College of Despair & Tragedy

Comedy is tragedy, and who better to demonstrate that than the alumni of the College of Despair & Tragedy. This bard specializes in debilitating their opponents, inflicting misery, despair, and death in equal measure; taking pleasure in the negativity that they inflict.

Patron of Despair

Taking up the College of Despair & Tragedy at 3rd level you gain the ability to designate a Patron of Despair. As a bonus action, target a creature you can see within 60 feet of you and designate them as your Patron of Despair for 1 minute, you can only have one Patron of Despair marked at any one time, and designating a new one will remove the feature from the previous one. A creature marked as your Patron of Despair gets the following effects:

• Once per turn when you hit with a weapon attack, deal an extra 1d4 psychic damage to this creature. This damage increases when you reach certain levels in this class 1d6 at 5th level, 1d8 at 10th level, and 1d10 at 15th level
• They have disadvantage on saving throws against being Frightened
• If they are dealt Psychic damage, you can use your reaction and expend one use of your Bardic Inspiration to force them to make a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC or become Frightened of you for 1 minute

You can designate a Patron of Despair a number of times equal to your Proficiency Bonus gaining all expended uses back after you finish a long rest.

Truth in Despair

Starting at 3rd level, your sheer control of terror causes those you interact with the inability to lie. You can cast Zone of Truth without expending a spell-slot, provided that at least one of the creatures that would be affected is not friendly towards you and is currently frightened of you or is marked as your Patron of Despair. Once you cast Zone of Truth in this way you cannot do so again until you finish a long rest.

Additionally when in a Zone of Truth cast by yourself, you gain advantage on charisma (deception) checks against frightened creatures.

Desperate Tragedy

You have learned to leverage your enemy’s despair to fuel further tragedy. Starting at 6th level, when your Patron of Despair drops to 0 hit points before the duration of the Patronage ends, you can use your bonus action on a subsequent turn to transfer the mark and designate a new Patron of Despair for the remaining duration.

Additionally if you defeat a creature marked as your Patron of Despair you regain an expended spell slot of level 1. When you reach higher levels in this class you can regain higher level expended spell slots: at 10th level you can regain a level 2 or lower spell slot, and at 15th level you can regain a level 3 or lower spell slot. You can only regain a spell slot in this manner a number of times equal to half your Charisma modifier rounded down (min. 1), regaining all expended uses after a long rest.

Lastly any Psychic damage dealt by you to your Patron of Despair bypasses any damage resistances and immunities.

Extra Attack

Starting 6th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.

Dramaturge of Despair

You have become the embodiment of tragedy, comedy, and despair. At 14th level, when your Patron of Despair drops to 0 hit points, you can use your reaction to add a flourish to their defeat causing an explosion of energy to emanate from the event. Choose either Catharsis or Repression:

• Catharsis: each friendly creature within 15ft of your Patron of Despair regains 7d8 + your Charisma modifier hit points, and ends blindness, deafness, and any diseases affecting them.
• Repression: each hostile creature within 30ft of your Patron of Despair must make a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC. They take 8d10 Psychic damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful save. Regardless, they become Frightened of you until the end of their next turn.

Once you use this feature you cannot do so again until you finish a long rest.