I'm making my first bard (second character in total) and I wanted to make a character inspired by Goethe/Di Vinci/Shakespeare who is knowledgeable in many things and many languages.
I want my character to be the face of the party as well as the character than can solve puzzles, and recall esoteric knowledge to aid the party in as many situations as possible: Need to identify a plant to see if it will kill or heal? Sure. Deciphering an arcane rune written in celestial? Absolutely. Delivering a speech that would make JFK blush? Yes please. I'm less interested in stealth, but sleight of hand would be fun too.
I wanted to ask about which backgrounds and feats would be best for this build? I have the PHB. and XGtE but I might be willing to dip into another source-book. From what I have, Sage seems to be a good choice for origin. As for feat, I really like the flavour of Prodigy but I'm not sure if that would be overkill. As for race, I'm torn between Variant-Human for the starting feat, and Half-Elf for the stats. I also think using a Rapier and crossbow combo would be really cool and epitomize the Renaissance portrait I'm trying to paint.
What do you think about the choice of feats and character background? Is this a viable strategy or do you think it will have serious flaws that I'm overlooking? I'm really curious to know what you think, seeing how Bard players tend to attract creative minds.
I would think a college of lore would be the way to go. You’ll end up with six skills, plus whatever comes from your background, which is a lot.
As far as background, sage could be a good fit. Noble could work, and help explain where you got the resources to spend all this time studying. Charlatan might be fun, if you want to take it in a different direction with how you use your knowledge.
Rapier and crossbow can be fine. Just realize it’s not quite as good in practice as it is cool sounding. Maybe you can walk around with the crossbow loaded, but once you shoot it, you will need a free hand to load it, and you won’t have one. So by the second round, it’s just a rapier. And really, you’ll be putting most of your asi into charisma, so you’re likely better off using spells than weapons.
Prodigy is a good fit, yes. Also look at skill expert in Tasha’s.
College of lore is in my humble opinion the most potent bard subclass. Its main focus is knowledge versatility and casting spells.
The fact that you can double your prof bonus in certain skills through expertise and having the jack of all trades makes you the right person for the job (every job). The bard class has access to the best support spells, from healings and debuffs to out of combat spells like detect magic, locate object, identify. So far I think that makes you a know it all character. Someone would say even better than a wizard.
Regarding the background I think that sage is the way to go since it fits thematically and gives your character two extra languages (assuming that you dont want to depend on magic to read and communicate).
For race I would suggest going with half elf. SKill Versatility gives you proficiency in two skills of your choice and you can speak three languages (Common, elvish and one of your choice). That means that at third level were you get to choose a college you will be proficient in 10 skills (2 from racial features, 6 from class features and 2 from the background) and you will be able to speak 5 languages. Not mentioning the benefits from the ability score increase and other racial features.
If you wish to chase being proficient with as many skills as possible then no doubt go with variant human and the skilled feat. At third level that means proficiency with 12 skills (1 from racial features, 6 from class features, 2 from background and 3 from the skilled feat). But you can speak only 3 languages.
Now for the combat part. Wielding a rapier for flavor reasons is fine, the bard class gives you proficiency with rapiers after all. That said you will not be able to compete with the other classes damage wise. Your main source of damage are spells and do not be afraid to burn those spell slots. You can always take a few levels in warlock (hexblade) to make your weapon attacks with charisma instead. This way you wont be that Multiple Ability (score) Depentent. That way you can also get your hands on the best offencive cantrip, eldritch blast.
In case you want to compromise spellcasting for swordsmanship may I suggest the rogue swashbuckler multiclass. Focus on Dex and Char as main stats. Stay bard for 3 levels and go full swashbuckler for the extra features, expertise and of course sneak attack.
I find the lore build with two levels warlcok (for eldritch blast cantrip and agonizing blast invocation) superior. I suggest you prioritize maxing your charisma and then you can choose what feats or further multiclassing suits your playstyle and campaign.
In conclusion, college of lore bards make for great support characters. Knowledge is power and you WILL know a lot. Variant human for more skills, half elf for more utility and spells spells spells.
When I look at the proposed idea, the biggest challenge that stands out to me are all the skills that are based on INT. Recalling old knowledge? History check, int based. Telling the difference between plants? Nature check, int based. Deciphering a rune? Arcana check, int based. Of course, min-maxed casters want their main stat to be high, followed by a decent CON score and then DEX, either to aid with initiative rolls or help their AC a bit somewhat. This leaves little room for much else, let alone a real polymath type who's supposed to be good at all things scholarly and some athletics.
So, I think it has to be a half-elf. Sure, the v.human can pick up Skilled and get more skills to play with, but I don't think it means as much as having two more stats you can allot to wherever you like. More skills sound nice, but the half-elf can really make them useful instead of mediocre.
dumping STR and WIS, then setting both DEX, CON, and INT to 14 while raising CHA to 17 gets us some interesting results: we've got a +4 to all those aforementioned checks. Get expertise, and it's +6. That's what we're really after-- more expertise. Expertise is what will allow your character to keep up their skills to match a specialized user of that specific stat. If a wizard has 16 INT and proficiency in History, they'd get a +5 to their check.
So, this is where the 17 CHA comes into play at level 4, you can pick up skill expert to boost your CHA and get more expertise in the other skills you feel are appropriate to your concept. By level 4, this character can have expertise in persuasion, history, and nature. Then, you dip a single level into rogue for more skills and more expertise. Let's say you get sleight of hand expertise, and let's toss in performance because a real polymath is a pro musician too. Or acrobatics, or athletics. Now this character's fully realized in its original concept: a character that excels as a diversified scholar while being a capable physical specimen. At level 11, when you get your extra expertise, you can now pretty much cover all the ground you set out for in your original concept, with a minimum of +10 to all expertise checks, seven skills to your liking. Toss in Enhance Ability, and you got yourself a polymath-among-polymaths.
Best of all, this is still a min-maxed caster that really hasn't sacrificed anything important, can still get a 20 in their main stat within a realistic level 1-11 setting.
This is some brilliant feedback. Thank you all very much. I'm officially sold on the idea now and have more of an exact idea how I should think about ASI and Race choice. CHEERS!
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Hey there,
I'm making my first bard (second character in total) and I wanted to make a character inspired by Goethe/Di Vinci/Shakespeare who is knowledgeable in many things and many languages.
I want my character to be the face of the party as well as the character than can solve puzzles, and recall esoteric knowledge to aid the party in as many situations as possible: Need to identify a plant to see if it will kill or heal? Sure. Deciphering an arcane rune written in celestial? Absolutely. Delivering a speech that would make JFK blush? Yes please. I'm less interested in stealth, but sleight of hand would be fun too.
I wanted to ask about which backgrounds and feats would be best for this build? I have the PHB. and XGtE but I might be willing to dip into another source-book. From what I have, Sage seems to be a good choice for origin. As for feat, I really like the flavour of Prodigy but I'm not sure if that would be overkill. As for race, I'm torn between Variant-Human for the starting feat, and Half-Elf for the stats. I also think using a Rapier and crossbow combo would be really cool and epitomize the Renaissance portrait I'm trying to paint.
What do you think about the choice of feats and character background? Is this a viable strategy or do you think it will have serious flaws that I'm overlooking? I'm really curious to know what you think, seeing how Bard players tend to attract creative minds.
Thanks for your time!
I would think a college of lore would be the way to go. You’ll end up with six skills, plus whatever comes from your background, which is a lot.
As far as background, sage could be a good fit. Noble could work, and help explain where you got the resources to spend all this time studying. Charlatan might be fun, if you want to take it in a different direction with how you use your knowledge.
Rapier and crossbow can be fine. Just realize it’s not quite as good in practice as it is cool sounding. Maybe you can walk around with the crossbow loaded, but once you shoot it, you will need a free hand to load it, and you won’t have one. So by the second round, it’s just a rapier. And really, you’ll be putting most of your asi into charisma, so you’re likely better off using spells than weapons.
Prodigy is a good fit, yes. Also look at skill expert in Tasha’s.
College of lore is in my humble opinion the most potent bard subclass. Its main focus is knowledge versatility and casting spells.
The fact that you can double your prof bonus in certain skills through expertise and having the jack of all trades makes you the right person for the job (every job). The bard class has access to the best support spells, from healings and debuffs to out of combat spells like detect magic, locate object, identify. So far I think that makes you a know it all character. Someone would say even better than a wizard.
Regarding the background I think that sage is the way to go since it fits thematically and gives your character two extra languages (assuming that you dont want to depend on magic to read and communicate).
For race I would suggest going with half elf. SKill Versatility gives you proficiency in two skills of your choice and you can speak three languages (Common, elvish and one of your choice). That means that at third level were you get to choose a college you will be proficient in 10 skills (2 from racial features, 6 from class features and 2 from the background) and you will be able to speak 5 languages. Not mentioning the benefits from the ability score increase and other racial features.
If you wish to chase being proficient with as many skills as possible then no doubt go with variant human and the skilled feat. At third level that means proficiency with 12 skills (1 from racial features, 6 from class features, 2 from background and 3 from the skilled feat). But you can speak only 3 languages.
Now for the combat part. Wielding a rapier for flavor reasons is fine, the bard class gives you proficiency with rapiers after all. That said you will not be able to compete with the other classes damage wise. Your main source of damage are spells and do not be afraid to burn those spell slots. You can always take a few levels in warlock (hexblade) to make your weapon attacks with charisma instead. This way you wont be that Multiple Ability (score) Depentent. That way you can also get your hands on the best offencive cantrip, eldritch blast.
In case you want to compromise spellcasting for swordsmanship may I suggest the rogue swashbuckler multiclass. Focus on Dex and Char as main stats. Stay bard for 3 levels and go full swashbuckler for the extra features, expertise and of course sneak attack.
I find the lore build with two levels warlcok (for eldritch blast cantrip and agonizing blast invocation) superior. I suggest you prioritize maxing your charisma and then you can choose what feats or further multiclassing suits your playstyle and campaign.
In conclusion, college of lore bards make for great support characters. Knowledge is power and you WILL know a lot. Variant human for more skills, half elf for more utility and spells spells spells.
I hope that you find this helpful
When I look at the proposed idea, the biggest challenge that stands out to me are all the skills that are based on INT. Recalling old knowledge? History check, int based. Telling the difference between plants? Nature check, int based. Deciphering a rune? Arcana check, int based. Of course, min-maxed casters want their main stat to be high, followed by a decent CON score and then DEX, either to aid with initiative rolls or help their AC a bit somewhat. This leaves little room for much else, let alone a real polymath type who's supposed to be good at all things scholarly and some athletics.
So, I think it has to be a half-elf. Sure, the v.human can pick up Skilled and get more skills to play with, but I don't think it means as much as having two more stats you can allot to wherever you like. More skills sound nice, but the half-elf can really make them useful instead of mediocre.
dumping STR and WIS, then setting both DEX, CON, and INT to 14 while raising CHA to 17 gets us some interesting results: we've got a +4 to all those aforementioned checks. Get expertise, and it's +6. That's what we're really after-- more expertise. Expertise is what will allow your character to keep up their skills to match a specialized user of that specific stat. If a wizard has 16 INT and proficiency in History, they'd get a +5 to their check.
So, this is where the 17 CHA comes into play at level 4, you can pick up skill expert to boost your CHA and get more expertise in the other skills you feel are appropriate to your concept. By level 4, this character can have expertise in persuasion, history, and nature. Then, you dip a single level into rogue for more skills and more expertise. Let's say you get sleight of hand expertise, and let's toss in performance because a real polymath is a pro musician too. Or acrobatics, or athletics. Now this character's fully realized in its original concept: a character that excels as a diversified scholar while being a capable physical specimen. At level 11, when you get your extra expertise, you can now pretty much cover all the ground you set out for in your original concept, with a minimum of +10 to all expertise checks, seven skills to your liking. Toss in Enhance Ability, and you got yourself a polymath-among-polymaths.
Best of all, this is still a min-maxed caster that really hasn't sacrificed anything important, can still get a 20 in their main stat within a realistic level 1-11 setting.
This is some brilliant feedback. Thank you all very much. I'm officially sold on the idea now and have more of an exact idea how I should think about ASI and Race choice. CHEERS!