Which college to go to?

[Trandir]

Little background: I'm gonna play a 3rd level satyr bard with this rolled array 16, 16, 15, 12, 12, 12. The rest of the party will be a fighter, a barbarian, and a rogue.

I was considering glamour or eloquence but maybe someone has better wisdom and can help me choose.

[jaappleton]

Lore.

Lore is immensely versatile. IMO one of the best subclasses in the game.

You have no other spellcaster so the versatility garnered through Magical Secrets will be perfect. Using Inspiration for Cutting Words to turn enemy hits into misses will be instrumental (Pun intended).

[KorvinStarmast]

Little background: I'm gonna play a 3rd level satyr bard with this rolled array 16, 16, 15, 12, 12, 12. The rest of the party will be a fighter, a barbarian, and a rogue.

I was considering glamour or eloquence but maybe someone has better wisdom and can help me choose. I am currently torn between Glamour and Lore, as I just got to Level 3.
I am probably going to go Lore for two reasons (besides having that in mind originally anyway ...

Two of my skills will get expertise
I add Three additional skills
Cutting words: this can reduce the score of a to hit on my ally.
I like to keep my martial allies standing.

Our party just lost its sorcerer: I am now main Arcane Caster.
Glamour has some great features, and the "cast command at will for most of one battle" is a cool feature with a lot of application. So is the charm based on my musical performance.
We will probably be running into people a lot, so having skills that influence humanoids is pretty big.

But:
Additional proficiency and expertise (going for stealth and athletics) allows me to expand how I can be of benefit to the party, and, I'll occasionally be able to scout with the rogue so that they are not 'alone' during recon missions.

And magical secrets at level 6 allows me to really help the party with key spells.

I am going to review Glamour again tonight - this is a very tough choice.
Probably going Lore, though, since I have a personal obsession with flexibility ...

[Klorox]

Lore.

Lore is immensely versatile. IMO one of the best subclasses in the game.

You have no other spellcaster so the versatility garnered through Magical Secrets will be perfect. Using Inspiration for Cutting Words to turn enemy hits into misses will be instrumental (Pun intended).

Agreed. Bard is funny in that as many supplements that have been dropped since 5e came out, I still think the PHB lord bard is the best one of them all.

[Gtdead]

If any party ever needed a Lore Bard, this is it. Textbook definition. You can't go wrong with it. Inspiring Leader sound like a good feat here. Do you have any idea what your team's builds are going to be? It's going to make a ton of difference if they are melee or ranged.

If for example they are all melee and your barbarian goes wolf, the damage output will be very extremely high and you will be able to focus on mainly defensive/control spells.
While if they are a mix of melee and ranged, you may need to pick augments like haste/greater invis to cover different playstyles (kiting for example).
If your fighter is a battlemaster, he can use menacing attack to generate attacks of opportunity, otherwise you may need dissonant whispers.

Etc.

[Corran]

I can see good arguments for more than one college.

Additional magical secrets from lore will be great since you are the only one covering for a fullcaster. Between stuff like counterspell, a good relatively low level non-concentration AoE option (so most likely fireball) and a good healing spell (probably aura of vitality), you'll have a hard time choosing, since all of these are spells your party could greatly benefit from. (Or if you are playing with something like flanking rules, you might want to rely both on summoning and maybe AoE's more seriously, in which case a lore bard for conjure animals and maybe fireball would probably become even more attractive.)

Increasing your defenses (valor or maybe swords; dont remember much about college of swords, other than that they can use their inspiration to boost AC as a reaction) could be extremely important when facing smart and capable enemies. Cause as it is, you are the #1 priority target for such enemies to take down first, since you are the only one with pop-up healing and with other options (eg AoE spells) that your party lacks, and at the same time you are the most squishy. This can be a big weakness, so boosting your own defense could be very rewarding against certain enemies and/or a certain kind of DM'ing style.

Your party is lacking in AoE effects too, so being able to make yours more reliable is a reason to think of the college of glamour with their mantle of inspiration ability (that lets allies clear an area quickly so that you can drop an AoE; and dropping an AoE is nice when enemies are all close together, and one time when you could have them be bunched up is when they are engaged in melee with your own allies).

It's difficult to make a direct comparison (I am mostly torn between lore and valor/swords; definitely lore if multiclassing is allowed, in which case I'd dip in something with armor proficiencies; hexblade and (life) cleric are both particularly tempting), so I'd try to think which of these benefits (plus whatever else I could not think of but you might) would be more important for me when playing this character in this group and under the current DM.

[Unoriginal]

Little background: I'm gonna play a 3rd level satyr bard with this rolled array 16, 16, 15, 12, 12, 12. The rest of the party will be a fighter, a barbarian, and a rogue.

I was considering glamour or eloquence but maybe someone has better wisdom and can help me choose.

What do you want your bard to do, beside the basic bard stuff?

[Trandir]

What do you want your bard to do, beside the basic bard stuff?

Never played a bard so idk. We don't have a face tho so I am probably going eloquence after all

[Keravath]

I'll put in my two cents for lore bard as well.

ANY bard makes a good face character. High charisma plus expertise in persuasion almost guarantees that. You don't need to be Eloquence to do that.

Lore gets three additional skills at 3rd level. Lore has cutting words which is a very good use of a reaction. Lore gets additional spell selection at 6th level with magical secrets.

Since everyone else is a martial character, the bard will have to be face/skill monkey (though the rogue helps here - lore bard has more skills and can afford to take the charisma based skills while a rogue tends to expertise stealth and other dex based skills first)/healer/arcane caster/crowd control. Your bard will have to do it all and a lore bard is probably the best choice for that.

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If it fits your character concept, one level of hexblade warlock gives you better armor and a shield, the shield and hex spells and the eldritch blast cantrip - all of which make your bard more survivable.

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For starting stats, I'd probably go: 12 (15+1) 16 12 12 (16+2) (str/dex/con/int/wis/cha) with your rolls and satyr bonuses.

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However, in the long run, what matters most is what kind of character you want to play and what will make you happy. Lore may do the best job of helping out the party but if you really want to play Eloquence or Glamour, then go for it.

[KorvinStarmast]

Never played a bard so idk. We don't have a face tho so I am probably going eloquence after all You do not need an eloquence bard to be the face.

Any bard will do, and Glamour is a seriously "Face" kind of bard.

Any bard gets expertise with two skills at level 3: Persuation ought to be one of them for any bard.

There you go: you are now the face. :smallbiggrin:

[Asisreo1]

Have you considered MIT or Harvard? Depends on your career path, of course

[TheMango55]

Lore or eloquence

Lore is a great skill monkey but you have a rogue who can do the non-face skill stuff. Lore also gets magical secrets earlier which would be super useful for your party as the only caster, letting you pick up things like counter spell and revivify that nobody else can do.

Eloquence has the best inspiration uses. Your allies can keep inspiration until it works and you are probably the best single target debuffer in the game giving creatures a d6-d12 negative to their saving throw before hitting them with a save or suck. You will also almost never fail at your social encounters.

[Snivlem]

Go lore if you want something particular from magical secrets. This is what makes it a great caster. Cutting words is good, but so is the inspiration offered by eloquence and glamour. It isn't worth it for the skills, because of Jack of all trades they are only half value for you.

Go glamour for the level 3 abilities. Note mantle of inspiration will let your allies move out of the area of an aoe effect you cast. This is what makes it a great caster. Honestly enthralling performance makes you a more powerfull face than eloquence. What kind of bard can't talk someone into allowing you to make a simple performance for them?

Go eloquence for unsettling words. This will arguably make you the best save or suck caster in the game. The rest of the abilities are good, but IMO icing on the cake.

Go valour for armor and shield. This will take you from one of the worst definsive casters in the game, to one of the best. The rest of the abilities hardly matter.

Go swords and whispers for different concepts.

[Bardon]

Lore is probably your best bet overall, especially without another spellcaster in the party.

But Glamour is such a party-college and your character is a satyr after all... :smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbiggrin::smallbi ggrin:

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Ashrym]

Another /signed for lore. Extra secrets is good looking at the group makeup.

Other than that, play what you want. You are pretty much looking for CC and hesling, and that's doable going lore, eloquence, or glamour. I just think the lack of other casters places more emphasis on extra secrets in this case.