Half-Orc Bard, advancement options

[Richard369]

Hey all,

I'll be starting in a new group as a lvl 1 Half-Orc Bard and I'm just wondering what some good options are as the character begins to advance. I have some fanciful ideas, and am planning on him being both charming and deadly-ish in combat, and not the archetypal Bard we all know and love (or don't).

As always, any and all help is much apprecaited.

[Nifft]

1 - What's the rest of your party look like?

2 - What are your ability scores?

3 - Charming + dangerous does seem to be the basic Bard archetype, you just need to pick if you're ranged or melee, and then if melee how in specific you approach melee (e.g. dip in Hexblade for 2 levels vs. dip in Paladin for 2 levels vs. Rogue vs. Barbarian... etc.)

[napoleon_in_rag]

For some reason, I am imaging a drummer in a heavy metal band.

[Richard369]

For some reason, I am imaging a drummer in a heavy metal band.

He actually plays Pan Pipes and orates as opposed to being all about music.

[Richard369]

1 - What's the rest of your party look like?

2 - What are your ability scores?

3 - Charming + dangerous does seem to be the basic Bard archetype, you just need to pick if you're ranged or melee, and then if melee how in specific you approach melee (e.g. dip in Hexblade for 2 levels vs. dip in Paladin for 2 levels vs. Rogue vs. Barbarian... etc.)

I'll post my stats as soon as I can get to them, having a day at the office.

The party is two monks, a rogue and a cleric.

I was thinking more of a melee character.

[Citan]

Hey all,

I'll be starting in a new group as a lvl 1 Half-Orc Bard and I'm just wondering what some good options are as the character begins to advance. I have some fanciful ideas, and am planning on him being both charming and deadly-ish in combat, and not the archetypal Bard we all know and love (or don't).

As always, any and all help is much apprecaited.


I'll post my stats as soon as I can get to them, having a day at the office.

The party is two monks, a rogue and a cleric.

I was thinking more of a melee character.
Hi! ;)

From what you say, as in "charming", "deadlyish", "melee", I see a few defining choices here.

ARCHETYPES

1. Glamour Bard
- Charming? Enthralling Performance.
- Deadly? Mantle of Majesty: don't underestimate the Command as a bonus action. Even without imagining special words, just with the examples provided, you can easily provide advantage to you and friends (Drop), prevent a dangerous action (Halt) or provoke opportunity attacks (Flee).
- Melee: nothing more here.

To note: the Mantle of Inspiration would also be very beneficial to your party: not only for the THP, but also for the free move without OA. Although Monks and Rogues do have great speed, they both usually need to spend a bonus action on Disengaging: you can spare them that. ;)

Problem though: you don't get better weapon/armor proficiency, nor weapon attacks enhancements. Weapons proficiency is honestly not a big deal. Everything else though?
It warrants a single level dip into either Draconic Sorcerer (starting dip, if you go DEX) or Hexblade Warlock (makes you SAD thus happy ;)).

At higher level though, you get to bake the cake and eat it, with Unbreakable Majesty: not only do you get harder to hit, but you leave your attacker in a catch-22 situation (fail? don't attack: success? Very high chance to suffer a Command/Hold Person/Hold Monster etc).


2. Swords
+ Weapon as focus!
+ Fighting Style
+ Blade Flourish (extra speed, use BI for rider)
+ Extra Attack.

If you don't want any multiclass and envisioned a dual-weapon character, this is most definitely the College for you.
You don't enhance anything about spellcasting or your usual roles (apart from the weapon as focus, which is a pretty big boon to be honest), but you become pretty powerful as a melee gish.

----
I usually also speak of Valor, but for your particular character I feel it's much less interesting for several reasons. Mainly revolving about party composition: Rogue and Monks mean your frontline will move FAST. If you want your share of the fight, yourself will need to move as fast as you can too: in that regard, the extra speed is always good to take (and you can top off with a Longstrider).

This composition also means your party will often have ways to get advantage, between possible Expertise from Rogue and Monk's archetype abilities or Stunning Strike. "Worst" case, you can just drop a Faerie Fire. So Valor Bard's usual "Shield Master + Expertise" build is redundant.

In fact, for your party, a great alternative may very well be the Satire College if your DM allows UA and you just care about melee fighting: just the Tumbling Fool ability makes you on par or better than Rogues and Monks for quite some time as far as "hit & run" tactics go. The lack of Extra Attack can be easily circumvented by a Magic Initiate feat to grab weapon cantrips, or you can multiclass later.

>>> I'd go Glamour. :)


SPELLS
Without dips...
For yourself: Longstrider, Warding Wind, Hold Person, Fear, Greater Invisibility will be your go-to before you can get Magic Secrets.
For your party: Silence, Enhance Ability, Phantasmal Force, Leomund's Tiny Hut are great to have.
Because you are still a Bard: Healing Words, Lesser Restoration, Comprehend Languages, Suggestion, TONGUES (Command is useless if creatures don't understand you after all ;)).

If you want some specific combos: Plant Growth may be extremely good or useless depending on how your party fights together: just keep it somewhere in your mind and assess its potential value once you get lvl 5.

Obviously you can't learn all, so choose depending on your taste. ;) If you have good relationship with your Cleric, you can put aside all those spells (except Healing Words) that Cleric can just switch&prepare whenever you feel you may need it tomorrow (so at least Silence, Hold Person and Enhance Ability).

With dips:
Sorcerer: Shield, Absorb Elements, Booming Blade, Green-Flame Blade, Ray of Frost (reducing speed is great for your party), Mold Earth (quick way to create cover when needed).

Warlock: Booming Blade, Eldricht Blast, Armor of Agathys (great when upcast), Hex (same), Expeditious Retreat (good way to be on par with friends for a small cost).

MAGIC SECRETS
Counterspell: this is kinda mandatory, as a party without it is doomed in the long run with any proper DM... And nobody but you can learn it, plus you can pair it with Enhance Ability and Jack of All Trades whenever you face a caster making you extremely good at protecting your party.

Other great choices:
- Healing Spirit if you like a low-level spell,
- Spirit Guardians to pair with your own Cleric and make a powerful stopping force (effects don't stack obviously but that means you can effectively shut down a large corridor) or just use it yourself while your Cleric does other wonders with his own concentration.
- Haste for you or a friend (IF/WHEN you get proficiency in Constitution saving throws only.)
- Slow which may be the perfect fit for your party: half speed, no reaction, only a single attack, spell delayed, means that you can actually stay near them instead of always kiting, or you can easily run back and forth from cover with no risk of them ever catching up to you. With that said, by the time you get to learn it, Monks should be reliable enough with Stunning Strike to win without it. :)
- Shadow Blade which would boost your martial damage by quite a decent amount, especially if upcast.
- Mirror Image if you make a DEX character, since it's a cheap non-concentration spells that can last quite a few rounds with a bit of luck.

Or, very simply, the best ever party buff in the name of Circle of Power (Paladin's exclusive, you nasty thief): 30 feet, advantage on all saves AND no-damage on success. For a mele heavy party, that's really the best thing you can provide.

>>> I'd grab Counterspell and Circle of Power personally, mainly because the first is necessary and the latter just too good of a party buff to pass to my taste. For a "self-centered" martial though, I'd hesitate much between Haste and Shadow Blade, depending on how higher I think my character will level.

Laste note about Circle of Power: I just realized that we are talking about party members that will already have Evasion by that time (well, at least 3 of them), and that will also become proficient in WIS saves at level 14. So while Circle of Power is always a great choice, it may actually end as totally overkill if your DM is scarce with spells, at least spells other than DEX based AOE. :)

FEATS
- Warcaster or Resilient: Constitution is probably mandatory: since you will go into melee, whether you use a concentration spell to buff yourself, a friend, or keep an encounter effect (Faerie Fire, Fear, Slow, Silence, etc), you will need a good bonus to keep those active.
- Magic Initiate: if you don't go the Extra Attack way neither the dip way for whatever reason, you'll definitely want to grab the Booming Blade and Green-Flame Blade this way.
- Mobile: if you manage to get at least 2 attacks, this will be beneficial. If you go "many attacks" (like dual-wielding + Extra Attack + Haste) if will be very beneficial. Otherwise, it's "just good", probably "not good enough" considering you will want good attack stat, good charisma, good constitution, and at least one of the aforementioned feats. Even if you had a spare feat honestly things like Alert or Inspiring Leader would bring much more.
- Alert: always a decent choice, may be worth or not depending on how you develop your character (mainly if you tend to try and open fights with balance-changing spells or not).
- Inspiring Leader: very great pool of THP, every short rest, and you are the only one that can learn it. :)

Hope that helps you ;)

[Crgaston]

Wow, Citan, good stuff!

Hard to add to that, but let me try... :)

Re: Valor Bard. I feel like it works very well thematically for this sort of character as a gruff sergeant shouting out encouragement/orders to his allies and debuffing foes.

Mechanically, as a half orc your max starting charisma with point buy is going to be 15 regardless, so you can easily afford a 16 Str for your melee attack stat and you get medium armor, shields and martial weapons without having to multiclass.

Combat Inspiration gives allies a solid boost to AC, albeit at a cost of their reaction, so more helpful for the Monk and cleric than the two rogues.

The speed would likely be a non issue, as you can be throwing things or (even better) casting Vicious Mockery if you don’t have enough movement to get to melee without dashing.

Extra Attack speaks for itself.

Valor has less flash than other archetypes, but it’s capabilities are solid.


Re: spells, Dissonant Whispers deals 3-18 psychic damage, forces movement AND draws an Opportunity Attack. With two rogues in the party, this is could be one of your best spells since it will potentially (if they melee) let them do Sneak Attack twice in a round. (With advantage if you’re using your concentration for Faerie Fire.)

[Citan]

Wow, Citan, good stuff!

Hard to add to that, but let me try... :)

Re: Valor Bard. I feel like it works very well thematically for this sort of character as a gruff sergeant shouting out encouragement/orders to his allies and debuffing foes.

Mechanically, as a half orc your max starting charisma with point buy is going to be 15 regardless, so you can easily afford a 16 Str for your melee attack stat and you get medium armor, shields and martial weapons without having to multiclass.

Combat Inspiration gives allies a solid boost to AC, albeit at a cost of their reaction, so more helpful for the Monk and cleric than the two rogues.

The speed would likely be a non issue, as you can be throwing things or (even better) casting Vicious Mockery if you don’t have enough movement to get to melee without dashing.

Extra Attack speaks for itself.

Valor has less flash than other archetypes, but it’s capabilities are solid.


Re: spells, Dissonant Whispers deals 3-18 psychic damage, forces movement AND draws an Opportunity Attack. With two rogues in the party, this is could be one of your best spells since it will potentially (if they melee) let them do Sneak Attack twice in a round. (With advantage if you’re using your concentration for Faerie Fire.)
ooops, how did I dare forget about Dissonant Whispers (worst thing about it is, I actually had in it mind when starting my post then totally forgot XD).

I understand your points about speed being circumventable by throwing weapons, but it's kinda limited. Rather, I already took it into account by the fact that Bard won't have access to Dash as bonus action so whatever happens he'll probably use the first turn either Dashing or (better) casting a spell.

Regarding Combat Inspiration, sure it's pretty good, but...
1. As far BI used as extra damage goes, I'm not sure party would really need it: Rogue is already pretty strong, Monks will help getting advantage and crits thanks to Stunning Strike or archetype abilities, Bard could use a Faerie Fire / Heat Metal / Hold Person to help, Cleric gets Spirit Guardians and/or Spiritual Weapon. I don't really think it will make that big of a difference.

2. As you said it uses reaction of a friend when used defensively: all OP's pals will want to keep their reaction for OA as often as possible: Rogue because high damage (Sneak Attack), Monk because extra chance to stun (Stunning Strike). They also have specific reactions (Uncanny Dodge for Rogue, Deflect Arrows for Monks).

3. Let's compare (well, as much as we can in theorycraft anyways) numbers:
On Valor, one Bardic Inspiration can be used to divert an attack (well, it's not 100% sure, but considering the growing die an average let's consider it is).
At level 5, it's probably gonna brush off somewhere around 15 damage from a single weapon attack. At level 10, against a big one, maybe somewhere about 30 with really bad luck?
At level 15+, worst case, let's say 50 damage?
I honestly have no idea of what monster could deal that much damage on a single "attack" so plz correct me if I'm totally underestimating or overestimating -I think I'm totally overestimating because from what I know spike damage comes rather from number of attacks or special abilities. Only "realistic" case I see would be powerful enemy landing a crit, at which time BI won't help anyways...

Overall I think I pumped those numbers significantly above what players could actually experience, but for the sake of comparing BI potential I think it's not a big problem. ;)

So, considering normal Bard (starting 16, bumping CHA early to get 20), with Valor, you can each short rest, brush off 4/5*(15/30/50) in the very very best and probably impossible case.
So 60/150/250 damage provided the right ally suffering the big attack always had a BI at hands.

Now, considering a "normal" Bard with 16 CHA starting, Glamour. In this party that is, per chance, exactly 5 people large. ^^
At level 5, you can provide 4*(4*8) THP per short rest.
At level 10, you now provide 5*(5*11) THP per short rest (yes, as strange as it may be, and while it may not be RAI, by RAW you are "a creature that you can see and that can see you" so you can affect yourself).
At level 15, it's 5*5*14 per short rest.
So 128/275/350 THP.

What's "worse", you only consume a bonus action from yourself when using Glamour ability: it's up to each ally to decide whether at that time using the "move at your reaction" is useful or not.
In addition to that, Rogue can make those THP last longer with Uncanny Dodge, Monks get Dodge as bonus action for a ki so they can make themselves hard to hit. And Cleric could cast Warding Bond on either one of the 4 people in melee (well, except Rogue probably) to help make those last.
Whereas Valor Bard has to distribute before hand so need to plan in advance or keep close to everyone if another hand-out is needed in emergency. :)

For all these reasons, as well as OP's wish to be "charming", I think Glamour is much more suited than the others. If OP had to choose between Swords and Valor though? I'd still rather take Swords, but I'd understand Valor too: more sturdy with shield and Shield Master can be a big thing. ;)