D&D 5E The Bard: A missed opportunity.

[Gladius Legis]

Advantage will negate a bad roll. It's roughly comparable to a +5, making it better than bardic inspiration for half of the bard's levels.

Again, you're ignoring action economy. Help is an action, which is what you use to cast a spell, make attacks, etc. Inspiration is a bonus action, and because it's not a spell in itself, you can still use your action that same turn to cast a full spell, or make your attacks. Inspiration is better for your action economy, even at the levels where Help's "numbers" are superior.

Yes I am.
It is a little weird that the class relies on the subclass to make it's signature ability useful. It's a little like if the rogue's sneak attack was only really useful when you hit level three and was used in a particular way as established by the subclass.

Inspiration is useful even without it. And even if it wasn't, what difference does it make that both Bard Colleges get expanded uses as part of their package?

 

[Gladius Legis]

Again these are wizard things.

Neither Faerie Fire nor Compulsion are Wizard spells.

 

[beej]

Thread was tl;dr. I apologize if I end up repeating things.

My love for bards is not a secret.

When I first heard about the bards' songs getting nerfed for 9th level spells, I wanted to rage, too. But then I started to convert my half-orc bard from Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle into the PHB version, and i realized that as a class, he is still strong.

He can use musical instruments as an arcane implement. To me, my perception changed from "he loses out on songs to cast spells" to "his songs recreate spell effects."

It all works out.

 

[Jester David]

I think one really solid bardic buffing spell might make all the difference.
Something comparable to bless but slightly different.

Perhaps a minor accuracy boost (say +1) and the option to cast at a higher level to add effects onto the spell.
So long as the spell is usable from 1-20 and has enough options to make it a desirable option for a level 9 spell slot it could really give the bard class the something extra it's lacking.

Off the top of my head:

Inspire Courage
1st-level enchantment
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 30 feet
Components: V, S
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
Your song or words inspire up to three creatures of your choice within range. Until the spell ends, the target gains a +1 bonus to attack rolls and damage.
At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, you can apply an effect from the following list for each additional level. These effects last until the spell ends.
Allegro: The target's speed increases by 10 feet.
Dolce: You can target one additional creature. You can apply this effect multiple times
Forte: The target gains a +1 bonus to all saving throws.
Fozando: The target's melee attacks deal an additional 1d6 damage. You can apply this effect multiple times.
Maestros: The target gains 1d8 temporary hit points. You can apply this effect multiple times.
Staccato: The target gains a +1 to AC.
Sostenuto: The spell's duration increases to 10 minutes.

 

[Johnny Angel]

Also, Wizards has transformed the bard into a musical wizard instead of their iconic jack of all trades.

They were musical wizards in 2nd Edition, when I fell in love with the class. Back then, their inspiration abilities were kind of useless, because the situations where you weren't trying to win surprise or losing surprise were rare. In 3rd edition they lost the ability to cast fireball, but they gained the ability to heal. I thought it was a pretty good trade-off. But now in 5e with Magical Secrets they can cast fireball again. And the inspiration became something they could kick off in battle and then jump into the battle for five rounds, or maintain for no additional cost except for the other actions they could have been taking. They are capable of a jack-of-all-trades build, though the relatively flatter ability bonuses all-around may make that kind of moot.

And the jacking-of-all-trades was in fact worse in 2nd and 3rd edition, because in 2nd their thief ability points were so token they'd never be qualified to carry the thieves' tools, much less stand in for the thief in a pinch, and in 3rd edition there were never enough skill points to spread around the big skill list even if you put 18 in your Int. In 5e, however, you can actually be jack of all those trades and master of a few to boot.

The inspiration die, and the can't-see-the-results-first rule WotC loves so much, seems pretty weak to me at least until you get to 3rd level, where the bard can actually use the die as a reaction to mitigate monster damage (College of Lore), or increase a friend's damage (College of Valor). That's better. As a damage buff/debuff you don't have to guess whether or not the roll would be useful. The wording is "You can choose to use this feature after the creature makes its roll, but before the DM determines whether the attack roll or ability check succeeds or fails, or before the creature deals its damage." It doesn't even say before the creature rolls its damage. It says before the creature deals its damage. You don't have to be a hard-core numbers cruncher to know what target number you're looking for after a couple of rounds, especially with 5e's flatter advancement curve and DC 30 hard ceiling, but yeah you're gambling on wastage everytime you use Inspiration to modify an attack or check. But for damage -- even if the GM won't tell you how much damage is coming, you are allowed to use the ability knowing that damage is definitely coming. You'll soak up or dish out at least a point of damage.

Of course, even then I'm not sure why even this was seen as powerful enough that it could never be allowed to have unlimited uses like Barbarian Rage does at 20th level. But refreshing the uses after a short rest at 5th level seems like it should be often enough.

 

[Jester David]

I feel like critics are under-valuing the defining nature of the composition of a class's spell list. I think it's easy to say wizards have spell lists and 9th level spells, bards have spell lists and 9th level spells, therefore bards = wizards. But the actual content of the spell list really distinguishes a character, IMO.

That is why I don't like the spell lists, not because of the content, but because of the way it is presented. To find out what a class is like you have to do 45 minutes of homework. Still, that is just a presentation issue.

I wasn't impressed by the spell list. There's a lot of offence and healing with some utility but not a lot of buffing. I can't recall seeing a single buff spell above 4th level. And there's a lot of filler.

9th level is the "big" level. They likely gave up a lot to reach those spells. And the bard gets foresight, power word: heal, power word: kill, and true polymorph. The power words certain could fit the bard. Foresight is kinda sorta a buff, but is a divination spell. It doesn't scream "bard" to me. And polymorph is kinda weird. A throw-back to the druidic origin of bards? The latter two really seem to just be there so two 18th level bards don't have identical high end spell lists.

And there's some bard spells for 3e that are missing like song of discord, shout or nightmare. And other bard spells like grease, glitterdust, summon monsters, shadow evocation/conjuration, geas, heroes feast, veil or seeming, haste and slow.

 

[AverageCitizen]

I think one really solid bardic buffing spell might make all the difference.
Something comparable to bless but slightly different.

Perhaps a minor accuracy boost (say +1) and the option to cast at a higher level to add effects onto the spell.
So long as the spell is usable from 1-20 and has enough options to make it a desirable option for a level 9 spell slot it could really give the bard class the something extra it's lacking.

Off the top of my head:

Inspire Courage
1st-level enchantment
Casting Time: 1 action
Range: 30 feet
Components: V, S
Duration: Concentration, up to 1 minute
Your song or words inspire up to three creatures of your choice within range. Until the spell ends, the target gains a +1 bonus to attack rolls and damage.
At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 2nd level or higher, you can apply an effect from the following list for each additional level. These effects last until the spell ends.
Allegro: The target's speed increases by 10 feet.
Dolce: You can target one additional creature. You can apply this effect multiple times
Forte: The target gains a +1 bonus to all saving throws.
Fozando: The target's melee attacks deal an additional 1d6 damage. You can apply this effect multiple times.
Maestros: The target gains 1d8 temporary hit points. You can apply this effect multiple times.
Staccato: The target gains a +1 to AC.
Sostenuto: The spell's duration increases to 10 minutes.

I don't know much about spell balance but it's a very solid concept.

 

[AverageCitizen]

I wasn't impressed by the spell list. There's a lot of offence and healing with some utility but not a lot of buffing. I can't recall seeing a single buff spell above 4th level. And there's a lot of filler.

9th level is the "big" level. They likely gave up a lot to reach those spells. And the bard gets foresight, power word: heal, power word: kill, and true polymorph. The power words certain could fit the bard. Foresight is kinda sorta a buff, but is a divination spell. It doesn't scream "bard" to me. And polymorph is kinda weird. A throw-back to the druidic origin of bards? The latter two really seem to just be there so two 18th level bards don't have identical high end spell lists.

And there's some bard spells for 3e that are missing like song of discord, shout or nightmare. And other bard spells like grease, glitterdust, summon monsters, shadow evocation/conjuration, geas, heroes feast, veil or seeming, haste and slow.

I had access to the phb long enough to pick through and decide if I wanted a particular character to take arcane trickster at lvl 3 or multi class bard instead, but that is all the chance I've had to compare spell lists. So you can see that I've had enough experience with them to be impressed by their distinction, but not enough to go in depth like you have, especially starting at high levels and working back. I liked the low level stuff I saw and it felt very "bardy" to me. I do like your homebrew though.

But you're right, at level 9 the spell list seems a little sparse. I do think that a lot of the phb content thins out a little at high levels because they learned that not a lot of people actually get that far. Even so, I hope they find a way to fill it out a bit.

 

[Umbran]

Which is why I didn't really discuss my feelings on the bard until someone else started a forum thread specifically to discuss problems with the bard.

(Pest though? I'm a little insulted.)

If I had actually called you a pest, you'd have a point. If you look again, I think you'll see it is a warning against becoming a pest - which rather implies you haven't yet.

Some folks in the not too distant past got themselves temp- and permabanned for taking the, "I can make a statement to WotC!" rather too far, and I'd rather that not happen again, you see.

Is that clear? If not, let's take it to PM, please.

 

[Pseudopsyche]

The d10 inspiration is pretty potent, averaging a +5.5 to rolls. That's a 25% chance of mattering.

Did you notice that the player chooses whether to use the Bardic Inspiration die only after rolling their d20 first? The idea is that you wait until you believe you have a near miss, then you spend the die to turn it into a hit. If in the space of 10 minutes you believe you will have multiple near misses for attack rolls or saving throws, you can hold out until a high-leverage roll, such as an attack roll for a spell, saving against fireball, or making that ability check to catch that rope before going over the waterfall.

As you noted in your analysis, the 10th-level bard can probably offer this die 10 times per day, at the cost of only bonus actions. Sounds pretty good to me.