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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next College of Mortality (nega-Dirgesinger who raises the dead instead of honoring them)



Giegue
2021-03-18, 06:22 PM
College of Mortality


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Memento Mori: Remember Death. This grim mantra is at the core of what defines the College of Mortality. Unlike Bards of the College of Spirits that seek stories about lives of the dead, and Bards of the College of Dirges that seek to honor those that have passed on, Bards of the College of Mortality draw their muse from death itself. They are often preoccupied with questions of mortality, the pain of loss, the fear and macabre trappings that surround death in many cultures, or all of the above.

As a result, College of Mortality Bards are writers who craft grim, morose poetry or stories of death and horror instead of musicians or performers. While other Bards might seek the limelight on a stage, College of Mortality Bards can instead often be found sitting in graveyards, with only the crows and church grims for company as they passionately pen their dreadful compositions. For them, the lack of a spotlight matters little, as they would much prefer that their poetry and stories stand on their own as grim reminders that everything, and everyone, will one day die.

However, what defines these Bards most in the eyes of the common folk is their obsessive preoccupation with the undead. As beings caught between life and death, the undead are the supreme embodiment of all the things College of Mortality Bards draw their muse from. Thus, these Bards often seek out dark, necromantic lore that lets them animate, control, and manipulate undead to sate their morbid obsession with them....a fact that often leads to society persecuting and shunning them should their dark interests be publicly revealed.

Death is my Muse

As a Bard of the College of Mortality, you are a writer and poet inspired by life, death, and undeath as opposed to a musician, and as a result your magic gives you access to necromantic powers normally outside the scope of traditional Bardic Spellcasting. When your Spellcasting feature lets you learn a Bard Cantrip or a Bard spell of 1st level or higher, you can choose the new spell from all necromancy spells on the Wizard spell list, or the Bard spell list. You must otherwise obey all the restrictions for selecting the spell, and it becomes a Bard spell for you.

Additionally, as a Bard whose art is the written word rather than music, you learn to use a spell focus more fitting for your craft. You gain the Bard of the Pen Alternate Class Feature if you don’t have it already. If you choose to gain the Bard of the Pen feature at 1st level, you can also choose to apply the changes this feature makes to your Spellcasting feature at 1st level instead of at 3rd level when you gain this College. If you do so, you must take at least 3 consecutive levels of Bard, and must select the College of Mortality when you choose your Bardic College at your 3rd Bard level.

Corrupting Words

Also at 3rd level, your intimate understanding of necromancy allows you to corrupt your Bard spells with your grim words, allowing them to affect and influence the undead. When you cast a Bard spell, you can spend a use of your Bardic Inspiration as a part of that spell’s casting to affect undead with it as-if they were humanoids instead of undead. If those undead have immunity to the Charmed or Frightened condition, that spell ignores those immunities when you do this. So for example, you could use this feature to cast Hold Person or Dominate Person on a skeleton, place a hoard of zombies under the effects of a Hypnotic Pattern or Fear spell, or restore hit points to a ghoul with a Cure Wounds spell. Any spell you cause to affect undead as humanoids with this feature is treated as being of the necromancy school instead of its normal school.

Additionally, when you use this feature to affect one or more undead creatures with a spell that restores hit points (such as Cure Wounds or Healing Word), you roll the spent inspiration die and have that spell restore additional hit points equal to the result of your roll + your Charisma modifier to all its undead targets.

Inspired Reanimator

Starting at 6th level, you learn how to use your words and writing to draw the dead back for one last dance. You gain Animate Dead as a bonus spell known. For you Animate Dead is a Bard spell, and does not count against your total spells known. Additionally, undead you create with necromancy spells (such as Animate Dead or Create Undead) gain the following additional benefits:


They add your Bard level to their hit point maximums.
They add half your proficiency bonus to their weapon attack rolls.
Whenever you give a creature Bardic Inspiration, for 1 minute or until you give a creature Bardic Inspiration again (whichever comes first), their movement speed increases by 10ft and their weapon attacks deal additional necrotic damage equal to a single die of the same size as your Bardic Inspiration dice.


Rule the Still Heart

Starting at 14th level, you truly learn to ensnare the hearts and minds of the dead with your words and writing. You can maintain control of a number of undead up to your Charisma modifier that you created with necromancy spells (such as Animate Dead or Create Undead) without recasting the spells that created them. The undead you maintain control of this way must have CRs that total to no higher than half your Bard level.

New Alternate Class Feature

This subclass makes use of the following new Alternate Class Feature detailed, which is available to any Bard:

Bard of the Pen

While many bards are musicians, not all bards focus on the art of song. Some bards instead master the word, either spoken or written, and turn storytelling, public speaking, debate or even writing into a form of performance or art that can hold just as much magic as music. You gain proficiency with Calligrapher's Supplies. Additionally, you can use a pen as a spellcasting focus for your Bard spells instead of a musical instrument. You can also start play with a set of Calligrapher’s supplies in place of the instrument you would normally gain from the starting equipment of the Bard class.

This replaces the three instrument proficiencies you would gain from the Bard class at 1st level.

NOTES

While the "college of spirits" was recently made in UA, it sadly had nothing to do with actually animating undead and was instead entirely about speaking with spirits as oppose to commanding them. Thus, since I wanted to create an actual "lord of undead" style Bard, this is my latest attempt. However, to separate it from other homebrew, I decided not to just make it a port of the 3.5e Dirgesinger since, in my eyes, desecrating the dead by raising them as undead slaves is the last thing a "Dirgesinger," who is all about helping people mourn the dead and honoring those that have passed, would want to do. Thus, since the Dirgesinger already covers the "somber/morose musician" trope and there are plenty of homebrew Dirgesingers, some of which have nothing to do with undead as-fitting with my view of a "Dirgesinger", I decided to make the flavor of the "undead animating Bard" I've sought to create with this more of an Edgar Allen Poe-inspired writer of grim/morose poetry or macabre horror stories.

However, while I had a clear flavor in mind, as-always I have no idea how mechanically balanced this is. This thing might be too strong in some places, as I find it easier to make something too powerful and scale it back after being scrutinized than I do to make something too weak and buff it. Thus, thats why I've posted it here. I want advice on how to properly balance this thing. Thus, any and all comments, suggestions, and thoughts on the mechanical balance of this Bardic College would be most appreciated!