D&D 5E Bard questions

[Cruller_rodman]

Hi, a few weeks ago I posted advising I'll be having my very first game tomorrow which I'm really excited about because I been looking for about 10 years to find a group, some really great people on here helped me get an idea for the character I want and I have built a Bard but I have some questions I can find in the rule book.

What is difference in the Bards instruments I know I can be proficient in 3 but from what I can tell all the instruments do the same thing which is spell focus so why would I ever need to take expensive and heavy bag pipes when i can just take a horn?

One of my mates who has just started playing told me you can only link 1 spell with an instrument so if I wanted to cast healing I could assign my Lute to it but that would mean I could only ever use my Lute to cast healing. Surely there are more spells available to me later in the game than there are instruments in the game.

so can someone explain this to me and is my friend right with what he's saying

 

[JonnyP71]

Firstly - pick whatever instrument you feel like - depending on personality, background and setting. There's no mechanical difference.

And your friend is hopelessly wrong.

 

[Cruller_rodman]

Firstly - pick whatever instrument you feel like - depending on personality, background and setting. There's no mechanical difference.

And your friend is hopelessly wrong.

Excellent that's good to know because that rule sounds lame

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Yeah, tying spells to instruments isn't a thing. Admittedly, the idea of a one-man-band bard walking around, having to use a different instrument for each spell, is pretty funny.

Flavor text aside, one use of the different instrument proficiencies would be the different bardic instrument magic items...