After a bit or review, I'm actually mostly happy with the changes they've made, outside of the advantage Lore bards got from extra magical secrets, but the improvement in bardic inspiration buffs combined with the much deeper backbench of all arcane spells might balance things out in terms of playability and versatility. The healing songs makes up for the loss of lower level healing spells bards can get.
Is the loss of versatility from extra magical secrets made up for with better buffs? I think lore bards should represent benefits gained from deep study and chasing hidden or forbidden lore, and the "you buff better" just does not replace extra magical secrets right, despite being a really cool addition. Agree? Disagree?
Also, what would you take from the primal and divine spell lists as your magical secrets? My thoughts are to focus on damage spells like harm or divination spells like commune.
I don't mind losing Extra Magical Secrets because their base list is considerably stronger now. For example I would typically use EMS to pick up Haste and Fly, but those are just on the Bard list now as they are Arcane Transmutations.
They did lose a few useful things like Dispel Magic and Faerie Fire that you now have to wait to get back, but generally the stuff they lose is highly likely to be covered by someone else in the party while the stuff they gained is very useful to have in multiples.
I don't particularly like the new 1D&D Bard. Mostly because I like to focus on tier 1/2, and before level 11 bards are just kind of terrible.
Anything at level 11 or past level 11 might as well not exist for me, so as far as I'm concerned Magical Secrets does not exist.
I wouldn't say Bardic Inspiration is better, you have additional options now, but you lose a lot of bardic inspirations to do so. Both in actual uses, and that Font of Inspiration was pushed 2 levels back. I think once you get to level 7 it's better, but before then having only 2/3 uses is brutal (especially since your subclass also demands bardic inspirations). Even after level 7, bards tend to have much better reactions than they do bonus actions so it's not a complete boost there either.
Cunning Inspiration sounds nice but realistically is probably just there to buff your Cutting Words (it applies to both the debuff and the damage cause it's the same roll for both). I wish Cunning Inspiration just was the level 3 feature, that way it wouldn't mess with your bardic inspirations and be more fitting of Lore (at least more so than Cutting Words).
At low levels the UA Bard is a flavor fail, and is mechanically much weaker than the 5e rules. It used to be my favorite class, and now I'm almost completely uninterested in playing one.
Don't get me wrong, the 5e bard is a really strong class through all levels, and that's part of what I loved about it. But the strength of the bard was to make everyone else better at the table, and so having a powerful bard never felt like just just watching one person win by themselves (which is something I definitely felt sometimes from certain optimized builds in other classes).
They haven't given us a vision for how they want us to play the game, so all I have is speculation. But it feels like the designers played bards in a certain way and pushed the UA version towards that playstyle. And it's at odds with the unique jack-of-all trades bard we have in 5e.
If you are lucky enough to play a UA bard at high levels, I don't think you'll feel these issues as much. A level 11 bard actually starts looking really fun again. But I think it needs a rebalance of features across its levels.
That feels like a running issue with all the UA classes. You get the class flavor at levels 1 and 2, then it's all dependant on the subclass for a long time. The class theme itself doesn't come back into the second half of the levels mostly. And that's higher than many people play the game. It feels weird to have to play in a campaign for months before seeing your class abilities show up again.
As it focuses almost exclusively on Cutting Words now, the Lore Bard is more the College of Insults. Which I don't entirely hate, but the "Lore" aspect is underplayed.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
After a bit or review, I'm actually mostly happy with the changes they've made, outside of the advantage Lore bards got from extra magical secrets, but the improvement in bardic inspiration buffs combined with the much deeper backbench of all arcane spells might balance things out in terms of playability and versatility. The healing songs makes up for the loss of lower level healing spells bards can get.
Is the loss of versatility from extra magical secrets made up for with better buffs? I think lore bards should represent benefits gained from deep study and chasing hidden or forbidden lore, and the "you buff better" just does not replace extra magical secrets right, despite being a really cool addition. Agree? Disagree?
Also, what would you take from the primal and divine spell lists as your magical secrets? My thoughts are to focus on damage spells like harm or divination spells like commune.
I don't mind losing Extra Magical Secrets because their base list is considerably stronger now. For example I would typically use EMS to pick up Haste and Fly, but those are just on the Bard list now as they are Arcane Transmutations.
They did lose a few useful things like Dispel Magic and Faerie Fire that you now have to wait to get back, but generally the stuff they lose is highly likely to be covered by someone else in the party while the stuff they gained is very useful to have in multiples.
I don't particularly like the new 1D&D Bard. Mostly because I like to focus on tier 1/2, and before level 11 bards are just kind of terrible.
Anything at level 11 or past level 11 might as well not exist for me, so as far as I'm concerned Magical Secrets does not exist.
I wouldn't say Bardic Inspiration is better, you have additional options now, but you lose a lot of bardic inspirations to do so. Both in actual uses, and that Font of Inspiration was pushed 2 levels back. I think once you get to level 7 it's better, but before then having only 2/3 uses is brutal (especially since your subclass also demands bardic inspirations). Even after level 7, bards tend to have much better reactions than they do bonus actions so it's not a complete boost there either.
Cunning Inspiration sounds nice but realistically is probably just there to buff your Cutting Words (it applies to both the debuff and the damage cause it's the same roll for both). I wish Cunning Inspiration just was the level 3 feature, that way it wouldn't mess with your bardic inspirations and be more fitting of Lore (at least more so than Cutting Words).
if I edit a message, most of the time it's because of grammar. The rest of the time I'll put "Edit:" at the bottom.
At low levels the UA Bard is a flavor fail, and is mechanically much weaker than the 5e rules. It used to be my favorite class, and now I'm almost completely uninterested in playing one.
Don't get me wrong, the 5e bard is a really strong class through all levels, and that's part of what I loved about it. But the strength of the bard was to make everyone else better at the table, and so having a powerful bard never felt like just just watching one person win by themselves (which is something I definitely felt sometimes from certain optimized builds in other classes).
They haven't given us a vision for how they want us to play the game, so all I have is speculation. But it feels like the designers played bards in a certain way and pushed the UA version towards that playstyle. And it's at odds with the unique jack-of-all trades bard we have in 5e.
If you are lucky enough to play a UA bard at high levels, I don't think you'll feel these issues as much. A level 11 bard actually starts looking really fun again. But I think it needs a rebalance of features across its levels.
That feels like a running issue with all the UA classes. You get the class flavor at levels 1 and 2, then it's all dependant on the subclass for a long time. The class theme itself doesn't come back into the second half of the levels mostly. And that's higher than many people play the game. It feels weird to have to play in a campaign for months before seeing your class abilities show up again.
As it focuses almost exclusively on Cutting Words now, the Lore Bard is more the College of Insults. Which I don't entirely hate, but the "Lore" aspect is underplayed.