Best Feats for Swords Bard 5e
by Prince Phantom
My pick for the worst Bard subclass, the Swords Bard specializes in weapon combat… sorta. You see, simply giving proficiency in medium armor and scimitars, a fighting style, and a couple of bad Battle Master maneuvers does not a weapon user make.
The fact that we don’t get any features to actually improve our bardic abilities, in fact we take away from those abilities with our flourishes, means that this is the least supportive Bard in 5e. The only flourish that’s actually worth using is Defensive Flourish, and we can hopefully put ourselves in situations where we won’t need that very often, allowing us to use our inspiration to actually help our party like we should be doing.
Best Feats for Swords Bard 5e
Crossbow Expert/Sharpshooter (ASAP): Okay, I know the subclass features point you towards melee, but hear me out on this one. We don’t have any actual incentive to go into melee. All of our flourishes work at range, our spellcasting would rather us be at range, our concentration is more easily kept at range, we can more easily pick our targets at range, and with these feats, we deal more damage than what this subclass would expect you to play. The obvious issue is gaining proficiency in hand crossbows, but this can be accomplished by a great number of races, single level dips in a class like Fighter (which we might be wanting to do anyway for Constitution save proficiency). Don’t blame me, blame the designers for failing to include a single reason to engage in melee combat in this game.
Fey Touched (Lv 8): This boosts our Charisma and gives us a few spells to cast for free each day. Misty Step is a great escape button when something gets too close to us. As for the first level spell, Bless is a great choice for a generic concentration spell that will work for every combat (assuming you and at least two other party members make attack roles consistently). Gift of Alacrity is also a great pick for helping us lay down our big control spell before our enemies get a chance to act.
War Caster (Lv 8): If you did decide to go into melee, this is a must have for you to even function as a character. Without this a large number of Bard spells (ones that require a somatic component but not a material one) are uncastable while your hands are full, even if your weapon is your spellcasting focus. Of course, advantage on concentration checks is also required as you will be taking lots of hits in melee and you’ll be relying on concentration spells to be effective in combat since your weapon attacks are dealing pitiful damage. Ranged attackers will still enjoy having this feat, but it isn’t as necessary as it is for melee.
Gift of the Gem Dragon (Lv 8): This is for the ranged Bards, as they can make the most use of the 10ft push when an enemy hits us. As long as we make sure we are at least far enough away to where our opponents can’t reach us, hit us, get pushed back 10ft, and still make it back to us to finish their multiattack, we greatly mitigate the potential damage an enemy can do. Melee Bards will never be at this sweet spot distance, so they can’t make use of this effectively.
Telekinetic (Lv 12): If you chose to go with a sword and shield, you will find yourself frequently lacking in bonus actions as all your Bardic Inspirations go to making your melee attacks actually worth caring about. This means Telekinetic fits in nicely to the build, giving a consistent and reliable bonus action that synergizes nicely with area control spells, saves allies from grapples, and gives us and whoever we want a free disengage.
Resilient Constitution (Lv 12): Holding our concentration is vital at these higher levels where we only have one of each high level slot and can’t simply recast the same spell. Try to have your Constitution at an odd number so you can round up to the next modifier with this feat.
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