College of Swords Bard - Subclass Guide - D&D 5e

In this episode, we take a deep dive into the class features of the College of Swords Bard and rank them all!
Weirdness on Somatic and Material Components with spellcasting focus: www.sageadvice.eu/holy-symbol...
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Music: Battle of the Creek by Alexander Nakarada (www.serpentsoundstudios.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons BY Attribution 4.0 License
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0:00 Lore
1:24 Bonus Proficiencies
3:06 Fighting Style
5:25 Blade Flourish
10:56 Thank You!
11:16 Extra Attack / Fighting Style Comparison
13:04 Master's Flourish
13:49 Overall Thoughts and Ranking
15:35 Patreon Thank You

[@quincykunz3481]

Here's a hilarious trick this subclass pulls: Not a single feature (Besides fighting style) specifies that you need to use a melee weapon, let alone a sword. I whipped up a goblin crossbow specialist and am excited to use the mobility with nimble escape since flourishes don't use a bonus action. Using the mobile flourish to shove people into/off of terrain is a lot easier at range to boot. How nailing someone with an arrow from 20 feet away allows me to shove them back and still end up behind them with my full movement to burn is beyond me, but it's some incredible anime nonsense that I am here for.

[@quincykunz3481]

@@JediNiyte as long as you consider an unarmed strike to be a weapon attack, which I believe you should, since bites, claws, and slams in monster blocks are specified as weapon attacks. Very counter-intuitive thing to name non-spell attacks.

[@WolfHreda]

Same with the Battle Master's Maneuvers. Got a flying foe irritating your team? Shoot them down with a Heavy Crossbow and Trip Attack. Not only do you get extra damage, but they take fall damage too. It's beautiful.

[@TheSilverCanine_R3D-H]

I feel that it will also work well with the swashbuckling rogue multiclass

[@anthonyelie4700]

The Sword bard goes great with a Hexblade! Sword Bard 3/Hexblade X. Keep yourself safe with Defensive Florishes, and keep nailing those crits with HBC (Hexblade's Curse).

[@ShortRestTabletop]

You also get Eldritch smite for those Warlock spells if you go pact of the blade. I'd be more willing to roll up a Hexblade x/ Sword Bard 3 than I would be to roll up a Swords X/ Hexblade 1! Solid recommendation!

[@anthonyelie4700]

@@ShortRestTabletop 😎😎😎👌🏿

[@FaIIenSkater91]

Do it backwards, Hexblade 3/Swords Bard x

[@BradStewartMusic]

I'm currently playing a level 5 college of swords bard, and when you pair this class with the spell Kinetic Jaunt it is a TON of fun to play in battle. KJ gives +10 to move as does the Flourish. And, you don't need to expend a bardic inspiration to get the +10 to move from the flourish (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but that is how it reads). So with KJ active your move is +20 as long as you take the attack action each turn, and you can move freely around the battlefield to help your allies get advantage on attacks, which IMHO comes in way handier than one use of Bardic Inspiration for them. Or you just cause your enemy to keep having to chase you so you can get them into position to use Slashing Flourish to push them into whatever hazard is nearby! And the plus to my AC from Defensive Flourish has helped the party way more than spreading Inspiration around as I'm typically the one still up to pass out healing word . 'Not getting hit' is my Bards mantra in battle 😉 I do wish the Masters Flourish came a little earlier, BUT at 5th level you regain your Inspiration after a short rest, so you can use anything tied to a Bardic Inspiration quite frequently during the course of the adventuring day (provided you can take 1 or 2 short rests) . Super happy with this class! Really has a swashbuckler feel to it!

[@pierceaman2984]

I had misread that until your comment made me look it up again. You're right, though, as long as you take the attack action, you get the +10 movement. My DM is gonna hate my character even more than he already does. 🤣

[@FlameUser64]

If you wanna nyoom Even Faster for no reason, the +10 ft. speed applies _every time_ you take the Attack action on your turn. Multiclass fighter for Action Surge, and you can use that Action Surge to attack again and give yourself another +10 ft. speed. If you're Hasted (such as if you pick the spell up via Magical Secrets at 10th), you can Attack again and get another +10 ft. speed. Haste actually has some neat synergy here, since only one of your attacks is the _really_ big one, if you cast it on yourself, you give yourself an immediate attack action to potentially land a Flourish with.

[@shadowmyst9661]

To greater incentivize taking the Two-Weapon Fighting Style, not only for the Sword Bard, but for any character that wishes to invest in Two-Weapon Fighting, I made a simple alteration to the Dual Wielder Feat that my play group has opted to use in our games. It greater rewards the investment into the Two-Weapon Fighting style without being any more overpowered than for example a Fighter or Paladin with Great Weapon Master, or a Ranger or Rogue with Sharpshooter. Dual Wielder - Upgrade You master fighting with two weapons, gaining the following benefits: * You gain a +1 bonus to AC while you are wielding a separate melee weapon in each hand. * You can use two-weapon fighting even when the one handed melee weapons you are wielding aren’t light. * You can draw or stow two one-handed weapons when you would normally be able to draw or stow only one. * Before you make a melee attack while you have melee weapon in each hand that you are proficient with, you can choose to take a -5 penalty to the attack roll. If that attack hits, you add +10 to the attack's damage.

[@Orktosqt]

is anyone else here, because Baldur's Gate 3 announced Swords as bard subclass? :)

[@paulgroves8633]

Me 😃

[@jackofblades501]

One additional point towards Blade Flourish is, since it only requires a weapon attack, you can add flourishes to ranged attacks

[@andreapiccolo8199]

I love this, i am making full use of this. My character is juggler that throws daggers, the extra movements the flourish add is perfect to keep away from the enemies

[@danferrusquia2819]

This never occurred to me until I played Baldur’s Gate 3 where it has ranged versions of all the flourishes

[@felltactician]

Baldur's Gate did Swords Bards so good. It inspired me to do an archer swords-bard. Im debating between a rogue or fighter multiclass (scout or battle master). The Baldur's Gate slashing Flourish is just so much better. An extra attack where both get the flourish damage, the push is 20ft locked from mobile flourish. The defensive one has no ceiling or floor. Flat 4. Just so good and such a fun playstyle.

[@doomhippie6673]

Nice. I just made a bard as a blade. So thanks for your input.

[@zroxnbolo6177]

one of my faveorite combos with this archtype was using Bladesinging for Bladesong (bonus action) and lv2 monk for the dex mod on damage (instead of str) and access to ki and unarmored movement/defense, makes a very fun dps thats online at level 5 or 6

[@aniqueevans1547]

Great video! Very informative! I've seen some instances of players multiclassing a swords bard with a swashbuckler rogue. How does that option synergize compared to the hexblade warlock?

[@ShortRestTabletop]

That's a great question. I think the swashbuckler rogue multiclass is also a very good one. I mean, you get sneak attack, extra expertise, and a bonkers high initiative, all while gaining incredible combat maneuverability. However, it comes with the massive downside of missing out on a minimum of 3 levels of spellcasting and bard features, which, admittedly is kind of a lot. One level of warlock makes you single ability score dependent and encourages you to go into the one weapon "dueling swords bard" rather than the two weapon fighting bard that swashbuckler will encourage. Overall power, I prefer the Hexblade dip, but the swashbuckler dip is also VERY strong that also has a lot of synergy. Thank you for the question!

[@-Commit-arson-]

I quite like dueling for the spellcasting and freehand in general (rapiers are good) I like playing a disrupting tank Run up ahead, insult/spellcast aggressively, avoid getting stabbed, stab in retaliation, repeat Also, my group likes to homebrew, so there are of of course, a bit more play ability for the purpose of fun

[@alessandrosalomoni3213]

Hey! Just discovered your channel, love your work! I was wandering if you'd like to do a Cicle of Dreams Druid subclass guide! I really love the subclass and it's never mentioned by anyone in any video about druid subclasses (I know it is less powerful than other druid subclasses but still I don't think it's "bad"😅) Keep it up!💜

[@ShortRestTabletop]

Hiya! Thank you for your kind words. I admittedly post much less these days, but thank you for the suggestion, I will definitely add it to the list of potential videos.

[@mayuwu4408]

I'm gonna be running a Swords bard in a strixhaven campaign, she's themed as a moon dancer who weaves sword and dance to case spells. We're going from level 1 to level 10 and possibly up to level 13. I was thinking about multiclassing into Fighter for Action Surge and Battlemaster, which could be really cool. For example, you could combine the Pushing Attack with the Mobile Flourish to push an enemy 20 and sometimes up to 25 feet away from you and then use a reaction to move that whole distance towards them, and you'd still have the extra 10 feet from using the Attack Action plus whatever you didn't use. Issue with that, as you highlighted, is that dipping any more than a level into another class as a caster feels pretty bad- For example, if the campaign doesn't go past 10, I'd be missing out on Magical Secrets, which is a hard sell (although i don't have any specific spells in mind for it yet). Additionally, Animate Objects would be probably the coolest spell for my character to have thematically and so delaying when I have access to it also kinda hurts, esspecially in a campaign like Strixhaven with 2 or 3 other full casters who will have access to it much sooner if I multiclass (and if the game doesn't go past 10 then I won't have access to the spell at all). What do you think?

[@firstnamelastname7298]

yeah same, i was planning to play an artificer but to get animate objects at lv 17 is just pain. so i played a bard instead

[@edwinvermeulen8187]

I think that your primary concern should be if the campaign goes to lvl 14 or not. Master's flourishes is to good to multiclass if you know your getting it, unless you go for a very specific build. Alternatively if you want to have fighter purely for increased damage output you should consider paladin instead. Paladin still keeps increasing your spell progression, although at a reduced rate, with some additional intresting spells that you can immediatly upcast due to the higher bard slots. as well as open up additional damage with smite. When you crit if you pump in your high(est) level spell slots as well as a flourish, you can get some nice bursts.

[@FlameUser64]

@@edwinvermeulen8187 Speaking of crits, lemme mention something really cool: Since your flourish increases your weapon's damage, it multiplies on a crit. _And,_ since the flourish's secondary effect uses the amount of extra damage rolled, it _also_ multiplies on a crit. A critical Slashing Flourish at 5th level hits all surrounding enemies for 2d8. A critical _Defensive_ Flourish adds +2d8 to AC.

[@PatRiot-le7rd]

I don't mind the sword bard using inspiration on their flourishes because I've never had party members remember to use the bardic inspiration they were given. It just goes wasted if it is handed out to the rest of the party from what I've seen.

[@Worst-One]

I believe the sages compendium talks about casting somatic and material components with a focus. You can do it.

[@silverjaiden2450]

Never took into account spells. A paralayzed foe from hold person taking 3 hits all crits benefits 2 weapons fighting more so than rapiers

[@FlameUser64]

Hold Person guaranteeing criticals has a very funny effect on Flourishes, too! Because the secondary effect relies on the amount of extra damage dealt, doubling the dice with a crit doubles the secondary effect. A critical Slashing Flourish at 5th level hits all surrounding enemies for 2d8, while a critical Defensive Flourish gives you +2d8 AC. That's pretty neat.

[@lefloog]

Good rundown, I do agree with Master's Flourish coming online at such a late level feels bad. Personally, I would love to just get rid of Extra Attack and have it come online as the level 6 feature instead so you can really take advantage of the different options. Do you think it would affect the balance too much to do so? Additionally, do you think Swashbuckler Rogue would be a good multiclass to get extra movement/BA options? I'm trying to combine the two to make a suave dancer thief that uses magical performances as distractions while he pickpockets and I love it flavor-wise, just not sure how well it'll hold up in combat 😅

[@ShortRestTabletop]

I definitely think swapping extra attack with Master's Flourish is worth playtesting. It will be mechanically more powerful I wager, but I can't see that being too much of a problem at most tables. As for mixing swashbuckler and College of Swords, I'd say absolutely go for it! You will be sacrificing some of the juicy rogue progression and sneak attack spike damage to get more versatile spell options, support and utility. I would wager you will perform worse than a true straight swashbuckler in combat, but you will have far more flexibility in dealing with a wide variety of combat situations, which in of itself is quite useful! Thanks for the comment!

[@scottjohnson9672]

Starting dungeon of the mad mage today with one but cross classing with a few levels of fighter.

[@ShortRestTabletop]

Very nice! I hope the first session went well and your character operates well!

[@EmperorHagane]

I'm planning a dragonic blood sorcerer with 6 levels in blade bard. Thematically a dancer woth high CA and meele. But does this subclass works with whip?

[@johnmichaelarnaud]

Fun rundown, as always, Al! I would say that losing your bonus action by choosing Two-Weapon Fighting might not hurt as much for this bard, who could choose to use its dice to empower Blade Flourish instead of handing them out to allies. As far as gishes go, it won't do as much physical damage as a properly built warlock, but it will be a better spellcaster. I'd be up for playing a Swords bard sometime. Cheers!

[@ShortRestTabletop]

Thank you and that's totally fair! When I ran with a swords bard for a short adventure, I actually ran with two weapon fighting and you're right, I spent most of it on the flourishes. I did find myself wishing they did more dynamic things for expending inspiration. Though, inspiration has widely varying levels of viability as is anyway. I think you convinced me that it isn't as oppressive as I presented here. If I ever run one again it will definitely be a difficult choice! Thanks again for the comment! :)

[@thestranger954]

What if you took 2 levels in Paladin? Would that up the ante DPS wise? Lotta spell slots, lotta smites if you get that extra attack. Even at 5th level, youd be doing pretty well. You'd have 2 fighting styles, a nice boost to HP, 2 attacks, many spell slots as well as some great support spells, plus flourish. That makes for a fun, damage dealing, healer type. Of course with some great skills and flavor as well.

[@coltonburke269]

I’d consider a build like this as well swashbuckler rogue level 11 hexblade level 1 swords bard 8

[@skullbearer]

I think a paladin 2 level dip for smite is as good, if not better than hexblade

[@ShortRestTabletop]

That's fair! Paladin smites are nothing to mess around with haha, the only thing that put me off to it is the 13 Strength requirement to multi into paladin. I prefer Dex to be my main combat stat, especially for this class, so the 13 Strength hurts a lot. However, I can definitely see it being worth it for the smites!

[@Spiceodog]

Why not both?

[@skullbearer]

@@Spiceodog Not sure why you'd bother? That's an uneeded delay

[@skullbearer]

@@ShortRestTabletop Yeah, I was lucky with my stat rolls.

[@danferrusquia2819]

I’m playing a half-orc Swords bard with high strength and the sailor background and I’m having a great time

[@ShortRestTabletop]

Love this!

[@nevertoonate]

Would you ever consider changing this class a little to mimic the aesthetic of the bladesinger? Change the extra attack feature to mimic the bladesinging feature to include a cantrip. Then expand the spell list to include booming blade and green flame blade. Maybe give them shadow blade and zephyr strike down the road? I don’t think it would mess with balance too much. Just push it to be a better Gish.

[@ShortRestTabletop]

I would absolutely consider it! The swords bard isn't super powerful in combat and while I do think it is intentionally designed that way, I don't think it breaks the game too much to allow the cantrip changes. It would go a long way in helping the swords bard into feeling more... swords bard-y. Shadow blade and zephyr strike would definitely be awesome additions, but I would be careful to gauge how the bard is doing in the campaign after the cantrip additions and extra attack change. If they are faring just fine, I would only consider it as a quest reward or perhaps thematically story driven feat option. On the other hand, if they are struggling or the party composition demands more damage per round, I'd definitely give them the extra goodies.

[@nevertoonate]

@@ShortRestTabletop I agree! After thinking on it more I think both zephyr strike and Shadowblade are solid choices for a bard to take as a magical secret. Maaaaaybe Shadowblade through a weapon down the line but if they want to stay bard that is an advantage of the class. They can take any spells they want with magical secrets.

[@edwinvermeulen8187]

Due to magical secrets, you already have all of the extra spells you would want, albeit a little late. Although you can still get lvl 4 & 5 ranger and paladin spells before they do and create something intresting.

[@HighPhoenix1754]

Currently playing one at the moment, and, it's fun, until you get Crit, which, has been happening a lot more recently for me (maybe bad luck?). Bard's aren't that durable to start. Durable for a spellcaster? Yes, but for Frontliner, you're no tank. You're definitely a skirmisher/striker with extra utility, both in and out of combat. But, I've also learned to rely on my spells, too. Use spells to break up, weaken, or disable the enemy's numbers, then conserve spell slots by bursting down one enemy at a time to limit their action economy. Rinse repeat. Hexblade and Arcana Cleric dip (though if I were optimizing, I'd drop the Arcana. Both dips are purely story related), for single ability score dependence. But, all in all, it's fun. I'd only recommend going two weapon fighting if you're going to devote your sword bard more to melee, as, with the amount of buffs that the bard gets, they can be pretty damn hard to pin down, but that's what you'll be focusing on is self enhancement. Be pretty selfish but, your party will thank you, probably. All in all, I feel like the subclass doesn't have to do much because the main classes' spell list already compliments what the class is all about. Its just that it's usually focused outward to buff allies and hinder enemies, rather than inward to enhance the bard. Not only that, but again, you're still a bard. Unlike Hexblade or Bladesinger, you've got a huge amount you can do out of combat.

[@RAClaus3]

Excellent analysis of one of the more overlooked bards.

[@ShortRestTabletop]

Thank you as always Robert! It's a fun one for sure!

[@spacechannelfiver]

As a pure class they aren't great; but with a twist of warlock, paladin or fighter they become much more. Fighter is probably the weakest in pure damage potential, but action surge lets them be an absolute menace at the start of a fight.

[@edwinvermeulen8187]

A few corrections: For a bard, especially a swords bard, Slasher is almost always superior to piercer. Bards are support and control orientated because you can move a creature with mobile flourish, or hit multiple creatures with slashing flourish, then as an on hit effect reduce its speed, and you have an innate higher speed. This allows you to control the battlefield wich is much more important than the on average 1 damage increase from piercer on the initial target that doesn't get conveyed to multiple creatures if you use slashing flourish because piercer rerolls the attacks damage die, not the bardic inspiration die. You don't need a free hand to cast spells as a swords bard if your using a melee weapon. Since the hand that is holding the focus (wich the weapon is) can also be used for somatic components. Adittionally a swords bard is a selfish build, it keeps its bardic inspiration to itself until level 14, otherwise there is no point in playing a swords bard. This frees up the bonus action you would normally use for bardic inspiration. Making dual wield a lot stronger on a swords bard. Additionally in your damage assesments you do not incorporate chance to hit at all. This skewes the projected damage completely. In most encounters you don't have a 100% hit chance, When calculating average damage this means a single rapier would do 12.6 damage on average. Dual wielding would do 17.8 damage on average. If you add the flourish damage, since that requires you to actually HIT a target the damage becomes 17.1 For Duelist vs 23.3 for dual wield. Also i'm not a fan of trying to skewer the results by using a single d8 weapon and dual d6 weapons while you can also use dual d8 weapons! BAD FORM! Also i would recommend actually checking a the correct rules and addendums and sage advice. Its been stated several times that the offhand attack that you can make during the attack action is part of the attack action, and thus you CAN use flourishes your offhand attack if your main hand attack or attacks miss. The only thing that i agree on in this video is that Master's flourish comes a little late. I'm hoping that version 5.5e is going to streamline so that each class gets its subclass features at the same levels so this kind of problem will be less. Here is where i think you've completely missed the mark of swords bard. Your approaching it on a damage build, while its clearly intended as a support one. Controlling movement of yourself and your enemies has become one of the main controll ascpects in many games. And the swords bard is the only one that has innate movement control. A swords bard turns its bardic inspiration into a self controlled form of offense, defense or control, instead of giving it to another player and hoping they will make good use of it, while keeping the option to give it to other players as well.

[@FlameUser64]

Rules as written, a hand holding a spellcasting focus can only fulfill somatic components if the spell also has a material component. If it does not, you _specifically_ need to have a free hand, and a spellcasting focus won't do the trick. This means you have to specifically put your sword away to cast such a spell if you're holding a shield. Also, using two d8 weapons for TWF requires a feat, which you likely don't have a free slot for because you're taking War Caster to even be able to cast your bard spells.

[@dylc3373]

I enjoyed reading this. You're the type of person I'd enjoy sitting down with to better understand subclasses.

[@angelmanfredy]

A nice control (and super fun build) I’ve been playing with is a swords bard/ rune knight (5/7 for first 12 levels). Grappling is insane and controls the hell out of people. The extra d6 giant might damage on your turn gives a little more damage boost beyond flourish. I also have the superior technique fighting style combined with stone rune (“paralyze”) and cloud rune (move damage to someone else) which are all reactions whether I am hit, the enemy misses me, or just moves near me. All things I can do as reactions. Couple this with heavy armor master and plate and fighter hp boost its very fun, tanky, and you have things to do every action, bonus action, snd reaction. Very fun highly recommend it.

[@mattitalks6261]

If you look under the rules for spells in material components Estates that the hand that holds your focus and can use the somatic components. Since the weopon is a focus you have no need to worry about somatic or material components unless they have a price

[@nuttyworld4426]

I think it should been lvl 10 instead of lvl 14

[@f1am3alchemist76]

My mans just read from the source material for this vid. Edit: I watched the rest of the vid. He explained a lot but still cue carded the beginning of each section.