D&D 5E (2014) Which magical secret would you take for AOE damage on a Bard?

[Eltab]

Any of the Ranger's "call in an artillery volley" spells sound like what you are looking for. AFB so I cannot compare / contrast them, alas. They get one such spell per level.

 

[Blue]

Haven't seen Conjure Volley (5th level) mentioned in this thread yet. Which is actually a pretty terrific AoE for the following reasons:
- 40-foot radius, which is 2x that of Fireball, which equals 4x the area covered by a Fireball.
- 8d8 damage (36) is comparable to a Fireball upcast with a 5th-level slot (10d6 = 35).
- You can change the damage type when you cast it. Want piercing damage? Fire a bow. Slashing? Throw a handaxe. Bludgeoning? Fire a sling.

The only knock is that it doesn't scale, but that's not really a big deal since IMO a Fireball upcast with a slot higher than 5th is a waste, anyway.

That really is a nice spell. My only concern is how many creatures levels 10+ characters will be fighting who are immune to non-magical B/S/P. Fire is pretty common resist/immunity, so I don't think it's a problem.

(The spell specifies non-magical ammo/weapon and that the damage type is the same as the ammo/weapon.)

My go-to thread about types of resistances only count total resistance/immunity to B/S/P, not just non-magical. Worth sharing anyway:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...e-types-How-much-is-a-point-of-x-damage-worth

 

[The Crimson Binome]

My only concern is how many creatures levels 10+ characters will be fighting who are immune to non-magical B/S/P.

That's a good point, but I'm not sure that there's significant overlap between the groups of "monsters that are immune to non-magical weapons" and "monsters that show up in large number, and require an AoE solution".

Even when I was running a game at level 20, the group very rarely faced more than two Titans at the same time.