College of Swords Crit Fisher?

[Hesh]

Having read College of Swords, I've just realised that on a Crit, your roll is doubled, which doubles the benefit from the Flourishes.

I'd like it to be always on, and I've played 2 Hexblades now, so I would like to go about it in a different manner.

Champion 4 gives me 19-20, Barbarian gives me easy Advantage, Hexblade is not for me, what other options do I have?

[suplee215]

Having read College of Swords, I've just realised that on a Crit, your roll is doubled, which doubles the benefit from the Flourishes.

I'd like it to be always on, and I've played 2 Hexblades now, so I would like to go about it in a different manner.

Champion 4 gives me 19-20, Barbarian gives me easy Advantage, Hexblade is not for me, what other options do I have?

Depends on what level bard you are but there are a few spell options ot use for easy advantage. Shadowblade gives you it in dim light and if you take the feat Mounted Combat Find Greater Steed can make sure you always have advantage on smaller creatures.

[Aett_Thorn]

Just as a point of clarification, Champion 3 gives you the expanded crit range, not level 4. So not sure if that will help you out at all.

Other ways to gain fairly consistent advantage: take Shield Mastery, and use your bonus action to shove the enemy prone.

Take a level or two of Warlock, and take the Invocation that lets you see in magical Darkness, then cast Darkness on your sword or something else on you.

[Hesh]

Just as a point of clarification, Champion 3 gives you the expanded crit range, not level 4. So not sure if that will help you out at all.

Other ways to gain fairly consistent advantage: take Shield Mastery, and use your bonus action to shove the enemy prone.

Take a level or two of Warlock, and take the Invocation that lets you see in magical Darkness, then cast Darkness on your sword or something else on you.

Sorry half finished thought. Champ 4 was for access to the Elven Accuracy, as that seemed another way.

My Hexblade was a Shield Master, and I don't like how penalizing Darkness was to the rest of the party so it droped by the wayside, and like said, I want to differentiate myself from Hexblade, and warlock in general.

[Easy_Lee]

Shield Master, athletics expertise, Elven Accuracy, and champion all combined will do the trick. That's a 27% crit chance per attack, altogether. If you take the Champion levels first, you gain constitution proficiency and start the game as an effective combatant. Upon taking Bard at 4 or 5, I believe you can pick up a weapon cantrip so that your melee damage doesn't suffer too much.

At Bard 10, assuming you make it that far, use Magical Secrets to pick up Shadow of Moil. This allows you to concentrate on a spell that will give you advantage, attackers disadvantage, and prevent you from being targeted by opportunity attacks and several spells.

[strangebloke]

Obligatory link to my thread on this topic:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?551329-Terrible-Terrible-Damage-A-Crit-Fishing-Mini-Guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?551329-Terrible-Terrible-Damage-A-Crit-Fishing-Mini-Guide)

The short and the long of it is that swords bard isn't great at crit-fishing, and the only way to make it sort of good is to add a level or two of hexblade.

That said, here's what's available to you:

Champ 3(not four): you already know about this. 19-20 crit range. Honestly, this doesn't have any particular synergy with your build, but the only other option available is the Conquest Paladin capstone. (clearly not an option)
Assassin 3: You don't need to fish for crits, you earn your crits. This works great, and synergizes better with your build than champ, I think, but it might not be what you're looking for. Synergizes very well with bugbear racial feature.
Elven Accuracy: increases your crit chance by roughly 50% when you have advantage. Perfect for your build, unless you pick up assassin levels, and even then it's great.
Shadow Blade: Good way to generate dice and get advantage. No more needs be said.
Magic Initiate: Find Familiar, have it take the help action constantly. Or burn a magic secret on find familiar which is actually probably fair.

Blade Cantrips: They're awesome. 'Nuff said.

The other thing you'll find is that you'll want to generate extra dice so that when you crit you will hit really hard. Paladin 2 is the best way for most builds, but in your case that may be a bit too much multiclassing. Rogue gives you a fair amount of dice as well, which is nice.

Overall, I'd say Bugbear Assassin 3, and if you get that surprise flourish off, you'll deal 4d6 (bugbear) + 4d6 (sneak attack) + 2d8 (flourish) + 4d8(shadowblade) + 4d8 (GFB) + 3 = 76.This means delaying your second attack until 8th level, but I don't think you'll feel too far behind on damage. You'll probably feel the hit to your spellcasting more.