College of Swords Bard 5e: A Comprehensive Guide

The College of Swords Bard in Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition (D&D 5e) is a subclass that blends martial prowess with the Bard's inherent spellcasting and support capabilities. Known as blades, these Bards entertain through daring feats of weapon skill, such as sword swallowing, knife throwing and juggling, and mock combats. This guide explores the College of Swords Bard, offering insights into its features, strengths, weaknesses, and character optimization.

Origins

The Bard College of Swords has its roots in Second Edition D&D, where it was known as the blade kit. This concept was highly requested by players who missed the blade from prior editions. The College of Swords encapsulates the archetype of the swashbuckler, the charismatic sword fighter with a trick up his sleeve.

Core Features and Abilities

The College of Swords Bard, found in Xanathar's Guide to Everything, enhances the Bard’s core class features with a focus on weapon combat.

Bonus Proficiencies

At 3rd level, the College of Swords Bard gains proficiency with medium armor and the scimitar. If you are proficient as a spellcasting focus, you are proficient with thrown weapons.

Fighting Style

Also at 3rd level, a blade adopts a particular style of fighting as their specialty, choosing one of the following options:

Dueling: When wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with that weapon.
Two-Weapon Fighting: When engaged in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack.

Blade Flourish

Whenever you take the Attack action on your turn, your walking speed increases by 10 feet until the end of the turn. If a weapon attack that you make as part of this action hits a creature, you can use one of the following Blade Flourish options of your choice by expending one use of your Bardic Inspiration:

Defensive Flourish: The weapon deals extra damage to the target you hit, and you can add the number you roll on the Bardic Inspiration die to your AC until the start of your next turn.
Slashing Flourish: The weapon deals extra damage to the target you hit and to any other creature of your choice that you can see within 5 feet of you.
Mobile Flourish: The weapon deals extra damage to the target you hit. You can also push the target up to 5 feet away from you, plus a number of feet equal to the number you roll on that die.

Extra Attack

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

Master Flourish

Starting at 14th level, whenever you use a Blade Flourish option, you can roll a d6 and use it instead of expending a Bardic Inspiration die.

Character Optimization

Ability Scores

Charisma (Cha): The Bard runs on Charisma. Maximize this as early as you can. Charisma is crucial.
Dexterity (Dex): The Bard needs Dexterity to boost their poor AC.
Constitution (Con): Constitution helps the Bard survive an occasional dip into melee combat.
Strength (Str): Dump stat.

Race

Half-Elf: For a classic bard feel, the Half-Elf is a great choice. Between the Half-elf racial traits and the Bard skills, we get our choice of any five skills. Half-Elf is a safe, solid bet for any bard.
Tiefling: Another great choice for a classic bard feel.

Skills and Backgrounds

Bards get proficiency in three musical instruments. There’s a high number of decision points. Expertise, and Magical Secrets, there’s a lot of room for customization.

Performance (Cha): 5e Bards don’t actually need Performance, so you can completely skip it.

For backgrounds:

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If your party lacks thieves’ tools, select the Criminal background.
If your party lacks a Scholar (a wizard, etc.), select the Sage background.

Feats

War Caster: It’s easy to compare this to War Caster.
Metamagic Adept: Quickened Spell lets us get one of our awesome combat buffs running as a Bonus Action, which means that we no longer need to spend turn 1 buffing ourselves to just barely function in battle.

Multiclassing Options

Fighter: Depending on how many levels you intend to spend multiclassing, if you’re only going one level, Fighter will get you better stuff.
Paladin: Including several smite spells, and Divine Smite, makes for a potent combination.
Rogue: Thieves’ tools, and Expertise in two skills, make this a tempting combination.

Spells

Bards rely mostly on their spells and special abilities, like a Cleric or Wizard, and casts spells based on their Charisma. The Bard is fantastically versatile, filling every role in the party, making them effective Controllers and Support casters.

1st Level

Detect Magic- Healing Word- Heroism- Sleep

Even at first level, you’re extremely effective.

2nd Level

Dissonant Whispers

2nd level increases your utility.

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3rd Level

Enhance Ability

5th Level

Hypnotic Pattern

5th level is as good for the Bard as it is for anyone else.

6th Level

Haste

7th Level

Greater Invisibility

9th Level

Hold Monster

Magical Secrets

Choosing spells can be very difficult because the options are so numerous. Choose spells which complement the makeup of your party.

If your party lacks a blaster, consider fireball.
If you need a go-to ranged damage option that’s more lethal than Vicious Mockery, consider Eldritch Blast, Firebolt, or Toll the Dead.
If your party has strong martial characters, consider Haste.
Mass Heal
Wish

Equipment

Sentinel Shield: Nothing fancy, but very effective.

Level-by-Level Progression

Level 1

Cantrips Known: Thunderclap, Vicious Mockery
Spells Known: Dissonant Whispers, Faerie Fire, Healing Word, Heroism

If you plan to go into melee, cast Heroism to pad your durability. 3 temporary hp can mitigate a lot of damage, provided that you don’t lose Concentration.

In melee, our rapier is our go-to offensive option. If you’re facing multiple enemies, strongly consider Thunderclap despite the Constitution save. At range you can use Vicious Mockery if you want the debuff or throw a dart if you want the damage.

Level 2

New Spell Known: Longstrider

Longstrider is a nice buff for us with a long duration. An extra 10 feet of movement can help us outpace enemies that may want to chase us in the event that we need to move out of melee.

Level 3

Expertise: Perception, Persuasion
New Spell Known: Warding Wind

College of Swords comes online, so it’s time for our weapon attacks to move from amusing novelty to primary combat tactic. Dueling provides a nice damage boost, so our attacks are now comparable to a Fighter with Dueling.

Warding Wind provides us some defense against ranged attacks and creates difficult terrain around us, making it hard for enemies to move around. The 10-minute duration means that we can get a lot of use out of one spell slot. If Warding Wind isn’t working for you, consider Mirror Image instead.

Level 4

Feat: War Caster
New Spell Known: Aid
New Cantrip Known: Any

Aid essentially removes the gap in hit point maxinum between us and a martial character. You might reserve it for emergency healing, or you might use it early in the day to avoid action economy problems. I suggest that you pre-cast it. Strongly consider upcasting it, too.

Level 5

New Spell Known: Hypnotic Pattern

If things get a little too scary for you in melee, use Hypnotic Pattern and make everyone chill for a few turns while you fight whatever passes the save.

Level 6

New Spell Known: Catnap

Catnap is here to make Short Rests even easier. If one hour is too much to ask, you can probably get away with 10 minutes. If you can squeeze even one additional Short Rest into an adventuring day, this is a huge gain.

Level 7

New Spell Known: Greater Invisibility

Melee just got a whole lot easier. Throw this on yourself and run around stabbing things. You can still make Opportunity Attacks, too, and, since enemies can’t see you, they’re likely to provoke them without realizing it. Just be sure not to break Concentration by casting another Concentration spell.

Level 8

Ability Score Increase: Dexterity 16 -> 18
New Spell Known: Polymorph

Of course, we’re also going to take Polymorph at this level, which feels silly because turning ourselves into a giant ape or a t-rex will make us objectively a better melee combatant than remaining a bard. Stuff like this is why spellcasters are so dominant in 5e.

Level 9

New Spell Known: Synaptic Static

We have very few options for handling crowds that don’t require Concentration, so we’ll grab Synaptic Static to clear rooms and debuff the survivors.

Level 10

Expertise: Any 2
Magical Secrets: Find Greater Steed, Shadow Blade

Find Greater Steed gets us a pegasus mount. Shadow Blade gives us the coolest weapon that we can possibly get, and you can upcast it for more damage in important fights. Greater Invisibility will frequently be a better use of Concentration, but, if you can already hit reliably, the additional damage from Shadow Blade will be a significant DPR boost.

Level 11

New Spell Known: Otto’s Irresistible Dance

Our terrible save DC doesn’t matter if the dance is irresistible.

Level 12

Ability Score Increase: Dex 18 -> 20

18 AC totally unarmored is really nice, and the attack and damage bonuses are nice, too.

Level 13

New Spell Known: Forcecage

Put enemies in time out. No save.

Level 14

Magical Secrets: Contingency, Tenser’s Transformation

Master Flourish is where this subclass stops being a headache and starts being awesome. You should use a flourish on literally every attack. Note that the AC bonus from Defensive Flourish won’t stack, but if you use Defensive Flourish twice you get to use the higher of the two d6 rolls.

Level 15

New Spell Known: Mind Blank

Mind Blank is a buff with a 24-hour duration.

Level 16

Metamagic Adept: Extended Spell, Quickened Spell

Quickened Spell lets us get one of our awesome combat buffs running as a Bonus Action, which means that we no longer need to spend turn 1 buffing ourselves to just barely function in battle.

Challenges and Considerations

The biggest problem with the subclass is that Blade Flourish shares a resource pool with Bardic Inspiration, and Bardic Inspiration is too useful to spend on flourishes most of the time. The College of Swords Bard presents a very limited list of Fighting Style options, which means that we have a very small number of actually appealing weapon options.

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