The Bard's Bard: College of the Virtuoso

[Grod_The_Giant]

College of the Virtuoso
Bravely bold Sir Robin, rode forth from Camelot...

Virtuoso: Beginning at 3rd level, you gain proficiency in Performance, if you did not already have it, and with all musical instruments. You may add twice your Proficiency bonus to Performance checks, and to checks made using three instruments of your choice.

Inspire Courage: Beginning at 3rd level, after an ally spends a Bardic Inspiration die, they may select another ally within 30ft (other than you) to receive an Echo. Echos function the same way as Bardic Inspiration dice, but are one die size smaller. For example, if you recieve a 1d6 Bardic Inspiration die, your Echo die would be a 1d4. You cannot receive an Echo if you already have a Bardic Inspiration die or another Echo. Echos are lost at the end of their possessor's next turn.

Inspire Greatness: Beginning at 6th level, you may expend one use of your Bardic Inspiration as an action. All allies within 60ft who can hear you gain a Bardic Inspiration die, if they did not already have one.

Inspire Heroics: Beginning at 14th level, when an ally spends a Bardic Inspiration die, they may add half the result (round up) to all ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws they make until the beginning of their next turn.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Slight upgrade to Fascinate.
Tinkered with the progression slightly to make the low levels better. Still a bit concerned about power...

[theVoidWatches]

This feels potentially very strong. Bardic Inspiration is a really powerful mechanic, and being limited to a max of 5 uses per rest is, I think, an important balancing factor. Inspire Courage (which will eventually give you back your die about half the time) therefore starts out good and only gets better. Inspire Greatness makes it even more busted - when you're on your last BI die, use your action to give one to everyone, and potentially get back multiple uses.

Shuffling around these features will help, I think. Move Inspire Greatness to 3 (and bump Fascinate off entirely, it feels out-of-place), Inspire Heroics can be on 6, and Inspire Courage can be your subclass capstone at 14, where it gives you back dice 1 time in 10 (with a 10 or higher on a d10) and gives upgraded to 1 time in 4 when your die becomes a d12 the next level.

[Man_Over_Game]

College of the Virtuoso
Bravely bold Sir Robin, rode forth from Camelot...

Virtuoso: Beginning at 3rd level, you gain proficiency in Performance, if you did not already have it, and with all musical instruments. You may add twice your Proficiency bonus to Performance checks, and to checks made using three instruments of your choice..

So far, not bad. Unfortunately, Performance and musical instruments are considered some of the weaker options, but I feel like that's on DMs rather than a poor choice on this homebrew. So far, I like it.


Inspire Courage: Beginning at 3rd level, when an ally expends a Bardic Inspiration die and rolls a 6 or above, you regain one use of your Bardic Inspiration.




Fascinate: Beginning at 3rd level, you may expend one use of your Bardic Inspiration as an action. All enemies within 60ft who can hear you must make Charisma saves against your spell save DC or be charmed by you until the end of your next turn. On your next turn, and subsequent turns, you may use a bonus action to extend this duration by one round, up to a maximum of 10 minutes. This effect ends on a target if it takes any damage, if you attack it, or if it witnesses you attacking or damaging any of its allies.

Hmm...A bit bland. This is the level 3 feature, AKA "The Good Stuff", or "That One Thing". Between improving Bardic Inspiration by an uncontrolled 18%-50%, and an AoE Charm Burst, it's both "Meh" and "Too Gud". 50% chance to refund Bardic Inspiration at higher levels, combined with the fact that you can keep spamming it after getting it back, is too good, but it's easily ignored at low levels. A Charm Burst isn't a terrible ability, but it lasts far too long for too little of a cost. But the main thing is that neither of these features really scream "fun".


Inspire Greatness: Beginning at 6th level, you may expend one use of your Bardic Inspiration as an action. All allies within 60ft who can hear you gain a Bardic Inspiration die, if they did not already have one.
My main concern here is the scaling with its balance with Inspire Courage. At later levels, this is really too good to open up with, and at early levels, it's easily ignored.


Inspire Heroics: Beginning at 14th level, when an ally spends a Bardic Inspiration die, they may add the result to all ability checks, attack rolls, and saving throws it makes until the beginning of their next turn.
Further making Bardic Inspiration better, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but adding more synergies can dramatically alter the balance of something, and at this point, we're talking almost a permanent +7 to all of your allies' rolls at all times.

My biggest concern is that most of these abilities are very numbers-driven, and have "soft" effects that aren't witnessed as being all that good. For example, the Glamour Bard, while having a somewhat weaker loadout, immediately makes a bunch of allies rearrange themselves around the battlefield while getting a burst of THP. It's dramatic, quick, and noticeable. However, a Charm effect is difficult to utilize in combat, and everything else might as well be a conditional stat gain, not much different than a passive aura effect.

One thing I do praise is that it incentivizes higher levels into Bard, which is something that the Bard overall needs, and it does utilize a good use for Bardic Inspiration by simply making what it does even better, but I think the level 3 features should be revised to create something unique.

A few examples that came to mind that fit with the concept of "A true Bard":

When an ally uses Bardic Inspiration, they gain that much THP (and maybe have other benefits while having this THP, like being able to expend it for a "second use")
After using Bardic Inspiration, the ally places an "Echo" on another ally who is not you. An "Echo" is used exactly the same way as a BI and consists of half of the result from the original BI. Class consists of adding buffs related to BI and Echos
You can play various different ballads. Ballads require Concentration to maintain, affect creatures around you, and attacks against you have advantage while maintaining a ballad. Ballads have options like charming targets, granting constant BI for nearby (within 10 feet) allies, and other effects
If an ally fails a saving throw, you can use your Reaction and a BI to encourage them by adding the BI to their roll.

[Grod_The_Giant]

This feels potentially very strong. Bardic Inspiration is a really powerful mechanic, and being limited to a max of 5 uses per rest is, I think, an important balancing factor. Inspire Courage (which will eventually give you back your die about half the time) therefore starts out good and only gets better. Inspire Greatness makes it even more busted - when you're on your last BI die, use your action to give one to everyone, and potentially get back multiple uses.

Shuffling around these features will help, I think. Move Inspire Greatness to 3 (and bump Fascinate off entirely, it feels out-of-place), Inspire Heroics can be on 6, and Inspire Courage can be your subclass capstone at 14, where it gives you back dice 1 time in 10 (with a 10 or higher on a d10) and gives upgraded to 1 time in 4 when your die becomes a d12 the next level.
Crap, you're right-- Inspire Courage + Inspire Greatness leaves you with a near-infinite loop. I'll strike the Inspire Courage effect altogether, I think... and you're right, Fascinate is too close to the Glamour Bard, and leaves me more room to paly with.



Hmm...A bit bland. This is the level 3 feature, AKA "The Good Stuff", or "That One Thing". Between improving Bardic Inspiration by an uncontrolled 18%-50%, and an AoE Charm Burst, it's both "Meh" and "Too Gud". 50% chance to refund Bardic Inspiration at higher levels, combined with the fact that you can keep spamming it after getting it back, is too good, but it's easily ignored at low levels. A Charm Burst isn't a terrible ability, but it lasts far too long for too little of a cost. But the main thing is that neither of these features really scream "fun".
This was definitely a concern. I was kind of keying off the classic 3.5 Bard, whose big gimmick really was a passive boost. Hmm...



A few examples that came to mind that fit with the concept of "A true Bard":
When an ally uses Bardic Inspiration, they gain that much THP (and maybe have other benefits while having this THP, like being able to expend it for a "second use")
Hmm... I don't want to overlap too much with the Glamour Bard, which does have the temp HP as their big thing.


After using Bardic Inspiration, the ally places an "Echo" on another ally who is not you. An "Echo" is used exactly the same way as a BI and consists of half of the result from the original BI. Class consists of adding buffs related to BI and Echos
Ooohh... that's cool, I like it. What if I make that the level 3 ability?


You can play various different ballads. Ballads require Concentration to maintain, affect creatures around you, and attacks against you have advantage while maintaining a ballad. Ballads have options like charming targets, granting constant BI for nearby (within 10 feet) allies, and other effects
Definitely a fun idea, but perhaps a bit too much complexity for the already-crunchy Bard... I used a similar mechanic for a Fighter subclass (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?577150-Fighter-Archetypes-Balefire-Knight-and-Marshal), though, so great minds think alike?

If an ally fails a saving throw, you can use your Reaction and a BI to encourage them by adding the BI to their roll.
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[Man_Over_Game]

Ooohh... that's cool, I like it. What if I make that the level 3 ability?



I like that idea too, but I can't say it's original. It's something I read from another Bard homebrew that I looked at a while back. It might have a few ideas for you that could draw some...inspiration?

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?574225-College-of-Echoes-a-bardic-college-for-5th-edition

[jiriku]

A recurring theme in the transition to 5e is that the system goes out of its way to avoid creating a stack of modifiers for you to add and subtract. Instead, it uses bonus dice or an extra d20 to modify a roll. Inspire Courage works against this by forcing players to divide, round, then add every time an echo is created and used.

I'd recommend that an echo, instead of being half the inspiration roll, be an inspiration die that is one size smaller than the die that was used. This makes the ability more consistent with the general style of 5e, and also improves the power of Inspire Courage to make it more memorable and important. And, as MOG noted, because this power boost is slightly larger at higher levels, it adds more to inspiration at levels where inspiration really needed more.

Ditto for Inspire Heroics.

I'm a little reluctant about the short duration associated with the echoes. Imagine if you will, a largish party of six PCs, facing off against an enemy group of six monsters. Each side contains a virtuoso bard (perhaps one of them is the classic mentor-turned-to-evil or renegade student of the other). They both use Inspire Greatness at the start of combat. Then, at varying points in the battle, all 12 combatants spend their inspiration dice, creating 12 echoes, each with its own individual duration that must be tracked. Yuck. What a mess. And imagine if one of them had Inspire Heroics and the other didn't, so each side had different echo durations. Or... no I don't even want to go there. Suffice to say I can imagine many scenarios that involve excessive bookkeeping.

I think I'd be inclined to give echoes a flat duration of one minute or ten minutes (i.e. longer than the duration of a typical combat) and just leave it at that. Fiddling with the duration of an echo just doesn't offer enough value and interest to be worth the hassle of tracking it.

Adding further to the discussion of echoes, I suggest you define whether multiple echoes can be spent on a single roll. I recommend against it. Otherwise, the bard could Inspire Greatness on a crowded formation of dozens of allies, everyone gets an Inspiration die, spends it immediately and all give their echoes to the same character, and that character then blows them all on one roll with a +IWIN bonus. It is highly abusable.

Finally, there's a missing word or phrase in the last sentence of the description for Inspire Courage: "Echoes [missing text here] at the beginning of your next turn."

[Grod_The_Giant]

A recurring theme in the transition to 5e is that the system goes out of its way to avoid creating a stack of modifiers for you to add and subtract. Instead, it uses bonus dice or an extra d20 to modify a roll. Inspire Courage works against this by forcing players to divide, round, then add every time an echo is created and used.

I'd recommend that an echo, instead of being half the inspiration roll, be an inspiration die that is one size smaller than the die that was used. This makes the ability more consistent with the general style of 5e, and also improves the power of Inspire Courage to make it more memorable and important. And, as MOG noted, because this power boost is slightly larger at higher levels, it adds more to inspiration at levels where inspiration really needed more.

Ditto for Inspire Heroics.
Fair point on consistency, yeah.


I'm a little reluctant about the short duration associated with the echoes. Imagine if you will, a largish party of six PCs, facing off against an enemy group of six monsters. Each side contains a virtuoso bard (perhaps one of them is the classic mentor-turned-to-evil or renegade student of the other). They both use Inspire Greatness at the start of combat. Then, at varying points in the battle, all 12 combatants spend their inspiration dice, creating 12 echoes, each with its own individual duration that must be tracked. Yuck. What a mess. And imagine if one of them had Inspire Heroics and the other didn't, so each side had different echo durations. Or... no I don't even want to go there. Suffice to say I can imagine many scenarios that involve excessive bookkeeping.
Ehh... enemy-NPCs aren't a huge concern, given 5e's monster design philosophy, but fair point about everyone spending their dice at different times... the idea was that they're a really short-term thing, rather than another resource that can be saved until it's needed. You get a boost, and your ally gets a boost next turn.


Adding further to the discussion of echoes, I suggest you define whether multiple echoes can be spent on a single roll. I recommend against it. Otherwise, the bard could Inspire Greatness on a crowded formation of dozens of allies, everyone gets an Inspiration die, spends it immediately and all give their echoes to the same character, and that character then blows them all on one roll with a +IWIN bonus. It is highly abusable.

Finally, there's a missing word or phrase in the last sentence of the description for Inspire Courage: "Echoes [missing text here] at the beginning of your next turn."
Good call, thanks.