So I've got this 7th level wizard who has a 20 in intelligence, but I want to multiclass into bard because I heard that it's pretty fun. So what bard college should I multiclass in to make the build good, and also when should I do it?
Wizard is kind of a pain to Multiclass with because so few classes also cast from Intelligence. Bard especially requires you to have high Charisma, not just for spellcasting, but because your uses of Bardic Inspiration are dependent on your CHA modifier, and most of the Bard Subclasses use Bardic Inspiration to both boost their allies and fuel their own abilities. For the most part, it's hard to recommend a Bard Subclass without knowing if you have a specific goal you want to accomplish beyond just what sounds fun... you kind of need a pretty specific plan in place before jumping in.
That said, if I had to recommend anything, I think I would go for College of Eloquence. The Silver Tongue feature can help to compensate for having less-than-ideal CHA stats, and Unsettling Words pairs well with Wizard, because you can use it to make an enemy more susceptible to your powerful wizard spells. If you take the class up to level 6, then your allies get to keep their Inspiration when they try to use it and still fail, which helps to stretch out your Inspiration and make them more useful despite having less than the maximum possible points of inspiration to distribute.
So assuming you're going the three level dip necessary to get a subclass, I'd say either do it now, or straight after you've used the Wizard 8 ASI to improve your Charisma. The downside of the different-ability multiclass, beyond the general loss of higher level spells known, is the need to use a lower score for your spell saves/attack rolls etc (as the two previous commenters noted). Since the bard relies a lot on debuffing, then that's suboptimal, but as a diviner you can use your portent to make up for it. I will say that Faerie Fire is a must-take spell for this multiclass, since it only allows one save per target, which gives you bang for your portent buck.
Subclass depends a lot on what you're going for mechanically and what you've already got in your party. Honestly I'd probably concur with the poster above about Eloquence if you're trying to be as useful as possible (take persuasion or deception with the bonus skill for multiclassing bard). Spirits from VRGTR would be my top choice from an RP perspective for a diviner - using seances etc to tap the knowledge of the dead. Mechanically, free ranged guidance isn't bad, and the ghost stories table is quite fun though - being random - not reliably useful. Third choice would probably be Creation for me, as at least it gets you something that you can't get better elsewhere.
As for the rest:
Valor bard is a good way to get hold of an armor proficiency, but honestly if I were going to multi for that, I'd just take one level of artificer - for a lesser cost in terms of character level, I get five level one spells based off INT that I can switch up on a long rest and grab Guidance as one of my two cantrips. You also get access to Faerie Fire, as above.
One of Whispers' class features relies on making weapon attacks, which is probably not what you want to be doing with a wizard. Similarly the benefit of Swords is a melee fighting style, which won't really help you.
Lore - eh, if you've got good skills across the board this could make a good skill monkey build, but you probably don't have enough good ability scores for it to be worth it, and Cutting Words doesn't affect saving throws. Plus all bards get Jack of All Trades at 2nd level, which further reduces the additional benefit from this class.
Glamour: both the level 3 features specifically work off of a character's Charisma, which isn't great as the smaller part of a multiclass.
You never said what school your Wizard is, that would help with this. I could see an enchanter making the transition easily but I have a hard time seeing a necromancer doing so for any reason. You will have to use the L8 ASI to boost your charisma to 14 in order to do the MC, then I would recommend at least 4 levels in bard to get the ASI and the extra, cantrip, known spell. You won’t get any slots as you are now having to use the multiclass slot table but you will have L5&6 slots for upcasting. I would be reading thru the bard subclasses to see what fits right with your character.
They don't mention it in the actual post, but in the title of the thread they mention "Divination Wizard", which I do think is one of the Wizard subclasses that leans into Bard fairly easily in RP.
Well my high elf is a divination wizard. The setting is in ebberon, and she has the dragonmark mark of death. Um I don't know much about it so please no spoilers, but we are about to have a level increase and I could put both Stat increases into my charisma. And I think I was going to go college of lore of eloquence, but I'm not sure how it would play. Oh also she is a noble
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So I've got this 7th level wizard who has a 20 in intelligence, but I want to multiclass into bard because I heard that it's pretty fun. So what bard college should I multiclass in to make the build good, and also when should I do it?
How charismatic is your wizard? what's happened story-wise for them to consider a bardic collage? What fun parts do you want your wizard to get?
If you do down this route you'll need high INT and high CHA. Depending on what fun you think you're missing a feat might scratch that itch.
Wizard is kind of a pain to Multiclass with because so few classes also cast from Intelligence. Bard especially requires you to have high Charisma, not just for spellcasting, but because your uses of Bardic Inspiration are dependent on your CHA modifier, and most of the Bard Subclasses use Bardic Inspiration to both boost their allies and fuel their own abilities. For the most part, it's hard to recommend a Bard Subclass without knowing if you have a specific goal you want to accomplish beyond just what sounds fun... you kind of need a pretty specific plan in place before jumping in.
That said, if I had to recommend anything, I think I would go for College of Eloquence. The Silver Tongue feature can help to compensate for having less-than-ideal CHA stats, and Unsettling Words pairs well with Wizard, because you can use it to make an enemy more susceptible to your powerful wizard spells. If you take the class up to level 6, then your allies get to keep their Inspiration when they try to use it and still fail, which helps to stretch out your Inspiration and make them more useful despite having less than the maximum possible points of inspiration to distribute.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
So assuming you're going the three level dip necessary to get a subclass, I'd say either do it now, or straight after you've used the Wizard 8 ASI to improve your Charisma. The downside of the different-ability multiclass, beyond the general loss of higher level spells known, is the need to use a lower score for your spell saves/attack rolls etc (as the two previous commenters noted). Since the bard relies a lot on debuffing, then that's suboptimal, but as a diviner you can use your portent to make up for it. I will say that Faerie Fire is a must-take spell for this multiclass, since it only allows one save per target, which gives you bang for your portent buck.
Subclass depends a lot on what you're going for mechanically and what you've already got in your party. Honestly I'd probably concur with the poster above about Eloquence if you're trying to be as useful as possible (take persuasion or deception with the bonus skill for multiclassing bard). Spirits from VRGTR would be my top choice from an RP perspective for a diviner - using seances etc to tap the knowledge of the dead. Mechanically, free ranged guidance isn't bad, and the ghost stories table is quite fun though - being random - not reliably useful. Third choice would probably be Creation for me, as at least it gets you something that you can't get better elsewhere.
As for the rest:
Valor bard is a good way to get hold of an armor proficiency, but honestly if I were going to multi for that, I'd just take one level of artificer - for a lesser cost in terms of character level, I get five level one spells based off INT that I can switch up on a long rest and grab Guidance as one of my two cantrips. You also get access to Faerie Fire, as above.
One of Whispers' class features relies on making weapon attacks, which is probably not what you want to be doing with a wizard. Similarly the benefit of Swords is a melee fighting style, which won't really help you.
Lore - eh, if you've got good skills across the board this could make a good skill monkey build, but you probably don't have enough good ability scores for it to be worth it, and Cutting Words doesn't affect saving throws. Plus all bards get Jack of All Trades at 2nd level, which further reduces the additional benefit from this class.
Glamour: both the level 3 features specifically work off of a character's Charisma, which isn't great as the smaller part of a multiclass.
My ability scores are
Str: 8
Dex: 16
Con: 18
Int: 20
Wis: 14
Cha: 12
It should be stated that you can't multiclass with Bard Raw, since you don't have a 13 charisma.
You never said what school your Wizard is, that would help with this. I could see an enchanter making the transition easily but I have a hard time seeing a necromancer doing so for any reason. You will have to use the L8 ASI to boost your charisma to 14 in order to do the MC, then I would recommend at least 4 levels in bard to get the ASI and the extra, cantrip, known spell. You won’t get any slots as you are now having to use the multiclass slot table but you will have L5&6 slots for upcasting. I would be reading thru the bard subclasses to see what fits right with your character.
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They don't mention it in the actual post, but in the title of the thread they mention "Divination Wizard", which I do think is one of the Wizard subclasses that leans into Bard fairly easily in RP.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
Well my high elf is a divination wizard. The setting is in ebberon, and she has the dragonmark mark of death. Um I don't know much about it so please no spoilers, but we are about to have a level increase and I could put both Stat increases into my charisma. And I think I was going to go college of lore of eloquence, but I'm not sure how it would play. Oh also she is a noble