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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9512330" data-attributes="member: 18">I mean, it'd be the mechanically weakest class in D&D 5E by a very, very, very long way. Least effective in most situations, including social ones in a lot of cases. Also you're saying it's a 2/3rds caster, but why doesn't it get spells until level 2, when 1/2 casters get them at level 1?It does, actually. Your reasoning doesn't make him incorrect. DC-based low-level spells work better in 5E than 3.XE, but a lot of spells aren't DC-centric, because they're primarily dealing damage, healing or another effect. Some even are worse in 5E, because they deal damage, but it's fixed (or scales with spell slot level), where in previous editions it would be based on caster level.All you're actually saying is that CC spells, and absolutely nothing else, hold up better in 5E than they used to. Which is true. But many spells are not that, and it doesn't have the level of impact you're suggesting. Your example is funny, too - is Web even on the Bard spell list? It doesn't seem to be, unless I'm misreading.The simple fact is, in 5E, if you don't have anything you're particularly good at, you are mechanically weak. The designs proposed in this thread are universally going to have less impact on almost every part of the game than not just the current Bard but also most other classes in the game! The one way I could see to make a less-magical Bard not just weak and ineffective would be to significantly boost Bardic Inspiration - give all Bards more of it, replenished more easily, and with more ways to apply it (rather than there being a very few, and then each subclass giving a couple more). Make it so the Bard is this really serious support class that can have a decisive impact in combat by handing out a ton of Bardic Inspiration (I'd also suggest making Cutting Words and similar baseline in this case).Further, if you reduce their casting at all, just giving them access to all spells would be smart. Realistically it's not going to break anything, but it is going to mean they can get a bit more bang for their buck by picking actually-good spells.</blockquote>

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