How many two Bard parties do you see?

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Looking at the level 3 spells available to us Bards I keep seeing combos like Bestow Curse and Slow (through magical secrets) which can be dropped on enemies to almost ensure battlefield control.

Does these work well in practice and how many two Bard parties do you see out there adventuring?

[Biggstick]

I don't think I've ever seen or played in a party that had more then 1 Bard. I've seen lots of parties with multiple Rogues and/or Fighters, but never two Bards.

With the primary Spellcasters (Bards, Clerics, Druids, Sorcerers, Warlocks, and Wizards), as long as they coordinate spell choices, they should be able to work fine together.

[LordEntrails]

Never seen a party with 2 bards either.

[JAL_1138]

Played in a few in League. I have a Valor Bard with a Fighter dip focused on archery, and a couple of Paladin/Bard multiclasses. Two bards (or a full bard and a mostly-bard multiclass, or two mostly-bard milticlasses, or whatever) works quite well in a large party, or in a party with a strong frontline.

Once both Bards can cast Hypnotic Pattern, you can both cast it and just about shut down whole encounters. Or you can both turn your frontliners into T-Rexes with Polymorph. Lots of good ways to double up spells, or combo different spells.

[JeffreyGator]

One of my current games had two bards for a bit partly because both DMs were playing bards when not DMing.

There were only a few times where for continuity both bards were present but bestow curse combined very well with phantasmal force and cutting words to keep a fire giant completely locked in his own head while the party destroyed his minions and then beat him down easily. This was at level 5 where a cr9 giant and 4 mephits are deadly encounter for a 5 person group.

Bards are versatile enough to have an all bard party and cover most bases, caster/controller, healer, damager, tank.

Even more so with multiclass bards.

[ZorroGames]

It is uncommon to see two of any one (non-MC) class figures in any AL game so far.

I think we had a 4th level Mtn Dwf Monk and a 1st level Hill Dwarf monk for one game. Even when we had three arcane casters in a party of 6 or 7 one was Soceror, one was Warlock and one was Wizard.

Seriously.

[Malifice]

You really want a party of 4 bards:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9f/Beatles_ad_1965_just_the_beatles_crop.jpg/220px-Beatles_ad_1965_just_the_beatles_crop.jpg

I believe an all bard party is called a band.

[Dankus Memakus]

You really want a party of 4 bards:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9f/Beatles_ad_1965_just_the_beatles_crop.jpg/220px-Beatles_ad_1965_just_the_beatles_crop.jpg

I believe an all bard party is called a band.

You are a legend.

[Theodoxus]

In a current game, I'm playing a life cleric 1/bard 3 with an on and off second bard 4. We don't have 3rd level spells yet, but have used Bane/Bless combos to good effect. Other combos are Faerie Fire and Bane or Heat Metal (depending on the composition of the opponents).

Sadly, the "other bard" hasn't shown up the last couple of weeks, so maybe our 'half a band' shenanigans are over :smallfrown:

[Willie the Duck]

You really want a party of 4 bards:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9f/Beatles_ad_1965_just_the_beatles_crop.jpg/220px-Beatles_ad_1965_just_the_beatles_crop.jpg

I believe an all bard party is called a band.

That's 3 bards and a barbarian (you get to pick which one).

[Sigreid]

I don't think more than one bard in a party would be a good idea. Too much overlap and too narrow a spell selection.

[kladams707]

That's 3 bards and a barbarian (you get to pick which one).

Ringo would be the barbarian. Drumming translation = using beatsticks.

[Armored Walrus]

I'm in a pbp game right now with two bards. We've only just begun, so have only had one encounter. The wolves ganged up pretty hard on our squishies so mostly I've cast healing word so far. Although I did drop a faerie fire, but no one hit that wolf until after I lost concentration on it. :P

I don't see a ton of overlap except that we both took Enhance Ability as one of our second level spells known, so I imagine one of us will be dropping it. (we also both took message, but it's an eight player game, so we may find ourselves in situations where we're divided up enough to need message relays or something)

Neither of us has Bless, Bane, Bestow Curse or Slow, (we're only level 3, no MS yet) so I can't comment on those combos.

[Cap'm Bubbles]

I've been in one party with two bards; coordination and planning out what each will take upon level-up is, unfortunately, almost required to avoid overlap and redundancy.
One or another bard will feel shortchanged at some point, even more so if there aren't enough martial characters to take advantage of their features.
Got a party of 4 or 5? if even one other player wants to be a full-caster, bard ironically feels very limited, despite things like magical secrets).
It can work exceptionally well (Bane/Bless combos, magical secrets, etc.); or it can work out worse than any duplicate class combo in the game. Plan for it, and make sure everybody has options.

[Safety Sword]

You've so much more chance of having a party if you start with 2 bards

[strangebloke]

Bards are one of those classes where the legacy fluff is super bad but the mechanics are quite fun.

The issue is that their spell list is small, so two high-level bards are probably using a lot of the same kit. More subclasses may change this. The secrets bard's best tricks will almost always be unique, so that improves it.

[JAL_1138]

Valor Bard and Lore Bard partner well together, because VBs can make for good archers and do more martial-type stuff while Lore Bards can out-cast them and use Cutting Words. Also, since Combat Inspiration is a bonus action the VB can pass it out to handle the buffing side and the Lore can save CW for debuffs as a reaction. An archer Valor Bard is eventually going to be spending Concentration on self-buffs like Swift Quiver or Elemental Weapon or Greater Invisibility to bolster their shooting pretty often. Valor can take the self-buffs and pick up (non-Concentration) healing spells for the rest of their list, while Lore can handle control, debuffs, party buffs, and utility.

Some overlap won't be bad, though—like I said earlier having two casters both throwing down Hypnotic Pattern or turning a couple of frontliners into T-Rexes can be really powerful.

[Chunkosaurus]

The game I'm a player in I'm one of three bards. I play a fey/nature inspired half elf college of swords bard. We have a dragonborn college of whispers bard based off of Richard Nixon in Futurama. Lastly we have a winged Tiefling college of lore bard that is super dark. It work really really well. The only thing is just talk about the spells you are taking. Having all that inspiration hanging around is amazing

[Beelzebubba]

We've got a game with about 10 regular players, so we have 2 bards - one each of Lore and Valor.

They played together last game, and it was fun seeing them try to one-up each other with Vicious Mockery.