D&D (2024) Playtest 6: Bard

[Vaalingrade]

Still Spell prep. Non-starter.

Choosing a spell list was a good idea, but doesn't make up for having to do homework every rest to play the class.

 

[Gradine]

College of Dance:
Punch Bard? Shared Evasion? Granted Movement (albeit could be executed better)? Hell. Yes.

College of Glamour:
Primal Spell List + Cottage Core Aesthetic + Performance: Spoken Word Poetry = You yourself got a witch, baby!

 

[Gradine]

Still Spell prep. Non-starter.

Choosing a spell list was a good idea, but doesn't make up for having to do homework every rest to play the class.

"Prepared Spells" read a hell of a lot like "Spells Known" honestly. The section on changing prepared spells mentions you can only swap out one per level.

 

[Vaalingrade]

"Prepared Spells" read a hell of a lot like "Spells Known" honestly. The section on changing prepared spells mentions you can only swap out one per level.

Missed the changing prepped spells section.

Huh.

Okay, I'm on board with the bard now, but that is stretching the hell out of the term 'prepared'.

 

[Gradine]

Magical Discoveries loses a little bit of its bite with the way Magical Secrets gives every Bard access to every spell. Guess it's two additional spells known prepared at least.

 

[DEFCON 1]

They unified the terminology by using the word 'Prepared' for every spellcasting class... they just changed up how often / how many spells could be swapped. Some have all their spells able to be changed every Long Rest (Cleric, Druid), some have one spell changed every Long Rest (Paladin, Ranger), and some have one spell changed every time you level up (Bard, Arcane Trickster).

 

[Vael]

Missed the changing prepped spells section.

Huh.

Okay, I'm on board with the bard now, but that is stretching the hell out of the term 'prepared'.

This is a change in terminology that was in the Mage playtest. "Known spells" is no longer a thing. All casters have Prepared spells, it's just when do you get to change the spells you prepare? The older "known" classes can change one per level up, while classic "prepared" casters can change them all after a long rest. Note that Sorcerers and Warlocks also say "Prepared spells".

 

[Zaukrie]

Thank goodness countercharm is a reaction. Finally. It was useless before. Definitely a fan of the dancer. Almost a leader type now with those abilities....The lore class if fine, no massive changes I don't feel.

That said, I'd like a few more uses of my cool inspiration things than 3 or 4 a day. But, it's not a MAJOR issue.

 

[Remathilis]

I have wanted a college of dance since 2014. This is perfect.

 

[Kobold Stew]

There are now three flavours of bards! Bards choose one of three spell lists at level 1. This is really exciting, and greatly increases the diversity of Bard builds available.

In the last playtest, bards had available to them half of the schools in the Arcane list, and (through a class feature) a range of healing options. No more. Now you need to choose what kind of bard you are going to be.

• Arcane Bard ("Classic"). Full load of arcane spells, with fireball and illusions at hand, but no healing.
• Divine ("Worship Leader"). You can be a secondary healer and still have all the class things that bards get. This lets you essentially create a new set of clericy options, with no explicit relationship to a divinity.
• Primal lets you be a nature bard. I saw someone just this morning hoping that bards would get this spell list. There's some healing, some nature. Bards among monstrous tribes could choose this and have great flavour out the box.

First thoughts:

• Each of these options is going to play differently, and so we go from 4 subclasses to, essentially, 12. That's amazingly robust design to emerge from a single line of text.
• College of Lore's Magical Discoveries is now fixed so that you can dip into other lists.
• Dare we hope for something similar in the Sorcerer? That would be amazing -- a primal sorcerer or a divine soul. That would make me more excited for sorcerers than I've ever been, I think.

There's also choices for Clerics and Druids. They can either take a bump in armor proficiency (Heavy Armor for clerics, Medium for Druids) and Martial Weapons, or get an extra cantrip and a bonus to Religion or Nature checks.

First thoughts:

• I suspect most will take the armor, but I like that it's a reasonable choice. The last time we saw Clerics, the cantrip option also gave +1 use of Channel Divinity. For me, that would make it a genuine challenge (with +1 Wildshape for Druids?).
• there's not quite the same diversity increase from this choice as there was for the bard, but at least the choice is there, and I can at least imagine choosing either for each of the Cleric subclasses.
• Last time there had been a "scholar" option for Cleric, applying to a choice of skills. That's been rolled into the Thaumaturge option, but without the choice. Certainly, before there was a "best option" in that you could gain +WIS to Persuasion, and I am pleased that at least has disappeared -- it was way too much.

We know (I think we know) there's going to be a similar level-1 choice for Warlocks (Blade/Chain/Tome), and I can dream that the choice of Spell list will be given to Sorcerers, like it was for Bards.