Bard help

[GrinningDemon]

Hello all, this is my first time playing a Bard and I need some help. I've had a few concepts for him as things have been playing out my character seems to be all about disrupting the enemy and causing shenanigans. He is a level 5 with Lore for my college, as a feat I've taken tavern brawler. I have 3 levels to work with now and was wondering how best to maximize my battlefield controlling and shenanigans. Any help would be extremely welcomed :). 5th ed all books are fair btw.

[Man_Over_Game]

Hello all, this is my first time playing a Bard and I need some help. I've had a few concepts for him as things have been playing out my character seems to be all about disrupting the enemy and causing shenanigans. He is a level 5 with Lore for my college, as a feat I've taken tavern brawler. I have 3 levels to work with now and was wondering how best to maximize my battlefield controlling and shenanigans. Any help would be extremely welcomed :). 5th ed all books are fair btw.

So there's a few things we'll want to cover, especially considering Tavern Brawler.

First, Bards are squishy. They don't get medium armor, they only have a 1d8 hit die, and they dont' usually have defensive abilities. The Lore Bard DOES have defensive abilities, but you'd be better off using it to protect tough allies than squishy allies, and you are very squishy.

Additionally, Tavern Brawler requires you to attack with specific melee weapons, which is also a concern considering that Bards don't have many bonuses to attacking, attacking with the specified weapons, or really any reason to have enemies stand next to you.

Lastly, Bards' armor relies on Dexterity to increase their defensive capabilities, but grappling with Tavern Brawler requires Strength. You'll be stuck having to choose to improve your grappling or your defense, and end up doing neither particularly well.

Bards generally are the kind of folk to protect their team by being in the middle of it, using magic and healing and stuff. For things related to melee combat, I'd recommend something other than Lore Bard, like Valor or Swords, which both get armor and weapon improvements.


For a build that fits what you might be looking for, I'd recommend taking the feat that gets you Heavy Armor proficiency after getting Medium Armor from something else (like a Bard subclass, or a multiclass with Fighter or Paladin), as this would mean you'd increase your grappling skill at the same time that you increase your defense.




If you want to focus on control completely, I'd just ditch Tavern Brawler and focus on magic. Bards are amazing at magic, leave grappling for people who like getting hit.

[GrinningDemon]

So there's a few things we'll want to cover, especially considering Tavern Brawler.

First, Bards are squishy. They don't get medium armor, they only have a 1d8 hit die, and they dont' usually have defensive abilities. The Lore Bard DOES have defensive abilities, but you'd be better off using it to protect tough allies than squishy allies, and you are very squishy.

Additionally, Tavern Brawler requires you to attack with specific melee weapons, which is also a concern considering that Bards don't have many bonuses to attacking, attacking with the specified weapons, or really any reason to have enemies stand next to you.

Bards generally are the kind of folk to protect their team by being in the middle of it, using magic and healing and stuff. For things related to melee combat, I'd recommend something other than Lore Bard, like Valor or Swords, which both get armor and weapon improvements.

I realized Bard's are squishy, I've been doing things like healing, casting fear, minor illusions, persuading enemies to do dumb things or just confusing them. I dont jump into the fight.

[Man_Over_Game]

I realized Bard's are squishy, I've been doing things like healing, casting fear, minor illusions, persuading enemies to do dumb things or just confusing them. I dont jump into the fight.

And that's good, I just mean that taking Tavern Brawler is very contradictory to that playstyle. It'd be like taking Sentinel on a Sorcerer (which is to say, it's not a good idea).

Instead of grabbing Tavern Brawler, some other strong options would be things like Inspiring Leader (protects your team), War Caster (your spells get interrupted less), or just investing into Charisma (very important for Bards, they should want to max it out as early as possible).

[MarkVIIIMarc]

I realized Bard's are squishy, I've been doing things like healing, casting fear, minor illusions, persuading enemies to do dumb things or just confusing them. I dont jump into the fight.

You've been doing great!

For another side of Bards see what casting Dissonant Whispers does to an enemy in melee with a few of your allies. If the enemy fails the save not only do they suffer your damage but your allies get their opportunity attacks!

A couple levels more and you'll Polymorph bad guys into turtles and then get Animate Objects. Shatter and Thunderwave aren't bad for "pure damage" spells either. Drop Thunderwave on a group of bad guys in a bar and you might be looking at murder charges! So sometimes a spell like fear comes in handy.

I think you're on the right track though. There will be turns when you use your Bonus Action to cast "Healing Word" and pop an ally up from 0 hp then use your action to attack w/o a leveled spell. Vicious Mockery is tons of fun and more effective than it looks at first but sometimes you just want to hurt ppl.