical Secrets is one of those things you delay, which means delaying access not only to multiclassing-free Eldritch Blast if you really need it so badly, but also access to literally any spell you want.
And no, not every bard is College of Lore, but College of Lore was supposedly the whole point of this entire "Bards should have a blaster" option issue; College of Lore is the blaster option because you can take two extra spells (including cantrips, one of which can be Eldritch Blast if you need it so badly) from any spell list you like at 6th level, i.e- right after cantrips have levelled up for the first time.
But I'm getting real sick of going round in circles on this; I've played three Bards into tier 3 play, and another three in one-shots (some recurring), as well as a couple of "let's all try some UA" sessions to check out newer stuff.
I multiclassed on one of those; a College of Lore Bard who took one level in Rogue mainly for the extra Expertise (we didn't have Skill Expert back then, but I'd probably still have done it if we had). I got what I wanted out of it, and even at only d6 the Sneak Attack stacked with Green Flame Blade for darting into melee alongside the party's proper Rogue which had its moment on my glass cannon (-1 CON) Bard. But delaying Additional Magical Secrets sucked hard, so did being a level behind in progression compared to the other caster in the party (a Druid), as well as being behind as a Bard (which includes delaying Ability Score Increases), and that was just one level.
But I did that for character reasons (character was more con artist/thief than musician), and I still stand by that choice for that reason as I had a lot of fun playing as the character, even though mechanically I'd made him a worse Bard. But I'll never recommend multiclassing for any other reason on a Bard, unless what you want to play as isn't really a Bard to begin with.
Because if you want to be a Bard but a bit more fighty, we've got sub-classes for that (Swords and Valor), and if you want to be more blaster-caster, go Lore and take what you want at 6th level rather than hobbling your Bard progression. This is a big part of why you should only Multiclass a Bard if you have a very clear character reason.
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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. 😝
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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.
Shove is good because prone creates disadvantages on all attacks instead of one, costs movement to correct, and gives allies advantage on attacks (for a better damage increase than the vicious mockery damage). That's all for the same action cost as vicious mockery when it comes to action economy.
I wasn't thinking that the disadvantage needed to come specifically from the bard because it doesn't stack regardless of who in the party inflicts it (for example, armorers in guardian are good at it), but a bard can be great if built that way. Static DC results leave expertise as minor, but opposed checks is where it shines. The tanking valor bard build I was discussing in the tank bard thread uses expertise in athletics so the DC opponents need to check against goes up twice proficiency as opposed to the single proficiency vicious mockery DC's do.
Even the typical bard can apply jack-of-all-trades because most monsters do not have skill proficiencies or a big ability score bonus either. About 50% success chance with no investment instead of 65% at low level after selecting a cantrip known doesn't seem like a great deal to me either.
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 bard can still do that with shove if someone else is causing prone. All bards have the action and all bards add the jack-of-all-trades bonus when it comes down to it. Getting better at shoving take a small investment for a better return than spending the cantrip known.
This is true for rogues too. A 14 STR rogue with expertise in athletics has +6 to checks on shoving and grappling at 1st level. That's ~66% chance to shove targets prone that have a +2 bonus to the check, or the same as casting a spell from a caster with a 16 casting stat.
Bards with extra attack at 6th level take this a step farther. A 6th level bard can easily have a +9 bonus to athletics on this type of build so the average check targets are rolling to break against is 19 DC and ahead of 15 DC spells at that level. TCoE added Enlarge/Reduce to the bard spell list and picking that up works around size restrictions plus adds advantage to the checks. That grappler build has ~77% success rate before advantage on the checks compared to 70% for the caster, plus multiple attempts.
A grappled target has a speed of 0 and cannot stand up from prone. A target suffering from both conditions is forced to spend an action to break the grapple (ie no attacks) or continue to attack with disadvantage while being attacked with advantage and continue to have no movement as well.
It takes no action to maintain those conditions. The grapple remains in effect until the target breaks it, the grappler ends it, or forced movement moves the opponents away from each other. That means while the bard is spending actions every turn to cast vicious mockery and the grappling build is maintaining that effect and also taking other actions.
As we advance farther to the 14th level valor bard, that means maintaining the grapple and taking 2 attacks or casting a spell and then spending a bonus action to make an attack. This does require a free hand that was needed for the grapple and the other free hand to cast the spell or hold the weapon for attacking, so there is a concession on the shield bonus to AC. My stance is the disadvantage on attacks is worth enough.
A 16 STR valor bard at 14th level taking advantage of that has an average 23 DC on grappling compared to the 18 DC spell saves. The difference is ~89% success on grapple / shove checks before advantage and 85% on failed saves with no bonus at this point.
A person can do this on a lore bard too but likely gives up STR bonus and extra attack makes a difference. The advantage is applying cutting words and / or peerless skill later to cover that gap (only when necessary). Without using those resources and no STR bonus the lore bard has about 5% lower success rate over casting vicious mockery but advantage is still easy to get, the lack of actions required to maintain the effect is better action economy, and the effects are still better.
If I am spending my action economy on creating disadvantage with an at-will ability, the grappler builds do it better. Better success rate, better effects, better action economy. This does require expertise in athletics, but with all the skill benefits available that's less of an opportunity cost than the limited number of cantrips.
I can do this on a fighter too. ;-)
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 start with a weapon. It can be any one of a number of weapons. Crossbows are simple weapons and if you make a bard using the character creator on this site you can choose light crossbow as starting equipment by using the simple weapon drop down.
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.
The prone method lets them attack with advantage as well as get attacked with disadvantage. It's more effects for the action cost. Using vicious mockery doesn't help the rest of the party hit that high AC target either, but the bard who went that route (or any other route to increase the chance to hit said target) will take advantage of that too.
It's worth mentioning as well that I gave math on the low save / high AC targets already and hitting less often for more damage brings the average damage a lot closer to vicious mockery damage but that's when it's only slightly better to use a weapon. That was also without advantage. To do more damage with vicious mockery we would be looking at AC's we won't find at those lower levels.
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.
I was thinking about the rest of the party. It was part of my consideration when pointing out that disadvantage doesn't stack. It doesn't matter who created that disadvantage or how. Once it's been applied then vicious mockery has 0 use on that target other than some of the worst damage possible.
On that same note, my fighter using a shield and dueling to block a choke point doesn't need the opponents on the other side having one attack with disadvantage. He needs the attackers gone and has a high enough AC that that single instance of disadvantage does little. And if he does need disadvantage he can rely on the dodge action to do it while he safely blocks the choke point and lets the party in the back safely attack from behind.
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).
I don't disagree with this, but the vicious mockery example doesn't do both advantage attacking and damage at the same time either, or create advantage and disadvantage. The problem here is that there are many ways to create advantage too, like the help action example.
Prone gives advantage and disadvantage at the same time, and allows the bard to also attack while the conditions exist.
Compared to that a non Swords/Valor Bard's ability to deal damage with or without a weapon can be somewhat inconsequential.
That hasn't been demonstrated in your points. How can d8+3 matter on one class (it's common through the first and second tier of the game) but not another? One more attack matters so much that most characters are looking at ways to add one more attack via bonus action if they can.
It's more effective to drop fodder faster with that attack than to create disadvantage and not drop fodder. I demonstrated that earlier. Depending on how long a big hit point target will last it can be better to inflict more damage or better to create disadvantage, but the grappler builds using prone do both.
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.
Yes. I quoted someone who said lore bards should use vicious mockery most of the time. It probably got lost or forgotten in the string of quotes but it should still be there. ;-)
I don't think a person needs either vicious mockery or eldritch blast. That might be a different discussion, however.
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?
On the contrary, if you look back at the thread on bard tanking I pointed out that bards are generally better served using status effects. Vicious mockery isn't one of those cases because it takes from a limited selection of cantrips known to create a restricted version of a status effect that's common.
It's not a tirade or rant or anything else like that. It's an opinion that I've been supporting by demonstrating probability and alternatives to vicious mockery. The silly part would be stating you can have a weapon but arguing that you shouldn't use it because of bad damage or other combat actions. ;-)
Also, I pointed out that you can select the crossbow as a simple weapon in the character creation process. Or other weapon.
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.
High AC targets don't have high skill check bonuses because proficiency is not the norm and the AC is not part of the grappling / shoving prone checks either. I can spend my action on a bard PC waiting for a grappled opponent to make the escape check and helping the grappler maintain the grapple. That's going to keep the target prone while the grappler and everyone else gets attacked with disadvantage and attack with advantage.
Prone is a better condition and spending the action to help that way maintains it without any cost to the bard or any other character. 5 PC's who have darkvision who extinguish the opponents' like sources (situational) can give the whole party advantage and getting attacked with disadvantage. Dodging is a source of disadvantage. Blindness, darkness, fog, invisibility, fear, restrained, poisoned, etc. It's common to status effects. Spells can impose disadvantage.
I'm not saying don't use spells or cantrips that apply status effects or focus on weapons. I'm saying weapons are useful for at-will damage attacks when a person can fit them in than investing in damage cantrips, and that vicious mockery is not a good choice because of alternatives to the same effect that typically work better. I can make an armorer artificer spamming gauntlet attacks in guardian mode that does a better job.
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. 😝
Sure, at higher levels when spell slots become more readily available and a bard is not spending as much time on at-will attacks anymore. That's why weapon are good enough damage at low levels (close to everyone else) and not so important at higher levels. The difference is weapons are still lacking in the opportunity costs the limited cantrip choices create. By the time vicious mockery starts to become more useful or weapons become less useful for the bard neither is as important because of the spell slot availability increase.
This is the only post I had time to catch up on and reply to. I give you permission to feel honored. :P
I wasn't thinking that the disadvantage needed to come specifically from the bard because it doesn't stack regardless of who in the party inflicts it (for example, armorers in guardian are good at it), but a bard can be great if built that way. Static DC results leave expertise as minor, but opposed checks is where it shines. The tanking valor bard build I was discussing in the tank bard thread uses expertise in athletics so the DC opponents need to check against goes up twice proficiency as opposed to the single proficiency vicious mockery DC's do.
It only doesn't stack if your party is only facing a single target which isn't often going to be the case. Against any number above one you can absolutely benefit from more sources of disadvantage.
You're also talking about very specifically going out of your way to build a Bard purely for shoving, just to avoid taking Vicious Mockery which doesn't require you to (it only needs Charisma, which you'll want to be increasing anyway)? This is a really weird comparison to make. Plus any expertise you take to support the build means sacrificing something else; you're making a Bard who's going to have less utility outside of combat, just to build for a niche case in combat?
Even with the highest Athletics score you can manage, there are enemies that are straight up immune to being grappled/shoved due to size (more than one size larger than you), or have high enough Strength or Dexterity that a Wisdom save is still more likely to work against them.
The other problem with prone is that it's a very easy condition to end; the enemy just has to stand up. It's also heavily initiative order dependent. If you can't grapple them before they get back up then to get the maximum out of shoving them you need them to be right before you in the initiative order, and even then, that does nothing to protect yourself.
If you want to build an atypical Bard have it; I did basically this once with a Tortle Swords Bard who also made heavy use of Enlarge, he was a lot of fun, but I wouldn't call him an optimal Bard (in many cases the control and support role would have been much more valuable to the party overall, that just wasn't what I was trying to play). If not for his natural armour though I doubt he'd have had the staying power to survive long grappling or fighting up close, as by the time I had good Strength and Charisma I had to choose between Dexterity or Constitution, but most other races won't have the luxury of sacrificing Dexterity knowing their AC will still be good.
I'd hardly call this an optimal option; you're going well out of your way to build a very non-standard Bard that isn't going to fit a lot of people's themes, just to avoid using Vicious Mockery (which you don't even need to take)?
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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. 😝
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
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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 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. 😝
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
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?
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.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
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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.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
"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?"
Believe me when I say that's just not the case at all. Sure, I've only been playing this game for about a year now, but in that time I've played (thanks to AL) in so many tables with so many different compositions. It's remarkable what you learn from that kind of experience, and you know something? You learn that no matter the composition your party has, you're gonna be fine. You're gonna make it! Things will work out, one way or another.
Well, it's a good thing bardic inspiration is a bonus action to use, eh? Now I can use my action to do something cool instead of some whedon-esque, quippy, cringey remark. My party's damage can still be "mine." I can also do good damage too! I can have my cake and eat it too. Oh, what's that? Someone took damage? Oh no! Anyways, nothing a short rest/healing word/potions can't fix. Moving on!
You can't take an invocation that has a prerequisite (like Agonizing Blast) unless you take a level in Warlock.
This. This is your problem right here. The idea that playing your Bard as being a Bard is somehow not "cool". If the only thing that's "cool" in your mind is dealing direct damage yourself then you should not be playing a Bard; a fighter with a big axe or a blaster caster instead.
Sure, because Healing Word doesn't require a finite resource, administering potions doesn't require your action, and you can 100% take a short rest in the middle of a fight. Right? 🤔
Do you really not understand the benefit of preventing an ally from going down as opposed to wasting a spell slot or your action (plus probably their entire turn as well in both cases) just to get them back into the fight? By focusing on doing a tiny bit of extra direct damage because apparently that's the only thing that's "cool" in your mind, you've potentially cost your party far more damage lost due to damage sustained.
If you can't enjoy being a Bard without dealing a tiny amount of extra damage personally then have at it, it's your choice to make (but again, not what the OP was asking about); however, you need to understand that if you're not doing it for clear character driven reasons then you're doing it for the wrong reasons, and you don't optimise a Bard by being less of a Bard. And once again, for the hundredth time now, you don't even need to multiclass to get the cantrips you're obsessed with, and if you need a damage dealing option you can already use a weapon against targets that aren't susceptible to Vicious Mockery (or if you decide not to take that).
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
Why are we still bringing up OP's initial request when he's long since been satisfied and made his mind? Again, this is going beyond that and into the realm of advice in general. Anyways.
Wrong reasons, right reasons, none of that is relevant here. What I should or should not be playing is my business, and my business alone. You want combat advice? I got combat advice. You want to adhere to some construct of what should or should not be a bard, you can look anywhere else. You know what prevents an ally from taking damage more than vicious mockery? Killing it. You could either prolong a fight and impose disadvantage, or you could become a contributing member of the firing squad.
Suppose you are ahead of initiative, followed by an enemy, then your ally. Somewhere in tier 2. Now, imagine that creature had 15 HP remaining, and it has multi attack. Let's assume your VM works, and your turn ends. Now, the creature goes for your ally, and misses his first attack, then lands the second. Sure, you prevented some damage, but if you had EB+AB, you'd likely have prevented all the damage. See how that works? Then your ally just sighs and finishes the job you couldn't, all the while you think to yourself "Yup, his damage? All mine, baby!" but everyone quietly knows the truth. that's action economy 101, Brah!
Also, how many times do I need to repeat myself that 1, not every bard is a lore bard, and 2, taking a cantrip like EB via secrets is bad and sub-optimal due to no agonizing blast invocation?
Pretty much where I'm at. Support character is fine, but should not be all-encompassing, completely defining, and so restrictive. Wizards are support characters. Clerics are support characters. Both of those classes also have easily obtained consistent direct damage cantrips that make them useful at all times in all circumstances in combat.
What if you come up against monsters that are immune to charm? Hypnotic pattern becomes useless then. You can cast Bane or Bless. OK, that's your concentration slot. Now what do you do round to round? Deliver Shakespearean insults and do 2d4 damage and grant disadvantage to a single attack? Weeee! The Swords bard can attack. The Whispers Bard can use their inspiration die to give a sort of sneak attack (so they can do cool stuff with their action when they've done their job as a Bard).
Damage dealing should be as much a part of the job as any other aspect of playing a Bard. If we're jacks of all trades, we're kind of missing a trade. Mind Sliver would solve it.
Can I get a quick check-in on who's played a Bard and at what levels?
I can't claim to be a huge Bard player but I have gone 1 to 7 so far with the College of Spirits.
I literally didn't do so once in the entire post you quoted.
Not when you're proposing it as a solution to a problem that doesn't exist; again, I have said multiple times that I'm not opposed to multiclassing, but if you're doing it just to get a little extra damage that you think you're lacking then you're doing it for the wrong reason. If it's for character reasons, or because you want to get access to a feature you can't with Bard alone, then fine (though again, there's no spell that you can't already get as a Bard), but those need to the be the reasons, not "here is how to 'fix' Bard".
You are a contributing member of the squad; why is this so difficult for you to grasp? Why are you here posting on a thread about a support class if you don't understand the concept, role, function or abilities of support classes?
Sure, killing something can prevent damage, but you can't guarantee that, especially not with a Bard's single weapon attack which is in most cases more likely to miss than a target is likely to fail its Wisdom saving throw. And yet again, for what feels now like the billionth time; Vicious Mockery and weapon attacks are not mutually exclusive, a Bard can 100,000% have access to and use both, and pick the one that fits the current situation.
Eldritch Blast may have the virtue of multiple beams at later levels, but until it does it's basically equivalent to a weapon attack, even with Agonizing Blast. Not only can you get it without multiclassing, you can also do it without making yourself worse as a Bard (i.e- delaying access to better control spells). This is why multiclassing isn't a quick fix, especially if you need two levels, a feat or a race to get Agonizing Blast as well.
Sure, let's assume the most favourable possible scenario for your argument and ignore the rest.
Let's imagine instead that you're facing off against an enemy with three attacks, and way more hitpoints than you can kill in one round. Your ally can survive two hits but they'll go down if they take three (or six, or nine, over however many rounds the fight will last). By dealing damage instead of helping your ally you'll let them go down, lose their entire turn, then waste your turn bringing them back up. In return for a small amount of extra damage dealt you've done far less.
You also can't assume that the enemy's second attack is the one that will hit after the first misses; or that you'll hit with Eldritch Blast. Again, many enemies are more likely to fail their Wisdom save than you are to hit them; that won't be true of all enemies (in which case have at it, you can take weapons, and you can even take other cantrips at certain levels including Eldritch Blast).
And let's also remember that to get your Eldritch Blast you've delayed your spell progression, so your control spells are worse, meaning you have to work twice as hard to cover for the gaps you've left; it's strange to try and argue that you can do more with Eldritch Blast if you only need to do more because you've multiclassed to get it. Because additional levels in Bard progression make you a stronger caster, with better control spells, so you shouldn't have to kill as many enemies. 😝
And let's be absolutely clear here; I am not advocating that every Bard should take Vicious Mockery (I haven't on several of my Bards) and I have repeatedly said that I do not advocate using it exclusively (you can and should have other options). What I am sick of is people undervaluing what it does, and how it synergises with what Bards do best, because all those people care about is damage and nothing else, and don't seem to value any of what can Bards do to begin with.
Except it's not, because taking the level to do it means losing out on your Bard feature and spell progression; you get all new spell levels every two levels you take, and these represent major increases in strength, your Bardic inspiration increases, you gain new abilities etc. Multiclassing always means sacrificing something, it's not a zero-cost operation; you may want to focus only on what you gain, but that doesn't change the fact that you do lose things in return.
Magical Secrets is one of those things you delay, which means delaying access not only to multiclassing-free Eldritch Blast if you really need it so badly, but also access to literally any spell you want.
And no, not every bard is College of Lore, but College of Lore was supposedly the whole point of this entire "Bards should have a blaster" option issue; College of Lore is the blaster option because you can take two extra spells (including cantrips, one of which can be Eldritch Blast if you need it so badly) from any spell list you like at 6th level, i.e- right after cantrips have levelled up for the first time.
But I'm getting real sick of going round in circles on this; I've played three Bards into tier 3 play, and another three in one-shots (some recurring), as well as a couple of "let's all try some UA" sessions to check out newer stuff.
I multiclassed on one of those; a College of Lore Bard who took one level in Rogue mainly for the extra Expertise (we didn't have Skill Expert back then, but I'd probably still have done it if we had). I got what I wanted out of it, and even at only d6 the Sneak Attack stacked with Green Flame Blade for darting into melee alongside the party's proper Rogue which had its moment on my glass cannon (-1 CON) Bard. But delaying Additional Magical Secrets sucked hard, so did being a level behind in progression compared to the other caster in the party (a Druid), as well as being behind as a Bard (which includes delaying Ability Score Increases), and that was just one level.
But I did that for character reasons (character was more con artist/thief than musician), and I still stand by that choice for that reason as I had a lot of fun playing as the character, even though mechanically I'd made him a worse Bard. But I'll never recommend multiclassing for any other reason on a Bard, unless what you want to play as isn't really a Bard to begin with.
Because if you want to be a Bard but a bit more fighty, we've got sub-classes for that (Swords and Valor), and if you want to be more blaster-caster, go Lore and take what you want at 6th level rather than hobbling your Bard progression. This is a big part of why you should only Multiclass a Bard if you have a very clear character reason.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
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Shove is good because prone creates disadvantages on all attacks instead of one, costs movement to correct, and gives allies advantage on attacks (for a better damage increase than the vicious mockery damage). That's all for the same action cost as vicious mockery when it comes to action economy.
I wasn't thinking that the disadvantage needed to come specifically from the bard because it doesn't stack regardless of who in the party inflicts it (for example, armorers in guardian are good at it), but a bard can be great if built that way. Static DC results leave expertise as minor, but opposed checks is where it shines. The tanking valor bard build I was discussing in the tank bard thread uses expertise in athletics so the DC opponents need to check against goes up twice proficiency as opposed to the single proficiency vicious mockery DC's do.
Even the typical bard can apply jack-of-all-trades because most monsters do not have skill proficiencies or a big ability score bonus either. About 50% success chance with no investment instead of 65% at low level after selecting a cantrip known doesn't seem like a great deal to me either.
The bard can still do that with shove if someone else is causing prone. All bards have the action and all bards add the jack-of-all-trades bonus when it comes down to it. Getting better at shoving take a small investment for a better return than spending the cantrip known.
This is true for rogues too. A 14 STR rogue with expertise in athletics has +6 to checks on shoving and grappling at 1st level. That's ~66% chance to shove targets prone that have a +2 bonus to the check, or the same as casting a spell from a caster with a 16 casting stat.
Bards with extra attack at 6th level take this a step farther. A 6th level bard can easily have a +9 bonus to athletics on this type of build so the average check targets are rolling to break against is 19 DC and ahead of 15 DC spells at that level. TCoE added Enlarge/Reduce to the bard spell list and picking that up works around size restrictions plus adds advantage to the checks. That grappler build has ~77% success rate before advantage on the checks compared to 70% for the caster, plus multiple attempts.
A grappled target has a speed of 0 and cannot stand up from prone. A target suffering from both conditions is forced to spend an action to break the grapple (ie no attacks) or continue to attack with disadvantage while being attacked with advantage and continue to have no movement as well.
It takes no action to maintain those conditions. The grapple remains in effect until the target breaks it, the grappler ends it, or forced movement moves the opponents away from each other. That means while the bard is spending actions every turn to cast vicious mockery and the grappling build is maintaining that effect and also taking other actions.
As we advance farther to the 14th level valor bard, that means maintaining the grapple and taking 2 attacks or casting a spell and then spending a bonus action to make an attack. This does require a free hand that was needed for the grapple and the other free hand to cast the spell or hold the weapon for attacking, so there is a concession on the shield bonus to AC. My stance is the disadvantage on attacks is worth enough.
A 16 STR valor bard at 14th level taking advantage of that has an average 23 DC on grappling compared to the 18 DC spell saves. The difference is ~89% success on grapple / shove checks before advantage and 85% on failed saves with no bonus at this point.
A person can do this on a lore bard too but likely gives up STR bonus and extra attack makes a difference. The advantage is applying cutting words and / or peerless skill later to cover that gap (only when necessary). Without using those resources and no STR bonus the lore bard has about 5% lower success rate over casting vicious mockery but advantage is still easy to get, the lack of actions required to maintain the effect is better action economy, and the effects are still better.
If I am spending my action economy on creating disadvantage with an at-will ability, the grappler builds do it better. Better success rate, better effects, better action economy. This does require expertise in athletics, but with all the skill benefits available that's less of an opportunity cost than the limited number of cantrips.
I can do this on a fighter too. ;-)
Bards start with a weapon. It can be any one of a number of weapons. Crossbows are simple weapons and if you make a bard using the character creator on this site you can choose light crossbow as starting equipment by using the simple weapon drop down.
The prone method lets them attack with advantage as well as get attacked with disadvantage. It's more effects for the action cost. Using vicious mockery doesn't help the rest of the party hit that high AC target either, but the bard who went that route (or any other route to increase the chance to hit said target) will take advantage of that too.
It's worth mentioning as well that I gave math on the low save / high AC targets already and hitting less often for more damage brings the average damage a lot closer to vicious mockery damage but that's when it's only slightly better to use a weapon. That was also without advantage. To do more damage with vicious mockery we would be looking at AC's we won't find at those lower levels.
I was thinking about the rest of the party. It was part of my consideration when pointing out that disadvantage doesn't stack. It doesn't matter who created that disadvantage or how. Once it's been applied then vicious mockery has 0 use on that target other than some of the worst damage possible.
On that same note, my fighter using a shield and dueling to block a choke point doesn't need the opponents on the other side having one attack with disadvantage. He needs the attackers gone and has a high enough AC that that single instance of disadvantage does little. And if he does need disadvantage he can rely on the dodge action to do it while he safely blocks the choke point and lets the party in the back safely attack from behind.
I don't disagree with this, but the vicious mockery example doesn't do both advantage attacking and damage at the same time either, or create advantage and disadvantage. The problem here is that there are many ways to create advantage too, like the help action example.
Prone gives advantage and disadvantage at the same time, and allows the bard to also attack while the conditions exist.
That hasn't been demonstrated in your points. How can d8+3 matter on one class (it's common through the first and second tier of the game) but not another? One more attack matters so much that most characters are looking at ways to add one more attack via bonus action if they can.
It's more effective to drop fodder faster with that attack than to create disadvantage and not drop fodder. I demonstrated that earlier. Depending on how long a big hit point target will last it can be better to inflict more damage or better to create disadvantage, but the grappler builds using prone do both.
Yes. I quoted someone who said lore bards should use vicious mockery most of the time. It probably got lost or forgotten in the string of quotes but it should still be there. ;-)
I don't think a person needs either vicious mockery or eldritch blast. That might be a different discussion, however.
On the contrary, if you look back at the thread on bard tanking I pointed out that bards are generally better served using status effects. Vicious mockery isn't one of those cases because it takes from a limited selection of cantrips known to create a restricted version of a status effect that's common.
It's not a tirade or rant or anything else like that. It's an opinion that I've been supporting by demonstrating probability and alternatives to vicious mockery. The silly part would be stating you can have a weapon but arguing that you shouldn't use it because of bad damage or other combat actions. ;-)
Also, I pointed out that you can select the crossbow as a simple weapon in the character creation process. Or other weapon.
High AC targets don't have high skill check bonuses because proficiency is not the norm and the AC is not part of the grappling / shoving prone checks either. I can spend my action on a bard PC waiting for a grappled opponent to make the escape check and helping the grappler maintain the grapple. That's going to keep the target prone while the grappler and everyone else gets attacked with disadvantage and attack with advantage.
Prone is a better condition and spending the action to help that way maintains it without any cost to the bard or any other character. 5 PC's who have darkvision who extinguish the opponents' like sources (situational) can give the whole party advantage and getting attacked with disadvantage. Dodging is a source of disadvantage. Blindness, darkness, fog, invisibility, fear, restrained, poisoned, etc. It's common to status effects. Spells can impose disadvantage.
I'm not saying don't use spells or cantrips that apply status effects or focus on weapons. I'm saying weapons are useful for at-will damage attacks when a person can fit them in than investing in damage cantrips, and that vicious mockery is not a good choice because of alternatives to the same effect that typically work better. I can make an armorer artificer spamming gauntlet attacks in guardian mode that does a better job.
Sure, at higher levels when spell slots become more readily available and a bard is not spending as much time on at-will attacks anymore. That's why weapon are good enough damage at low levels (close to everyone else) and not so important at higher levels. The difference is weapons are still lacking in the opportunity costs the limited cantrip choices create. By the time vicious mockery starts to become more useful or weapons become less useful for the bard neither is as important because of the spell slot availability increase.
This is the only post I had time to catch up on and reply to. I give you permission to feel honored. :P
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.