Bard College Advice

[Veldrenor]

Our party in a new campaign has just hit level 4. The party varies from week to week, but when we're all at the table there are two monks, two rogues, 1 wizard (target buffs/damage spells), 1 fighter, 1 ranger, 1 barbarian, 1 paladin, and me, a stone sorcerer 1/ bard 3. I'm having difficulty choosing which college would be best: Lore or Glamour. Normally I'd say Lore and I imagine the consensus would be the same, Cutting Words and Additional Magical Secrets being what they are. However, our DM doesn't announce his attack rolls. He rolls, asks our AC, then says whether or not it hits. As a result I have no way of knowing if Cutting Words even has a chance of affecting any given attack. With that in mind, are Cutting Words and Additional Magical Secrets still good enough that Lore is the snap-pick, or do Mantle of Inspiration and Mantle of Majesty come out ahead?

[nickl_2000]

College of glamour is amazing. The mantle of inspirations helps PCs get out of combat without AoOs, and gives a huge amount of temp HP. At level 5 it gets even better with font of inspiration.

[JAL_1138]

Talk to your DM about his habit of not announcing attack rolls; explain its effect on Cutting Words. See if you can come to a reasonable arrangement. If not, you may want to consider Glamour. I haven't looked at it since I stick to non-UA material, but weigh its class features against Lore's Additional Magical Secrets, which are a much bigger draw IMO than Bardic Inspiration (useful as it may be). Glamour seems to be the most popular of the UA bards, so it must have something going for it.

[webster355]

Regarding Cutting Words:

All you NEED to know is if the attack hits. Knowing what the creature rolled for its attack roll would be metagaming. Depending on how your table views that will determine how comfortable you are with blindly using cutting words.

Regarding Glamour vs Lore:
It's really all about flavor.

Lore gives you access to some amazing lvl 3 spells (Aura of Vitality, Haste, Fireball, etc) & cutting words can cut down the damage done on an AOE spell for everyone or negate a hit to you personally.

Glamour reduces the need to heal HP (via THP) and the lvl 6 "Cast command as a bonus action for 1 minute w/o spell slots per short rest" offers great crowd control and role playing possibilities without burning spell slots.

Both are great, IMO, but if you're looking for pure magic versatility, go lore. If you want more abilities without spending spell slots, go glamour.

[NNescio]

Regarding Cutting Words:

All you NEED to know is if the attack hits. Knowing what the creature rolled for its attack roll would be metagaming. Depending on how your table views that will determine how comfortable you are with blindly using cutting words.

You're explicitly not supposed to know whether the attack hits or not (unlike some other reaction defensive abilities like shield, which trigger after you're hit).


When a creature that you can see within 60 feet of you makes an Attack roll, an ability check, or a damage roll, you can use your reaction to expend one of your uses of Bardic Inspiration, rolling a Bardic Inspiration die and subtracting the number rolled from the creature’s roll. You can choose to use this feature after the creature makes its roll, but before the GM determines whether the Attack roll or ability check succeeds or fails, or before the creature deals its damage.

...since, well, if you know it's a hit, then you know the attack roll was a success, which you're not supposed to.

Cutting Words in of itself does not explicitly state whether you get to see the roll (or otherwise know the result of the roll before modifiers), similar to other roll-influencing abilities like the Lucky feat, 'though the DM not declaring such rolls (or rolling in the open) really does nerf such roll-manipulation abilities a lot.

Knowing the roll isn't really metagaming per se if it is associated with an action that can be seen by the character. A high roll on an attack roll is basically an abstraction of a more accurate attack (i.e. one that slips through more defenses like armor, Wis/Dex dodging, Con armor, forcefields ala Shield and Shield of Faith, etc.), which the bard should be able to see and react accordingly (assuming he can see the attacker).

Metagaming is more like using Cutting Words against invisible (or otherwise unseen) attackers, NPCs using deception (unless, well, the Bard has Detect Thoughts up or something) and the like.

[Specter]

Well, with 10 players it's hard to go wrong. But I'd go Lore, because at the very least Cutting Words will save you when you need, and you can coordinate party tactics around it (hampering foes' Athletics and Perception checks, for instance).

[RSP]

Regarding Cutting Words:

All you NEED to know is if the attack hits. Knowing what the creature rolled for its attack roll would be metagaming. Depending on how your table views that will determine how comfortable you are with blindly using cutting words.


You're explicitly not supposed to know whether the attack hits or not (unlike some other reaction defensive abilities like shield, which trigger after you're hit).

...since, well, if you know it's a hit, then you know the attack roll was a success, which you're not supposed to.

Cutting Words in of itself does not explicitly state whether you get to see the roll (or otherwise know the result of the roll before modifiers), similar to other roll-influencing abilities like the Lucky feat, 'though the DM not declaring such rolls (or rolling in the open) really does nerf such roll-manipulation abilities a lot.

Knowing the roll isn't really metagaming per se if it is associated with an action that can be seen by the character. A high roll on an attack roll is basically an abstraction of a more accurate attack (i.e. one that slips through more defenses like armor, Wis/Dex dodging, Con armor, forcefields ala Shield and Shield of Faith, etc.), which the bard should be able to see and react accordingly (assuming he can see the attacker).

Metagaming is more like using Cutting Words against invisible (or otherwise unseen) attackers, NPCs using deception (unless, well, the Bard has Detect Thoughts up or something) and the like.

You're supposed to know the roll.

Per Crawford:
"You can use Cutting Words after seeing the roll, but before any of the roll's effects are resolved. #DnD "

and in the same thread of tweets:

"As DM, you decide whether to roll behind a screen or not. If something can change the roll, show the die or report what it rolled. #DnD https://twitter.com/Eagle_f90/status/802504971191222272 …"

Also, you have to be able to see the target of Cutting Words so it's worse than metagaming if using it against unseen enemies, it's a rules violation.