D&D (2024) Playtest 6: Bard

[TwoSix]

Hmm, necromantic dancing bard with red leather armor?

You can have any color you want, as long as it's black.

 

[mellored]

It can be any colour you want.

Reference for you young ones...

 

[Zaukrie]

Why would you stop playing a full caster just when their best spells start coming into play?

My brain stopped working, and I was thinking artificer. Nothing to see here.

 

[Marandahir]

Love this one.

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.

Divine Soul. Wild Arcanist. Primal Elementalist.

I can totally see this. And that means that Divine Soul doesn't need to be a Sorcerous Origin because it's built into spell list choice.
And it would also allow Psionic Wilders later on, when they do the big book of Psionics. Sorcerer always should have included the Psionic Wilder, as it was literally just a Psionic-themed Sorcerer. I still think there's room for an Int-based Psion class separate from the Wizard and Int-Lock as it really doesn't like the spellbook themes, but Wilder being-Cha based means Psionic Sorcerer is perfect.

The one concern I have here is that the playtest packet here at the Arcane Spell List says that they're used by Wizards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks, among others, and certain spells like the Swordmage spells from Xanathar's are designed specifically for those 3 "Arcane Caster" classes (ignoring Bard and Artificer). Maybe if the Bard tri-split proves popular (I LOVEEEEE IT) they'll consider it for the Sorcerer, but as it is, I'm not sure they're actively pursuing this idea.

 

[Marandahir]

Actually, the Bard, Ranger, and Paladin are all functionally “Spells Known” casters again, they just got rid of that term for some reason. If you read the rules for how those classes prepare spells, they only get to swap out one prepared spell when they gain a level. So, exactly how Spells Known works in the 2014 rules with Tasha’s spell versatility in play.

I just reviewed the Playtest 6, and the Bard follows Tasha's -- 1/level gain, but the Ranger and Paladin get to switch out 1 Spell/Long Rest (big downgrade for Paladin versatility from 2014, but in my opinion the right choice). Bard feels the odd one out and I hate it. Why are Bards arbitrarily stuck with the 1/Level when everyone else can swap at least a single spell out every night?

This and the lack of Song of Rest are my only desired changes for the 2024 Bard at this point. Otherwise the revisions seem perfect to me.

 

[Marandahir]

Re the Bard Spellcasting feature.

Its Spellcasting Focus is a musical instrument. But the College of Dance would use neither the musical instrument nor the material spell component in this magical context. Other Bard noninstrumental concepts such as singer, orator, or actor would eschew them as well.

Instead, the feature should read something like:

"
Spellcasting Focus. A verbal or somatic component can serve as your Spellcasting Focus for the spells you cast with your Bard features. Alternatively, playing a musical instrument can replace all spell components.

"

Might even have an Arcane Tome or a Holy Book as a spellcasting focus if you're an orator or preacher Bard

 

[Kobold Stew]

Love this one.

Divine Soul. Wild Arcanist. Primal Elementalist.

I can totally see this. And that means that Divine Soul doesn't need to be a Sorcerous Origin because it's built into spell list choice.

Yes! Excactly.

 

[Marandahir]

Just re-read Playtest Packet 5, and Wizards have the same 1/spell-level-minute during a Long Rest as Clerics and Druids get, while Sorcerers and Warlocks have the same 1/level up swap that Bards have here. In Packet 4, Paladins had the Cleric & Druid treatment, while Bards and Rangers had that treatment back in Packet 2 when they first showed up.

As much as I dislike the waiting for level up, this may be an explicit balancing choice so that Bards aren't perusing the entire Spells chapter every Long Rest and changing out something -- specifically after 10th level, at least. It means they're extremely versatile in their available spells, but extremely restricted in their ability to swap out said spells if they're not happy with the choices they made.

Not sure why Sorcerers and Warlocks get that other than they're not Wizards and they wanted to differentiate the 3 core casters from the others while standardizing the casting spells prepared progressions.

I still want Song of Rest to help heal the party during short rests, though. Overall there are more per-short rest mechanics in this packet than I had feared from previous packets that seemed to be moving everything to per-proficiency bonus-per-long rest. This means the Short Rest still has an important role in the game, even if it's going to be quite variable. Song of Rest might give the Bards that healing element even if they choose the Arcane Spell List, and if you're worried about an additional resource, tie its usage to Bardic Inspiration or burning a spell slot instead.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Just re-read Playtest Packet 5, and Wizards have the same 1/spell-level-minute during a Long Rest as Clerics and Druids get, while Sorcerers and Warlocks have the same 1/level up swap that Bards have here. In Packet 4, Paladins had the Cleric & Druid treatment, while Bards and Rangers had that treatment back in Packet 2 when they first showed up.

As much as I dislike the waiting for level up, this may be an explicit balancing choice so that Bards aren't perusing the entire Spells chapter every Long Rest and changing out something -- specifically after 10th level, at least. It means they're extremely versatile in their available spells, but extremely restricted in their ability to swap out said spells if they're not happy with the choices they made.

Not sure why Sorcerers and Warlocks get that other than they're not Wizards and they wanted to differentiate the 3 core casters from the others while standardizing the casting spells prepared progressions.

I still want Song of Rest to help heal the party during short rests, though. Overall there are more per-short rest mechanics in this packet than I had feared from previous packets that seemed to be moving everything to per-proficiency bonus-per-long rest. This means the Short Rest still has an important role in the game, even if it's going to be quite variable. Song of Rest might give the Bards that healing element even if they choose the Arcane Spell List, and if you're worried about an additional resource, tie its usage to Bardic Inspiration or burning a spell slot instead.

Yeah, the lack of song of rest hit me, but I guess making most non-spell healing abilities a priest thing makes sense

 

[Marandahir]

Yeah, the lack of song of rest hit me, but I guess making most non-spell healing abilities a priest thing makes sense

Perhaps this also opens the door to a healing-based subclass that might be best combined with Divine or Primal Spellcasting, but even an Arcane Caster might dabble in healing by taking the subclass? Song of Rest could even… REST inside that subclass!

Starting to generate all sorts of new angles to handle these changes. I do love the Any Power Source idea behind the Bard. It's still a full-caster, but it's not standing in the shadow of any one caster class because it's a Jack of All Spell Sources, Master of None! And I'm coming around to the relatively strict restriction on Bards learning new spells, especially if that restriction is shared by Warlocks and Sorcerers. It plays into the dabbler theme pretty well…