Unearthed Arcana has yet again graced us with another subclass, and this time it's the bard!
I've always enjoyed the bard as less than a musician, and more as a storyteller or smoothtalker, and so when I read the College of Eloquence, I was understandably excited.
After some pondering, I am slightly underwhelmed by the subclass, but not entirely so.
Let me start with what I'm most excited about: the 6th Level feature...Undeniable Logic. This feature is great, and lends to both the bard as a support class, and throws them a little love for the people who like the bard to help themselves a bit.
You have the option to dish out some psychic damage for your Bardic Inspiration, and if that enemy fails an Intelligence save, they get disadvantage on their next save.
I picture it as essentially dazing them, and the fact that you can combo this with one of your own spells after is perfect...especially if your spell is "save or fail". It's like advantage for your big spells...and hey, if your Magical Secrets are damage save-or-fail spells (Disintegrate comes to mind), you have a better shot to land it.
As an alternative, you can also choose to use that Bardic Inspiration to heal an ally for the value of the roll, and then give them advantage on their next saving throw. I like the extra option, and as someone on this site has already mentioned, "persuading" or "inspiring" someone to ignore a mortal wound and snap back from unconciousness is just damn entertaining.
I love the roleplay of this sort of feature; the debuff let's you play as this sinister figure, calmly explaining why your enemy is doomed to fail...I picture the narrator from "The Darkest Dungeon", shouting out terrifying phrases right before a target falls. Likewise, a support character can really help the party by healing them as a bonus action, and giving them the motivation to fight better to boot.
I wish I was as happy with the other features...
3rd Level gives you Universal Speech, which gives you automatic translation for any creature that speaks a language.
It's...a little boring. Totally appropriate for a subclass based around talking, but compared to some of the other Bardic Inspiration uses at this level, a tad underwhelming. I suppose the bard DOES get that sweet 6th Level feature, however. Fair trade.
For the sake of offering an alternative...how about the bard being allowed to use their voice as their spellcasting focus? Or perhaps the ability to use telepathy on a wide number of targets? To take that further...maybe they don't need verbal components to their spellcasting at all, similar to a sorcerer's "Subtle" meta magic:
"The bards words transcend the physical realm, and speak directly to the soul of the recipient. If a spell requires verbal components, the bard is able to telepathically carry the words without speaking them."...or something like that.
The other 3rd Level feature "Soothing Words" is also thematically appropriate...but you run across a similar issue where the general effectiveness of the spell "Calm Emotions" varies depending on the situation.
The capstone feature "Infectious Inspiration" seems similarly underwhelming...it's nice to save Bardic Inspiration, and two-for-one is a good value, but it also feels like it's simply a means to save Bardic Inspiration from the constant consumption of the other features.
College of Glamour gets to assume this super-form where any attacks might miss them, plus subsequent advantage...on a short rest. College of Lore can improve all of their skill checks with Bardic Inspiration, making social matters in direct competition to the College of Eloquence.
I suppose I would prefer...I dunno...a more dynamic, dare I say, "magical" ability?
Perhaps a special variation of a "rebuke" spell or feature...the bard can toss out a rebuke as a reaction, one that imposes a status debuff?
Maybe a chance to stun an enemy; a "psychic" rebuke that symbolizes a bards ability to completely dumbfound a target that tries to be hostile if they miss the save...and on a success, perhaps they move at half-speed until their next turn...a number of times equal to the Charisma modifier until a long rest. Powerful, but at higher level, a fair feature.
Anyway. It's Unearthed Arcana, so if a final version becomes official, a revision could take place.
The college of Eloquence is broken. It is far to overwhelming for me. While it doesn't seem like much, they have so many bardic inspirations. Most bards would go for a maxed charisma, because almost every bard ability uses it and not really any other stat. So that would be 5 bardic inspirations. Then they are able to let someone keep using a bardic inspiration until it works, so that will give even the most unlucky player a great edge. Then they can give out more bardic inspirations, very quickly, because the bardic inspiration is still being used even if not used up when someone fails a roll, so they can give the extra 5 to more people. Not to mention their free calm emotion casts.
Looking at it from a numbers perspective, the fact they can heal and give advantage to 4 people, then give bardic inspiration to 6 others is to broken.
Unearthed Arcana has yet again graced us with another subclass, and this time it's the bard!
I've always enjoyed the bard as less than a musician, and more as a storyteller or smoothtalker, and so when I read the College of Eloquence, I was understandably excited.
After some pondering, I am slightly underwhelmed by the subclass, but not entirely so.
Let me start with what I'm most excited about: the 6th Level feature...Undeniable Logic. This feature is great, and lends to both the bard as a support class, and throws them a little love for the people who like the bard to help themselves a bit.
You have the option to dish out some psychic damage for your Bardic Inspiration, and if that enemy fails an Intelligence save, they get disadvantage on their next save.
I picture it as essentially dazing them, and the fact that you can combo this with one of your own spells after is perfect...especially if your spell is "save or fail". It's like advantage for your big spells...and hey, if your Magical Secrets are damage save-or-fail spells (Disintegrate comes to mind), you have a better shot to land it.
As an alternative, you can also choose to use that Bardic Inspiration to heal an ally for the value of the roll, and then give them advantage on their next saving throw. I like the extra option, and as someone on this site has already mentioned, "persuading" or "inspiring" someone to ignore a mortal wound and snap back from unconciousness is just damn entertaining.
I love the roleplay of this sort of feature; the debuff let's you play as this sinister figure, calmly explaining why your enemy is doomed to fail...I picture the narrator from "The Darkest Dungeon", shouting out terrifying phrases right before a target falls. Likewise, a support character can really help the party by healing them as a bonus action, and giving them the motivation to fight better to boot.
I wish I was as happy with the other features...
3rd Level gives you Universal Speech, which gives you automatic translation for any creature that speaks a language.
It's...a little boring. Totally appropriate for a subclass based around talking, but compared to some of the other Bardic Inspiration uses at this level, a tad underwhelming. I suppose the bard DOES get that sweet 6th Level feature, however. Fair trade.
For the sake of offering an alternative...how about the bard being allowed to use their voice as their spellcasting focus? Or perhaps the ability to use telepathy on a wide number of targets? To take that further...maybe they don't need verbal components to their spellcasting at all, similar to a sorcerer's "Subtle" meta magic:
"The bards words transcend the physical realm, and speak directly to the soul of the recipient. If a spell requires verbal components, the bard is able to telepathically carry the words without speaking them."...or something like that.
The other 3rd Level feature "Soothing Words" is also thematically appropriate...but you run across a similar issue where the general effectiveness of the spell "Calm Emotions" varies depending on the situation.
The capstone feature "Infectious Inspiration" seems similarly underwhelming...it's nice to save Bardic Inspiration, and two-for-one is a good value, but it also feels like it's simply a means to save Bardic Inspiration from the constant consumption of the other features.
College of Glamour gets to assume this super-form where any attacks might miss them, plus subsequent advantage...on a short rest. College of Lore can improve all of their skill checks with Bardic Inspiration, making social matters in direct competition to the College of Eloquence.
I suppose I would prefer...I dunno...a more dynamic, dare I say, "magical" ability?
Perhaps a special variation of a "rebuke" spell or feature...the bard can toss out a rebuke as a reaction, one that imposes a status debuff?
Maybe a chance to stun an enemy; a "psychic" rebuke that symbolizes a bards ability to completely dumbfound a target that tries to be hostile if they miss the save...and on a success, perhaps they move at half-speed until their next turn...a number of times equal to the Charisma modifier until a long rest. Powerful, but at higher level, a fair feature.
Anyway. It's Unearthed Arcana, so if a final version becomes official, a revision could take place.
What are some of your thoughts? Share below!
Like a rebuke that gives a stun or charm effect.
The college of Eloquence is broken. It is far to overwhelming for me. While it doesn't seem like much, they have so many bardic inspirations. Most bards would go for a maxed charisma, because almost every bard ability uses it and not really any other stat. So that would be 5 bardic inspirations. Then they are able to let someone keep using a bardic inspiration until it works, so that will give even the most unlucky player a great edge. Then they can give out more bardic inspirations, very quickly, because the bardic inspiration is still being used even if not used up when someone fails a roll, so they can give the extra 5 to more people. Not to mention their free calm emotion casts.
Looking at it from a numbers perspective, the fact they can heal and give advantage to 4 people, then give bardic inspiration to 6 others is to broken.
Also known as CrafterB and DankMemer.
Here, have some homebrew classes! Subclasses to? Why not races. Feats, feats as well. I have a lot of magic items. Lastly I got monsters, fun, fun times.