I wanted to design a subclass that builds off of the "skill monkey" nature of bards and presenting a way for them to extend the benefits of their knowledge and practice to others. So, I wrote up the College of Tutelage. You wanna play a school teacher who travels the land searching for their kidnapped students? College of Tutelage. You wanna play an Fitness Instructor who wants to help the rest of the party with their Athletic and Acrobatic endeavors? College of Tutelage. You wanna play a stereotypical book nerd, but want to spend more time talking about books than the average wizard? College of Tutelage

Anyway, the features are pretty straightforward, but I think are still powerful enough to have long-term impact in a party. Let me know what you think

College of Tutelage

Bards from the College of Tutelage are focused on mastering their skills through practice and studious research. These bards usually take on the role of instructors at various bard colleges or other places of learning, as they possess a particular talent for guiding others in improving their own skills. 

Bard Level	Subclass Features
3rd	Studious Zeal, Enlightening Lecture
6th	Supportive Insight
14th	Grandmaster

 

Studious Zeal 

Starting when you choose this college at 3rd level, your bardic magic enhances your search for knowledge.  Whenever you make an Intelligence check, you gain a bonus to the check equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of +1).

Additionally, you gain proficiency in one of the following skills of your choice: Arcana, History, Nature, or Religion. 

Enlightening Lecture

Also at 3rd level, you  learn the Guidance cantrip, which counts as a Bard spell for you but does not count against the number of cantrips you know.

Additionally, you are able to quickly and effectively impart knowledge onto those benefiting from your Song of Rest feature. Any friendly creature who regains hit points as part of a short rest by spending one or more Hit Dice also gains proficiency in one skill or one set of tools of its choice. This proficiency lasts until the creature finishes a long rest or it gains a different proficiency from this feature.  

Supportive Insight

Starting at 6th level, when a friendly creature that can see or hear you fails an ability check, you can use your reaction to expend one of your Bardic Inspiration dice and allow the creature to roll the die and add the value to their total, potentially causing the check to succeed. 

Additionally, if you have expertise in the skill associated with the ability check made by the friendly creature, that creature can also add your Charisma modifier to the total. 

Grandmaster

Starting at 14th level, you gain expertise in two more of your skill proficiencies of your choice. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses either of the chosen proficiencies.

Additionally, any ability check affected by your Jack of All Trades feature gains a +4 bonus to the roll instead of half of your proficiency bonus. 

I would recommend giving them the Guidance cantrip, as that seems pretty on-theme and Bards can't usually get it.

Studious Zeal seems like it's stepping on the toes of Lore Bard a bit, and feels like its more about being super smart than about sharing knowledge. It's also focused on the "book nerd" at the expense of the "fitness instructor." I think keeping your bonuses skill-agnostic would help to keep the class open to a bunch of different approaches.

To me, the most obvious way that Bards help their allies with skills is through inspiration. It might make sense to somehow enhance inspiration when used for a skill check. Something like the creation Bard's Mote of Potential. In my experience, inspiration is often most valued when used with attacks or saves, so making the skill check option more attractive would help this to really feel different from other bards.

Quote from scatterbraind>>

I would recommend giving them the Guidance cantrip, as that seems pretty on-theme and Bards can't usually get it.

Could be fun. Might add that into the mix

Studious Zeal seems like it's stepping on the toes of Lore Bard a bit, and feels like its more about being super smart than about sharing knowledge. It's also focused on the "book nerd" at the expense of the "fitness instructor." I think keeping your bonuses skill-agnostic would help to keep the class open to a bunch of different approaches.

This is based loosely on the Otherworldly Glamour ability that the Fey Wanderer Ranger gets. The idea is to take an ability that a bard likely would not build into in the first place (Intelligence) and allow them to use their primary stat (Charisma) as a bonus for it. Its somewhat limited in what skills it will apply to, but can be powerful, especially if the bard does decide to double down with Int.  Although a fitness instructor is a viable theme for this subclass (as I will discuss later), the focus is meant to be more heavily on "studious and well learned" so I think focusing on Intelligence-based skills makes sense and is thematically on point. I also do not want to make it a skill-agnostic bonus because I feel everyone would use it to double down with expertise on skills like Athletics / Acrobatics / Stealth / Sleight of Hand (i.e skills that will help them in combat or being sneaky) when thats not really where I want the focus to lie. 

To me, the most obvious way that Bards help their allies with skills is through inspiration. It might make sense to somehow enhance inspiration when used for a skill check. Something like the creation Bard's Mote of Potential. In my experience, inspiration is often most valued when used with attacks or saves, so making the skill check option more attractive would help this to really feel different from other bards.

Supportive Insight is meant to build off of inspiration specifically for skills, like you had said. It allows you to give a creature inspiration on a skill check as a reaction when you know they would otherwise fail. This allows you to conserve your uses of inspiration for pivotal moments instead of giving it to them for a skill check they would have possibly succeeded on even without using it (or avoid the situation where a player simply forgets to use the inspiration you gave them 5 minutes ago). Additionally, it is further enhanced by allowing the target creature to add your Charisma modifier to their check as well if you have expertise in the skill. This is really where I am envisioning the divergence occurring between a "fitness instructor" or other bookish types, as what skills you will be the most helpful with depend on how you allocate your expertise. 

This ability paired with Enlightening Lecture are meant to be the "sharing knowledge" parts of the subclass. 

I love this.