Bard - College of Blades

by somanyrobots

Search GM Binder Visit User Profile

Bardic College

College of Blades

The College of Blades is among the flashiest and most theatrical of bard traditions - instead of the gentle entertainment of music or oratory, they opt for thrilling displays of swordsmanship and knifework. Blade bards may engage in any performance that seeks to awe and impress with gleaming weaponry, from knife throwing to sword swallowing to staged acrobatic duels.

Blade bards are not peerless warriors, not necessarily; rather, they are jugglers, entertainers, an and daredevil whose chosen art demands ever-greater risks. They may come from any background, and are often fiercely independent, chaotic in their relationships with law and society even if they practice fierce internal discipline for their dangerous trade.

College of Blades Features

Bard Level Features
3rd Blade Master, Blade Tricks
6th Extra Attack, Inspiring Flourish
14th Daredevil's Flourish

It is highly recommended to pair the College of Blades with these Variant Two-Weapon Fighting rules. Among other changes, these rules allow two-weapon fighting without using your bonus action.

Blade Master

When you join the College of Blades at 3rd level, you gain the following benefits.

  • You can use a melee weapon you are holding as a spellcasting focus.
  • When you make a ranged attack with a weapon that has the thrown property, you can draw another weapon as part of the attack.
  • You gain proficiency with scimitars.
  • When you make a weapon attack using a weapon with the finesse property, you can use the average of your Dexterity and Charisma modifiers in place of your Dexterity modifier.
A Quick Example

If your Dexterity is 14 (+2) and your Charisma is 18 (+4), you would have a +3 to attack and damage rolls. Remember to always round down.

Blade Tricks

Also at 3rd level, you learn several techniques for overwhelming your opponents with skilled bladework. You can use each of these a number of times equal to the average of your Dexterity and Charisma modifiers, regaining all uses after completing a long rest. When you use a Blade Trick, you may choose to empower it by expending a spell slot. You can use each Blade Trick only once per round. When your Blade Tricks call for a saving throw, you may choose the DC to be either your spell save DC or calculated as 8 + your proficiency bonus + the average of your Dexterity and Charisma modifiers.

Unseen Dagger

As a bonus action when you hit an enemy within 30 feet with an attack, you may make an attack with a melee weapon. If it is against a different target, you have advantage on the attack roll. If it hits, the attack does 1d6 bonus damage. If you empower this trick with a spell slot, the damage increases by 1d6 per slot level, up to a maximum of 5d6 added damage for a 5th-level slot.

Flashing Parry

As a reaction when an enemy would hit you with a melee attack while you are wielding a melee weapon, you may add your Charisma modifier to your AC until the end of the turn. If you empower this trick with a spell slot, the AC bonus increases by 1. It increases by 1 again if the slot was 3rd level or higher, and by 1 again if the slot was 5th level or higher.

Fan of Knives

As an action, you may conjure a spray of blades which strike up to three creatures of your choice within 30 feet. Each target must make a Dexterity saving throw, taking 2d4 piercing damage on a failure or half as much on a success. If you empower this trick with a spell slot, the damage increases by 1d4 per slot level.

Extra Attack

Starting at 6th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.

Inspiring Flourish

Also at 6th level, anytime you use a Blade Trick, you may grant a bardic inspiration as part of the same action.

Inspiring Bladework

Starting at 14th level, when you use a Blade Trick while you have no uses of Bardic Inspiration left, you regain one use of your Bardic Inspiration.

College of Blades quirks

The following are some optional quirks for a player of this subclass to choose from.

d6 Quirk
1 Rumor has it you played with a knife as a baby instead of a rattle.
2 Nobody has ever been able to find every dagger you keep hidden on your person.
3 You polish all your blades to a mirror finish, and then use them to style your hair.
4 When you're bored, you tend to juggle daggers, or challenge companions to sword-swallowing contests.
5 Your hands and arms are covered in scars from the effort of learning your trade.
6 Your skin is flawless, with nary a scar or scratch.

Note that throughout, the College of Blades gets abilities related to attacking with melee weapons. It says nothing about making "melee weapon attacks"; i.e., thrown weapons work just fine.

Change Log

v1.0

  • Updated art and license

v0.5

  • Tweaked wording on Unseen Dagger

v0.4

  • Replaced Blade Magic with Inspiring Flourish
  • Capped damage on Unseen Dagger
  • Added scimitar proficiency

v0.3

  • Changed Fan of Knives to have a MADness DC
  • Nerfed scaling on Fan of Knives

v0.2

  • Tweaked to be less dependent on daggers.

v0.1

  • Rough Draft
Credits & References:
Art
Background Image Stains
License
5E SRD Content

  • This work includes material taken from the System Reference Document 5.1 (“SRD 5.1”) by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available here.

  • The SRD 5.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License available here.