Okay, first, the Bard College of Eloquence. The D&D team has said that this bard is meant to be a "philosopher" type from Greek history, like Plato or Aristotle. The UA and current subclass is very different, but fairly similar in theme. Here are the abilities compared:
First, the previous level 3 abilities of the Eloquence Bard. The UA eloquence bard could expend a bardic inspiration to speak to any creature and have them understand you for the next 10 minutes. The other UA level 3 feature was being able to cast calm emotions an amount of times per long rest equal to your charisma modifier without expending a spell slot. The current abilities are that if you roll a 9 or lower for a Charisma (Persuasion or Deception) check, the number rolled on the dice automatically becomes a 10. We have a few abilities like this already, but only for Rogues, IIRC. The next ability is that as a bonus action, you may give an enemy a negative bardic inspiration, and they roll the dice and subtract it from the next saving throw they make before the start of your next turn.
So, these abilities changed a lot at this level. They definitely made the subclass at this level feel more "evil" than it was before. Just the fact that they're super good at Deception, which is normally linked with bad people, Persuasion, which can be used for bad purposes, and can subtract bardic inspiration from enemies? This just all sounds negative, instead of the positive disney princess that this subclass was before, with speaking to squirrels and calming angry crowds of people.
Second, the previous 6th level ability. This ability let you use bardic inspiration to harm or heal creatures. You could hurt an enemy with psychic damage, and give them disadvantage on the next saving throw they make before the end of your next turn. (This ability is kind of similar to the now 3rd level ability Unsettling Words, but was better and more useful.) The new 2 sixth level abilities are to have your bardic inspiration stay on an ally for 10 minutes, with them using it round after round, but only if they use it for an ability check, saving throw, or attack roll AND the roll fails. (This is similar to part of the previous level 14 ability) The second level 6 ability is the ability to once per long rest or until you expend a spell slot to regain it, talk to up to 5 creatures at a time and have them understand you, no matter the language. (This is like the previously level 3 ability, but no longer requires bardic inspiration, and instead requires spell slots to do it multiple times a day.)
This subclass no longer feels as evil! You can speak with bunnies (but they can't speak back), can make sure your bardic inspiration never go to waste if you place them on the right person, and be a very good support character.
Third, the last level of these subclass features, level 14. (Wow, bard subclasses really are starved for abilities, and the jump from level 6 to 14 is a long haul) So, the previous ability was to make it so your bardic inspiration doesn't get wasted on failed attacks, saves, and checks. It additionally gave you the ability to move a successful bardic inspiration dice to another ally an amount of times equal to your Charisma modifier per long rest. The new ability is the exact same as the second part of the previous level 14 ability.
Now, this ability got significantly smaller than it was in the UA version, but it's for a good reason. They were making sure you could make the best use out of you bardic inspiration at lower levels.
Most of the changes to this subclass were moving around abilities to different levels, fixing small parts of abilities to balance them more, and changing how often you could use those abilities. I am upset they got rid of the Calm Emotions for free ability, but the replacement for that is probably more useful, and a lot more abusable (I don't think that's a positive, but I'm not sure).
Any thoughts on this? Did I get anything wrong?
