Guide to the Bard
I'm going to try and remain objective on this one but fair warning: I LOVE BARDS!
Continuing on our journey through the classes we have arrived at the Bard. Bards are the swiss army knife of classes, they are above average in most skills. The class can be found on page 51 of the Player's Handbook. There you will find a description of the class and their function in the game, a quick build guide and some maths and skills. The maths indicates how resilient you are, the bard has a d8 hit die which puts you in the bottom half of the hardiness range. After your skills you will see a level table that is more complicated than the one for the Barbarian, this contains your spell slot and spells known information. The Bard class is based on Charisma and Dexterity from your training at a Bardic School.
There are quite a few synergistic races with the Bard class, the top tier is: Half-Elf, Tiefling and Aasimar. These have a +2 to Charisma which is your spell casting ability, you'll want this to be high so enemies don't resist your spells. The Charismatic races are useful for social situations and also help with deception, performance, persuasion and intimidation. Next up there are Dark Elves, Lightfoot Halflings, Tabaxi and Eladrin Elves. They have a +2 to Dexterity and +1 to Charisma so it boosts both of your important statistics. Dexterous races are useful for your armour class, initiative and your acrobatic or sleight of hand skills.
A Bard's unique skill is Bardic Inspiration, they can use their charismatic magics to help an ally with an attack roll or saving throw. Unlike Inspiration you do not re-roll the d20 but add a Bardic Inspiration Dice. This dice starts at a d6 but at higher levels goes to a d8 then d10 and plateaus at a d12. You can also perform a song of rest which provides extra healing to anyone that you play to. Later Jack of All Trades helps you with EVERY skill you aren't proficient in by adding half of your proficiency bonus to it, this include initiative by the way! Finally you won't have to pay for food and lodgings on the road as you can sing for your supper.
At level three you'll choose your Bard College, this is a specialisation of skills from the broad skill set of the Bard. There are five different Colleges that you can make and each has its own strengths and weaknesses.
College of Lore (PHB pg 54)
College of Valour (PHB pg 55)
College of Glamour (XGtE pg 14)
College of Swords (XGtE pg 15)
College of Whispers (XGtE pg 16)
The College of Lore immediately becomes a skills machine. You will have six skills that you are proficient in, two that you have expertise in and then with Jack of All Trades you are better than most at the other skills on your sheet. This type of Bard is very good in social situations and is geared to work for the group outside of combat by seeing things others miss. Being knowledgeable on a variety of topics and skills doesn't make them a wash out in combat, they can duel and cast spells as well.
The College of Valour is a more combat forward subclass. You will gain extra armour and weapons proficiencies and you will be able to use your bardic Inspiration to increase weapon damage or buff your armour class. Later on you will gain an extra attack action after your first and even cast a spell and do a melee attack as a bonus action.
The College of Glamour is inspired by the Fey. Taking lessons from Dryads and Sirens a bard from this College will use their songs to charm and beguile others. You can use your Bardic Inspiration to transform your appearance and provide your allies with temporary hit points. At higher levels you'll be able use the command spell without using a spell slot and enemies have to make a charisma save before they can attack you.
The College of Swords really hones in on melee fighting. You can expend uses of Bardic Inspiration to to make special weapon moves that do extra damage and temporarily increase your armour class, cause someone nearby to increase their damage or knock an opponent away from you. Later on you will gain an extra attack and at fourteenth level you can substitute your bardic inspiration for a d6 if you wish.
The College of Whispers is a social and psychic subclass. They can deal additional psychic damage to melee attacks at third level. You will be able to assume the identity of a person they have killed for up to a day after they died... this subclass is creepy. This subclass is geared towards morally questionable methods of lining your pockets such as bribery, blackmail and corruption. The College of Whispers lends itself to spying but are looked down upon and shunned by the other Colleges as they are giving the rest of them a bad name.
Dungeon Masters: The Bard's strengths are often social but as you can see from above they can do pretty much everything a little above average. They tend to thrive in areas of intrigue outside of combat or information and rumour gathering. Bards are the hardest to DM for as they can break your scenarios in ways that you may not have thought about! My advice is to just go along with it as a creative bard player is going to go to some fun places. Bards can run out of steam quickly so they won't be casting devastating spells every round and they don't have the highest of Armour Classes so they are vulnerable. Check over the character sheet to find their dump statistics vary from player to player but it is usually Wisdom or Strength that is their weak point. If you want to reward Bards there are magic instruments called 'Instruments of the Bards' which you can find in the Dungeon Master's Guide.
Let me know if this helped or how you broke an encounter in the comments section below!
May you roll well!
