PDA

View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next Bard: College of Legends



sheker
2015-04-04, 03:11 AM
I am currently homebrewing some archetypes for classes which do not have as many as others. This bard archetype is more oriented around order and reliability so that players can make their own story. I hope it isn't overpowered, but by the looks of it, it really looks broken (or at the very least, all over the place). I envision someone who plays this archetype to be some kind of leader or very heroic/moral character. I also wonder if that it was appropriate to change the bonus proficiencies to another whole passive ability.


College of Legends

The College of Legends teaches songs of fabled stories. Oriented around creating adventurous paths and spreading lawful actions, bards of the College of Legends strive to influence others. Singing and performing is their way to reflect on the past, and to direct themselves to desirable consequences. Most bards of the College of Legends value order, but they value the prospect of great tales and the pursuit of them more than any decree.

Grand Path
When you join the College of Legends at 3rd level, you create great music of past legends and reflection that strives towards greatness, and even death will not stop your allies. You gain proficiency with death saving throws, and when you are stable you may choose to restore a Bardic Inspiration die of hit points along with regaining consciousness.

Epic Refrain
At 3rd level, when a use of Bardic Inspiration is expended, you may use your reaction to cast a cantrip from the bard spell list.

Fateful Recital
At 6th level, your spells are greatly woven in with fate. You may name one cantrip or spell at the end of your current turn. You may add your proficiency bonus to any healing or damage rolls to that cantrip or spell until the end of your next turn, but it must be the first action you make before movement in your next turn or you will take psychic damage equal to your Bardic Inspiration die. Enemies are aware when you name a cantrip or spell.

Ancient's Chorus
At 6th level, your song echoes the chants of legends long forgotten to your allies, channeling your grand vision to them. Allies may now roll a Bardic Inspiration die and take half that result to regain that many hit points upon being stable, and may regain consciousness. Additionally, your allies gain half your proficiency bonus when making death saving throws.

Fabled Presence
Starting at 14th level, you strive further towards higher power and your artistic inspiration resonates within allies. After using a spell of 1st level or higher, name an ally. If they end their next turn within 10ft of you, they heal hit points equal to the result of a Bardic Inspiration die.

weaseldust
2015-04-04, 11:17 AM
You could replace Grand Path with proficiency in death saves and the ability to regain consciousness and an inspiration die of HP once stable. While the idea of being able to reduce the damage just enough to avoid being knocked out is fun, I think it would both encourage the player to hoard their inspiration dice and yet only rarely actually make a difference. Besides, at least this way you're adding a kind of bonus proficiency, which you worried about not doing.

In the interests of simplicity, maybe change Epic Refrain so you cast a cantrip with your reaction whenever anyone uses your inspiration dice? It would mean you don't have to keep track of whether it was the previous use of inspiration you cast a cantrip from or the one before. Also, if you fluff giving inspiration dice as making a fateful pronouncement about the future, this power would match Fateful Recital, since in both cases you're getting a bonus for your pronouncement coming true.

I really like Fateful Recital as it is. It's no more powerful than adding your charisma to damage, which e.g. sorcerers get, but it should give you a really characteristic feel in combat.

The way you have it now, Music of Harmony also encourages hoarding inspiration, and you might wonder why it works continuously during encounters but not outside. You could change it to healing everyone within 10ft by the equivalent of one inspiration die whenever you cast a spell of 1st level or higher. That way it keeps a similar flavour (especially as bards are meant to cast spells with music, so if your music is going to heal people it makes sense it would happen when you cast spells) but allows you to spend inspiration dice too. Or, instead, you could use an inspiration die to create an aura that heals allies who start their turn in it. That way you get to feel a bit like a paladin, which is probably fitting for this subclass.

I wouldn't worry about the various features being 'all over the place', since Grand Path and Music of Harmony both deal with being resilient (and making your allies resilient), and Epic Refrain and Fateful Recital feel like they go together, as I said. All the features kind of make sense for bards who go about telling stories of legendary heroes and trying to make themselves and their allies equally legendary. I'm not sure the name of Music of Harmony matches the theme, though. Maybe choose something else for that one?

Ilorin Lorati
2015-04-04, 12:34 PM
Yeah, it's really strong; way too much defensive value.


A couple things I would recommend:


Remove one of the 3rd level abilities. I understand you're trying to replace the bonus proficiency, but it's better to just find some proficiencies they can use. They don't need to be weapon/armor, they could be tools or even a bonus save proficiency.

Limit Grand Path to 1 use of Bardic Inspiration at a time and make it use your reaction. If you want to bring it up a little, allow it to be used on allies.

Fateful Recital's wording doesn't work.

Note that a turn in 5e is one creature's set of actions in a round. Next turn isn't your turn, it's the creature's in initiative after you. The only way you can cast next turn is with a reaction.
As suggested in my last point, the wording doesn't conform to 5e standards. Read through some other abilities to get a better feel of it. In particular, the call-out is worded weird (it should be worded 'a bonus action'), and the way the followup is worded is weird (you only get one action, movement isn't an action).

Music of Harmony is too strong. It's NI out of combat and large amounts of in-combat healing in a game that is very careful and limited with methods of healing.

It basically negates any real sense of danger for people next to you because of how death saves work.
It would probably be better to have this as spending a use of Inspiration to grand the benefits of Song of Rest to your allies once.

sheker
2015-04-04, 07:39 PM
Thank you for the feedback! I will edit the main post with a new version.
Changes:

Put some more flavor into grand path to make it a little bit less direct, and also changed it with your suggestions. I thought that allies stabilizing with extra hit points could be a little ability that could be gained later, so I added a level 6 ability (Ancient's Chorus) which allows allies to use a weaker version of it.
Reworded the Fateful Recital ability. After rereading, it seems like I left out some vital information.
Didn't want hardcore healing on the 14th level ability, especially since lower level abilities can be consistently used late game out of combat, resulting in maybe a little bit too much healing overall. I changed it slightly to make it more thematically appropriate during combat.

alackthereof
2015-04-04, 08:50 PM
I'm really enjoying this class, but if you're considering adding an element of offense, perhaps you could grant allies a reaction upon a strike that would bring them to/below 0 (as long as it doesn't instantly kill them) to perform one final attack before dropping. That seems to stay within the theme of the class, and isn't too powerful given how frequently characters are brought to this point. I'm not sure where you'd like to place this if it's something you like.