Been thinking of playing a bard for a long time, but I'm not sure how I would play it. College of Swords or Lore are the two main subclass picks, but i need some advice on how to play either subclass, best spell choices, whether i should focus on self buffs, ally buffs, enemy debuffs etc.
Do you want to play a Bard for the RP or just to try it out?
If you want to RP, then I think College of Lore, but I'm not very knowledgeable about the Xanathar subclasses.
If you want to just try it out, you have to decide if you want to be the full on caster or just a Bard. If you are just trying it out and you enjoy killing things, then you should probably consider Swords a lot. But if you want to dive in with both feet, College of Lore will give you the extra Magic Secrets and Cutting Words. Magic Secrets gives you the opportunity to pick up Counterspell early and Cutting Words is like an extra support spell that your party will love.
For spell choices I like Prestidigitation and Mending, which are really RP focused. You only start with two cantrips, and you really need to enjoy Vicious Mockery before you try anything else. So for cantrips, I start with Prestidigitation and Vicious Mockery.
You are allowed to "know" four 1st level spells right out of the gate, but you only have two spell slots. If your party doesn't have a spellcaster that has picked a healing spell, I recommend Healing Word over Cure Wounds, and I recommend you get one of them just in case. In the main, your party should heal with short rests between encounters, but in a pinch Healing Word is great because it may be cast as a bonus action. You may cast Vicious Mockery and Healing Word in the same turn.
The next spell I advocate is Dissonant Whispers. It does pretty good damage (3d6 psychic and half on a successful save) and can give your party an opportunity attack if they miss their save, being forced to flee from you and your party being able to make opportunity attacks as a reaction.
The third spell I recommend is Bane, which debuffs three enemy by 1d4 for a minute. this is pretty good for knocking down the strength of the crowd your party is facing.
After this I will take Charm Person just for the RP flavor.
You may wish to try Sleep or something else at level 2 when you get another spell, but you will drop something when you get to level 3 probably to allow yourself to learn two second level spells.
At second level Phantasmal Force can be a very good spell. It does damage and can take enemies out of the fight for a time. You just have to have some imagination on coming up with some fearful illusions.
Invisibility and Silence can be useful to help a Rogue in your party. There are a lot of good spells like Heat Metal that are great in the right situation. At fifth level you can pick up a third level Bard Spell, and if you choose College of Lore you get two spells from any list to add to your list at sixth level.
Now one thing I have found is that selecting College of Lore does stick you with Light Armor. Studded Leather Armor gives you AC=12+Dex modifier. So you're probably looking at AC=14 or so. BUT if your DM will allow you to acquire Elven Chain you can jump up to AC=16 because you do not have to be proficient with medium armor to be proficient with Elven Chain. That helps one area of weakness quite a bit.
As a College of Lore Bard I take my first ASI to give me Chr = 18. I do this to get maximum number of Bardic Inspiration and to boost my spell casting modifier.
When you hit level 5 with a Chr = 18 and you get another point in proficiency and you have loads of proficiency and even two skills with expertise, you start to really become a Bard that knows something about everything. If you decide to build him this way, you can be almost as good a thief as a rogue. You can put proficiency in Sleight of Hand, Deception and Stealth while still having slots for Persuasion, Intimidation, Insight, Performance, ... And you get half proficiency with everything else. If you want the Roguish build you will need to put some ASIs in Dexterity, but that will boost your damage numbers in addition to your Sleight of Hand, etc.
What spells you choose depends on how you want to play, but as a RP heavy player, I enjoy the Bard as a support player in combat. Most of that will be your play style and some of it will be your DM and your table. If you can enjoy D&D without killing all the monsters, playing a College of Lore Bard can be great fun.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Bard is a very versatile class, Lore bard pushes that even further. It'll allow you to fill any role necessary in your group at an early stage and adds more flexibility (additional magical secrets) and great utility (cutting words).
The first few levels will show you you're party's composition and where you'll need to fit in. If your party needs more damage blasting? Grab Fireball at level 6. Need more melee support? Crusaders Mantle or Haste. Lacking healing? Aura of Vitality. Access to Counterspell can be huge if you don't have anyone else with it, and you'll be the very best at it for most of the campaign.
Have a wizard that is a crowd controller? Focus on buffing the party.
Lack of clerics or healing? Focus on healing and ally buffing.
A bard is a peg that can fit almost any hole if necessary.
my bardlock is only level 3 in bard at the moment, but here's the experience I have with it. Remember first and foremost, you're a support character. You can find ways to pump out damage, but you're missing out on what the bard really brings to the group. The more I play this character the more I warm to bards as a whole.
- heals are a big deal. healing word is practically a must have spell if you don't have any other source of heals. Don't try to keep ahead of damage; in most cases it's better to keep your party members on their feet. the biggest exception is a raging barbarian, I will try to keep from going down at all, because he'll lose his rage and resistance helps me to stay in front of the damage.
- control. That's what bards do best, especially at low levels. Something to remember here is concentration. You can only run one concentration spell at a time, so look for spells that don't use concentration when you can. Dissonant whispers is my favorite. No conc, decent damage, and a great effect. It's only good for one round, but timed properly you can do a lot of good things with it. Sleep is my second spell pick. For the first three levels, sleep can flat out win fights. It's useful for getting prisoners too, but the utility dies down considerably at higher levels. Tasha's hideous laughter is pretty nice for taking someone out of a fight as well. I've locked down some pretty strong enemies with Tasha's while the party cleared the minions. It's a tool I am glad to have in my box. Faerie Fire isn't a control spell, but it's an excellent buff spell even if it uses conc. Sometimes buffing rather than controlling is the best answer and a way to drop an AOE on enemies to give you party advantage on everything that fails it's save is nice. Hold person can be nice when you have someone prepared to unload damage on a target. not a top pick for me, but not awful. Blindness can be great. Stick that and the enemy has disadvantage in most scenarios. Your allies also gain advantage. win/win. Enemy caster wants to cast a spell? Silence him. Then giggle when your melees stroll up to him and rip his face off. hypnotic pattern? yes yes yes, aoe charms ftw. They only get one save on them too.
- traps. There are some spells that get a lot of good press that I dislike. The first is vicious mockery. I don't like it because it does not scale well at all. At low levels when monsters only get one attack, it's great. At high levels when monsters multi-attack and only the first of those attacks gets disadvantage it's kind of meh. The d4 is very meh. Sadly bards don't have many other options out of the box. Bane. I didn't take this on my bard|lock, because I had it on my sor|lock and didn't like it. Only three targets are possible, and they can fail saves. if I'm going to risk spell lots on saves, I want better odds than Bane gives me to stick them. Friends. Thematically appropriate, but it's not something that's going to be useful regularly because the creatures are hostile to you after a minute. You're only going to use it when you don't care if they hate you after they liked you for a minute. True Strike. No. Just no. Don't do it!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
bards have a lot of decent buffs and debuffs, you could easily go ether way, if you should focus on buffing yourself or your allies depends on were you think they will go best, for instance maybe you want to put heroisim on yourself to make up for your lacking defenses, or maybe you want to put it on the party barbarian or paladin so that your ally can double down on their defenses and even more reckless
but an note about the phantasmal force spell: it is not meant for combat, rather it is meant to deceive and trick your victim, with one of the most belivable illusion spells ever. An phantasmal fire will move just like an fire, will be warm just like an fire and will hurt just like an fire, but is not real and so cannot cook and will not hurt. An phantasmal pool of water will feel wet, sitting within an phantasmal pool of water an victim will feel submerged, were they to open their mouth they would feel water enter their lungs, and yet the water is not real, you can breathe just fine in it, and it cannot be swam through, an phantasmal patch of grass will feel just like grass if walked oppon, but may not be lit on fire, an phantasmal troglodyte will smell just as horrible as a real one (though of course with none of the mechanical benefits of the stench ability) and will sound just like one.
The phantasmal force spell creates what is basicly an figment of the imagination, a thing so deeply rooted into the victims mind that it belives it to be real. A nice spell to have but it is not meant to be used during combat and could be disregarded by an bard of swords
regardless of your subclass healing word is almost an must-have, while it heals less hit points than cure wounds does on average, healing word can be cast as a bonus action and has a much longer range, if an ally is at 0 hit points and currently making death saving throws, any amount of healing whatsoever will stop them from dying.
animal friendship and awaken might be great choices if your party lacks a druid, partially because it is unexpected, fighting a bard is one thing, fighting the bears that the bard befriended is something else completely
any attack that hits a paralyzed creature is a critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet, if you have a rouge or a paladin hold person and hold monster are both fantastic options that can destroy the bbeg.
Any spell that relies on ability checks instead of saving throws like dispel magic, counter spell, infernal calling, telekinesis is something that the bard of all classes will be extra good at casting due to jack of all trades and expertise, however do keep in mind that only dispel magic is on the bard spell list by default, the rest has to be learned via magical secrets
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Quote from ArtificeMeal>> but an note about the phantasmal force spell: it is not meant for combat,
I don't really agree with you there, whilst it does have ample use outside of combat, it still deals psychic damage, and is useful for taking an enemy out of a fight. The other points you brought up were valid though. Thanks for the help!
Quote from ArtificeMeal>> but an note about the phantasmal force spell: it is not meant for combat,
I don't really agree with you there, whilst it does have ample use outside of combat, it still deals psychic damage, and is useful for taking an enemy out of a fight. The other points you brought up were valid though. Thanks for the help!
compare the spell to some other similar spells of 2nd level that deal damage over time and require concentration, like flame blade, flaming sphere or heat metal then look at how much text in the spell is dedicated to describing its illusory elements and how believable the spell is, compared to the final paragraph the very end that briefly mentions its ability to deal 1d6 psychic damage, if you take this spell expecting to deal damage you will be very disappointed and you are better of picking some other spell, saving this spell for when initiative is rolled will do you no good, this is a spell meant to haunt people, an spell meant to trick the gullible, to foil your opponent in a battle of wits not a battle of arms, it is an direct upgrade from silent image and minor illusion, this spell is not designed with combat in mind and will thus work less effectively than the other spells who were, it is better than nothing and if you have no other similar options it can be used in combat but it is not where the spell will work best
Been thinking of playing a bard for a long time, but I'm not sure how I would play it. College of Swords or Lore are the two main subclass picks, but i need some advice on how to play either subclass, best spell choices, whether i should focus on self buffs, ally buffs, enemy debuffs etc.
Do you want to play a Bard for the RP or just to try it out?
If you want to RP, then I think College of Lore, but I'm not very knowledgeable about the Xanathar subclasses.
If you want to just try it out, you have to decide if you want to be the full on caster or just a Bard. If you are just trying it out and you enjoy killing things, then you should probably consider Swords a lot. But if you want to dive in with both feet, College of Lore will give you the extra Magic Secrets and Cutting Words. Magic Secrets gives you the opportunity to pick up Counterspell early and Cutting Words is like an extra support spell that your party will love.
For spell choices I like Prestidigitation and Mending, which are really RP focused. You only start with two cantrips, and you really need to enjoy Vicious Mockery before you try anything else. So for cantrips, I start with Prestidigitation and Vicious Mockery.
You are allowed to "know" four 1st level spells right out of the gate, but you only have two spell slots. If your party doesn't have a spellcaster that has picked a healing spell, I recommend Healing Word over Cure Wounds, and I recommend you get one of them just in case. In the main, your party should heal with short rests between encounters, but in a pinch Healing Word is great because it may be cast as a bonus action. You may cast Vicious Mockery and Healing Word in the same turn.
The next spell I advocate is Dissonant Whispers. It does pretty good damage (3d6 psychic and half on a successful save) and can give your party an opportunity attack if they miss their save, being forced to flee from you and your party being able to make opportunity attacks as a reaction.
The third spell I recommend is Bane, which debuffs three enemy by 1d4 for a minute. this is pretty good for knocking down the strength of the crowd your party is facing.
After this I will take Charm Person just for the RP flavor.
You may wish to try Sleep or something else at level 2 when you get another spell, but you will drop something when you get to level 3 probably to allow yourself to learn two second level spells.
At second level Phantasmal Force can be a very good spell. It does damage and can take enemies out of the fight for a time. You just have to have some imagination on coming up with some fearful illusions.
Invisibility and Silence can be useful to help a Rogue in your party. There are a lot of good spells like Heat Metal that are great in the right situation. At fifth level you can pick up a third level Bard Spell, and if you choose College of Lore you get two spells from any list to add to your list at sixth level.
Now one thing I have found is that selecting College of Lore does stick you with Light Armor. Studded Leather Armor gives you AC=12+Dex modifier. So you're probably looking at AC=14 or so. BUT if your DM will allow you to acquire Elven Chain you can jump up to AC=16 because you do not have to be proficient with medium armor to be proficient with Elven Chain. That helps one area of weakness quite a bit.
As a College of Lore Bard I take my first ASI to give me Chr = 18. I do this to get maximum number of Bardic Inspiration and to boost my spell casting modifier.
When you hit level 5 with a Chr = 18 and you get another point in proficiency and you have loads of proficiency and even two skills with expertise, you start to really become a Bard that knows something about everything. If you decide to build him this way, you can be almost as good a thief as a rogue. You can put proficiency in Sleight of Hand, Deception and Stealth while still having slots for Persuasion, Intimidation, Insight, Performance, ... And you get half proficiency with everything else. If you want the Roguish build you will need to put some ASIs in Dexterity, but that will boost your damage numbers in addition to your Sleight of Hand, etc.
What spells you choose depends on how you want to play, but as a RP heavy player, I enjoy the Bard as a support player in combat. Most of that will be your play style and some of it will be your DM and your table. If you can enjoy D&D without killing all the monsters, playing a College of Lore Bard can be great fun.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
It's highly dependent on your party.
Bard is a very versatile class, Lore bard pushes that even further. It'll allow you to fill any role necessary in your group at an early stage and adds more flexibility (additional magical secrets) and great utility (cutting words).
The first few levels will show you you're party's composition and where you'll need to fit in. If your party needs more damage blasting? Grab Fireball at level 6. Need more melee support? Crusaders Mantle or Haste. Lacking healing? Aura of Vitality. Access to Counterspell can be huge if you don't have anyone else with it, and you'll be the very best at it for most of the campaign.
Have a wizard that is a crowd controller? Focus on buffing the party.
Lack of clerics or healing? Focus on healing and ally buffing.
A bard is a peg that can fit almost any hole if necessary.
my bardlock is only level 3 in bard at the moment, but here's the experience I have with it. Remember first and foremost, you're a support character. You can find ways to pump out damage, but you're missing out on what the bard really brings to the group. The more I play this character the more I warm to bards as a whole.
- heals are a big deal. healing word is practically a must have spell if you don't have any other source of heals. Don't try to keep ahead of damage; in most cases it's better to keep your party members on their feet. the biggest exception is a raging barbarian, I will try to keep from going down at all, because he'll lose his rage and resistance helps me to stay in front of the damage.
- control. That's what bards do best, especially at low levels. Something to remember here is concentration. You can only run one concentration spell at a time, so look for spells that don't use concentration when you can. Dissonant whispers is my favorite. No conc, decent damage, and a great effect. It's only good for one round, but timed properly you can do a lot of good things with it. Sleep is my second spell pick. For the first three levels, sleep can flat out win fights. It's useful for getting prisoners too, but the utility dies down considerably at higher levels. Tasha's hideous laughter is pretty nice for taking someone out of a fight as well. I've locked down some pretty strong enemies with Tasha's while the party cleared the minions. It's a tool I am glad to have in my box. Faerie Fire isn't a control spell, but it's an excellent buff spell even if it uses conc. Sometimes buffing rather than controlling is the best answer and a way to drop an AOE on enemies to give you party advantage on everything that fails it's save is nice. Hold person can be nice when you have someone prepared to unload damage on a target. not a top pick for me, but not awful. Blindness can be great. Stick that and the enemy has disadvantage in most scenarios. Your allies also gain advantage. win/win. Enemy caster wants to cast a spell? Silence him. Then giggle when your melees stroll up to him and rip his face off. hypnotic pattern? yes yes yes, aoe charms ftw. They only get one save on them too.
- traps. There are some spells that get a lot of good press that I dislike. The first is vicious mockery. I don't like it because it does not scale well at all. At low levels when monsters only get one attack, it's great. At high levels when monsters multi-attack and only the first of those attacks gets disadvantage it's kind of meh. The d4 is very meh. Sadly bards don't have many other options out of the box. Bane. I didn't take this on my bard|lock, because I had it on my sor|lock and didn't like it. Only three targets are possible, and they can fail saves. if I'm going to risk spell lots on saves, I want better odds than Bane gives me to stick them. Friends. Thematically appropriate, but it's not something that's going to be useful regularly because the creatures are hostile to you after a minute. You're only going to use it when you don't care if they hate you after they liked you for a minute. True Strike. No. Just no. Don't do it!
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
bards have a lot of decent buffs and debuffs, you could easily go ether way, if you should focus on buffing yourself or your allies depends on were you think they will go best, for instance maybe you want to put heroisim on yourself to make up for your lacking defenses, or maybe you want to put it on the party barbarian or paladin so that your ally can double down on their defenses and even more reckless
but an note about the phantasmal force spell: it is not meant for combat, rather it is meant to deceive and trick your victim, with one of the most belivable illusion spells ever. An phantasmal fire will move just like an fire, will be warm just like an fire and will hurt just like an fire, but is not real and so cannot cook and will not hurt. An phantasmal pool of water will feel wet, sitting within an phantasmal pool of water an victim will feel submerged, were they to open their mouth they would feel water enter their lungs, and yet the water is not real, you can breathe just fine in it, and it cannot be swam through, an phantasmal patch of grass will feel just like grass if walked oppon, but may not be lit on fire, an phantasmal troglodyte will smell just as horrible as a real one (though of course with none of the mechanical benefits of the stench ability) and will sound just like one.
The phantasmal force spell creates what is basicly an figment of the imagination, a thing so deeply rooted into the victims mind that it belives it to be real. A nice spell to have but it is not meant to be used during combat and could be disregarded by an bard of swords
regardless of your subclass healing word is almost an must-have, while it heals less hit points than cure wounds does on average, healing word can be cast as a bonus action and has a much longer range, if an ally is at 0 hit points and currently making death saving throws, any amount of healing whatsoever will stop them from dying.
animal friendship and awaken might be great choices if your party lacks a druid, partially because it is unexpected, fighting a bard is one thing, fighting the bears that the bard befriended is something else completely
any attack that hits a paralyzed creature is a critical hit if the attacker is within 5 feet, if you have a rouge or a paladin hold person and hold monster are both fantastic options that can destroy the bbeg.
Any spell that relies on ability checks instead of saving throws like dispel magic, counter spell, infernal calling, telekinesis is something that the bard of all classes will be extra good at casting due to jack of all trades and expertise, however do keep in mind that only dispel magic is on the bard spell list by default, the rest has to be learned via magical secrets
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
I don't really agree with you there, whilst it does have ample use outside of combat, it still deals psychic damage, and is useful for taking an enemy out of a fight. The other points you brought up were valid though. Thanks for the help!
compare the spell to some other similar spells of 2nd level that deal damage over time and require concentration, like flame blade, flaming sphere or heat metal then look at how much text in the spell is dedicated to describing its illusory elements and how believable the spell is, compared to the final paragraph the very end that briefly mentions its ability to deal 1d6 psychic damage, if you take this spell expecting to deal damage you will be very disappointed and you are better of picking some other spell, saving this spell for when initiative is rolled will do you no good, this is a spell meant to haunt people, an spell meant to trick the gullible, to foil your opponent in a battle of wits not a battle of arms, it is an direct upgrade from silent image and minor illusion, this spell is not designed with combat in mind and will thus work less effectively than the other spells who were, it is better than nothing and if you have no other similar options it can be used in combat but it is not where the spell will work best
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes