College of Uselessness

Throughout time, it has been a universal truth that nothing makes people feel better than watching someone else do worse.  Bards of the College of Uselessness make this piece of human nature their livelihood.  From court jesters to town bums, no one is more loved or wanted than someone you know you can look down upon.

Self Deprecation

Getting inspiration can be a lot of pressure.  At times, it is more effective knowing that you can't do worse than the person before you.  As a reaction, whenever you make an ability check, attack roll, or saving throw, before you make the roll you can choose to subtract your bardic inspiration die from your own roll.  When you do this, you can then give a bardic inspiration of the usual die and range, but whenever this bardic inspiration is used, the roll is doubled.

Cower in Fear

At 3rd level, your fear inspires inspires you friends to be brave.  As an action, you can dramatically cower away from the enemies you face.  When you cower, you take the dodge action, and all allies within 30 feet of you gain advantage on their next attack and saving throw against fear for the next turn.

Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

Play Opossum

At 6th level, you have learned to defend yourself from enemy attacks by taking the strongest defensive stance possible.  As a bonus action, you keel over and use a mix of performance and illusion magic to appear dead.  You can maintain this stance for up to 1 minute.  You can be found out in multiple ways.  An enemy can make a perception, investigation, or arcana against your spell save DC.  While playing dead, you are prone and cannot move.  Moving immediately breaks the illusion of your demise.  You can still cast spells and take any action that does not involve large movements, but when you do, you must make a performance, arcana, or sleight of hand against enemies passive insight/investigation to maintain the illusion.

You regain use of this ability after a long rest.

Self Deprecation Unbounded

At 14th level, your ability to bring yourself down to lift up your allies is limitless.  Now, when you take the self deprecation reaction, you may subtract and grant a d6 instead of your bardic inspiration die without using a bardic inspiration.