D&D 5E [GUIDE] A party without music is lame: A Bard Guide

[niklinna]

Bones of earth is permanent (no concentration). Good for standing on, and walling things off. Maybe use down time to make a maze. Though it competes with mass suggestion.

Mass Suggestion is on the bard spell list, so I don't see much competition. I do see competition from other fun/flavorful spells not on the bard list, though!

Illusory Dragon is solid, paticularly with the weaker level 8 spells.

Indeed. Even though you're likely to take Wish, which you could use to do Illusory Dragon, you could also take Illusory Dragon and be able to create 2 per day with your level 9 & 8 slots! Then again, Prismatic Wall is pretty strong.

 

[smbakeresq]

You're right about it being a spell attack. So Cha works fine.

But still, it's only good if you get an attack boost (advantage) otherwise take destructive wave.
Compare.

steel wind strike: vs AC, 6d10 (33) in a 30' range (max 5 creatures), nothing on a miss.
vs
destructive wave: vs Con, 10d6 (35) + prone in a 30' range (no maximum), + half on a save.

A few points:

I am wondering about SWS and interaction with various conditions, for example prone. You are making an attack, so do you get the benefits of whatever conditions the target has on it? Like advantage of attacking a prone creature, and what if you are not next to them? If can leverage a few critical hits it seems worth it and certainly cinematic. Its better at my table, since I play critical hits are max damage plus whatever you just rolled for damage, I don’t want players getting a critical and then sucking out by rolling double onesies.

For DW don’t forget three dimensions. You can knock flying creatures out of the sky. I think the spell should have a vertical component also even though it says “wave” implying its linear.


DW is just one of those spells that is better for the Bard then it is for its intended class. I am playing a Dragonborn life cleric 1/ Lore Bard X and took booming blade and spirit guardians and just having a helluva good time spamming them both. DW will be online soon at a much earlier level than intended when designed and it should be more good times.

 

[Blue]

Having a load of fun playing a halfling glamour bard. Just hit into an interesting spell snag - my DM (who admits he's more 3.5 fluent than 5e) doesn't see Suggestion as a combat-usable spell. Found this out last session the hardest way - wasting an action and a spell slot in a rather fierce combat.

I can live with it - it's the DM's call and I don't begrudge that. With the few spells known at my low level it's a hit though to lose what I thought was a good multi-purpose spell. Any suggestions on calm, rational points I can make to him to reconsider? Else I'll just drop it.

 

[smbakeresq]

Having a load of fun playing a halfling glamour bard. Just hit into an interesting spell snag - my DM (who admits he's more 3.5 fluent than 5e) doesn't see Suggestion as a combat-usable spell. Found this out last session the hardest way - wasting an action and a spell slot in a rather fierce combat.

I can live with it - it's the DM's call and I don't begrudge that. With the few spells known at my low level it's a hit though to lose what I thought was a good multi-purpose spell. Any suggestions on calm, rational points I can make to him to reconsider? Else I'll just drop it.

Tell him to watch Gods of Egypt. Hathor (played by Elodie Yung.) Her entire attack routine is Suggestion spell over and over. They don’t call it that but when you watch it you will see.

Here is a sample

https://youtu.be/ByHwMetOeW0

 

[smbakeresq]

Having a load of fun playing a halfling glamour bard. Just hit into an interesting spell snag - my DM (who admits he's more 3.5 fluent than 5e) doesn't see Suggestion as a combat-usable spell. Found this out last session the hardest way - wasting an action and a spell slot in a rather fierce combat.

I can live with it - it's the DM's call and I don't begrudge that. With the few spells known at my low level it's a hit though to lose what I thought was a good multi-purpose spell. Any suggestions on calm, rational points I can make to him to reconsider? Else I'll just drop it.

More on suggestion:

I do think “Help us kill your boss” is unreasonable though except in certain circumstances. However taking an enemy out of combat with “You need to make sure that other lair entrance is guarded so you should go there” is reasonable. If you have already cleaned out most of the place then “I would gather reinforcements then report back here in 10 minutes” would work. If you know enough about the target to know it’s ambition is to take over from the boss then “If you sit this battle out then you can be the boss” would work. I also think alignment would be a consideration, a chaotic target would be open to various shenanigans then a lawful creature would.

Certainly a captured target would give up almost anything, “Tell is about the lair and help us map it out” is fair game, this incentivized smart play.

One that I saw allowed was to tell the brute guard of the spell casting boss “You need to drag your boss to safety right away!” resulting in the brute grappling the boss and just dragging him away from the combat.

 

[Blue]

More on suggestion:

I do think “Help us kill your boss” is unreasonable though except in certain circumstances. However taking an enemy out of combat with “You need to make sure that other lair entrance is guarded so you should go there” is reasonable. If you have already cleaned out most of the place then “I would gather reinforcements then report back here in 10 minutes” would work. If you know enough about the target to know it’s ambition is to take over from the boss then “If you sit this battle out then you can be the boss” would work. I also think alignment would be a consideration, a chaotic target would be open to various shenanigans then a lawful creature would.

Certainly a captured target would give up almost anything, “Tell is about the lair and help us map it out” is fair game, this incentivized smart play.

One that I saw allowed was to tell the brute guard of the spell casting boss “You need to drag your boss to safety right away!” resulting in the brute grappling the boss and just dragging him away from the combat.

The situation that came up was that we were fighting a high level orc warband (part of a larger orc settlement) - about a dozen orcs that were a good fight for 6 PCs levels 5&10 (we had two guest players doing a cameo with their 10th level PCs from an earlier campaign in the same setting), which included the chief of the orcs. After we had done some fairly major damage on the warband as a whole it was to one of the more powerful hirelings "we're going to kill the chief but we have no quarrel with your tribe. Help us finish him and we'll install you as the new chief." The DM thought this was reasonable - I pointed out it was an auto-save if it's not reasonable. The orc failed his save. But the DM said that it was too powerful, so it planted the seed but wouldn't change his actions during the combat.

Which made it useless, since we were fighting the guy. We were winning - a retreat at that point would have let them attack us while we retreated and stopped our progress. Definitely not worth continuing Concentration during combat at the cost of not doing any other Concentration spells.

 

[smbakeresq]

I would have allowed that since uniting Orc tribes is always a significant event by a strong leader with another leader always jockying for position. The creatures in question also have to be relative in power, a minion wouldn't reasonably believe that it would take over from its master.

 

[smbakeresq]

I am having fun with a Str Divine Soul 1/Valor Bard Dragonborn. A product of careful breeding training of a family bloodline from Dragons Island in the Celestial Sea (World of Greyhawk), Sora threw off the bonds of family and people obligations to confront a threat she became aware of in a dream, the Age of Worms. Acting as an Emissary of her people, she became a glorious Bard to represent her people in these strange lands. With the booming voice (Thaumaturgy) and (Signs of Sorcery) supported by loud and flashy spells

Well that's the background in a nut shell. Using Shieldmaster to prone people with expertise athletics she is effective in combat setting up crushing attacks from the Paladin with a polearm and the Monk, and when that is not needed or effective puts in work with careful use of save spells or ones that don't depend on saves like Bless, Heat Metal, Plant Growth and Polymorph.

Good times. Although I think I sort of screwed up the background, the Dragons Island residents are probably more like a cult then anything, with devotion to their people and their cause more than anything.

 

[Blue]

I would have allowed that since uniting Orc tribes is always a significant event by a strong leader with another leader always jockying for position. The creatures in question also have to be relative in power, a minion wouldn't reasonably believe that it would take over from its master.

The DM explicitly did allow it - just not that it would have effect during a combat.

Which is what's bugging me about the approach so I was trying to get examples for him that Suggestion can happen in combat. Like your great video clip.

 

[smbakeresq]

In the movie Dune, the Voice gets one Harkonen to attack another. Out of combat uses are covered in Star Wars.