whateew
2021-02-24, 09:34 AM
I've built a funky nimble smiting bard, (sword bard 6+, paladin 2) and I wanted to get some other's thoughts on if it works, if it would be competitive, and what you would do differently. This is my first time posting here, so please do give me a heads up if I get some ettiquette wrong :smallredface:
This is quite a wall of text; I have split it into sections, each with a TL:DR to look at if you are interested.
A general summary: the sword bard gets a bonus to movement speed every time they attack. Coupled with a whip and some character building, we'll have a full-caster smiter who is almost impossible for melee enemies to catch. I will first talk about the general idea of the build (which is definitely not revolutionary!), but I'd also like to go into some detail about key decision points and I'd love your thoughts - especially about what I think may be the first example I've seen of an optimal dual wielder feat!
SECTION ONE - TL:DR - With a woold half elf and some optimal building, you will routinely get 45ft (or 55 with strider) of move per round with reach, full caster smite slots, and flourishes for bonus damage as well as divine favour. At peak performance (requiring no set up!), you can deal 62.5 damage in a round without exposing yourself to melee damage.
For starters, we will take the wood half elf from SCAG (assuming point buy) for 16 Dex 16 Cha 14 Con 13 Str to let us multiclass without sacrificing hit points or con saves. We will take 6 levels in swords bard, and then 2 in paladin for smite.
The sword bard's flourishes let you get 10ft extra move on any turn where you attack - coupled with 5ft from the wood elf, we are 50% faster than the average humanoid. Add longstrider onto that if you so choose, and its almost as if we are dashing every turn, without bonus action usage or concentration.
To make maximum use of this, I thought using the whip would be ideal - with this we can run up to 25ft towards someone to full-caster smite them with reach, and use the remaining move to move too far away for them to respond without risking opportunity attacks. The sword bard is very well suited to this - not only do they get the dueling fighting style to help with the poor whip damage, but they also have a psuedo-disengage with a knockback effect. Adding on a divine favour / spirit shroud / tenser's transformation to this as well as lots of spell slots, our whip doesn't seem so pitiful anymore.
With this, we have a very respectable damage output (I think!) - at 7th level, assuming a +2 dex ASI and a bonus action casting of divine favour, we can deal 2 sets of 1d4 whip + 1d4 divine favour + 6 damage, with two smites (dealing from 4d8 to 10d8 damage!). At peak performance, we will deal 4d4 + 12 + 9d8, or 62.5 damage! Not bad for someone who moves at 55ft per round with reach I think. At this level, your average shortbow rogue deals 5d6 + 4 damage on a good turn, while the minimum our whippersnapper gets is 4d4+ 12 + 4d8 if they smite with a 1st level slot - and this does not consider a crit smite, or a fiend who takes a bonus 2d8!
SECTION TWO - TL:DR This build has impressive AC with a small multiclass, reliably hitting 30 AC at level 11, but by dual wielding we can deal even more optimal damage for 82.5 in a round at level 8
This isn't too difficult to organise - Bards can learn longstrider to reliably have high speed, and if you begin battles with your whip sheathed and shield out, you can bonus action divine favour and get straight to smiting! Further, this build has very respectable AC; 16 AC in studded leather +2 AC from a shield +1 from defense (paladin) reaches a respectable 19 AC, more than a dwarven monk! But it goes further; with 1 level in a draconic sorcerer, we have 21 AC at 20 dex, with shield as a reaction on top of this. If you are patient, you can receive defensive dualist for a higher bonus sans spellslot usage, and if you have magic armour you can forgo this dip all together.
If 26 AC is not enough for you, as a sword bard you can spend inspiration to add your inspiration die to your AC of (on average, for a d8) 30, and up to 38 at high levels without magic items: Very tanky! We are 2 levels behind on bounded accuracy, but such is!
So, it looks like our build is as follows. Our bard takes longstrider, dueling (level 3), dex +2, and extra attack. Next, they take 2 levels in paladin for shields, smites, and whips. They then take 2+ levels in bard and 1 in draconic sorcerer.
However, I think this is not strictly optimal; with the help of dual wielding, we can push this further. Taking twf at level 3 and dual wielder at level 4, our bard, at the cost of an ASI, now has significantly better DPR. Each attack with out whip deals marginally less damage (3 less!), but I think the bonus attack more than makes up for this. Given one slow turn to set up divine favour where we deal 6 less damage than our dueling counterpart, we now have 3 sets of attacks each dealing 1d4 (whip) + 1d4 (divine favour) + 3 + smite damage; 6d4 + 9 damage, with one additional smite per round. While not sustainable, this should rapidly outpace our other bard in damage in the short term; since most fights aren't brutal slogs, this is valuable - 1st level slots allow 6d4 + 6d8 + 9 damage, or 51 damage; at max, our bard burns a 4th level slot and 2 3rd level slots for a disgusting 6d4 + 13d8 + 9, or 82.5 damage!
This is of course less than if they were dual wielding rapiers, but remember that this is done at reach with a terrifying 55ft move speed; what is impressive is not so much the DPR, but the fact that melee brutes will not be able to give chase easily (especially with those boots that double your speed!) You could achieve the same effect with PAM, but you lose out on the chance to have defensive dualist as final feat, as well as you high, high initiative and DEX saves, for around 6 damage per round.
Compared to the whip-and-shield, you lose one AC and one ASI in the short term to get this online sooner, but you can make up for this with future ASI's. For one extra attack, this seems like a great gain.
CONCLUDING NOTES
I think this build seems both really fun, and fairly optimal; however, this is also my first time! Please, share your thoughts; what do you think, is this build a good use of whips, bards and paladins? It also seems to me like the dual wielder feat (which I often see get called useless) has a quite impactful use here, allowing ranged extra attacks; while not optimised for DPR, I feel this is still a highly competitive build that trades a small amount of damage for a lot of manouvreability, and I think it is well worth the trade. Do you think so too? And what magical secrets would you recommend such a bard get (aside from tensers/guardian of nature and elven accuracy to be an absolute monster at higher levels!)
This is quite a wall of text; I have split it into sections, each with a TL:DR to look at if you are interested.
A general summary: the sword bard gets a bonus to movement speed every time they attack. Coupled with a whip and some character building, we'll have a full-caster smiter who is almost impossible for melee enemies to catch. I will first talk about the general idea of the build (which is definitely not revolutionary!), but I'd also like to go into some detail about key decision points and I'd love your thoughts - especially about what I think may be the first example I've seen of an optimal dual wielder feat!
SECTION ONE - TL:DR - With a woold half elf and some optimal building, you will routinely get 45ft (or 55 with strider) of move per round with reach, full caster smite slots, and flourishes for bonus damage as well as divine favour. At peak performance (requiring no set up!), you can deal 62.5 damage in a round without exposing yourself to melee damage.
For starters, we will take the wood half elf from SCAG (assuming point buy) for 16 Dex 16 Cha 14 Con 13 Str to let us multiclass without sacrificing hit points or con saves. We will take 6 levels in swords bard, and then 2 in paladin for smite.
The sword bard's flourishes let you get 10ft extra move on any turn where you attack - coupled with 5ft from the wood elf, we are 50% faster than the average humanoid. Add longstrider onto that if you so choose, and its almost as if we are dashing every turn, without bonus action usage or concentration.
To make maximum use of this, I thought using the whip would be ideal - with this we can run up to 25ft towards someone to full-caster smite them with reach, and use the remaining move to move too far away for them to respond without risking opportunity attacks. The sword bard is very well suited to this - not only do they get the dueling fighting style to help with the poor whip damage, but they also have a psuedo-disengage with a knockback effect. Adding on a divine favour / spirit shroud / tenser's transformation to this as well as lots of spell slots, our whip doesn't seem so pitiful anymore.
With this, we have a very respectable damage output (I think!) - at 7th level, assuming a +2 dex ASI and a bonus action casting of divine favour, we can deal 2 sets of 1d4 whip + 1d4 divine favour + 6 damage, with two smites (dealing from 4d8 to 10d8 damage!). At peak performance, we will deal 4d4 + 12 + 9d8, or 62.5 damage! Not bad for someone who moves at 55ft per round with reach I think. At this level, your average shortbow rogue deals 5d6 + 4 damage on a good turn, while the minimum our whippersnapper gets is 4d4+ 12 + 4d8 if they smite with a 1st level slot - and this does not consider a crit smite, or a fiend who takes a bonus 2d8!
SECTION TWO - TL:DR This build has impressive AC with a small multiclass, reliably hitting 30 AC at level 11, but by dual wielding we can deal even more optimal damage for 82.5 in a round at level 8
This isn't too difficult to organise - Bards can learn longstrider to reliably have high speed, and if you begin battles with your whip sheathed and shield out, you can bonus action divine favour and get straight to smiting! Further, this build has very respectable AC; 16 AC in studded leather +2 AC from a shield +1 from defense (paladin) reaches a respectable 19 AC, more than a dwarven monk! But it goes further; with 1 level in a draconic sorcerer, we have 21 AC at 20 dex, with shield as a reaction on top of this. If you are patient, you can receive defensive dualist for a higher bonus sans spellslot usage, and if you have magic armour you can forgo this dip all together.
If 26 AC is not enough for you, as a sword bard you can spend inspiration to add your inspiration die to your AC of (on average, for a d8) 30, and up to 38 at high levels without magic items: Very tanky! We are 2 levels behind on bounded accuracy, but such is!
So, it looks like our build is as follows. Our bard takes longstrider, dueling (level 3), dex +2, and extra attack. Next, they take 2 levels in paladin for shields, smites, and whips. They then take 2+ levels in bard and 1 in draconic sorcerer.
However, I think this is not strictly optimal; with the help of dual wielding, we can push this further. Taking twf at level 3 and dual wielder at level 4, our bard, at the cost of an ASI, now has significantly better DPR. Each attack with out whip deals marginally less damage (3 less!), but I think the bonus attack more than makes up for this. Given one slow turn to set up divine favour where we deal 6 less damage than our dueling counterpart, we now have 3 sets of attacks each dealing 1d4 (whip) + 1d4 (divine favour) + 3 + smite damage; 6d4 + 9 damage, with one additional smite per round. While not sustainable, this should rapidly outpace our other bard in damage in the short term; since most fights aren't brutal slogs, this is valuable - 1st level slots allow 6d4 + 6d8 + 9 damage, or 51 damage; at max, our bard burns a 4th level slot and 2 3rd level slots for a disgusting 6d4 + 13d8 + 9, or 82.5 damage!
This is of course less than if they were dual wielding rapiers, but remember that this is done at reach with a terrifying 55ft move speed; what is impressive is not so much the DPR, but the fact that melee brutes will not be able to give chase easily (especially with those boots that double your speed!) You could achieve the same effect with PAM, but you lose out on the chance to have defensive dualist as final feat, as well as you high, high initiative and DEX saves, for around 6 damage per round.
Compared to the whip-and-shield, you lose one AC and one ASI in the short term to get this online sooner, but you can make up for this with future ASI's. For one extra attack, this seems like a great gain.
CONCLUDING NOTES
I think this build seems both really fun, and fairly optimal; however, this is also my first time! Please, share your thoughts; what do you think, is this build a good use of whips, bards and paladins? It also seems to me like the dual wielder feat (which I often see get called useless) has a quite impactful use here, allowing ranged extra attacks; while not optimised for DPR, I feel this is still a highly competitive build that trades a small amount of damage for a lot of manouvreability, and I think it is well worth the trade. Do you think so too? And what magical secrets would you recommend such a bard get (aside from tensers/guardian of nature and elven accuracy to be an absolute monster at higher levels!)