Sword bard ranged build

[PancakeMaster80]

Introduction

Over the past week I've been working on a ranged bard build that exploits the classes' ability to steal spells. This build can be broken down into discreet phases of power, as such that's how I'll be explaining it.

Character Creation

Stats
For this build we'll use the point buy system, with the following stats:

Str - 8
dex - 15
con - 15
int - 8
wis - 10
cha - 14

Race
We'll use the human variant, taking the crossbow expert feat, +1 to dex and con, and proficiency in perception. This brings our stats to:

Str - 8
dex - 16
con - 16
int - 8
wis - 10
cha - 14

Background
Now we take criminal, as deception and stealth play to the character's high dex and charisma

Class
When it comes to class, contrary to the title of this thread, we start with fighter, specializing in acrobatics and intimidation.

Gear

I took the following:
Chain-mail (upgrade to plate for pure combat, or studded leather for stealth)
Rapier
Shield
Light crossbow (ask your gm if they'll let you use a hand crossbow instead, if they won't, just buy one)
Dungeoneer's pack


Fighting style

Archery, the +2 bonus to all our ranged attack rolls will be hugely helpful at all levels of play.


Second wind
Nice to have if you need a little extra healing.

Strategy
This build is based around consistent ranged damage. At level 1 we're making use of the crossbow expert feat to attack twice with our hand crossbow. We don't have any spells yet so if needed you could also operate as a tank using your heavy armor and shield.

Level 2
Now it's time to actually become a bard, starting with this level we will be investing fully into the bard, specializing in sleight of hand and whatever musical instrument sounds coolest.

Spells
Cantrips:

Light
Message

1st level spells:

Feather fall
Faerie fire
Cure wounds
Healing word


Levels 3-10

During these levels our base strategy remains the same, we try to take as many attacks as possible using our hand crossbow.

Class features
Level 3

Add spell identify

Level 4

We'll be taking the college of swords as our specialization. Neither of the fighting styles are very important the build, so take whichever you feel you'll get more use out of.
We'll put our expertise in acrobatics and stealth
Add spell invisibility

Level 5

Increase dex by 2
Add cantrip mending
Add spell detect magic

Level 6

Inspiration die increases to d8
Font of inspiration - nice to more easily get back our inspiration die
Add spell Leomund's tiny hut

Level 7

Counter charm - nice to have, although this build won't be using it much
Extra attack - awesome! this means we can make 3 attacks per round instead of 2
Add spell glyph of warding

Level 8

Add spell polymorph

Level 9

Here we pick up the feat sharpshooter, it is somewhat useful now and will become even more so in future levels
Add spell greater invisibility

Level 10

Song of rest - another nice bonus, although not the focus of this build
Add spell animate objects


Level 11
This is where things really get interesting. Using the bard's magical secret feature we can take 2 spells we are capable of casting from any spell list. For us these spells are Find Greater Steed and 1 of 3 major damage enhancing concentration spells.

Add expertise to sleight of hand and deception
Add cantrip mage hand

Find greater steed
This spell allows us to summon a griffon as a permanent mount. Not only do we gain permanent flying while mounted, but we also have a powerful monster capable of doing decent damage in its own right.

Damage enhancement spell choices
There are 3 main spells to choose from here, each with it's own strengths and weaknesses, as such I'll be comparing their damage output both with and without your mount's attacks, shown in the follow format: DPR (average damage per round) without mount/DPR with mount

Swift quiver - (78/97.5DPR) although flavor wise this spell fits the best with our build, it's numbers are probably the weakest of the 3 options overall, still, if you want to fire the most bolts, this is the spell for you.
Holy weapon - this option pulls down slightly higher DPR than swift quiver (79.5/99DPR), works better when not using sharpshooter, and lasts 1 hour instead of 1 minute. The only drawback being that it doesn't scale as well magic weapons, once you reach a +2 weapon or above swift quiver will slightly out damage holy weapon
Haste - This option is the most defensive of the 3 picks, providing increased AC and advantage on dex saves. It also benefits from our ability to buff ourselves and our mount at the same time. Just looking at our bard's damage, this spell outputs the lowest number, but with your mount's damage it is the highest of the 3 (70/100.5DPR)


Strategy
If you took swift quiver you'll need to switch from a hand crossbow to a light one, otherwise stick with your hand version. From there we can either stay out of reach using our griffon's flying movement, or wade into melee to add it's damage to our output. One particular strategy would be to have our griffon spend one of its attacks knocking an opponent down, from there we can fire with advantage on all 4 attacks using our crossbow expert to avoid the normal disadvantage posed from firing in melee.

Levels 12-15
With the core of our build in place, it's time to cement our bonuses and acquire some "nice to haves". With the next 4 levels of bard we'll gain an ASI to get our dex to 20, more magical secret spell steals, and the ability to use our flourish every round.
Level 12

Add spell true seeing

Level 13

This level we increase our dexterity by 2, bringing it up to 20

Level 14

Song of rest upgraded to d10
Add spell regenerate

Level 15

We can now use our flourishes rolling a d6 without expending an inspiration die

Magical secrets
We can now take another 2 spells to our list from any class. Since we already have our core build done this is almost entirely personal preference. Since we want to be using my crossbow to deal damage, I'll be choosing spells to help me more consistently accomplish that goal.

Add spell Tenser's Transformation
Add spell Simulacrum - This spell allows you to create a copy of our bard that also has full access to our spell list. It doesn't require concentration so this doubles the damage we are capable of doing.

Strategy
At this point we can reliably hit with all our attacks while using sharpshooter to add damage to each one. Along side this we have our full bard spell list to augment ourselves and our party. This makes us a source of consistent damage and a flexible aid to the entire group.

Levels 16-20
At this point the build is pretty much done, as such I've put less thought into the best options to take at these levels. However, here is what I would take.

Level 16

Bardic inspiration die goes up to a d12, nice incremental improvement.
Add spell glibness- level 8 spells are the ones I'm most unsure of, I personally wasn't excited by any of them, so consider this a very light recommendation.


Level 17

Add feat war caster - this makes it much easier for us to maintain our concentration when we get hit.


Level 18

Song of rest increases to d12, nice to have
Add spell foresight


Level 19
Another round of spell stealing, this time we can take any 2 spells from the entire spell list. In this guide I'm recommending 2 additional level 9 spells, but with so many spell options to choose from there's a high likelihood a lower level spell would work better for at least one of these picks.

Add spell mass heal
Add spell shapechange


Level 20

Add feat mounted combatant - this keeps out mount safer, maintaining our mobility and maximum damage output.


Conclusion
And that's it! Following this guide we'll have an on par archer/caster until level 11, after that our damage will spike due to our mount, haste, and animate objects. At level 15 our damage spikes again, as the addition of simulacrum doubles what we were already doing.

Edits
Someone suggested a better path for levels 11-15, as such I updated the guide and put the old version here if people want to see it, it's still good, but not as good.Levels 11-14
With the core of our build in place, we now have some choices to make, depending on preference we'll be taking 4 levels in either fighter or ranger. Overall ranger is stronger, but fighter gives us our fighting style 1 level earlier. For this guide we will be choosing the ranger rework from unearthed arcana.

Level 11

Now that we're proficient in martial weapons we can start using a heavy crossbow
We will gain proficiency in investigation
We will chose humanoids as our favored enemy, it gives us bonus damage against enemies of that type and makes them easier to track
Natural explorer - nice to have

Level 12

We will be taking the archery fighting style for +2 to all our ranged attack rolls, great synergy with sharpshooter
Add spell absorb elements
Add spell goodberry
Add spell hunters mark

Level 13

We'll be taking the colossus slayer feature from the hunter conclave. This adds 1d8 to our damage every round assuming we hit a target that has been damaged.

Level 14

This we increase our dexterity by 2, bringing it up to 20

Strategy
At this point we can reliably hit with 4 attacks using sharpshooter on all 4 attacks. Along side this we have our full bard spell list to augment ourselves and our party. This makes us a source of consistent damage and a flexible aid to the entire group.

Someone correctly pointed out that I had done some math incorrectly, as a result holy weapon does slightly more damage than swift quiver (prior to a +2 weapon or above), updating that portion of the guide to reflect this change.

Swapped out the spells longstrider and awaken for glyph of warding and animate objects

Redid order of levels to start with fighter 1, this gives us much better concentration saves along with the archery fighting style through every level. Our magical secrets are delayed, but I believe it is worth overall.

Added in the additional cantrips bards pick up, also replaced holy weapon at 15 with simulacrum

Added guide advice for levels 16-20

[Willie the Duck]

Goodness, I don't remember the last time someone posted a build as detailed as this (spell choice, and when you would do so, and everything).

Looks impressive. I might switch the level four +2 Dex and Level 8 Sharpshooter, simply to take hand crossbows from 30' range to 120' without disadvantage.

If this is a home game, you could talk to your DM to see if they'd let you swap the normal dueling/twf fighting style for archery, to make it as 'College of Bows' bard.

[Ganymede]

Everything appears legal. Good job at adding.

[unusualsuspect]

I've been considering almost exactly the same build, as it happens, after being particularly inspired by the eponymous hero of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (inclined a bit more towards social skills than sneakiness).

A few thoughts:

You've made your build from level 10 onward quite dependent on Swift Quiver (dropping the hand xbow for light, then heavy). An interesting approach, though you're going to want to keep the hand crossbow for when you're out of slots to cast Swift Quiver and/or you lose concentration on it. Another limitation is that Swift Quiver is a bonus action to cast, and it does not affect the first turn as it requires a bonus action to obtain extra attacks (a bonus action you've already spent casting the spell) - that certainly makes the light/heavy xbows better than the hand xbow if you're using it (2 attacks with 1d10+ damage is better than 2 attacks with 1d6+ damage for the first turn), but gives that spell a pretty heavy opportunity cost.

I've considered sticking with hand xbows and going with Haste in place of Swift Quiver. You get effectively the same benefit: 4 attacks a turn, if you use your bonus action for the extra attack, except it uses more bolts and is less reliant on having your bonus action available, on top of greater defense/mobility and more versatility by using the extra action for Disengage, Dash, or Dodge instead, with that potentially nasty downside of losing a turn if you lose concentration. It also has the pleasant benefit of boosting your mount at the same time (you did use a Magical Secret on it, might as well make it TONS faster and a lot tankier, no?).

Difficult decisions, truly.

(If you feel inclined, can you break down how you're getting an average of 97.5 DPR? Against what AC does that average apply?)

[CTurbo]

Why College of Swords and not one of the other colleges?

[SleepIncarnate]

Why College of Swords and not one of the other colleges?

This is my personal question as well. You don't seem to get anything from Swords. With Valor, you still get the extra attack, and more importantly, you get the ability to still make an attack as a bonus action after casting a spell. Swords is very heavily built for melee specifically, as their abilities often specifically state melee weapons. You can only use a melee weapon as a spell focus, your flourishes are melee attack based, and so on. Valor is simply the superior archer bard.

EDIT: Also note that the bonus attacks from Swift Quiver do not stack with the bonus attack from Crossbow Expert. They both use your bonus action. You're maxing out at 4 attacks per round, not 5. You're better off using a long bow or a heavy crossbow at that point.

[Willie the Duck]

This is my personal question as well. You don't seem to get anything from Swords. With Valor, you still get the extra attack, and more importantly, you get the ability to still make an attack as a bonus action after casting a spell. Swords is very heavily built for melee specifically, as their abilities often specifically state melee weapons. You can only use a melee weapon as a spell focus, your flourishes are melee attack based, and so on. Valor is simply the superior archer bard.

The ability to make a bonus action attack after casting a spell is only useful if you are casting a lot of spells in combat. That seems to be the fundamental difference between valor and swords bards -- valor bards use their spells (and BI) in replacement of their attack actions (with an ability which very lightly mitigates this) to supplement the fact that they are mostly just a caster with a decent AC and gets extra attack. The Swords bard uses their BI (mostly not costing actions) to make themselves a decent combatant, while reserving their spells for other things. The valor bard is going to have (and use) a lot of combat spells, while the swords bard has room for more utility and support spells and the like. I'm not saying one is better than the other (both have the same problem as bladesinger or pre-hexblade bladelock -- you can't make a full-spellcaster gish too good at combat, or else why play a martial?), but this one does seem pretty purpose-built towards the OP's apparent goals.

[Degwerks]

Swords Bard is fine. Absolutely nothing in Swords Bard mentions a melee weapon except for gaining scimitar proficiency, using melee weapons as spellcasting focus, and the Dueling Fighting Style.

So technically he could use the Flourishes with ranged attacks.

[Zalabim]

It doesn't really do much with the class for a very long time. Actually, I don't think it ever does anything with the class. On the bright side, that means there's a lot of untapped potential beyond "makes ranged attacks." What about going to 14 in bard for endless 1d6 defensive flourishes, and more magical secrets, and another spell slot for swift quiver? With just 1 level in fighter for archery style.

[Willie the Duck]

It doesn't really do much with the class for a very long time. Actually, I don't think it ever does anything with the class.

Agreed. Other than the flourishes, all of this could be close to the same with a barbarian or bladesinger or anything else with 2 attacks but no archery fighting style. I assume it is for the spells (which, well, swift quiver is awfully nice, but doesn't compete with a fighter). This kind of build almost has to be predicated on the logic of, 'well, I want first and foremost to be a bard, but I also want to be a good archer, how do I do both?'

[PancakeMaster80]

Looks impressive. I might switch the level four +2 Dex and Level 8 Sharpshooter, simply to take hand crossbows from 30' range to 120' without disadvantage.

For me it was a toss up on which ASI I used for dex and which for the feat, if you're having range issues then yeah SS is probably better to take first.


If this is a home game, you could talk to your DM to see if they'd let you swap the normal dueling/twf fighting style for archery, to make it as 'College of Bows' bard.

If my GM was up for this it'd make the build a lot better in early levels, I kept it completely vanilla for this post since it's hard to know what specific DMs will allow.

[Man_Over_Game]

Agreed. Other than the flourishes, all of this could be close to the same with a barbarian or bladesinger or anything else with 2 attacks but no archery fighting style. I assume it is for the spells (which, well, swift quiver is awfully nice, but doesn't compete with a fighter). This kind of build almost has to be predicated on the logic of, 'well, I want first and foremost to be a bard, but I also want to be a good archer, how do I do both?'

Whispers.

As a Swords Bard, you are missing out on a number of the features, not to mention the fighting styles you get at level 3. As a Whispers Bard, you lose nothing and are actively incentivized to attack at ranged combat, mostly noted that your primary feature (a 2d6 bonus damage that's confirmed and doesn't cost spell slots) has no restriction on range.

[PancakeMaster80]

I've been considering almost exactly the same build, as it happens, after being particularly inspired by the eponymous hero of The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (inclined a bit more towards social skills than sneakiness).

A few thoughts:

You've made your build from level 10 onward quite dependent on Swift Quiver (dropping the hand xbow for light, then heavy). An interesting approach, though you're going to want to keep the hand crossbow for when you're out of slots to cast Swift Quiver and/or you lose concentration on it. Another limitation is that Swift Quiver is a bonus action to cast, and it does not affect the first turn as it requires a bonus action to obtain extra attacks (a bonus action you've already spent casting the spell) - that certainly makes the light/heavy xbows better than the hand xbow if you're using it (2 attacks with 1d10+ damage is better than 2 attacks with 1d6+ damage for the first turn), but gives that spell a pretty heavy opportunity cost.

I've considered sticking with hand xbows and going with Haste in place of Swift Quiver. You get effectively the same benefit: 4 attacks a turn, if you use your bonus action for the extra attack, except it uses more bolts and is less reliant on having your bonus action available, on top of greater defense/mobility and more versatility by using the extra action for Disengage, Dash, or Dodge instead, with that potentially nasty downside of losing a turn if you lose concentration. It also has the pleasant benefit of boosting your mount at the same time (you did use a Magical Secret on it, might as well make it TONS faster and a lot tankier, no?).

Difficult decisions, truly.

I would definitely keep my hand crossbow around for fights I didn't want to cast swift quiver.

As for haste it is certainly a viable alternative, it gives you a lower damage output but higher ac, more mobility, and can be cast 5 times a day. I personally still like swift quiver because I'm looking to max damage first and foremost, but that's a personal preference, it truly is a difficult decision =P.


(If you feel inclined, can you break down how you're getting an average of 97.5 DPR? Against what AC does that average apply?)

I used the site anydice.com, plugging in the total of 4d10+1d8+2d6+64. This includes mount attacks and assumes all attacks hit, I'm currently looking over the math on when it's best to activate the SS bonus damage, so I'm not entirely sure what AC you should be doing this at yet.

[PancakeMaster80]

Why College of Swords and not one of the other colleges?

College of swords gives the build the extra attack it wants, and flourishes can be used at range without taking any kind of action. Valor could also be used, as it gives you the ability to use martial weapons right off the bat, but you have to decided between handing out inspiration or making more attacks.

[PancakeMaster80]

This is my personal question as well. You don't seem to get anything from Swords. With Valor, you still get the extra attack, and more importantly, you get the ability to still make an attack as a bonus action after casting a spell. Swords is very heavily built for melee specifically, as their abilities often specifically state melee weapons. You can only use a melee weapon as a spell focus, your flourishes are melee attack based, and so on. Valor is simply the superior archer bard.

Sword school's flourishes can be used with ranged weapons and don't require an action. I personally ranked that over the valor school's martial proficiency and other features, however valor would also work fine for this build.


EDIT: Also note that the bonus attacks from Swift Quiver do not stack with the bonus attack from Crossbow Expert. They both use your bonus action. You're maxing out at 4 attacks per round, not 5. You're better off using a long bow or a heavy crossbow at that point.

Yes that's true, I don't believe I ever said you get 5 attacks in this guide, the extra attack from Crossbow expert is what you use when you don't want to cast swift quiver, or don't have access to the spell yet.

[Willie the Duck]

Lose nothing? How about your extra attack? Yes, eventually you get quite the damage bonus, but the payoff is pretty delayed. Losing an extra 1d6/8+Dex+10+magic at 5th level in exchange for an extra 3d6 (if you hit with your 1-2 attacks) is a pretty big change in how the character is played.

[PancakeMaster80]

Swords Bard is fine. Absolutely nothing in Swords Bard mentions a melee weapon except for gaining scimitar proficiency, using melee weapons as spellcasting focus, and the Dueling Fighting Style.

So technically he could use the Flourishes with ranged attacks.

Exactly! I re-read the school several times to make sure I could flourish with my crossbows =P

[PancakeMaster80]

It doesn't really do much with the class for a very long time. Actually, I don't think it ever does anything with the class. On the bright side, that means there's a lot of untapped potential beyond "makes ranged attacks."

I'd argue that making use of magic secrets to steal spells that normally are found at 13 and 16 is making use of the class. You are right that this build doesn't really take off until level 10, but I knew that going in, I just wanted to include the early levels for folks who are interested but are starting at a lower level, and even before 10 you still have a strong spell list to take advantage of plus good ranged damage


What about going to 14 in bard for endless 1d6 defensive flourishes, and more magical secrets, and another spell slot for swift quiver? With just 1 level in fighter for archery style.

That's a good idea, I'll take a look and see if I like it more, might be worth revising the build path.

[PancakeMaster80]

Whispers.

As a Swords Bard, you are missing out on a number of the features, not to mention the fighting styles you get at level 3. As a Whispers Bard, you lose nothing and are actively incentivized to attack at ranged combat, mostly noted that your primary feature (a 2d6 bonus damage that's confirmed and doesn't cost spell slots) has no restriction on range.

Whispers make less use of the sharpshooter damage boost because it gets 1 fewer attack, and the Sword college flourishes can be used at range, if Whispers also got an extra attack I would probably have chosen it.

[PancakeMaster80]

Agreed. Other than the flourishes, all of this could be close to the same with a barbarian or bladesinger or anything else with 2 attacks but no archery fighting style. I assume it is for the spells (which, well, swift quiver is awfully nice, but doesn't compete with a fighter). This kind of build almost has to be predicated on the logic of, 'well, I want first and foremost to be a bard, but I also want to be a good archer, how do I do both?'

I'd be interested to see how this build competes with a bow fighter, I haven't run the numbers but I'm pretty sure that this build outputs more damage at range than an equivalent fighter.

[CTurbo]

The Swift Quiver Bard is and has been a very popular concept for a long time. Have you looked online at what other people have done?

I played with a guy who made a Fighter 1/Valor X Longbow archer and it was a very strong character once he hit level 11, but from 1-6 it was pretty weak.

I don't like the idea of investing in a feat like Crossbow Expert only to plan to ditch the concept later on since feats come at such a premium.

Personally I don't think I would ever take Sharpshooter without having the Archery Style.

[Willie the Duck]

I'd be interested to see how this build competes with a bow fighter, I haven't run the numbers but I'm pretty sure that this build outputs more damage at range than an equivalent fighter.

I think it is going to depend on how you weight high vs. low level (or average over time, or the like). If your goal is strictly level 20 output, a lot of things outpace fighters for damage output. But if you average over every level of play, any kind of combo that doesn't get +2 ranged to-hit at level 1-2 and multi-attack at level 5-6 has a lot of ground to make up in later levels to make it overall more damage over 20 levels of play (if that is your goal).

[PancakeMaster80]

The Swift Quiver Bard is and has been a very popular concept for a long time. Have you looked online at what other people have done?

I looked around a bit but didn't see anyone doing quite what I was thinking of. Most builds I've seen favor valor over swords, and no one seems interested in find greater steed.


I played with a guy who made a Fighter 1/Valor X Longbow archer and it was a very strong character once he hit level 11, but from 1-6 it was pretty weak.

I don't like the idea of investing in a feat like Crossbow Expert only to plan to ditch the concept later on since feats come at such a premium.

Personally I don't think I would ever take Sharpshooter without having the Archery Style.

Part of the reason this build takes crossbow expert is to improve its early levels. Attacking for 2d6+6 is pretty respectable. Crossbow expert also helps at later levels by allowing for the small damage increase of heavy crossbow and the ability to shoot targets knocked over by your mount for advantage on all attacks.

When you take sharpshooter is definitely a personal preference for this build, I think taking it at 8 is the best balance, but taking it later is certainly valid.

[PancakeMaster80]

I think it is going to depend on how you weight high vs. low level (or average over time, or the like). If your goal is strictly level 20 output, a lot of things outpace fighters for damage output. But if you average over every level of play, any kind of combo that doesn't get +2 ranged to-hit at level 1-2 and multi-attack at level 5-6 has a lot of ground to make up in later levels to make it overall more damage over 20 levels of play (if that is your goal).

I originally imagined this build as one for level 10+ campaigns, but even at early levels I think its competitive with martial classes. Yes it sucks to miss out on archery fighting style, but you do get an extra attack at 6 for 3d6+12 per round with a pretty good + to hit. Combining this with spells like polymorph and the rest of the bard spells makes this build pretty good even in early levels IMO

[PancakeMaster80]

Just updated the build with the suggestion to take 1 level of fighter and 4 of bard at levels 11-15.

[Malifice]

This is my personal question as well. You don't seem to get anything from Swords.

Defensive flourish works with bows.

Deal + BI die damage to one arrow 1/ round and also add that die's result to your AC till the start of your next turn.

Personally I'd probably ditch swift quiver and take Holy weapon as my magical secrets and make 3 attacks/ round with a handcrossbow, each shot dealing an extra +2d8 radiant damage.

You can leave Bard at 10 that way, also taking 3 levels of BM fighter (action surge and precise strike/ sup dice and archery style). Remaining 7 levels are up to you.

[SleepIncarnate]

Swords Bard is fine. Absolutely nothing in Swords Bard mentions a melee weapon except for gaining scimitar proficiency, using melee weapons as spellcasting focus, and the Dueling Fighting Style.

So technically he could use the Flourishes with ranged attacks.

How does slashing flourish work with an arrow? It doesn't specifically mention melee, but you already listed a lot that does. It's a college built around... Wait for it... Swords! I know, shocking.

Another issue with making an archer bard is... Well... It's just bad. Bards don't have anything but their dexterity to boost arrow damage. Whispers bards have psychic blades, but even that's one per round. As an archer, you're pumping up dex instead of charisma, so you fall behind as a caster. You're spending your first round casting swift quiver, taking up your one concentration spell, and then using your bonus action to fire two arrows. And because they're in the bonus action and not the attack action, you can't apply a flourish. Next round, you get four basic arrow attacks, and that's it.

Compare to valor bard who first round casts faerie fire to give the entire party advantage, then gets their one shot. Next round, cast mass suggestion turning foes against one another, then fires another shot. Next round, fires two shots, and uses bonus action to healing word.

You get the idea, valor bard is just a better archer, and swift quiver is a trap for bards. Bards don't have something else to buff their archery accuracy or damage. Yes, I get that OP is taking a 4 level dip on fighter and getting the archery style, but from the bard side of things, swords is just inferior. Valor > Whispers > Glamour > Lore/Swords.

Glamour because they can still bonus action command.

Now for melee, swords bards are great. But as archers? They lose too much of their college benefits.

[Vexacia]

Swift quiver allows us to take 2 extra attacks with our ranged weapon as a bonus action. This is the key to our build's damage from level 10 on, this will be our concentration spell in almost every fight it's available.

psssst.

Animate Objects.

animate objects. Animate Objects! Animate. Objects. animate objects.

(you can use arrows as your tiny objects if you're desperate to keep on-theme)

seriously though. animate objects is a 5th level spell just like swift quiver, is on the bard list unlike swift quiver (so you can get it at level 9 and don't have to waste a magical secret), and when you select tiny objects it deals 65 DPR from a bonus action command. not to mention how hideously it clogs up your enemies' movements by placing 10 tiny "creatures" on the board swarming them, and thoroughly ruins your enemy's action economy (which wins you the fight!) if they try to deal with the summons rather than ignore them. also... since they're "creatures" while animated, they get attacks of opportunity...

also going 16con/14cha instead of 16cha/14con is a mistake. there's no real plausible reason to do the former over the latter. you're a full caster despite the martial setup, act like it.

also you'd be well served by a Hexblade 1 dip somewhere, probably after getting Extra Attack, and statwise prioritizing CHA>DEX. the "hex warrior" feature applies to hand crossbows.


I'd be interested to see how this build competes with a bow fighter, I haven't run the numbers but I'm pretty sure that this build outputs more damage at range than an equivalent fighter.
firstly the fighter will have 20 dex no problem thanks to the extra ASI, while you languish in 18 dexterity until level 13.

SQ crossbow swords bard against crossbow BM fighter, the bard barely comes out better at level 10 but is worse at every other level 1-9 and 11-20. at level 11 a fighter has the same number of attacks as you (3+1 vs 2+2) but doesn't spend any resources for it. in the best case scenario of a heavy crossbow bard vs a hand crossbow fighter, the fighter deals 4 less DPR (while irresponsibly not factoring in his +1 to hit advantage on you from capped dex) while SQ is active, though the fighter has 2 more maneuvers than you have flourishes if you adjust your charisma as I suggested, or 3 more maneuvers than you have flourishes if you do not.


At this point we can reliably hit with 4 attacks using sharpshooter on all 4 attacks.
no you can't. where is your reliable source of advantage with your concentration spent on selfcast damage buffs?


Following this guide you will end up with a ranged attack that at level 11 is capable of dealing 117.5 damage per round on average.
no you don't lol.

with 18 dexterity, a heavy crossbow, swift quiver, a flourish, 20 dexterity, and 4x sharpshooter (5d10+40, you reach 85.5 DPR assuming all attacks automatically hit (which is a false assumption). that's like... three quarters of your estimate, my dude.

did you miss the part where you can only Blade Flourish once per turn? even if you missed that, you'd only reach an average of 101.0, again in perfect 100% accuracy papercraft. and then you'd be out all of your inspirations until a short rest after only one turn. oh, but wait, you couldn't even do that even if it did work, because with your middling charisma you only have 3 inspirations per short rest.


take Holy weapon
this is the correct alternative for hand crossbows if you really don't want to use animate objects. 6d8 (three attacks with 2d8 riders) is nearly double 1d6+15 (+1 additional bonus action hand crossbow attack).

as a bonus, holy weapon lasts 1 hour rather than 1 minute, which is massively better on your resource economy

[PancakeMaster80]

How does slashing flourish work with an arrow? It doesn't specifically mention melee, but you already listed a lot that does. It's a college built around... Wait for it... Swords! I know, shocking.

You could certainly house rule that these features don't work with bows, but I made this build with the base rules, and there are no restrictions on the types of attacks that trigger a flourish.


Another issue with making an archer bard is... Well... It's just bad. Bards don't have anything but their dexterity to boost arrow damage. Whispers bards have psychic blades, but even that's one per round. As an archer, you're pumping up dex instead of charisma, so you fall behind as a caster. You're spending your first round casting swift quiver, taking up your one concentration spell, and then using your bonus action to fire two arrows. And because they're in the bonus action and not the attack action, you can't apply a flourish. Next round, you get four basic arrow attacks, and that's it.

What specific numbers do you think are bad about it compared to other options? Casting swift quiver takes your bonus action, so you still make 2 attacks along with your flourish, and all rounds after your damage jumps up a huge amount, this isn't even including what your mount is up to. Each of these attacks are dealing 1d10 + 15, resulting in an average damage output per round of 78, 97.5 if you include the mount's attacks.


Compare to valor bard who first round casts faerie fire to give the entire party advantage, then gets their one shot. Next round, cast mass suggestion turning foes against one another, then fires another shot. Next round, fires two shots, and uses bonus action to healing word.

If you wanted to you could do almost exactly the same thing with a swords bard, and if you have your heart set on valor bard then that works fine with this build, it's average damage is slightly lower because it doesn't have flourish, but if you want to do more combat casting it can be better.


You get the idea, valor bard is just a better archer, and swift quiver is a trap for bards.

If we're just talking pure arrow damage the sword college has valor beat, and I'm unsure why you think swift quiver is a trap, it's average damage numbers are only slightly lower than holy weapons and it actually becomes higher once you have a +2 weapon or above. I updated the guide to include the fact that holy weapon or haste could also be viable alternatives.


Bards don't have something else to buff their archery accuracy or damage. Yes, I get that OP is taking a 4 level dip on fighter and getting the archery style, but from the bard side of things, swords is just inferior.

You're certainly right that bards lack the archery fighting style that other martial classes have access to. If you wanted you could take a level of fighter much earlier in the build to pick that up, but personally I prefer reaching the level 10 power spike in bard as fast as possible. Even without archery at level 10 you are attacking with a +8 which is just fine, and if your mount is able to knock your opponent over you get to attack with advantage, which would deal with the lack of archery style quite well. I actually changed the guide, I now suggest only taking 1 level in fighter at 11, then returning to bard to pick up more of their end game features.


Valor > Whispers > Glamour > Lore/Swords.

I'm still not sure what numbers you're looking at for this ranking, the point of this build is to maximize ranged attack damage and supplying support and utility spells for your party, I don't see how these other schools do that better.


Now for melee, swords bards are great. But as archers? They lose too much of their college benefits.

What college features do they miss out on? As far as I can tell the lack of action requirement for flourishes actually works really well for this build.

Edit: Fixed some faulty math that was pointed out to me

[Vexacia]

How does slashing flourish work with an arrow? It doesn't specifically mention melee, but you already listed a lot that does. It's a college built around... Wait for it... Swords! I know, shocking.

Another issue with making an archer bard is... Well... It's just bad. Bards don't have anything but their dexterity to boost arrow damage. Whispers bards have psychic blades, but even that's one per round. As an archer, you're pumping up dex instead of charisma, so you fall behind as a caster. You're spending your first round casting swift quiver, taking up your one concentration spell, and then using your bonus action to fire two arrows. And because they're in the bonus action and not the attack action, you can't apply a flourish. Next round, you get four basic arrow attacks, and that's it.

Compare to valor bard who first round casts faerie fire to give the entire party advantage, then gets their one shot. Next round, cast mass suggestion turning foes against one another, then fires another shot. Next round, fires two shots, and uses bonus action to healing word.

You get the idea, valor bard is just a better archer, and swift quiver is a trap for bards. Bards don't have something else to buff their archery accuracy or damage. Yes, I get that OP is taking a 4 level dip on fighter and getting the archery style, but from the bard side of things, swords is just inferior. Valor > Whispers > Glamour > Lore/Swords.

Glamour because they can still bonus action command.

Now for melee, swords bards are great. But as archers? They lose too much of their college benefits.
now this is thinking like an actual Bard player rather than a meme build archer player.

other than understandably misunderstanding the poorly written wording on Blade Flourishes (which WotC's editors forgot to restrict to melee for some unknown reason), everything in this post is 100% dead-on accurate.

[PancakeMaster80]

now this is thinking like an actual Bard player rather than a meme build archer player.

other than understandably misunderstanding the poorly written wording on Blade Flourishes (which WotC's editors forgot to restrict to melee for some unknown reason), everything in this post is 100% dead-on accurate.

I had a lot of fun working on this build and making the guide, if it's not to you're liking that's totally fair, personally I would have a blast playing this character.

[PancakeMaster80]

Defensive flourish works with bows.

Deal + BI die damage to one arrow 1/ round and also add that die's result to your AC till the start of your next turn.

Personally I'd probably ditch swift quiver and take Holy weapon as my magical secrets and make 3 attacks/ round with a handcrossbow, each shot dealing an extra +2d8 radiant damage.

You can leave Bard at 10 that way, also taking 3 levels of BM fighter (action surge and precise strike/ sup dice and archery style). Remaining 7 levels are up to you.

You are totally right that holy weapon does slightly more average damage than swift quiver, I had done some faulty math that was throwing off my estimates. I updated the guide, thanks for making me look at my numbers again =P.

[PancakeMaster80]

psssst.

Animate Objects.

animate objects. Animate Objects! Animate. Objects. animate objects.

(you can use arrows as your tiny objects if you're desperate to keep on-theme)

seriously though. animate objects is a 5th level spell just like swift quiver, is on the bard list unlike swift quiver (so you can get it at level 9 and don't have to waste a magical secret), and when you select tiny objects it deals 65 DPR from a bonus action command. not to mention how hideously it clogs up your enemies' movements by placing 10 tiny "creatures" on the board swarming them, and thoroughly ruins your enemy's action economy (which wins you the fight!) if they try to deal with the summons rather than ignore them. also... since they're "creatures" while animated, they get attacks of opportunity...

You're definitely right that animate objects does a ton of damage and provides a lot of other benefits, in fact I use it as part of some other builds I worked on. However, it doesn't really fit with what I was going for in this build so I didn't include it, if that's the direction you'd like to take a bard I bet it would be quite good.


also going 16con/14cha instead of 16cha/14con is a mistake. there's no real plausible reason to do the former over the latter. you're a full caster despite the martial setup, act like it.

I wanted a higher con because health is good, and I don't believe I picked spells that cared much about my cha. If someone wanted to build this character with a higher dex instead of con it'd work just fine


also you'd be well served by a Hexblade 1 dip somewhere, probably after getting Extra Attack, and statwise prioritizing CHA>DEX. the "hex warrior" feature applies to hand crossbows.

That does sound interesting, I'll take a look at it tomorrow when I'm less sleepy =P.


firstly the fighter will have 20 dex no problem thanks to the extra ASI, while you languish in 18 dexterity until level 13.

It is true that the build's dex is slightly lower than it could be, but personally I felt the gains outweighed the losses


SQ crossbow swords bard against crossbow BM fighter, the bard barely comes out better at level 10 but is worse at every other level 1-9 and 11-20. at level 11 a fighter has the same number of attacks as you (3+1 vs 2+2) but doesn't spend any resources for it. in the best case scenario of a heavy crossbow bard vs a hand crossbow fighter, the fighter deals 4 less DPR (while irresponsibly not factoring in his +1 to hit advantage on you from capped dex) while SQ is active, though the fighter has 2 more maneuvers than you have flourishes if you adjust your charisma as I suggested, or 3 more maneuvers than you have flourishes if you do not.

I'd have to see the specific build of fighter you're referring to, but even if the fighter does slightly more damage, the bard still has a full list of spells to help out with.



no you can't. where is your reliable source of advantage with your concentration spent on selfcast damage buffs?

I believe in the guide I mentioned your mount knocking someone over as a way to gain advantage.


no you don't lol.

with 18 dexterity, a heavy crossbow, swift quiver, a flourish, 20 dexterity, and 4x sharpshooter (5d10+40, you reach 85.5 DPR assuming all attacks automatically hit (which is a false assumption). that's like... three quarters of your estimate, my dude.

did you miss the part where you can only Blade Flourish once per turn? even if you missed that, you'd only reach an average of 101.0, again in perfect 100% accuracy papercraft. and then you'd be out all of your inspirations until a short rest after only one turn. oh, but wait, you couldn't even do that even if it did work, because with your middling charisma you only have 3 inspirations per short rest.

You are totally right, I counted a stat bonus incorrectly, revised the guide accordingly, thanks for pointing out the mistake =).


this is the correct alternative for hand crossbows if you really don't want to use animate objects. 6d8 (three attacks with 2d8 riders) is nearly double 1d6+15 (+1 additional bonus action hand crossbow attack).

as a bonus, holy weapon lasts 1 hour rather than 1 minute, which is massively better on your resource economy

Another good catch, updated the guide to reflect the possible choice between haste, swift quiver, and holy weapon, glad folks are finding stuff I did wrong before I make this character for a real campaign.

[SleepIncarnate]

You could certainly house rule that these features don't work with bows, but I made this build with the base rules, and there are no restrictions on the types of attacks that trigger a flourish.

RAW lets you, but RAI says no.


What specific numbers do you think are bad about it compared to other options? Casting swift quiver takes your bonus action, so you still make 2 attacks along with your flourish, and all rounds after your damage jumps up a huge amount, this isn't even including what your mount is up to. Each of these attacks are dealing 1d10 + 15, resulting in an average damage output per round of 78, 97.5 if you include the mount's attacks.

You assume each of those attacks hits. How are you giving yourself advantage without using something like faerie fire? Your concentration is eaten up by SQ. Additionally, to get that +15, you have to have 20 dexterity (which is ASI points not being put in your casting stat while playing a full caster) AND have sharpshooter and use it on every attack. That -5 to hit is gonna hurt you without advantage or archery style or anything but dex to boost it. You're looking at a theoretical maximum, but point is, as a bard, you're highly unlikely to get that maximum even once per combat.




If you wanted to you could do almost exactly the same thing with a swords bard, and if you have your heart set on valor bard then that works fine with this build, it's average damage is slightly lower because it doesn't have flourish, but if you want to do more combat casting it can be better.

Except you can't. Swords bards don't get the ability to use bonus action as an attack after casting a spell. The only bards that do are valor, and they get it earlier than EKs (who have it split between cantrips at 7 and all spells at 18). Additionally, if you're using SQ (which again, as a bard, is a trap), you can't use that faerie fire to give yourself and your party advantage.




If we're just talking pure arrow damage the sword college has valor beat, and I'm unsure why you think swift quiver is a trap, it's average damage numbers are only slightly lower than holy weapons and it actually becomes higher once you have a +2 weapon or above. I updated the guide to include the fact that holy weapon or haste could also be viable alternatives.

If you include flourishes (which RAI should not work with ranged weapons) then yes, you can do an extra die of damage equivalent to your inspiration. For up to 5 arrows. Oh wait, you buffed dexterity instead of charisma as a bard, so make that 3 arrows, tops. But the swords bard with SQ gets to fire more arrows! More like waste more arrows, as your chance to hit plummets with both that -5 and lack of advantage. Your concentration is better saved for anything but SQ, and that is why SQ is a trap.




You're certainly right that bards lack the archery fighting style that other martial classes have access to. If you wanted you could take a level of fighter much earlier in the build to pick that up, but personally I prefer reaching the level 10 power spike in bard as fast as possible. Even without archery at level 10 you are attacking with a +8 which is just fine, and if your mount is able to knock your opponent over you get to attack with advantage, which would deal with the lack of archery style quite well. I actually changed the guide, I now suggest only taking 1 level in fighter at 11, then returning to bard to pick up more of their end game features.

It's not just the fighting style that bards lack. We lack anything to build upon that damage. No Hex, no Hunter's Mark, no arrow features from arcane archer.




I'm still not sure what numbers you're looking at for this ranking, the point of this build is to maximize ranged attack damage and supplying support and utility spells for your party, I don't see how these other schools do that better.

Valor does better because they can use their concentration on something more beneficial than SQ, and can still cast and get attacks as of level 14.

Whispers does better because they get 2d6/3d6/5d6/8d6 added to their one shot per round, and has higher charisma for more uses of psychic blades than your build has flourishes. After bard 14, you get unlimited flourishes, but that just becomes an extra 1d6.

Glamour can use their bonus action to use command, turning an enemy around to increase their damage while still attacking.

Swords might beat out lore with more attacks, but lore could beat out swords by making their one shot work.




What college features do they miss out on? As far as I can tell the lack of action requirement for flourishes actually works really well for this build.

You lose the ability to use a weapon as a spell focus, neither of your fighting styles works with archery, and flourishes can go either way. Assuming you get flourishes, you get all of those and an extra attack. If your DM rules flourishes must be done with melee weapons, then you literally only get extra attack.

Meanwhile, valor bards lose nothing. Their version of BI still works without debate on RAW vs RAI, they get their extra attack, and they get the cast and attack ability.

[Malifice]

RAW lets you, but RAI says no.



You assume each of those attacks hits. How are you giving yourself advantage without using something like faerie fire? Your concentration is eaten up by SQ. Additionally, to get that +15, you have to have 20 dexterity (which is ASI points not being put in your casting stat while playing a full caster) AND have sharpshooter and use it on every attack. That -5 to hit is gonna hurt you without advantage or archery style or anything but dex to boost it. You're looking at a theoretical maximum, but point is, as a bard, you're highly unlikely to get that maximum even once per combat.





Except you can't. Swords bards don't get the ability to use bonus action as an attack after casting a spell. The only bards that do are valor, and they get it earlier than EKs (who have it split between cantrips at 7 and all spells at 18). Additionally, if you're using SQ (which again, as a bard, is a trap), you can't use that faerie fire to give yourself and your party advantage.





If you include flourishes (which RAI should not work with ranged weapons) then yes, you can do an extra die of damage equivalent to your inspiration. For up to 5 arrows. Oh wait, you buffed dexterity instead of charisma as a bard, so make that 3 arrows, tops. But the swords bard with SQ gets to fire more arrows! More like waste more arrows, as your chance to hit plummets with both that -5 and lack of advantage. Your concentration is better saved for anything but SQ, and that is why SQ is a trap.





It's not just the fighting style that bards lack. We lack anything to build upon that damage. No Hex, no Hunter's Mark, no arrow features from arcane archer.





Valor does better because they can use their concentration on something more beneficial than SQ, and can still cast and get attacks as of level 14.

Whispers does better because they get 2d6/3d6/5d6/8d6 added to their one shot per round, and has higher charisma for more uses of psychic blades than your build has flourishes. After bard 14, you get unlimited flourishes, but that just becomes an extra 1d6.

Glamour can use their bonus action to use command, turning an enemy around to increase their damage while still attacking.

Swords might beat out lore with more attacks, but lore could beat out swords by making their one shot work.





You lose the ability to use a weapon as a spell focus, neither of your fighting styles works with archery, and flourishes can go either way. Assuming you get flourishes, you get all of those and an extra attack. If your DM rules flourishes must be done with melee weapons, then you literally only get extra attack.

Meanwhile, valor bards lose nothing. Their version of BI still works without debate on RAW vs RAI, they get their extra attack, and they get the cast and attack ability.

Using some flourish options with bows is RAI.

Devs have confirmed as much.

[SleepIncarnate]

Using some flourish options with bows is RAI.

Devs have confirmed as much.

Okay, so some. That's not all, so still something lost with going archer as a swords bard. It's not the best college to be playing for an archer, as valor holds that role. Swords is better than lore for flourishes usage, but the other three colleges still beat out swords for an archer.

Also, SQ is still a terrible choice for a magical secrets pick. When a level one spell from the bard's spell list (faerie fire) is a better pick for your concentration, that highlights how bad it is. Find Greater Steed is still a great pick, but something like counterspell or haste would be better for the second spell.

As for multiclassing, going swords/fighter/hexblade is stretching too thin. You need hexblade 3 and the improved pact weapon invocation to be able to use charisma over dexterity with your ranged attacks. All you're really getting from a single level of fighter is the archery fighting style, as you're not getting much from second wind or proficiencies.

This build to me doesn't really scream bard. It screams ranger that wants some better spell casting in exchange for some archery prowess. Are you focusing more on how big of numbers you can get for damage rolls? Because that's the last thing a bard should worry about, even a swords/valor bard.

[Willie the Duck]

Using some flourish options with bows is RAI.
Devs have confirmed as much.

I don't supposed they commented further on refluffing for 'college of bows' or the like?

SleepIncarnate, I'm still not seeing exactly why Valor is better than Swords for this build. They both get two attacks naturally, and neither have specific abilities that benefit in a significant way (other than valor bard at high levels getting one attack on rounds where they cast, which to me kind of evens out to swords use of flourishes not costing actions).

[SleepIncarnate]

I don't supposed they commented further on refluffing for 'college of bows' or the like?

SleepIncarnate, I'm still not seeing exactly why Valor is better than Swords for this build. They both get two attacks naturally, and neither have specific abilities that benefit in a significant way (other than valor bard at high levels getting one attack on rounds where they cast, which to me kind of evens out to swords use of flourishes not costing actions).

First off, as a bard, big number damage is not a huge issue. I play a bard right now in a party with a ranger, a barbarian, a paladin, and a sorcerer. Any one of them does as much damage (or more) in a single round of combat as I do in the entire fight. Even big, long fights that take 10+ rounds. Bards are primarily controllers. If the intent of the build is for the big numbers, then another class would be better.

Second, the only thing you really get from Swords is the extra attack. The flourishes are nice, but until you hit that level 14 bard point, you only have so many of those you can add in. Once you hit that level 14, you're only adding 1D6 to each attack, not the full 1D10 (or 1D12 after hitting 15). Meanwhile, battle magic is so much more powerful. You need to make an attack to get the blade flourish usage, which does cause the need to juggle which is more important, doing damage this round or casting a spell to control the flow of battle. The valor bard doesn't have to make that choice. They can still cast a spell and make their attack. The only way you can do that as a swords bard is using a spell like Swift Quiver, which we've already discussed. I'll let Admiral Ackbar say it all for me here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F4qzPbcFiA).

Simply put, this build is sacrificing so much of what makes a bard a bard all in the name of trying to be a slightly less mediocre archer. Bards don't have access to things like conjure volley to make your shots worth something, and even if you did (via magical secrets), the valor bard would do it better because then he could STILL attack after casting, without having to waste his only concentration on it. Bards don't have anything built in to buff their damage numbers (weapon or spell), and if you're using your magical secrets to grab something to try and fix that... you're wasting that MS slot.

I can take the magic initiate feat in sorcerer, pick up fire bolt and some other cantrip, and do a reliable 4D10 damage when I need to damage someone, because I can almost guarantee my attacks will hit as my concentration is being used to lock down enemies with hypnotic pattern or to grant advantage with faerie fire. One feat to do almost as much damage as you with two feats, 10 levels in bard plus 1 in fighter and however many in warlock, a magical secrets spent on a spell that is terrible for your class, a 5th level spell slot (which you get at most 3 of, if you're a pure caster, which you aren't), and... Yeah, I can do that as a single attack bard. A valor bard? He can do that and still do that 1D10 + whatever as an extra attack.

[PancakeMaster80]

I don't supposed they commented further on refluffing for 'college of bows' or the like?

I'd be really happy if they made a college of bows option =D

[PancakeMaster80]

Glad so many folks are interested enough to discuss the ins and outs of this build, already made some significant improvements to my original idea, thanks all!

[PancakeMaster80]

First off, as a bard, big number damage is not a huge issue. I play a bard right now in a party with a ranger, a barbarian, a paladin, and a sorcerer. Any one of them does as much damage (or more) in a single round of combat as I do in the entire fight. Even big, long fights that take 10+ rounds. Bards are primarily controllers. If the intent of the build is for the big numbers, then another class would be better.

The focus of the build is to do damage, if that's not how you like to play bards, then that's fine, but this type of bard can dish out quite high damage per round.


Second, the only thing you really get from Swords is the extra attack. The flourishes are nice, but until you hit that level 14 bard point, you only have so many of those you can add in. Once you hit that level 14, you're only adding 1D6 to each attack, not the full 1D10 (or 1D12 after hitting 15). Meanwhile, battle magic is so much more powerful. You need to make an attack to get the blade flourish usage, which does cause the need to juggle which is more important, doing damage this round or casting a spell to control the flow of battle. The valor bard doesn't have to make that choice. They can still cast a spell and make their attack. The only way you can do that as a swords bard is using a spell like Swift Quiver, which we've already discussed. I'll let Admiral Ackbar say it all for me here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F4qzPbcFiA).

Valor bard gives the build literally nothing till 14, whereas the sword college gives us 2-3 flourishes per long(pre 5)/short rest. This build as I have laid it out would not even benefit from the valor 14 feature, as it should be attacking almost every round. The few times the build would like to have the valor feature is made up for from the consistent additional damage/ac from flourishing every round.


Simply put, this build is sacrificing so much of what makes a bard a bard all in the name of trying to be a slightly less mediocre archer.

I think the build brings a lot to the table along side it's damage, which is a part of its appeal to me.


Bards don't have access to things like conjure volley to make your shots worth something, and even if you did (via magical secrets), the valor bard would do it better because then he could STILL attack after casting, without having to waste his only concentration on it. Bards don't have anything built in to buff their damage numbers (weapon or spell), and if you're using your magical secrets to grab something to try and fix that... you're wasting that MS slot.

Conjure volley doesn't actually synergize with being an archer, it's just an archer themed fireball type damage spell. As for the valor vs sword bard, I think sword is better, but if someone wanted to be valor instead I'd say go for it, the difference either way is pretty small.


Bards don't have anything built in to buff their damage numbers (weapon or spell), and if you're using your magical secrets to grab something to try and fix that... you're wasting that MS slot.

Bards totally have ways to increase their damage. They have access to sharpshooter, which is the largest boost to damage any archer can find, sword college gives flourishes a similar number of times that fighters get to use their features like steady aim, maneuvers, or arcane shot. And for this build using magical secret to combine 2 spells that are literally impossible to achieve any other way isn't a waste, it's another way to increase damage. According to my numbers the bard at level 11 has fighter archers beat almost across the board.



I can take the magic initiate feat in sorcerer, pick up fire bolt and some other cantrip, and do a reliable 4D10 damage when I need to damage someone, because I can almost guarantee my attacks will hit as my concentration is being used to lock down enemies with hypnotic pattern or to grant advantage with faerie fire. One feat to do almost as much damage as you with two feats, 10 levels in bard plus 1 in fighter and however many in warlock, a magical secrets spent on a spell that is terrible for your class, a 5th level spell slot (which you get at most 3 of, if you're a pure caster, which you aren't), and... Yeah, I can do that as a single attack bard. A valor bard? He can do that and still do that 1D10 + whatever as an extra attack.

Can you explain where you're getting the 4d10 fire bolt cantrip?


because I can almost guarantee my attacks will hit as my concentration is being used to lock down enemies with hypnotic pattern or to grant advantage with faerie fire. One feat to do almost as much damage as you with two feats, 10 levels in bard plus 1 in fighter and however many in warlock, a magical secrets spent on a spell that is terrible for your class, a 5th level spell slot (which you get at most 3 of, if you're a pure caster, which you aren't), and... Yeah, I can do that as a single attack bard. A valor bard? He can do that and still do that 1D10 + whatever as an extra attack.

It sounds like this type of bard just isn't for you, the fact that this build doesn't use spells like hypnotic and faerie fire is intentional, it's an archer build, not a battlefield control build. Also I would like to know how you can do as much damage with those other colleges, and remember, the point of this build is to be an archer, I know there are spells that do a ton of damage out there, but this build's focus is being an archer.

[Mr.Spastic]

I personally would've picked Haste. I think that with Haste you would honest make a better Gunslinger type then most fighter builds due to your roguish charm and rugged handsomeness offered by you decent charisma.

I also like the idea of riding a super speed griffin while having a 19 AC from half plate and haste and being able to make four attacks a round from your peashooter. That sounds like the kind of absurd scenario I come to D&D for.

I'm also the type of player who doesn't use Sharpshooter. I just like to hit things more I guess. I would also agree with others that Valor would probably work better because of battle magic but I also rarely play games at that level. All in all I think the build is really fun.

... Now I can't get the idea of a cowboy riding a griffin out of my mind.

[SleepIncarnate]

The focus of the build is to do damage, if that's not how you like to play bards, then that's fine, but this type of bard can dish out quite high damage per round.

Except they will always be inferior to other archers. You're playimg against your own strengths.


Valor bard gives the build literally nothing till 14, whereas the sword college gives us 2-3 flourishes per long(pre 5)/short rest. This build as I have laid it out would not even benefit from the valor 14 feature, as it should be attacking almost every round. The few times the build would like to have the valor feature is made up for from the consistent additional damage/ac from flourishing every round.

If this build is not benefiting from a casting feature, then why are you playing a full caster rather than simply a fighter or ranger?


I think the build brings a lot to the table along side it's damage, which is a part of its appeal to me.

Such as what? This build is built upon the damage, and you just admitted that the build benefits nothing from the caster side. You'd be better mainly playing another class with maybe a dip into bard for jack of all trades.


Conjure volley doesn't actually synergize with being an archer, it's just an archer themed fireball type damage spell. As for the valor vs sword bard, I think sword is better, but if someone wanted to be valor instead I'd say go for it, the difference either way is pretty small.

The point wasn't that conjure valley was great, it was that a bard lacks anything to augment their damage without dipping into other classes or stealing offensive spells via magical secrets.


Bards totally have ways to increase their damage. They have access to sharpshooter, which is the largest boost to damage any archer can find, sword college gives flourishes a similar number of times that fighters get to use their features like steady aim, maneuvers, or arcane shot. And for this build using magical secret to combine 2 spells that are literally impossible to achieve any other way isn't a waste, it's another way to increase damage. According to my numbers the bard at level 11 has fighter archers beat almost across the board.

Every class has access to sharpshooter (unless playing in that rare game that doesn't allow feats). You get to augment two to three attacks, and then nothing. Rangers have access to lightning arrow. Fighters can make four attacks per round without worries of losing them to a failed constitution roll.



Can you explain where you're getting the 4d10 fire bolt cantrip?

Magic initiate (sorcerer) as I said. It scales based on character level, not class level. So I'm doing 1D10 before 5, 2D10 5-10, 3D10 11-16, 4D10 at 17+


It sounds like this type of bard just isn't for you, the fact that this build doesn't use spells like hypnotic and faerie fire is intentional, it's an archer build, not a battlefield control build. Also I would like to know how you can do as much damage with those other colleges, and remember, the point of this build is to be an archer, I know there are spells that do a ton of damage out there, but this build's focus is being an archer.

Guaranteed damage with faerire fire. Burst damage with psychic blades. Charming enemies to fight for you. All options you're passing up to try to make a bard archer that is inferior to every other archer.

[PancakeMaster80]

I personally would've picked Haste. I think that with Haste you would honest make a better Gunslinger type then most fighter builds due to your roguish charm and rugged handsomeness offered by you decent charisma.

I also like the idea of riding a super speed griffin while having a 19 AC from half plate and haste and being able to make four attacks a round from your peashooter. That sounds like the kind of absurd scenario I come to D&D for.

I'm also the type of player who doesn't use Sharpshooter. I just like to hit things more I guess. I would also agree with others that Valor would probably work better because of battle magic but I also rarely play games at that level. All in all I think the build is really fun.

... Now I can't get the idea of a cowboy riding a griffin out of my mind.

Haste is definitely a decent option, it actually does the most damage if you include your mount's damage. If you don't like sharpshooter the build still works fine, just go to 20 dex instead. As I said in an earlier post the difference between valor and swords mechanically is pretty slim, so it's pretty much personal preference, the build will function pretty similarly either way.

I'm glad you like the image of a griffon riding crossbow bard as much as I do =)

[Vexacia]

this is thread and SQ bards in general are an exercise in unintentionally proving that fetishizing your own damage numbers at the expense of all other functionality is a very poor way to play bards.

it's exactly like that other bladesinger thread where some guy was dead convinced you'd get a great build if you did sharpshooter hand crossbow bladesinger, because just look at these damage numbers, they're so high how could this possibly be a bad idea? except SQ bards are far more prominent in the popular imagination, though why this is the case is eternally unknown.

it's particularly hilarious in the case of an archery bard choosing college of swords. so desperately does the person want to pump up their raw personal damage numbers that they ignore any actual combat math or effectiveness outside of a vacuum environment to the point where they pick college of swords solely so they can use their inspiration on personal damage Blade Flourishes. i mean, at least a melee swords bard gets other really useful benefits from a Blade Flourish due to being in melee range; a ranged swords bard basically only gets value from the damage 95% of the time even when choosing Defensive Flourish.

and then you waste a magical secret on a spell that does less DPR and has less utility than a bard spell with the same spell level, same action economy, and same concentration. and these are 5th level spell slots you're spending to do this, which is monumentally wasteful - a 5th level bard spell is often an encounter winning spell, and you choose to just shoot some things more with it instead. real useful. you could've stolen and cast any 5th level spell in the game - Destructive Wave, Conjure Elemental, upcast Conjure Animals, upcast Fly on 3 party members, Maelstrom, Wall of Stone, Circle of Power, WALL OF FORCE mein gott! you instead stole and cast.... Swift Quiver. welp.

you want to maximize the damage output and effectiveness of your party, like a bard?

spend your inspirations on an ally with great weapon master or sharpshooter, because a bonus to attack rolls is precisely twice as valuable for a GWM/SS user towards DPR as a bonus to damage rolls is. I'm not pulling that "twice" out of thin air - if you look at the calculation for the AC threshold at which using the -5/+10 from GWM/SS become correct decisions, a bonus to attack contributes exactly twice as much as a bonus to damage - except it's EVEN BETTER because they can hold that inspiration if their attack was going to hit without it.

in addition to being massively more combat-optimal as a decision, you'll gain a real life social bonus: your party will appreciate you a hell of a lot more for helping them than they will appreciate you for wasting all your inspirations to deal less damage than would've been done if you had helped them. and while you're at it, play valor instead of swords, because a valor bard's inspiration can also be used to boost AC against an enemy attack, potentially saving that party member's life or saving party resources that would've otherwise gone to keeping them safe.

and use your concentration on a spell that's actually useful.

you want to seize the glory and maximize your personal damage output, like a fighter?

play a fighter, not a bard.

[Oren]

Weird number of people getting really salty about this slightly unorthodox bard build. Y'all know the OP never claimed it was the best bard build right? Or that you have to play it?

As far as things to get salty about, "a guy having a bard build I wouldn't personally use" is honestly a little sad.

[SleepIncarnate]

Weird number of people getting really salty about this slightly unorthodox bard build. Y'all know the OP never claimed it was the best bard build right? Or that you have to play it?

As far as things to get salty about, "a guy having a bard build I wouldn't personally use" is honestly a little sad.

OP asked us to rate their build and help them build it.

So let me take a different approach to OP. What do you gain from being a bard over another class to fit this "attack only" play style you have?

Flourishes? That 1d6 per turn is not going to do much. That's per turn, not per attack. Your average goblin or kobold has more health than that is contributing.

Swift Quiver at level 10? Something none of us have brought up so far is that the arrows it gives you are non-magical. You'd be better off with two attacks per round using magical arrows than your four attacks that do half damage against foes with resistance to non-magical weapons. Which is roughly half of everything CR 11 and up. Roughly half our combats make this spell worthless. What do you do when you're in those combat situations? Fall back on your bard stuff? You've neglected your bardic side to augment your archer side.

Find Greater Steed? Great choice for a MS. But, is this seriously it?

If all you want to do is be an amazing archer with bigger numbers, a kensei monk is better. Their damage scales with their levels up to 1d12 even if they're just using the humble sling (to really rub salt in the wounds of all the bard archers), plus they can add 1d4 to every attack that round (not just one), AND on one attack each turn, they can add 1d12 again. And then, if they miss one of their two attacks? They get to reroll it. Oh, and all of their attacks are magical. They have more ki than you do inspiration, and theirs recovers on a short rest as well.

A bard is, first and foremost, a support class. Your build acrively works against that to try and do something that other classes do better. So why bard?

[SleepIncarnate]

Not to say that swift quiver is a terrible spell, but it's being used here in a poor way. It's intended as a way for the ranger to basically have a fireball against enemies that aren't clustered together. Take the example of the party fighting an ancient dragon with about 20 kobold minions. The ranger can tell the others to focus on the dragon while he takes out the little guys. Most of them likely have low enough hit points that they can be taken down with a single arrow, even without the +10 from sharpshooter. As such, he cares more about the accuracy and just uses SQ to take out 3-4 per turn (more if one of the others cast haste one him). After a couple rounds of that, he turns to focus on the dragon, using hunter's mark to add 1d6 to each of his arrow attacks using his magical arrows for even more damage. His two arrows per round that way (or four with haste) does more damage than his four (or six) with SQ.

Bards don't have anything like that, so SQ is just a bad choice for them. Especially trying to use the sharpshooter exhange on every attack.

Even fighters are better, able to use something like the BM maneuver tripping strike (or whatever it's called) to run up and knock a foe prone and then unload all their crossbow bolts into them (as they also have crossbow expert and thus don't have disadvantage on close combat attacks). Since they knocked the foe prone, they now have advantage to unload into them, guaranteeing their -5 is worth it for the +10.

There are better classes for this build, and even as a bard archer, better spells to pick than SQ. Take haste instead of it and get something else at level 14 along with tenser's transformation. For what you want to do, TT is the superior spell, but you do miss out on some of the benefits of it. Namely, you already have the proficiencies and the extra attack, but the advantage and damage are good.

That said, cure wounds is a terrible spell pick for an archer. It's a touch range spell. You're unlikely to be close enough to anyone who needs healing to use it. You don't have any combat utility concentration spells until level 10 picked (invisibility drops as soon as you attack) so grab something like faerie fire to help your opportunity to hit your targets. That will help counteract the fact that you're a mediocre archer prior to level 10, and helps the entire party.

[SleepIncarnate]

In fact, a fighter 1/bladesinger wizard X can fo everything this build wants to do, and do it better and sooner. If the DM allows, they can be a variant human and start same as you did, with crossbow expert at level 1. If not, they get to be an elf and get +2 dex, putting them an ASI ahead of you. The first few levels, you're doing 1d6+3 twice per round while they're doing 1d10+4 once per round. At level 5, they get crossbow expert and swap over to hand crossbows same as you. They get an extra attack (bringing them up to three per round) same as you at level 6 via haste. At level 7, they pick up their own extra attack and are now doing 4 attacks per round. At level 12 (fighter 1/wizard 11), they pick up tenser's transformation and now use it to make 3 attacks per round that are 1d6 + 2d12 + 14) with advantage. They literally get almost everything you want sooner than you do.

Is that the ideal way to play the class? No, not at all. But it synergizes with what you want to do, and does it all sooner and better. They lose that 1d6 extra damage each turn, but they make up for it by getting more attacks sooner.

[PancakeMaster80]

Except they will always be inferior to other archers. You're playimg against your own strengths.

I was running some numbers on what rangers and fighters can do as archers, this build does quite well against them. Are you referring to some other caster archer?


If this build is not benefiting from a casting feature, then why are you playing a full caster rather than simply a fighter or ranger?

I said it doesn't benefit from that casting feature much. This build specifically takes utility spells and spells that can be used both in and out of combat. If this bard does decide to use a spell during combat, then gaining 1 attack isn't worth all that much, especially compared to the additional d6/ac boost it gets every other round it doesn't cast.


Such as what? This build is built upon the damage, and you just admitted that the build benefits nothing from the caster side. You'd be better mainly playing another class with maybe a dip into bard for jack of all trades.

It gains a bunch of utility and non-combat spells, constant flying that can be used to transport other party members, extra healing for the party if it's needed. I'll look at putting the full spell list at the end of the guide, but there is quite a bit this character does to help the party, especially out of combat.



The point wasn't that conjure valley was great, it was that a bard lacks anything to augment their damage without dipping into other classes or stealing offensive spells via magical secrets.

If I wanted a character that used that type of spell I'd build an evocation wizard, that's not the point of the build.


Every class has access to sharpshooter (unless playing in that rare game that doesn't allow feats). You get to augment two to three attacks, and then nothing. Rangers have access to lightning arrow. Fighters can make four attacks per round without worries of losing them to a failed constitution roll.

That's my point, sharpshooter adds the largest chunk of damage and is class agnostic, my bard isn't that behind other classes even to start with because SS isn't a class feature. Augmenting 2-3 attacks is actually quite a bit of damage. You're right that fighters don't have to worry about concentration, but they also don't get a powerful flying mount and an array of other spells, so I'm willing to take that trade off =P.


Magic initiate (sorcerer) as I said. It scales based on character level, not class level. So I'm doing 1D10 before 5, 2D10 5-10, 3D10 11-16, 4D10 at 17+

If we're talking at levels 17+ I'll need to spend some more time calculating this build's damage, but considering this build already does more damage than 4d10 at level 11, I think I prefer that method for what I'm trying to do.


Guaranteed damage with faerire fire. Burst damage with psychic blades. Charming enemies to fight for you. All options you're passing up to try to make a bard archer that is inferior to every other archer.

I've explained it before, the point of this is to make a bard archer. I'm not saying this is the best bard build, and I am fully aware that there are tons of other cool things bards can do, that just isn't the focus of this particular build.

[PancakeMaster80]

this is thread and SQ bards in general are an exercise in unintentionally proving that fetishizing your own damage numbers at the expense of all other functionality is a very poor way to play bards.

Glad you think my build does good damage, that was kinda the point =P. But honestly I don't care what the "correct" way to play bards is, the point of this build was to make a bard archer, and I want to do that the best way I can.


it's exactly like that other bladesinger thread where some guy was dead convinced you'd get a great build if you did sharpshooter hand crossbow bladesinger, because just look at these damage numbers, they're so high how could this possibly be a bad idea? except SQ bards are far more prominent in the popular imagination, though why this is the case is eternally unknown.

Sounds like a fun blade singer build, I'll be sure to take a look at it.


it's particularly hilarious in the case of an archery bard choosing college of swords. so desperately does the person want to pump up their raw personal damage numbers that they ignore any actual combat math or effectiveness outside of a vacuum environment to the point where they pick college of swords solely so they can use their inspiration on personal damage Blade Flourishes. i mean, at least a melee swords bard gets other really useful benefits from a Blade Flourish due to being in melee range; a ranged swords bard basically only gets value from the damage 95% of the time even when choosing Defensive Flourish.

This build actually wants to mix it up closer range so its mount can knock an enemy over for the advantage that grants the bard.


and then you waste a magical secret on a spell that does less DPR and has less utility than a bard spell with the same spell level, same action economy, and same concentration. and these are 5th level spell slots you're spending to do this, which is monumentally wasteful - a 5th level bard spell is often an encounter winning spell, and you choose to just shoot some things more with it instead. real useful. you could've stolen and cast any 5th level spell in the game - Destructive Wave, Conjure Elemental, upcast Conjure Animals, upcast Fly on 3 party members, Maelstrom, Wall of Stone, Circle of Power, WALL OF FORCE mein gott! you instead stole and cast.... Swift Quiver. welp.

Those are some cool spells, definitely ones I'd look at picking for other builds, thanks for bringing them to my attention =).


you want to maximize the damage output and effectiveness of your party, like a bard?

Not just any bard, a bow bard!


spend your inspirations on an ally with great weapon master or sharpshooter, because a bonus to attack rolls is precisely twice as valuable for a GWM/SS user towards DPR as a bonus to damage rolls is. I'm not pulling that "twice" out of thin air - if you look at the calculation for the AC threshold at which using the -5/+10 from GWM/SS become correct decisions, a bonus to attack contributes exactly twice as much as a bonus to damage - except it's EVEN BETTER because they can hold that inspiration if their attack was going to hit without it.

Also a great use of inspiration, I'll be sure to use it in a build that isn't this one.


in addition to being massively more combat-optimal as a decision, you'll gain a real life social bonus: your party will appreciate you a hell of a lot more for helping them than they will appreciate you for wasting all your inspirations to deal less damage than would've been done if you had helped them. and while you're at it, play valor instead of swords, because a valor bard's inspiration can also be used to boost AC against an enemy attack, potentially saving that party member's life or saving party resources that would've otherwise gone to keeping them safe.

I'll be sure to beg my friends for forgiveness every time I selfishly use flourish on myself, thanks for cluing me in.


and use your concentration on a spell that's actually useful.

I think damage is useful.


you want to seize the glory and maximize your personal damage output, like a fighter?

You found me out, I'm a no good glory hound.


play a fighter, not a bard.

Putting a fighter in a thread titled "Sword bard ranged build" would just be confusing, wouldn't want to do that to people.

[PancakeMaster80]

OP asked us to rate their build and help them build it.

I don't actually think I asked for either of those things, I'm glad folks are interested enough to spend time helping me refine the build, but comments along the lines of "don't do this build" really serve no purpose.


So let me take a different approach to OP. What do you gain from being a bard over another class to fit this "attack only" play style you have?

I gain a powerful combination of spells (greater steed and holy weapon or swift quiver) that cannot be achieved any other way. I also gain a host of utility/heal spells to help my part in and out of combat.


Flourishes? That 1d6 per turn is not going to do much. That's per turn, not per attack. Your average goblin or kobold has more health than that is contributing.

Yeah it's not a lot of damage, but IMO it's better than what valor provides (i.e. nothing until 14). If you wanted to pick valor the build would work about as well, the difference between the 2 is minimal.


Swift Quiver at level 10? Something none of us have brought up so far is that the arrows it gives you are non-magical. You'd be better off with two attacks per round using magical arrows than your four attacks that do half damage against foes with resistance to non-magical weapons. Which is roughly half of everything CR 11 and up. Roughly half our combats make this spell worthless. What do you do when you're in those combat situations? Fall back on your bard stuff? You've neglected your bardic side to augment your archer side.

Reading the SQ description, only the ammo it replaces whatever you shoot is non-magical, so if I shoot 4 +3 bolts using my SQ attack, it replaces those 4 +3 bolts with 4 normal bolts. However, lets say that it only allows mundane ammo to be fired, Holy weapon, another option I added to my guide has no such restriction, so if you're concerned about magic ammo, just take holy weapon instead. Also mundane ammo fired from a magic weapon counts as magic for the purpose of overcoming the damage resistance you mention.



Find Greater Steed? Great choice for a MS. But, is this seriously it?

Yup that's it, gives a ton of upside and doesn't cost concentration.



If all you want to do is be an amazing archer with bigger numbers, a kensei monk is better. Their damage scales with their levels up to 1d12 even if they're just using the humble sling (to really rub salt in the wounds of all the bard archers), plus they can add 1d4 to every attack that round (not just one), AND on one attack each turn, they can add 1d12 again. And then, if they miss one of their two attacks? They get to reroll it. Oh, and all of their attacks are magical. They have more ki than you do inspiration, and theirs recovers on a short rest as well.

How do you get a d12 with monk weapons? I scanned the monk class and didn't see any mentions of d12s. The extra 1d4 requires a bonus action, which is doing a lot more for this bard build. I can see some scenarios where a monk like this would be better, but overall I find the bard build to be superior.


A bard is, first and foremost, a support class. Your build acrively works against that to try and do something that other classes do better. So why bard?

Thanks for pointing out what you think the bard class is, but lets move forward assuming that I'm using the archer build as an archer.

[PancakeMaster80]

Not to say that swift quiver is a terrible spell, but it's being used here in a poor way. It's intended as a way for the ranger to basically have a fireball against enemies that aren't clustered together. Take the example of the party fighting an ancient dragon with about 20 kobold minions. The ranger can tell the others to focus on the dragon while he takes out the little guys. Most of them likely have low enough hit points that they can be taken down with a single arrow, even without the +10 from sharpshooter. As such, he cares more about the accuracy and just uses SQ to take out 3-4 per turn (more if one of the others cast haste one him). After a couple rounds of that, he turns to focus on the dragon, using hunter's mark to add 1d6 to each of his arrow attacks using his magical arrows for even more damage. His two arrows per round that way (or four with haste) does more damage than his four (or six) with SQ.

In this example sticking with sharpshooting 4 shots does way more damage than any combination of hunters mark attacks that I could find, and by the level when you're fighting ancient dragons -5 to hit is tiny compared to all your bonuses


Bards don't have anything like that, so SQ is just a bad choice for them. Especially trying to use the sharpshooter exchange on every attack.

This build gets a +11 to hit by level 11, plus reliable advantage from mount knock downs, That puts it on pace with other builds, especially after it gets 20 dex at level 13.


Even fighters are better, able to use something like the BM maneuver tripping strike (or whatever it's called) to run up and knock a foe prone and then unload all their crossbow bolts into them (as they also have crossbow expert and thus don't have disadvantage on close combat attacks). Since they knocked the foe prone, they now have advantage to unload into them, guaranteeing their -5 is worth it for the +10.

The bard's mount serves as the tripping strike, something I mentioned in my guide. I also looked at the damage of a BM fighter trying to do the same thing as this bard, it is much lower.


There are better classes for this build, and even as a bard archer, better spells to pick than SQ. Take haste instead of it and get something else at level 14 along with tenser's transformation. For what you want to do, TT is the superior spell, but you do miss out on some of the benefits of it. Namely, you already have the proficiencies and the extra attack, but the advantage and damage are good.

I put haste as one of the options to take at 10, personally I think it's the weakest of the 3. Whenever I make this character I'll probably take holy weapon over swift quiver. TT is really good and definitely what this build wants during the second round of magical secrets.


That said, cure wounds is a terrible spell pick for an archer. It's a touch range spell. You're unlikely to be close enough to anyone who needs healing to use it. You don't have any combat utility concentration spells until level 10 picked (invisibility drops as soon as you attack) so grab something like faerie fire to help your opportunity to hit your targets. That will help counteract the fact that you're a mediocre archer prior to level 10, and helps the entire party.

Cure wounds is good for out of combat healing as well, which is why I picked it. I do like the faerie fire suggestion, I'll look at replacing one of the less powerful spells with it, thanks!

[PancakeMaster80]

In fact, a fighter 1/bladesinger wizard X can fo everything this build wants to do, and do it better and sooner. If the DM allows, they can be a variant human and start same as you did, with crossbow expert at level 1. If not, they get to be an elf and get +2 dex, putting them an ASI ahead of you. The first few levels, you're doing 1d6+3 twice per round while they're doing 1d10+4 once per round. At level 5, they get crossbow expert and swap over to hand crossbows same as you. They get an extra attack (bringing them up to three per round) same as you at level 6 via haste. At level 7, they pick up their own extra attack and are now doing 4 attacks per round. At level 12 (fighter 1/wizard 11), they pick up tenser's transformation and now use it to make 3 attacks per round that are 1d6 + 2d12 + 14) with advantage. They literally get almost everything you want sooner than you do.

Is that the ideal way to play the class? No, not at all. But it synergizes with what you want to do, and does it all sooner and better. They lose that 1d6 extra damage each turn, but they make up for it by getting more attacks sooner.

I do like the TT blade singer, I actually built one as a boss for a campaign I ran, although mine used twin rapiers. You are right that the wizard/fighter gets TT faster, and that's great, but it's only a couple levels difference, and the actual damage output of the bard + their mount is higher than TT crossbow blade singer.

[SleepIncarnate]

Cure wounds is good for out of combat healing as well, which is why I picked it.

So is song of rest, and it doesn't use up your spell slots. Short rests are far better than a cure wounds will ever be.

[PancakeMaster80]

So is song of rest, and it doesn't use up your spell slots. Short rests are far better than a cure wounds will ever be.

Yeah, but I still like the flexibility that Cure wounds allows, and there aren't many level 1 spells I'm looking to pick up anyway. Pre 10 I'll be dropping featherfall for faerie fire

[unusualsuspect]

WARNING: I don't have a ton of experience with 5e (I've taken only a couple characters to the lvl 5-7 range, about a year's worth of play), so take my suggestions/statements/hyperbole with a Portable Hole's worth of salt, and please correct me where I'm wrong!

Hello again! Man, this thread went into the "you're playing bard the wrongbadfun way" territory something fierce. Hopefully you've got the message across that you're sticking with Bard, and they feel comfortable that they've gotten their message across.

You asked earlier about the proper AC to compare to, and that's not really an easy question to answer (the more ACs you compare it to, the better picture you get, but it increases the work exponentially...), but I think the best approach is to have high and low ac targets to compare (I like 10 and 20 personally, as they're even, nice, pretty reference points, and I'd imagine the vast majority of Monsters and foes are going to fall comfortably within that range). If you want to really enhance the information you're sharing, find the Sharpshooter calculator (I'd imagine google can help you here, I'm too lazy to do so myself, I'M NOT MADE OF TI- oh, yeah, I wrote an essay after this, I've no excuse) and add the ACs when you're expected to see negative returns for using it (generally a pretty high AC), with and without advantage if the calculator can do that (I mentioned I'm too lazy to look it up, right?).

I have three main points to make: Your Concentration Saves Suck, Why Haste is Better Than You Think, and The Mounted Combat Caveat.

1. Your Concentration Saves Suck.

Yours are pretty bad, bud. I mean, not as bad as the proposed "optimal" statline of going 16 dex 14 con 16 cha, but certainly not good by any stretch of the imagination. You don't have access to a Resilient (Constitution) or Warcaster either until waaay later, at least not without sacrificing an ASI or one of the feats that makes this build work at all (and with Sharpshooting being your main source of damage increase, at least until you get Holy Weapon or the like, even missing an ASI and its +1 to hit is going to hurt).

You've already got within your build the solution to the problem, since you plan to take Fighter 1 anyway. Giving up your Dexterity proficiency may somewhat mitigate the benefit of keeping The Spells That Let Your Build Work up when you see Fireballs and the like headed your way, but the maxing out of Dexterity should help quite a bit, and, well, see Section 2 (Advantage on Dex Saves is nice, and Haste gonna give it to ya!). Slowing down your feat and spell progression might hurt a bit, but having the Archery fighting style from the get-go is going to help a lot more than you might think.

And I really do think this is critical. Flying Mount and 2 to 3 long rests aside (IF you always use your flourishes on defensive flourish), you're not exactly swimming in AC, so even if you don't get caught in melee (more on this in Section 3), you're still quite vulnerable to being tagged and dropping your concentration early and often. When you're 10th level (or 11th, if you take my Fighter 1 suggestion) and you cast your QS or HW, you can only do that a few times a day... and if you get hit for ANY damage, you're failing your concentration save 1/3 of the time. More often than not, you'll have lost the spell's benefits after the second hit, even if you don't get hit for massive damage (at which point you're probably dropping it automatically).

Contrast that with the Fighter 1 variant, in which non-massive (<20) damage results in you failing the save a mere 10% of the time. In a white room where your enemies are HP bags with targets painted on them, your maximum DPR (you haven't been referring to your average DPR, and its probably best to keep those terms separate) works great. In the adventuring life when there can be half a dozen arrows, Fireballs, Lightning Bolts, and Magic Missiles flying at you like nobody's business, your concentration's fragility will probably come much more to the fore.

I seriously recommend giving this aspect a lot of thought. Your main focus of this build is "consistent ranged damage" according to the OP, and you are not consistent without your Awesomesauce spells online and in force.

It's worth noting that you become a bit more vulnerable to the Dex saves you may need to make as a result of mounted combat (mount falling prone, forced movement on the mount, etc.), but I think it's worth it overall.

2. Why Haste is Better Than You Think

There are a few subpoints to address here, so let's get to it.

A. Lower Level. Being able to use 3rd level slots for your Kicking Ass and Chewing Bubblegum (and I'm All Out of Bubblegum) spell means you can actually rely on having it practically every combat, and even recast it if need be without worrying (if the combat is still going on the turn after reality catches back up with you). This is in obvious contrast to QS and HW, which you'll be able to cast a maximum of 2 combats per day when you get it at 10th (or 11th with my variant) and not reliably all combat, every combat until the very high levels, a particularly worrisome prospect given Section A's conclusion that you can't even really rely on it for a given combat if you get the enemy's attention (and sharpshooting son-of-a-gun's like yourself are definitely going to do that, don't you reckon?).

B. Find Greater Steed Synergy. Both QS and HW are very potent effects, but neither provide even a modicum of benefit to the trusty ol' Peg or Griff you like to ride all day long. Haste, when shared with the Steed (and why wouldn't you?) gives your steed an undeniably potent boost.
i. Your mount's speed doubles. You were already pissing off your local monk by being as fast as him, and now it's time to blow him out of the water entirely.
ii. Your mount gains +2 AC. You're on a flying thing and sometimes shooting from range. Enemies don't tend to like that. Without the Mounted Combat feat, expect some attacks to go your mount's way when you're 30+ feet in the sky. Not getting hit helps a lot in keeping it and you up in the air, shooting things from range (which, again, enemies don't like... for good reason).
iii. Your mount gains advantage on dexterity saves. If you take away melee as an option, you're probably going to end up receiving your fair share of Dexterity saves in the process. You really, really want your mount to take half damage instead of the full damage. Drops from high up aren't fun.
iv. Your mount GAINS ANOTHER ACTION. Holy mother of Murgatroyd, why did I list that last!?! Because it's the best part of them all, obviously, and always leaves the best for last! If you're looking for pure DPR, consider the fact that a Hasted Peg or Griff can add another 2d6 +4 (average 11), which helps bridge the gap (or more) between Haste and its DPR rivals. Another attack is alternatively another chance to knock your target to Prone, which is your source of "reliable" advantage (more on that in Section 3). If neither of those are necessary, your mount could be much harder to hit (Dodge), can get in and out without provoking AoOs (Disengage), or make the Monk learn new depths of despair when you call him Mr. Turtle (Dash).

C. You get all that stuff too. +2 AC (harder to hit = less Concentration saves needed), Advantage on Dex saves (harder to explode = easier Concentration save needed), doubled speed (for those rare times your bard is tearing up a place where a Steed just wouldn't fit) and the all-important extra weapon attack that keeps Haste roughly on par with SQ and HW in the DPR department (except you have the option of trading that extra DPR for extra defense via Dodge, which is always nice). The only thing better than you or your Steed being on Magical Crack is having BOTH you and your Steed on Magical Crack. *snoooooort*

Haste obviously has some serious drawbacks (not unlike Tenser's Transformation, which I'd also be very leary about this Bard taking since Exhaustion is no joke - Even with the Fighter variant, you'd fail that Con save roughly 1/3 of the time). Losing a round is pretty brutal, and it'd affect your mount as well (y'know how dropping outta the air and hitting the ground isn't very fun? When you lose your Mount loses its haste, it loses the ability to move, and thus falls). That can mostly be mitigated by not staying up extremely high (you're fast enough that being 5' above the ground is enough), but losing a turn is brutal. The Advantage to Dex saves and +2 AC is going to help with that, and your insanely increased mobility will do so as well, but that's absolutely a drawback to keep in mind (Haste isn't all sunshine and roses and unicorn farts, just mostly).

Now's probably a good time to mention that your Bard Archer can make extremely good use of the Mounted Combat feat, particularly for the purposes of not having your Steed disintegrate under you.

3. The Mounted Combat Caveat.

As I've alluded to earlier, you're focusing on your Mount shoving enemies prone to give yourself the advantage needed to make Sharpshooter as awesome as it can be.

First, your mount has either one or two attacks (because you're a ranged son-of-a-sword, and flying mounts are so much better for that), at +6 to hit. Against a fairly low AC of 15, your mount hits roughly 60% of the time, and THEN must succeed on another ability check to actually knock the enemy down. That's almost certainly less than 50% of the time (for the Peg), and probably not much more than 60-70% of the time with the Griff... or with somewhat better success if you went with Haste (I'm sorry, I couldn't keep it in its section, IT'S SO AWESOME).

Speaking of that ability check to nkock prone, keep in mind that neither Griff nor Peg are proficient in Athletics, so you're rolling only +4 or +5 against the better of the target's Str or Dex (plus the target's proficiency in Athletics, if any). Not exactly a guarantee of success, though there might be other ways to mitigate that (A friendly warlock with Hex (Str) giving the enemy disadvantage will help a lot).

Second, let's look at the rules for Mounted Combat, specifically the subsection "Controlling a Mount":


While you’re mounted, you have two options. You can either control the mount or allow it to act independently. Intelligent creatures, such as dragons, act independently.

You can control a mount only if it has been trained to accept a rider. Domesticated horses, donkeys, and similar creatures are assumed to have such training. The initiative of a controlled mount changes to match yours when you mount it. It moves as you direct it, and it has only three action options: Dash, Disengage, and Dodge. A controlled mount can move and act even on the turn that you mount it.

An independent mount retains its place in the initiative order. Bearing a rider puts no restrictions on the actions the mount can take, and it moves and acts as it wishes. It might flee from combat, rush to attack and devour a badly injured foe, or otherwise act against your wishes.

In either case, if the mount provokes an opportunity attack while you’re on it, the attacker can target you or the mount.

You have two options with your Steed, and unfortunately, neither of them give you the control you need to have reliably knocked-prone targets as quickly as you'd want (i.e. turn 1).

If you choose the first option (possibly against RAW or RAI, since your Steed is no less than Int 6, and thus absolutely qualifies as an intelligent creature), the steed acts on your initiative and does as you direct... but is limited to the Dash, Disengage, and Dodge actions. What's missing? Alas, the Attack action, y'know, the one it needs to shove enemies prone. Dang.

If you choose the second option, it's not as bad as it would normally be, as the Steed follows your commands perfectly... but the fact that it rolls its own initiative is going to put a big cramp in being able to follow up your successfully-shoving Griffin with advantage on all attacks before the enemy's initiate comes and, well, the enemy stands up, pissed as one can get after being shoved by a damnable bird-headed cat and within 5 feet of you (because to get that advantage, you need to be within 5 feet, and your mount can't move away on its initiative without taking you with it). That ain't going to end well.

The enemy won't always be between the Horse's initiative and you, but that's a variable you simply aren't going to be able to control.

You can somewhat mitigate this by having the Horse ready an action ("Shove him if Master starts to attack"), but this still forces you to be within 5 feet of the enemy and remain there (which... really seems to negate most of the benefits of being on a flying, superfast mount as a ranged combatant, I've gotta say), and that can only occur Turn 1 if your Steed beats you in initiative (not likely, given your Steed's +0 or +2 and your own +6 or higher).

If you're looking for a truly reliable source of Advantage, make it an early quest to get a Ring of Spell Storing, and have your INTELLIGENT Steed (sorry, had to emphasize that, this isn't Find Familiar levels of Ring of Spell Storing cheese, thankyouverymuch) fire off Faerie Fires like a madman while you get your Haste/Swift Quiver/Holy Weapon on. You're happy, the Steed's attacking later on is happy, your party is happy, SleepingIncarnate's aneurysm is less severe because you're supporting your party, EVERYONE IS HAPPIER.

4. Miscellaneous

A few minor notes to consider:

If you're relying on Swift Quiver and Light/Heavy Crossbows, but also relying on your Hand Crossbow at times when Everything Is Awesome (spells up, target visible, advantage on all attacks, etc., etc.) doesn't apply, you're going to need either two magic weapons (expensive) or you're going to be sacrificing damage against normal-weapon-resistant-or-immune targets. It may be worth choosing one and keeping to it... and if you aren't going Swift Quiver, you WILL want the Hand Crossbow 24 hours, seven days a week and double that on Sunday (that doesn't make sense, but it should make sense, oddly).

If you've run the comparative numbers with other Martials on the ranged front and you haven't been factoring chance-to-hit into your DPR (and no offense, but you seem to have explicitly not been doing so), you're going to end up with artificially inflated Barcher (Bard Archer... not sure it works in a roll-off-the-tongue way that Sorcadin and the like do) DPR numbers that aren't reflective of actual play. It's probably not enough to make your archer horribly bad, or even less than an acceptable average, but it's something you should keep in mind in the process of developing this character. This is less of an issue if you go with the Fighter 1 variant I suggested (which, of course, has its own issues, mostly in delaying your access to those Bread & Butter magical secrets that make this build sing) or you're past the level in your own build where you pick up Fighter 1.

Fun fact: When you cast Cure Wounds on yourself, you can share that with the Steed too. Cure Wounds isn't the most efficient of healing spells, but an effectively twinned Cure Wounds (albeit limited to you and your Steed) is a lot better.

Another Fun Fact: Hexblade-wise, while you can't create any form of Crossbow using the Pact of the Blade, you CAN use your Hex Warrior ability to use Hand Crossbows using your Charisma, and if you find/create/steal/plunder a magic crossbow of any kind, you can transform that into a pact weapon (and thereby be able to use Charisma instead of Dexterity to attack). Not applicable to your current build since fitting in even Hexblade 1 is going to be yet another painful delay on getting those juicy, juicy Magical Secrets, but food for thought nonetheless.

Final Note (Added through Edit): If you're unconvinced that you want Haste, reconsider Holy Weapon over Swift Quiver. Even if YOU aren't casting Haste, someone else might (Your Steed through a Ring of Spell Storing and a friendly party member, the friendly party member herself, etc.), and Holy Weapon stacks with Haste better than Swift Quiver does (You'd need the comparative extra attack from Swift Quiver to be worth more than +2d8 on 4 attacks, which means your extra SQ attack needs to do an average of 36 or more damage to compete).

...Can you tell I'm exciting about this sort of build? I'm excited about this sort of build. I'm hoping I can help you work out any kinks.

[SleepIncarnate]

Reading the SQ description, only the ammo it replaces whatever you shoot is non-magical, so if I shoot 4 +3 bolts using my SQ attack, it replaces those 4 +3 bolts with 4 normal bolts. However, lets say that it only allows mundane ammo to be fired, Holy weapon, another option I added to my guide has no such restriction, so if you're concerned about magic ammo, just take holy weapon instead. Also mundane ammo fired from a magic weapon counts as magic for the purpose of overcoming the damage resistance you mention.

I take it you're using the SDR, as you seem to be missing a key point from SQ that is in the full text of the spell in the printed materials but is not part of the trimmed version for the SDR. Specifically the way that SQ gives you those bonus attacks. The arrows fly from the quiver into your hands (or in this case, nocked on your crossbow). You're not reaching in to grab them, the non-magical ones are nocking themselves. If your DM is generous, your two from your standard attack action can be magical, but the two bonus ones are non-magical, guaranteed.

Have fun doing reduced damage against half of your foes starting at level 10 when you pick it up. It may look like the best of your three options when done in a vacuum, but as the previous poster stated, in actual combat, that is not the case. I'd outright say it's the worst pick of the three.

[SleepIncarnate]

Hello again! Man, this thread went into the "you're playing bard the wrongbadfun way" territory something fierce.

It's less a matter of "you're playing bard wrong" and more "why bard?" Literally, the only thing OP wants from bard is magical secrets to get a flying mount 3 levels before a paladin would and to get the most overrated spell in the game. If someone made a thread saying "I want to play a wizard who doesn't cast spells" we would all wonder why. It's the same here. So many other classes do what OP wants to do better.

Let me post a quote from Vex over on my guide.


It's very hard to accidentally make a bad character in 5th edition. Multiclassing poorly is one of the only ways of doing so.

One of the other ways to do so is play against your strengths. Bards are some of the worst damage dealers in the game. What few spells we pick up that do have damage are more for their riders than their damage. Trying to make one into an amazing damage dealer at the expense of the strengths of the class makes for a worse character overall.

Bards are full casters. Playing a full caster who doesn't cast spells raises some eyebrows. This character is going to be worse than every member of their party for the first 9 levels, get a few extra attacks and a mount at 10, and then continue to be worse the rest of the game. The party will probably have some ire at this chatacter for being a bard who isn't a bard.

I'm not saying there's only one way to play a bard. I'd be a hypocrite if I said that, because I've been working on an entire guide discussing the versatility of the bard. Bards are so versatile though because of their skills and their spells. OP has made it clear they only care about two spells, FGS and SQ. Repeatedly made that clear. They also show in their build they don't really care about the skills side either by the fact that they took expertise in acrobatics both at 3 and at 10. And the original version of this guide proved even more that they only care about the first MS because after hitting 10, they started going down fighter for more than one level. There's so much playing against strengths here to be an inferior archer with a flying mount, that yes, this is for me the wizard who doesn't cast spells.

[unusualsuspect]

I take it you're using the SDR, as you seem to be missing a key point from SQ that is in the full text of the spell in the printed materials but is not part of the trimmed version for the SDR. Specifically the way that SQ gives you those bonus attacks. The arrows fly from the quiver into your hands (or in this case, nocked on your crossbow). You're not reaching in to grab them, the non-magical ones are nocking themselves. If your DM is generous, your two from your standard attack action can be magical, but the two bonus ones are non-magical, guaranteed.

Have fun doing reduced damage against half of your foes starting at level 10 when you pick it up. It may look like the best of your three options when done in a vacuum, but as the previous poster stated, in actual combat, that is not the case. I'd outright say it's the worst pick of the three.

Hmm. Did you actually read the spell in the PHB?


...Each time you make such a range attack, your quiver magically replaces the piece of ammunition you used with a similar piece of non-magical ammunition.

Not the verb usage. You use ammunition normally from your quiver (be it magical or non-magical). The ammunition you used (i.e. already spent), which by RAW can be magical OR non-magical ammo, is then replaced by non-magical ammunition (which disappears after the spell ends).

At best, the language is ambiguous if you presume ammunition is "used" before it is fired. That's a stretch, bud.

[unusualsuspect]

It's less a matter of "you're playing bard wrong" and more "why bard?" Literally, the only thing OP wants from bard is magical secrets to get a flying mount 3 levels before a paladin would and to get the most overrated spell in the game. If someone made a thread saying "I want to play a wizard who doesn't cast spells" we would all wonder why. It's the same here. So many other classes do what OP wants to do better.

It is definitely "you're playing bard wrong" from my reading. I'd recommend looking again at what you and Vexatious have actually written.

Also, have you re-read the OP? He mentions 3 spell possibilities.

And again, this is basically besides the point. Stop thinking of this thread as a question of "how could I make the most optimal archer" and more "how can i make the best archer using a majority bard chassis." That it isn't optimal in your view is pretty much irrelevant to the goal of the thread. It's good to evaluate his spell choices, so discussing the strengths and weaknesses of his MS choices is well within the thread's purview, but at this point you seem to have gotten extremely repetitive. If your point hasn't been made yet, it won't be.


Bards are some of the worst damage dealers in the game. What few spells we pick up that do have damage are more for their riders than their damage. Trying to make one into an amazing damage dealer at the expense of the strengths of the class makes for a worse character overall.

That's nice. OP wants to make an archer bard. You aren't convincing him otherwise. If you want to help optimize within a non-optimized framework, continue constructive criticism and drop the "You're playing bards wrong" rhetoric.


Bards are full casters. Playing a full caster who doesn't cast spells raises some eyebrows. This character is going to be worse than every member of their party for the first 9 levels, get a few extra attacks and a mount at 10, and then continue to be worse the rest of the game. The party will probably have some ire at this chatacter for being a bard who isn't a bard.

He's still a bard. He still has most of his spell slots available for all the rest of his spells, which will be very useful in the role of party face. He's not making full use of his spell list, but that isn't his intent.


I'm not saying there's only one way to play a bard. I'd be a hypocrite if I said that, because I've been working on an entire guide discussing the versatility of the bard. Bards are so versatile though because of their skills and their spells.

That's nice. You are saying there is a wrong way to play a bard, though (because you've made it clear that the way OP wants to play his bard is wrong, even if you don't want to acknowledge that's what you're saying).


OP has made it clear they only care about two spells, FGS and SQ. Repeatedly made that clear.

They do?


I gain a powerful combination of spells (greater steed and holy weapon or swift quiver) that cannot be achieved any other way. I also gain a host of utility/heal spells to help my part in and out of combat.


That's not a particularly forgiving interpretation of what OP has made clear, IMO.


They also show in their build they don't really care about the skills side either by the fact that they took expertise in acrobatics both at 3 and at 10.

Nice catch! That's helpful to the OP's goal. Telling OP not to play bards wrong isn't, though.


And the original version of this guide proved even more that they only care about the first MS because after hitting 10, they started going down fighter for more than one level.

Multiclassing for more than 1 level is also playing bard wrong, then? So many interesting rules you have for playing bards right.


There's so much playing against strengths here to be an inferior archer with a flying mount, that yes, this is for me the wizard who doesn't cast spells.

This bard does cast spells. In Combat, the bard tend to cast spells that boost his archery to acceptable levels (inferior to maximally optimal is not necessarily unacceptable). Out of combat, the bard uses the rest of his spell list to be a social monster. He's not using his support spells in combat, which isn't as nice for the rest of the party, but he still falls within the realm of "reasonably usable character" as a Jack of All Trades, Master of None. Seems appropriate to me, but, well, to each their own.

[unusualsuspect]

To sum up:

Assuming you can't convince OP that a bard archer is a bad idea (seems really unlikely), and assuming you've made that point sufficiently clear in the last 2 pages of comments (If you haven't in that many walls of text, you might rethink your writing approach), what point is there in continuing your comments that bard archers are, like, the worst?

Really, what's the point? All your potential audiences are either convinced (because you made your salient points within the last 2 pages of walls o' text) or are essentially unconvincable (OP and I are pretty clearly convinced that this build is Good Enough For Government Work, even if we might disagree on how optimal the build is damage-wise).

At this point, any contribution except optimizing within the framework of OP's goals (bard chassis archer) seems meaningless and distracting to the goal of the thread.

Despite your expertise (and you CLEARLY have expertise in the bard chassis, even if you hadn't written the guide), if contributing towards OP's goal is too distasteful to you because OP is building a bard wrong, why stay in this thread?

[PancakeMaster80]

To sum up:

Assuming you can't convince OP that a bard archer is a bad idea (seems really unlikely), and assuming you've made that point sufficiently clear in the last 2 pages of comments (If you haven't in that many walls of text, you might rethink your writing approach), what point is there in continuing your comments that bard archers are, like, the worst?

Really, what's the point? All your potential audiences are either convinced (because you made your salient points within the last 2 pages of walls o' text) or are essentially unconvincable (OP and I are pretty clearly convinced that this build is Good Enough For Government Work, even if we might disagree on how optimal the build is damage-wise).

At this point, any contribution except optimizing within the framework of OP's goals (bard chassis archer) seems meaningless and distracting to the goal of the thread.

Despite your expertise (and you CLEARLY have expertise in the bard chassis, even if you hadn't written the guide), if contributing towards OP's goal is too distasteful to you because OP is building a bard wrong, why stay in this thread?

Thanks so much for that massive amount of feedback you gave in your first post! You raise a lot of salient points that are making me reconsider things about this build, it'll take some time but I'll respond to all of what you said, so be patient.

Also thanks for explaining what is useful feedback vs non-useful, I tried myself but I know it's easy to be misunderstood via text.

[unusualsuspect]

Looking forward to it, OP! Take your time, and remember, don't skimp on the salt!...

[PancakeMaster80]

WARNING: I don't have a ton of experience with 5e (I've taken only a couple characters to the lvl 5-7 range, about a year's worth of play), so take my suggestions/statements/hyperbole with a Portable Hole's worth of salt, and please correct me where I'm wrong!

Hello again! Man, this thread went into the "you're playing bard the wrongbadfun way" territory something fierce. Hopefully you've got the message across that you're sticking with Bard, and they feel comfortable that they've gotten their message across.

Yeah it's been a bit of a bummer, but most folks have been pretty nice about the whole thing.


You asked earlier about the proper AC to compare to, and that's not really an easy question to answer (the more ACs you compare it to, the better picture you get, but it increases the work exponentially...), but I think the best approach is to have high and low ac targets to compare (I like 10 and 20 personally, as they're even, nice, pretty reference points, and I'd imagine the vast majority of Monsters and foes are going to fall comfortably within that range). If you want to really enhance the information you're sharing, find the Sharpshooter calculator (I'd imagine google can help you here, I'm too lazy to do so myself, I'M NOT MADE OF TI- oh, yeah, I wrote an essay after this, I've no excuse) and add the ACs when you're expected to see negative returns for using it (generally a pretty high AC), with and without advantage if the calculator can do that (I mentioned I'm too lazy to look it up, right?).

I keep meaning to find a calculator and do the math =P.


1. Your Concentration Saves Suck.

Yours are pretty bad, bud. I mean, not as bad as the proposed "optimal" statline of going 16 dex 14 con 16 cha, but certainly not good by any stretch of the imagination. You don't have access to a Resilient (Constitution) or Warcaster either until waaay later, at least not without sacrificing an ASI or one of the feats that makes this build work at all (and with Sharpshooting being your main source of damage increase, at least until you get Holy Weapon or the like, even missing an ASI and its +1 to hit is going to hurt).

You've already got within your build the solution to the problem, since you plan to take Fighter 1 anyway. Giving up your Dexterity proficiency may somewhat mitigate the benefit of keeping The Spells That Let Your Build Work up when you see Fireballs and the like headed your way, but the maxing out of Dexterity should help quite a bit, and, well, see Section 2 (Advantage on Dex Saves is nice, and Haste gonna give it to ya!). Slowing down your feat and spell progression might hurt a bit, but having the Archery fighting style from the get-go is going to help a lot more than you might think.

And I really do think this is critical. Flying Mount and 2 to 3 long rests aside (IF you always use your flourishes on defensive flourish), you're not exactly swimming in AC, so even if you don't get caught in melee (more on this in Section 3), you're still quite vulnerable to being tagged and dropping your concentration early and often. When you're 10th level (or 11th, if you take my Fighter 1 suggestion) and you cast your QS or HW, you can only do that a few times a day... and if you get hit for ANY damage, you're failing your concentration save 1/3 of the time. More often than not, you'll have lost the spell's benefits after the second hit, even if you don't get hit for massive damage (at which point you're probably dropping it automatically).

Contrast that with the Fighter 1 variant, in which non-massive (<20) damage results in you failing the save a mere 10% of the time. In a white room where your enemies are HP bags with targets painted on them, your maximum DPR (you haven't been referring to your average DPR, and its probably best to keep those terms separate) works great. In the adventuring life when there can be half a dozen arrows, Fireballs, Lightning Bolts, and Magic Missiles flying at you like nobody's business, your concentration's fragility will probably come much more to the fore.

I seriously recommend giving this aspect a lot of thought. Your main focus of this build is "consistent ranged damage" according to the OP, and you are not consistent without your Awesomesauce spells online and in force.

It's worth noting that you become a bit more vulnerable to the Dex saves you may need to make as a result of mounted combat (mount falling prone, forced movement on the mount, etc.), but I think it's worth it overall.

That's definitely a point that I probably haven't been giving enough weight. When I first conceived this build it was starting at level 11 and took fighter at level 1 as you suggest, I changed it in this build since I put a faster level 10 power spike over the advantages fighter gave, but you've convinced me I was wrong to do so, I'll update the guide once I've worked out all the small changes this causes.


2. Why Haste is Better Than You Think

There are a few subpoints to address here, so let's get to it.

A. Lower Level. Being able to use 3rd level slots for your Kicking Ass and Chewing Bubblegum (and I'm All Out of Bubblegum) spell means you can actually rely on having it practically every combat, and even recast it if need be without worrying (if the combat is still going on the turn after reality catches back up with you). This is in obvious contrast to QS and HW, which you'll be able to cast a maximum of 2 combats per day when you get it at 10th (or 11th with my variant) and not reliably all combat, every combat until the very high levels, a particularly worrisome prospect given Section A's conclusion that you can't even really rely on it for a given combat if you get the enemy's attention (and sharpshooting son-of-a-gun's like yourself are definitely going to do that, don't you reckon?).

B. Find Greater Steed Synergy. Both QS and HW are very potent effects, but neither provide even a modicum of benefit to the trusty ol' Peg or Griff you like to ride all day long. Haste, when shared with the Steed (and why wouldn't you?) gives your steed an undeniably potent boost.
i. Your mount's speed doubles. You were already pissing off your local monk by being as fast as him, and now it's time to blow him out of the water entirely.
ii. Your mount gains +2 AC. You're on a flying thing and sometimes shooting from range. Enemies don't tend to like that. Without the Mounted Combat feat, expect some attacks to go your mount's way when you're 30+ feet in the sky. Not getting hit helps a lot in keeping it and you up in the air, shooting things from range (which, again, enemies don't like... for good reason).
iii. Your mount gains advantage on dexterity saves. If you take away melee as an option, you're probably going to end up receiving your fair share of Dexterity saves in the process. You really, really want your mount to take half damage instead of the full damage. Drops from high up aren't fun.
iv. Your mount GAINS ANOTHER ACTION. Holy mother of Murgatroyd, why did I list that last!?! Because it's the best part of them all, obviously, and always leaves the best for last! If you're looking for pure DPR, consider the fact that a Hasted Peg or Griff can add another 2d6 +4 (average 11), which helps bridge the gap (or more) between Haste and its DPR rivals. Another attack is alternatively another chance to knock your target to Prone, which is your source of "reliable" advantage (more on that in Section 3). If neither of those are necessary, your mount could be much harder to hit (Dodge), can get in and out without provoking AoOs (Disengage), or make the Monk learn new depths of despair when you call him Mr. Turtle (Dash).

C. You get all that stuff too. +2 AC (harder to hit = less Concentration saves needed), Advantage on Dex saves (harder to explode = easier Concentration save needed), doubled speed (for those rare times your bard is tearing up a place where a Steed just wouldn't fit) and the all-important extra weapon attack that keeps Haste roughly on par with SQ and HW in the DPR department (except you have the option of trading that extra DPR for extra defense via Dodge, which is always nice). The only thing better than you or your Steed being on Magical Crack is having BOTH you and your Steed on Magical Crack. *snoooooort*

Haste obviously has some serious drawbacks (not unlike Tenser's Transformation, which I'd also be very leary about this Bard taking since Exhaustion is no joke - Even with the Fighter variant, you'd fail that Con save roughly 1/3 of the time). Losing a round is pretty brutal, and it'd affect your mount as well (y'know how dropping outta the air and hitting the ground isn't very fun? When you lose your Mount loses its haste, it loses the ability to move, and thus falls). That can mostly be mitigated by not staying up extremely high (you're fast enough that being 5' above the ground is enough), but losing a turn is brutal. The Advantage to Dex saves and +2 AC is going to help with that, and your insanely increased mobility will do so as well, but that's absolutely a drawback to keep in mind (Haste isn't all sunshine and roses and unicorn farts, just mostly).

Now's probably a good time to mention that your Bard Archer can make extremely good use of the Mounted Combat feat, particularly for the purposes of not having your Steed disintegrate under you.

You do raise a lot of good points in haste's favor, and it does wind up with the highest average damage per round (those are the numbers I use in the guide, hopefully I labeled them all correctly) including the mount's damage. I'm still not sure if I'm 100% convinced it's better than holy weapon (1 hour duration and a huge damage increase even without sharpshooter is really nice), but you've certainly made me think a lot more about haste than I was.

Yeah I really wanted the mounted combat feat, but I'm so short on ASI T_T


3. The Mounted Combat Caveat.

As I've alluded to earlier, you're focusing on your Mount shoving enemies prone to give yourself the advantage needed to make Sharpshooter as awesome as it can be.

First, your mount has either one or two attacks (because you're a ranged son-of-a-sword, and flying mounts are so much better for that), at +6 to hit. Against a fairly low AC of 15, your mount hits roughly 60% of the time, and THEN must succeed on another ability check to actually knock the enemy down. That's almost certainly less than 50% of the time (for the Peg), and probably not much more than 60-70% of the time with the Griff... or with somewhat better success if you went with Haste (I'm sorry, I couldn't keep it in its section, IT'S SO AWESOME).

Speaking of that ability check to nkock prone, keep in mind that neither Griff nor Peg are proficient in Athletics, so you're rolling only +4 or +5 against the better of the target's Str or Dex (plus the target's proficiency in Athletics, if any). Not exactly a guarantee of success, though there might be other ways to mitigate that (A friendly warlock with Hex (Str) giving the enemy disadvantage will help a lot).

Second, let's look at the rules for Mounted Combat, specifically the subsection "Controlling a Mount":

You have two options with your Steed, and unfortunately, neither of them give you the control you need to have reliably knocked-prone targets as quickly as you'd want (i.e. turn 1).

If you choose the first option (possibly against RAW or RAI, since your Steed is no less than Int 6, and thus absolutely qualifies as an intelligent creature), the steed acts on your initiative and does as you direct... but is limited to the Dash, Disengage, and Dodge actions. What's missing? Alas, the Attack action, y'know, the one it needs to shove enemies prone. Dang.

If you choose the second option, it's not as bad as it would normally be, as the Steed follows your commands perfectly... but the fact that it rolls its own initiative is going to put a big cramp in being able to follow up your successfully-shoving Griffin with advantage on all attacks before the enemy's initiate comes and, well, the enemy stands up, pissed as one can get after being shoved by a damnable bird-headed cat and within 5 feet of you (because to get that advantage, you need to be within 5 feet, and your mount can't move away on its initiative without taking you with it). That ain't going to end well.

The enemy won't always be between the Horse's initiative and you, but that's a variable you simply aren't going to be able to control.

You can somewhat mitigate this by having the Horse ready an action ("Shove him if Master starts to attack"), but this still forces you to be within 5 feet of the enemy and remain there (which... really seems to negate most of the benefits of being on a flying, superfast mount as a ranged combatant, I've gotta say), and that can only occur Turn 1 if your Steed beats you in initiative (not likely, given your Steed's +0 or +2 and your own +6 or higher).

If you're looking for a truly reliable source of Advantage, make it an early quest to get a Ring of Spell Storing, and have your INTELLIGENT Steed (sorry, had to emphasize that, this isn't Find Familiar levels of Ring of Spell Storing cheese, thankyouverymuch) fire off Faerie Fires like a madman while you get your Haste/Swift Quiver/Holy Weapon on. You're happy, the Steed's attacking later on is happy, your party is happy, SleepingIncarnate's aneurysm is less severe because you're supporting your party, EVERYONE IS HAPPIER.

This build has had me digging around the mount rules, as so many discussions I've seen about them seem to end with one big ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

I specifically left magical items out of this guide since it's so campaign reliant on what items are available, but if I could add some a ring I definitely would (does faerie fire from the ring need concentration)



If you're relying on Swift Quiver and Light/Heavy Crossbows, but also relying on your Hand Crossbow at times when Everything Is Awesome (spells up, target visible, advantage on all attacks, etc., etc.) doesn't apply, you're going to need either two magic weapons (expensive) or you're going to be sacrificing damage against normal-weapon-resistant-or-immune targets. It may be worth choosing one and keeping to it... and if you aren't going Swift Quiver, you WILL want the Hand Crossbow 24 hours, seven days a week and double that on Sunday (that doesn't make sense, but it should make sense, oddly).

Yeah the more I've read about the spell options the less I'm interested in SQ, so my bard would probably only use a hand crossbow or a longbow if extreme range is needed.


If you've run the comparative numbers with other Martials on the ranged front and you haven't been factoring chance-to-hit into your DPR (and no offense, but you seem to have explicitly not been doing so), you're going to end up with artificially inflated Barcher (Bard Archer... not sure it works in a roll-off-the-tongue way that Sorcadin and the like do) DPR numbers that aren't reflective of actual play. It's probably not enough to make your archer horribly bad, or even less than an acceptable average, but it's something you should keep in mind in the process of developing this character. This is less of an issue if you go with the Fighter 1 variant I suggested (which, of course, has its own issues, mostly in delaying your access to those Bread & Butter magical secrets that make this build sing) or you're past the level in your own build where you pick up Fighter 1.

I have been leaving off chance to hit for the moment, I agree that taking it into account is important, but given the usual low AC of most monsters the still pretty good accuracy of the bardcher was good enough, but you could be right that doing so was a mistake, as I say earlier in this response I have been swayed to take level 1 fighter to help make up for this problem.


Fun fact: When you cast Cure Wounds on yourself, you can share that with the Steed too. Cure Wounds isn't the most efficient of healing spells, but an effectively twinned Cure Wounds (albeit limited to you and your Steed) is a lot better.

That is true, if only I had a familiar to let me cast it on other people from way up high!


Another Fun Fact: Hexblade-wise, while you can't create any form of Crossbow using the Pact of the Blade, you CAN use your Hex Warrior ability to use Hand Crossbows using your Charisma, and if you find/create/steal/plunder a magic crossbow of any kind, you can transform that into a pact weapon (and thereby be able to use Charisma instead of Dexterity to attack). Not applicable to your current build since fitting in even Hexblade 1 is going to be yet another painful delay on getting those juicy, juicy Magical Secrets, but food for thought nonetheless.

Yeah I looked at Hexblade, and while it's cool this build is just too strapped for levels to dip that much into something for relatively little benefit. Dex is one of the best stats anyway so I don't mind maxing it out =P.


Final Note (Added through Edit): If you're unconvinced that you want Haste, reconsider Holy Weapon over Swift Quiver. Even if YOU aren't casting Haste, someone else might (Your Steed through a Ring of Spell Storing and a friendly party member, the friendly party member herself, etc.), and Holy Weapon stacks with Haste better than Swift Quiver does (You'd need the comparative extra attack from Swift Quiver to be worth more than +2d8 on 4 attacks, which means your extra SQ attack needs to do an average of 36 or more damage to compete).

Yeah sadly I think swift quiver just isn't good enough (sorry rangers, I tried)


...Can you tell I'm exciting about this sort of build? I'm excited about this sort of build. I'm hoping I can help you work out any kinks.

I'm glad you are! This is definitely the most fun I've had making a build, and I'm glad folks are interested enough to give well thought out feedback like yours =).

[SleepIncarnate]

I'm not saying a bard archer is wrong. A bard archer can be powerful, as I pointed out in my first post about swords vs valor. However, a bard archer will never be able to compete with a full martial class archer, or even a ranger archer. Accepting that instead of trying to compensate for it, and playing to his strengths as a bard can make him a great bard archer.

The problem is, OP isn't trying to be a bard archer. He's trying to be a fighter with a flying pony. Look again at his spell selection. None of that helps with being a face. Neither does his 14 charisma that he never raises. In fact, I pointed out that he had no combat use spells aside from his heals until he picked up SQ at level 10. All of his spells were either circumstantial (feather fall) or utility rituals (detect magic, identify, leomund's tiny hut). He's said himself several times that this build doesn't cast spells in combat (aside from the initial cast of SQ), and is just attack, attack, attack.

Instead of trying to compete with the archer fighter, I've suggested taking the bard archer as a bard archer. Play to those strengths. So you cap out at two attacks per round? Fine, make sure those two attacks hit, and hit harder. Faerie fire is superior to SQ, because that -5 from SS is negated completely, allowing you to guarantee two hits that hit hard, rather than expecting all four shots to hit and losing out on damage because of misses.

A bard manipulates the battlefield. An opponent is coming at you and getting into range for melee, where you're weaker? Cast Dissonant Whispers (one of the best first level spells in the game). There's a ton of guys? Cast sleep or hypnotic pattern so you and your allies can take them out one at a time. And now that you're casting more than once per combat, that level 14 ability from valor bard becomes a lot more useful. Furthermore, because you get proficiency with all weapons from valor, you no longer need that fighter dip to go to a heavy crossbow.

There are so many better options this OP could take to make a bard archer. As you pointed out, they're looking at potential maximum damage which will rarely happen with the build as it is. Making those tweaks and accepting that you're a bard archer and not a fighter with a magic pony enables the OP to counter their inability to be as accurate as the fighter (advantage means even fewer misses than a +2 accuracy), as well as their inability to make as many attacks (via haste or HW or some other option far better than SQ).

If anything, this isn't bard archer hate, it's the meme SQ archer hate. You said it yourself, SQ is bad. As for the wording, I'm AFB for a few hours, but when I get home, I can do the full text to explain why it is so easy to interpret that the ammo used is the non-magical created ammo.

[PancakeMaster80]

Looking forward to it, OP! Take your time, and remember, don't skimp on the salt!...

The build has been updated, also spent more time explaining the strengths and weaknesses of various spell options.

[SleepIncarnate]

The revamped version looks better with spell selections. I still say a valor bard would be better, and when I get home in a few hours, I can make a comparable build with valor that does better than this one. I'll explain every decision and why they become better.

One thing to note though, at bard 10/14, you don't get two spells from the bard list plus your magical secrets. You get two spells, period, from any list. The magical secrets spells count as your spells known.

Another thing to note. If your party has a wizard, you don't need identify at all, and probably don't need detect magic either. If your party lacks a wizard, you're better off getting the ritual caster feat at 4, with the spells identify and find familiar. The familiar also lets you give advantage to someone (including yourself) even when not using faerie fire.

Last thing, I didn't see any cantrip picks after the initial two. You get another at bard 4 and a fourth at bard 10. That said, for cantrips, dancing lights is better for you than light. Light is touch range only. Without a familiar, using it basically lights you up to your foes, removing any disadvantage they may have to hit you from range without losing the disadvantage you have.

The downside is, it requires concentration. I'd forgo a light type cantrip for minor illusion. It doesn't require concentration, and can be used to create an illusion of something fitting the environment (a rock, a crate, whatever) that takes place in the space you're in. Boom, you're now hidden, avoiding being attacked and giving yourself advantage on all your attacks until something figures out that the rock/crate/whatever is the source of the arrows.

[SleepIncarnate]

Alright, home now and have access to my book. Let me first address the swift quiver issue. The following is a direct copy/paste from a PDF copy of the PHB, unaltered.


You transmute your quiver so it produces an endless supply of nonmagical ammunition, which seems to leap into your hand when you reach for it.

On each of your turns until the spell ends, you can use a bonus action to make two attacks with a weapon that uses ammunition from the quiver. Each time you make such a ranged attack, your quiver magically replaces the piece of ammunition you used with a similar piece of nonmagical ammunition. Any pieces of ammunition created by this spell disintegrate when the spell ends. If the quiver leaves your possession, the spell ends.

Now yes, you are just focusing on the second paragraph for the extra attacks. Allow me to highlight the pertinent bits.


You transmute your quiver so it produces an endless supply of nonmagical ammunition, which seems to leap into your hand when you reach for it.

On each of your turns until the spell ends, you can use a bonus action to make two attacks with a weapon that uses ammunition from the quiver. Each time you make such a ranged attack, your quiver magically replaces the piece of ammunition you used with a similar piece of nonmagical ammunition. Any pieces of ammunition created by this spell disintegrate when the spell ends. If the quiver leaves your possession, the spell ends.

Now, let's break this down. First, if you just have a mostly empty quiver (such as all but one of your arrows are broken or got washed downstream when you fell in or whatever), this gives you an infinite supply of ammo when using the spell. It just uses a quiver so long as there's a single arrow in it.

That said, the reason you can make the extra two attacks per round is because the ammo "leaps into your hands" when you reach for it. This is important, because it's the nonmagical arrows that do the leaping. Your first arrow fired may be the one that was initially in there, but every other one after would be the nonmagical ones. But if you already had a full quiver to begin with, that gets a bit more tricky, and relies on DM interpretation.

Much like whether spells like suggestion, phantasmal force, etc. are either super powerful or super useless depending on how your DM handles things like illusions or what not, this is one where your DM interpretation is an issue. That said, the reason you get the two extra attacks is because the arrows leap to your hand, so the most liberal interpretation (keeping with the full description of the spell and not cutting out that first sentence like you did) is that the arrows used in your regular attacks can be any arrow in your quiver you choose to fire, but the two from the bonus action attacks are nonmagical. A stricter DM interpretation of this spell (of which I fall under) is that your first arrow is whichever one you grab from the quiver, but every time after that while the spell is in effect, one of the nonmagical arrows leaps into your hand when you reach for the quiver. As such, all but possibly the first arrow are normal, nonmagical, non-silver arrows.

That first sentence, the bit about the arrows leaping to your hand, is a huge changer on how useful this spell is. It has its uses, but it is VASTLY overrated when it's just automatically assumed that it just lets you make two extra attacks. There are reasons I have been hitting so hard on not taking this spell. It is an absolute waste of a magical secret.

[Oren]

Sorry SleepIncarnate but your reading of Swift Quiver is just wrong.

For one thing you're failing to make the distinction between flavor text and rules text. That first paragraph is clearly flavor text. It even says the arrows "seems to leap into your hand whenever you reach for it," which implies it isn't actually leaping. Like most flavor text, it is written to sound neat rather than give specific instructions.

The actual rules text simply says you can make two extra attacks with a weapon that "uses ammunition from the quiver." There's nothing in there saying it has to be non magical ammo, so if you put your magic ammo in the quiver to start with you can use that and you're fine. It's impossible to say for sure how individual GMs will rule a spell, but this one is actually pretty cut and dry as far as D&D spell issues go.

[SleepIncarnate]

And now, to building a better bard archer. The most recent update to the build is a huge improvement over the previous versions, but you can still do better. As such, let me pose an alternative build, using a similar format to what you've used.

Before the build though, there are a few things that we need to keep in mind. I'll call them assumptions. In actuality, they're rules, but there's a couple that people may disagree with, so we'll call them assumptions. There's six in total, and the first three are straight up math, the latter three are the ones where arguments can be made of opinion.


Assumption #1 - More attacks =/= more damage - First one in, and there's already controversy. But let me be more specific. More attacks can mean more damage, but it does not mean more damage. If we're being even more specific about it, what it really means is more attacks = more opportunities to do damage. This is an important distinction to make, because it also means more attacks = more opportunities to miss and not do damage. This assumption is why things like the crossbow expert or swift quiver bonus action attacks are not always better. It's also something that's a bit counter-intuitive, and so most people just assume more attacks means more damage, which is why those kinds of builds are so popular.
Assumption #2 - Accuracy > Damage - This one is actually pretty easy to get, but is also one a lot of people struggle with. The reason that GWM and SS builds are so popular is that you trade a -5 to your to hit roll for a +10 to the damage. That's twice as much, right? No. While you may do more damage when you hit, you hit less. Sometimes, this trade off is absolutely worth it, but not always. If you can't hit your target, you're not doing that bonus damage. To help figure out when you should or shouldn't use that trade off, here's (https://thinkdm.wordpress.com/2018/03/17/how-strong-is-sharpshooter/) a great link from ThinkDM where there are charts showing when it is better to make a regular shot or better to make a sharpshooter shot. Note, they even make distinctions on short range without the SS feat (also works as any range with SS feat), long range without the SS feat, and advantage without using the SS feat, as well as sharpshooter (-5/+10 all ranges) with and without advantage. You can pop your character info in there and see when it is and isn't best to use it. That said, one thing they do say is, if you have advantage, always use it. Which makes the assumption more one of Advantage > Accuracy > Damage because advantage is going to do far more for your chances to hit than a simple +2 or -5 can allow for. It also increases your chances for a crit, which also increases damage.
Assumption #3 - More Damage =/= Always Better - And back to controversial. TreantMonk has a good video discussing this whole assumption, which can be found here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7xoRXHqdp8), but the short of it is this. Think of a situation where an enemy only has 10 hit points left. You use your heavy crossbow with tenser's transformation to attack it, doing 1d10 + 15 piercing plus 2d12 force damage. You roll a 7 on the d10 and a 6 and a 9 on the d12s. Are you doing 37 damage (22 piercing, 15 force) to it? No, you're only doing 10 points of damage. It boils down to reliability, going again with the previous two assumptions. We've all heard stories of the times when a bard kills someone with a vicious mockery and its pitiful damage. But this assumption is also important because this is a bard archer. Which leads to...
Assumption #4 - Versatility is both the bard's greatest strength and their greatest weakness - This ties in to the whole stereotype of the jack of all trades, master of none that bards have. Basically, bards are never the worst in any role, but likewise, they will never be the best. No matter how hard a bard tries (and your first build was trying very hard), a bard will never be able to out damage a fighter. The fighter is hyper focused at hitting things and making them fall down. They may not always be the best at this (see assumption #1), but it is their main bag. The bard, even a martial bard from swords/valor, will never be able to compete with that. Likewise, a bard will never be able to compete with the sheer amount of spells available to the preparation classes.
Assumption #5 - Trying to beat other classes at their own game makes the bard worse - What I mean by this is, rather than playing into their strengths, a bard who tries to hyperfocus on just one aspect is a worse bard for it. This is the problem your original build had going for it. It was trying to be a fighter with a flying mount, but it could never stand up to the fighter, and you also neglected the bard side of your character. That said, the bard is not worse than those classes. The bard can beat those classes on the bard's terms. What do I mean by that?
Assumption #6 - Bards are not overt in combat. Their strength grows with their party. - What do I mean by this? Rather than thinking in terms of how big of numbers you are directly causing with your own arrows, a bard archer playing into the strengths of the class thinks in terms of all the damage they're adding to the party. Ever have a time where advantage means the difference between missing an attack and making it? I have. My current party includes a 20 strength barbarian and a 20 dexterity ranger, and even against low AC enemies like goblins, I still hear "made my attack thanks to faerie fire" and similar comments. Every single time that happens is damage I'm contributing to the fight, in addition to any actual damage I'm putting out. Likewise, every time I lock down an enemy and prevent them from doing damage to an ally (whether through disadvantage via vicious mockery or via taking away actions via something like sleep), that is effective healing I'm performing. The best part is, playing into this mindset also means you're doing more reliable damage as an archer when you are attacking. The bard's abilities and spell list even tie into this assumption, such as bardic inspiration being used for your party members, not yourself.

So keeping these assumptions in mind, let's build this bard better. I'll even stick with variant human as your race, but I'll be shifting some things around on point buy and stats. Same numbers, just different places. Also, keep in mind, that some choices will of course depend on what your party's make up is. For this build, we'll assume something akin to my current campaign's party, because it's pretty standard. Barbarian, ranger, paladin, wizard, and bard. Not exactly what I have, but there are things that change with every change in your party. Replace the wizard with a sorcerer, for example, and suddenly, the need for the bard to take the identify spell (or someone to take the ritual caster feat) jumps up greatly.

Stats
Strength - 8
Dexterity - 15
Constitution - 14
Intelligence - 8
Wisdom - 10
Charisma - 15

Race
Variant human, taking the sharpshooter feat and putting the +1's into charisma and dexterity, bringing final stats to:
Strength - 8
Dexterity - 16
Constitution - 14
Intelligence - 8
Wisdom - 10
Charisma - 16
With the feat, we're paying more attention to the two parts of the feat that aren't the -5/+10 at early levels, and as things progress and we can start making better use of it, shifting to include that option when it becomes better.

Class
This is a full bard build. As an archer, dexterity saves are useful, as they protect from various ranged spell attacks, such as lightning bolts and fireballs. Charisma is far superior to strength, as we shouldn't ever have to worry about being knocked prone, and being banished is far worse to have happen. We'll address the need for constitution later.

Background
Same as yours, pick up criminal for deception and stealth, as well as thieves tools.

Proficiencies
Persuasion, Acrobatics, Perception/Insight

Persuasion is more useful more of the time than intimidation, and with JoAT and our high charisma, we'll still be good at intimidation. The choice of perception vs insight is based on if the ranger is serving as the scout and you're just the one to disarm the traps he finds, or if you're the scout. If the ranger is the scout, go insight to help with being a face.

For instruments, drums is essential (for when you have no instrument on hand), and then either harp/lyre or lute/mandolin and pipes or horn.

Gear
Light Crossbow
A lute/lyre (whichever stringed instrument you picked)
Leather armor
A dagger
An entertainer's pack. As an adventurer, you're probably going to be on the go a lot, and the backpack and bedroll are going to see more use than a chest and some scrolls and ink.
Everything from the criminal background gear, including the crowbar, clothes, hood, and belt pouch.
Use that extra gold to pick up a spell component pouch, as we'll be using this a lot while holding our bow.

Bardic Inspiration
Right now, we have 3 uses per day of this. But this is HUGE. Any ability check, attack roll, or saving throw. In the off chance that someone does drop, they can use this to their death saving throws. More likely though, this is going to be used in combat, to help the barbarian or paladin turn a miss into a hit. More damage we're contributing to the party.

Spells
Cantrips
Minor Illusion - Huge utility and versatility, both in combat and out of it. Can use to create any image or sound that fits in a 5x5 area. Make the sound of reinforcements coming. Create a rock or crate or whatever to hide yourself in. Creativity is your weapon of choice with this one.
Vicious Mockery - See Dissonant Whispers below.

Spells
Dissonant Whispers - This and VM are your "oh $#!+" buttons. When someone closes in on you in melee range, you cast one of these to put some distance between you. The choice of which depends largely on how much movement the attacker has left. If they made their full movement, use VM to give them disadvantage and then walk away (or just use the disengage action). But if they didn't make their full movement (such as they ambushed you and you had surprise preventing you from moving on your previous action), then DW is better, because it causes them to immediately flee however far their movement is remaining, plus you can still move your movement away. Can also be used to give your allies attacks of opportunity. The paladin and barbarian are both beating on the same guy? Fear him, forcing him to move. They both now have AoOs, and any damage they dealt is damage you caused. More importantly, this is a save vs. wisdom for half damage or take full 3d6 damage. This is the same average damage as two attacks with hand crossbows at 1d6+3, but more reliable because anyone up in your face in melee is unlikely to have a great wisdom save.
Faerie Fire - Give advantage to your entire party, thus increasing the damage you do (through them and your own attacks), both through increased hit chance and increased crit chance.
Healing Word - At this level, this is a great heal for combat, as no one has that much health to begin with. It also has a 60 foot range, and is a bonus action spell, so if someone does drop, you don't have to be right on top of them to get them back up. Also, this level is likely to only last a single session, so we get better healing at level 2.
Sleep - No concentration, can lock down multiple foes (probably 2-4 goblins or kobolds) so they're not attacking your party. Additionally, they can then be taken out one by one, and any melee attacks against them will have advantage because they're prone.

Strategy
Be adaptable. If a large group of enemies is attacking, start by putting a couple to sleep. If not, then use faerie fire to increase the damage output of everyone in the party. Then, go to town slinging arrows. If enemies try to approach you, kite them away, keeping your distance.


Alright, that's the base. Now, let's go on level by level.



Level 2
Pick up JoAT, which means you'll never be bad at anything again.

Pick up Song of Rest. Out of combat healing is superior to in-combat healing, and being proactive with locking down foes and giving advantage to allies means that healing word is still sufficient healing in combat most of the time.

New Spell: Tasha's Hideous Laughter - Another great lock down spell. If you're only fighting two or three big tough foes, so long as they have an intelligence greater than 4 (so not as useful against bears, but that big bad orc chieftain is fair game), you can lock one down while the party focuses on the other(s). Does use concentration though, so competes with FF.


Level 3
Expertise picks - Acrobatics and Stealth. As a primary archer, we want to avoid being seen as much as possible, and especially avoid being grappled. We're not rogues, so not hiding every round, but we may end up becoming the party scout now over the ranger if in something other than the ranger's favored terrain.

Bard College - College of Valor. Grants us proficiency in medium armor, shields, and all weapons we weren't already proficient in. More importantly, our bardic inspiration can now be used by our party members to increase their damage or their AC, either contributing to damage we're responsible for, or healing we prevented from being needed. This is that 1d6 from flourishes, just coming from someone else.

At this level, we start looking to swap out the crossbow for a longbow. It's the same 1d8 damage, but with extra attack on the horizon, we want to be able to make use of it. However, we will not swap out our leather armor just yet.

New Spell - Invisibility. This uses our concentration, so this is strictly for non-combat usage at the moment. Besides, this is inferior invisibility. It grants advantage on one attack before it drops. Stick to using FF or THL in combat.


Level 4
Take the feat Medium Armor Master. This lets us avoid disadvantage on stealth checks in medium armor, and use the full +3 from our dexterity. Upgrade to half plate, and you now have an 18 AC, the same as someone in full plate, without the disadvantage or strength/movement restrictions.

New Cantrip - Prestidigitation. This is an amazing cantrip. Want to avoid your night blindness? Use it to light a fire up to 10 feet away from you, so you can still stay hidden. Snuck up on the camp of your enemies? Even better, burn them in their tents as they sleep. This also allows you to create distracting effects like the sound of a hawk, the smell of smoke, or whatever. Utility both in and out of combat to keep foes from attacking you and benefit your usefulness as a face.

New Spell - Feather Fall. Every party needs someone who has this spell. Since we plan on getting a flying mount further down the road, might as well be us.


Level 5
Font of Inspiration - Now we can use those BIs on a more common basis to increase the damage we're giving our party. And our BI die size goes up in size as well. Double bonus for the BI at this level.

Swapping Out Old Spell (Sleep) for New Spell (Hypnotic Pattern) - This is better than sleep in every way. Larger area of effect, doesn't care about their hit points, can lock down more enemies. Just a great upgrade.

New Spell - Enhance Ability for non-combat utility. Wanna be a better face? Enhance Eagle. Scouting? Enhance Owl (we already have expertise in stealth, so this is for the perception boost). The wizard should be grabbing Leomund's Tiny Hut, which they will always cast as a ritual.


Level 6
Extra attack - We're now doing two attacks per round, which are still hitting reliably. The reliability is more important than getting the 3rd attack from crossbow expert.

Countercharm - This is... meh. We may see it used once in a while, but probably not. As an archer, we're usually away from the action.

New Spell - We pick up Blindness/Deafness as a means of locking down opponents without using our concentration. Got something like a monk with a ton of movement speed that keeps trying to get you? Blind em.


Level 7
New Spell - Polymorph. This is proactive healing, this is crowd control, this is utility, all in one. This spell is probably the best spell of all fourth level spells.


Level 8
Depending on how we've been doing with avoiding damage (through movement and our impressive AC), we can either pick up the War Caster feat at this level, or +2 charisma. I prefer the charisma boost. It improves our abilities as a face, it improves the power of our heals, and it makes our spells harder to resist, meaning more foes will suffer from them.

New Spell - Greater Invisibility. This is the combat version of the previous Invisibility. Because of it's much shorter duration, we're not swapping one out for the other. This lets us just keep ourselves hidden through the whole fight, attacking with advantage constantly. If your party has a rogue (or maybe your ranger multiclassed into it for more damage), this is even better on them, as it guarantees their attacks get sneak attack. That's an extra 4d6 every round you're now contributing to the combat (less in the case of the MC ranger/rogue). This is a great alternative when fighting agile enemies who resist faerie fire.


Level 9
Song of rest moves up to 1d8, improving our out of combat healing.

New Spell - Synaptic Static. Yeah, it's a psychic fireball two levels higher, but we're doing this less for the damage but more for the rider. For 1 minute, without wasting our concentration, we now reduce enemy attack rolls by 1d6 for most (if not all) in the area hit. If we're really lucky, we've also locked down a caster, but they're likely to have higher intelligence and be able to resist it. This will greatly decrease the amount of times your party members are being hit.

Swap out Tasha's Hideous Laughter for Mass Cure Wounds - Sure, we're all about proactive avoiding damage, but sometimes we need that heal. This is a great one for that, and we can still stay 60 feet away. We're probably closer than that, but we get to heal from a range. So great.

Level 10
Expertise - Persuasion and whichever we picked of Perception/Insight. We're now the ultimate face and scout of the party.

BI increases again, to 1d10. Putting this on the barbarian is a great idea for tough boss fights, as he's going to love the extra damage that he thinks he's doing (but is actually all us).

New Cantrip - Our fourth and final one. I'm going to go with Mending or Message on this one, depending on DM rulings. If the DM isn't bothering to count arrows and lets me recover all of them after a fight, Message for communicating with party members from my steed. Otherwise, Mending, so that I recover all arrows rather than just half.

Magical Secrets - Two new spells.
Find Greater Steed - For the flying pony (or griffon in your case). This is just a great spell. Mobility, concentration free flight. I'd pick the pegasus over the griffon. We're archers, and we want to avoid the direct combat area. Pegasus trades the multiattack for being better in every other facet, so it's what we want from a mount. Faster flying speed, more intelligence (starts at 10, already above the 6 granted to the griffon) so it understands more complex commands, has more wisdom, more charisma, and more importantly, bonuses to dexterity, wisdom, and charisma saves. We can simply command the pegasus to constantly take the Dodge action every chance it gets while we fly, making enemy attacks against us as the rider have disadvantage.
Haste - Sure, we can cast this on ourselves and have it also apply to our flying pony. Yes, it has all those amazing benefits. But remember, anything we add to others is stuff we're responsible for. Your GWM barbarian will do more damage with an extra attack than we will. So will the smiting paladin. Throw it on one of them and let them think they're doing all the fun, while we continue to rain arrowy death upon our foes.

Swap out Blindness/Deafness for Animate Objects. You can use arrows if you like, but daggers work just as well. Now you control a swarm that you can command with your bonus action. Since you're flying now, your worries about melee attackers getting up in your face are done. DW is still good to hold onto though, for the ability to trigger AoOs from your party members. Also, double bonus if you can convince your DM that since you're now above them, your target's logical choice of moving in the opposite direction from you is down, causing them to go prone and give your allies advantage.


Level 11
New Spell - Mass Suggestion. This is a HUGE game changer. At this level, we're likely fighting against armies or hordes of foes. Guess what? We just turned 12 of them into our allies, telling them to fight for us. Better yet? This doesn't use concentration. Congratulations, you just gained another 12+ attacks per round.

Swap out Healing Word for Raise Dead. We're no longer using that pitiful heal, and the paladin won't be able to raise dead for another 6 levels. Without a cleric, it's up to us.


Level 12
ASI - Finish raising that charisma up to 20 (or 18 if you took war caster).

No new spell at this level, but if some of your spells are not seeing use or just not cutting it, swap one out.


Level 13
Song of Rest grows to a d10 now. Yay, out of combat healing.

New Spell - Forcecage. No resist. No concentration. Unbreakable. Yes, I would like to lock down the BBEG while we mop the floor with the easy guys, then focus on the big guy. If he's really big and you have to go cage instead of box, you can even try to pick him off with arrows between the bars. You're a sharpshooter, so that's not even partial cover, so you should be able to do so. If your DM rules for disadvantage, well, then you give yourself greater invisibility, cancel out the disadvantage, and do it that way.


Level 14
War Magic. Now, we can still snipe at someone even after we cast a spell. That BBEG we just locked down? Yeah, we get to pick off one of his low health minions with an arrow. Then we can drop faerie fire on the lot of them, and pick another one off. Then we can drop a synaptic static on them, and pick off another one. We have the spell slots to spare, and the arrows to spare.

Magical Secrets - Two more spells.
Heal - This is a great single target heal. Damage is not spread out equally among the party (we should hardly be taking any most of the time), so if the barbarian or paladin is taking a beating, we can throw this on them. And then snipe whoever is attacking them.
Simulacrum - A copy of you with half your health. Gear them up with some spares you've got lying around, and now they have all your spells and spell slots, all on their own. You just made a second one of you who is destroying the battlefield. Want two spells and two attacks per turn? Here's how. Because they have their own versions and slots of your spells, they summon their own mount with FGS, meaning there's now two of you raining death and destruction on your foes.


Level 15
BI now caps out at a d12. You're now looking at your barbarian and going "I heard you like greataxes, so I put a greataxe on your greataxe."

New Spell - Teleport. This is just a great spell. Much better than anything we get from our own list of 8th level.


Level 16
Another ASI/feat. Pick up either charisma 20 or war caster, whichever one you didn't get already.




And that's the build. Personally, I'd make a few changes. Swap variant human for half elf. Put the +1's into dexterity and constitution (bringing them to 16 and 15 respectively, with a 17 charisma). For the two skills, I'd pick up investigation and the other of the perception/insight pair so I have both. I'd swap one of the charisma ASIs for a UA skill feat it allowed (Diplomat probably, and swap the Persuasion expertise to Deception or the other of the Perception/Insight pair to have expertise in both). Swap medium armor master for sharpshooter. Swap war caster for resilient (constitution). Go with a breastplate instead of the half plate to avoid stealth disadvantage. If I still felt the need for the added AC, then at 19, I could pick up medium armor master again and go back to half plate.

This build makes fewer attacks, but it makes them count more. It makes the rest of the party's attacks count more. And it accepts that a good chunk of its damage is coming through things like BI on the melee combatants, mass suggestion to turn enemies upon one another, faerie fire to reduce misses... And because so much of its abilities grant it advantage, it can take advantage of the -5/+10 from sharpshooter to guarantee more damage than your spray and pray original build could do.

[djreynolds]

Throw daggers and darts

[Degwerks]

I may be wrong about this but if you're using your mount to knock enemies prone, won't you be at disadvantage on ranged attacks versus a prone target?

[PancakeMaster80]

I may be wrong about this but if you're using your mount to knock enemies prone, won't you be at disadvantage on ranged attacks versus a prone target?

Sorry if my explanation wasn't good enough in the guide. What you can do is use the feature of crossbow expert to shoot at the enemy when they're within 5ft of you without causing disadvantage, and because attacking a prone enemy within 5ft of you gives advantage, you can now do it with your crossbow =D

[PancakeMaster80]

And now, to building a better bard archer. The most recent update to the build is a huge improvement over the previous versions, but you can still do better. As such, let me pose an alternative build, using a similar format to what you've used.

Thanks for taking the time to put together this comprehensive build, once I have a bit more time to look at it I'll have a full response for you =).

[SleepIncarnate]

Sorry if my explanation wasn't good enough in the guide. What you can do is use the feature of crossbow expert to shoot at the enemy when they're within 5ft of you without causing disadvantage, and because attacking a prone enemy within 5ft of you gives advantage, you can now do it with your crossbow =D

You may want to check with your DM on this. Not the within 5 feet bit. Since you're on your mount, you may no longer be within 5 feet of them. Your mount is, but your mount is a large size creature (10 x 10). You're seated on top of it, roughly in the middle of that space. Without the mounted combat feat, your DM may rule you as separate from your mount for the purposes of crossbow attacks. Especially since your mount is acting independently.

[unusualsuspect]

You may want to check with your DM on this. Not the within 5 feet bit. Since you're on your mount, you may no longer be within 5 feet of them. Your mount is, but your mount is a large size creature (10 x 10). You're seated on top of it, roughly in the middle of that space. Without the mounted combat feat, your DM may rule you as separate from your mount for the purposes of crossbow attacks. Especially since your mount is acting independently.

That seems to contradict Sage Advice's Ruling (https://www.sageadvice.eu/2018/01/02/does-a-medium-rider-on-a-large-mount-need-at-least-7-5-reach-to-make-melee-attacks-then/) on that.

[unusualsuspect]

Also, thanks for the interesting take on the bard archer. It makes assumptions contrary to the explicit goals of OP, but eh, I think we're all used to that by now. I'll take a closer look at that later.

[PancakeMaster80]

You may want to check with your DM on this. Not the within 5 feet bit. Since you're on your mount, you may no longer be within 5 feet of them. Your mount is, but your mount is a large size creature (10 x 10). You're seated on top of it, roughly in the middle of that space. Without the mounted combat feat, your DM may rule you as separate from your mount for the purposes of crossbow attacks. Especially since your mount is acting independently.

Yeah the base rules are that you can be on any space your mount is in, a gm could of course rule otherwise, but I can't plan for house rules.

[Degwerks]

Sorry if my explanation wasn't good enough in the guide. What you can do is use the feature of crossbow expert to shoot at the enemy when they're within 5ft of you without causing disadvantage, and because attacking a prone enemy within 5ft of you gives advantage, you can now do it with your crossbow =D

Thanks for the explanation! I was too lazy at the time to go back several pages and check the build layout again.

[PancakeMaster80]

Assumption #1 - More attacks =/= more damage - First one in, and there's already controversy. But let me be more specific. More attacks can mean more damage, but it does not mean more damage. If we're being even more specific about it, what it really means is more attacks = more opportunities to do damage. This is an important distinction to make, because it also means more attacks = more opportunities to miss and not do damage. This assumption is why things like the crossbow expert or swift quiver bonus action attacks are not always better. It's also something that's a bit counter-intuitive, and so most people just assume more attacks means more damage, which is why those kinds of builds are so popular.

I wouldn't argue this point, more attacks can often mean more damage, but fewer powerful attacks are also good, sometimes dealing more.


Assumption #2 - Accuracy > Damage - This one is actually pretty easy to get, but is also one a lot of people struggle with. The reason that GWM and SS builds are so popular is that you trade a -5 to your to hit roll for a +10 to the damage. That's twice as much, right? No. While you may do more damage when you hit, you hit less. Sometimes, this trade off is absolutely worth it, but not always. If you can't hit your target, you're not doing that bonus damage. To help figure out when you should or shouldn't use that trade off, here's (https://thinkdm.wordpress.com/2018/03/17/how-strong-is-sharpshooter/) a great link from ThinkDM where there are charts showing when it is better to make a regular shot or better to make a sharpshooter shot. Note, they even make distinctions on short range without the SS feat (also works as any range with SS feat), long range without the SS feat, and advantage without using the SS feat, as well as sharpshooter (-5/+10 all ranges) with and without advantage. You can pop your character info in there and see when it is and isn't best to use it. That said, one thing they do say is, if you have advantage, always use it. Which makes the assumption more one of Advantage > Accuracy > Damage because advantage is going to do far more for your chances to hit than a simple +2 or -5 can allow for. It also increases your chances for a crit, which also increases damage.

It's true that against high ac targets, not using sharpshooter is the correct path. It's nice to have the choice.


Assumption #3 - More Damage =/= Always Better - And back to controversial. TreantMonk has a good video discussing this whole assumption, which can be found here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7xoRXHqdp8), but the short of it is this. Think of a situation where an enemy only has 10 hit points left. You use your heavy crossbow with tenser's transformation to attack it, doing 1d10 + 15 piercing plus 2d12 force damage. You roll a 7 on the d10 and a 6 and a 9 on the d12s. Are you doing 37 damage (22 piercing, 15 force) to it? No, you're only doing 10 points of damage. It boils down to reliability, going again with the previous two assumptions. We've all heard stories of the times when a bard kills someone with a vicious mockery and its pitiful damage. But this assumption is also important because this is a bard archer. Which leads to...

If you have perfect knowledge of your enemies HP, or are fighting enemies you know are incredibly weak, yeah it's probably not worth using your limited enhancement spells to overkill them, something I mention in the guide. However I want the option to do more damage consistently, because in any fight hard enough to be challenging you'll probably want to be dealing more rather than less when you're trying to be a damage source for the party.


Assumption #4 - Versatility is both the bard's greatest strength and their greatest weakness - This t
ies in to the whole stereotype of the jack of all trades, master of none that bards have. Basically, bards are never the worst in any role, but likewise, they will never be the best. No matter how hard a bard tries (and your first build was trying very hard), a bard will never be able to out damage a fighter. The fighter is hyper focused at hitting things and making them fall down. They may not always be the best at this (see assumption #1), but it is their main bag. The bard, even a martial bard from swords/valor, will never be able to compete with that. Likewise, a bard will never be able to compete with the sheer amount of spells available to the preparation classes.
Assumption #5 - Trying to beat other classes at their own game makes the bard worse - What I mean by this is, rather than playing into their strengths, a bard who tries to hyperfocus on just one aspect is a worse bard for it. This is the problem your original build had going for it. It was trying to be a fighter with a flying mount, but it could never stand up to the fighter, and you also neglected the bard side of your character. That said, the bard is not worse than those classes. The bard can beat those classes on the bard's terms. What do I mean by that?
Assumption #6 - Bards are not overt in combat. Their strength grows with their party. - What do I mean by this? Rather than thinking in terms of how big of numbers you are directly causing with your own arrows, a bard archer playing into the strengths of the class thinks in terms of all the damage they're adding to the party. Ever have a time where advantage means the difference between missing an attack and making it? I have. My current party includes a 20 strength barbarian and a 20 dexterity ranger, and even against low AC enemies like goblins, I still hear "made my attack thanks to faerie fire" and similar comments. Every single time that happens is damage I'm contributing to the fight, in addition to any actual damage I'm putting out. Likewise, every time I lock down an enemy and prevent them from doing damage to an ally (whether through disadvantage via vicious mockery or via taking away actions via something like sleep), that is effective healing I'm performing. The best part is, playing into this mindset also means you're doing more reliable damage as an archer when you are attacking. The bard's abilities and spell list even tie into this assumption, such as bardic inspiration being used for your party members, not yourself.

These 3 points are part of a fundamental disagreement you and I have about this, one I don't think either of us will budge on. I appreciate your point of view and you definitely know a lot about playing the bard in multiple interesting ways, but the point of this bard is to be a powerful archer that also does bard stuff, not a powerful bard that also does archer stuff. I'm not claiming this is the "best" bard, but it's the bard I want to make.


Also, keep in mind, that some choices will of course depend on what your party's make up is.

This build was built assuming no knowledge of other party members, so I'd definitely agree that you should tailor it to fit with the other players.


Stats
Strength - 8
Dexterity - 15
Constitution - 14
Intelligence - 8
Wisdom - 10
Charisma - 15

Race
Variant human, taking the sharpshooter feat and putting the +1's into charisma and dexterity, bringing final stats to:
Strength - 8
Dexterity - 16
Constitution - 14
Intelligence - 8
Wisdom - 10
Charisma - 16
With the feat, we're paying more attention to the two parts of the feat that aren't the -5/+10 at early levels, and as things progress and we can start making better use of it, shifting to include that option when it becomes better.

Crossbow expert is by far the better feat option for my build, since I don't plan on using my bonus action to hand out inspiration dice.


Class
This is a full bard build. As an archer, dexterity saves are useful, as they protect from various ranged spell attacks, such as lightning bolts and fireballs. Charisma is far superior to strength, as we shouldn't ever have to worry about being knocked prone, and being banished is far worse to have happen. We'll address the need for constitution later.

unusualsuspect convinced me that getting the level 1 fighting style and proficiency in con save was worth the delayed power spike. The fighting style puts the build on part with martial builds all the way till 11 when we take magical secrets.


Bardic Inspiration
Right now, we have 3 uses per day of this. But this is HUGE. Any ability check, attack roll, or saving throw. In the off chance that someone does drop, they can use this to their death saving throws. More likely though, this is going to be used in combat, to help the barbarian or paladin turn a miss into a hit. More damage we're contributing to the party.

This build uses it's inspiration dice on flourishes, but with a valor bard focusing on a more supporting role then yes this would be good.


Bard College - College of Valor. Grants us proficiency in medium armor, shields, and all weapons we weren't already proficient in. More importantly, our bardic inspiration can now be used by our party members to increase their damage or their AC, either contributing to damage we're responsible for, or healing we prevented from being needed. This is that 1d6 from flourishes, just coming from someone else.

Covered this earlier, but flourish does more for what this build is trying to do.


Level 4
Take the feat Medium Armor Master. This lets us avoid disadvantage on stealth checks in medium armor, and use the full +3 from our dexterity. Upgrade to half plate, and you now have an 18 AC, the same as someone in full plate, without the disadvantage or strength/movement restrictions.

I don't think Medium armor master outweighs increasing our dex by 2. Especially if we start with 1 in fighter we haves access to 18 ac when we need it, and now we have a higher dex, which translates to being better at almost everything.


Level 6
Extra attack - We're now doing two attacks per round, which are still hitting reliably. The reliability is more important than getting the 3rd attack from crossbow expert.

This build wants both for 3 attacks a round instead of 2.


Level 7
New Spell - Polymorph. This is proactive healing, this is crowd control, this is utility, all in one. This spell is probably the best spell of all fourth level spells.

Polymorph is amazing


Level 8
Depending on how we've been doing with avoiding damage (through movement and our impressive AC), we can either pick up the War Caster feat at this level, or +2 charisma. I prefer the charisma boost. It improves our abilities as a face, it improves the power of our heals, and it makes our spells harder to resist, meaning more foes will suffer from them.

Sharpshooter is a key part of this build, as good as war-caster or a stat boost is we don't have enough slots to take all of them.


Magical Secrets - Two new spells.
Find Greater Steed - For the flying pony (or griffon in your case). This is just a great spell. Mobility, concentration free flight. I'd pick the pegasus over the griffon. We're archers, and we want to avoid the direct combat area. Pegasus trades the multiattack for being better in every other facet, so it's what we want from a mount. Faster flying speed, more intelligence (starts at 10, already above the 6 granted to the griffon) so it understands more complex commands, has more wisdom, more charisma, and more importantly, bonuses to dexterity, wisdom, and charisma saves. We can simply command the pegasus to constantly take the Dodge action every chance it gets while we fly, making enemy attacks against us as the rider have disadvantage.
Haste - Sure, we can cast this on ourselves and have it also apply to our flying pony. Yes, it has all those amazing benefits. But remember, anything we add to others is stuff we're responsible for. Your GWM barbarian will do more damage with an extra attack than we will. So will the smiting paladin. Throw it on one of them and let them think they're doing all the fun, while we continue to rain arrowy death upon our foes.

After looking at other discussion on the topic I have been leaning towards haste as well, as it covers some of my build's weaknesses and works with the mount.


Swap out Blindness/Deafness for Animate Objects. You can use arrows if you like, but daggers work just as well. Now you control a swarm that you can command with your bonus action. Since you're flying now, your worries about melee attackers getting up in your face are done. DW is still good to hold onto though, for the ability to trigger AoOs from your party members. Also, double bonus if you can convince your DM that since you're now above them, your target's logical choice of moving in the opposite direction from you is down, causing them to go prone and give your allies advantage.

Since I'm moving more towards haste I also took animate objects for fighters where I don't have my mount.


Level 11
New Spell - Mass Suggestion. This is a HUGE game changer. At this level, we're likely fighting against armies or hordes of foes. Guess what? We just turned 12 of them into our allies, telling them to fight for us. Better yet? This doesn't use concentration. Congratulations, you just gained another 12+ attacks per round.

Swap out Healing Word for Raise Dead. We're no longer using that pitiful heal, and the paladin won't be able to raise dead for another 6 levels. Without a cleric, it's up to us.


Level 12
ASI - Finish raising that charisma up to 20 (or 18 if you took war caster).

No new spell at this level, but if some of your spells are not seeing use or just not cutting it, swap one out.


Level 13
Song of Rest grows to a d10 now. Yay, out of combat healing.

New Spell - Forcecage. No resist. No concentration. Unbreakable. Yes, I would like to lock down the BBEG while we mop the floor with the easy guys, then focus on the big guy. If he's really big and you have to go cage instead of box, you can even try to pick him off with arrows between the bars. You're a sharpshooter, so that's not even partial cover, so you should be able to do so. If your DM rules for disadvantage, well, then you give yourself greater invisibility, cancel out the disadvantage, and do it that way.


Level 14
War Magic. Now, we can still snipe at someone even after we cast a spell. That BBEG we just locked down? Yeah, we get to pick off one of his low health minions with an arrow. Then we can drop faerie fire on the lot of them, and pick another one off. Then we can drop a synaptic static on them, and pick off another one. We have the spell slots to spare, and the arrows to spare.

Magical Secrets - Two more spells.
Heal - This is a great single target heal. Damage is not spread out equally among the party (we should hardly be taking any most of the time), so if the barbarian or paladin is taking a beating, we can throw this on them. And then snipe whoever is attacking them.
Simulacrum - A copy of you with half your health. Gear them up with some spares you've got lying around, and now they have all your spells and spell slots, all on their own. You just made a second one of you who is destroying the battlefield. Want two spells and two attacks per turn? Here's how. Because they have their own versions and slots of your spells, they summon their own mount with FGS, meaning there's now two of you raining death and destruction on your foes.


Level 15
BI now caps out at a d12. You're now looking at your barbarian and going "I heard you like greataxes, so I put a greataxe on your greataxe."

New Spell - Teleport. This is just a great spell. Much better than anything we get from our own list of 8th level.


Level 16
Another ASI/feat. Pick up either charisma 20 or war caster, whichever one you didn't get already.




And that's the build. Personally, I'd make a few changes. Swap variant human for half elf. Put the +1's into dexterity and constitution (bringing them to 16 and 15 respectively, with a 17 charisma). For the two skills, I'd pick up investigation and the other of the perception/insight pair so I have both. I'd swap one of the charisma ASIs for a UA skill feat it allowed (Diplomat probably, and swap the Persuasion expertise to Deception or the other of the Perception/Insight pair to have expertise in both). Swap medium armor master for sharpshooter. Swap war caster for resilient (constitution). Go with a breastplate instead of the half plate to avoid stealth disadvantage. If I still felt the need for the added AC, then at 19, I could pick up medium armor master again and go back to half plate.

This build makes fewer attacks, but it makes them count more. It makes the rest of the party's attacks count more. And it accepts that a good chunk of its damage is coming through things like BI on the melee combatants, mass suggestion to turn enemies upon one another, faerie fire to reduce misses... And because so much of its abilities grant it advantage, it can take advantage of the -5/+10 from sharpshooter to guarantee more damage than your spray and pray original build could do.

While the rest of this seems like a fine build, it's not what I'm looking to do with this guide, I want to focus on being a powerful archer/damage dealer with additional utility in the form of my spell list. I do think that this bardcher can not only keep up with martial classes trying to do the same thing, but surpass them while providing more functionality to their party. You seem interested in a bard that does archer things on the side. That's not necessarily worse, just not what I'm looking to do.

Thanks for spending the time to make this, some of your suggestions have been very helpful for improving my build =).

[SleepIncarnate]

Crossbow expert is by far the better feat option for my build, since I don't plan on using my bonus action to hand out inspiration dice.


There's more things you can do with your bonus action than hand out inspiration dice. Healing word, for one. In fact, inspiration can be used before the fight even begins, and held onto until it's needed.




This build uses it's inspiration dice on flourishes, but with a valor bard focusing on a more supporting role then yes this would be good.


The alternate build has more charisma, so it ends up using its BI more often. Even if you still go swords rather than valor, you get more flourishes before 14, and more powerful flourishes even after 14.




I don't think Medium armor master outweighs increasing our dex by 2. Especially if we start with 1 in fighter we haves access to 18 ac when we need it, and now we have a higher dex, which translates to being better at almost everything.

One of the big problems of your 18 AC with your build is that you a.) lack the strength for avoiding the movement penalty, and b.) face disadvantage on stealth checks. You've considered your build as a sort of rogue replacement, so you will likely be sneaking around. Medium armor master lets you avoid having to carry two sets of armor. It's not ideal, and you can just do a breastplate and get something else. That said, the extra dexterity is not as essential with this build. With always giving yourself advantage (via FF, greater invis, etc.), extra +2 to hit from going from 16 to 20 dexterity is less essential. Also, that +2 total damage per attack is also less necessary, because the build guarantees that almost every attack hits. MAM is not the most important part of the build, and when I first planned it, I thought it gave a +1 to an ability score like the other armor feats. Sadly, it's the only armor feat that doesn't give one.




This build wants both for 3 attacks a round instead of 2.

So long as the attacks hit, then the 3 attacks do mean more damage. The difference between the builds is the valor build is built specifically to guarantee the attacks hit, while the swords build is spray and pray. If you combine the two builds, you can get your more damage.



Sharpshooter is a key part of this build, as good as war-caster or a stat boost is we don't have enough slots to take all of them.

We took sharpshooter at level 1 with my build. We just don't have crossbow expert.



While the rest of this seems like a fine build, it's not what I'm looking to do with this guide, I want to focus on being a powerful archer/damage dealer with additional utility in the form of my spell list. I do think that this bardcher can not only keep up with martial classes trying to do the same thing, but surpass them while providing more functionality to their party. You seem interested in a bard that does archer things on the side. That's not necessarily worse, just not what I'm looking to do.

Thanks for spending the time to make this, some of your suggestions have been very helpful for improving my build =).


Keep in mind, most martials don't have more than two attacks per turn. Only fighters break that. Rather than trying to be the fighter with four attacks per turn, this build is built around being on par with other martials. You make your two attacks, and you make them hit, and hit hard. After the initial round or two of set up with spells, you still make your two attacks, and unlike the fighter, you're making sure that they hit.

[PancakeMaster80]

There's more things you can do with your bonus action than hand out inspiration dice. Healing word, for one. In fact, inspiration can be used before the fight even begins, and held onto until it's needed.

I still think starting with Crossbow expert gives the build significantly more than sharpshooter does. Doubling our possible damage output per round is very valuable, and in the early levels we don't have a high enough bonus to hit to take advantage of one of sharpshooter's features.


The alternate build has more charisma, so it ends up using its BI more often. Even if you still go swords rather than valor, you get more flourishes before 14, and more powerful flourishes even after 14.

I personally prefer the higher con I selected, but the 16 cha would also be good.


One of the big problems of your 18 AC with your build is that you a.) lack the strength for avoiding the movement penalty, and b.) face disadvantage on stealth checks. You've considered your build as a sort of rogue replacement, so you will likely be sneaking around. Medium armor master lets you avoid having to carry two sets of armor. It's not ideal, and you can just do a breastplate and get something else. That said, the extra dexterity is not as essential with this build. With always giving yourself advantage (via FF, greater invis, etc.), extra +2 to hit from going from 16 to 20 dexterity is less essential. Also, that +2 total damage per attack is also less necessary, because the build guarantees that almost every attack hits. MAM is not the most important part of the build, and when I first planned it, I thought it gave a +1 to an ability score like the other armor feats. Sadly, it's the only armor feat that doesn't give one.

The movement reduction isn't that important, especially for a ranged character that looks to be mounted at later levels. Carrying around an extra set of armor isn't a problem and usually neither is the time it takes to change into one from the other. Worst comes to worst you have to fight in your studded leather which is still fine. Dex is still very important to this build, you won't always have advantage, and dex also raises your initiative, ac while in your light armor, and all the powerful skills associated with the stat. A feat has to be quite good to be worth replacing a stat boost, and I don't think medium armor master fits that bill.


So long as the attacks hit, then the 3 attacks do mean more damage. The difference between the builds is the valor build is built specifically to guarantee the attacks hit, while the swords build is spray and pray. If you combine the two builds, you can get your more damage.

By increasing dex and taking the archery fighting style at 1 my build gives a very good chance at landing any attack it makes. My build also still has access to faerie fire, so I'm not sure how your suggestion is better at landing hits.


We took sharpshooter at level 1 with my build. We just don't have crossbow expert.

Apologies I meant crossbow expert.


Keep in mind, most martials don't have more than two attacks per turn. Only fighters break that. Rather than trying to be the fighter with four attacks per turn, this build is built around being on par with other martials. You make your two attacks, and you make them hit, and hit hard. After the initial round or two of set up with spells, you still make your two attacks, and unlike the fighter, you're making sure that they hit.

My point is that you don't have to give up much to match or even outdo the martial classes. When you say hit and hit hard, are you saying your build would be taking the SS -5 to hit from the early levels to increase their on hit damage? If that's the case why do you suggest not picking up archery fighting style and not increasing dex? Those 2 things would vastly increase your chance to hit with a SS boosted attack.

[unusualsuspect]

Comparing Builds:

A note on calculations - I've included the formula I'm using for DPR in the level 1 calculations, after which I'll be doing the math internally but following that same formula. In essence, I've broken down chance to hit normally from chance to crit. For Advantaged attacks, the easiest way for me to arrive at it is to calculate chance to crit (as no one gets a crit-expanding ability, that's 39/400 or .0975), calculate chance to miss (normal chance to miss, squared), and find the chance to hit normally by subtracting from 1 both the chance to crit and the chance to miss.

I may make a mistake or three (even beyond the ones I've explicitly acknowledged), being not-perfect and all. If you see numbers that aren't accurate (including lvls 3 through 8, where I failed to account for Sleep switching to a longbow), feel free to send me a DM with the fixed numbers.

Even accurate numbers are going to be imperfect, as some enemies will inflict disadvantage on attacks. I'm going to make an educated guess and say that any time disadvantage applies to the target, both barchers will resort to FF to negate it into the regular attack calculation (as SS's penalty becomes immensely painful, and is used by both builds). The only difference it would make would be at lvl 1 only, as that's the only time Pancake lacks FF while Sleep has access to it, which is generally 1 or 2 sessions at most. Success at FF is also going to be slightly different (+1 or +2 to the Save DC), which isn't likely to have a profound effect on DPR (as FF already has a not-insignificant failure rate).

I will probably round numbers to the nearest 1/10th DPR when i give totals. Presume every DPR number has the approximate (~) designator.

SS is Sharpshooter, FF is Faerie Fire, H is Haste, and HW is Holy Weapon. I'm assuming HW's extra damage is multiplied by a crit.

CBE's bonus action usage will not be noted in Pancake's DPR, as it is easy enough to calculate what missing 1/2, 1/3, and 1/4 of one's attacks if you have the DPR for the total (multiply the DPR By 1/2, 2/3, and 3/4, respectively).

As you'll see, I'm not doing every level, just what seem likely to be pivot points for DPR (When a new feature comes into play, like FF or SS or H, and when Extra Attack is obtained).

These calculations obviously don't reflect how much other parties are benefiting (FF is, of course, amazing as support if your other party members use attack rolls - common, but not necessarily the case), which is absolutely important when it comes to fulfilling the role of Party Support but which the OP has clearly little interest in (i.e. if they benefit, great, but he wants those sweet, sweet high numbers).

Lvl 1:
AC 10:
Pancake: +7 to hit w/ 2 attacks at 1d6 +3 (average 6.5 each, 10 if crit) = 2 x (.85 x 6.5) + 2 x (.05 x 10) = 11.05 +1 = 12.1 DPR, 6.0 DPR w/o CBE's bonus action.
Sleep (No SS, No FF): +5 to hit w/ 1 attack at 1d8 +3 (average 7.5, 11 if crit) = (.75 x 7.5) + (.05 x 11) = 5.625 + .55 = 6.2 DPR
Sleep (SS): +0 to hit w/1 attack at 1d8 +13 (average 17.5, 21 if crit) = (.5 x 17.5) + (.05 x 21) = 8.75 + 1.05 = 9.8 DPR
Sleep (FF): +5 to hit w/advantage w/1 attack at 1d8 +3 (average 7.5, 11 if crit) = ([1 - .0975 - .04] x 7.5) + (.0975 x 7.5) = 6.46875 + .73125 = 7.2 DPR
Sleep (SS, FF): +0 to hit w/advantage w/1 attack at 1d8 +13 (average 17.5, 21 if crit) = ([1 - .0975 - .2025] x 17.5) + (.0975 x 21) = 12.25 + 2.0475 = 14.3 DPR

Note: As Faerie Fire is an action to cast, and is an AoE, it's worth remembering that against a single target, there's a not-insignificant failure rate to the spell - you could cast it and have it do absolutely nothing (wasting a turn you could have spent plugging the target with arrows). Against groups of enemies, it's far more likely to apply to enough of them to get the bonus for at least a few rounds.

Either way, it costs an action, which means even if it obtains a higher DPR, it still has an uphill battle to being the better DPR option.

For instance, You would need to fight 7 rounds (with FF applying to all targets) for the 14.3 DPR to make up for a round of no damage and begin outpacing the steady, from-turn-1 12.1 DPR.

AC 20:
Pancake: 6.2 DPR
Sleep: 2.425 DPR
Sleep (SS): 1.1 DPR
Sleep (FF): 4.2 DPR
Sleep (SS, FF): 2.0 DPR

Against high AC targets, even WITH FF (i.e. a "wasted" action, personal DPR-wise), CBE wins handily.

Lvl 2: (Pancake picks up FF)
AC 10:
Pancake: See above
Pancake (FF): 13.2
Sleep: See above

AC 20:
Pancake: See above
Pancake (FF): 9.75
Sleep: See above

Faerie Fire's duration of 1 minute means Sleep can never match Pancake's DPR under ideal conditions (low AC target that failed their FF save).

Lvl 5: (Pancake picks up +2 Dex, for +1 to hit and +1 damage per hit, and both pick up +3 proficiency)
AC 10:
Pancake: 14.6
Pancake (FF): 15.0
Sleep: 6.55
Sleep (SS): 10.7
Sleep (FF): 6.6
Sleep (SS, FF): 15.0

AC 20:
Pancake: 7.9
Pancake (FF): 12.0
Sleep: 2.7
Sleep (SS): 1.9
Sleep (FF): 4.2
Sleep (SS, FF): 3.7

Lvl 6: (Sleep picks up Extra Attack)
AC 10:
Pancake: See above
Sleep: 13.1
Sleep (SS): 21.4
Sleep (FF): 13.2
Sleep (SS, FF): 30.0

AC 20:
Pancake: See above
Sleep: 5.4
Sleep (SS): 3.8
Sleep (FF): 8.2
Sleep (SS, FF): 7.4

Sleep finally has a place to shine - SS against low AC targets, particularly if they fail the FF.

Lvl 7: (Pancake picks up Extra Attack)
AC 10:
Pancake: 21.9
Pancake (FF): 22.5
Sleep: See above

AC 20:
Pancake: 11.8
Pancake (FF): 18.0
Sleep: See above

The niche is reduced at AC 10. Sleep NEEDS FF on all targets at all times to out-DPR, and needs combat to last 4+ rounds to get better DPR over the combat, a number which will get steadily worse as AC rises and SS loses potential.

Lvl 9: (Pancake picks up SS, both pick up +1 proficiency)
AC 10:
Pancake: 21.9
Pancake (SS): 42.5
Pancake (FF): 22.5
Pancake (SS, FF): 50.4
Sleep: 15.9
Sleep (SS): 24.9
Sleep (FF): 16.0
Sleep (SS, FF): 33.54

AC 20:
Pancake: 11.8
Pancake (SS): 16.3
Pancake (FF): 18.0
Pancake (SS, FF): 27.8
Sleep: 5.95
Sleep (SS): 3.0
Sleep (FF): 12.2
Sleep (SS, FF): 24.8

Bloody hell, I just realized that Sleep will be switching over to a Longbow at lvl 3 (d10 and better range), since it doesn't use the CBE's extra attack. It doesn't change much (about 1-2 DPR at most), but it is something to consider. That's a lot of work to correct, and the general trends are pretty clear, so we'll just have to live with it. If someone wants to correct the numbers and provides them to me, I'll replace them. The numbers for lvl 9 onward will be correct. Further, there's nothing preventing Pancake from grabbing a longbow of his own and, for all intents and purposes, doing Sleep's trick (longbow + SS) better (b/c higher Dex and the archery fighting style).

Lvl 10: (Sleep gets Haste)
AC 10:
Pancake: See Above
Sleep: 15.9
Sleep (SS): 24.9
Sleep (FF): 16.0
Sleep (H): 23.9
Sleep (SS, FF): 33.54
Sleep (SS, H): 37.4

AC 20:
Pancake: See Above
Sleep: 6
Sleep (SS): 3.0
Sleep (FF): 12.2
Sleep (H): 9
Sleep (SS, FF): 24.8
Sleep (SS, H): 4.5

H's benefit is pretty marginal for Sleep at lower ACs, and are worse than FF at higher ACs. Sleep is also still behind Pancake, as the +2 to hit from archer, +1 to hit from dex, and +1 to damage (+2 on a crit) per hit outweighs the +2 to damage (+4 on a crit) per hit that Sleep gets from going Longbow.

Lvl 11: (Pancake gets Haste or Holy Weapon)
AC 10:
Pancake: 21.9
Pancake (SS): 42.5
Pancake (FF): 22.5
Pancake (H): 29.2
Pancake (HW): 30.9
Pancake (SS, FF): 50.4
Pancake (SS, H): 56.7
Pancake (SS, HW): 65.5
Sleep: See Above

AC 20:
Pancake: 11.8
Pancake (SS): 16.3
Pancake (FF): 18.0
Pancake (H): 15.7
Pancake (HW): 28.0
Pancake (SS, FF): 27.8
Pancake (SS, H): 21.8
Pancake (SS, HW): 37.5
Sleep: See Above




These are, again, only personal DPR. Sleep's build will pull ahead as soon as it gets Animate Objects (something Pancake has expressed disinterest in for this build, IIRC), though it would still be far behind if Pancake's build also took it and used it similarly, obviously not including the level delay it takes Pancake to pick it up. Sleep's build also has equal or better AC most of the time (until lvl 15, Defensive Flourish is only usable a few times a day, though when it is used, it will give a very hefty boost to AC... once Pancake gets infinite flourishes, assuming defensive flourishes, the Swords bard has better AC on average) without incurring disadvantage on stealth checks, has a more versatile and supportive spell selection, with higher DCs on the same, and can make better use of non-damage-boosting spells in combat (which can have a far more profound impact on the difficulty of an encounter than the DPR advantage of Pancake - see Force Cage, and its ilk) once it hits lvl 14.

Sleep's bard is a more effective support member of the team while still outputting sufficient DPR to not be ignored, and so would probably be valued more in a party without support. Nonetheless, Pancake's build pre-lvl 9 (when it relies on FF for the highest DPR) is nearly as useful in support (-1 or -2 to their respective save DC isn't going to make a difference more than 1/10th of the time) and outputs a lot more personal DPR at almost all levels of play (which, if we're being completely honest, feels as good as it is selfish).

TLDR

Both seem to be very much viable builds. If I was trying to occupy primarily the DPR role (with the Support role as secondary), Pancake's is better at almost all levels of play. Sleep's is better trying to occupy primarily the support role (with the DPR role as secondary).

Pancake: "Any DPR you can do, I can do better!"
Sleep: "I can do anything else better than you!"

[PancakeMaster80]

Sleep's bard is a more effective support member of the team while still outputting sufficient DPR to not be ignored, and so would probably be valued more in a party without support. Nonetheless, Pancake's build pre-lvl 9 (when it relies on FF for the highest DPR) is nearly as useful in support (-1 or -2 to their respective save DC isn't going to make a difference more than 1/10th of the time) and outputs a lot more personal DPR at almost all levels of play (which, if we're being completely honest, feels as good as it is selfish).

TLDR

Both seem to be very much viable builds. If I was trying to occupy primarily the DPR role (with the Support role as secondary), Pancake's is better at almost all levels of play. Sleep's is better trying to occupy primarily the support role (with the DPR role as secondary).

Pancake: "Any DPR you can do, I can do better!"
Sleep: "I can do anything else better than you!"

Holy crap unusualsuspect, this work is super cool! Thank you so much for spending the time to make all this, it really highlights how different sleep's focus is from mine. I actually did include animate objects in the most recent path of my build, to be used in fights I can't be mounted and giving haste to both myself and my mount. Speaking of the mount, since I don't see it listed I'm assuming it was not included in these calculations?

[unusualsuspect]

Yeah, I didn't include the Mount's contribution, which is partially why Haste seems to lag so much, I'd reckon. It makes lvl 10 of Sleep's build a lot better, but your build catches up to it at 11, so I'd call it mostly a wash.

[PancakeMaster80]

Yeah, I didn't include the Mount's contribution, which is partially why Haste seems to lag so much, I'd reckon. It makes lvl 10 of Sleep's build a lot better, but your build catches up to it at 11, so I'd call it mostly a wash.

Yeah you convinced me of haste's value =P

[SleepIncarnate]

These are, again, only personal DPR. Sleep's build will pull ahead as soon as it gets Animate Objects (something Pancake has expressed disinterest in for this build, IIRC), though it would still be far behind if Pancake's build also took it and used it similarly, obviously not including the level delay it takes Pancake to pick it up. Sleep's build also has equal or better AC most of the time (until lvl 15, Defensive Flourish is only usable a few times a day, though when it is used, it will give a very hefty boost to AC... once Pancake gets infinite flourishes, assuming defensive flourishes, the Swords bard has better AC on average) without incurring disadvantage on stealth checks, has a more versatile and supportive spell selection, with higher DCs on the same, and can make better use of non-damage-boosting spells in combat (which can have a far more profound impact on the difficulty of an encounter than the DPR advantage of Pancake - see Force Cage, and its ilk) once it hits lvl 14.

Sleep's bard is a more effective support member of the team while still outputting sufficient DPR to not be ignored, and so would probably be valued more in a party without support. Nonetheless, Pancake's build pre-lvl 9 (when it relies on FF for the highest DPR) is nearly as useful in support (-1 or -2 to their respective save DC isn't going to make a difference more than 1/10th of the time) and outputs a lot more personal DPR at almost all levels of play (which, if we're being completely honest, feels as good as it is selfish).

TLDR

Both seem to be very much viable builds. If I was trying to occupy primarily the DPR role (with the Support role as secondary), Pancake's is better at almost all levels of play. Sleep's is better trying to occupy primarily the support role (with the DPR role as secondary).

Pancake: "Any DPR you can do, I can do better!"
Sleep: "I can do anything else better than you!"

I find it interesting that you constantly praise how great a +1 or +2 to hit is, yet downplay the -1 or -2 to save DCs. Which is it? Does a point or two difference change things or not?

Also, I would like to point out one thing. Something we all agreed to at the outset. Advantage > Accuracy. That eventual +4 to hit difference is minimized because my build can almost always guarantee advantage. Either through FF at lower levels or through greater invisibility at higher levels. Even the humble minor illusion cantrip can grant advantage when used creatively.

Pancake's build certainly has a highet theoretical DPR, and I never denied that. The difference in builds comes in the ability to reliably make those hits. Every time my build hits while his misses, that difference in actual damage gets smaller and smaller. Every time he chooses to spend the first round just attacking instead of casting a spell to set things up, he's potentially decreasing his damage (by decreasing his chances to hit) for the whole combat. Every time he stops to do healing because he chose not to lock down enemies is a round he's not attacking that my bard can.

And speaking of after level 14, let's discuss that, because that is a huge level that changes everything. At that point, my bard starts outdoing his in DPR for two reasons. First, yes, his bard will certainly have the higher AC, but my bard will still be less likely to take a hit, for the same reason as one of the two reasons I'm out damaging him. Simulacrum is soooo much better than Tenser's Transformation. There's now two of me on the field. I've cut my setup time in half, I have four attacks per turn, and I can have two concentration spells in effect. And my simulacrum is permanent until killed, same as my steed. And it has its own steed. And we both have the valor level 14 war magic ability. So in one turn, we get two setup spells cast AND make two attacks.

His build has greater potential damage most of the time, my build focuses more on guaranteed damage. Taking that approach to his own build improves it so much. Just look at how much it improved between the original version and now with the inclusion of one spell (faerie fire) and changing another (taking haste instead of SQ). Even if he stays swords, better spell selection from the start will make him better all around.

Just two examples? Pick up greater invisibility at bard 8 (after polymorph at bard 7) and use MS to get simulacrum instead of Tenser's. Or better yet, instead of holy weapon. Simulacrum means two of you, each casting Tenser's on themselves.

Think of it like this. The OP's build has been, for thr most part, a fighter with a flying mount. One answer to every situation: "I hit it." But as has been pointed out, faerie fire is not always the best spell for the job. Having that bardic versatility to also do things like greater invis (something even the updated build lacks) means that you always have advantage, or an answer to your situation. Which then means that yes, you can solve it by murder hoboing everything.

[SleepIncarnate]

Also, with next update, don't forget the cantrips at bard 4 and bard 10. And that you only get two spells at levels 10 and 14, not the magical secrets spells and then two more bard spells.


At 10th level, choose two spells from any classes, including this one. A spell you choose must be of a level you can cast, as shown on the Bard table, or a cantrip.

The chosen spells count as bard spells for you and are included in the number in the spells known column of the Bard table.

You learn two additional spells from any classes at 14th level and again at 18th level.


Two spells from any class that level.

[unusualsuspect]

I find it interesting that you constantly praise how great a +1 or +2 to hit is, yet downplay the -1 or -2 to save DCs. Which is it? Does a point or two difference change things or not?

The +1 and +2 to hit (they stack, so +3) is, as you've pointed out in this very thread, MUCH more than merely an increase in accuracy precisely because of how it interacts with SS (i.e. mitigating its only drawback). It also stacks with advantage, and depending on the AC, can cause advantage to benefit Pancake's attacks more than yours. (I'll try to break down the math for that elsewhere).

For the purposes of performing DPR, -1 or -2 to Save DCs is something worth considering, but doesn't necessarily have the same consistent effect. When you get a Faerie Fire off when you wouldn't, you get advantage, which is great. But you either get advantage or you don't. The +3 to hit (making Pancake's SS the equivalent of -2/+10) is going to be applicable every fight.


Also, I would like to point out one thing. Something we all agreed to at the outset. Advantage > Accuracy. That eventual +4 to hit difference is minimized because my build can almost always guarantee advantage. Either through FF at lower levels or through greater invisibility at higher levels. Even the humble minor illusion cantrip can grant advantage when used creatively.

Pancake's build certainly has a highet theoretical DPR, and I never denied that. The difference in builds comes in the ability to reliably make those hits. Every time my build hits while his misses, that difference in actual damage gets smaller and smaller. Every time he chooses to spend the first round just attacking instead of casting a spell to set things up, he's potentially decreasing his damage (by decreasing his chances to hit) for the whole combat. Every time he stops to do healing because he chose not to lock down enemies is a round he's not attacking that my bard can.

Advantage is often better than accuracy, but the math on that is more complicated than you're stating, and advantage WITH accuracy is better than just advantage (that's pretty much a tautology).

Aside from the +1 or +2 to save DCs (which, again, is going to help stick those FFs, but not by much), your build is not significantly different in its ability to get advantage. Greater Invisibility is definitely nice for that, but that's also something Pancake's build could steal and use just as easily (but better, because it has more attacks to make at advantage with SS).

I've given you explicit DPR numbers, so we can actually analyze how many rounds it takes for your FF or GI to catch up to his DPR. Most of the time it doesn't favor you, including times where even in your best case scenario (your FF hits, isn't saved, and remains for 10 rounds of active combat) doesn't actually reach the consistent DPR of Pancake.

I think my biggest issue with your analysis here is how you've entirely discounted +3 to hit as trivial, yet suggest there's a massive difference in your respective ability to gain advantage. The gap you've imagined isn't that wide, and your reliability isn't nearly what you're hyping it up to be.


And speaking of after level 14, let's discuss that, because that is a huge level that changes everything. At that point, my bard starts outdoing his in DPR for two reasons. First, yes, his bard will certainly have the higher AC, but my bard will still be less likely to take a hit, for the same reason as one of the two reasons I'm out damaging him. Simulacrum is soooo much better than Tenser's Transformation. There's now two of me on the field. I've cut my setup time in half, I have four attacks per turn, and I can have two concentration spells in effect. And my simulacrum is permanent until killed, same as my steed. And it has its own steed. And we both have the valor level 14 war magic ability. So in one turn, we get two setup spells cast AND make two attacks.

You're again pointing to things that Pancake could just as easily use (albeit one level behind you). Pancake now has 8 attacks per turn, also has two concentration spells in effect, its simulacrum is permanent until killed, and it also has its own steed. Both are flourishing every round, and Pancake's simulacrum has higher AC to boot.

As it happens, Pancake's Simulacrum is also more useful for the long haul (assuming it isn't destroyed), since Simulacrums can't regain their spell slots. Do you really want to compare a slotless Pancake versus a slotless Sleep? I'm not sure you'll like the result.

I'm not sure where you're getting that your bard will be less likely to take a hit, frankly, unless you're talking about the Simulacrum diverting attention? Your bard will also either have less of a DC advantage on its spells or lack proficiency on its con saves - retaining Greater Invisibility or Faerie Fire or Haste or Tensers or just about every other concentration spell is going to be a lot harder for your build than it will be for Pancake's. Your "consistent" DPR is hardly consistent when the buff you spent a round setting up drops before you get to make a single attack because a goblin hit you once or twice with a sling bullet.


His build has greater potential damage most of the time, my build focuses more on guaranteed damage. Taking that approach to his own build improves it so much. Just look at how much it improved between the original version and now with the inclusion of one spell (faerie fire) and changing another (taking haste instead of SQ). Even if he stays swords, better spell selection from the start will make him better all around.

You aren't really guaranteeing more damage. I've run the numbers (and again, help me correct them where they're wrong), and pretty much everything your build can do DPR-wise, Pancake's can match without breaking a sweat (and often blows by yours if he uses similar tricks).

Let's deal with the builds as they are, not the builds as they were - The point of refining and changing a build is to focus on the new build, not vent about what the build used to be. The point of our contributions is to help evaluate and improve his build. For example...


Just two examples? Pick up greater invisibility at bard 8 (after polymorph at bard 7) and use MS to get simulacrum instead of Tenser's. Or better yet, instead of holy weapon. Simulacrum means two of you, each casting Tenser's on themselves.

Excellent contributions! It undercuts your build's ability to outcompete his, as he seems to be able to use your tricks better than you can (At a quick glance, between your two builds, which benefits from Greater Invisibility more? His by a long shot), which is hopefully the entire point of this exercise!

Speaking of Tenser's, it can be shared with your Steed. Good god, that's brutal.


Think of it like this. The OP's build has been, for thr most part, a fighter with a flying mount. One answer to every situation: "I hit it." But as has been pointed out, faerie fire is not always the best spell for the job. Having that bardic versatility to also do things like greater invis (something even the updated build lacks) means that you always have advantage, or an answer to your situation. Which then means that yes, you can solve it by murder hoboing everything.

Actually, it's a charming, magically enhanced, extremely skilled fighter with a flying mount. With your (and maybe my) help, he's adding tools to his toolbox, and still doing just fine in the "Imma kill it dead" role.

TL;DR: Your build gets some really nifty tools 1 level earlier than Pancake's, at the cost of lacking reliable buffs (lower or equal AC, lower Concentration saves) and reliable attacks without buffs (when you're both out of spell slots, or there's an enemy counterspelling, or you're in an anti-magic field, or the effects of Silence, one build is a clear winner). As soon as Pancake gets the tools you've gotten, Pancake can reliably use them better, and when all the tricks and tools are exhausted, Pancake is still running laps while your build piddles out to "a couple low accuracy longbow shots" that can't even use Sharpshooter reliably except on the easiest-to-hit targets.

[SleepIncarnate]

I'm not saying that accuracy is irrelevant, just that advantage is greater. At higher levels, you'll note my build's charisma is 20 while his is still 14. And I picked up war caster along the way. That's advantage to saving throws. So my spells are more likely to stick and land, (that's a +3 to the save DC difficulty compared to his, the difference between attacking AC 17 and attacking AC 20), and I'm less likely to lose concentration. I could also argue dumping medium armor master (as stated earlier, I initially grabbed it thinking it gave a +1 to strength or dexterity only to find it's the only armor feat that doesn't do that) and also getting resilient constitution. That's sacrificing one extra 1d6 + whatever attack per round for proficiency with constitution saving throws, which I also have advantage against.

For that matter, how is he a "charming" fighter on a flying steed? His charisma is only 14 and none of his spells have any kind of charm effect. Speaking of charm, let's talk about one spell my build picked up that his didn't: Mass Suggestion. With that, I can target up to 12 opponents and charm them into obeying a reasonable command. With the right phrasing, I could turn those potentially 12 foes against their fellows. Say, something like "I suggest you fight for us if you don't want us killing you." With one spell, I'm a) decreasing the damage my party is taking (including myself), b) decreasing the amount of foes we need to kill, and c) increasing the number of attacks per round by 12+ against our remaining foes. That spell lasts 24 hours, doesn't use concentration, and massively changes the field of battle. Compare his 4 attacks per round with a hand crossbow to that and tell me who's resulting in more DPR. And by going Valor, I can start making my own attacks the same round I cast that spell.

Your numbers just count bow attacks, but don't factor in other abilities. Sure, he could pick up Mass Suggestion as well, but with his would be more likely to be resisted with his pitiful 14 charisma. The situation is a lot more complex than just running math on potential damage.

[PancakeMaster80]

Added in the 2 additional cantrips and swapped out holy weapon for simulacrum at 15, that spell is quite goofy.

[Citan]

Except they will always be inferior to other archers. You're playimg against your own strengths.

Guaranteed damage with faerire fire. Burst damage with psychic blades. Charming enemies to fight for you. All options you're passing up to try to make a bard archer that is inferior to every other archer.
I'm picking up the thread, had to stop at that post.

Sorry, but the bold part just proves you don't know your topic well enough.

Any Bard that gets Extra Attack can be superior to mostly every martial along the way, provided he spends a bit of resource on that.

1st level: Faerie Fire (yeah, it benefits others, but I'm putting the "self-scope" lense right now).

2nd level: nothing astounding, that I can remember although: there is Blindness which is great when it works, sadly targets CON, and Hold Person which is amazing as long as you encounter humanoids (which is common IMX but of course YMMV).

3rd level: nothing that I can remember (although Lore Bard could grab Haste). We should note Fear though: although not giving advantage, it boosts defense which means potentially more attacks. It's far-stretched though, no argue there. :)
Hypnotic Pattern is quoted for information but the obvious limitation makes it miss the mark (again, from a "solo" perspective).

4th level: Greater Invisibility: from that point onwards, that Bard is simply as good or better than any martial as far as dealing damage goes, and this will hold true even after Fighter gets his 3rd attack and until enemies start having common tools against invisibility. Only ones that could come close are Devotion Paladin with Sacred Weapon or Kensei Monk with max-buff weapon, because those simply increase the level of auto-hit.

----
Also, the level of "badwrongfun" you and others display is just completely ridiculous.
Not only are you NOT answering OP nor helping, but you are just forcing some kind of rage upon him like he was completely destroying himself.
This kind of reaction is stupid.

As *yourself* said, Bard's awesomeness comes mainly from spells.
Absolutely *nothing* would block OP from playing a "regular" controllish Bard when it's really needed.
The things he'd be lacking compared to a "regular opti Bard" (not sure what consensus would be but I'd throw my hat in for Resilient: Constitution and Inspiring Leader) can be easily offset with wits, care or simply party coordination.

As for the italic part...
- Faerie Fire needs to hit, which is not at all a certainty. And even so it's still "only" advantage unless you stack Elven Accuracy.
- Psychic Blades: no argue on that, as far as damage goes this is a great ability. :)
- Charming enemies: if you refer the Command as bonus action, yeah it's a very nice ability, since targets CHA, but is only 60 feet range. That's quite close. Same with most Dominate spells.

OP wants to play a Bard that happens to also be as efficient as any regular Fighter damage-wise when needed, by investing some spells and slots, and one or two feats.
While also having the Expertise of a Rogue (at least, I'd guess so).
Which means that contrarily to a Lore Bard, he'd need less expenses to scout or skirmish for example. When playing "as a regular Bard", he could keep so much more distance while still actively contributing that very little threat will ever come to his concentration.

In other words, he's simply using most of the "build freedom" he has at disposal for his character, to push in a particular direction that makes him much better in solo situations or specific combat-related situations.

Is that the "best" way to play a Bard? Probably, or at least possibly, not. Is that a "largely good enough way"? For sure.

Playing a character like you want is never badwrongfun. Period.
The only thing one could hold to a player would be if, after repeated discussions as group on how everyone *actually suffers* from a single player's choices (in building or otherwise), yet that player pursues his way instead of trying to find a behaviour or concept which allows everyone to have fun.
And then it's much more a "human" problem than a "build" problem.

Because, you know what? I'm pretty sure if you ask around here, you can have many stories from players about people that, although playing creamy "optimal characters", were still mildly useful at best because they didn't put in the brainwork that was supposed to go with. Which is especially problematic with casters. ^^

[PancakeMaster80]

Is that the "best" way to play a Bard? Probably, or at least possibly, not. Is that a "largely good enough way"? For sure.

The bright side has been that even folks who really don't like this idea have given me some help in refining the build to better do what I made it to do, and unusualsuspect has gone above and beyond in coming up with great suggestions.

[Citan]

The bright side has been that even folks who really don't like this idea have given me some help in refining the build to better do what I made it to do, and unusualsuspect has gone above and beyond in coming up with great suggestions.
Yeah, forgot to stress it, but Unusualsuspect's post was indeed very bright (imo at least ^^). I'll back it mostly fully. ^^

EDIT: oh, BY THE WAY: as much as I appreciate the time and effort you put to structure your opening post (I sincerely do ;)), could you plz, just, you know, "tone down" the titles?
Not sure about others, but I happen to read this forum with oversized zoom because very bad view (not, I'm not 80, although I may seem sufficiently grumpy for people to believe so XD)...
And in such a fashion your titles are kinda aggressive, like, jumping at my eyes and throat before I can even read. ^^
Thanks in advance if you can keep this in mind for future threads. ;)

EDIT2: seems everything interesting to comment was already said above...
The only bit I could provide, but I'm warning you, this doesn't have great chances to fly imo: provided you can find a Ring of Spell Storing that could house at least a 3rd level slot, grab Find Familiar one way or another and have it attune the ring to cast Haste on you through it.

Saying it's not sure to fly because, while apparently devs said per RAI it was in the realm of possible for a familiar to use an item, imo it should still require at the minimum the familiar has an appendice that could keep the ring securely and be intelligent enough to use a magic item.
No idea how close or far those conditions would be between RAW and houserules, but I'd definitely impose them myself as a DM.

[PancakeMaster80]

I'll actually be taking the level 1 version of this build to an Adventurer's League event next month, excited to try it out ^_^

[Citan]

I'll actually be taking the level 1 version of this build to an Adventurer's League event next month, excited to try it out ^_^
In the slight chance you make it out to 9th level spells...
Imagine at leisure how quickly you will rain arrows on enemies, for so very little cost (Wish a Simulacrum whenever you need, that as a consequence can use all your usual spells to buff himself, otherwise buff yourself with Foresight).

Level 18 Bard's operational assault:
2*(Swift Quiver + Extra Attack) = 8 attacks per round.
Add extra cheese in case my aforementioned trick is allowed (Find Familiars casting from Ring) for even 2 more attacks, or all attacks *possibly* at advantage (at that level, creatures earning slot expense usually don't care about invisibility ^^ -you're a god for mooks though-).

Or, simply have your Simulacrum buff the hell out of you with Magic Secrets or otherwise non-concentration buffs (Aid, Death Ward, Longstrider, Freedom of Movement) then finish with a Holy Weapon, then let him hide someplace safe while you enter the dungeon (of course it means you'd want to reach the important fight within the hour, but hey, let's be honest, isn't having a bit of time pressure even more fun? ;)).

Yeah, Simulacrum is *that* bad (or good, depending on point of view).

[PancakeMaster80]

Yeah, forgot to stress it, but Unusualsuspect's post was indeed very bright (imo at least ^^). I'll back it mostly fully. ^^

EDIT: oh, BY THE WAY: as much as I appreciate the time and effort you put to structure your opening post (I sincerely do ;)), could you plz, just, you know, "tone down" the titles?
Not sure about others, but I happen to read this forum with oversized zoom because very bad view (not, I'm not 80, although I may seem sufficiently grumpy for people to believe so XD)...
And in such a fashion your titles are kinda aggressive, like, jumping at my eyes and throat before I can even read. ^^
Thanks in advance if you can keep this in mind for future threads. ;)

Hmm, not a bad idea, I will try to tone them down a bit =P

[PancakeMaster80]

In the slight chance you make it out to 9th level spells...
Imagine at leisure how quickly you will rain arrows on enemies, for so very little cost (Wish a Simulacrum whenever you need, that as a consequence can use all your usual spells to buff himself, otherwise buff yourself with Foresight).

Level 18 Bard's operational assault:
2*(Swift Quiver + Extra Attack) = 8 attacks per round.
Add extra cheese in case my aforementioned trick is allowed (Find Familiars casting from Ring) for even 2 more attacks, or all attacks *possibly* at advantage (at that level, creatures earning slot expense usually don't care about invisibility ^^ -you're a god for mooks though-).

Or, simply have your Simulacrum buff the hell out of you with Magic Secrets or otherwise non-concentration buffs (Aid, Death Ward, Longstrider, Freedom of Movement) then finish with a Holy Weapon, then let him hide someplace safe while you enter the dungeon (of course it means you'd want to reach the important fight within the hour, but hey, let's be honest, isn't having a bit of time pressure even more fun? ;)).

Yeah, Simulacrum is *that* bad (or good, depending on point of view).

Simulacrum is bonkers good and I'm thankful to this thread for bringing it to my attention, I've tried to read the entire 5e spell list, but there are so many my eyes end up glazing over, and somehow I missed this one.

[unusualsuspect]

I'm not saying that accuracy is irrelevant, just that advantage is greater. At higher levels, you'll note my build's charisma is 20 while his is still 14. And I picked up war caster along the way. That's advantage to saving throws. So my spells are more likely to stick and land, (that's a +3 to the save DC difficulty compared to his, the difference between attacking AC 17 and attacking AC 20), and I'm less likely to lose concentration. I could also argue dumping medium armor master (as stated earlier, I initially grabbed it thinking it gave a +1 to strength or dexterity only to find it's the only armor feat that doesn't do that) and also getting resilient constitution. That's sacrificing one extra 1d6 + whatever attack per round for proficiency with constitution saving throws, which I also have advantage against.

That's true, sort of, eventually. I think to properly respond, I'd need to know the actual order and choice of feats you want your build to have. Are you getting an appreciable difference to your build's saving throws early? That was your stated preference, I believe. If so, you're certainly landing things like Faerie Fire (relevant to our discussion) and other save-based spells (less relevant) more often, but you're not matching or exceeding Pancake's build in terms of maintaining concentration. If you are intent on doing the latter, you don't get a significant saving throw difference. One of the more misleading ways to present a build is to present the build as having all of its ASI toolkit (or whatever part of the toolkit is relevant to the discussion) before it reaches the last level you get an ASI.

I do think dropping Medium Armor Mastery is a good call, but then your build is either no better AC-wise if you're trying to be stealthy (both with Breastplates, or Pancake in Studded Leather once he gets 18+ Dex) and worse if you aren't (Full plate versus half plate). Once Greater Steed comes into play, Plate's reduced speed (due to a lack of Str 15) becomes essentially meaningless, too.

I also still think you're overblowing the actual difference in obtaining Advantage, and consequently the extent to which your build is more consistent in damage (if it is at all, which I've always contended was in dispute). In the early levels, where gaining advantage is a matter of Faerie Fire landing and Faerie Fire is worth the loss of a round of shooting to apply (i.e. both builds will want to use it), the vast majority of D20 results will be shared between the two builds. At the absolute maximum, we're talking 15% of dice rolls where your build has advantage while Pancake's does not (as any rolls lower would have the target fail and give both builds advantage, and any rolls higher would have the target succeed and deny both builds advantage). That leaves a minimum of 85% of the remaining D20 rolls being a comparison of like to like - both shooting with advantage or both shooting without it. Both scenarios are very clearly in favor of Pancake's build essentially all level, every level... and sometimes even in that 15% of dice cases. Pancake's shooting is just that much better.


For that matter, how is he a "charming" fighter on a flying steed? His charisma is only 14 and none of his spells have any kind of charm effect.

You're totally correct, I misremembered his chosen skills. It's probably best to describe him as a spellcasting, deceitful, acrobatic, sneaky, impossibly-fast-handed fighter on a flying steed (all of which his build will get by lvl 11, and some a lot sooner).


Speaking of charm, let's talk about one spell my build picked up that his didn't: Mass Suggestion. With that, I can target up to 12 opponents and charm them into obeying a reasonable command. With the right phrasing, I could turn those potentially 12 foes against their fellows. Say, something like "I suggest you fight for us if you don't want us killing you." With one spell, I'm a) decreasing the damage my party is taking (including myself), b) decreasing the amount of foes we need to kill, and c) increasing the number of attacks per round by 12+ against our remaining foes. That spell lasts 24 hours, doesn't use concentration, and massively changes the field of battle. Compare his 4 attacks per round with a hand crossbow to that and tell me who's resulting in more DPR. And by going Valor, I can start making my own attacks the same round I cast that spell.

Awesome contribution! Yes, that's a very powerful maneuver, so long as "fight for us or I'll kill you" is considered reasonable (DM dependent - we can get into this discussion if you wish, but I'll just say that it doesn't allow saves each round, and I somehow doubt WotC intended Mass Suggestion to be a better, AoE-but-exclusions-can-apply-at-will Dominate Monster), they share a language, and they aren't immune to charm. In the right encounter it would potentially even be better than Animate Objects. Great catch, and one of the several ways your Build makes excellent use of powerful Bard magic.


Your numbers just count bow attacks, but don't factor in other abilities. Sure, he could pick up Mass Suggestion as well, but with his would be more likely to be resisted with his pitiful 14 charisma. The situation is a lot more complex than just running math on potential damage.

But we CAN run math on that. I point again to the realities of D20s, and the influential power of the automatically rising proficiency bonus. At worst, 85% of the targets behave exactly the same when Pancake's build and your build use the same spell, with only 15% of targets behaving differently under different builds. This statement is not to disparage the difference (1 or 2 extra foes turning, if your DM allows Suggestion to have that much leeway, can easily change a fight dynamic), but to call to your attention how much your rhetoric seems unreasonably hyped.

[unusualsuspect]

I'm picking up the thread, had to stop at that post.

SNIP



I appreciate the enthusiasm, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who got that vibe, but at this point SleepIncarnate is contributing quite a bit to the build in a wide variety of ways.

It seems like this particular line of conversation, even if (and possibly because of being) representative of righteous indignation, doesn't really help the OP's goals any more than the initial badwrongfun line did, and if anything, seems more likely to take this thread off an contentious tangent.

Cheers!

[PancakeMaster80]

Speaking of charm, let's talk about one spell my build picked up that his didn't: Mass Suggestion. With that, I can target up to 12 opponents and charm them into obeying a reasonable command. With the right phrasing, I could turn those potentially 12 foes against their fellows. Say, something like "I suggest you fight for us if you don't want us killing you." With one spell, I'm a) decreasing the damage my party is taking (including myself), b) decreasing the amount of foes we need to kill, and c) increasing the number of attacks per round by 12+ against our remaining foes. That spell lasts 24 hours, doesn't use concentration, and massively changes the field of battle. Compare his 4 attacks per round with a hand crossbow to that and tell me who's resulting in more DPR. And by going Valor, I can start making my own attacks the same round I cast that spell.

I'm specifically not using spells like mass suggestion because how dependent they are on a player's ability to convince their GM of the spell's capabilities. It was a huge headache for me when I GMed for a bard that only used charm style spells and I don't want to inflict that on another GM.

[SleepIncarnate]

I'm specifically not using spells like mass suggestion because how dependent they are on a player's ability to convince their GM of the spell's capabilities. It was a huge headache for me when I GMed for a bard that only used charm style spells and I don't want to inflict that on another GM.

That's going to vary from DM to DM, but one of the greatest strengths of the bard is causing the DM headaches, because they're so versatile that, short of looking at the character's sheet, the DM never knows fully what the bard can pull out. Let me give an example using a spell that you yourself take: Leomund's Tiny Hut.

My most recent session, our DM threw a series of small nothing fights at us in an attempt to wear us down a bit before we enter the dungeon (which will be our next session). But he didn't account for the hut, which he even said, there isn't much he can do about it. That one spell made it so he needs to rework his dungeon to keep it challenging for us by the time we reach the boss. Unless of course, one of us has Pass Without Trace and we all sneak past the other encounters straight to our target (the queen of a colony of giant dragonfly things). Guess what? We have PWT. I suggest just accepting that as a bard, you're going to be hard pressed to not cause headaches for your DM, as there are so many things you can do that they can't prepare for.

One such example, a simulacrum. Your DM may think they've finally figured out how to plan for the one of you, but now he has to deal with two of you. That's a headache waiting to happen

[PancakeMaster80]

That's going to vary from DM to DM, but one of the greatest strengths of the bard is causing the DM headaches, because they're so versatile that, short of looking at the character's sheet, the DM never knows fully what the bard can pull out. Let me give an example using a spell that you yourself take: Leomund's Tiny Hut.

My most recent session, our DM threw a series of small nothing fights at us in an attempt to wear us down a bit before we enter the dungeon (which will be our next session). But he didn't account for the hut, which he even said, there isn't much he can do about it. That one spell made it so he needs to rework his dungeon to keep it challenging for us by the time we reach the boss. Unless of course, one of us has Pass Without Trace and we all sneak past the other encounters straight to our target (the queen of a colony of giant dragonfly things). Guess what? We have PWT. I suggest just accepting that as a bard, you're going to be hard pressed to not cause headaches for your DM, as there are so many things you can do that they can't prepare for.

One such example, a simulacrum. Your DM may think they've finally figured out how to plan for the one of you, but now he has to deal with two of you. That's a headache waiting to happen

I'm glad your group is having fun with that type of play, it's not one I'm particularly interested in pushing on whatever GM I'm playing with.

[Biggstick]

That's going to vary from DM to DM, but one of the greatest strengths of the bard is causing the DM headaches, because they're so versatile that, short of looking at the character's sheet, the DM never knows fully what the bard can pull out. Let me give an example using a spell that you yourself take: Leomund's Tiny Hut.

My most recent session, our DM threw a series of small nothing fights at us in an attempt to wear us down a bit before we enter the dungeon (which will be our next session). But he didn't account for the hut, which he even said, there isn't much he can do about it. That one spell made it so he needs to rework his dungeon to keep it challenging for us by the time we reach the boss. Unless of course, one of us has Pass Without Trace and we all sneak past the other encounters straight to our target (the queen of a colony of giant dragonfly things). Guess what? We have PWT. I suggest just accepting that as a bard, you're going to be hard pressed to not cause headaches for your DM, as there are so many things you can do that they can't prepare for.

One such example, a simulacrum. Your DM may think they've finally figured out how to plan for the one of you, but now he has to deal with two of you. That's a headache waiting to happen

Your DM doesn't look over your character sheet? They don't confirm your spell choices upon leveling up? That seems strange to me, as both a DM and a Player. I could understand it in AL or something along those lines, but not in personal games.

While Leomund's Tiny Hut is great and all, it's not difficult to deal with imo. If anything in the dungeon comes across it, you can simply surround the Hut. There are plenty of other tactics one might use to deal with the Hut, but that's just one of them.

All that aside, is there a reason the 4th level spell Guardian of Nature is never considered when building archer Bards? It's a lower level spell, meaning when you're picking it up with magical secrets you'll have more castings of it. While it's similar to Greater Invisibility, it provides much different effects while still meshing extremely well with a CE/SS archer Bard.

[SleepIncarnate]

Not every DM checks every sheet constantly. The point is, even if they do that, they can't plan for everything. How do you plan for every possible use of the Wish spell? That's basically a bard, as with magical secrets, any spell can be taken. A bard is too versatile for a DM to completely plan for. And then, there's spells that in and of themselves reward creativity. Any one of those spells alone can throw the DM for a lurch, and the bard gets so many of them.

[ATHATH]

EDIT: Nevermind.

[Biggstick]

I mean, your DM might not be checking your sheet constantly, but I know I as a DM check character sheets after every level-up. That includes spells taken upon leveling up. This is to ensure accountability to the rules as to Players actually making choices (versus waiting until the moment presents itself and making the choice then).

If you have an idea of the spells a PC has, you can plan accordingly. Personally, I think it's in the Player's responsibility to also make the DM aware of the spells they're taking. If you assume something will work a certain way without checking with the DM, you're in the wrong imo. You should be discussing with the DM spells you're choosing upon level-up to make sure they work the way you think they work.

[SleepIncarnate]

Even knowing the spells, DMs may forget. Or may not be able to prepare for every possible way a player can use that spell. Again, how do you prepare for every possibility that the Wish spell grants?

In the instance of the tiny hut example, my DM knew I had the spell. Before our session started, while we were waiting on our last member to arrive, the rest of us were talking about all kinds of things, including tiny hut, and how great it is. Knowing we had it didn't mean he was prepared for us using it when and where we did. Or maybe he'd forgotten by the end of the session. Either way, he's having to adapt the next session to respond to us not being worn down like he'd originally planned.

No DM can always anticipate everything a player is going to do. Likewise, I know plenty of DMs who enjoy the challenge of adapting on the fly. Or just admitting that a player did something cool and creative with a spell. My point was, as a bard, you're going to have a hard time trying to never cause headaches for the DM, because so much of the bard is versatile and rewards creativity.

[Biggstick]

Wish is altogether a different stage of the game. Once you're level 17 or higher, it's a whole new ball game. But we're not talking about that, we're talking about Leomund's Tiny Hut.

My point is that even if the Bard has all the right skills and all the right spells, a DM can at the least have a plan for how to deal with any character in the game, at least in a session-by-session basis. This is possible by being aware of the spells they've taken. Knowing that a PC has access to a spell means that they will probably make use of the spell.

If a DM forgets a PC has access to something, that's not the Player's fault. This is even more true if the DM is taking their time and doing their due diligence to check over character sheets after leveling up.

All that aside, I'm still curious as to why archer Bards aren't interested in taking the Ranger spell Guardian of Nature? It seems to be right on the same level of power as Greater Invisibility, and gives you additional benefits.

[unusualsuspect]

I'm not seeing anything close to GIs level of power in that spell, particularly for this build or Sleeps. Perhaps you could expand why you think it competes with haste and GI?

Edit: Ah, Great Tree form. Advantage on attacks, unreliant on the enemy being unable to see invisible enemies (something I've heard is often bypassed by high-CR enemies).

More reliable source of advantage, but without the other myriad benefits of GI (sneaking around, granting your Steed advantage on attacks and good defense against non-invisibility-seeing targets, etc.).

I get it, but I'm not that impressed. Perhaps my gameplay just never reached the level where Invisibility becomes less relevant...

Edit 2: missed the advantage on con saves, which is actually not that bad, particularly for concentration saves that these builds are probably going to need to make (if not immediately, then right after they unload a round of advantaged sharpshooter shots. It's possibly a contender, even.