I get a sense you don't play Bards much, or maybe you play a lot so your familiarity with Bards is not so good. I play Bards, Paladins and Clerics mostly, and of these I play Bards most.
So Bards don't get Bless, and this is one reason I wonder about how frequently you play a Bard.
At lower levels, my Go-to start of combat is to see how many enemies we are facing. Usually that is a lot of enemies and our ability to lock them down isn't so good because we're in open terrain (my DM gives mostly outdoor encounters and mostly in the open). With many enemies, I would cast Bane first to use the affected enemies as blockers for the unaffected enemies. Then, depending on the situation, I have several options. I might cast more spells, particularly Dissonant Whispers, if I think the spell slots are warranted. I might use my light crossbow. I may even pull out my rapier and step in if I think I can deliver a coup-de-grace. And I play Lore Bards because I enjoy the RP, and I'm still willing to step in with my rapier wearing my leather armor. I just have to hope I don't get clobbered in one shot when I do this.
While I am doing this I can use bardic Inspiration to help the other players as a Bonus Action, and I can use Cutting Words to protect myself or a party member (often) as a reaction. I find Cutting Words is worth saving Bardic Inspiration slots to use. If I am able to conserve spell slots, I can use Healing Word as a Bonus Action to give a party member a chance to jump back in the fight. Our DM allows the consumption of a healing potion as a bonus action, so if I get a party member up they can also help themselves.
All of this, and I still choose to use VM to deliver disadvantage from time to time. It is all part of the toolbox.
Would I like to have another high damage cantrip? Absolutely I would. I would prefer to have something better than my crossbow for range or a different type of damage. But I still prefer to play a bard without all these things. In all honesty, I probably should try a Swords bard just to see how it goes. I am an unusual Bard in that I will rush up with just my rapier if I think it is the right thing at the right time. But playing Swords Bard means I lose the extra proficiencies and Cutting Words, and the extra Magic Secrets. I really like having those things, so walking away from that is a price for me to pay.
Playing a Tank Bard is very much against type. If you want to be a Tank, play something that makes being a tank easy. As it says in the Bible, "Don't kick against the prick." I think the idea of that sentence is, don't go charging into a spear wall.
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I've been playing a bard myself for the better part of the year, working our way through Rime of the Frostmaiden. We're in the endgame of that now. I've also played alongside and DM'd for bards. I assure you I am very familiar with 5E. I have a high level wizard as well, about to complete the high level adventures in Candlekeep mysteries. I don't know why you have the impression I'm somehow inexperienced, but I'm not.
Bless is available to every bard. Because every spell is. But bless could also be Aid or any other buff. It could also be any other concentration debuff or buff. It's just one of many options bards have for their concentration slot to affect the outcomes of combat. Cutting words is the way I spend the lion's share of my Inspiration dice on a given game night, hands down. You're describing a lot of things I am well aware of.
We don't have any high damage cantrips. We need at least one. Frankly, Booming Blade is appropriate for Bards, as is Mind Sliver, and as I argued earlier Lore Bards should have Lesser Magical Secrets at 3rd level and maybe get a choice from other classes. Swords bards (and Valor) to a certain extent seem to me to be a stronger midgame option than Lore (I know that runs against common wisdom) because you can always use your action to bring enemies closer to nonfunctional (which entirely removes any damage they may do to the party). Nothing cripples the action economy of the bad guys more in the party's favor than the bad guys being dead, and helping to achieve that goal while limiting their power or boosting your party's power is important.
Lore Bards are clearly the spellcasting specialists. All the other subclasses embody different aspects of the class. That's why I think there should be one more magical secret at 3rd. Let Lore bards sit back and cast Eldritch Blasts or Fire Bolts or even use a melee cantrip. It harms *nothing* and it's fun.
Montegue, frankly, I based my post above on the fact that no one had come forth on your side saying that they had actually played a Bard for any significant amount of time.
What is your party’s class composition?
I've played two bards up to tier 4, and another bard up to lvl 11. a glam bard with a lvl 2 dip in archfey warlock, and a swords bard that started as a lvl in fighter, and an assassin rogue whispers bard that paraded around as a friendly clown. But what difference would it make if someone only played them up to 11, 20, or just 8? Experience playing this game, and DMing for other players, tells you all you need to know about playing a class even if you've never touched it. As surprising as it may be, this game is not hard to figure out. So, even if someone only ever made it to tier 2, their opinion would be valid if it's opinion was based on reasonable grounds.
And reason dictates, no matter what spellcaster you're playing, a lvl 1 dip is not the end of the world lol, especially if it nets you a STRONG option. If someone wants to multiclass rogue for a single level to gain more expertise, more power to them, they clearly wanna be a skill monkey, but they shouldn't use that as an example of the one time multiclassing made them a weaker caster (you really get nothing out of it in combat lol).
It's like that Eric Andre meme of shooting your own bard with a suboptimal choice, and wondering why he's weaker than the other pure bards you built.
... Experience playing this game, and DMing for other players, tells you all you need to know about playing a class even if you've never touched it. As surprising as it may be, this game is not hard to figure out. So, even if someone only ever made it to tier 2, their opinion would be valid if it's opinion was based on reasonable grounds.
I really disagree with this statement.
If you have not played a class, then you don't have a feel for how that class plays. I have just started DM-ing my first campaign and although I have read every class description twice in the PHB, and most of them quite a bit more than that, my players point out something I didn't realize. And these were not differences in interpretation; they were straight up misses on my part. I think my experience is not unlike many. Before you have sat at a table playing a character, you have a tendency to read "into" the descriptions things about your playstyle. But when you actually sit down and play the characters, you remember all the little things needed to make the most of them, and you learn some things you thought you could do, but you can't.
For this reason, I think a lot of the "theory crafting" I hear about I take with a grain of salt.
And on the subject of a PCs sexual preferences, I'd like as little of that in D&D as possible. Since that is a no-go subject at my table where teenagers play, and there are no game mechanics that depend on it, I think it would be best to leave that at the door.
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Weather or not people who haven't played a class can reasonably comment on it's power is irrelevant. Everyone talking here has more than sufficient experience with this class to have this conversation.
Party comp - Hexadin, Rune Knight fighter that grapples, Psi Warrior, Heal/Harm Monk, me.
It's a very "non standard" party in which I am called upon to wear many hats. I sometimes wonder if I should have gone with a Divine Soul sorcerer or Light priest or something instead, but I really like the character I'm playing. He just struggles to contribute meaningfully round to round. I still may do a two level dip into Hex Blade for the last two levels of the campaign. Haven't decided yet. 10th level Magical Secrets is too good to delay or pass up.
Weather or not people who haven't played a class can reasonably comment on it's power is irrelevant. Everyone talking here has more than sufficient experience with this class to have this conversation.
Agreed. As the one who initially raised the question, I feel like everybody here has played enough Bard to have an informed opinion. A useful piece of knowledge, because the diversity of experiences is kind of striking. I definitely was assuming at least one or two people here were talking pure theory. That's on me.
I think it's very strange that you'd feel you need to really do damage when you're in a party with 2 Fighters and a Warlock/Paladin. Surely this is the exact kind of "support the DPS" party composition that would make the Bard shine. You mention that your Rune Knight grapples -- is it possible you just don't have a strong DOS in your party? Have people just decided to play weird? Are they all working in tandem to basically cover everything a Bard would usually do?
Conversely, my own party is a Warlock of the Archfey, an Artillerist Artificer, a Life Cleric and a Vengeance Paladin, and my Bard, and I very much do feel like I'm contributing when I use Vicious Mockery. I've got no need to hit harder. I have people for that, lol.
All of these classes do damage directly either with physical attacks that increase in power with higher levels, or through magical attacks that also increase in power with higher levels (or both). Bard is the only class with extremely limited means to natively do damage.
If you're in a party that is already full of damage dealers then the Bard can certainly contribute by boosting allies/hobbling enemies, but if you're not in a party that can deal a lot of damage you aren't going to be helping them much. When I played as a Bard it was in a party of three in Descent into Avernus, where one was a Rogue/Ranger, one was a Wizard, and the other was my Bard.
I ended up going College of Swords, with a one level Hexblade dip, because I usually ended up as the frontliner. With that dip I got eldritch blast, charisma as my main combat stat, and medium armor and shield proficiency, along with the shield spell which is much better on classes with free level 1 spell slots. From Swords I got the dueling fighting style, skills, flourishes, and the Bard spell list. Of course I tried to be sneaky and persuasive, but when it came time to crump heads I could actually do it fairly well.
When I got a +2 longsword (pray at the shrine of Lathandar in Eltural) I actually became the most reliable hitter in our small party.
Even though it is a support class I do think the Bard should have access to a reliable source of damage that doesn't depend on its magical secrets. If I wasn't multiclassing I would probably take the Levistus Tiefling for the ray of frost cantrip. It's not the best, but it's something.
I don't get it. If Bard is the only class that can't do "meaningful damage," then the only time the Bard *needs* to do meaningful damage (aka the rest of the party isn't already doing it) is in an all-Bards party.
And the line separating the Bard's damage from "meaningful damage" is fuzzy at best. It does damage with scaling cantrips the same way Clerics, Druids, Wizards, Sorcerers and Warlocks do, just... Less. I mean, if there's going to be any differentiation among that aspect at all, then somebody's gotta be at the bottom, right? Why *wouldn't* it be Bard?
I don't get it. If Bard is the only class that can't do "meaningful damage," then the only time the Bard *needs* to do meaningful damage (aka the rest of the party isn't already doing it) is in an all-Bards party.
And the line separating the Bard's damage from "meaningful damage" is fuzzy at best. It does damage with scaling cantrips the same way Clerics, Druids, Wizards, Sorcerers and Warlocks do, just... Less. I mean, if there's going to be any differentiation among that aspect at all, then somebody's gotta be at the bottom, right? Why *wouldn't* it be Bard?
Well-timed dissonant whispers can do far more damage than any other spell of its level
but like you I'm confused as to why that's not meaningful damage
I think the main complaint is that it costs resources ie. a spell slot. The main issue most people on this thread have is the lack of something damaging that's free to use and scales as the game progresses eg. cantrips.
Personally I am fine with the Bard as it is. Every class should have Pros and Cons and the lack of a good damaging cantrip is just a flaw of the Bard class that you can either embrace and play accordingly or let it drive you crazy lol.
I don't get it. If Bard is the only class that can't do "meaningful damage," then the only time the Bard *needs* to do meaningful damage (aka the rest of the party isn't already doing it) is in an all-Bards party.
And the line separating the Bard's damage from "meaningful damage" is fuzzy at best. It does damage with scaling cantrips the same way Clerics, Druids, Wizards, Sorcerers and Warlocks do, just... Less. I mean, if there's going to be any differentiation among that aspect at all, then somebody's gotta be at the bottom, right? Why *wouldn't* it be Bard?
Well-timed dissonant whispers can do far more damage than any other spell of its level
but like you I'm confused as to why that's not meaningful damage
The phrase was "meaningful on-demand damage." I shortened it in an attempt to make my point more directly. I think they're referring to damage options that don't have a limited number of uses.
But all other spellcasters have access to meaningful, scaling damage cantrips that they can draw upon when the need arises, or simply to still be useful and conserve those spell slots for bigger fish that need to be fried.
If for some reason you don't want to play Bard to do what the class is best designed to do, there ARE archetypes that can give that to you. HALF of the Colleges officially printed feature abilities that improve your personal damage output. Spirits lets you add a d6 to any damage spell you cast, Whispers gives you a pseudosmite using your inspirations, Swords and Valour both give you some martial weapon options and extra attack so you can be better than the Ranger while also being a full caster (Seriously I looked at the numbers and you can make a superior Ranger as a Valour Bard with the right skill proficiencies as compared to the PHB version, thanks Tasha's).
None of those are things I personally think you need to be competitive as soon as you realize that what matters isn't the damage you personally deal but the damage that you are responsible for dealing. Dissonant Whispers can easily trigger multiple opportunity attacks from your melee range party members (Warcaster lets casters get in on the fun of bullying with opportunity attacks), all that damage can be considered to be yours since it wouldn't exist without your spell. That crazy GWM Hexblade Paladin damage monster will appreciate your inspirations when it turns that near miss into a devastating blow that wouldn't exist without your buff. Hold Person means that the Rogue's sneak attack auto crits and you have functionally just doubled their damage output. Silence has just enabled the party to break up combats since the group of enemies wasn't able to call for help before you obliterated them. You just landed a disgusting Plant Growth that kept the enemy from charging into your casters and archers, and the party got a few turns of easy chip on your foes etc etc.
I've played in parties where a single Bard has at times more than doubled some members damage outputs, particularly by either enabling extra attacks (Rogues can sneak attack on opportunity attacks and can get booming blade to trigger for even more damage) or increasing the rate of actually landing a hit with inspirations. I've also had bards wipe out the majority of enemies in an encounter with well places AOE debuffs.
If you insist on a self sufficient bard damage dealer instead of just playing something like a Fighter or Paladin, then just go with a Valour college Bard and wait for level 10 to get Swift Quiver 7 levels ahead of the Ranger and shoot 4 attacks a turn. You could also go Lore to steal some better damage spells like Fireball.
But all other spellcasters have access to meaningful, scaling damage cantrips that they can draw upon when the need arises, or simply to still be useful and conserve those spell slots for bigger fish that need to be fried.
And so does the Bard. The only argument that they don't is that Vicious Mockery isn't good enough, AND that the subclass based damage options aren't good enough, AND that taking other cantrips with Magical Secrets and/or feats and/or multiclassing isn't good enough, to qualify as meaningful. And I just don't agree. But if that's your opinion, then I'm done trying to change it.
We've already addressed a lot of what you suggested, Minoke.
What *harm* do you think would come to pass if, say, Lore bards had access to their choice of a cantrip at level 3 from any class?
Well, first of all you would have to rebalance all the other damage options so that they're competitive not only with the Bard's core kit but with the cantrip selection of every other class. In other words, it would need to be true that swordfighting as one of the swordfighting colleges is as good as casting Toll the Dead. Right now it only needs to be as good as Vicious Mockery. Which spills out into the power budget for the rest of the subclass and, transitively, the class as a whole. In other words, other features have to get weaker if this one's going to get stronger. Whether that's a problem will come down to how you feel about the power level of the rest of the Bard class, but I'll note that if something gets weak enough, people stop using it, and so in the extreme case you end up with Bards basically being weaker Sorcerers.
Secondly, it would more directly paint the College of Lore as being the de facto College of Damage, which is out of line with its concept, even if you can intentionally bend that concept to include it. First impressions are important! And I really like the College of Lore concept at it is, so if it had to change to better reflect this damage dealer role, I'd probably be sad about it.
Thirdly, it would lead you really quickly into a scenario where you're either going to copy the best cantrip your buddy has, or you're going to highlight how suboptimal his choice was by picking a better one. Forcing you to weigh it against a leveled spell choice means that hardly anybody actually takes a cantrip, and making it happen later necessarily limits its impact. You remove both of those things and I'm pretty sure you get an irritating, salt-inducing subclass. That's just theory though. I haven't done any focus group stuff about it. I know who has, though...!
I have a hard time accepting the notion that the bard class is so tenuously balanced that you'd have to rebalance all the other damage options if you added, say, Mind Sliver to the list of available bard cantrips, or had something like Lesser Magical Secrets available to Bard players (lore bards or what have you).
I also don't know that you're correct about how it would paint the college of Lore. Clerics aren't considered to be damage dealers because they have access to Sacred Flame. The College of Lore, as I see it, is the College focused primarily on spellcasting, and secondarily on skills. Or perhaps more accurately, it's the college most focused on versatility. Right now, as a spellcasting class, it lacks something significant - the ability to do reliable, scaling damage without expending resources to do so. Literally every other primary casting class has the ability to do so except the Bard, and I don't know that what the Bard gets makes up for that. The other spellcasters can provide support, battlefield control, and all the rest just fine. But Bards, for some reason, don't get the one basic tool in every other spellcasting toolkit.
I don't see how your third argument doesn't apply to all the other classes that have access to real damage cantrips, except maybe eldritch blast. Nobody complains that Clerics have a solid damage cantrip.
I don't think it has to be "tenuously balanced" in order for the argument to hold that, if you increase power *here*, you should decrease power *there.* Unless your stance is that the class is underpowered, so adding raw power can only serve to bring it up to par?
You can interpret the College of Lore to be whatever suits your argument, but if you go by the fluff and the mechanics, it's not the College of Flexibility or of Spells -- because that's not how subclass design works in this game. It's the college that speaks truth to power, the college that values the preservation and distribution of knowledge, etc. The mechanics serve the concept. It might be true that it more strongly emphasizes spells when compared to the other colleges, but that's a side effect, not a cause. That's my opinion, anyway.
I thought we were talking about a feature that would let the Bard choose any cantrip from any class's spell list.
I don't understand why you'd have to give something up in order to have a missing tool added to the overall toolbox. Bards are missing a key tool enjoyed by all full spellcasters. They don't need to lose anything to have that problem fixed.
And yes, if I were King of the D&D, I would at either 1st level for all Bards or 3rd for Lore, add the ability to choose 1-2 Cantrips from any spell list. If it were something for all Bards at 1st, I would let them choose one. If it were Lore only at 3rd I'd let them choose 2.
I would also add Booming Blade and/or Mind Sliver to the list for all Bards, 2bh, if I went with the Lore option outlined above.
Montegue,
I get a sense you don't play Bards much, or maybe you play a lot so your familiarity with Bards is not so good. I play Bards, Paladins and Clerics mostly, and of these I play Bards most.
So Bards don't get Bless, and this is one reason I wonder about how frequently you play a Bard.
At lower levels, my Go-to start of combat is to see how many enemies we are facing. Usually that is a lot of enemies and our ability to lock them down isn't so good because we're in open terrain (my DM gives mostly outdoor encounters and mostly in the open). With many enemies, I would cast Bane first to use the affected enemies as blockers for the unaffected enemies. Then, depending on the situation, I have several options. I might cast more spells, particularly Dissonant Whispers, if I think the spell slots are warranted. I might use my light crossbow. I may even pull out my rapier and step in if I think I can deliver a coup-de-grace. And I play Lore Bards because I enjoy the RP, and I'm still willing to step in with my rapier wearing my leather armor. I just have to hope I don't get clobbered in one shot when I do this.
While I am doing this I can use bardic Inspiration to help the other players as a Bonus Action, and I can use Cutting Words to protect myself or a party member (often) as a reaction. I find Cutting Words is worth saving Bardic Inspiration slots to use. If I am able to conserve spell slots, I can use Healing Word as a Bonus Action to give a party member a chance to jump back in the fight. Our DM allows the consumption of a healing potion as a bonus action, so if I get a party member up they can also help themselves.
All of this, and I still choose to use VM to deliver disadvantage from time to time. It is all part of the toolbox.
Would I like to have another high damage cantrip? Absolutely I would. I would prefer to have something better than my crossbow for range or a different type of damage. But I still prefer to play a bard without all these things. In all honesty, I probably should try a Swords bard just to see how it goes. I am an unusual Bard in that I will rush up with just my rapier if I think it is the right thing at the right time. But playing Swords Bard means I lose the extra proficiencies and Cutting Words, and the extra Magic Secrets. I really like having those things, so walking away from that is a price for me to pay.
Playing a Tank Bard is very much against type. If you want to be a Tank, play something that makes being a tank easy. As it says in the Bible, "Don't kick against the prick." I think the idea of that sentence is, don't go charging into a spear wall.
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Hi!
I've been playing a bard myself for the better part of the year, working our way through Rime of the Frostmaiden. We're in the endgame of that now. I've also played alongside and DM'd for bards. I assure you I am very familiar with 5E. I have a high level wizard as well, about to complete the high level adventures in Candlekeep mysteries. I don't know why you have the impression I'm somehow inexperienced, but I'm not.
Bless is available to every bard. Because every spell is. But bless could also be Aid or any other buff. It could also be any other concentration debuff or buff. It's just one of many options bards have for their concentration slot to affect the outcomes of combat. Cutting words is the way I spend the lion's share of my Inspiration dice on a given game night, hands down. You're describing a lot of things I am well aware of.
We don't have any high damage cantrips. We need at least one. Frankly, Booming Blade is appropriate for Bards, as is Mind Sliver, and as I argued earlier Lore Bards should have Lesser Magical Secrets at 3rd level and maybe get a choice from other classes. Swords bards (and Valor) to a certain extent seem to me to be a stronger midgame option than Lore (I know that runs against common wisdom) because you can always use your action to bring enemies closer to nonfunctional (which entirely removes any damage they may do to the party). Nothing cripples the action economy of the bad guys more in the party's favor than the bad guys being dead, and helping to achieve that goal while limiting their power or boosting your party's power is important.
Lore Bards are clearly the spellcasting specialists. All the other subclasses embody different aspects of the class. That's why I think there should be one more magical secret at 3rd. Let Lore bards sit back and cast Eldritch Blasts or Fire Bolts or even use a melee cantrip. It harms *nothing* and it's fun.
I've played two bards up to tier 4, and another bard up to lvl 11. a glam bard with a lvl 2 dip in archfey warlock, and a swords bard that started as a lvl in fighter, and an assassin rogue whispers bard that paraded around as a friendly clown. But what difference would it make if someone only played them up to 11, 20, or just 8? Experience playing this game, and DMing for other players, tells you all you need to know about playing a class even if you've never touched it. As surprising as it may be, this game is not hard to figure out. So, even if someone only ever made it to tier 2, their opinion would be valid if it's opinion was based on reasonable grounds.
And reason dictates, no matter what spellcaster you're playing, a lvl 1 dip is not the end of the world lol, especially if it nets you a STRONG option. If someone wants to multiclass rogue for a single level to gain more expertise, more power to them, they clearly wanna be a skill monkey, but they shouldn't use that as an example of the one time multiclassing made them a weaker caster (you really get nothing out of it in combat lol).
It's like that Eric Andre meme of shooting your own bard with a suboptimal choice, and wondering why he's weaker than the other pure bards you built.
My bards' sexual preferences are none of your business.
I really disagree with this statement.
If you have not played a class, then you don't have a feel for how that class plays. I have just started DM-ing my first campaign and although I have read every class description twice in the PHB, and most of them quite a bit more than that, my players point out something I didn't realize. And these were not differences in interpretation; they were straight up misses on my part. I think my experience is not unlike many. Before you have sat at a table playing a character, you have a tendency to read "into" the descriptions things about your playstyle. But when you actually sit down and play the characters, you remember all the little things needed to make the most of them, and you learn some things you thought you could do, but you can't.
For this reason, I think a lot of the "theory crafting" I hear about I take with a grain of salt.
And on the subject of a PCs sexual preferences, I'd like as little of that in D&D as possible. Since that is a no-go subject at my table where teenagers play, and there are no game mechanics that depend on it, I think it would be best to leave that at the door.
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Weather or not people who haven't played a class can reasonably comment on it's power is irrelevant. Everyone talking here has more than sufficient experience with this class to have this conversation.
Party comp - Hexadin, Rune Knight fighter that grapples, Psi Warrior, Heal/Harm Monk, me.
It's a very "non standard" party in which I am called upon to wear many hats. I sometimes wonder if I should have gone with a Divine Soul sorcerer or Light priest or something instead, but I really like the character I'm playing. He just struggles to contribute meaningfully round to round. I still may do a two level dip into Hex Blade for the last two levels of the campaign. Haven't decided yet. 10th level Magical Secrets is too good to delay or pass up.
Agreed. As the one who initially raised the question, I feel like everybody here has played enough Bard to have an informed opinion. A useful piece of knowledge, because the diversity of experiences is kind of striking. I definitely was assuming at least one or two people here were talking pure theory. That's on me.
I think it's very strange that you'd feel you need to really do damage when you're in a party with 2 Fighters and a Warlock/Paladin. Surely this is the exact kind of "support the DPS" party composition that would make the Bard shine. You mention that your Rune Knight grapples -- is it possible you just don't have a strong DOS in your party? Have people just decided to play weird? Are they all working in tandem to basically cover everything a Bard would usually do?
Conversely, my own party is a Warlock of the Archfey, an Artillerist Artificer, a Life Cleric and a Vengeance Paladin, and my Bard, and I very much do feel like I'm contributing when I use Vicious Mockery. I've got no need to hit harder. I have people for that, lol.
If a Bard cannot do meaningful on-demand damage we're left with the rather odd situation that it's the only class in the game that cannot.
Barbarian
Fighter
Paladin
Ranger
Monk (yes even Monk)
Wizard
Sorcerer
Warlock
Cleric
Druid
Rogue
All of these classes do damage directly either with physical attacks that increase in power with higher levels, or through magical attacks that also increase in power with higher levels (or both). Bard is the only class with extremely limited means to natively do damage.
If you're in a party that is already full of damage dealers then the Bard can certainly contribute by boosting allies/hobbling enemies, but if you're not in a party that can deal a lot of damage you aren't going to be helping them much. When I played as a Bard it was in a party of three in Descent into Avernus, where one was a Rogue/Ranger, one was a Wizard, and the other was my Bard.
I ended up going College of Swords, with a one level Hexblade dip, because I usually ended up as the frontliner. With that dip I got eldritch blast, charisma as my main combat stat, and medium armor and shield proficiency, along with the shield spell which is much better on classes with free level 1 spell slots. From Swords I got the dueling fighting style, skills, flourishes, and the Bard spell list. Of course I tried to be sneaky and persuasive, but when it came time to crump heads I could actually do it fairly well.
When I got a +2 longsword (pray at the shrine of Lathandar in Eltural) I actually became the most reliable hitter in our small party.
Even though it is a support class I do think the Bard should have access to a reliable source of damage that doesn't depend on its magical secrets. If I wasn't multiclassing I would probably take the Levistus Tiefling for the ray of frost cantrip. It's not the best, but it's something.
Now you're just grasping at straws.
I don't get it. If Bard is the only class that can't do "meaningful damage," then the only time the Bard *needs* to do meaningful damage (aka the rest of the party isn't already doing it) is in an all-Bards party.
And the line separating the Bard's damage from "meaningful damage" is fuzzy at best. It does damage with scaling cantrips the same way Clerics, Druids, Wizards, Sorcerers and Warlocks do, just... Less. I mean, if there's going to be any differentiation among that aspect at all, then somebody's gotta be at the bottom, right? Why *wouldn't* it be Bard?
I think the main complaint is that it costs resources ie. a spell slot. The main issue most people on this thread have is the lack of something damaging that's free to use and scales as the game progresses eg. cantrips.
Personally I am fine with the Bard as it is. Every class should have Pros and Cons and the lack of a good damaging cantrip is just a flaw of the Bard class that you can either embrace and play accordingly or let it drive you crazy lol.
The phrase was "meaningful on-demand damage." I shortened it in an attempt to make my point more directly. I think they're referring to damage options that don't have a limited number of uses.
But all other spellcasters have access to meaningful, scaling damage cantrips that they can draw upon when the need arises, or simply to still be useful and conserve those spell slots for bigger fish that need to be fried.
If for some reason you don't want to play Bard to do what the class is best designed to do, there ARE archetypes that can give that to you. HALF of the Colleges officially printed feature abilities that improve your personal damage output. Spirits lets you add a d6 to any damage spell you cast, Whispers gives you a pseudosmite using your inspirations, Swords and Valour both give you some martial weapon options and extra attack so you can be better than the Ranger while also being a full caster (Seriously I looked at the numbers and you can make a superior Ranger as a Valour Bard with the right skill proficiencies as compared to the PHB version, thanks Tasha's).
None of those are things I personally think you need to be competitive as soon as you realize that what matters isn't the damage you personally deal but the damage that you are responsible for dealing. Dissonant Whispers can easily trigger multiple opportunity attacks from your melee range party members (Warcaster lets casters get in on the fun of bullying with opportunity attacks), all that damage can be considered to be yours since it wouldn't exist without your spell. That crazy GWM Hexblade Paladin damage monster will appreciate your inspirations when it turns that near miss into a devastating blow that wouldn't exist without your buff. Hold Person means that the Rogue's sneak attack auto crits and you have functionally just doubled their damage output. Silence has just enabled the party to break up combats since the group of enemies wasn't able to call for help before you obliterated them. You just landed a disgusting Plant Growth that kept the enemy from charging into your casters and archers, and the party got a few turns of easy chip on your foes etc etc.
I've played in parties where a single Bard has at times more than doubled some members damage outputs, particularly by either enabling extra attacks (Rogues can sneak attack on opportunity attacks and can get booming blade to trigger for even more damage) or increasing the rate of actually landing a hit with inspirations. I've also had bards wipe out the majority of enemies in an encounter with well places AOE debuffs.
If you insist on a self sufficient bard damage dealer instead of just playing something like a Fighter or Paladin, then just go with a Valour college Bard and wait for level 10 to get Swift Quiver 7 levels ahead of the Ranger and shoot 4 attacks a turn. You could also go Lore to steal some better damage spells like Fireball.
And so does the Bard. The only argument that they don't is that Vicious Mockery isn't good enough, AND that the subclass based damage options aren't good enough, AND that taking other cantrips with Magical Secrets and/or feats and/or multiclassing isn't good enough, to qualify as meaningful. And I just don't agree. But if that's your opinion, then I'm done trying to change it.
We've already addressed a lot of what you suggested, Minoke.
What *harm* do you think would come to pass if, say, Lore bards had access to their choice of a cantrip at level 3 from any class?
Well, first of all you would have to rebalance all the other damage options so that they're competitive not only with the Bard's core kit but with the cantrip selection of every other class. In other words, it would need to be true that swordfighting as one of the swordfighting colleges is as good as casting Toll the Dead. Right now it only needs to be as good as Vicious Mockery. Which spills out into the power budget for the rest of the subclass and, transitively, the class as a whole. In other words, other features have to get weaker if this one's going to get stronger. Whether that's a problem will come down to how you feel about the power level of the rest of the Bard class, but I'll note that if something gets weak enough, people stop using it, and so in the extreme case you end up with Bards basically being weaker Sorcerers.
Secondly, it would more directly paint the College of Lore as being the de facto College of Damage, which is out of line with its concept, even if you can intentionally bend that concept to include it. First impressions are important! And I really like the College of Lore concept at it is, so if it had to change to better reflect this damage dealer role, I'd probably be sad about it.
Thirdly, it would lead you really quickly into a scenario where you're either going to copy the best cantrip your buddy has, or you're going to highlight how suboptimal his choice was by picking a better one. Forcing you to weigh it against a leveled spell choice means that hardly anybody actually takes a cantrip, and making it happen later necessarily limits its impact. You remove both of those things and I'm pretty sure you get an irritating, salt-inducing subclass. That's just theory though. I haven't done any focus group stuff about it. I know who has, though...!
I have a hard time accepting the notion that the bard class is so tenuously balanced that you'd have to rebalance all the other damage options if you added, say, Mind Sliver to the list of available bard cantrips, or had something like Lesser Magical Secrets available to Bard players (lore bards or what have you).
I also don't know that you're correct about how it would paint the college of Lore. Clerics aren't considered to be damage dealers because they have access to Sacred Flame. The College of Lore, as I see it, is the College focused primarily on spellcasting, and secondarily on skills. Or perhaps more accurately, it's the college most focused on versatility. Right now, as a spellcasting class, it lacks something significant - the ability to do reliable, scaling damage without expending resources to do so. Literally every other primary casting class has the ability to do so except the Bard, and I don't know that what the Bard gets makes up for that. The other spellcasters can provide support, battlefield control, and all the rest just fine. But Bards, for some reason, don't get the one basic tool in every other spellcasting toolkit.
I don't see how your third argument doesn't apply to all the other classes that have access to real damage cantrips, except maybe eldritch blast. Nobody complains that Clerics have a solid damage cantrip.
I don't think it has to be "tenuously balanced" in order for the argument to hold that, if you increase power *here*, you should decrease power *there.* Unless your stance is that the class is underpowered, so adding raw power can only serve to bring it up to par?
You can interpret the College of Lore to be whatever suits your argument, but if you go by the fluff and the mechanics, it's not the College of Flexibility or of Spells -- because that's not how subclass design works in this game. It's the college that speaks truth to power, the college that values the preservation and distribution of knowledge, etc. The mechanics serve the concept. It might be true that it more strongly emphasizes spells when compared to the other colleges, but that's a side effect, not a cause. That's my opinion, anyway.
I thought we were talking about a feature that would let the Bard choose any cantrip from any class's spell list.
I don't understand why you'd have to give something up in order to have a missing tool added to the overall toolbox. Bards are missing a key tool enjoyed by all full spellcasters. They don't need to lose anything to have that problem fixed.
And yes, if I were King of the D&D, I would at either 1st level for all Bards or 3rd for Lore, add the ability to choose 1-2 Cantrips from any spell list. If it were something for all Bards at 1st, I would let them choose one. If it were Lore only at 3rd I'd let them choose 2.
I would also add Booming Blade and/or Mind Sliver to the list for all Bards, 2bh, if I went with the Lore option outlined above.