The weapon proficiencies make a difference. For example, a person can forget the shield and go pole arm master or great weapon master, or both on a valor bard. Even without feats a STR valor bard will have similar AC and damage (outside of flourishes) using heavier weapons compared to swords.
I do not think using flourishes to give the swords bard extra damage etc is a real thing because combat inspiration is doing this for someone else using the same resource. The fighting style versus the weapon and shield proficiencies is more relevant in the comparison until 14th level.
A really high DEX is irrelevant to AC because medium armor caps it to the same AC as light armor regardless. A person might also pick up mage armor at 10th level to get that higher AC at that point but it is not unti 14th level when d6's can replace inspiration dice that the swords bard can maintain the AC bonus and doing so precludes using other flourishes due to the one per turn rule.
Battle magic is awesome. Generally, valor bards do damage by attacking with weapons and extra attack. This is no different than swords bards. The difference is when either casts a spell then valor still gets to attack while swords is done.
That makes the valor proficiencies useful while casting. All flourishes require the attack action to be used so a swords bard, who is just as much a spellcaster as the valor bard, loses all of the college benefits when taking the cast a spell action. Valor bards keep AC (if using a shield) when casting plus the bonus attack.
The sticking point of College of Swords is that you, as the Bard, have to make the attacks. There are two levels of suck here. The first level of suck is that every action spent attacking is an action not spent doing magic or other fun Bard stuff, like completely unhelpful persuasion checks to seduce the dragon currently murdering your Cleric. In longer battles as you deplete your fun spell slots and toss around attacks anyway, this is somewhat meaningless. The second level of suck, and the more painful one, is that you have to *hit* an enemy to flourish. If you rolled a solid stat block, have a magic weapon, or are blessed by RNGesus, you'll be fine with this, but Bards are not necessarily the best at hurting things except with unkind words. Your default weapon proficiencies are mediocre, your lack of shields makes you a bit squishy on the front lines of battle, and only having medium armor means you'll really need that flourish AC bonus to dodge hits.
While I do agree with what you're saying, I don't think that the bard weapon proficiencies are that lacking; They the highest two finesse weapons (disregarding scimitar, which is honestly kind of a weird thing to exclude. Sword Bards get it as an added proficiency, but it's not like it's necessary when short-swords and scimitars have the same damage die.), proficiency with a long-sword is pretty nice for a level 1 aspiring valor bard. Is it amazing? No, not really. But they get the same proficiencies as the Rogue, and even if you're playing a valor or swords bard you're still a primary caster, so that's quite impressive in my opinion.
Not to mention, bard's get a native access to "Faerie Fire", which allows advantage on attack rolls if the bard maintains concentration.
This means burning your first turn to cast a spell, yes, but as a support class, this Faerie Fire benefits the team, and your subsequent attacks, as well.
Can we talk about how Valor does not get a alternative spell casting focus like Swords. Like having to constantly switch my shield or weapon to cast a spell would get annoying. Just give Valor the ability to use their shield as a spell casting focus, making it like a drum, gong, or big tambourine.
Can we talk about how Valor does not get a alternative spell casting focus like Swords. Like having to constantly switch my shield or weapon to cast a spell would get annoying. Just give Valor the ability to use their shield as a spell casting focus, making it like a drum, gong, or big tambourine.
That's something I wish WoTC would errata for certain classes and subclasses. They didn't start making this note until Xanathar's Guide to Everything.
For instance, Eldritch Knight, Blade Singer, Arcane Trickster, Valor Bard, and non-hexblade Warlocks with pact of the blade don't mention using your weapons as a spellcasting focus. Sword Bard and Hexblade warlock of any pact can use their weapons as a spellcasting focus, however.
They made a simple errata for Triton by giving them darkvision because it only made sense that creatures that live in the ocean depths can see well in it. It's hardly a major fix to allow the other martial casters to use their weapons as a focus.
For the casters with roots in wizardry, I thought it was implied they were using component pouches since its easy to quickly grab some gunk out of your pocket mid-battle, but annoying to swap your weapon for a wand or some such (Though I do think Bladesinger at least should be able to use their weapon as an arcane focus.)
Most of the DMs I've played with have let me use a shield for my drum in lieu of actually pulling out an instrument every time, so it would be nice if they just updated their features to fit that.. Maybe it'll be in the new book?
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It's ok Ranger, you'll always be cool to me.. Unless druid gets another use for its wild shape charges.
Unfortunately War Caster is a default feat for melee casters, basically taking your level 4 ASI.
If you're able to use your Bard as a supportive unit then Valor is pretty decent, however if you need to do damage as a secondary or primary (Heaven forbid) melee combatant then Sword gives you better damage potential. In that case I would take one level in Hexblade to give you shield and martial weapon proficiency, along with the Hex Warrior's Curse and the Hex spell to pile damage on faster. Also making charisma your melee stat too.
My current Bard (Half-Elf level 8 Sword bard with 1 level of Hexblade) picked up a +2 longsword and is currently the DPS unit of our little party. Currently (18 charisma) he's +10 to hit and D8+8 to damage with his two attacks, and with breastplate and shield he's AC18 with the ability to spike to 23AC with the Shield spell and higher still if he uses defensive flourish.
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The weapon proficiencies make a difference. For example, a person can forget the shield and go pole arm master or great weapon master, or both on a valor bard. Even without feats a STR valor bard will have similar AC and damage (outside of flourishes) using heavier weapons compared to swords.
I do not think using flourishes to give the swords bard extra damage etc is a real thing because combat inspiration is doing this for someone else using the same resource. The fighting style versus the weapon and shield proficiencies is more relevant in the comparison until 14th level.
A really high DEX is irrelevant to AC because medium armor caps it to the same AC as light armor regardless. A person might also pick up mage armor at 10th level to get that higher AC at that point but it is not unti 14th level when d6's can replace inspiration dice that the swords bard can maintain the AC bonus and doing so precludes using other flourishes due to the one per turn rule.
Battle magic is awesome. Generally, valor bards do damage by attacking with weapons and extra attack. This is no different than swords bards. The difference is when either casts a spell then valor still gets to attack while swords is done.
That makes the valor proficiencies useful while casting. All flourishes require the attack action to be used so a swords bard, who is just as much a spellcaster as the valor bard, loses all of the college benefits when taking the cast a spell action. Valor bards keep AC (if using a shield) when casting plus the bonus attack.
Valor gets under-rated. ;-)
Hum....you do make quite a good point about Valor. Thank you all.
Not to mention, bard's get a native access to "Faerie Fire", which allows advantage on attack rolls if the bard maintains concentration.
This means burning your first turn to cast a spell, yes, but as a support class, this Faerie Fire benefits the team, and your subsequent attacks, as well.
Sword is better.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Can we talk about how Valor does not get a alternative spell casting focus like Swords. Like having to constantly switch my shield or weapon to cast a spell would get annoying. Just give Valor the ability to use their shield as a spell casting focus, making it like a drum, gong, or big tambourine.
That's something I wish WoTC would errata for certain classes and subclasses. They didn't start making this note until Xanathar's Guide to Everything.
For instance, Eldritch Knight, Blade Singer, Arcane Trickster, Valor Bard, and non-hexblade Warlocks with pact of the blade don't mention using your weapons as a spellcasting focus. Sword Bard and Hexblade warlock of any pact can use their weapons as a spellcasting focus, however.
They made a simple errata for Triton by giving them darkvision because it only made sense that creatures that live in the ocean depths can see well in it. It's hardly a major fix to allow the other martial casters to use their weapons as a focus.
For the casters with roots in wizardry, I thought it was implied they were using component pouches since its easy to quickly grab some gunk out of your pocket mid-battle, but annoying to swap your weapon for a wand or some such (Though I do think Bladesinger at least should be able to use their weapon as an arcane focus.)
Most of the DMs I've played with have let me use a shield for my drum in lieu of actually pulling out an instrument every time, so it would be nice if they just updated their features to fit that.. Maybe it'll be in the new book?
It's ok Ranger, you'll always be cool to me.. Unless druid gets another use for its wild shape charges.
Unfortunately War Caster is a default feat for melee casters, basically taking your level 4 ASI.
If you're able to use your Bard as a supportive unit then Valor is pretty decent, however if you need to do damage as a secondary or primary (Heaven forbid) melee combatant then Sword gives you better damage potential. In that case I would take one level in Hexblade to give you shield and martial weapon proficiency, along with the Hex Warrior's Curse and the Hex spell to pile damage on faster. Also making charisma your melee stat too.
My current Bard (Half-Elf level 8 Sword bard with 1 level of Hexblade) picked up a +2 longsword and is currently the DPS unit of our little party. Currently (18 charisma) he's +10 to hit and D8+8 to damage with his two attacks, and with breastplate and shield he's AC18 with the ability to spike to 23AC with the Shield spell and higher still if he uses defensive flourish.