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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next College of High Music [PEACH]



Amechra
2019-08-30, 01:46 AM
College of High Music [Bardic College]

Virtuoso Spellcaster
At 3rd level, you have developed a potent way to lace your spells with music. Whenever you use an instrument as a spellcasting focus, you may replace any verbal components that the spell has with music produced by the instrument, and may make Charisma (Performance) checks in place of Constitution saves to maintain concentration on your spells.

Tapestry of Song
Starting at 3rd level, you find it easier to affect the people you've touched with your music. Whenever you cast a spell with a range of 5ft or greater using an instrument as a spellcasting focus, you may ignore that spell's range. If you do, you may only target creatures with one of your Bardic Inspiration dice who can hear you perform. Targeting a creature this way expends any Bardic Inspiration dice they have.

Additional Magical Secrets
At 6th level, you learn two spells of your choice from any class. A spell you choose must be of a level you can cast, as shown on the Bard table, or a cantrip. The chosen spells count as bard spells for you but don't count against the number of bard spells you know.

Expansive Tapestry
At 14th level, you forge a mystical connection with creatures you have inspired. You may use Tapestry of Song to ignore the range on spells with a range of touch as well. Whenever you use Tapestry of Song with a spell that can target two or more creatures, you may instead have it target any number of creatures.



I'm not sure about the balance on the Tapestry features, to be honest. The only real abuse I can think of for Expansive Tapestry is using it to cast buffs like Fly or Haste on the entire party. And to that... eh? I think it might be OK?

Grod_The_Giant
2019-08-30, 07:00 AM
I'm not sure either... does Expansive Tapestry also require targets to have an Inspiration die to expend? If so, I think it's probably okay; if not, my gut says too strong.

(On a minor note, Virtuoso Spellcaster and Tapestry of Song should come at 3rd, not 2nd)

Composer99
2019-08-30, 08:22 AM
This subclass really weaves together the bardic music and spellcasting, along with textile-related metaphors for music.

I think there's a "use", or some functionally equivalent word, missing in between "Whenever you" and "Tapestry of Song" in the Expanded Tapestry feature.

As far as balance goes, you're going to burn through bardic inspiration. Once it refreshes on a short or long rest, though, you're talking being able to buff the party around three times an adventuring day. That's probably not overpowered in and of itself, but I do worry that it tramples on one of the sorcerer's niches.

Amechra
2019-08-30, 03:11 PM
I'm not sure either... does Expansive Tapestry also require targets to have an Inspiration die to expend? If so, I think it's probably okay; if not, my gut says too strong.

(On a minor note, Virtuoso Spellcaster and Tapestry of Song should come at 3rd, not 2nd)

Tapestry of Song makes it so you can only target people who already have one of your BI dice, so this just turns spells that can target 2 people into ones that can target up to 5... in exchange for a good deal of set-up.

And oops - I'll fix that. Not sure why I was thinking 2nd level...


This subclass really weaves together the bardic music and spellcasting, along with textile-related metaphors for music.

I think there's a "use", or some functionally equivalent word, missing in between "Whenever you" and "Tapestry of Song" in the Expanded Tapestry feature.

As far as balance goes, you're going to burn through bardic inspiration. Once it refreshes on a short or long rest, though, you're talking being able to buff the party around three times an adventuring day. That's probably not overpowered in and of itself, but I do worry that it tramples on one of the sorcerer's niches.

There is, in fact, a missing in the Expanded Tapestry feature :smallwink:. I'll fix that.

Now that I've actually had a good night's sleep (and I'm not running on fumes), I'm going to make the argument that Twinned Spell is *much* more versatile than Expanded Tapestry. Let's compare a Sorcerer casting Fly on two people and a High Music Bard casting it on the whole party (let's say 4 people).

The Sorcerer is burning 3 sorcery points and a 3rd level slot. The action economy is such that they could cast it in the middle of combat if they needed to.
The High Music Bard is burning four of their Bardic Inspiration uses and a 4th level slot. That's very close to just giving them the ability to do it once per rest, and they can't really use it in combat.

Sorcerers can also Twin offensive spells, which the High Music Bard would be very bad at (since they'd need to hand out Bardic Inspiration dice to enemies).

I think there's a large enough difference in how they do their mass buffing that the Sorcerer's toes aren't being stepped on too hard.

Bjarkmundur
2019-08-30, 03:15 PM
WEAVE! TAPESTRY! Wow, took me a minute x'D