Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana: Bard Colleges!

Mantle of Inspiration is downright unnerving, and not in a good way. More of a stalker-ish vibe, or should I say stalk-ee?

 

[Prakriti]

This week's (Unearthed Arcana is currently weekly, not monthly) edition of UA introduces the bard's College of Whispers and College of Glamour. The College of Glamous is a fey-focused college ("The College of Glamour is open to those bardswho mastered their craft in the vibrant, deadlyrealm of the Feywild. Tutored by satyrs, eladrin,and other fey, these bards learn to use theirmagic to delight and captivate others."); the College of Whispers is all about spies ("Most folk are happy to welcome a bard into theirmidst. Bards of the College of Whispers use thisto their advantage. They appear to be like anyother bard, sharing news, singing songs, andtelling tales to the audiences they gather. In truth,the College of Whispers teaches its students thatthey are wolves among sheep. These bards usetheir knowledge and magic to uncover secretsand turn them against others through extortionand threats.") This article was by Mearls and Crawford, as Crawford's Sage Advice is on pause for a while. There's also a survey regarding last week's barbarian options.

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[UngeheuerLich]

Cool colleges. Both are thematic and offer unique abilities.

 

[guachi]

Their usage seems rather limited. The second one more for an NPC Bard used as an enemy.

On first reading I'm indifferent. But that's often the case as I can miss the implications of some abilities.

It is nice, though, that the Bard gets something new.

 

[Leatherhead]

It looks like we are going in alphabetical order for the classes now.
Which is cool, cause Clerics need love sooner rather than later.
Speaking of which, there is no "Divine Word" College for Bards this time, just a pair of ambiguously evil and selfish ones this time.

College of Glamour.
So you want to be a diva? And have it be all about you? Have some otherworldly beauty, and make everyone do your work too?

Mantle of Inspiration
This is basically a warlord ability. It uses one of your Inspiration dice to buff and move your friends around. There are two catches though: It scales horribly (2d12 is minuscule at 15, 2d6 at level 3 is pretty good) and the target must move directly to you in the shortest and safest route possible. Granted, they can opt to just stay put, but it would be much easier to work with if they could move in any manner of their choosing, they are giving up a reaction for it after all. On the plus side, it is an AoE. But I don't expect to get much mileage out of it as it.

Enthralling Performance
A downtime activity, that imposes a super-charmed status with no risk of failure. ( I guess they are taking feedback about Friends to note) I rather like this one. It opens up some interesting RP potential.

Mantle of Majesty
So, this effectively gives you up to 10 castings of Command per day, so long as you use them rapid fire. The kicker being Charmed targets don't get a saving throw, and the Command can last up to 60 seconds. I do like it when abilities synergize with each other. This could be used in combat, but doing so will only get you like 3-5 castings, make you use Cantrips instead of normal spells (I think the bonus action spell rule still applies to this case because it uses the verbiage "cast"). Alternatively, you could use it with Enthralling Performance, get some people to be your groupies for an hour, then override their wills at the perfect opportunity for some nefarious plot. Naturally the value of such an ability is highly dependent on many factors, but damn. I think this one needs a second pass, if for no other reason than to confirm the duration.

Unbreakable Majesty
So your character goes to Hollywood and undergoes Plastic Surgery to look like a Feywild-creature thing.
The draw of this ability is being able to cast Sanctuary once per rest. Which is nice and thematic. But you also get to impose disadvantage on saving throws to anyone who is effected by it. which makes this downright evil. Also you get advantage on CHA checks VS them because why not? Nothing quite like purposely drawing an OA in order to make sure your big gun spell gets through.

Thoughts:
This starts of slightly weak (but not too weak), then heads down some dark paths really quick.

College of Whispers
Because deep down, you really wanted to play that sleazeball of a character who manipulates the kingdom while walking around with a staff and a goatee. But then you realized that Wizards don't have very good social skills, Warlocks are really just about blasting things, and Sorcerers have to grow scales or something.

Venomous Blades
Do you like Superiority Dice, Smites, and the like? Then go play one of those classes cause this feature is a poor replacement for anything like that. The good side: It applies to any weapon attack, not just melee. The bad: It eats up inspiration dice, the damage scales horribly, it deals poison damage, and it only works on one attack per TURN (Granted you only have one attack per round because you aren't a Valor Bard, but I think they forgot about that snag too). No Sir, I don't like it.

Venomous Words
Once per rest, you can drag someone off into a room for just the two of you, talk to them for the length of a ritual, and make them go poop their pants in the corner of some hidden room for an hour. The upside is failure doesn't let the target know you did anything. The downside is they snap out of it the moment combat starts up around them. This is way more limited in scope than Enthralling Performance. The best you can hope for is to get one person to abandon their post for a bit, or maybe to spook someone into revealing their panic room. This needs more bite, if only to make up for the lack of Venom in the other ability.

Mantle of Whispers
So, what if instead of scaring that one guy you would have used Venomous Words on, you just murdered him, took his shadow, gained access to his memories, shapeshifted into him, and impersonated him better than he could have impersonated himself? Yeah, this is the real draw of the College right here, too bad it's 6 levels deep.
On an interesting note: This reminds me of an ability I was considering for a Barbarian Path I posted before the Boards blew up. Only this ability is way better than what I was thinking of. I do believe I shall take this.

Shadow Lore
If Enthralling Performance is super-charm, this is Ultra-Mega-Charm. The downside is no fighting or dying for you. But the upside is you have someone at your beck-and-call for virtually everything else for the next 8 hours, and after the fact they will have absolutely no idea why they did it.

Thoughts.
Back-loaded. Mostly because the Venomous stuff has little sting. Other than that, I like this one way more than the other College, it's more grounded and has some really interesting ideas presented.

 

[Xeviat]

I hope they don't focus too much on Clerics and Wizards. Domains and Schools got more in the PHB than anyone else. The Bard and Barbarian got 2 in the PHB. Barbarian got one in SCAG. Bard got 2 in UA already. 3 new Barbs and 2 new Bards boosts both to 6.

None of these jump out and wow me, though. They're cool, but the Valor Bard is already my favorite Bard as it is the one I want to play the most, so it has to be toppled for me to be impressed. The abilities seem nifty. They're definitely cool ideas. I like the out of combat applications.

 

[Redthistle]

College of Whispers
Because deep down, you really wanted to play that sleazeball of a character who manipulates the kingdom while walking around with a staff and a goatee. But then you realized that Wizards don't have very good social skills, Warlocks are really just about blasting things, and Sorcerers have to grow scales or something.

Delightful assessment!

Venomous Blades
Do you like Superiority Dice, Smites, and the like? Then go play one of those classes cause this feature is a poor replacement for anything like that. The good side: It applies to any weapon attack, not just melee. The bad: It eats ups inspiration dice, the damage scales horribly, it deals poison damage, and it only works on one attack per TURN (Granted you only have one attack per round because you aren't a Valor Bard, but I think they forgot about that snag too). No Sir, I don't like it.

Replace the poison condition with imposing disadvantage on saving throws until the end of the target's next turn, essentially and momentarily "poisoning" the target's self-confidence. It seems to me that would better suit the theme of the college.

Make the scaled damage simply additional weapon damage, allowed by the distraction imposed by having rattled the target, and include the extra damage dice on the next successful attack on the target before the start of the target's next turn.

Since the feature requires spending an Inspiration die, perhaps the scaling could include pulling in allies. At the initial levels, one ally within weapon range could use its reaction to attempt an OA against the target for the extra damage. Starting at 5th level, two allies within weapon range could use their reactions to attempt OAs for the extra damage; up to three allies beginning at 10th level; and up to four allies beginning at 15th level.

That could become a vicious piling-on, so it might be over-powered, but it might satisfy your concern about it being under-powered at the higher levels.

The name of the feature might need to be edited, too, maybe something like "Venomous Collusion" or "Mob Rules".

Thoughts.
Back-loaded. Mostly because the Venomous stuff has little sting. Other than that, I like this one way more than the other College, it's more grounded and has some really interesting ideas presented.

This, simply, because I appreciate your analysis, humor, and eloquence.

 

[Redthistle]

I hope they don't focus too much on Clerics and Wizards. Domains and Schools got more in the PHB than anyone else. The Bard and Barbarian got 2 in the PHB. Barbarian got one in SCAG. Bard got 2 in UA already. 3 new Barbs and 2 new Bards boosts both to 6.

Yes, regarding new class/archetype options.

From what I've seen, the one class that has seen the fewest proposed 3rd-party/homebrew options is the paladin.

Maybe that's because the paladin as described in the PHB meets expectations of what the class should be better than the other classes do?

 

[CapnZapp]

http://media.wizards.com/2016/dnd/downloads/UA_Bard.pdf

College of Whispers and College of Glamour

Thank you.

Special award for not linking via the useless faff article on WotC's web, but directly to the PDF download. *thumbs up*

 

[CapnZapp]

It is nice, though, that the Bard gets something new.

Though, with weekly UA's classes getting new things is to be expected.

Not making a dig at you.

Just that we should set the bar higher than "I'm so happy class C gets new stuff I'll accept anything".

Again, not saying you said that.