Ultimate Guide to Bards in D&D 5e
Guide by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold
Bards are second only to warlocks in the ranking of classes with built-in flavor oozing from every nook and cranny of their mechanics. Mock people with such cutting words it physically hurts their brain and sews doubt into their next attack. With a strum of the lute, draw the attention of the entire room to fixate on you as you give them the performance of a lifetime. Charm and dazzle your way through every encounter as the hottest person in the room, with a safety contingency at the ready to turn you invisible and get you out of there.
Bards are charming, funny, witty characters whose identity is wrapped around the central idea of the show. They are a hybrid of wizards and sorcerers with a dash of rogue peppered in for good measure, dedicated to supporting the group with moments of brightness to steal the show for themselves. If you’re in the market for this kind of character, Bards can be a deeply rewarding and fun class to play, but they do require some concessions and careful navigation to ensure you feel fulfilled as your own character as well as actively assisting the rest of your team.
See Also: Best Races for Bard
Using This Guide
If you want a full breakdown of everything bard, this page will be a home to take you to every nook and cranny of the class. If you’re looking for what to be thinking about at specific levels, this guide is sectioned off to break down specific class elements, each with dedicated sections talking about the mechanics and offering general recommendations.
Some specific elements, like specific spells and subclasses, have dedicated reviews available that will be linked from here. This can be your one-stop shop for everything bard.
New Player: If you’re making a brand new bard for the first time, I’d recommend focusing the sections up until 4th level. That should provide you with more than enough information to take with you and have a blast with the class!
Bards don’t have access to a huge amount of new spells at every level, nor do they get particularly potent in combat prophecies, but you’ll easily make up for it with skill boons that’ll drive you forward as the head of social navigation.
Experienced Player: if you’re looking to improve your bard's performance, look for specific areas you feel are lacking in your character. Bards need to care about each and every spell they pick, as a lot of the time you’ll feel you’ve got about as many spell slots available as you have spells known. Consider what you want your bard to excel at, and make adjustments in the spells or subclass department alongside some ability score adjustments to bring them more in line with your desired fantasy. Magical Secrets play a major role in your upper-tier fantasy; your selections can be pivotal.
Bard Basics
Your average bard is defined by three major elements: skill improvements, spellcasting (including Magical Secrets), and Bardic Inspiration. Bardic Inspiration is a useful little feature you can toss about for your bonus action. Many subclasses give you bonuses when using or it new ways to spend the dice in various ways. Jack of All Trades and Expertise highlight your skill exceptionalism, and full spellcasting paired with Magical Secrets is the final major pillar you’re working with that carries the class past 6th level and opens up a world of opportunities for unique builds.
Bards are majorly gated in power by their spells known compared to clerics or wizards. Four spells at 1st level will feel solid, but only getting one additional known spell every level up means your opportunities to try out new spells are infrequent and often require you to replace lower-level spells known with upper-tier options to expand your repertoire. Picking a low-impact spell, or at least a spell you’re not frequently casting, can feel debilitating for an entire level until you’re given an opportunity to replace it, so careful spell selection and avoiding trap spells is critical.
Ability Score Placement
Bards most care about Charisma and Dexterity, the latter being particularly important for College of Valor, Swords, and Whispers bards, or just for bards in the low tiers looking for a higher damage option than a d4 cantrip. Because your Bardic Inspiration dice pool is tied to your Charisma, and all the options readily want to be using the mechanic to fuel abilities or boost allies, you’re regularly still going to want a high Charisma, even if you’re intending to be stabbing things a lot down the road.
Beyond that, where you assign your ability scores will depend on what skills you want to excel at. If you’re planning on taking expertise in Intelligence based skills, having a 14 in Intelligence can lock you in as the best investigator in town. With their stealth and subterfuge options in their spell lists, Dexterity-based skills tend to be natural areas to explore, especially thanks to that ability score also boosting your weapon attacks and AC. Wisdom is another solid option to consider, usually for boosting your perception.
An average bard likely will want their highest score to be Charisma, and second highest to be Dexterity. After that it’ll depend on what you want your bard to care about most. Constitution is likely not a major consideration, as few bards attempt to build with intentions of getting smacked in the face. Beyond that, Strength, Intelligence, or Wisdom all can be entirely reasonable for you.
Feat Considerations. Bards planning on going toward the weapon attack-based subclasses really care about increasing their attack modifiers and their Charisma score. By starting with as high an odd score as you can, a lot of feats can empower your combat prowess while also bumping up your score from odd to even for the modifier improvement. Doing the same with your Charisma will open up a bunch of powerful spell expansions that will simultaneously boost your Bardic Inspiration dice pool, spell save DC, and other Charisma-modified rolls.
Starting with as high of an odd score as you can in these two areas can be a major asset to your build. It’ll often be worth the price of having other lower ability scores in exchange.
See Also: Best Feats for Bard 5e
Starting Proficiencies and Equipment
Out the gate, you’ve got some solid weapon options to play with that encourage a high Dexterity score, namely shortbows and rapiers. Longswords can be an option, as can a pair of shortswords for some early dual-weapon fighting, but without the fighting style and considering your bonus action will often be inspiring others, you’re likely going to find yourself firing off one weapon attack at most per round.
You can consider variant human for Crossbow Expert with your hand crossbow proficiency, but you do need to weigh your extra attacks with bardic inspiration for those builds. It can still be great, especially in the low tiers.
Light armor proficiency functionally makes your AC equal to the best light armor you can afford. You can pick up Leather Armor from the starting equipment if you’re going for an easy build, or attempt to budget Studded Leather armor from some starting gold.
Bard AC. Leather armor makes your AC 11 + Dex mod, and Studded is 12 + Dex mod. Studded is only 45 gold; the moment you can afford the upgrade, it's an easy improvement, and highly encourages Dexterity to be your primary or secondary ability score.
1st Level: Bardic Inspiration and Spellcasting
First-level bards get six choices to make: two cantrips and four 1st level spells. In addition, you get the iconic Bardic Inspiration ability, but in its worst form.
Bardic Inspiration
While I like the Bardic Inspiration mechanic, with a long rest reset for a pool of three dice, it can be hard to feel particularly great using them in the low tiers given how long it takes for them to come back. With that being said, use your Bardic Inspiration, and remind your allies when their turn starts that they’ve got it, and should use it.
Inspiration dice often can have the video game consumable problem, where you wait and wait for the best possible moment to use them, and it never comes. Even should you give them to somebody, they also could try to wait for the best possible outcome, which may just never arrive. They’re not going to last beyond one or two fights tops; if there is any chance a dice can change an outcome, I’d recommend using it, even if you need the rolled result to be a six to change a miss to a hit.
It upgrades in size at 5th, 10th, and 15th level, and does genuinely start to feel a lot heavier in the mid to upper tiers. Changing a 12 to hit to a 20 is a massive swing in range, and with an increasing Charisma score giving you more dice and their reset upgrading to short rest instead of long rest, you’ll often feel like you can't get rid of them fast enough. Early on, their impact may not feel all that large, meaning you’re going to need to ensure you’re contributing with excellent 1st level spells, weapons, and cantrips.
Spellcasting
1st-level bards having four known 1st-level spells and two cantrips feel great. That’s often around the same number of spells the cleric and druid are preparing, and while the wizard gets a big book with ritual casting to work from, four is still enough to give you a wide variety of options to spend your two spell slots on. As you progress, you start getting more slots than spells known. By 3rd level, you’ll know six spells and have six spell slots to spend. 5th-level bards have more spell slots than known 1st-level or higher spells to spend them on. What spells you choose as you level will be vital to your continued contributions to the game, and because they’re limited to one per level, you’re going to likely want spells you know you can regularly cast every adventure.
A major element that makes bards scale particularly well, as well as a class to take if you want to make your own wacky build, is Magical Secrets. At 10th level (or 6th if you go with College of Lore) you get access to spells from any spell list. These can act as the glue that brings an entire play style together.
See Also: Bard Spell List
Cantrip Recommendations
Bards only get two cantrips out the gate, with a 3rd coming at 4th level. For damage, you’re going to want to lean on a Dexterity-based weapon here to give you a bit more room for utility and support options, as that tends to be what bards get and excel with.
One cantrip stands head and shoulders over the rest, and that cantrip is Vicious Mockery. Mechanically, it offers a solid defensive boon to your allies by forcing a damaged enemy to make its next attack with disadvantage and does enough damage to take a creature from living to dead if it’s particularly injured. It scales surprisingly well given the low dice size, as mitigating more powerful attacks can mitigate more damage as the game progresses thanks to the binary of disadvantage. Most importantly, it can be hilarious to use. Vicious Mockery weaponizes your characters witt literally. All of these things come together to give you an option you’ll consider using a lot early, and even once in a while in the upper tiers, all while letting you profit by making fun of the monsters trying to kill you.
Beyond Vicious Mockery, bards have access to robust exploration and social navigation options. Mage Hand is a classically powerful telekinetic ability that opens up a whole world of swindling and scoundrel tactics to employ. Minor Illusion is an endlessly useful object and sound projection spell that nearly any bard would be happy to have at minimum for optional pizzaz when needed, and if you really want to add a bit of showmanship to your character, Prestidigitation is pizzaz, the spell.
Friends gets a mention here not because it's particularly powerful, but because it's incredibly bardy. Charming a creature for a minute knowing it’ll bite you in the butt a minute later can lead to funny and memorable moments. It usually is overkill. Most bards have a Charisma high enough that they won’t ever need Friends. If you want to start a fight in a tavern, though, Friends is one of the fastest and easiest ways to do that.
Cantrips to Avoid
Blade Ward and True Strike. These cantrips are terrible.
Beyond that, the bard spell list is serviceable enough that I don’t think I’d actively point you away from many of their spells, but Light and Dancing Lights both are easily replaceable with a torch, and the other Vicious Mockery, Mage Hand, Minor Illusion, and Prestidigitation can offer you a bit more juice for exploring the world in interesting ways than these typically offer.
1st Level Spells of Note
Four spells at first level to play around with your two slots does give you a lot of room. This moment is the best moment you’re ever going to have to try stuff out and figure out what you like and what you don’t on your bard. Additionally, this can be a time to pick up some spells you know you’ll want access to for the long term that the party will benefit from, even if they aren’t specifically doing the exact thing you’re building your bard to excel at.
General Recommendations
Healing Word is the perfect example; you’re going to want a way to get an ally up from death’s door, and Healing Word is the most efficient way to do it. You can get the fighter up and shoot a short bow the round you do it, both increasing your team’s action economy while not missing out on damaging the enemy team to drop their actions down. You likely will not need any other healing options for most of the game if you pick this up.
Silvery Barbs is an outrageous reaction-based spell that ages like a fine wine. With only two spell slots, it's not often going to justify its cast over something with a bit higher impact in the low tiers. As you level and get more and more slots to burn, this effect takes over the game. Spending a 1st level spell as a reaction to something bad happening to a friend that can turn a hit into a miss is amazing. Stack on top of that the free advantage it guarantees as well and you’re left with a high-impact spell that will always do something and costs you so little you’ll be glad you picked it.
Charm Person is the good version of Friends. An hour-long charm that doesn’t actively agitate the afflicted is leagues more usable than a minute-long duration charm that tells you in its description it could get angry. The charmed creature still might get enraged, as it’ll know you charmed it, but the duration difference often will mean you’re out of there long before the effect wears off. It up-casting to hit multiple creatures can lend it to be a decent pre-combat enemy debilitation effect you bust out to calm an escalation before violence, or to get a couple of enemies reconsidering engaging while their team starts throwing fists.
Dissonant Whispers is the bard backline damage option, offering you a dice downgrade from Chromatic Orb, but is unable to miss (as it’ll always deal at least half damage) and can debilitate an enemy melee combatant by forcing it to sprint away from you. If you want a way to deal solid damage in the low tiers with your spell slots, this is my first recommendation.
Stealth and Deception Options
Roguish and scoundrelly bards have some powerful options to pick from as well.
Disguise Self offers you the power of transformation, to look like anyone that vaguely fits the size of your character. This is usually going to be an espionage and infiltration tool to get you in somewhere you’re not supposed to be, or out undetected, but it also can give you whatever your heart desires in terms of performer’s garb. Want full black and white face paint with lightning stripes and leopard print skinny jeans? Disguise Self has your back.
Silent Image is also an excellent stealth and deception tool that can create whatever object or creature you need somebody to see to sell your con in the moment. Illusions in the hands of a creative person can open up an endless assortment of possibilities limited only by your imagination and your DMs willingness to put up with your insane ideas.
Support Options
If you want to lean into the support lane and give your team larger advantages through magic, these spells are exceptional in most tiers at furthering that objective.
Hideous Laughter happens to be the cheapest and cleanest “save or die” effect you can ask for. It completely incapacitates and knocks prone any creature that can understand you that fails the save. Not only can this deny enemies a few rounds of actions, but it can also set you and your melee ranged friends with advantage on all their attacks against the prone target who just keeps rolling around laughing while they get the crap kicked out of them.
Detect Magic has the ritual tag, making it a way to stretch your utility without expending spell slots. Because of how few spells bards get, the cost of rituals tends to be pretty high. In the first few levels, you’ll have plenty of options for your limited slots. Getting an extra utility tool that is great at helping you navigate dangerous spaces and identify illusions and other magical hazards that doesn’t compete for your spell slots can be excellent if you’re happy with falling back on a smaller selection of spells to spend all your slots on.
Feather Fall is just always handy to have. A reaction to mitigate fall damage to a group of friends can save lives. If you want to save your team’s life three or four times a campaign, this will. The upside of being able to jump off an airship or cliff face worry free is also certainly a plus.
Area Damaging Options
Sleep isn’t as straightforward as it looks but can be a great tool you use with a tactical group to “mass execute” enemies. A well-timed sleep can feel like you’re just assigning 5d8 damage for a 1st-level spell as a couple of injured enemies fall asleep, which is debilitating. You definitely will want to coordinate damage around, and won’t want to open a lot of fights with it, but it has some flexibility in also being able to entirely remove one creature with 5d8 or fewer hit points outright occasionally, plus can be used out of combat to quietly infiltrate somewhere without alerting any guards.
Thunderwave is overrated in other classes; bards have no other options. 2d8 in a 15 ft. cube can be a lot of damage in the early tiers of the game especially if nobody is working with Burning Hands or other area damage effects. As you get higher levels you’ll get more reliable and higher damage options than this, but if you really want a tool to deal damage to three or four things at once in an area around or in front of you, Thunderwave can serve that role.
1st Level Spells to Avoid
Cure Wounds is an action to cast, requires touch, and is only healing a few more points on average than Healing Word. You’re not going to often want the up-cast benefit, ever really. If you want a healing spell, Healing Word is the only one should consider.
Earth Tremor is so challenging to make use of its baffling to me. No matter how many times I’ve tried it on characters built specifically with it in mind, the total effects end up being clunky and counterproductive sometimes, and with it dealing just 1d6 damage, you’d be better off
Distort Value is a bad illusion spell that tries to fulfill the charlatan fantasy, pawning off worthless goods as slightly less than worthless goods, or attempting to mark up goods to swindle a shopkeeper. That is all it can ever do, and that effect is entirely doable mundanely or with other illusion effects. No character ever needs Distort Value.
2nd Level: Jack of All Trades, Song of Rest, and Magical Inspiration
Bards kind of get screwed in the level two features department with neither being particularly powerful nor impactful options. They do learn a new spell and get an additional spell slot, though, so it won’t feel too bad to get these mediocre effects alongside a 50% improvement to your spell slots and a new way to use said slots.
Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything was an “unofficial” patch to the game to amend some of these lackluster features, empowering bards with Magical Inspiration as well. I highly recommend using it allowed, as it does majorly improve your bardic inspiration’s utility.
Jack of All Trades
There isn’t a lot to say about Jack of All Trades; you’re going to be moderately better at every skill. This will often help you become the default skill users for a skill small parties lack. The larger your group is, though, the more likely you’re going to have other characters with proficiency in a skill, meaning they’ll likely engage with those skill checks over you.
Jack of All Trades is a small bump to all of your skill checks you’re not great at, and while not wildly impactful or important, is a nice bump to get alongside your spells that define the majority of your power.
Song of Rest
Healing a bonus 1d6, d8, d10, or d12 hit points every short rest just isn’t that impactful when most tables aren’t expending all their hit dice every adventure. Even at the grittiest tables running three to four encounters between short rests, the bonus is fairly minimal, and will often just feel like an overheal or topping off a character than a useful contribution. It does let you have a reason to perform over rests, though, making it at least a flavor win.
Magical Inspiration
Adding your inspiration dice to damage is an incredible way to ensure your allies will benefit from your inspiration. If they keep hitting without spending the die, they can turn it into damage instead, which makes so many more Bardic Inspiration dice used instead of just withering away.
This should just be a base part of Bardic Inspiration. I’m hoping in the next edition they move it there. For now, though, this is a major upgrade you’ll want for your dice to give everyone a bit more damage every fight.
3rd Level: Expertise, Bard College, and 2nd Level Spells
Bard’s level 3 is enormous. You get Expertise, the strongest skill feature in the game that scales superbly, your Bard College, usually accompanied by two to three abilities, and get three extra spell slots, two of them being second level with a newly learned spell to boot.
If you’re multiclassing bard, this is the perfect spot to stop and will pair particularly well in the martial builds that already have extra attack and want to expand their utility with the well of spells and features you’re getting from the class.
Expertise
There isn’t a lot to say about expertise; pick two skills you are proficient with, then double your proficiency bonus when making those skill checks. This naturally increases as the game progresses as you get higher and higher level, with the eventual +6 bonus being a +12 without even asking you to stay in the bard class to get it.
Expertise is a feature that lets you live out your fantasies of being the best animal handler in the game. Whatever skill you want to be the central focus of your character, Expertise lets you expand that and grow in excellence as the game goes on.
Bard Colleges
Expertise has you making two choices, those choices being what skills you’d like to double. Next, you’re going to be picking a bard college from Creation, Eloquence, Glamour, Lore, Spirits, Swords, Valor, and Whispers. Most of these empower the supportive spellcaster bard fantasy, but Swords and Valor are both aimed at bards looking to engage in weapon-based fighting a bit, often making them excellent multiclass options for martial characters.
College of Creation comes with two abilities: Note of Potential and Performance of Creation. Note of Potential empowers all the non-Magical Inspiration uses your Bardic Inspiration dice have adding a boost to each and every type of roll. Performance of Creation is a cool object creation ability you get once per long rest, but also can use again with 2nd level spell slots, opening up opportunities for all kinds of creative solutions to problems you’re facing with any item within a cost range as a tool at your disposal.
College of Eloquence has become somewhat infamous for its Silver Tongue ability leading to bards in this college feeling like they’re incapable of ever failing a Persuasion or Deception check. Changing any result below 10 to 10 makes their modifier obtained through Expertise lead to results that consistently are 17s or higher at 3rd level. Unsettling Words is gravy on top of this, giving you a new way to use your inspiration dice to upgrade any saves you or an ally imposes, leading this option to feel utterly debilitating for a DM to manage when they start using some of the more potent save or dies like Polymorph or Banishment. This can be outrageously powerful, sometimes too much so for some DM’s to manage. When you start stacking all of these abilities with known backbreaking spells like Silvery Barbs, you’re setting up a supporting character that guts the enemy team’s ability to play the game throughout all tiers of play.
College of Glamour gives you Mantle of Inspiration and Enthralling Performance. Mantle of Inspiration lets you spend an inspiration die to bolster your allies with temporary hit points and a free move without opportunity attacks. Enthralling Performance might be the most bard feeling ability ever put to paper, with you needing to make a performance to charm a group of people who then will rave about your performance while being charmed by you for an hour. Neither ability is game-warping, but both can be a blast to play with. The college eventually grows and develops the fantasy of glamour superbly well, making it the perfect option if having the perfect look is part of your character's fantasy.
College of Lore is skill overkill, giving you three additional skills when you take it (putting you up to eight with just the bard class plus background skills). With a party of four or more, you normally won’t be needing that many skills, as your fellow party members can cover what checks you’ll often be presented with using most of the skills your lacking. Cutting Words is the other new feature you get that lets you reactively spend inspiration dice to hinder an attack roll. If you know you’re going to have spare inspiration dice laying around, Cutting Words is a great place to put them, and with their bonus magical secrets gained at 6th level, College of Lore can be an easy default bard college to take for a character more focused on building around a specific suite of spells.
College of Spirits gives you Guidance for free with a range of 60 feet, which is kind of neat, Spiritual Focus, a flavorful replacement for a spellcasting focus that progresses into a universal healing and damage bump, and Tales from Beyond.
Tales from Beyond is one of the coolest abilities the designers have made yet; you spend an inspiration die and roll it, getting an effect from the Spirit Tales table. As the dice improve, so do your possible outcomes, with results past 6 getting progressively more powerful. Most are usable in combat, but some, like Tale of the Clever Animal, are out-of-combat empowerments. Having the flexibility to store it until you want it is interesting, and encourages you to use whatever options you roll, banking ones that don’t work right now for later and letting your other bardic inspiration options shine. College of Spirits is my personal favorite and can be a great time for characters looking for a high-variance bard.
College of Swords takes College of Valor and opens up the build options it offered from the Player’s Handbook to include two-weapon fighting and dueling fighting style-based builds. It comes with either of those fighting styles with Blade Flourish, a great empowerment to attack rolls that lets you convert supportive dice into martial empowerments for yourself. This option will feel similar to the Battle Master fighter archetype, but with spells. The major differences between this and College of Valor are the Blade Flourish improvements and Valor favoring two-handed weapon and longbow builds, whereas this favors two-weapon fighting or rapier builds.
College of Valor is the other Player’s Handbook bard college, turning you into a martial character in a meaningful way. You get martial weapon, shield, and medium armor proficiencies, as well as Combat Inspiration at 3rd level. Extra Attack comes in a level late with its 6th-level feature, making this close to a fully martial character in scope minus the fighting styles. Combat Inspiration overlaps unfortunately with the damage bump from Magical Inspiration, but at least it can still use it to boost its AC. It isn’t a complex option and asks you to build towards it from 1st level to get the most out of it but can be an entirely reasonable hybrid martial and caster character that uses weapons in combat, uses Magical Secrets as a way to access cleric, warlock, and ranger spells that bolster their weapon attacks, and armor and shields to keep them alive.
College of Whispers rounds out the bard colleges with a rogue-like build that gives you edgy Psychic Blades and Words of Terror. Psychic Blades basically lets you convert Bardic Inspiration dice into sneak attack damage when you hit with a weapon. Words of Terror gives you a cute out-of-combat parallel to College of Glamour’s charm, this time with it being a single target hour-long fear effect that has the neat ability to denote other creatures as the source of the fear. This option is great for bards that like the roguish feel they get, but don’t really care much about supporting their allies and would rather use those dice to mix weapon attacks into their play pattern for bursts of high single-target damage.
See Also: Bard Subclasses Ranked
2nd Level Spell Slots
Finally, we’re on to 2nd level spells. You get three new spell slots to play with at 3rd level, one 1st and two 2nd, but only one new spell learned. Replacing a 1st level spell you’re not commonly using can be a way to get a second 2nd level spell if you want more choices for your highest-level spell slots.
General Recommendations
Invisibility is great for every character that can take it. It enables characters to do things that few other spells can. It can be a defensive escape plan, an integral part of an infiltration mission, or just a setup spell to give your rogue the element of surprise to get a free round in combat to wail on unsuspecting creatures with advantage.
Silence has fewer moments where it’s clearly absurd, but still has a massive swath of moments to shine. It particularly engages with spellcasting in a way few other spells can, being a tool you can use alongside movement impairments to shut off enemy verbal spell casting. Paired then with its utility in breaking into places discretely or sneaking out without making a sound you will find Silence is regularly something you’ll be glad you learned.
Suggestion routinely shows up on my character sheets. It is routinely excellent. It can remove an enemy combatant seconds before a fight begins or compel a person to cover your bar tab for the night. In any environment you’re presented with, if there is a non-party member character in the vicinity that can understand you, Suggestion will have options to engage that space in few other spells offer. It's flexible, powerful, and routinely something I’d recommend bards consider.
Support Options
Characters looking to empower their combat support capabilities will find Crown of Madness and Hold Person both can be debilitating. Both can take an enemy and disable them with a single failed save, but Crown of Madness can turn their impairment into a weapon to attack other enemies, whereas Hold Person simply gives everyone attacking them free critical hits. Both only hit humanoids, and Crown of Madness has fewer still moments to shine against lone or isolated enemies, but Crown of Madness shines brightly when the hobgoblin warlord beheads his lieutenant for you.
Nathair’s Mischief exists for those out there looking for some extra randomness on their bards that meaningfully contributes to your team’s victory. Getting a cube of saves can debilitate multiple enemies at a time, sometimes with complete incapacitation, sometimes with a blind. Worst case you’ll make the area difficult terrain, but with all three other options being brutal to deal with, Nathair’s Mischief can be both exciting and an unpredictable tool that will be effective regularly. My only complaint is that there aren’t more modes.
Social Empowerment
If you want your bard to have more powerful out-of-combat social tools, Detect Thoughts is an amazing addition to your sheet. Being able to browse the minds of people nearby and probe when you need more specific information is an ability you can’t really get anywhere else that can uncover information otherwise gated behind interrogations or successful skill checks.
Calm Emotions is an effect that’s job tends to be to stop a fight before it starts and is great at delivering on that. Some fights you didn’t mean to start. Sometimes your barbarian just wins a bet against some people he really shouldn’t have wagered against. In those moments, getting everyone to calm down long enough for your Charisma skills to enter in and diffuse the situation can be invaluable for avoiding fights you’d certainly lose.
Melee Combat
With three bard colleges transforming the class into a martial/caster hybrid, you may be in the market for spells to empower your weapon combat. The bard list isn’t full of features that empower your own attacks unfortunately beyond Silvery Barbs; still, there are a couple of options to consider if you need to commit entirely to melee-centric spells.
Mirror Image was made optionally a Bard spell in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. The action cast time can be tall order if you’re not given a round of prep before diving into a fight, but three duplicates to eat hits for you is a solid defensive tool should it be up, especially given that it doesn’t ask you to concentrate on it.
Kinetic Jaunt isn’t particularly powerful but can be a tool for a melee-based bard not looking to get hit that wants to weave in and out of a fight, making some attacks along the way. It just taking a bonus action to cast means you can cast it, dip into a fight, hit, then dip out all in the same round. If you really want that fantasy to come together at 3rd level, this is probably the best option you’ve got.
Damaging Options
Full casters tend to want some access to area of effect or single target big damage. Bards don’t need to rely on these in most parties, but if you still want one, they have some reasonable options.
Shatter probably is the best bard spell for area of effect damage you have access to at 3rd and 4th level, with a 3d8 10 ft. radius sphere being fine. Compared to an up-cast Burning Hands I’m not thrilled with the damage, but the flexibility of the range makes it a perfectly fine option early in the game, but's not something I’d be wanting to cast in the mid to upper tiers that often.
Cloud of Daggers offers you persistent damage in a small area instead, which can be an entirely reasonable effect in some environments. If you can get at least two instances of damage out of the cast it’ll justify its slot usage. That’s not always given, but with groups with ample melee fighters, or tools to push or pull creatures, it can be a great damage option to play around with.
Spells to Avoid
Borrowed Knowledge not only is going to be ghoulish overkill, it’s not giving you much of value for the cast. Spending a 2nd level spell to get access to a skill just isn’t that good. You’re already sitting on at least five of your own with a party rocking four each, meaning most, if not all, skills will be on somebody’s sheet. You taking over the Intimidation checks because you have a higher Charisma than the barbarian takes something they built their character to do and rips it away from them, all for a +1 or +2 more on the check. Plus, because you’ve got Jack of All Trades, you’re already getting half your bonus to the check, making the subsequent bonus lessened more specifically on bards.
Enhance Ability can easily be replaced by some well-placed Help actions, which anyone can take. You usually don’t need, nor want, this to take one of your few known spells.
Pyrotechnics and Skywrite are both cute, but pretty worthless. There are going to be a few moments in a campaign where they’ll justify their slots if that. You’ve got to be picky with your bard spells simply because you don’t get many; these do too little to consider.
4th Level: Feat and Bardic Versatility
Like all characters, 4th level offers a choice (should you be playing the feats): Improve one of your ability scores, or take a feat. Additionally, Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything added the Bardic Versatility mechanic to allow for flexible swapping around your cantrips or Expertise selections you’re unhappy with.
Bards desperately want as high a Charisma modifier as possible, often making taking feats a bit more pricey than normal. Martial options wanting a high Strength or Dexterity tax this further. With some planning, though, you can mix in some reasonable feats that can improve your scores as you go to get the best of both worlds.
Feat Considerations
Your 4th level feat often will bring a build completely together, or set it up to come together completely.
General Recommendations
There are a few feats that offer you +1 Charisma and some bonus spells such as Shadow Touched and Telekinetic; they are big reasons to consider trying to start with a 17 Charisma to bump up your modifier and get a bunch of bonus spells for a feat. If you can make that happen, they will easily be some of if not the best feat options available to you.
There are a bunch of racial feats that also offer you a +1 Charisma
Actor is cute, and if you’re getting that Charisma from an odd to even number for the modifier boost, is still great. The bonus abilities it offers just aren’t usually going to have as much of an impact on the game as the spellcasting options the other feats that bump your Charisma do, though.
War Caster helps defend your concentration. Any bard can get value out of that. It’ll be likely more important on the martial subclass builds, but if you’re Charisma and Dexterity are high enough for your liking, this feat is a great pickup at any tier.
Martial Feats for Martial Bards
With Extra Attack available to two bard subclasses at 6th level, the feats that empower weapon attacks can be easy directions to build towards. They do have a foundational issue of really wanting multiple high ability scores, making taking feats feel more costly, but usually these are still worth it over ability score improvements to open up new powerful opportunities for your builds.
Piercer and Slasher, like the +1 Charisma feats, are great directions to consider when building your character. These often will feel like free feats alongside improving your hit modifier with your weapon attacks by +1, which is massive.
Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter on a Valor bard can be a great time. Extra attack comes two levels down the road, and if you’ve got a +3 or higher Strength or Dexterity, these will help you hit like a bus while also having an enormous pool of spells to use in and out of combat as needed. Crossbow Expert can also be picked up here for Valor bards to get bonus action attacks now, and a third attack two levels from now!
Dual Wielder is a feat aimed towards College of Swords bards with the Two-Weapon Fighting fighting style and can be a fine boost to your AC and a slight bump up in damage by upgrading a weapon die. Upgrading your Dexterity is likely better than this, as that’ll add to your hit, damage, and AC all at once, but if you’ve got a high enough Dex, this is a boon you can take.
Bardic Versatility
There isn’t much to the option Bardic Versatility beyond having a codified way to adjust decisions you’re not happy with down the road. Not casting Mending as much as you’d like? Now’s the time to swap it for something new, all while getting a new cantrip at this level as well!
5th Level: Font of Inspiration, 3rd Level Spells
Bards at 5th level, like most classes, get enormous improvements: 3rd level spells, Font of Inspiration, and their Bardic Inspiration dice size upgrade.
Font of Inspiration
This feature is short and sweet: you get your inspiration dice back when you finish a short or long rest. Every subclass feature empowered by Bardic Inspiration gets substantially better here. Yes, short rests aren’t all over the place all the time, but this can feel like a once-per-rest doubling of your inspiration dice which is massive. Where Warlocks still feel hampered by their incredibly limited spell slots, you’ll be working with three to four dice alongside all of your spell slots and other features.
3rd-Level Spells of Note
Like 2nd-level spells, you’re only given one new spell at this level, meaning you’re highly encouraged to swap out a lower-level option for a new 3rd-level spell to play with. You now officially have more slots than spells, meaning your total options for your upper-level spells can feel tight. What spells you pick will determine what you’re spending your highest-level resources on, and should be considered carefully.
Unfortunately for bards, they may have the worst out of all the classes 3rd level spell selection, with no massive game changers to speak of like Fireball or Revivify. That’s not to say they have no great options, but they tend to be a bit more situational on average.
Dispel Magic stands out to me as a spell I want on any character that can get it. It interfaces with magic in a way few other spells do and can be a cheap, 3rd-level solution to huge 9th-level spell problems.
Fear is a massive cone save that can force creatures to flee in terror, leaving behind their weapons and valuables they were holding as they run. In large group encounters, a well-placed fear can take half the enemies and remove them temporarily, majorly swinging a fight in your favor. Out of combat, having a tool to terrify any number of creatures can cause mass hysteria in a pinch.
Hypnotic Pattern can incapacitate and charm a 30 ft. cube of enemies that only ends when a creature that fails the save is damaged, somebody shakes them out of it, or after your concentration breaks. At a minimum, Hypnotic Pattern will eat a huge amount of actions. At its best, it can take an encounter and trivialize it by giving you the power to take it down one enemy at a time while the rest stare vacantly into space.
Mass Healing Word, like its single-use lower tier form, does a ranged, powerful, useful thing: it brings multiple allies up from 0 while giving out a few bonus hit points to people still standing. Sometimes the only way to turn the tide of a fight is to bring up three creatures at once, and when that’s the case you’ll need something like Mass Healing Word. You probably don’t need it at 5th level, but it can be a great pickup down the road if you’ve got a spare spell to swap out for an insurance policy in case a fight goes really badly all at once.
Spells to Avoid
Intellect Fortress and Nondetection are also outrageously niche, often going through whole campaigns with no applicable situations to function.
Feign Death, Speak with Dead, Speak with Plants, and Tongues all are exploration tools to engage with the world during exploration or as part of elaborate plans. Unfortunately, bards just don’t regularly have room to put these options on their sheets because there just aren’t enough sessions where they’ll be castable and relevant. With only two new spells accessible (with the cost of trading out a lower-level option), you typically need those spells to have a big impact to justify their space on your sheet, and while I adore Speak with Dead and Plants, none of these three have a big enough impact consistently.
6th Level: Subclass Feature and Countercharm
6th level is another major level for bards, specifically bards with the College of Valor or Swords subclass, as it opens up their extra attacks. I won’t dive into each subclass feature in depth here, but you can check out each review for the subclasses to get my thoughts on their specific options past this point.
Beyond that, you also get Countercharm and a newly learned spell!
Countercharm
Conceptually I love Countercharm. You put on a performance in combat to inspire your allies, bolstering their resolve and mitigating mind-altering effects like fear and charms. Here’s the problem: that isn’t worth an action. This asks you to repeatable spend your actions using it, making it terrible in combat.
Where it gets a bit of mileage, though, is out of combat, and it does a decent job rewarding your for performing for your allies along your journey. It can be a “free” way to help mitigate fears and charms while exploring at the cost of making yourself abundantly present through performance.
7th Level and Beyond
The bulk of the remaining bard features are new spells and a single new subclass feature at 14th level. Magical Secrets is a major component of that; the following items will cover my recommendations for 4th level and higher spells, with some Magical Secrets considerations thrown in the mix. They close things out with Superior Inspiration, which is a free bardic inspiration if you’re out per fight which barely counts as a feature at that tier, but they get 9th level spells from any class, so they’re good on the top end fantasy needs.
Magical Secrets
At 10th, 14th, and 18th level you learn two spells of your choice from any spell list. College of Lore bards get two at 6th level as well. These tend to be archetype-defining and lead to bards of wild diversity. You can go full backline damage caster with a summon spell alongside Fireball as your 10th-level secrets, empower your weapon attacks with Swiftquiver from ranger to become a barrage of arrows or take any other iconic option that defines another class and pair it with your college and other spell selections to create a build unique to you.
I’ll cover great secret options for 4th level and higher spells in their recommendations sections; here, though, I’ll also briefly touch on some 1st through 3rd level options you may want to consider for the raw power they can offer varying kinds of characters.
1st Level Magical Secret Options
Shield, Find Familiar, Hex, and Hunter’s Mark are four spells that you will regularly spend spell slots on in the upper tiers happily.
Shield is an outrageous +5 AC for a 1st level slot and a reaction that lasts an entire round and only is cast when you know you need it.
Find Familiar doesn’t end up costing you any spell slots to use, instead just giving you an incredibly useful permanent pet you can do all kinds of amazing things with.
Hex and Hunter's Mark both have huge durations and play great on ranged multi-attacking characters looking to bump up their damage numbers over three or four fights a long rest, all at an incredibly low cost. 2d6 damage a hit for a 1st level slot on characters making extra attacks can be a way to juice your lower level slots for all their worth.
2nd Level Magical Secret Options
Misty Step is a cheap, effective teleport when you need it, often playing great on backline bards who want a way to efficiently escape harm while also getting a bit of bonus out-of-combat mobility.
Shadow Blade can empower melee ranged Swords and Valor bards with an up-cast for 4-5d8 per hit, making it a potentially devastating weapon for them.
Spiritual Weapon works as a consistent bonus action option that doesn’t eat your concentration on bards that are spending their Bardic Inspiration dice on other things like Whisper’s Psychic Blades, with again, great up-casting bonuses that make it feel like a free minute-long extra attack each round.
Summon Beast is the cheapest summon spell you can get; having a summonable companion you can get as a 2nd, 4th, 6th, and 8th level slot for its various extra attacks is flexibility a lot of bards will eagerly take.
3rd Level Magical Secret Options
Animate Dead gives bards a tool to build a necromancer; you’ve got all the spell slots you need alongside a suite of supportive tools to empower your own undead with a rich flavor win as part of College of Spirits.
Conjure Animals is the unfair version of the summon spells, offering game-breaking options like swarms of Giant Owls that will require your DM to talk with you about its logistics and impact on the game.
Counterspell has become infamous for its impact on big moments in campaigns like Critical Role and largely “unfun” play pattern but is absolutely powerful enough to take with as a secret.
Fireball and Haste are tried and true powerful wizard options that simply provide you with raw power for killing things or boosting an ally.
Revivify lets you cover a missing cleric’s job of ensuring people stay alive. Want resurrection magic? Here is an easy place to find it!
Finally, like Summon Beast, the summon spells (Summon Fey, Summon Shadowspawn, and Summon Undead) all give you new allies that you can up-cast for extra attacks while bringing unique and interesting abilities of their own to play with.
4th Level Spell Recommendations
Bards only have eleven total 4th level spells to choose from (as of Fizban’s Treasurey of Dragons), so there isn’t a whole lot of competition for your one new spell.
Charm Monster is an upgrade from Charm Person if you already love that spell and want to expand out its utility in tiers with more monstrous NPCs and enemies.
Compulsion, a rare bard exclusive, can be a blast to play with in groups of dedicated martial characters. It can ensure every round most of your allies are getting an attack of opportunity, all while messing with enemy positioning. Its not for every party, but by this point you should have some idea if you’ve got three or more characters ready to take advantage of this spell.
Greater Invisibility stands out as a spell nearly any bard will be happy to take, often for different reasons. Martial bards want advantage on all their attack rolls: this gives them that. Non-martial bards can use it to cast spells and support safely and invisibly, while getting an out of combat utility spell akin to Invisibility, but with more opportunity for taking improvisational action as you’re going.
Polymorph has and always will be one of the most potent save effects in the game. On one bad save, the horrifying dragon accompanied by an army of kobolds is suddenly a harmless goldfish you can stick in a waterskin until you deal with their lackeys. Additionally, in a pinch it’ll turn your allied barbarian or fighter into a giant ape. All in all, pretty excellent effect that can wildly warp encounters when it lands. If it doesn’t, though, it feels rough.
Raulothim’s Psychic Lance is the best damage option you’ve got here, and it is a perfectly reasonable damage option for a 4th level spell. 7d6 psychic damage is nothing to sneeze at, half being guaranteed, and should the target fail save and get hit like a truck, you get to incapacitate it for an entire round. That’s often enough to change the tide of a losing battle, buying you enough time and dealing enough damage to bring down the big bad.
4th Level Magical Secret Options
Conjure Minor Elementals, like Conjure Animals, summons tons of tiny, powerful entities that can wildly reshape how your DM has to account for you and your party.
Find Greater Steed happened to be one of the greatest boons to bards alongside their paladin companions when it got introduced. Like Find Familiar, Find Greater Steed gives you a permanent allied companion. Normally, that comes only to paladin, and at 13th level. As a bard, you can get this three levels earlier. If you want to do a mounted combatant build, or just want an allied griffon, pegasus, peryton, dire wolf, rhinoceros, or saber-tooth tiger, pick up Find Greater Steed! This spell in particular is fun as a magical secret because it opens up to twinning any spell that just targets you, which can be from any class thanks to magical secrets! Want to double cast Haste? You got it. Want to both be enormous? Target yourself with Enlarge/Reduce!
Summon Construct, Summon Elemental, and Summon Greater Demon are more summon goodness to get the exact entity you want under your control for an entire hour. Plus, it has multi-attack.
4th Level Spells to Avoid
Freedom of Movement just doesn’t do a whole lot in the majority of environments. Instead of becoming freed from grapples, which will still fail to work if your bound in such a way you can’t use the somatic component required for the spell, isn’t happening in most encounters. When so many other spells can address the problems it addresses, there’s just not a lot of reason to spend one of your precious few known spells on it.
Locate Creature has almost no meaningful effects. Its range is pitiful for what its supposed to do, is arbitrarily blocked running water, and requires you already go through the hassle of finding and meeting the creature you want to locate before it can even work. Any number of other divination effects do this better, at as cheap or cheaper a rate, with more consistency and less hoops to jump through.
5th Level Spell Recommendations
Animate Objects hits like a truck. Animate as many tiny objects as you can and watch them rip apart your enemies; agnostic of build, if you don’t have something you always want to be concentrating on, Animate Objects can easily fill that void with consistent damage.
Dominate Person is more in bard’s typically wheelhouse, being a mid tier scaling upgrade from Suggestion and Crown of Madness. Getting complete control of a target can be utterly backbreaking for a DM to deal with. The limitation to humanoids is getting a bit more of an issue in this tier, but you’ll still regularly find places where you can flip an encounter on its head by forcing a wizard to burn a high level spell torching their own team.
Raise Dead is bard’s first access to resurrection magic. Sometimes you need resurrection magic. This will serve you perfectly well for that role.
Hold Monster is a massive upgrade from Hold Person, as it now can paralyze anything. If you’ve enjoyed setting up your friends to crit the heck out of something with Hold Person, this upgrade allowing it to work in basically any encounter is absolutely worth a 5th level slot.
Modify Memory does something few other spells can, and that makes it an interesting option to chose from to me. Changing how a creature perceived something can be an integral part to many plans, as well as something to use when something goes south and you need to discretely change a viewers understanding of events. It isn’t going to play great at every table, but at tables with a greater focus on espionage and infiltration, it can be exceptional.
Synaptic Static gives bards Fireball damage… for a 5th level slot. That Fireball damage and area, though, come with a d6 debuff from attack rolls, ability checks, and Constitution saves to maintain concentration, which is a major upside. It scales with the disadvantage mechanic, meaning many other spells work great alongside this, and even though it has a long duration status effect, it doesn’t eat your concentration. Fitting as a bard spell, and a great option if you want a big damage area of effect tool that also hampers enemies attacks.
5th Level Magical Secret Options
Swift Quiver is the first spell I want to mention here, namely because you get this spell seven levels before the class designed for it gets it. A ranged valor bard can dip 1 level into fighter for Archery, and at level 11 be making four longbow attacks a round. Best part? You’re still a full caster with all the rest of your spells to play around with! Pick up Sharpshooter and watch your ranger eat their heart out while you live their fantasy better than they ever could.
Arcane Hand has been, and will always be, one of my favorite bonus action damage options in the game. You get a big hand that can do just a bunch of stuff with its own pool of hit points. It can play defense, slap people around, through them off cliffs, and so much more. Plus it just feels bardic.
Conjure Woodland Beings continues the pattern of conjure spells being wildly busted. A group of pixies crack the game in half with dozens of free polymorphs and even more additional spells to cast for free. Like Conjure Animals and Minor Elementals before it, you’ll have to work out exactly these spells will play at the table with your DM ahead of time. They are that powerful.
Holy Weapon gives you an enchanter feel, empowering a weapon with 2d8 bonus radiant damage for an hour with an optional explosion on ending for a blind with 4d8 more damage. Put this on your own weapon as a martial bard, or stick it on the fighter or paladin as a supportive backline bard. Either way, 4d8 bonus radiant damage a round is great.
5th Level Spells to Avoid
Dream is cute, and rich in flavor, but given that you only get one new spell a level, its flimsy usability will always land it as something you won’t have room for.
Legend Lore will always just be a library. Go to a library instead. You don’t need this. It isn’t worth the costs, and certainly not worth the spell known.
Mass Cure Wounds is going to feel like a sidegrade to an up-cast Mass Healing Word, but can’t be used at a lower level. You probably don’t want both, and because Mass Healing Word does this spell’s job so much better I can’t recommend it.
6th Level Spell Recommendations
Bards get dwindling lists in the upper tiers as they start to lean more and more on their magical secrets for extra goodness. Tehre are eight 6th level bard spells. Of that list, I really only would recommend to any bard two: Mass Suggestion and Irresistible Dance.
Mass Suggestion does what it says on the tin: you cast Suggesstion, but on a lot of people. Unlike the lower level version, this spell doesn’t eat your concentration, and comes with fun up-cast duration increases that can give you the tools to compel towns to work for you for years at a time. At minimum, suggestioning kindly that half of a massive fighting force run as far away as they possibly can removes the majority of a threat you could face, making its worst case scenario typically excellent.
Irresistible Dance is of note because it dodges Legendary Resistances. You point at something and guarantee it’ll spend all its movement dancing, have disadvantage on all its attack rolls and Dexterity saving throws, and will need to spend actions ending the effect if it wants to it to go away. Plus its always hilarious when the maniacle lich starts break dancing on their throne of bones.
6th Level Magical Secret Options
Blade Barrier is a meat grinder at will with 6d10 blades that shred anything that touches it. You can build towards this with pushing and pulling effects, and with the right team, can weaponize this to utterly thrash enemy groups enmasse.
Want to utterly wreck the day of a single creature? Disintegrate can be the spell for you. This spell says “Save, or die”, dealing 10d6+ 40 damage on a failed save.
6th Level Spells to Avoid
Eyebite may have a cool name, but doesn’t really give you enough juice to value casting it over most of the other single save effects I’ve touched on. It isn’t offensively bad, but you’re probably better off with other save effects for hindering enemies.
Find the Path has been, and always will be, a joke of a spell that can be bested by a lone survival check or, you know, a map.
7th Level Spell Recommendations
Etherealness gives you a high utility scouting tool that enables large scale, long duration exploration in an interesting way. Some environments that don’t account for it can be trivilized by it, making it a potentially potent option to pick up.
Forcecage is just a delightful little box you can stick problematic creatures in to deal with later. If it can fit in a 20 x 20 ft. cube, you can stick it in the Forcecage, which can be a walled in box or an actual cage with bars to shoot into. Like how Irresisitable Dance is great because it dodges Legendary Resistance, Forcecage is great because it can’t miss. You know the parameters that trap something for an hour; if the creature meets those parameters, you can stick it there until you’re ready to deal with it!
Teleport gets a mention here just because of how it can allow for a shift in scope of play. With access to Teleport, the game can transition to a broader form of narrative spanning all of the plane you’re on. No adventure is too far, no environment in this world inaccessible. Plus the miss table is delightful.
7th Level Magical Secret Options
Crown of Stars is kind of like an up-cast spiritual weapon. If you want bonus action 4d12 radiant ranged spell attacks, Crown of stars gives you seven of them for a 7th level slot. It not costing you your concentration makes it particularly appealing for characters playing with summoning magic or other big concentration effects and an open bonus action.
Plane Shift also gets a mention like Teleport; with Plane Shift, the scope of your adventure changes to be an adventure that spans the magical multiverse full of planes far different from the material. If your DM is heading that direction, you can pick this up to act as the group’s transportation vessel. It fringly being able to banish things on touch with a hit and failed save is nice upside.
Reverse Gravity opens up some wild possibilities in world exploration and combat and will make you, your party, and your DM scratch your heads trying to wrap your brain around the results of this spell landing.
Simulacrum may be the most busted spell in the game, specifically because Simulacrums can make Simulacrums. Even when used fairly without this method, having a second entire set of spell slots for this cost is outrageous. Want a second rogue, a second paldin, a second anything? Yes, of course you do, because that’s stupidly powerful.
7th Level Spells to Avoid
Dream of the Blue Veil is kind of like Plane Shift, but… worse. In almost every way. You have to have a magic item from the place you want to go, and you need everyone to fall unconscious for ten minutes.
Arcane Sword is pathetic. It only lasts a minute, does barely more damage than an up-cast spiritual weapon, and asks you to concentrate on it. You don’t ever need this; there are a myriad of better options to take over it, namely any summon spell.
8th Level Spell Recommendations
Dominate Monster stands head and shoulders above the rest of bard’s options here. Like Dominate Person is to Hold Person, Dominate Monster is the up-cast version of Hold Monster you’ve been waiting for. Want to turn the angry adult red dragon against his god overlord? Now you can!
8th Level Magical Secret Options
Animal Shapes has so much munchkin potential it’s crazy. Transforming two dozen peasants into giant scorpians is great; doing that after sneaking in as a swarm of tiny insects and hovering just about the evil doer’s throne is the kind of instanteous death suprise they’ll need magical barriers to manage.
Antimagic Field gives you a universal answer to anything magic, but comes at a steep cost: your own magic. Sometimes you need that, and the price is worth it.
8th Level Spells to Avoid
Glibness is offensively bad, as is Mind Blank.
Glibness is an upgraded version of a powerful 3rd level subclass feature. Chances are, you’re not going to need a minimum of 15 on your Charisma checks to sway opinions. You don’t want to commit an 8th level spell for this skill bonus.
Mind Blank is an upper level version of Nondetection, and the majority of tables just aren’t playing on the axis these spells fight on. Mental divining attacks aren’t common, nor is psychic damage, neither enough so for this to justify being your own learned spell that asks you to spend an 8th level slot on it.
9th Level Spell Recommendations
True Polymorph is an absolutely bananas powerful spell; if you can take this, it can reshape the game. You get all the features of the creature you’re transforming into, meaning you can double up on spells by simply transforming into an archmage. This is Polymorph plus. It’s outrageously powerful.
Mass Polymorph is polymorph for ten creatures. That’s a massive save or die attatched to optional giant ape transformations when you need them. Some encounters can’t handle having seven or eight creatures removed from the fight, and Mass Polymorph absolutely can make that happen.
Similarly, Psychic Scream can stun up to ten things while also dealing 14d6 damage. Where Mass Polymorph is going to more consistently remove threats, Psychic Scream removes threats and damages them in a major way. Sure, 14d6 is nowhere close to Meteor Swarm’s 40d6 damage, but stunning is enough of an upside you can still be pretty happy with this as a big top end damage fantasy.
9th Level Magical Secret Options
Wish has to be the technically most powerful spell in the game. It can do nearly anything, to the point where it can force you to be unable to cast it ever again. It can be any 8th level or lower spell when needed, and has a robust amount of built in options that are regularly excellent.
Meteor Swarm is outrageous amounts of damage in outrageous areas. 40d6 damage in three giant areas is as much damage as you can cask for out of one spell. If you just want a big blast of damage, Meteor Swarm’s got your back.
9th Level Spells to Avoid
Power Word Heal is ghoulish overkill. Heal restores 70 hit points; that’s usually enough, and is a 6th level spell. Spending your 9th level spell for any number of hit points can be 200 or more HP all at once, but all of that damage could have been mitigated if you had simply used a 9th level spell to proactively engage with a fight instead. Mass Healing Word and Healing Word are still probably the only healing effects you’re going to need. If you really want a big splashy healing 9th level spell, getting Mass Heal from Magical Secrets will restore two or three creatures to full hit points.
Superior Inspiration
As 20th level features go, Superior Inspiration gives you a inspiration die back if you’re out when a fight breaks out. This somewhat encourages you to spend all of your dice as fast as you can else this does nothing, which is a bummer, but you’re probably not getting here anyway. It definitely is worse than multiclassing!
Multiclassing Bard
Mutliclassing is a “variant” mechanic in the same way feats tend to be; the vast majority of tables allow it. It adds a level of customization and depth to the mid tier of play the game desperately lacks, giving you new choices and fun abilities all throughout the game.
Bards excellent at multiclassing, specifically thanks to their varied subclass options. Lore bards like to commit to the class, namely to take advantage of Magical Secrets to its fullest, but Valor, Swords, and Whispers all love dipping into martial classes, while Creation, Eloquence, Glamour, and Spirits all can mix well with caster and hybrid options.
Multiclassing from Martial Classes
Rogue is one of the easiest options to dip into from bard; take your Shortbow, stick Sneak Attack onto it for free. Easy peasy! Stacked with extra Expertise offering you excellence in four skills that can scale up if you commit to more levels in both classes, you can feel like you’re the greatest skill users ever to grace the page. College of Whispers in particularly plays really well with three or five levels in rogue. Notably Psychic Blades doesn’t double it’s damage when critting (the weapon isn’t dealing the bonus damage, you are), so Assassin isn’t amazing, but most other subclasses, especially Arcane Trickster, are exceptional bard multiclass options.
Swords and Valor bards both get Extra Attack at 6th level, which suprisingly diminishes the value of taking a lot of levels in the full martial classes. Valor does miss fighting styles, though, and getting one with Action Surge and a subclass from three levels in fighter, paladin, or ranger can majorly empower you’re action usage round to round. Paladin in particular can feel great on Valor or Swords bards making melee weapon attacks. Divine Smite turns any of your full-casting spell slots into raw on hit damage that can crit, and Lay on Hands does add a nice additional level of security to your character’s healing repetoire. Paladins also being Charisma casters makes the dip easy and organic feeling; Strength based valor bards in particular can find this is a clean multiclass route to pursue from 6th-9th level.
You also can go full meme and take a couple levels in barbarian for the “bardbarian” build, which isn’t really a thing because of how limiting Rage is on your spellcasting. You can still bardically inspire friends while raging at least!
Spellcaster Multiclass Options
As Charisma casters, they share their primary ability score with Sorcerers and Warlocks, making dipping into either really easy. Up-casting is the saving grace of the sorcerer multiclass, as you’ll get access to only the lower level options for known spells, but still progress your spell slots above those, you’ll want to ensure you’ve got access to spells that scale well with up-cast. Sorcerer offers metamagic, which in combination with Magical Secrets, can let you attach any specific metamagic you want to any spell that it can apply to. In practice that isn’t as amazing as it sounds, but works great for characters looking to build around a specific spell.
Warlocks are a lot more interesting to multiclass into thanks to Pact Magic. Now, you can have access to short rest spell slots with your long rest ones alongside some powerful Invocations, bonus cantrips, a pact boon, and a patron. They are juiced in the feature department. Two or three levels in warlock will leave you with a wide new assortment of tools to play with, many of which can enrich the “face of the party” feel a lot of bards are looking for. Because their slots scale differently from regular casting, you can freely take levels in either class if you want to get more slots per long rest, or bigger slots per short rest. Their flexibility in martial and non-martial areas, too, makes them great on both the martial and spellcasting focused bard colleges.
Cleric, while being a Wisdom based option, can be a powerful addition if you can get Wisdom to be your secondary ability modifier on dedicated spellcasting bards. Most domains offer you a well of new spells to play with, solid features, and Channel Divinities to make the two or three levels you commit to feel rewarding.
Munchkin Nonsense You Can Try
Most of the munchkin potential of Bard is baked into Magical Secrets. Turns out access to any spell you want can lead to spell lists containing outrageously powerful spells of each spell level. You can have all the powerful busted stuff Simulacrum offers or pick up Animal Shapes and lead an army of vengeful peasants on a hunt for the villain.
Swiftquiver Sharpshooting
Where I think it steps out of the realm of “fair” is with Swiftquiver, specifically because it feels unintended. Swiftquiver giving you access to two additional attacks a round, when paired with Sharpshooter, deals ludicrous amounts of damage. College of Valor’s extra attack means you’ll feel like you’re playing a ranger when it comes to attacking, with all of the benefits of making two attacks a turn, but also have a full-caster’s spell list.
Because rangers normally have to wait until 17th level to get their 5th level slots and bards get access to them at 9th level and Magical Secrets at 10th, you can live their top end fantasy seven levels sooner. Add a single level of fighter into the mix for Archery and you’ve got an 11th level character making four attacks a round, has the Sharpshooter feat, has at least one Ability Score Improvement to get an 18 in Dexterity, leading to a character making four attacks a round each getting a net +5 to hit after taking the -5 for the bonus damage, and each dealing 1d8+14 damage.
In total, you make four attacks with +3 to hit, dealing a possible total of 4d8+56 damage a round for a minute, as a bard, at 10th level. 11th level gives you an extra +2 if you pick up the archery fighting style from fighter. Any means of getting advantage on these attacks will turn you into a raw damage machine.
With one more level in fighter you can action surge for two more attacks, and a 3rd level in fighter gives you a subclass for expanded crit potential or manuever dice to make each attack hit even harder. Sure, it only lasts a minute, but at 10th level you’ve already got two 5th level slots comapred to the one 17th level rangers get, meaning you can get two fights a long rest with this barrage of arrows.
This asks you to commit a single feat, Ability Score Improvement, subclass, and one magical secret, which may sound like a lot, but remember you’re still a complete full-caster after this. You’ve got 15 other spells plus cantrips to define the rest of your build, where ranger’s are getting half that.
Bards Can Be Anything
If you know you want to sling spells, bolster buddies, and demean your foes, Bard delivers. Full-casters inheriantly will scale well with the game, and magical secrets ensures you’re going to get all of the best spells that exist. Having subclasses that also just incidently give you extra attack is exceptional. All of their subclasses are at least reasonable, with some being utterly busted, and they have plenty of opportunity to play big roles in multiclass builds.
Magical Secrets is their major defining feature in the upper tiers that offers opportunity to be completely and utterly broken. Bardic Inspiration can feel lackluster early on, but as the game progresses, the dice size will improve as will your options for using them, and they can quickly start to feel like hugely impactful rerolls whenever an ally needs it. I can’t recommend bards enough to more or less anyone; they’re a delight to play.
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