I built a RP heavy character for a meat grinder. HELP!!!

[WadeWay33]

So, I built a bard for a campaign that I was joining halfway through. They described it as being 50% combat and 50% rp, so I did College of Whispers to lean into the rp side.

We just had our 4th four hour session of straight combat. I hit negatives 11 times (while being on the back lines).

I'm starting to think this was a bad idea.

The rest of the party is a Hexblade, a Tempest Cleric, a Land Druid (who does battlefield control), a totem warrior barb and a sun soul monk
Currently, my character is an 9th level bard/1st level rogue, and we just hit level eleven (unsure of what level to take next as well.) I am allowed to rebuild part of my character with the conditions:

Same race (Half Elf), same subclass and no more than two levels other than bard.

So, how can I make this character even moderately better at combat? Even just to the point where I don't have to run all the time?

(EDIT: Misleading title, but the DM is making us do the Meat Grinder rule from ToA, so I guess it kinda still works)

[Brawnspear]

Staying alive: Don't cluster for explosions, Pick up the second level of rogue for bonus action disengage, dash and for the love of Loki HIDE. Pick up the Inspiring leader feat maybe for some decent temp hp.

Bards have access to Greater Invisibility, for Bow + 1d6 sneak attacks, its not great but it's also better damage wise than Viciously Mocking someone. And if you crit you can use your Psychic Blades.

Bards also have access to Fear which is great for keeping people away from you and inhibiting their attacks. There are a variety of control spells on the bard list too, maybe grab stuff that makes it easier for your allies to murder stuff and team up with the druid for one two punches.

Doesn't sound like you have much in the way available for respeccing other than feats and the 1 level of rogue (+1 of your choice)

For murdering things better: Could swap in some paladin instead of Rogue for better armor and smites, or warlock for the fully buffed Eldritch Blast+Agonizing Blast. Synaptic static is 5th level bard spell that is fireball level damage that does requires an int save and then debuffs peoples attacks (no concentration required)

[Man_Over_Game]

So, I built a bard for a campaign that I was joining halfway through. They described it as being 50% combat and 50% rp, so I did College of Whispers to lean into the rp side.

We just had our 4th four hour session of straight combat. I hit negatives 11 times (while being on the back lines).

I'm starting to think this was a bad idea.

The rest of the party is a Hexblade, a Tempest Cleric, a Land Druid (who does battlefield control), a totem warrior barb and a sun soul monk
Currently, my character is an 9th level bard/1st level rogue, and we just hit level eleven (unsure of what level to take next as well.) I am allowed to rebuild part of my character with the conditions:

Same race (Half Elf), same subclass and no more than two levels other than bard.

So, how can I make this character even moderately better at combat? Even just to the point where I don't have to run all the time?

(EDIT: Misleading title, but the DM is making us do the Meat Grinder rule from ToA, so I guess it kinda still works)

Unfortunately, there isn't much you can do. Use your Secrets choice for Shield is a start, and maybe pick up the Sharpshooter feat to get that extra distance.

You could also get shield by a level into Sorcerer, which also gives you the opportunity to grab that death-defiance feature of the Shadow Sorcerer, which might help.

[Dork_Forge]

From the sounds of it you can respec your ASI choices? Pick up the Tough feat for one of them, the extra 22 hp it'll give you should soak up enough to keep you on your feet a lot more. Taking one level of Sorcerer for access to Shield and Absorb Elements is a must, if you're using light armor only and don't have any magical armor then go Draconic, if you are doing better than that for your AC already go for Divine Soul.

[Ogre Mage]

Hypnotic Pattern can be brutally effective for crowd control.

I would consider switching to 10th level bard so you can get access to magical secrets NOW. You need some spells so shore up your offense and defense. You only get two, so pick carefully. Shield or mirror image could shore up your defense, while fireball or destructive wave could bring offensive pain. Counterspell, conjure animals or conjure woodland beings are great utility combat choices.

[LudicSavant]

Unfortunately, there isn't much you can do.

What are you talking about? There's a ton he can do. He's allowed to rebuild his character (as long as it stays primarily Bard) and Bards have a high optimization ceiling.

[Lvl45DM!]

So, I built a bard for a campaign that I was joining halfway through. They described it as being 50% combat and 50% rp, so I did College of Whispers to lean into the rp side.

We just had our 4th four hour session of straight combat. I hit negatives 11 times (while being on the back lines).

I'm starting to think this was a bad idea.

The rest of the party is a Hexblade, a Tempest Cleric, a Land Druid (who does battlefield control), a totem warrior barb and a sun soul monk
Currently, my character is an 9th level bard/1st level rogue, and we just hit level eleven (unsure of what level to take next as well.) I am allowed to rebuild part of my character with the conditions:

Same race (Half Elf), same subclass and no more than two levels other than bard.

So, how can I make this character even moderately better at combat? Even just to the point where I don't have to run all the time?

(EDIT: Misleading title, but the DM is making us do the Meat Grinder rule from ToA, so I guess it kinda still works)

I mean, my strategy would be to make it work. Next combat that has a humanoid character enemy, Go invisible, Charm them lure them away and then learn all the secrets of the dungeon that you can.

[djreynolds]

2 Warlock. Eldritch blast AFB but 2 invocations... grab agonizing and repelling blast.

[Veldrenor]

Greater Invisibility is a bard spell, and a terrific way to allow you to contribute to a fight without drawing fire your way. The major downsides to it are that it uses up your concentration (so you're not throwing around control spells), and you've still only got a movement speed of 30 feet so it's not unlikely to find yourself in an AoE spell if you do piss off a caster. There's not much you can do about the first drawback, but I can think of two good options off the top of my head to deal with the second:

1) Since you guys just hit level 11 you could pick up your second rogue level. With Cunning Action you'll be able to dash away from harm, or simply hide so that they can't figure out where to aim their ire.
2) Instead of rogue you pick up your 10th level of bard for Magical Secrets, and you use one of your secrets for Find Greater Steed. Summon a pegasus, cast Greater Invisibility on both of you (Find Greater Steed extends self-targeted buff spells to your mount as well), and now you're an invisible target that moves 180 feet per round. Use a crossbow for 1d8+1d6+dex damage (more if you throw on your psychic blades), or swap out that rogue level for a level of warlock to throw around three 1d10 eldritch blast beams from 120 feet away.

[Nagog]

Id take 2 levels of Paladin if possible. Medium Armor and Smites, and healing to boot. Nab Tough as a feat. I'd you can restructure what levels you got when, starting in Pally gets you heavy armor proficiency, and multiclassing Bard you don't lose much.

[dragoeniex]

Don't forget to pick up Synaptic Static! On top of doing a base Fireball's worth of psychic damage, it hits enemies with an Int save and comes with a pretty great, non-concentration debuff effect. That's going to make you and your friends harder to hit.

I'm unfamiliar with ToA, but be sure to use your shadow-stealing ability if chances arise! Get your party excited to help you lure someone away and kill them quick, and then you can mimic the enemy and split up their camp into smaller groups with false info for your pals to pick off. That was by far one of my favorite (though slightly niche) things to do with Mantle of Whispers.

Psychic Blades is your friend; I would go lv 10 Whispers to get another free cantrip, more expertise, a bigger inspiration die, and 5d6 psychic damage on your attacks for burning one of said inspiration. All that before Magical Secrets; bards make bank at lv 10.

You should have access to a bunch of great CC options, including other non-concentrations like Blindness Deafness.



If you're looking to be able to punish something physically for getting close to you, consider re-taking that Rogue dip as Hexblade.

I know this is pretty common, but it does a lot of what you're after. One of your weapons will run off charisma, you can choose Shield as a Hexblade spell- also usable with your Bard slots- and Booming Blade to boot. Or focus on range if you prefer and work Crossbow Expert in there instead. Bonus action cursing an enemy for extra damage and crit potential is icing on the cake, and the ability to use a shield is a cherry for if you've got a free hand.

I built into crossbow, myself, and took Tenser's Transformation at lv 15 with my Whispers 14/Hexblade 1 to start dealing some pretty respectable gish damage when CC wasn't going to be so effective.

Also note: whenever you finally get to Shadow Lore? Nothing about that prevents you from using it mid-fight to blackmail a baddie into backing away from their friends.



For (other) Magical Secrets, I'll second Find Greater Steed as a way to get a battle buddy. If you hit lv 14 Bard, consider Crown of Stars for turns you aren't using your BA for anything important so you can contribute to damage even when running full CC.

Consider picking up Dimension Door. Once you lay a CC that catches either a significant baddie or a good few opponents, see if you can hang onto it for one round so you can bamf to a hiding place the next. They can't break your concentration if they can't break your face! And to do that, they'll need to find it first.

[Sigreid]

The easy answer? 2 levels of hexblade to improve your armor and attack options.

[Man_Over_Game]

What are you talking about? There's a ton he can do. He's allowed to rebuild his character (as long as it stays primarily Bard) and Bards have a high optimization ceiling.

Ah, missed the part about being allowed to rebuild. My bad. That changes a lot.

Even just going Valor or Lore bard would go a long way to improving his durability. Tack on a single level of Shadow Sorcerer, and you have almost the same exact character concept as the original with multiple layers of defense.

[Keravath]

The easy answer is two levels of hexblade warlock to go with the 9 levels of bard.

Hexblade gives you medium armor and shield for much better AC. It gives you eldritch blast+agonizing blast for competitive single target damage to use while you are concentrating on spells. Hopefully, you already have a decent dexterity (at least 14). You also pick up hexblade's curse for additional single target damage 1/SR. I am assuming that the other hexblade is mostly melee so you won't be stepping on their toes too much. You also get another invocation and I personally lean towards devils sight to avoid disadvantage on perception and other checks in the dark when you are relying on darkvision alone. It is also 120'. (darkness+devils sight can also work particularly well with multiple warlocks in the party). However, since you already have darkvision it isn't essential and there are a lot of other good invocations (repelling blast can help with pushing targets away).

I have a level 15 ... lore bard 13/ hexblade 2 that works pretty well. One thing I have found though is that the bard spell list has quite a few spells based around the charmed condition and there are quite a few monsters (like undead) that can be immune to charm. Similarly demons and devils are typically magic resistant. In fights like these I have found many of my spells to be useless and end up falling back on agonizing blast which is almost always effective. Sometimes I can't land any spells so I just drop hex and go all in for damage depending on the opponents. The character has half-plate, a +2 magic shield, and has the shield spell from hexblade which means that the AC is 21 going to 26 when needed that can help with survival.

However, one of the big problems is actually being a whispers bard. The psychic blades feature only applies to weapon attacks. If you are standing in the back, the only weapon attacks you might make are ranged and they aren't doing anywhere near the damage you could do with agonizing blast by itself. If you have to stay a whispers bard then your only way out might be to take 5 levels in hexblade for improved pact weapon and thirsting blade so that you can use a ranged pact weapon to land psychic blades. The hexblade feature using charisma to attack will also help with making weapon attacks. However, the ranged weapon attacks by themselves will be behind agonizing blast unless you supplement with feats.

If you can convince the DM to let you change the bard archetype, you might be better off with glamour (if you want to keep the social and roleplay element with more useful mechanics in this campaign - mantle of inspiration can be great for rearranging forces during combat) or lore (the level 6 magical secrets can help a lot with things like counterspell+fireball expanding your repertoire) .. plus the two levels of hexblade.

[8wGremlin]

As you're stuck with Whisper bard, I agree with Hexblade Warlock, I'd do this differently.

Take 1 level of Hexblade warlock - giving you

gain proficiency with medium armor, shields, and martial weapons
Hexblade curse - crit on 19-20 do Proficiency extra damage to target, and heal when they die
Shield, and Armour of Agathys spells


Then get your bard level to 10th as this gives you

Expertise in two of your skills - Perception is great
Magical Secrets: I suggest (choose 2)

Spirit Guardians (this is a excellent spell, try and keep it up, and it damages every round, and slows regardless)
Find Greater steed (excellent support/travel and creature you can SHARE spells with... ooh look Spirit guardians)
Counterspell (useful if you are up against spell casters only)



For feats, look at Crossbow Mastery, and Sharpshooter

Use a hand crossbow, as your proficient, and you can use your CHARISMA to attack and damage for this weapon, (you'll have to put way your shield to use it) But you can then Shoot twice with your weapon a normal attack and a bonus action attack - this will give you more chance to do Whisper damage.

TACTIC: only apply your Whisper damage when you CRIT, as it will be rolled twice!

So at 11th level take Hexblade 1/Bard (whisper) 10

[Guy Lombard-O]

Ah, missed the part about being allowed to rebuild. My bad. That changes a lot.

Even just going Valor or Lore bard would go a long way to improving his durability. Tack on a single level of Shadow Sorcerer, and you have almost the same exact character concept as the original with multiple layers of defense.

OK, the world is right again. I was wondering why MoG was being so negative about it, but now he's saying exactly what I wanted to say.

Also, if you go Valor you can pick up Sharpshooter and hang back, while still putting out decent damage. But Sharpshooter on a Whispers bard is sort of a waste (only 1 attack).

[kazaryu]

OK, the world is right again. I was wondering why MoG was being so negative about it, but now he's saying exactly what I wanted to say.

Also, if you go Valor you can pick up Sharpshooter and hang back, while still putting out decent damage. But Sharpshooter on a Whispers bard is sort of a waste (only 1 attack).



I am allowed to rebuild part of my character with the conditions:

Same race (Half Elf), same subclass and no more than two levels other than bard.


just pointing it out.


for OP:

a big part about bards is spell choice. bards themselves are fine for combat, so long as you pick combat oriented spells.

as others have mentioned another level of rogue gives you cunning action, which is significant. however, it may be more beneficial for you to just go pure bard.

because that means you now have 6th level spells: which means you can pick up such options as:
mass suggestion: AoE control if used carefully
irresistable dance: guaranteed 1 round of CC on any target of your choosing, (that isn't immune to charm, so obviously limited usefulness depending on what you've been fighting)
true seeing: there are alot of benefits this spell can bring for dungeons: see through even magical darkness, auto spot/save vs illusions, see invisibility, auto spot hidden doors. again, depending on the specifics of the dungeon the use you get from this can be nearly game breaking down to mildly fun.
eyebite: more risky single target control.

the other thing this does is give you magical secrets, so you cn pick up shield: great defensive option if enemies are using ranged attacks. but you can also pick up area denial spells. for example: wall of force. which means the enemies can't target you easily with attacks. there are probably better options (although shield/absorbe elements is probably your best bet for one of them).

depending on how your DM rules it: he may even let you use the free spell retrain to pick up a 6th level magical secret. (yes, i know thats not RaW, but it doesn't hurt to ask). and if he allows it well...now you've got access to all classes 6th level spells. so options like:
tenser's xformation: not optimal, but allows you to, for 10 minutes/day: wade into melee combat and deal significant damage. attacking at advantage means you're likely to hit both attacks for something like 2d8+2xdex/str+4d12+5d6 (possibly, if you send your bardic inspiration).
chain lightning: big damages
contingency: obvious defensive option 'if i go unconcious, cast cure wounds on me'. there are other options thats just the one that comes to mind.
heal: if you wanna support the party more

these are my thoughts.

edit: i realized i didn't really address spell choice beyond the high level stuff:

some of the most useful bard spells (for combat) are focused on buffing/debuffing.
1st level: spells like faire fire, bane (not optimal), either of the healing spells, dissonant whispers (one of the few abilities with the potential to force opportunity attacks)
2nd: crown of madness (target someone that probably ahs a low save), heat metal (not as useful if you're fighting more monsters rather than intelligent people), blindness
3rd level: dispel magic (situational), fear, speak with dead (might learn more about whats coming up), hypnotic pattern,
4th: polymorph (either an ally buff or CC. both useful), greater invis (if you wanna poke people with sticks. not a bad option since you're a whisper bard), freedom of movement (make or break spell. when its useful, its *really* useful. but if the things it helps against don't ever come up then....but imo its one of those 'better to have but not need' spells)

[Dork_Forge]

OK, the world is right again. I was wondering why MoG was being so negative about it, but now he's saying exactly what I wanted to say.

Also, if you go Valor you can pick up Sharpshooter and hang back, while still putting out decent damage. But Sharpshooter on a Whispers bard is sort of a waste (only 1 attack).

He is still incorrect though, the rules state OP has to remain the same subclass.

[LudicSavant]

He is still incorrect though, the rules state OP has to remain the same subclass.

Yeah. Says it right here:


I am allowed to rebuild part of my character with the conditions:

Same race (Half Elf), same subclass and no more than two levels other than bard.

[Bobthewizard]

Lots of options here. I'd ditch the rogue to get level 10 bard's magical secrets. Wall of Force would help your party a lot. Find greater steed could give you mobility and protection.

Tasha's hideous laughter, suggestion, hold person, hypnotic pattern, and wall of force give you great crowd control concentration every combat. These are much more impactful to me than using your concentration to hide with greater invisibility.

Ride around on your pegasus. Use synaptic static and shatter as blasts, blindness/deafness for debuff.

For feats, I like moderately armored for a bard to get better AC, then pump CHA so the spells land. Tough and Res. Con come later if that's what you want.

Lots of other great ideas in this thread though. Not trying to knock any of those. Just trying to give you another option.

[Tellara]

Hexblade 2/Bard 9. It's tempting to try to use a weapon in order to take advantage of the Whispers feature, but the fact that you've just hit the sweet spot for EB spam makes me think you should just stick to that. Fortunately you can still get good use out of the bardic inspiration dice by giving them to party members. It sounds like you want to stay at range and try not to die. Hex 1 is limited to one handed weapons, which means you're stuck with hand xbow or throwing things with no extra attack or jumping into melee with one attack and d8 hit dice. Hex 2/Bard 9 gives you the option of using a shield plus EB with agonizing blast at range for 3 attacks. Standard fight setup will be use concentration on Greater Invis, repelling blast, your damage and AC should be enough to contribute and not get stomped if you're in the backline. If it's a larger fight with charmable enemies, your DC should let you get use out of Hypnotic Pattern and Fear. You'll get Magical Secrets next level, one fantastic spell your party is missing is Wall of Force. Well worth using concentration on over Greater invis if you can split a battle up. I didn't see you post any starting stats, but I'd personally take elven accuracy and resilient con with my asi's in this build if I had some version of point buy and could control odd scores without much sacrifice.

[LudicSavant]

1 level of Hexblade will immediately remove your "squishy" status with a 19 base AC, plus the excellent Shield and Armor of Agathys spells. It also gives us the tools we need to make your Psychic Blades attack worthwhile: Booming Blade, Hexblade's Curse, and scaling your attack with Charisma.

You're going to max out your Charisma, with 17 starting, +1 Elven Accuracy, +2 ASI. With Elven Accuracy and Hexblade's Curse, the crit rate for your Booming Psychic Blades will be a whopping 27.1%.

You can take a 2nd level of Hexblade for Agonizing Blast if you really want to, but Booming Psychic Blades already does similar damage (more with the rider and/or certain buffs), and I like my caster levels and Magical Secrets. And if you didn't want to use Psychic Blades, why are you even a Whispers Bard?


DMG average AC for a level 11 monster is 17. So I'll go with that. All figures account for hit chance, crit chance, etc, and are rounded to the nearest tenth. Calculated using this tool (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?582779-Comprehensive-DPR-Calculator-(v2-0!)&p=23758036#post23758036).

Booming Psychic Blade/Hexblade's Curse: 29.1, or ~37.9 with rider
Booming Psychic Blade/Hexblade's Curse (Elven Accuracy): ~46.7, or ~59.6 with rider
Booming Psychic Blade: ~25.0, or ~33.725 with rider
Booming Psychic Blade (Elven Accuracy): ~38.9, or ~51.8 with rider
Booming Psychic Blade/Hexblade's Curse (Elven Accuracy, Banishing Smite): ~80.5, + banish if they're less than 50 hp after that, +~12.9 rider. So basically you can take out a 100+ hp creature in one blow that will almost certainly hit.

Agonizing Eldritch Blast/Hexblade's Curse: ~29.9
Agonizing Eldritch Blast/Hexblade's Curse (Elven Accuracy x3): ~46.1
Agonizing Eldritch Blast: 21.3
Agonizing Eldritch Blast (Elven Accuracy x3): ~32.5

Griffon multiattack: ~10.3, which you can add onto any of the above combinations with Find Greater Steed.

A Great Weapon Master / Great Weapon Fighting Style Champion with 3 attacks and 20 Strength (and a 4th attack if she gets at least 1 crit): ~33.3

Note also that getting Advantage on all your attacks is more difficult with Eldritch Blast (due to it being ranged, and 3 attacks rather than just 1), and also that Booming Psychic Blades will scale better with magic items. For example, the party familiar using Help is will boost your whole attack routine for Booming Psychic Blade, but only 1/3rd of it for Agonizing Eldritch Blast.

Use your Whispers abilities, spells, and Expertise in 4 skills (like say, Stealth) to get the drop on people whenever you can. Since you only make one attack, getting Advantage on your first attack from being hidden or invisible or just surprising someone out of a disguise will give you triple Advantage on your entire output. Something that can't be said for Eldritch Blast.

And then you just grab some good spells like Healing Word, Hypnotic Pattern, Greater Invisibility, Animate Objects, whatever. You are now a very durable and efficient control/support caster who can also do some good damage in a pinch.

[Tellara]

Assuming both builds use concentration primarily for Greater Invis, I think the most common scenarios are:


Booming Psychic Blade/Hexblade's Curse (Elven Accuracy): ~46.7, or ~59.6 with rider
Agonizing Eldritch Blast/Hexblade's Curse (Elven Accuracy x3): ~46.1

Booming Psychic Blade (Elven Accuracy): ~38.9, or ~51.8 with rider
Agonizing Eldritch Blast (Elven Accuracy x3): ~32.5

That looks pretty close without the rider. Idk how frequently you expect to get it, in my experience <10%. But you're ignoring a few important factors:

1) With this build you probably only have 4 inspiration dice per short rest to burn on this, 5 if you start with 19 Char or don't boost your concentration saves with the second ASI. How much coverage you get in a normal day depends on the DM, but it probably won't be 100%.
2) An agonizing blast build is going to be giving those dice to other party members, giving a substantial boost that isn't captured here.
3) Unless you take shield as a magical secret, you will have one of those per short rest which is pretty light for a melee player running in a "meat grinder". Even with medium armor and a shield, d8 hit dice will drop fast. Hex2/Bard9 will give you two and you're at range, which provides much better coverage.
4) In melee you're much more likely to lose your concentration, even with resilient con, which will kill your ability to utilize elven accuracy.
5) In order to use the pact weapon as a focus, you need the improved pact weapon invocation at Hex 2. You will either need to ditch the shield or take warcaster at level 8. Certainly a viable option, but comes at the cost of the con boost and proficiency with other con saves which are both extremely useful in melee. There's also a decent chance your DM doesn't know or doesn't care about this, which would give you some room within the build.

You can burn magical secrets on banishing smite, but that also has a substantial opportunity cost. Admittedly the hex 1 build gets those magical secrets now rather than next level, which is a nice bonus.

[Dork_Forge]

Assuming both builds use concentration primarily for Greater Invis, I think the most common scenarios are:



That looks pretty close without the rider. Idk how frequently you expect to get it, in my experience <10%. But you're ignoring a few important factors:

1) With this build you probably only have 4 inspiration dice per short rest to burn on this, 5 if you start with 19 Char or don't boost your concentration saves with the second ASI. How much coverage you get in a normal day depends on the DM, but it probably won't be 100%.
2) An agonizing blast build is going to be giving those dice to other party members, giving a substantial boost that isn't captured here.
3) Unless you take shield as a magical secret, you will have one of those per short rest which is pretty light for a melee player running in a "meat grinder". Even with medium armor and a shield, d8 hit dice will drop fast. Hex2/Bard9 will give you two and you're at range, which provides much better coverage.
4) In melee you're much more likely to lose your concentration, even with resilient con, which will kill your ability to utilize elven accuracy.
5) In order to use the pact weapon as a focus, you need the improved pact weapon invocation at Hex 2. You will either need to ditch the shield or take warcaster at level 8. Certainly a viable option, but comes at the cost of the con boost and proficiency with other con saves which are both extremely useful in melee. There's also a decent chance your DM doesn't know or doesn't care about this, which would give you some room within the build.

You can burn magical secrets on banishing smite, but that also has a substantial opportunity cost. Admittedly the hex 1 build gets those magical secrets now rather than next level, which is a nice bonus.

3) Why would they only have one use of Shield per rest? It can be cast with any slot, not just Pact slots.

4)There's no reason to stay in melee range, Greater Invisibility would prevent OAs

5)You can drop the weapon and pick it up again if you do need to juggle things, if the go to is just cast BB?GFB then you don't need to worry about any of that

[LudicSavant]

You have several things wrong.


1) With this build you probably only have 4 inspiration dice per short rest to burn on this, 5 if you start with 19 Char or don't boost your concentration saves with the second ASI. How much coverage you get in a normal day depends on the DM, but it probably won't be 100%.
You have 5 inspiration per short rest, as described in the post.


3) Unless you take shield as a magical secret, you will have one of those per short rest
That's false, you can use your Warlock spells known with any of your slots, per the multiclassing rules in the PHB.


4) In melee you're much more likely to lose your concentration, even with resilient con, which will kill your ability to utilize elven accuracy.
You're assuming that I only rely on Greater Invisibility to get advantage, despite my post explicitly saying otherwise. Also, if you don't have Advantage, you can just use a different ability.

I do not advise spamming Psychic Blades. It's something you use occasionally, when the party needs damage. Your main job is still doing caster things.

Edit Ninja'd.

[Tellara]

3) Why would they only have one use of Shield per rest? It can be cast with any slot, not just Pact slots.

4)There's no reason to stay in melee range, Greater Invisibility would prevent OAs

5)You can drop the weapon and pick it up again if you do need to juggle things, if the go to is just cast BB?GFB then you don't need to worry about any of that

3) RAI and RAW you can't use bard spell slots to cast things that aren't on the bard list, which shield is not. You would only have the one pact magic slot to cast shield. I've heard some DM's let this go. It doesn't usually break anything and if OP's DM allows that, it helps the melee build a lot.

4) That's true, and you can back up. It's not impossible or a bad build, especially if the op really wants to use Psychic Blades. I didn't get the impression that it was a priority. But you're still going to be much closer to the front lines and more likely to catch attacks and aoe's than a Greater Invis'd EB caster.

5) You can cast BB/GFB, you just can't cast much else without drop/pickup shenanigans, such as recasting your Greater Invis. You will not be able to Shield unless you happened to have already dropped your weapon, since you cannot drop a weapon during your reaction. In my experience that's also a great way to lose whatever magic weapon you happen to have, but YMMV.

Edit: You are both correct, shield can be cast with bard spells. I apologize, live and learn.

[LudicSavant]

3) RAI and RAW you can't use bard spell slots to cast things that aren't on the bard list, which shield is not. You would only have the one pact magic slot to cast shield.

We just explained to you why this isn't true.


Edit

Edit: You are both correct, shield can be cast with bard spells. I apologize, live and learn.

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