Musical Shield 🛡Valor Bard FIX D&D 5e 🛠️ Harmonious Attack (Homebrew BUFF)
Channel: Funky Dungeon Master
Date: 2022-05-20

I think the Valor Bard abilities make for a functioning spellcaster with good AC, but are slightly disappointing when it comes to bringing the martial flavor to life. It has a big pain junggling weapons and spellcasting focus around. Its Extra Attack feature is underwhelming without any other damage boost and big Action competition with spellcasting.

In this video, I proposed 2 minor BUFFs to address those pain points, make Valor Bard more fun to play with some occasional cool martial tricks to use without any detriment to spellcasting rather than just be a tanky spellcaster in armor.

Click for Treantmonk's analysis of the Bard subclasses: https://youtu.be/NamYbFs_QnE?t=1693
While I agree with Treantmonk that the Valor Bard armor proficiency is really good, its original 6th level feature is subpar and is no where near, say, Lore Bard's Additional Magical Secrets.

Click for RPGBOT's analysis of the Bard subclasses and Valor Bard: https://rpgbot.net/dnd5/characters/classes/bard/subclasses/
I think RPGBOT, on the other hand, undervalues the armor proficiency heavily.

2 different ratings from 2 big names in the D&D optimization scene. Feel free to make your own judgement. For me, I think the Valor Bard is middle of the road, not too good, not too bad. And my two minor BUFFs meet its lacking flavor without making it overpowered.

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Valor Bard flavor fix for D&D 5e from Thien's Balance Homebrew series:
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**Bonus Proficiencies (3rd level)**
[Musical Shield goes BRR]
When you join the College of Valor at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with medium armor, shields, and martial weapons.
For 10 gp cost and 1 hour of work, which can coincide with a short or long rest, you can modify the design of any shield to include heavy decoration and produce a certain resonant sound when hit upon in the right way. When donning this modified shield, it also counts as a musical instrument for you and can be used as a bard spellcasting focus.
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**Harmonious Attack (6th level)**
[in addition to Extra Attack]
In addition, from level 6, When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can forgo one of your attacks to direct one of your companions to strike. When you do so, choose a friendly creature who can see or hear you. That creature can immediately use its reaction to make one weapon attack.
You can do this a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier and regain all your expended uses when you finish a long rest.
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I'm an avid consumer of D&D optimization content like Treantmonk and RPGBOT. And I want to use that knowledge to make the game more fun for optimizers and non-optimizers alike. Thus, born the Thien's Balance Homebrew series for D&D 5th edition 🥂: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOlGNxI48E1xaHdQJCdVRNd0fcSf-aBqT

By making all the player options balanced, I hope to remove trap options for players that don't like to worry much about the nitty-gritty game mechanics. Also, when all the player options are roughly equivalent in power, we can worry a bit less about picking a powerful option and more about which option brings out the flavor we want.

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Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thienthenguyen while I meme more music and D&D content.

The songs used in the videos are written just for this occasion. Let me know in the comments if I should release them as standalone "OST" for community usage. If ya wanna duet my music, check me out on Tiktok @makeitbetter01
Bandcamp: https://thienthenguyen.bandcamp.com/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6Z2C9rBETpD3aRkKZvUVAO?si=oER5XzxVSvyx-0jQIe1jtg

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