New (ish) to 5e -- buffer bard

[rrwoods]

I've played a little encounter-only one shot of 5e and that's about it. I'm going to be playing a campaign from level 1 with four other players. The party makeup as far as I know is Druid, Cleric, Rogue, Barbarian, and me. (I don't know what archetypes people are looking to play.)

I'd like to play a Bard whose primary goal is making the party better, falling back on making his enemies worse. With expertise and incidentally high charisma I expect to also be a skill monkey and face, but falling behind on those isn't going to bug me. I've never played a spellcaster in any TTRPG so I wanted to give that a shot.

I'm not in front of my books at the moment but this has been on my mind so I wanted to make a post anyway :-P. I've been reading Person_Man's excellent guide, I'm sure most of it will make more sense once I'm able to read the text of the stuff he's talking about.

Autonatically allowed sources are PHB, EE companion, and Sword Coast. UA available on a "we'll talk" basis (and personally I'd rather stick to printed stuff).

Actual questions:
1) Thinking of going variant human for the free first level feat. Are feats as juicy as they are in 3.5, or should I strongly consider something like Half-Elf?
2) I don't mind getting my hands dirty when it's necessary but I don't want to be in the spotlight when it comes to dealing damage. Is this viable?
3) The three sky blue options for multiclassing seem to all reference being better at damaging stuff. See question 2; am I single classed most likely?
4) Just general build advice -- I want to buff my friends. What should I be looking hard at in terms of my build decisions?

Thanks all!

[bid]

Actual questions:
1) Thinking of going variant human for the free first level feat. Are feats as juicy as they are in 3.5, or should I strongly consider something like Half-Elf?
2) I don't mind getting my hands dirty when it's necessary but I don't want to be in the spotlight when it comes to dealing damage. Is this viable?
3) The three sky blue options for multiclassing seem to all reference being better at damaging stuff. See question 2; am I single classed most likely?
4) Just general build advice -- I want to buff my friends. What should I be looking hard at in terms of my build decisions?
Inspiring leader is your best bet if you go variant human. Starting 8 14 14 10 12 16 is good enough. Half-elf would end up Dex16 for better AC and a short bow.

Lore bard works fine, no need for direct damage. I would look at treantmonk's god wizard for ideas.

I feel bard is a little slow gaining steam. The only non-combat MC I'd recommend is to start fighter 1 for medium armor and Con save. Anything else will wait after level 6-10.

Concentration is your bigger issue. You can only keep one useful buff active. Once you reach lore 6 and grab some paladin 3rd, crusader's aura can boost your melee-heavy group.

[Specter]

1) Human and Half-Elf are some of your best bets. Human gets you a feat, while HE gets you 2 stat points and a skill. Tiefling, Aasimar and Dragonborn are also good if you're looking for a weirder angle.

2) Of course -- you can spend the entire game without dealing damage. Concentrate on a solid buff, use other non-conc debuffs, Inspire with bonus action, repeat.

3) You don't need multiclass, really. But if I were going for it, I'd take a single rogue level for more Expertise.

4) With your Magical Secrets, the Paladin spell list has solid buffs. Bless and Crusader's Mantle rock. Valor Bard also gives you better buffing with your inspiration.

[Saeviomage]

For what you describe, the inspiring leader feat seems like a good thing to have, so there's at least one powerful and fitting feat if you choose variant human. Temporary hitpoints for everyone is great.

Your biggest choices will be what spells you learn. I'd suggest picking up vicious mockery (you don't buff your friends, but you DO debuff the enemy, which is very similar) and message (party wide walky-talky at all times).

First level has heroism (immune to fear, get cha-mod temp hitpoints at the start of each round) and faerie fire (grant advantage vs targets), but they both use your concentration, so you probably only want one of them. If you've got inspiring leader, temp hit points don't stack, so faerie fire?

Second level gets enhance ability and...

Well, actually the bard spell list doesn't have that many buffs, which is why...
You probably want to go lore. Technically valor buffs your buddies with bardic music more, but lore lets you pick up some buff spells from other classes (paladin has some nice auras, cleric has some other stuff).

Just by being a bard, you're already one of the best 'buff' classes. Everything else is really a matter of what you find fun. As long as you stay away from big damage spells, you'll fulfill the rest of what you want.

[Belac93]

If you want to be a buffer, take 3 levels of rogue as well. The mastermind archetype lets you give advantage to anyone within 30 feet, and you can take the help action as a bonus action. So, you can give 2 of your allies advantage every turn. Then start taking the bard levels, I would say go lore bard for extra spell juiciness.

[Aaron Underhand]

I can tell you what I did...

I had exactly the same party mix, plus a ranger.

Everyone had skimped on INT, plus no arcane caster...

...and maybe because of play style/DM style we also found the Druid and Cleric were inhibited due to needing to keep healing back.

I took variant human with 12 in CON and 14 in INT (making wisdom 10).

I took the healer feat as well.

This buffed the whole party by freeing all the casters to cast...

Then at second level I took a level of Wizard... giving me some useful cantrips, 1st level ritualist, ability to cast any wizard spell from a scroll, one level of spell recovery on a short rest, non save wizard spells (Fog, sleep, MM), and an owl familiar to sort out my perception.

A little fragile, one level delayed in spell acquisition, but tons of utility...

As I level up I can use my bard known spells on learning second level and above, knowing I always have three prepared first level spells from wizard.

[wunderkid]

Not sure if it's been mentioned but life cleric1/bard works really well with good berries and I think it's called aura of vitality? Before you go to sleep at night just burn out every remaining spell slot on good berries. Then shave your head. And whenever someone is hurt throw a Berry at their head yelling 'senzu bean!'

[rrwoods]

Thanks for the replies everyone! I'll be back to my books in a few days and I'll probably have more questions then, but in the mean time I really appreciate the help.

[Ashrym]

I've played a little encounter-only one shot of 5e and that's about it. I'm going to be playing a campaign from level 1 with four other players. The party makeup as far as I know is Druid, Cleric, Rogue, Barbarian, and me. (I don't know what archetypes people are looking to play.)

I'd like to play a Bard whose primary goal is making the party better, falling back on making his enemies worse. With expertise and incidentally high charisma I expect to also be a skill monkey and face, but falling behind on those isn't going to bug me. I've never played a spellcaster in any TTRPG so I wanted to give that a shot.

I'm not in front of my books at the moment but this has been on my mind so I wanted to make a post anyway :-P. I've been reading Person_Man's excellent guide, I'm sure most of it will make more sense once I'm able to read the text of the stuff he's talking about.

Autonatically allowed sources are PHB, EE companion, and Sword Coast. UA available on a "we'll talk" basis (and personally I'd rather stick to printed stuff).

Actual questions:
1) Thinking of going variant human for the free first level feat. Are feats as juicy as they are in 3.5, or should I strongly consider something like Half-Elf?
2) I don't mind getting my hands dirty when it's necessary but I don't want to be in the spotlight when it comes to dealing damage. Is this viable?
3) The three sky blue options for multiclassing seem to all reference being better at damaging stuff. See question 2; am I single classed most likely?
4) Just general build advice -- I want to buff my friends. What should I be looking hard at in terms of my build decisions?

Thanks all!

1) I like variant human for the feat. I generally prefer healer to inspiring leader at low levels but inspiring leader is great and works out better later, and (more importantly) matches the buffer theme mentioned. There isn't a shortage strong healing classes so I would go with inspiring leader. Other options are ritual caster (wizard) or a person might pick up magic initiate feat to increase cantrips and 1st level spells known.

2) Not only is it viable, it's normal. Bards tend to run low to mediocre damage with decent damage on focused builds. The higher the level, the worse it gets too. Bards have a wide variety but they lack the combat bonuses or magical potency benefits of other classes as the trade off for that breadth of options. A CHA valor bard fits nicely for that type because of better AC, extra attack, and by picking up shillelagh as a bard spell via magical secrets at 10th level. That won't be the highest damage build available but it's not bad and allows focus on CHA for melee and spells so STR or DEX becomes less important. Just use a DEX weapon in the meantime.

3) That's up to you and what you prefer. I don't like delaying class abilities to multi-classing because it can be felt short term for longer term gains. A person also loses a feat/ASI in the long run if the multi-class is not leveled out to make it up (typically a 4 or 8 level split for the ASI per the class, not character, progression). More than 1 level in multi-classing has too much delay or trade off if a person isn't careful, imo. The rogue mastermind split mentioned earlier is a pretty good trade off but still heavy in delay, so to each his or her own. I tend to go pure or a 1 level dip into cleric (who has a lot of 1st level buffing spells to fit the theme). Personally, I would just skip it because you already have a rogue and a cleric in the party; or go for 1 level of fighter instead for the protection fighting style.

4) I would go with valor as well. The best thing about lore isn't extra secrets (that's good when you get it but not the big thing in the long run). Valor gives additional inspiration options for your companions to use and that fits right in with the theme instead of lore giving you a debuff instead, or a self-buff later. You'll also find you can go through bardic inspiration dice on cutting words without getting a lot of buffing in on the ability. As mentioned above, bards don't have a lot of buffing spells (more debuffing) so lore tends to cut back on the bard signature buff in favor of debuffs or and extra secrets (which has a lot of competition). I would also keep in mind that the group might not have a lot of arcane caster options so you might want to look at shared wizard / sorc spells over shared cleric and druid spells on the bard list first.

Thinking thematically, I would go human variant with inspiring leader, CHA focused valor bard. Your group has plenty of support caster options and you have a specific build in mind so I'm thinking that you might want to go with these spells.

First Level: Identify, Detect Magic, Heroism, Tasha's Hideous Laughter; Vicious Mockery, Light
Second Level: Longstrider
Third Level: Enhance Ability
Fourth Level: Invisibility; Minor Illusion
Fifth Level: Dispel Magic
Sixth Level: Lots of good options here. Bestow Curse won't require concentration once it can be cast in a 5th-level slot. Fear or Hypnotic Pattern are solid AoE control. It's an easy choice to take one of these at fifth level and dispel magic at sixth level.
Seventh Level: Greater Invisibility or Polymorph
Eighth Level: Greater Invisibility or Polymorph
Ninth Level: Awaken
Tenth Level (magical secrets): Shillelagh, Bless; Mage Hand
Eleventh Level: Mass Suggestion
Thirteenth Level: Teleport
Fourteenth Level (magical secrets): Haste, Heroes Feast
Fifteenth Level: Mind Blank
Seventeenth Level: Foresight
Eighteenth Level (magical secrets): Stoneskin, Wish

Some of those are a bit non-standard suggestions but they do have benefits and the list is heavily buffing focused. There are plenty of solid options in the list to pull your weight with some offensive potential added. It's a brainstormed example that might be appealing based on what it appears you want.