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View Full Version : D&D 5e/Next College of Ridicule(Bard class option) -Please Critique!



SlashGordon
2017-03-30, 12:24 AM
College of Ridicule
This is an attempt at centering a bard college around the greatest and most illustrious of cantrips, Vicious Mockery. While Eldritch Blast is mathematically the best cantrip, VM is certainly the most fun. Unfortunately, the damage is subpar, and throwing actions into it as your main contribution to combat is lackluster compared to other combat-centric class options, even within the bard class. Therefore I've decided to put together a bard college that lets VM be the bard's mainstay. This is my first real attempt at a homebrewed anything, so I'm here to ask for input on the features. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated, I want this to be a functional, balanced option that I can play at my table. I'll put my commentary and specific questions after each feature in red.

As for the flavor, the College of Ridicule trains bards to use the power of verbal fencing to attenuate threats that swordplay cannot. These bards, known as Hecklers, are renowned for their ability to use wit, vocabulary, and a splash of magic to cut their enemies down to size. A Heckler can use his wordplay to silence a corrupt lord as well as he can psychically knit doubt in his enemies' minds.

PEERLESS WIT
When you join the College of Ridicule at 3rd level, you learn to tie mocking energy into all of your spells. When you use your action to cast a spell, you may cast Vicious Mockery as a bonus action. This is the core of the class option, and lets the bard have a reliable source of cantrip damage to use instead of weapon attacks.

Also at 3rd level, you can expend one use of Bardic Inspiration as a bonus action to cast Vicious Mockery, and have it target every creature within 10ft of a point within range. A different way I thought of this ability was to cast VM on (CHA mod) number of creatures within range.

DRY HUMOR
At 6th level, the damage die of your Vicious Mockery increases from 1d4 to 1d6. At first I considered adding CHA mod to the damage instead of the die increase, but that felt like too much?

PROVOKE
Starting at 14th level, you've mastered the art of forcing a response from the target of your ridicule. As an action, you can attempt to bully a creature within 30ft into a murderous fury. Make a Charisma(Intimidation) check opposed by the target's Wisdom(Insight) check. If you succeed, for one minute the target must use its movement every turn to move toward a hostile creature, and use its action and possible bonus action to make weapon attacks. The creature must be able to hear you and understand a language you speak to suffer this effect. This effect does not force the creature to attack if there are no openly hostile creatures in sight. You must take a long rest before you can use this ability again. This one i'm not too sure about. I also considered the effect to essentially be a silence on the target, instead of a rage. For balance should they get the option to make a save every round? If anyone has a wholly new idea that's better, I'm also very open to changing this one. Also I know it's weird for the target to use persuasion, but I couldn't think of another skill that really fits this. Maybe something from wisdom? I just like the skill contest because it lets the bard make use of his expertise

BobMacBobson
2017-03-30, 05:06 AM
This is minor, but shouldn't it be Intimidation vs Insight, rather than Intimidation vs Persuasion?

SlashGordon
2017-03-30, 12:32 PM
This is minor, but shouldn't it be Intimidation vs Insight, rather than Intimidation vs Persuasion?

Yeah I struggled with that decision, I usually see insight as determining the truth behind someone's words, and only really use it against deception checks. That said, it feels like it might be right here, or instead some kind of intelligence check? It would be easier to go with a wisdom save against the bard's spell DC, but that just feels so boring...

BobMacBobson
2017-03-30, 03:01 PM
Yeah I struggled with that decision, I usually see insight as determining the truth behind someone's words, and only really use it against deception checks. That said, it feels like it might be right here, or instead some kind of intelligence check? It would be easier to go with a wisdom save against the bard's spell DC, but that just feels so boring...

Intelligence check could work but if it's a contested skill contest both parties should be using skills, I think.

If it helps, I use Insight against Deception, Intimidation, and Persuasion in my game.

SlashGordon
2017-04-03, 01:41 PM
Intelligence check could work but if it's a contested skill contest both parties should be using skills, I think.

If it helps, I use Insight against Deception, Intimidation, and Persuasion in my game.

I'mma make that change