Optimal Bard Build

[SpacePiggy1245]

Attention all Bard Mains, SpacePiggy needs your help to wipe out uncertainty, off the face of the table. Please tell him how to optimize for 1. A powerful (Combat) Bard, 2. A Bard designed for maximum role-play or 3. A fun, enjoyable Bard. Thank you for all submissions.

P.S To show me what Bard Optimisation you are doing please put the number of the optimization at the start of the comment. Thank you.

[nickl_2000]

So the first place I would start would be here http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?427508-Player-s-Gonna-Play-A-Bard-s-Guide.

This is a really good guide on the subclasses, spells, and all other things bard. What they are good at, and spells that work well, etc

[Vexacia]

Half-Elf Lore Bard.

Stat CHA>DEX>CON. feat War Caster or Resilient (Constitution) after you max Charisma. grab Thieves' Tools proficiency from your background (the specific background choice doesn't matter).

look up Magical Secrets threads/guides for suggestions on what to spend your MS on. look up Lore Bard guides for spell suggestions.

that's about it, there aren't any other choices to make.

as far as 2) goes, that's entirely up to you.

[Azgeroth]

what do you mean by combat?? melee/ranged/spell, damage/ control?

optimised for RP? have a backstory, and be an extrovert..

one that fits your play style??

these are super vague criteria...

[MarkVIIIMarc]

what do you mean by combat?? melee/ranged/spell, damage/ control?

optimised for RP? have a backstory, and be an extrovert..

one that fits your play style??

these are super vague criteria...

Ditto.

I'll take a shot though.

1. Powerful in combat doesn't just mean doing damage. Bards Counterspell 5% better than other casters if I understand the math and Lore Bards get Counterspell earlier. I've used it to shut down a bunch of enemy spells, our own Wizard when he was ready to make a mistake with Fireball and some civilians and on some Over Powered DM created teleportation to certain death ring. Read Bigby's hand also. Oh yeah, and you get Healing Word, a bonus action ranged lifesaver! Dissonant Whispers causes opportunity attacks also.

2- role play....you mean like deception and pesuasion? Yeah, pump them skills! You can have great stealth also. Let the high tension fun begin!

3 might be up to you. If you like Melee a Bard may loose some glamour (pun intended). My Lore Bard used her bow almost exclusively last session. It doesn't happen much. Bards are sneaky fun though. Just when everyone else is panicking you'll make the bads flee out of Fear or roll a Persuasion (Deception?) check and save the day.

Spells are big to me. Counterspell, Fireball, Fly, REVIVIFY, Bards can grab a couple of all the fun ones and really shock ppl.

[Man_Over_Game]

Combat: Sleep is going to be your best friend for the first 5 levels. After that, swap it out. I'll ditto everyone else: Counterspell is great. In terms of mechanical benefit per subclass:
Glamour: For a Melee team that lacks a healer or a Face.
Valor: Team lacks melee and healer.
Swords: Team lacks melee and damage dealers.
Whispers: Team lacks a Face and ranged damage dealers.
Lore: Small Team that lacks a skill monkey or a healer. Best overall

Role Play: Nothing beats Whispers as a dark-oriented Face. Nothing beats Glamour as a light-oriented Face. Nothing beats Lore as a Utility-oriented Face.

Fun: Hard to define, but Lore is a strong bet. Whispers is also very fun as an RP character. The others are great too, but best to be picked to match the team's needs.

[SpacePiggy1245]

Ditto.

I'll take a shot though.

1. Powerful in combat doesn't just mean doing damage. Bards Counterspell 5% better than other casters if I understand the math and Lore Bards get Counterspell earlier. I've used it to shut down a bunch of enemy spells, our own Wizard when he was ready to make a mistake with Fireball and some civilians and on some Over Powered DM created teleportation to certain death ring. Read Bigby's hand also. Oh yeah, and you get Healing Word, a bonus action ranged lifesaver! Dissonant Whispers causes opportunity attacks also.

2- role play....you mean like deception and pesuasion? Yeah, pump them skills! You can have great stealth also. Let the high tension fun begin!

3 might be up to you. If you like Melee a Bard may loose some glamour (pun intended). My Lore Bard used her bow almost exclusively last session. It doesn't happen much. Bards are sneaky fun though. Just when everyone else is panicking you'll make the bads flee out of Fear or roll a Persuasion (Deception?) check and save the day.

Spells are big to me. Counterspell, Fireball, Fly, REVIVIFY, Bards can grab a couple of all the fun ones and really shock ppl.

Wow. That was what I was looking for, thankyou, I never knew Counterspell is better with Bards. You know what your talking about, I will take everything here and try to nail it into my brain.



Combat: Sleep is going to be your best friend for the first 5 levels. After that, swap it out. I'll ditto everyone else: Counterspell is great. In terms of mechanical benefit per subclass:
Glamour: For a Melee team that lacks a healer or a Face.
Valor: Team lacks melee and healer.
Swords: Team lacks melee and damage dealers.
Whispers: Team lacks a Face and ranged damage dealers.
Lore: Small Team that lacks a skill monkey or a healer. Best overall

Role Play: Nothing beats Whispers as a dark-oriented Face. Nothing beats Glamour as a light-oriented Face. Nothing beats Lore as a Utility-oriented Face.

Fun: Hard to define, but Lore is a strong bet. Whispers is also very fun as an RP character. The others are great too, but best to be picked to match the team's needs.

Thanks for showing me the subclass list, that will be very useful.

Also that link from nickl_2000 is great, thankyou all!

[noob]

All the bards are optimal by virtue of being bards.
Except those who dump charisma who are optimal in whatever they do which is not standard for bards.

[Keravath]

Actually, bards add 1/2 proficiency to counterspell checks since they are skill checks and jack of all trades applies. This means that bards are from 5% to 15% better at counterspell and dispel magic.

This also includes initiative rolls by the way :)

[KyleG]

Is Lore still best as an offensive spellcaster?

[MarkVIIIMarc]

Is Lore still best as an offensive spellcaster?

What level are you thinking?

Thunderwave and Shatter are pretty good. Dissonant Whispers can be awesome, it causes damage and then can get opportunity attacks for your team mates! One time with Phantasmal Force and Dissonant Whispers my Bard totally crippled some kind of super bad rogue the DM sent at us. Our Wizard and Rogue typically cause more out right damage though.

This has me thinking though, Bards are REAL sensitive to spell selection, they can only change out at level ups and barely with Level 6 Additional Magical Secrets. That Level 6 Additional Magical Secrets is personality forming. If you want to do more damage pick Fireball. Our Wizard drops fireball so I picked Fly as Fireball and Shatter are fairly similar and I'd rather have the additional skill.

That Animate Objects seems plenty fun even w/o needing Magical Secrets to grab it.

[Phoenix042]

Attention all Bard Mains, SpacePiggy needs your help to wipe out uncertainty, off the face of the table. Please tell him how to optimize for 1. A powerful (Combat) Bard, 2. A Bard designed for maximum role-play or 3. A fun, enjoyable Bard. Thank you for all submissions.

P.S To show me what Bard Optimisation you are doing please put the number of the optimization at the start of the comment. Thank you.

One of my favorite "bards"

A tiefling "warlock" who plays like a blast-y social god, and describes his "performances" as using The Black Speech to rework fate (making an attack miss when it was fated to hit, causing an ally to resist an attack when they were fated to fall to it, etc).

The character is high level, and is the following build:
Warlock 2 / Lore Bard 5 / Sorc 6

The character has expertise in Persuasion and Arcana, a large number of social spells (charm person, friends, suggestion), and huge amount of raw blasting power (eldritch blast, scorching ray, fireball, metamagic (quicken and subtle), and 6th level slots).


Honestly, you can't go wrong with lore bard, you'll have tons of fun and feel really useful especially at level 5 when you've got like 4 - 5 uses of inspiration per short rest AND 3rd level spells.

I'd skip Valor and go with a Swords bard if you want to swash and buckle. Swords bards are fun and they work quite well mechanically; they really do end up feeling like light-melee characters with full casting behind them. Just remember that actually inspiring allies is often stronger than using a maneuver. Mix it up and use them when they count.

Whisper's bards are considered bad by the community and I'm not going to try to argue the point; They get a worse rap than I think they deserve if played in the right game, but I'll generally agree that lore bards are more generally fun and effective in basically any game.