Magical Secrets early is great, but in terms of support you can't go wrong with glamour bard. Free temp hp to allies mid-combat, the ability to move allies out of the way of an AOE with a reaction, and gets even better with aid and inspiring leader but that's all bards. Capstone for glamour is also much better too, rather than just giving you the ability to expend one of your short rest resources on yourself.
Lore Bard and magical secrets in general are so underrated imo. When people first started talking about Eloquence I legit didn’t know which was better between that and Lore. I have come to believe that Eloquence is probably the best at this point, but I still honestly think Lore is so close to
Great video! Side note - the thumbnails are hilarious. As a parent of small children seeing the Lego blocks in the Spike Growth thumbnail made me spit out some coffee while laughing. Damn you and bless you, Kobold! 🤣
It’s very interesting how some subclasses in the PHB have actually survived power creep. Battle master fighter, evocation wizard, Beastmaster Ranger, and even lore bard are all still very good in dnd even after Tasha’s
@@OznerockYeah. I remember pack tactics said that it can be used as an obstacle or even scouting but I also learned 2 interesting things about it. The first one is that if you choose the giant owl/bat, you can actually fly on it using its movement, making you a pretty good archer. The second one is that it technically qualifies to be a sidekick, as it’s a CR of 1/4 or less and side kick require it to be a CR of 1/2 or less. The second one is up to DM desecration, but still it’s not as bad as other think it is. Still though, I may have made the mistake of saying the beast master, as Hunter is better even if you choose the wrong options
I absolutely love Lore Bard. It makes a bard super customizable, especially with a Multiclass! My first was a Lore Bard with two levels Warlock Hexblade. Magical secrets then got me more warlock spells to match the theme of my patron (I played my bard as a rock star gnoll. A “Rock and Gnoll!”, if you will).
Great video!! Spirit guardians and counterspell were my picks for my hexblade/lore bard. It was an incredibly fun character to play, and super impactful! 😊
I'm currently playing a bard and this was super helpful. I was considering taking two levels of warlock and you confirmed my choice. Great spell choices too, I'll look out for those. Thanks for putting this all together!
I was making a bard the other day, lv 1, for a solo campaign I'm running. I was thinking lore, because that is, thematically, the bard I want to play. I was thinking frontline (or middle) shut down controller, with a bit of swordplay. Good to see that that works. They also make great skill monkeys
I didn't realize just how broken magical secrets was until I learned that spells like fabricate along with plant growth can break the game along with the fact that 5th level spells from half casters are supposed to be acquired at lvl 17 so those 5th lvl abilities are incredibly strong if you get them at lvl 10 I wanna know a list of combos with magical secrets like (plant growth + fabricate)
My first Bard was a Lore Bard, and I still love them. He was also my first multiclass, becoming a Lore Bard/Great Old One Warlock (Pact of the Tome). He had _so_ many cantrips.
One of my favorite characters was a Hexblade Warlock 2 Lore bard X I ran him though Waterdeep Dragon Heist and Dungeon of the Mad Mage. He was really fun to play and really effective in combat.
I love Lore Bard! I have a character that focuses on as many ways to use abilities similar to cutting words. Bane, Mind Sliver, are my staples. Just a one shot character, but he's a doom to any who stand in the way of his mission.
Wrathful Smites wording sounds so wired. Are there other spells that require a check without an ability? And is a WIS check the same as an ability check?
Get find stead and aura of vitality. Then take a 1 lv dip into life domain cleric. Doing so will give you the ability to put on heavy armor and put on a sheild for a AC of 20. Then when you cast aura of vitality it apples to both you and your stead. You can then use your bonus action to do 2d6+5 healing and your stead can use it bonus action to do 2d6 as well, average of 19 healing each turn for a minute. It also only uses your bonus action leaving your main action free for your regular spells. Boom, best healer with very little resource cost.
My experience with cutting words comes from Solasta where it is a bonus action. Cutting words then hold person is a very malicious combo. (They probably did it because getting a reaction promot any time an enemy does anything would be exhausting in a videogame)
My DM was cool and let my centaur barbarian use lances as if they were mounted. Turns out dealing 3 attacks with 1d12+5 damage at advantage is very good. It’s about 30 DPR at 5th level, and roughly 55 DPR at 20th level.
how do your dm's rules or you rule the cutting words, do you tell the roll and then wait for the player to decide whether to use it, or do you just say, 'The enemy made an attack against you, do you want to use Cutting Words?' Generally my DMs don't reveal the roll (not talking about total of it) because it gives away too much about the enemy's strength and in this case, i just don't wanna use it tho.
No mention of Find Steed as a possible Magical Secrets option? Best use of this I've seen was a gnome bard riding a wall-walking giant lizard (allowed by GM).
@@haiclips3358 No they don't. You made that up. You have to read the rules for opportunity attack. It says: "You also don't provoke an opportunity attack when you teleport or when someone or something moves you without using your movement, action or reaction." When the mount disengages, you're not using your movement, action or reaction so it doesn't provoke.
@@PackTactics i didn't make it up it's in the SRD under controlling a mount. 'In either case, if the mount provokes an opportunity attack while you're on it, the attacker can target you or the mount.'
@@haiclips3358 What? Then the SRD is wrong. Also why are you using the SRD of all things? Oh I see what it means, I just got out of bed. "if the mount provokes an opportunity attack" but because it disengaged, it doesn't provoke so the rider is fine. That's correct. Still very strange that you're using the SRD.
Honestly not a big fan of Cutting Words, unless the DM is willing to tell me what they rolled. "Before you know the result" seems weird on an enemy roll, because other players could tell you their AC or spell save DC. The minus on ability checks just seems like the Eloquence bard ability but more limited, and people figured out that that use of bardic inspiration is mathematically way worse than it might seem on a blind roll. Still good for reducing damage rolls though, I like that part.
Ok, I've never played tabletop D&D, only Baldur's Gate 3. I like the RP flavour of a bard, and the class is a good utility specialist, and of course face of the party. But aside from this, I find it somewhat underwhelming. I mean, all the spells that are actually on the bard's list are kinda meh. All good stuff comes from Magical Secrets. So as a spellcaster and combatant, the bard falls for me way below wizards, sorcerers and clerics. This is for me quite the opposite experience to Pathfinder (again, I mean computer games), where the bard is a far superior supportive class than the cleric. I know the BD3 mechanics differ a lot in many aspects from D&D5e, but still, I have a hard time finding bard appealing in the long term.
Bro I love your content but you gotta change the way you transition between topics if I’m not looking at the screen the entire time I don’t know what you’re talking about with the bag in the back
@@PackTactics It's been some time since I played FF. I am a 37yo dad with lots of different projects. So, I am actually not playing games a lot. My D&D group meets on person once or twice a month, so it's ok. On my spare time, I'm playing more no brainer games, such as shooters, Vampire Survivors and some quick matches on Magic Arena. Would love to have more time for that. Also, I'm Brazilian. I'm thinking on finding a RPG group to play online in English to pratice my speaking (I can understand, read and write just fine, but since I don't make lots of english conversations, I got a little rusty).
Creation bard is my favorite bard personally. Its so strong since you can use every spell you want due to you being able to make items that can be consumed for gold cost. Plus animating the bridge you just crossed to smack the goblins on the other side.
I've played a Kobold "feylost" Fey Wanderer Lore Bard (Warlocks didn't fit the parties theme) with CAnimals and SGuardians as MSecrets. Sling Magic Stone with Sharpshooter (DM was ok), sometimes apes on the help. Always head to head DPR and with our paladin, and had a Persuasion of +18.
My most developed character is a lore bard. I picked up Adept of the Red Robes, with magical balance mimicking a rogue's reliable talent. With that, the bonus proficiencies, and peerless skill, the Drow has made herself the uncontested skill queen in a group usually without a rouge. It's so fun to be reliable out of combat like that.
My first character ever was a lore bard. It was spelljammer and I was a Loxodon chef trying to write the ultimate cook book. Because of my strength and powerful build I tended to throw most of the party. I also defenestrated myself at least twice to attack something. I was gonna just roll with it and multiclass to barbarian or something but he died quickly, and not for the reasons you would expect.
cutting words is such a fun unique ability. reducing attack rolls and checks against wrathful smite is fun, but there are some other niche ways to use it that can be really valuable. Using it to reduce counterspell rolls is a good niche use. Reducing damage from a fireball or breath weapon is also an amazing use that people don't realize is surprisingly effective. If you're in tier 2, reducing aoe damage by 1d8 can be the equivalent of 27 damage over 6 targets.
The best part of magical secrets is being able to steal half caster class exclusive spells. A 3rd level half caster spell is still only a 3rd lvl spell, you can get exclusives early with those secrets. My favourite stolen spell is find steed, because it lets you have spells you cast that only target yourself also affect your steed, that means you can double things like spirit guardians or eyebite.
After you walked through enemy lines with your double spirit guardians, cast shield, or use dodge. I recommend using mage armour before walking in like death.
You forgot the coolest spell. Find steed, 2nd lvl paladin spell. My DM let me choose an ape and I gave him revolvers. Any spell like invisibilty or disguise self gets double value with your steed and for my second spell I chose melf’s minute meteors, 3rd level wizard spell. My monkey and I were both shooting tiny meteors out of our revolvers it was awesome
Cutting words are also good when your party gets hit with some dmg AoE spells like fireball or cone of cold. Happened once in my game and I reduced 8 dmg from AoE spell hitting about 8 people (5 players and 3 npc's). Felt pretty good to save about 64 hp of party's HP with an equivalent of one bardic inspiration.
I really want to make a spell that is find steed, but you can cast a bunch of them. It’s a higher level spell would probably put a costly component behind it or part of it. Consumed part of it not would probably Collett salmon stampede. Would probably make the spell fifth level or higher. You can either choose to do the short version, which allows you to use it as like aoe of a super wide line 5 squares a crust most likely 120 feet long of illusionary horses or other equine creatures, or other creatures of similar build such as Buffalo or bowl they run forward as fast as they can trampling anything in the way The longer version just gives you a bunch of find steed. If you have casted enough, the same level difference between find steed and find greater steed you can get the greater steed instead The, expensive non-consumed component is enough saddles to ride. The horses with is 1000 gold piece crystal embedded. in the stirrup that is used to make a binding contract with the creature The expensive consumed component is some type of force, shoes or relevant footwear for the creature sense spirits don’t usually interact with the material plane they need a conduit to give them more substance would probably make it out of a magical material silver thing default The horse shoes should probably cost around like 150 gold altogether. The spelling it’s longform last for eight hours. Would probably give this spell to druid wizard cleric paladin, and maybe bardbard PS sorry about bad punctuation very dyslexic so trying to find out if it’s a good time to pause is difficult PSS Hope you guys like my idea for a spell. Not sure what it should be for damage probably a little bit above average, or more than that due to it costing money is mainly for long-distance group, travel, but thought it would be cool for someone like a druid to get a large aoe that’s thematic for them
Cutting words Saved my Party's life. We were Traveling through a hostile land with forged papers. The guard we showed the papers to would have succeeded in recognizing the forgery if not for my cutting words
'Magical Secrets' implies that your PC must learn the spell from a PC or NPC in-game as part of role playing, since you 'learn' the spell from another caster who can cast it rather than just picking it when hitting a level you get spells from 'Magical Secrets'.
So with a multiclss dip does this mean lvl 6 Additional Magical Secrets wording allows taking spells above level 3? And are there any spells that you would replace with your list
At 12:39, you say that it makes you the best counterspeller in the game, but at the next level, you can get Glibness which at that level should make it impossible for any spell to beat your counterspells/dispels. That would be the best counterspeller in the game and also is available to warlocks.
