Best Feats for Lore Bard 5e
by Prince Phantom
The Lore Bard might be one of the most strangely named subclasses in 5e. I’m really not sure what trash talk and self buffing has to do with lore. The extra proficiencies kinda support this theme, but anyone who’s read this subclass will tell you that the big draw is extra magical secrets. The ability to pick up 2 spells of 3rd level or lower from any list means you have such a massive opportunity for customization.
Standard picks like Fireball and Shield are always solid, but you could also pick something more niche and build dependent like Spirit Guardians or Animate Dead. This feature alone makes Lore potentially the most customizable Bard subclass, meaning your feat selection could look very different from another Lore Bard. I’ll try to cover as many potential options as possible.
Best Feats for Lore Bard 5e
Moderately Armored (ASAP): Yes, Cutting Words does give us a defensive option to hopefully avoid damage, but that just makes wearing medium armor and a shield even better. Cutting Words is far more reliable and needed less often when your AC is 19 instead of 14. Bards famously struggle with defense, so let’s fix that early on.
War Caster (Lv 4): A Bard’s main role in combat is to cast control spells to debilitate enemies. The best of these are always concentration spells, so protecting our concentration is crucial. If you find that armor plus cutting words and staying in the back line as far away from enemies as possible is keeping you from taking damage, you can delay this until higher levels, but make sure you protect your concentration somehow before too long.
Fey Touched (Lv 4): If you don’t need War Caster yet, Fey Touched is a great alternative. Misty Step itself does help keep us away from melee attackers, and our other selection could be any number of great spells like Bless, Gift of Alacrity, or your other favorite divination or enchantment spell of 1st level.
Inspiring Leader (Lv 8): This feat is great for all Bards, but it might be especially good for you. Extra magical secrets gives us access to summoning spells well before any other Bard gets them, and many summons can benefit from the temporary HP provided by this feat. Keep in mind that while only 6 creatures can be effected by a speech, you can give as many speeches as you want, meaning an infinite number of creatures can be effected by this. Animate Dead is a standout spell when combined with this, giving each skeleton a huge pile of HP, helping them stay relevant for much longer than they would be normally and helping you not need to recreate the skeletons as often. There are other summon spells that work with this as well, but I think Animate Dead works the best.
Resilient Constitution (Lv 12): Time to pay the “full caster who doesn’t inherently get proficiency in constitution saves” tax. Protecting your concentration is much harder at these higher levels where single attacks can actually force saves of higher than DC 10, so you need all the help you can get. You could have also just started as a level 1 Sorcerer and saved yourself this feat while also grabbing Shield and Absorb Elements, but that’s none of my business. *sips tea*
Telekinetic (Lv 12): Bardic Inspiration is our main bonus action, but it is very limited in use, and our subclass actually wants to take up a few of those uses, so you shouldn’t expect to have it every turn. Telekinetic’s 5ft shove might also just be strictly better than a bardic inspiration. Why boost an allies upcoming ability check to escape a grapple when you could just simply remove them from the grapple, no roll or resources required? It also bumps our Charisma and gives us an invisible Mage Hand, so that’s cool too.
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