Bardic College of Swords (shadow edition)*

Bards of the College of Swords are called blades, and they entertain through daring feats of weapon prowess. Blades perform stunts such as sword swallowing, knife throwing and juggling, and mock combats. Though they use their weapons to entertain, they are also highly trained and skilled warriors in their own right.

Their talent with weapons inspires many blades to lead double lives. One blade might use a circus troupe as cover for nefarious deeds such as assassination, robbery, and blackmail. Other blades strike at the wicked, bringing justice to bear against the cruel and powerful. Most troupes are happy to accept a blade's talent for the excitement it adds to a performance, but few entertainers fully trust a blade in their ranks.

Blades who abandon their lives as entertainers have often run into trouble that makes maintaining their secret activities impossible. A blade caught stealing or engaging in vigilante justice is too great a liability for most troupes. With their weapon skills and magic, these blades either take up work as enforcers for thieves' guilds or strike out on their own as adventurers.

Bonus Proficiencies

When you join the College of Swords at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with medium armor, shields, and one melee martial or simple weapon of your choice.

If you’re proficient with a simple or martial melee weapon, you can use it as a spellcasting focus for your bard spells.

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.

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.

Great Weapon Fighting

When you roll a 1 or 2 on a damage die for an attack you make with a melee weapon that you are wielding with two hands, you can reroll the die and must use the new roll, even if the new roll is a 1 or a 2. The weapon must have the two-handed or versatile property for you to gain this benefit.

Two-Weapon Fighting

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

Blade Flourish

At 3rd level, you learn to conduct impressive displays of martial prowess and speed. You gain a number of Flourish Dice equal to your charisma modifier. Your Flourish Dice will always be the same type as your Bardic Inspiration. A Flourish Die is expended when you use it. You regain all of your expended Flourish Dice when you finish a short or long rest.

Whenever you take the Attack action on your turn, your walking speed increases by 10 feet until the end of the turn, and if a weapon attack that you make as part of this action hits a creature, you can use one of the following Blade Flourish options of your choice. You can use only one Blade Flourish option per turn.

Defensive Flourish. You can expend one of your Flourish Dice to cause the weapon to deal extra damage to the target you hit. The damage equals the number you roll on the Flourish Die. You also add the number rolled to your AC until the start of your next turn.

Slashing Flourish. You can expend one of your Flourish Dice to cause the weapon to deal extra damage to the target you hit and to any other creature of your choice that you can see within 5 feet of you or the target of your attack. The damage equals the number you roll on the Flourish Die.

Mobile Flourish. You can expend one of your Flourish Dice to cause the weapon to deal extra damage to the target you hit. The damage equals the number you roll on the Flourish Die. You can also push the target up to 5 feet away from you, plus a number of feet equal to the number you roll on that die. You can then immediately use your reaction to move up to your walking speed to an unoccupied space within 5 feet of the target.

Vengeful Flourish. You can spend one use of your Bardic Inspiration to cause the weapon to deal extra damage to the target you hit. The damage equals the number you roll on the Bardic Inspiration die. All of your weapon attacks critically hit on a 19 or 20 until the end of your next turn. If you critically hit before this effect ends, you roll your Bardic Inspiration die as one additional damage die.

Bombastic Flourish. You can spend one use of your Bardic Inspiration to cause the weapon to deal extra damage to the target you hit. The damage equals the number you roll on the Bardic Inspiration die. You can also grant Bardic Inspiration to one creature within 30 feet of the target. The die for this Bardic inspiration is always 1 die lower

Invigorating Flourish. You can spend one use of your Bardic Inspiration to cause the weapon to deal extra damage to the target you hit. The damage equals the number you roll on the Bardic Inspiration die. One creature of your choice that can see you perform the Invigorating Flourish gains Temporary Hit Points equal to the roll of your Bardic Inspiration die and your Charisma modifier.

Extra Attack

Starting at 6th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn. Moreover, you can cast one of your damaging cantrips in place of one of those attacks.

Master's Flourish

Starting at 14th level, whenever you use a Blade Flourish option, you can roll a d8 and use it instead of expending a Bardic Inspiration die.