College Of Lore Bard: D&D 2024 Optimisation Guide

Scholarly, spell-focused bards that use their knowledge and silver tongue to devastating effect.

What is the college of lore?

Some bards are particularly scholarly. They trawl tomes and libraries, becoming conversant in the ways of government, the law and magic. As natural performers and orators, they have a peerless way with words and make outstanding debaters, with the knowledge to backup their charisma.

The college of lore was included in the 2014 Player’s Handbook and makes a return in the 2024 edition too. It was already an excellent bard option so only received some minor updates for D&D 2024. There have been sunstantial changes to the main bard class and updated core rules too. So I’ve put together a load of advice and tactics to help you optimise your lore bard.

At a glance

Use your knowledge and words to debase your enemies
Adept as a spell-focused bard
Learn even more spells from other class lists
Your knowledge will make you more reliable while your cutting words will make your enemies fumble

What’s changed for a lore bard in D&D 2024?

Not a lot as lore bards worked really well already. But, some minor tweaks make the subclass more streamlined including:

Magical discoveries: The new name for additional magic secrets which now gets the same limitations introduced with the main bard feature, meaning you can only pick spells from the cleric, druid and wizard spell lists. However, you can also replace these spells as you level up making you more adaptable.
Cutting words: This now works against creatures that can’t be charmed (previously it wouldn’t work against these creatures).
Peerless skill: Won’t expend a use of bardic inspiration if you still fail your check.

Related articles

College of lore features

Bonus proficiencies – Lv3

How it works

Gain proficiency in 3 additional skills.

Tactics

You’re the most skillful bard around. Use this to fill party gaps in skills as you should already have most core skills covered.

Cutting words – Lv3

How it works

Expend a bardic inspiration die as a reaction when a nearby creature makes a damage roll or succeeds on an ability check or attack roll. You can roll a bardic inspiration die and subtract the value from the roll to reduce the damage or potentially turn a successful roll into a failure.

Tactics

This is most effective on ability checks or attack rolls that barely pass. A large gap in passing the roll is unlikely to overturn the result, but a small gap is more easily overturned.
You could also apply it to a critical hit to prevent major damage from an enemy as it reduces the d20 roll so a roll of 20 will no longer be a critical, even if it remains a hit.
You might also want to use it on enemies that hit hard with a single attack rather than enemies with multiple less hefty attacks. So great against something like a rogue, but less so against a monk.
It’s less effective for handling damage dealt as you’re better off preventing the damage entirely, but if you’re in a tight spot and don’t think you can stop the hit landing but could survive another turn by reducing the damage, then this could work.

Magical discoveries – Lv6

How it works

You get 2 extra spells known that you can pick from the cleric, druid or wizard spell lists. These can be changed every time you increase a level but must be of a level appropriate for your bard level.

Tactics

Pick something that fits the needs of the party. If you need more damage dealing, go for something like fireball or spirit guardians. Need more crowd control, then web’s a great option. Need more stealth? Invisibility, pass without trace or greater invisibility are great options.
I’d also make sure you change as you go up levels whenever that’s useful. This is particularly helpful as you’ll gain access to increasingly powerful spells so may want to upgrade your invisibility for greater invisibility for example.

Peerless skill – Lv14

How it works

When you make an ability check or an attack roll and fail, you can expend a use of your bardic inspiration and add that die to your d20 roll. If the roll still fails, you don’t expend any uses of your bardic inspiration.

Tactics

Chances are, you’ll be making spell attacks rather than weapon attacks, but that’s fine as this works with those too. You don’t get many spell attack spells in your bard spell list, but you do now gets starry wisps as a consistent source of cantrip damage. You can also pick up other spell attacks with magical discoveries and magic initiate if you want something like toll the dead for it’s higher damage.
You don’t expend a use of your bardic inspiration if you still fail your roll, so you might as well use this as often as you need to. It also doesn’t expend a reaction, bonus action or any other drain on your action economy so usually worth using except on weak attacks.

Building a college of lore bard

Lore bards are more spell-focused than the likes of valor and dance bards. As such, you’ll want to hone in on spellcasting elements in your build. Below I’ve given a load of advice on how to optimise a lore bard:

Ability scores

Recommended options

Charisma: Important for spells and face skills.
Dexterity: You’ll need this to get your AC decent. In theory, it’ll help you out with finesse and ranged weapons which could be useful early on, but cantrips like starry wisps will be better from level 5 onwards as their damage scales with your level.
Constitution: Not mega important for a lore bard, but it will increase your durability so makes a solid tertiary ability.

Options to avoid

Wisdom: Of little use to a bard.
Intelligence: Of little use to a bard.
Strength: You can dump this.

Ability score	Point Buy	Standard Array
Strength	8	8
Dexterity	15	14
Constitution	15	13
Intelligence	8	10
Wisdom	8	12
Charisma	15	15

Skills

Recommended options

Deception: Important for a face (which you surely will be as a bard) especially if you intend on lying a lot.

Intimidation: Another useful one for a party face.
Persuasion: Your most important face skill.
Stealth: Regularly useful and you often can’t rely on one character being good at this.
Perception: Important for anyone in the party and highly used.
Insight: Important face skill and you may find you need this to compensate for a lower wisdom score.

Options to avoid

Nature: Used far too little to be of much use.
Survival: Used far too little to be of much use.
Animal handling: Used far too little to be of much use.
Athletics: You’re not strength based so go with acrobatics if you want one of these.
Medicine: You’re better off healing magically.

Species/race

There are a couple of things to consider when choosing a species for a college of lore bard:

Innate spellcasting: Bards can cast spells so this is a useful option for repeat castings and gaining some extra spell options. Bards can be a bit limited on damage dealing spells too so it can be worth trying to pick up one or 2 of these as well for better ranged combat options.
Keeping safe: Lore bards aren’t built for the front lines. Instead, you’ll need to keep yourself safe and out of harm’s way. Anything that can keep you safe then is a great boon. This includes things like flight or misty step-like abilities.

Recommended options

Aasimar (2024): All the celestial revelation options are decent for a lore bard. You can use flight when you need to get safe or use necrotic shroud or inner radiance in case you get surrounded (though you should work to avoid this). A bit of healing is decent too for a backup healer and you get necrotic and radiant damage resistance. Not that important for a backline Spellcaster, but a nice bonus.
Dragonborn (2024): You don’t get many AoE spells as a bard so a Dragonborn makes a good option with their breath weapon. It does mean getting a little closer to the action but with temporary flight, it’s easy to do this from some safety. Otherwise, just use your flight to stay completely out of harm’s way while you blast spells and inspiration about the battlefield. There’s also a resistance for better durability.
Elf (2024): An extra skill and darkvision will help you be a better scout and general skill guru. But you’re mainly here for the innate spellcasting. High Elf is a good option for misty step and an extra cantrip (toll the dead will make you more effective at dealing damage without expending spell slots, but you can change this around if you want too). Drow is good for buffs and debuffs with the likes of faerie fire and darkness. You could go for a Wood Elf for the better stealth, but it’s generally the weaker option.
Gnome (2024): Extra magic resilience is great. A Forest Gnome is best with speak with animals which works really well for a high charisma character while minor illusion is great if you want to get involved in stealth (which is easy to build for with a lore bard).
Tiefling (2024): Repeat uses of 4 innate spells is great for a spellcasting class. If you take the infernal legacy, you gain access to firebolt for scalable ranged damage that will outstrip damage from a light crossbow. You get a resistance to a common damage type for extra durability too.

Options to avoid

Dwarf (2024): It’s all about being really resilient for a Dwarf, but that’s a little wasted on a subclass that tends to steer clear of danger.
Goliath (2024): If you desperately want to play a Goliath bard, go for stone giant ancestry for the damage reduction. Everything else is a bit wasted on a subclass that likes to operate at range.
Orc (2024): Orcs are all about durability which is generally wasted on a backline bard subclass.

Backgrounds

Backgrounds are much more important now with D&D 2024 as the ability score increases previously tied to your race/species are now linked to your background. Remember that you can either choose to increase one of the ability score options from a background by 2 and the other by 1, or you can choose to increase all 3 ability scores by 1.

You also get an origin feat linked to your background too.

Below are the options I think work best for a lore bard:

Name	Ability scores	Origin feat	Skill proficiencies	Tool proficiency
Charlatan	Dexterity, constitution, charisma	Skilled	Deception, sleight of hand	Forgery kit
Entertainer	Strength, dexterity, charisma	Musician	Acrobatics, performance	One kind of musical instrument
Merchant	Constitution, intelligence, charisma	Lucky	Animal handling, persuasion	Navigator’s tools
Wayfarer	Dexterity, wisdom, charisma	Lucky	Insight, stealth	Thieves’ tools

Wayfarer might be your best options of the above, but charlatan also fit really well for a bard.

Weapons

Once you hit level 5, a damage dealing cantrip will be your best option for damage. You can get starry wisps as standard (a brand new spell for D&D 2024, giving bards their own damage-dealing cantrips). You can easily get other damage dealing cantrips too with toll the dead the highest damage option. You can either get this through magical discoveries, the magic initiate feat or by playing a High Elf.

Before this point, you may find that a light crossbow deals more damage. A dagger is your best option for the occasional melee combat you might engage in (as it’s your only finesse option) but this should be used rarely.