Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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Got a quick rules question about feats and class features interacting with each other, and haven't been able to find any definitive answers thus far.
I've been building a mosh pit Dance Bard, with focus on Unarmed Strikes at every opportunity and moving around as much as possible. I'm taking the Charger feat to maximise on this (and play out a wall of death in the pit), giving me +1d8 to an attack after moving at least 10ft in a straight line towards an enemy and making the attack action. With Inspiring Movement, if someone ends up within 5ft of me, I can use one Bardic Inspiration dice and move half of my speed, and with Agile Strikes, when I expend that BI dice I can make an Unarmed Strike.
My question is, can that strike be made at any point during/after that movement, or only before? For example, Enemy A moves to within 5ft of me, I trigger Inspiring Movement, and move 15ft towards another nearby enemy (Enemy B) and perform the Unarmed Strike on them, activating Charger, and getting the extra 1d8 on that attack. Or, does the Agile Strike have to be done before any movement is resolved?
A slightly more abusive use case: with the right amount of total movement (40ft+), moving 10ft away from Enemy A, then moving back in contact, also activating Charger.
This also comes into play with the bonus action activation of Agile Strikes when throwing out a Bardic Inspiration. Say I run into combat (10ft+), throw out a BI, and throw out an Unarmed Strike using Agile Strikes- would that benefit from the Charger bonus damage dice?
Final question: bringing in the Grappler feat into this whole scenario- for each of the Unarmed Strikes that can be dealt out during the bonus action and reaction, does that allow Grappler to be used? It can only be used once per turn, but I can see a scenario where the bonus action BI Unarmed Strike punches and grapples an enemy, keeps them within 5ft, they end their turn within 5ft, triggering Inspiring Movement, move, punch, grapple (or punch, grapple, move if that order doesn't work).
Sorry for the barrage of questions, just trying to work out how all of these things interact with each other.
Agile Strikes says that you can make the Unarmed Strike "as part of that action, Bonus Action, or Reaction", without specifying a specific timing. I'd say you get to choose what order you do the different parts of it in. This kind of running around everywhere whacking people is exactly what this subclass is built for.
However, it should be noted that in your example, you cannot use the "Charge Attack" benefit of the Charger feat, because that only applies when you are taking the Attack action, which you haven't done in this example. (You've attacked, but you haven't taken the Attack action.)
Likewise, the "Punch and Grab" benefit of the Grappler feat also only applies when taking the Attack action on your turn.
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I definitely missed that in my reading, it makes sense, thank you so much. That definitely changes my build planning as it makes those 2 feats significantly less effective with the barrage of punches I'm throwing out as bonus action and reaction, and would take out the action to do spellcasting. Looks like Speedy is a better feat, and then just focusing on ASIs!
I think that’s a good idea. I’m currently playing a Dance Bard and Speedy has come in very handy many times.
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As mentioned by wagnarokkr, Punch and Grab won't work. However, the rest of the feat will work. You can grapple as part of your bardic inspiration use and then, as long as the target is grappled, drag them around without extra movement if they are your size or smaller (non-magic irresistible dance) and attack them with advantage.
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My houserulings.
That's a fair point. I think my hesitancy there is that to make Grappler work well, taking a level in Monk is needed to make the DC from DEX rather than STR. That dip was worth it when I thought (incorrectly) that I was damaging and grappling maybe 2 times a turn, but taking out one instance of damage to maybe grapple to get advantage on an attack that may not happen if they break the grapple on their turn makes it a lot less desirable and getting skills higher and higher BI dice earlier more attractive.