Looking for some basic feedback, balance thoughts, etc... Obvious pulls from rogue subclasses.  Thanks!

Weapon Focus

If you’re proficient with a simple or martial weapon, you can use it as a spellcasting focus for your bard spells.  In addition you are proficient with Medium Armor and One Martial Weapon of your choice.

Tools of the Trade

You gain proficiency in thieves' tools.  If already proficient, choose another tool

Fighting Style

At 3rd level, you adopt a style of fighting as your specialty. Choose one of the following options. You can’t take a Fighting Style option more than once, even if something in the game lets you choose again.

Archery

 You gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls you make with ranged weapons

Blindfighting

 You have blindsight with a range of 10 feet. Within that range, you can effectively see anything that isn’t behind total cover, even if you’re blinded or in darkness. Moreover, you can see an invisible creature within that range, unless the creature successfully hides from you.

Dueling

When you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with that weapon.

Two-Weapon Fighting

When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack.

Seize Initiative

Starting at 3rd level, your confidence propels you into battle. You can give yourself a bonus to your initiative rolls equal to your Charisma modifier.

Lethality

Starting at 6rd level, you are at your deadliest when you get the drop on your enemies. You have advantage on attack rolls against any creature that hasn’t taken a turn in the combat yet. In addition, any hit you score against a creature that is surprised is a critical hit.

Death Strike

Starting at 14th level, you become a master of instant death. When you attack and hit a creature that is surprised, it must make a Constitution saving throw (DC 8 + your Dexterity modifier + your proficiency bonus). On a failed save, double the damage of your attack against the creature.

This sucks might as well just multi-class into rogue you would get more out of it

It's an interesting take, but despite College of Swords and Valor existing, bards just aren't really a melee class. They are full casters and quickly get to the point where making one lousy weapon attack is a much worse option than casting spells.

They also just have nothing that increases their melee damage, so your "Death Strike" is going to be doing an average of 9-ish damage with 9-ish more if the target fails a save, against targets with 100+ hit points. Then the fighter goes and deals 50+ damage like he does on every single turn.

Bards just aren't a damage class. If I were to make an assassin bard, it would be about infiltrating, impersonating, disabling. But mostly I just think that role belongs to the rogue. Assassins don't want attention, bards demand attention.

Quote from IsaacIronMace >>

This sucks might as well just multi-class into rogue you would get more out of it

Probably should have provided more context, but I don't disagree.  Building a bit of a weird character for fun - trying to optimize a bit on the opening round.  Agree just going rogue/assassin for 3 levels would be more optimal, but that's not the intent - just looking for some feedback on if this is balanced against other subclasses as I don't do this often.

Quote from scatterbraind >>

It's an interesting take, but despite College of Swords and Valor existing, bards just aren't really a melee class. They are full casters and quickly get to the point where making one lousy weapon attack is a much worse option than casting spells.

They also just have nothing that increases their melee damage, so your "Death Strike" is going to be doing an average of 9-ish damage with 9-ish more if the target fails a save, against targets with 100+ hit points. Then the fighter goes and deals 50+ damage like he does on every single turn.

Bards just aren't a damage class. If I were to make an assassin bard, it would be about infiltrating, impersonating, disabling. But mostly I just think that role belongs to the rogue. Assassins don't want attention, bards demand attention.

Part of this is trying to plug something into an existing stealthy murder-hobo party (rotating DM duty in DotMM).  Looking to be able to participate on opening round but then fall back to support.  Not looking to optimize, just have fun and make sure it's not imbalanced.

if i were to make an assassin bard subclass instead of trying to make it an assassin I would make it to were it was actual a distraction so maye it can give enemys disadvantage on perception check do to its intriguing music. maybe it can spend a bardic inspiration die and subtract that from a wisdom insight/ perception roll an enemy make or adds it to a stealth/ sleight of hand roll to really give it that bard feel. also you could take a ploy off of sneak attack and spend a bardic inspiration to add to someones attack if they meet the requirement for sneak attack then it is almost like a rogue not rogue it does all the things a rogue does but not really. the big problem with this subclass is it is not a bard.

The problem with this subclass is that there's no way to capitalize on its features.

Defensively, all you've given them is a slight boost to ac. This makes melee extremely risky, and the payoff isn't anywhere near worth it.

Fighting styles normally belong to characters who get extra attack. On a single-attacking subclass, you're basically only getting half the benefit.

Weapons being a focus doesn't matter if your off hand isn't occupied by a shield.

You have two features that only work when the target is surprised, and that situation is exceptionally rare in most games.

Quote from OverdesignBob >>

 

Fighting styles normally belong to characters who get extra attack. On a single-attacking subclass, you're basically only getting half the benefit.

 

 This is something I hadn't realized before.  Thanks for pointing it out!

Quote from IsaacIronMace >>

if i were to make an assassin bard subclass instead of trying to make it an assassin I would make it to were it was actual a distraction so maye it can give enemys disadvantage on perception check do to its intriguing music. maybe it can spend a bardic inspiration die and subtract that from a wisdom insight/ perception roll an enemy make or adds it to a stealth/ sleight of hand roll to really give it that bard feel. also you could take a ploy off of sneak attack and spend a bardic inspiration to add to someones attack if they meet the requirement for sneak attack then it is almost like a rogue not rogue it does all the things a rogue does but not really. the big problem with this subclass is it is not a bard.

 Thanks for this!  I was trying to think of interesting ways to bring in bardic inspiration but nothing was coming to mind.

Quote from Sedarious >>

 

Part of this is trying to plug something into an existing stealthy murder-hobo party (rotating DM duty in DotMM).  Looking to be able to participate on opening round but then fall back to support.  Not looking to optimize, just have fun and make sure it's not imbalanced.

 Sure, I get that. But again, let's put ourselves in the shoes of a level 14 bard. On the opening round here are some options you have:

• Use Death Strike to deal 9 damage with the chance of maybe dealing 9 more - maxed to 27 if you surprised them for a free, doubled crit
• cast synaptic static to deal ~28 damage to a 20-foot radius area of enemies plus a significant debuff
• cast hold monster to render one target completely helpless (allowing everyone else to crit) or hold person on up to 5 targets if fighting humanoids
• use a disguise and cast mass suggestion to just avoid the encounter - and any chance of detection - entirely
• similarly use mislead or programmed illusion to avoid the encounter or generate surprise
• dominate person, confusion, polymorph, stinking cloud, hypnotic pattern, etc.

This game does not have satisfying gish builds because a full spellcaster just has too many good options for their action, and giving them a melee option that can compete means they still have all that power plus the power of a full martial character.

It's not that this isn't balanced, it's that you would need to imbalance it to make it work the way you want. As is, the best way to make use of these features is to use Magical Secrets to get something like guiding bolt or scorching ray and be a sorcerer on round 1.

I think the tricky thing is that the "Rogue Bard" subclass already exists, in the form of the Whispers bard, and Bard also has two dedicated melee combatant subclasses in the Swords and Valor bards... I think the only thing this theoretical subclass really does that none of those classes offer is Thieve's Tools Proficiency and the ability to use a weapon as a spellcasting focus. As has been mentioned, the weapon as a spellcasting focus isn't particularly important, since the class doesn't include Shield Proficiency, so there aren't going to be many situations where you won't simply have a hand free to use your regular spellcasting focus.

So, right off the bat... I like the idea of 3rd level giving you Thieve's Tools and a boost to Initiative. What this subclass is really missing is a way to tack on extra damage... whether that takes the form of Extra Attack or something like a Whispers Bard's Psychic Blades. I'm partial to something like Psychic Blades, personally. So for now, I'd recommend just 100% stealing Psychic Blades from Whispers. I think it would also be cool if the subclass gave you the ability spend a bardic inspiration die on yourself, but only for Stealth, Sleight of Hand, and Thieves' Tools checks.

So you get to 6th level, and I think basing that ability on the Assassinate feature isn't bad, but I would change it a bit to make it work better for this class. I still like the idea of just gaining advantage against any creature that hasn't taken a turn yet. I think instead of just auto-critting against a surprised creature, instead I think it would be good to do something like... perhaps you can use your Psychic Blades (or whatever the feature ends up being called) without consuming a bardic inspiration point.

The 14th level feature is a bit harder to nail down. Personally I'm a fan of the Valor Bard feature, Battle Magic, which allows you to make a bonus action attack after casting a bard spell on your turn. It's not super exciting or unique, but mechanically it's extremely useful, especially when you're able to "juice" your weapon attacks.