Henadic Theologian
Legend
To see see how they will.change it now the source spell lisrs are gone and class spell lists are back.
We saw 2 versions of the Bard, and both of them were during the period where they were still testing the idea of having 3 general spell lists - Arcane/Primal/Divine. The first version had them using the Arcane list but only certain schools of magic, and moved some features around to different levels in a way that wasn't well recieved. The second one let them choose which spell list they wanted to use (so you could have a Divine or Primal bard, which people found interesting), reverted the level changes, and made some generally well received tweaks to subclasses along with introducing the College of Dance.So, as someone who's largely missed the playtests, what DOES the UA bard look like?
I've found it one of the most confused classes in 5e - it's a performer that doesn't need to perform, and turning it into a full spellcaster has hamstrung the customisability of it to fit other archetypes and TRIPLED down on the 'Cha-based arcane caster' thing with the sorcerer and warlock, so I was hoping (probably in vain) for a significant rework. Sounds like we're not getting one though?
Yeah, that's kinda what I expected. Disappointing, but realistically they were never going to rewrite the whole thing from scratch like I wanted to see.We saw 2 versions of the Bard, and both of them were during the period where they were still testing the idea of having 3 general spell lists - Arcane/Primal/Divine. The first version had them using the Arcane list but only certain schools of magic, and moved some features around to different levels in a way that wasn't well recieved. The second one let them choose which spell list they wanted to use (so you could have a Divine or Primal bard, which people found interesting), reverted the level changes, and made some generally well received tweaks to subclasses along with introducing the College of Dance.
Given that the Arcane/Primal/Divine spells lists are gone, IMO it's likely the 2024 Bard will be the 2014 Bard with:
- Minor adjustments to spell list
- A better Countercharm (it's now a reaction to give one creature a reroll with advantage)
- Tweaked subclasses
- A new capstone (it essentially lets you twin PW:K or PW:H)
That's probably not what you wanted, but the Bard was generally a well liked class from what I can tell, and given that WotC didn't feel the need to make sweeping changes to it.
For what it is worth:I agree. The UA 5 bard was well-liked at least in part because of being able to choose from the Arcane, Divine, or Primal spell lists, which doesn't really translate to individual class spell lists, so the thing that made the UA5 bard popular is no longer really relevant. Unless the 2024 bard can choose to use the wizard, druid, or cleric spell list which would be... pretty weird...