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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zardnaar" data-source="post: 6387865" data-attributes="member: 6716779">Class Abilities SpellsIn 5E the bard is a primary caster and this means spells are your major and most powerful class feature. And the bard has some powerful spells indeed. Individual spell selection will be covered later.Bardic Inspiration: Part of the bread and butter of the Bard class. The key part of using this ability is knowing when you give the dice to your allies. Practice makes perfect is the best advice I can give. Gets a lot better at level 3 and 5.Level 2Jack of All Trades At level 2 you can add half your proficiency bonus rounded down on all ability checks that you are not proficient in. Not really a major class feature in terms of the bard power but a decent enough ability and it can get crazy at higher levels. Note this also applies to initiative rolls. Song of Rest Another level 2 ability. When your allies spend a hit dice they regain an extra 1d6 hit dice. Short rests may be hard to come buy though so it is somewhat DM dependent. If you get multiple short rests in a day you are better off using HD based healing 1 dice at atime to maximise the amount of bonus d6's you can get.Bard College (Lore) You pick your career path here. For purposes of this guide I assume you pick the lore college.ExpertiseMore or less identical to the Rogue ability you get delayed access to this ability compared to the Rogue. Unlike the Rogue you cannot pick Thieves tools. I recommend picking stealth and perception as your skills. When combined with Jack of All Trades, and the bonus proficiencies you could make the argument the bard is better at skills than the Rogue. Bonus ProficienciesYou gain an extra 3 skills of your choice. More skills are always great. You do not have to pick skills on your class list either.Cutting Words:How good is cutting words? Put it this way you are probably better off not using bardic inspiration any more as you can debuff enemies using your reaction. Really feeds into the controller part of the the College of Lore Combines with Vicious Mockery and can make the DM cry, I should know I am one.Font of Inspiration.  Up until 5th level you may struggle with the amount of inspiration dice you have. Now they refresh on a short rest. Hard to rate higher due to short rests being hard to measure to to specific adventure, play styles, and the DM. The more short rests you get the better this ability is. Additional Magic Secrets You can pick 2 spells of any class and add them to your spells know list. The obvious choice is wizard spells but you can also take ranger and paladin spells before members of the actual Paladin and Ranger classes. I would recommend Aura of Vitality, Fireball, Fly, Slow or Haste depending on what you want to do.Skills Bards get to pick any  3 skills and they get an additional 2 skills via back ground, another 3 at level 3 and 2 if half elf, 1 if variant human and various racial skills such as perception as an elf.AcrobaticsAcrobatics is a dexterity based skill and is useful but it is not a 1st pick as such. Animal HandlingNot really that useful for you unless you want to ride a mount or something like that.ArcanaCould be useful for scrolls but your intelligence is probably going to be 12 at best and someone else in the aprty is likely to be better at it than you. AthleticsStrength as a dump stat probably and you have better options. Probably best avoided.DeceptionCharisma based skill with a lot of uses in social settings etc. You did make your charisma high right?HistoryYou have better options.InsightCan be good to detect people lying to you. IntimidationMake my day punk! You can be the good cop and the bad cop. Or maybe just bad.InvestigationAKA Streetwise in previous editions. Can be useful for digging up clues and rumours.MedicineOdds are the cleric is trained in this and is better at it.. Useful for when the cleric goes down however but a healing kit can automatically stabilise people.NatureIts a skill, it has some uses, you can live without it and someone else is probably better at it than you.PerceptionOne of the 5E super skills. Everyone should have this as you can use it to find hidden things and more importantly not get surprsed by anyone or anything. Do not accept dinner invitations from bugbears without this skill.PerformanceOne of the charisma based skills you can live without.PersuasionOne of the charisma based skills you really really want. You are likely the party face and be the best at it. Even if there is a Paladin in the party you still probably want to take this skill. ReligionVecna who?You can live without it. Sleight of HandYou can get some creative uses out of this skill or at least eat for free. Don't get caught.StealthThe other 5E super skill. You should have a decent dexterity, and surprise rounds+spells can end a combat fast.SurvivalOdds are someone else in the party has this and is better at it. Buffing them with inspiration may be a better idea than doing it yourself. Still useful at times though.Backgrounds Pick whatever you like based on what skills you want or whatever other criteria you like. The Criminal and Urchin back grounds however let you gain proficiency in thieves tools so pick them up if your bard it the Rogue replacement in the party.</blockquote>

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