As always, I’ve crossposted this over to the OneD&D subreddit in the link below. Feel free to upvote there to raise visibility.
https://www.reddit.com/r/onednd/comments/14ufvvq/is_the_dance_bard_all_that_good/
As part of preparing player characters on behalf of my less UA invested friends for a one-shot I’m running tomorrow, I made a Dance Bard. The player was excited to hear the concept, and I thought it was a really neat idea when I first read over it.
But the act of actually making it lead to a conclusion that this isn’t that great.
Yes, Charisma + Dex armor is neat, but since Shield + Light Armor would get you to the same level of AC, it isn’t an upgrade over the baseline Bard starting out. (For some reason I thought Bards got shield proficiency. This is still sub-par AC for anyone going into melee, especially without an on-turn disengage or shove) Later on when you can max out your Dex and Charisma to 20, it would be eventually higher AC, but full casters typically don’t want to put a lot of investment outside of their casting stat.
“Okay,” I thought to myself, “then let’s look at this as not a caster, but as a melee combatant who prioritizes Dexterity.” Well that’s not great either. You get to use your bonus action to cast a spell to help your attack damage, but that is limited to the 1d6/level Smite spells1, or Zephyr Strike. Shadow Blade isn’t on any spell list now either, and if it was it doesn’t bookend with any of these features anyhow so you can’t play it like a Bladesinger who is able to dump spell slots into single-target damage. But even if you did do this, that’s in direct competition to your free attack on a Bardic Inspiration.
The fact that this subclass doesn’t get a second attack at 5th or 6th level really torpedoes any sense that you’ll be getting that much out of their ‘bardic-martial-art’ die damage. Not even to mention they don’t get to pierce Bludgeoning/Piercing/Slashing resistance.
So what’s left?
A bard who can get an extra hit in if they’re next to an enemy when they inspire an ally, as well as use their reaction to reposition allies and get another hit in.2 This is the only reason to close to melee range on your own turn. The bard as a fullcaster would be better off using spellslots that don’t require being in melee range with their action, most of the time. What that effectively means is that you can use your attack action in lieu of a cantrip, so you get essentially 1 extra cantrip. In tier 2, they can boost their party’s initiative by an impressive amount.
That kit is flavorful, but it will be playing very much like a very normal Bard with some neat features. This feels like a faint shadow of what a Monk can do, not a replacement. Almost every Monk subclass has some way to avoid getting hit while darting in and out of combat3, while also having high movement speed. This Bard doesn’t do any of that.
Of anything that I mentioned, the repositioning of the ally and the initiative boosts are the best thing about this subclass. Everything else are ribbon abilities. If you think I’m off base, please feel free to let me know how. I’ll also be posting a followup after my playtest, but having just playtested a neat session with two monks, conceptually this doesn’t feel all that exciting.
edit: I just realized that taking Tavern Brawler at 1st level fixes this subclass’s (and Way of Mercy’s) problem with engaging in melee, and is actually quite powerful. Each time you hit someone with your unarmed strike, you can push them away. I think that it could be a mandatory feat on anyone who wants to really lean into the dance-fighting vibe of this class.
1 Altho Searing smite might be OP since you get two instances of the damage before the target gets to save and negate the burn. Which means its the best scaling Smite in the game, and exceeds what a Paladin with half-caster progression can achieve if the target fails its save once.
2 And note that Bardic Inspiration is tied to your Charisma modifier. So as resource hungry as the Monk is, this is worse.
3 Way of Mercy is the odd one out.
The Unarmed Strike part of the subclass I think would be more for crowd control than damage. You can knock a bad guy prone thanks to having expertise in Athletics (hopefully they re-word this subclass and Martial Arts so the Shove/Grapple features of unarmed strikes can use DEX instead of STR for DCs in these two instances).
The inspiring movement allows to you move and kite (or at least reposition) yourself with no reason to get into melee yourself, and can remove a squishy from unwanted melee.
You also get Evasion to share with your party. While the range is basically non-existent, it is still evasion that you get a level earlier than the Rogue and Monk and can share with your party that is near you.
For AC, you do also get access to either or all of Shield, Mage Armor, and Shield of Faith making you hard to hit even with a slightly lower DEX to focus on CHA first. The Monk through magic initiate or multiclass could get the same but not as easily as the Bard.
In fact, there is a possible fun tag team option of the Dance Bard and Monk working together in combat. The Monk rushes in and does 2 punches, then BA Patient Defense or BA 2 more Punches. Then the Dance bard pirouettes into combat and Booming blades the enemy, uses BI in melee and knocks the enemy prone. If the enemy tries to attack, they have to either attack with disadvantage against the Monk or against the Bard with decent AC that can be boosted by the aforementioned spells, or if the Bard tries to escape the enemies reach, they have to contend with the Monk’s attack who can definitely chase them down, and when they move take the Booming Blade damage.
Plus since the Bard can share its evasion, if the Monk fails the roll, they could still pass with the Bard’s evasion, and do so at level 6 waiting on theirs for the next level.
None of that is optimized but I think if you use the Bard to do Bard stuff instead of Monk-y stuff then I think it still works out
As you’ve pointed out, as written it doesn’t work that way, and you wouldn’t need to increase the damage die to get that effect. If that was the intent of the feature, WotC would put on a ‘push’ rider to the attack IMO.
Unfortunately Mage Armor would overwrite the unarmored defense feature. Shield is the only thing that makes this class possibly have decent AC, but I am hoping and praying that it gets the nerf-stick in an upcoming UA.
But concentration spells should be avoided, unless you are putting it on a frontliner that has solid means of focusing all attack rolls onto themselves. Concentration is such a valuable resource that you can’t spend it on yourself to protect just yourself IMO.
Booming Blade and Green Flame Blade aren’t on the spell lists for this playtest tho, which greatly reduce the capability of fullcasters’ to spellblade it up.
But in general I see this Bard as you’re depicting it, except as a support first and foremost that does not make proactive use of its unarmed attack. Because there isn’t enough incentive to put yourself into danger unless you want to save on spell slots but still deal damage.
Agreed, Mage armor wouldn’t allow you to benefit from Charisma to your AC, so it wouldn’t be a massive benefit. However, given how little effort it takes to start with an AC16 (16 Dex, 16 Cha, 14 Con is easily doable at level 1), to call it anything less than decent is insulting. I guess Paladins and Fighters don’t have a decent AC either, since the chain mail they can start with has an AC of 16. Plus, a Dancer can easily hit AC 20, with no gold investment (plus has access to Shield and Absorb Elements, making their resilience even better) - tying them with Heavy armor + shield usage.
Correct. 18 is good AC at level 1, which martials can achieve by using a shield.
I absolutely think that shield (spell) should be nerfed, by the way. I agree that going arcane spell list is the only way to be a frontliner with this subclass at all as is. But that is committing your reaction to AC rather than inspired movement.
18 AC is only 10% less likely to be hit than 16 AC, and not every character will use a shield - in fact, most don’t. So now I know your understanding of the mechanics behind the game is inherently flawed.
You’re being rather belligerent for someone who is gliding over the fact that the highest resting AC you can get at level 1 is 18, using standard character creation rules.
For level 1, it’s S-Tier.
and you’re acting like 16 AC is “F” tier. If 18 is “S”, then 16, the next possible starting value, should be A. And that is more than “not decent”
Well it’s not that 16 is awful on its own. It’s awful when there aren’t any mechanisms to get out of melee without catching attacks of opportunity, and your kit wants you to be in melee.
However I have fixed one of the problems with this subclass! There’s an edit in the main post now as well attesting to this, but with Tavern Brawler, this subclass gets to swat people away from themselves all the dang time. Also, going in on Speedster at level 4 allows a dex focused Dancing Bard have that extra mobility that monks get for free, and helps them play keep-away from baddies.
The playtest itself starts in about 2 hours, and I’m quite excited to see what the player thinks… They couldn’t be bothered to do any of the character building with UA material, unfortunately.
16 AC is not, and I quote, “Sub-Par” as long as you are not trying to take on a tank role within your party. It’s perfectly fair for anyone who might be stuck in melee.
That being said, if you enjoy the benefit of using the UA version of tavern brawler, go ahead. Just keep in mind that that version of the feat may not make it into the print revision of the PHB.