Lore Bard Level 6 Mystical Secrets choices

[chriseggroll]

Hello guys, long time lurker, first time poster :mitd: I've got a 5e group going right now and we're about to approach level 6, so trying to decide what magical secret spells I want for my Halfling Lore Bard (Gordon Lightfoot). Right now we have a Cleric, Barbarian, Monk, Rogue, Sorcerer, and Fighter, so trying to find a good support niche for them. I've already decided on Haste as one of my spells, but trying to choose the second one. So far I've been considering:

Aura of Vitality - Looks good, but I try to stay at range most of the time if possible
Branding Smite - If this gave advantage to attacks as well I'd probably take it, but it just prevents things from going invisible
Call Lightning - Good but only outside, and uses up your actions
Conjure Animals - Seems stupid good, but maybe slowing down combat a LOT, and I think my DM might screw me on this
Counterspell - Useful, but seems situational.
Fireball - Our sorcerer already has this
Fly - Seems useful and it scales
Hunger of Hadar - I like the idea of it, not sure how well it would be in a real fight though
Melf’s Minute Meteors - Interesting, not sure I wanna use up my one slot for this
Spirit Guardians - Pretty small AoE but party safe

Tell me what you think!

[retaliation08]

Counterspell is nice, but the Sorcerer might have it already.

Spirit Guardians is nice if your barbarian and monk like grappling or knocking people prone. Can get nice synergy by performing those tactics inside your SG spell radius.

Fly is nice for utility in and out of combat. Sorcerer can twin this though.

I dislike conjure creature spells coming from a DM POV. As a player, more npcs means longer, possibly boring, combat.

Pass without a trace has nice utility for your whole party.


Have you considered any cantrips? Damaging cantrips can give you a combat option when you are low on spell slots.

[pcamp88]

Aura of Vitality - A common choice, and a very good one.

Branding Smite - It's an okay spell to help prevent an enemy from running away and add a little punch to your weapon attacks, but See Invisibility already exists.

Call Lightning - If your campaign has a lot of wilderness combat then this is a decent choice to help with the Bard's general lack of damage, otherwise I'd skip it.

Conjure Animals - If you think you're dm is going to screw you over on this one, don't bother. As has already been stated, summoning spells can bog down combat a bit.

Counterspell - One of the spells where you feel silly having it when you don't need it, and a genius when you do. If you feel like you're going to fight casters somewhat regularly, it's a good choice.

Fireball - The classic AoE blaster. Sometimes doubling up with another party member isn't a bad thing.

Fly - Generally a very useful spell but you probably won't get much use out of it if your campaign has a lot of dungeon crawling.

Hunger of Hadar - A solid control spell with some bonus damage. Very useful against a group of clustered enemies.

Melf's Minute Meteors - Again, another decent spell to help with your damage output.

Spirit Guardians - This is one of my favorite spells in the game and is VERY good, but if you never got caught up in melee range then you won't be able to use this spell to it's full potential.

Branding Smite is the only spell on your list that I would recommend you avoid, everything else is solid. Another solid option if you want to indirectly assist with damage output is Crusader's Mantle, which is generally more useful with a larger party like yours.

[KnotaGuru]

Normally I'd recommend conjure animals, but even if your DM would give you complete choice control, your group is already huge with 7 players. Conjure animals has good out of combat utility too though. Summon 8 horses or giant owls and every party member gets a ride for an hour.

Try to corrdinate with the sorcerer on spell selection. Bard & sorc have limited spells known. Haste is good, but the sorcerer can twin it. Although you could both cast it to get 3 hasted party members.

I recommend counter spell as your 1st spell. Lore bards are awesome counterspellers, they get to add jack of all trades bonus to the roll.

I second the suggestion for crusader's mantle as your 2nd spell. That will bolster the damage for party quite a bit and vampires will get crushed by it. You can only concentrate on 1 spell and this is a good choice for your concentration.

[Drackolus]

I grabbed misty step and counterspell, and have regretted neither.
I also grabbed hex, but that was after I got eldritch blast and a cloak that gave me 2 invocations. I also got spiritual weapon.

[Contrast]

You can use Warding Bond on yourself and it can make concentration checks easier.

FYI intent was that you cannot cast warding bond on yourself (http://www.sageadvice.eu/2016/11/19/can-you-cast-warding-bond-on-yourself/).

[chriseggroll]

Thanks guys! Crusader's Mantle is not one I had considered but I'm thinking about it now, I just wish it scaled. So far we've been facing a lot of undead so Spirit Guardians would be good as well. I think I'll talk to our sorcerer and let that make my final choice, so far he's focused pretty much on blasting though. And I'll show Conjure Animals to the DM and see what he says about it, couldn't hurt I guess!

[Specter]

Definitely Counterspell. Bards are the 2nd best counterspellers in the game thanks to Jack of All Trades. All the other bases are covered.

[Kobard]

Hello guys, long time lurker, first time poster :mitd: I've got a 5e group going right now and we're about to approach level 6, so trying to decide what magical secret spells I want for my Halfling Lore Bard (Gordon Lightfoot). Right now we have a Cleric, Barbarian, Monk, Rogue, Sorcerer, and Fighter, so trying to find a good support niche for them. I've already decided on Haste as one of my spells, but trying to choose the second one. So far I've been considering:How does your character's niche thus far compare to the cleric, rogue, or sorcerer? The unique niche you want for your bard will likely depend on how these characters choose to build theirs. The cleric, for example, may appreciate you alleviating the healing burden if they would prefer another niche, but they may also feel threatened by you taking healing spells if that's a niche they want as well.

[LordVonDerp]

Counterspell is nice, but the Sorcerer might have it already.

Even if the sorcerer already has it, you're still better at it thanks to getting to add 1/2 prof to the check, as well as other bard bonuses.



Have you considered any cantrips? Damaging cantrips can give you a combat option when you are low on spell slots.
Yes. Very Yes.

[Jonnybidon]

About Crusader's Mantle, I'm not sure it's worth it.

First of all, it's a concentration spell, and you may have other spells to concentrate on, especially as a bard. There are a lot of non concentration damage spells which are really good, fireball for example.
Second, it does not scale really well besides invocations-spells, and a concentration spell which does not (really) scale is generally a bad one in the long term.

I must admit that the potential damages can be astonishing, better distributed and with a better type, but I'm not sure it's worth the magical secret slot.


I'm in the same situation as you (I just leveled up to Cleric1/Bard6), and my spells will probably be Aura of Vitality and Counterspell, but our parties are very different (mine have 4 full spellcasters beside me).

You “only” have 2 full spellcasters with you so you should be able to find spells they won't use (for example the druid ones). In my mind the greatness of magical secrets is about being able to adapt to your party.

[Grondar]

Have you considered Misty Step?, although it is only 2nd level, it is so useful for battlefield maneuverability.

Counterspell is almost a given, especially in a support character role. Nothing more appreciated than countering the big boom or a nasty control spell.

[RSP]

I like to avoid Concentration spells with MS, as the Bard list is already so crowded with them. That said, in a heavy attack roll group, Crusader's Mantle is one I'd make an exception for. Unlike SG, you can cast it and sit back in the rear reaping the rewards: SG forces you into the front lines and begs for hits and, therefore, Concentration checks.

[Dalebert]

Goodberry means no wasted slots at the end of the day. They become tons of free out-of-combat healing for the next day. They also can be handed out so everyone in the party can get someone up from zero hp.

[Drackolus]

Grabbing cantrips is a decent option, but spell sniper comes with the ability to ignore cover, which is frequently an issue, as well as netting eldritch blast, keying off the charisma you likely already have. It does, of course, require a spent asi, but it's a very potent one.
Vicious mockery is just fine until level 12 anyway, so you can just pick it up with that asi. After 11, d4 and the fact that most enemies have multiattack make the cantrip largely useless.

[wilhelmdubdub]

I hit lore bard six 3 sessions ago, and took conjure animals and spiritual weapon. My DPR took a huge spike at level 6. We lost our only melee, barbarian, and had a sharpshooter ranger, evoker wizard, and wisdom dominant cleric of the light.

After casting conjure animals in 4 combats, my DM texted me that it ruins his plans to stage a combat. 2 Dire wolves, 8 wolves making advantage trip attacks, 2 giant vultures using pack tactics in the air, and 8 elk (MM) doing +5 to hit charging ram attack for 3D6 +3 plus a DC 13 trip. After the elk my DM cried "broken". Plus nobody can move because you have a meat wall, which is good for an all ranged party.

And then on my turn I cast dissonant whispers and spiritual weapon. 4th level spells seem to be situational, so I will probably overcast dissonant whispers or spiritual weapon with those slots often. Sometimes spiritual weapon seems like a waste of a slot if the encounter is only a couple of rounds.

Check out guiding bolt too, it seems to scale well and giving advantage is bard-like.

I didn't take spirit guardians because our group already has a cleric and we like to spread out since we are all ranged. If you use your magical secrets on a concentration spell you are giving up invisibility, bestow curse (until level 9th), hypnotic pattern, heroism, hold person... I use those a lot.

I was planning to take counterspell at 10th, because the wizard is picking it up next level and by then we may need a second casting of it in a round or a second try to avoid a TPK. I almost took hellish rebuke to help out with action economy, but have been using cutting words a lot.

What is your character's backstory?

[KnotaGuru]

...And then on my turn I cast dissonant whispers and spiritual weapon...


When you cast a spell as a bonus action, you can't cast another spell during the same turn unless it's a cantrip (PHB p202)

[coredump]

My top picks:

Revivify (depending on party)
haste
aura vitality
counterspell
vitriolic sphere

[Citan]

Hello guys, long time lurker, first time poster :mitd: I've got a 5e group going right now and we're about to approach level 6, so trying to decide what magical secret spells I want for my Halfling Lore Bard (Gordon Lightfoot). Right now we have a Cleric, Barbarian, Monk, Rogue, Sorcerer, and Fighter, so trying to find a good support niche for them. I've already decided on Haste as one of my spells, but trying to choose the second one. So far I've been considering:

Aura of Vitality - Looks good, but I try to stay at range most of the time if possible
Branding Smite - If this gave advantage to attacks as well I'd probably take it, but it just prevents things from going invisible
Call Lightning - Good but only outside, and uses up your actions
Conjure Animals - Seems stupid good, but maybe slowing down combat a LOT, and I think my DM might screw me on this
Counterspell - Useful, but seems situational.
Fireball - Our sorcerer already has this
Fly - Seems useful and it scales
Hunger of Hadar - I like the idea of it, not sure how well it would be in a real fight though
Melf’s Minute Meteors - Interesting, not sure I wanna use up my one slot for this
Spirit Guardians - Pretty small AoE but party safe

Tell me what you think!
Aura of Vitality is a nice spell to have for out of combat healing, so you may consider it if so far your group as a whole feels tight with "only" potions, Cleric and your slots. But honestly Inspiring Leader would fare well also. ;)
Branding Smite is strictly inferior to Faerie Fire for you, unless you much higher attack stat than casting stat (which I suppose you don't, since you are a Lore and not a Valor Bard).
Call Lightning: nice, but not good enough for a Magic Secrets imo.
Conjure Animals: always a great pick, especially with no Druid on sight. Can be used for scouting, defense, offense, utility....
Counterspell: if your Sorcerer doesn't plan to learn it, I advise you consider this one strongly. Many nasty spells could turn what seemed an easy fight into a hell for your party.
Fireball: as you said, especially overkill if you already have at least Shatter learned.
Fly: always nice, especially if you apply on someone else then hang back to avoid concentration break.
Hunger of Hagar: great mix of damage and control, always a nice one, but beware of friendly fire or hampering your own party (since it's essentially an obscured area, so you won't see anything into it either).
Minute Meteors: funny, decent, not good enough imo.
Spirit Guardians: unless you plan on being always on front, this is not the best way to control enemy movement.

You want some good way to help your party?
Plant Growth: "dangerous" because it would also affect your party, and you have several melee guys in here, but you can use it to split enemy forces. And non-concentration. Can be paired with your Cleric pal's Spirit Guardians to create a true "no-move" zone.
Slow: my own personal favorite: affects up to 6 enemies, blows any and every other debuff of that level away: only one attack, -2 AC, half movement. Only bad thing is the kinda random effect (maybe you won't affect that one you really wanted to), but you are pretty sure to affect at least one enemy. Sorcerer can learn it though, so if he plans on using it take another.
Crusader's Mantle: dangerous for you because you would have to stay near front lines, but considering how many melee martials with several attacks per turn you have, this would rack up bonus damage very quickly.
Bless: your Cleric should have it, but since your group is so large, it could still be very worth it. ;)

[Citan]

About Crusader's Mantle, I'm not sure it's worth it.

First of all, it's a concentration spell, and you may have other spells to concentrate on, especially as a bard. There are a lot of non concentration damage spells which are really good, fireball for example.
Second, it does not scale really well besides invocations-spells, and a concentration spell which does not (really) scale is generally a bad one in the long term.

I must admit that the potential damages can be astonishing, better distributed and with a better type, but I'm not sure it's worth the magical secret slot.
You are viewing it from a bad angle. It does actually scale. Not by itself, but from the leveling of people you use it onto.
In a party with Monk, Barbarian, Fighter, Rogue, at level 6 it means you get between 3+2+2+1=8 (worst case) 3+3+3+2=11 (considering dual-wielding or GWM) or max 15 (OAs) per round. 8d4, average 20, 15d4, average 37,5.
And it's radiant.
Later, some of them gain another attack, all of them get more reliable attack, so this will increase the overall spell efficiency.


Goodberry means no wasted slots at the end of the day. They become tons of free out-of-combat healing for the next day. They also can be handed out so everyone in the party can get someone up from zero hp.
I'm sorry, but this is a really bad idea. Goodberry is good for a Druid who can prepare it at low levels then "unprepare it" once it loses usefulness, and stay useful some time.
But at level 6, for a Bard that didn't dip into Life Cleric to boost the efficiency of individual berries, this is not good enough. Because it will become near useless near level 10, but AFAIK you cannot swap your Magic Secrets for another Magic Secrets so it's a wasted chance to learn another spell which would stay relevant all your life.

[Jonnybidon]

@Citan about Crusader's Mantle:

I should have been more specific about what I meant with the "almost no scaling" part.
When your party is level 6, you can assume than most of your mates have already 2 attacks per turn. Their number of attacks won't grow anymore (unless for fighters or feats, but it's not much), so that's why I said it doesn't really scale.

In addition, you took for granted that all the attacks made would touch their target, which won't happen even at higher level. So the damages should be multiplied by ~2/3, which is still good, but is it enough?

Finally, even the fighter or barbarian won't be able to attack every turn, they might grapple, dash, use object... To allow the radiant damages to proc, your mates have to be near you (and you might not want to be just behind the frontline).

So using your concentration, being just behind the fronline, assuming all of the attackers will be around you, and that all of them will attack, we can expect in average :
10 * 2/3 * 1d4 ~ 17 dmg/turn

It's really nice if you can keep it on several turns, but then you're passing on all those excellent concentration spells on the bard's list that might have turned the encounter around.
I know it can dish out tremendous damages in the right setup (conjuration, undeads, etc), but using one of your magical secrets for mere situational damages... It doesn't sound good to me.

It's my personal view on this spell and I may be too harsh with it (the radiant type is really good), but I think bards can do SO MUCH MORE than damages.

[Citan]

@Citan about Crusader's Mantle:

I should have been more specific about what I meant with the "almost no scaling" part.
When your party is level 6, you can assume than most of your mates have already 2 attacks per turnTheir number of attacks won't grow anymore. (unless for fighters or feats, but it's not much), so that's why I said it doesn't really scale.

In addition, you took for granted that all the attacks made would touch their target, which won't happen even at higher level. So the damages should be multiplied by ~2/3, which is still good, but is it enough?
Absolutely not, but I wasn't clear enough apparently. You obviously cannot expect all attacks to hit, but still the chance to hit increase with level, same with number of attacks: Barbarian/Fighter may not have GWM yet. Rogue may go from single-wield to dual-wield or coordinate to get OA..

Also I didn't quite take ALL possible attacks into account: Bard himself, Cleric, Sorcerer using a weapon cantrip, Fighter's Action Surge, Monk's Flurry of Blows, Rogue possible coordination to get OA... On which topic the Bard can cast Dissonant Whispers, provoking one or several OA on the same enemy.
You could also imagine the Sorcerer could twin Haste any of those two...

And let's not forget that, back on the chance to hit topic...
- Cleric could cast Bless on the main brawlers to further help.
- One of the brawlers could use a single of his attacks to Shove an enemy prone, ensuring the chance to hit of further attacks.
- Monk has Stunning Strike, which means autocrit if successful.
- People, in addition to proficiency bonus increasing, will spend ASI to max their attack stat, furthering chance to hit.
- If the Barbarian is Wolf, he provides advantage to his close allies.

Frankly, in this party, Crusader's Mantle is in the top tier of any buff/debuff available, precisely because it is so heavily weapon-geared. Only drawback is that it does require the Bard to stay in the middle of the fight.

And while I agree that Bard can do much more than "simply damage", OP asked for a powerful buff, and considering his party, and he is the only one having free access to spells, Crusader's Mantle is the "best" overall (no chance to fail, no limit on number of people affected, party heavily martial, each and everyone can benefit from it, best damage type).
Generally better than Haste (because affects only one person), and potentially better than Slow depending on enemy composition (essentially because, as great as it is, Slow can still miss).

A gangbang on a single enemy at their current level, provided Sorcerer learned Haste and Twin, would mean the enemy faces an easy extra 30, a reasonably probable extra 45 damage or more in a single round (including leading Shove, Bless, Action Surge, Flurry of Blow, etc). At their current level, I daresay this is a huge boost to win. :)

[wilhelmdubdub]

When you cast a spell as a bonus action, you can't cast another spell during the same turn unless it's a cantrip (PHB p202)
I think if you cast spiritual weapon on a previous turn you can attack with it on the same turn you cast a spell that is not a cantrip. If not my DM allows it.

[KnotaGuru]

I think if you cast spiritual weapon on a previous turn you can attack with it on the same turn you cast a spell that is not a cantrip. If not my DM allows it.

Correct, but in this case the author said he casts conjure animals on round 1 and spiritual weapon and dissonant whispers on round 2.

[wilhelmdubdub]

Correct, but in this case the author said he casts conjure animals on round 1 and spiritual weapon and dissonant whispers on round 2.

Ohh I didn't see the author labeled what he did as round 1 and round 2.

[JellyPooga]

I would tend to avoid the "smite" spells as a Lore Bard, but if you wanted to mix it up in melee and were set on one of them, then I'd recommend Searing Smite instead of Branding Smite. It's damage scales, giving you the option to use it at higher levels too and it forces your target to choose between taking more damage and extinguishing the flames. Better yet (IMO) is Entangling Strike; the ongoing damage is what scales, instead of the immediate damage, giving it far higher damage potential for the spell slot, it also imposes the Restrained condition and it can be used with a ranged attack.

Having said that, I wouldn't take any of the Smite spells as a Bard outside of some very specific builds.

[Jonnybidon]

@Citan on Crusader's Mantle:

We both expressed our thoughts on this spell, so I think there is no need to argue furthermore on this topic.
In the end, it's more of a personal preference I think: the efficiency of the spell depending on a lot of parameters different for each group.

Will all your weapon attackers be near you?
Do they do a lot of grappling?
Do they use items, or do anything other than weapon attacks?
Can you allow yourself to be near the melee?
...
Depending on the answers, CM could be a really damage-optimized spell, especially with the OP's party.

I still prefer to select future-proof magical secrets (Counterspell being the most obvious one) and I can't see myself using Crusder's Mantle over advanced concentration spells, but again, it's more of a personal preference than anything. You could take CM and in later levels replace it with a Bard's spell, totally doable!

[Citan]

@Citan on Crusader's Mantle:

We both expressed our thoughts on this spell, so I think there is no need to argue furthermore on this topic.
In the end, it's more of a personal preference I think: the efficiency of the spell depending on a lot of parameters different for each group.

Will all your weapon attackers be near you?
Do they do a lot of grappling?
Do they use items, or do anything other than weapon attacks?
Can you allow yourself to be near the melee?
...
Depending on the answers, CM could be a really damage-optimized spell, especially with the OP's party.

I still prefer to select future-proof magical secrets (Counterspell being the most obvious one) and I can't see myself using Crusder's Mantle over advanced concentration spells, but again, it's more of a personal preference than anything. You could take CM and in later levels replace it with a Bard's spell, totally doable!
I totally agree with you on that, it's a matter of fitting the situation. We just have a different opinion on whether it fits OP's situation is all. ;)


On a side note, would the ruling about AT be applyable to Bard's Magic Secrets (= you can swap an earlier Magic Secret for a later Magic Secret)?

[Jonnybidon]

On a side note, would the ruling about AT be applyable to Bard's Magic Secrets (= you can swap an earlier Magic Secret for a later Magic Secret)?

When you get a Magical secrets spell, it's a Bard's spell, taken from any list, but still a Bard spell. So if you want to swap it for another, it will be one from the Bard's list.

Personally, I think it would be too powerful otherwise.