Bard

Because of copyright issues, this page will mostly list where to find the necessary information on the official *D&D 5e Player's Handbook* (and other published works) by Wizards of the Coast.

However, certain sections, such as those made available for Free Use within Basic Rules, System Requirements Document (SRD), and Xanathar's Lost Notes to Everything Else, will be listed here for ease of access.

## Bard Characteristics

Please see pages 51-52 in the *D&D 5e Player's Handbook.*

## Class Features

### Bard Basics

#### Hit Points

**Hit Dice:** 1d8 per bard level

**Hit Points at 1st Level:** 8 + your Constitution modifier

**Hit Points at Higher Levels:** 1d8 (or 5) + your Constitution modifier per bard level after 1st

#### Proficiencies

**Armor:** Light armor

**Weapons:** Simple weapons, hand crossbows, longswords, rapiers, shortswords, throwing knives

**Tools:** Three musical instruments of your choice

**Saving Throws:** Dexterity, Charisma

**Skills:** Choose any three

#### Equipment

You start with the following equipment, in addition to the equipment granted by your background:

* (1) a rapier, (2) a longsword, or (3) any simple weapon
* (1) a diplomat's pack or (2) an entertainer's pack
* (1) a lute or (2) any other musical instrument
* Leather armor and a dagger

### Spellcasting

You have learned to untangle and reshape the fabric of reality in harmony with your wishes and music. Your spells are part of your vast repertoire, magic that you can tune to different situations. See the Bard Spell List page for spells available to bards.

#### Cantrips

You know two cantrips of your choice from the Bard Spell List. You learn additional bard cantrips of your choice at higher levels, as shown in the Cantrips Known column of the Bard table.

#### Spell Slots

The following table shows how many spell slots you have to cast your spells of 1st level and higher. To cast one of these spells, you must expend a slot of the spell's level or higher. You regain all expended spell slots when you finish a long rest.

For example, if you know the 1st-level spell *Cure Wounds* and have a 1st-level and a 2nd-level spell slot available, you can cast *Cure Wounds* using either slot.

#### Spells Known of 1st Level and Higher

You know four 1st-level spells of your choice from the Bard Spell List.

The Spells Known column of the Bard table shows when you learn more bard spells of your choice. Each of these spells must be of a level for which you have spell slots, as shown on the table. For instance, when you reach 3rd level in this class, you can learn one new spell of 1st or 2nd level.

Additionally, when you gain a level in this class, you can choose one of the bard spells you know and replace it with another spell from the bard spell list, which also must be of a level for which you have spell slots.

#### Spellcasting Ability

Charisma is your spellcasting ability for your bard spells. Your magic comes from the heart and soul you pour into the performance of your music or oration. You use your Charisma whenever a spell refers to your spellcasting ability. In addition, you use your Charisma modifier when setting the saving throw DC for a bard spell you east and when making an attack roll with one.

**Spell save DC** = 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier

**Spell attack modifier** = your proficiency bonus + your Charisma modifier

#### Ritual Casting

You can cast any bard spell you know as a ritual if that spell can be cast as a ritual.

#### Spellcasting Focus

You can use a musical instrument as a spellcasting focus for your bard spells.

### Bardic Inspiration

You can inspire others through stirring words or music. To do so, you use a bonus action on your turn to choose one creature other than yourself within 60 feet of you who can hear you. That creature gains one Bardic Inspiration die, a d6.

Once within the next 10 minutes, the creature can roll the die and add the number rolled to one ability check, attack roll, or saving throw it makes. The creature can wait until after it rolls the d20 before deciding to use the Bardic Inspiration die, but must decide before the DM says whether the roll succeeds or fails. Once the Bardic Inspiration die is rolled, it is lost. A creature can have only one Bardic Inspiration die at a time.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier (a minimum of once). You regain any expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Your Bardic Inspiration die changes when you reach certain levels in this class. The die becomes a d8 at 5th level, a d10 at 10th level, and a d12 at 15th level.

### Jack of All Trades

Starting at 2nd level, you can add half your proficiency bonus, rounded down, to any ability check you make that doesn't already include your proficiency bonus.

### Song of Rest

Beginning at 2nd level, you can use soothing music or oration to help revitalize your wounded allies during a short rest. If you or any friendly creatures who can hear your performance regain hit points by spending one or more Hit Dice during the short rest, each of those creatures regains an extra 1d6 hit points.

The extra hit points increase when you reach certain
levels in this class: to 1d8 at 9th level, to 1d10 at 13th
level, and to 1d12 at 17th level.

### Bard College

At 3rd level, you delve into the advanced techniques of a bard college of your choice: the College of Discord, the Collage of Glamour, the Collage of Keys, the College of Lore, the Collage of Mourning, the College of Swords, the College of Valor, or the Collage of Whispers, all of which are detailed at the bottom of this page. Your choice grants you features at 3rd level and again at 6th and 14th level.

### Expertise

At 3rd level, choose two of your skill proficiencies. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make that uses either of the chosen proficiencies.

At 10th level, you can choose another two skill proficiencies to gain this benefit.

### Ability Score Improvement

When you reach 4th level, and again at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 19th level, you can increase one ability score of your choice by 2, or you can increase two ability scores of your choice by 1. As normal, you can't increase an ability score above 20 using this feature. Alternately, you can learn a Feat instead of increasing your ability scores.

### Font of Inspiration

Beginning when you reach 5th level, you regain all of your expended uses of Bardic Inspiration when you finish a short or long rest.

### Countercharm

At 6th level, you gain the ability to use musical notes or words of power to disrupt mind-influencing effects. As an action, you can start a performance that lasts until the end of your next turn. During that time, you and any friendly creatures within 30 feet of you have advantage on saving throws against being frightened or charmed. A creature must be able to hear you to gain this benefit. The performance ends early if you are incapacitated or silenced or if you voluntarily end it (no action required).

### Magical Secrets

By 10th level, you have plundered magical knowledge from a wide spectrum of disciplines. Choose two spells from any class, including this one. A spell you choose must be of a level you can cast, as shown on the Bard table, or a cantrip.

The chosen spells count as bard spells for you and are included in the number in the Spells Known column of the Bard table.

You learn two additional spells from any class at 14th level and again at 18th level.

### Superior Inspiration

At 20th level, when you roll initiative and have no uses of Bardic Inspiration left, you regain one use.

## Bard Colleges

The way of a bard is gregarious. Bards seek each other out to swap songs and stories, boast of their accomplishments, and share their knowledge. Bards form loose associations, which they call colleges, to facilitate their gatherings and preserve their traditions.

### College of Discord

Bards of the College of Discord yearn to take the performances to the next level. While some artists feel the need to prepare or learn progressions within a harmonic framework, the extemporaneous nature of the bard’s study encourages inventing variations in their musical repertoire mid performance. This practice usually bleeds into their outlook on life and, whether with accompaniment or solo, these bards are excited to delve into the unknown, no matter the vibe.

**College of Discord Features**
 6th
 14th

#### Bonus Proficiencies

When you join the College of Discord at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with medium armor and one additional musical instrument.

#### Melodic Mayhem

Beginning at 3rd level, you gain the ability to use your musical instruments effectively in martial combat. When you wield your musical instrument in one or two hands, and no other weapons, it becomes a weapon that deals 1d6 bludgeoning damage and has the versatile (1d8) property.

When used in one hand, the instrument gains the finesse property. Wielded with two hands, your Armor Class increases by 2.

#### Battaglia

Also at 3rd level, you're able to anticipate the rhythm of battle and adjust to disrupt the flow of your enemies. As a bonus action on your turn, you can choose to teleport to an unoccupied square adjacent to any number of creatures you can see within 30 feet of you. Any Large or smaller creature within 5 feet of your new location must succeed on a Strength saving throw against your spellcasting DC or be knocked prone. At 6th level, the radius of this effect increases to 10 feet, and to 15 feet at 14th level.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Charisma modifier and regain all expended uses after you finish a short or long rest.

As part of this bonus action, you can expend one of your uses of Bardic Inspiration, rolling a Bardic Inspiration die and adding the number rolled to the save DC. You can choose to apply this bonus after the creature makes its roll but before the DM announces if it succeeds or fails.

#### Encore

At 6th level, every success fuels your performance. When you succeed on a Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution saving throw in combat, you gain advantage on your next skill check, saving throw, or attack roll until the end of your next turn.

Additionally, your attacks with your musical instruments count as magical for the purpose of overcoming resistance and immunity to nonmagical attacks and damage.

#### Pandemonium

At 14th level, you learn to provoke those the area around you by amplifying the clash of arms and flailing bodies, trumpeting your allies to hasten attack while sending your enemies into a dysphonic chaos that is audible with 300 feet of you. Using your action to activate this feature, you create a hyper-sonic field that reverberates out from you in a 30-foot radius sphere which requires concentration and lasts for 1 minute.

When the field appears, friendly creatures within the field experience a *Haste*-like effect and gain a +2 bonus to AC and Dexterity saving throws, and gain an additional action on each turn. That action can be used only to take the Attack (one weapon attack only), Dash, Disengage, Hide, or Use an Object action. A creature can only benefit from one such effect at a time. While you concentrate on this effect, your speed is 0, and you can only make melee attacks against creatures within 5 feet of you. If you have a fly speed, or are held in place by magical means, you can hover in place.

Additionally, when a hostile creature starts its turn within the field, or moves there for the first time on its turn, it must make a Wisdom saving throw or be affected for the duration. Affected creatures’ speed is halved, takes a -2 penalty to AC and Dexterity saving throws, and can’t use reactions. On an affected creature’s turn, it can use either an action or a bonus action, not both. Regardless of the creature’s abilities or magic items, it can’t make more than one melee or ranged attack during its turn.

If the creature attempts to cast a spell with a casting time of 1 action, it rolls a d20. On a roll of 10 or lower, the spell doesn’t take effect until the creature’s next turn, and the creature must use its action on that turn to complete the spell. If it can’t, the spell is wasted.

If a creature affected by this feature exits the field, the effect ends for it at the start of its next turn.

When your solo ends, you can’t move or take actions until the end of your next turn, as a wave of exhaustion sweeps over you. Once you use this feature, you must finish a long rest before you can use it again.

### Collage of Glamour

Please see pages 14-15 in *Xanathar's Guide to Everything.*

### Collage of Keys

Bards of the College of Keys believe that performance can manipulate anything, be it person, magic, or machine. Their preternatural charm allows these daring performers to delve into dungeons seething with traps, assured that they can use their words and song to protect themselves and allies. These bards often become spies and infiltrators, since no lock can stand up to their charms.

**College of Keys Features**
 6th
 14th

#### Bonus Proficiency

When you join the College of Keys at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with thieves’ tools, if you don’t already have it.

#### Key Change

Starting at 3rd level, you learn to bend locks and traps with dashing style. If you have Expertise in one of your Charisma skills, you can use that skill instead of making a Dexterity check with your thieves’ tools.

#### Timbre Illuminous

At 3rd level, you can coax a variety of information from a mechanism regarding its composition using merely verse and rhyme. When you spend at least 1 minute in speaking or singing to a construct or inanimate mechanism, you can expend one Bardic Inspiration to learn certain information about its capabilities compared to your own. The DM tells you two of the following characteristics of the mechanism, of your choice:

* Purpose (lock, trap, surveillance, etc.)
* Intricacy (singular, compound, or complex)
* Nature (magical, mundane, or otherwise)
* Approximate difficulty class (easy, hard, next to impossible, etc.)
* Elemental energies present (if any)
* Additional imbed magical qualities (if any)

#### Cypheric Ostinato

Starting at 6th level, you learn to control the vocal range and resonance of your voice to offset the magic or material mechanisms within security and surveillance spells.

When you use your action to disarm or dispel, and when you make a saving throw to dodge a glyph, lock, trap, or ward, or as part of a divination spell to locate or scry with you as the target, you can choose to expend one use of your Bardic Inspiration, rolling the die and adding the number rolled to the skill check or saving throw. You can choose to use this feature after seeing the roll but before the DM determines whether the ability check or saving throw succeeds or fails, or before the trap deals its damage. In the case of divination magic, you realize that someone or something is attempting to use magic against you, but you do not know its nature.

#### Master Keynote

At 14th level, you learn how to focus the pitch and rhythm of your voice to cause even the strongest measures designed to keep you out to fail. As an action, you can expend one use of your Bardic Inspiration to strike a frequency that suspends the magical and mechanical enhancements in locks, traps, and wards within a 30-foot radius of you. Once you use this feature, roll a Bardic Inspiration die. These contraptions are suspended for a number of rounds equal to the number you've rolled.

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.

### College of Lore

Bards of the College of Lore know something about most things, collecting bits of knowledge from sources as diverse as scholarly tomes and peasant tales. Whether singing folk ballads in taverns or elaborate compositions in royal courts, these bards use their gifts to hold audiences spellbound. When the applause dies down, the audience members might find themselves questioning everything they held to be true, from their faith in the priesthood of the local temple to their loyalty to the king.

The loyalty of these bards lies in the pursuit of beauty and truth, not in fealty to a monarch or following the tenets of a deity. A noble who keeps such a bard as a herald or advisor knows that the bard would rather be honest than politic.

The college's members gather in libraries and sometimes in actual colleges, complete with classrooms and dormitories, to share their lore with one another. They also meet at festivals or affairs of state, where they can expose corruption, unravel lies, and poke fun at self-important figures of authority.

**College of Lore Features**
 6th
 14th

#### Bonus Proficiencies

When you join the College of Lore at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with three skills of your choice.

#### Cutting Words

Starting at 3rd level, you learn how to use your wit to distract, confuse, and otherwise sap the confidence and competence of others. When a creature that you can see within 60 feet of you makes an attack roll, an ability check, or a damage roll, you can use your reaction to expend one of your uses of Bardic Inspiration, rolling a Bardic Inspiration die and subtracting the number rolled from the creature's roll. You can choose to use this feature after the creature makes its roll, but before the DM determines whether the attack roll or ability cheek succeeds or fails, or before the creature deals its damage. The creature is immune if it cant hear you or if it's immune to being charmed.

#### Additional Magical Secrets

At 6th level, you learn two spells of your choice from any class. A spell you choose must be of a level you can cast, as shown on the Bard table, or a cantrip. The chosen spells count as bard spells for you but don't count against the number of bard spells you know.

#### Peerless Skill

Starting at 14th level, when you make an ability check, you can expend one use of Bardic Inspiration. Roll a Bardic Inspiration die and add the number rolled to your ability check. You can choose to do so after you roll the die for the ability cheek, but before the DM tells you whether you succeed or fail.

### Collage of Mourning

Bards of the College of Mourning specialize in easing the transition from life to death. While most bards derive their artistic catalogue from celebrating the lives of the valiant, mourning bards create a gateway for dead knights, faithful priests, and wise viziers who dedicated their lives in service, to accomplish any lingering obligations of the Material Plane.

While some see romanticizing death as macabre, the college spent centuries observing religious rites and composing teachings of necromancy in prose to entreat the dead to remain long enough to fulfill their purpose.

Whether woodwind or brass, string or drum, these bards are versed in delicate affairs and often find work in parades krewes, as pallbearers, or on other occasions where tact and taste are tantamount. Mourning bards improvise their melodies to mask the cries and wails of grieving loved ones, and often turn dour occasions into celebrations of remembrance. Whatever their method, their purpose is always to complement the spirits’ shuffle to the afterlife in ceremonious display with arrangements of grace and style.

**College of Mourning Features**
 6th
 14th

#### Mourning Glory

When you join the College of Mourning at 3rd level, you learn the *Spare the Dying* cantrip. You also gain proficiency in the Medicine and Religion skills.

#### Grief Note

Starting at 3rd level, when a creature you can see within 60 feet, including you, deals damage to a target other than itself, you can use your reaction to expend one of your uses of Bardic Inspiration, rolling the die and adding the number on the die to the damage of the attack. The creature also regains hit points equal to the number on the die.

#### Dirge of the Pallbearer

At 6th level, you learn the *Animate Dead* spell, which counts as a bard spell for you but doesn’t count against the number of bard spells you know. Also, whenever you create an undead creature using a necromancy spell, it gains the additional benefits for 1 minute:

* The creature gains temporary hit points equal to your bard level
* The creature adds you Charisma modifier to its attack and damage rolls

#### Dread Parade

At 14th level, you can summon a ghostly progression from the minstrel spirits of yesteryear. You lead a number of spectral troubadours equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum of 1) that march in a tight formation behind you for 1 minute, whose music gives pause those would do you harm.

At the start of each of your turns, each creature of your choice within 60 feet must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or take 1d4 psychic damage for each minstrel you summon, and has disadvantage on their next attack roll.

Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a long rest.

### College of Swords

Please see pages 15-16 in *Xanathar's Guide to Everything.*

### College of Valor

Please see page 55 in the *D&D 5e Player's Handbook.*

### Collage of Whispers

Please see page 16 in *Xanathar's Guide to Everything.*