Summon unpredictable spirits to aid you in combat with this high damage bard subclass.
Bards of the college of spirits are able to summon spirits to aid them in battle. These spirits are unpredictable and only vaguely within the bard’s control making this a somewhat unreliable subclass.
If you play a spirits bard, you should expect a bard that’s a more capable damage dealer (especially through spirit guardians and enhanced spell damage). They also do more buffing and debuffing too. But be prepared for a fair bit of randomness in your capabilities and to get closer to the danger than many bards like to be.
The college of spirits was originally released in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft for D&D 5e and has been updated for D&D 2024 in Ravenloft: The Horrors Within. For this article, I’ve taken a deep dive into the capabilities of the spirits bard and how you can optimise and build one.
At a glance
- Utility class with lots of spells and skills
- Enhance others with bardic inspiration
- Launch semi-random, spell-like effects
- Deal more damage than most bards through spirit guardians and enhanced spell damage
3/5 – The college of spirits is too random to be mechanically reliable. The effects of spirits from beyond are decent, but too unreliable or demand too much action economy to be as helpful as you’d like. That’s not to say that they’re bad or not worth using. They are free, spell-like effects after all, just less effective than they should be. Enhanced spirit guardians and increased damage/healing help this subclass a lot though.
What’s changed?
The college of spirits has undergone some fairly substantial changes that seek to address its randomness somewhat and the hefty toll on your action economy, but as a tradeoff, reduces it’s potency too. It’s a fair trade off, but the subclass still suffers from randomness and action economy challenges, just to a lesser extent.
Here’s how the spirits bard has changed:
- Channeler: Combines guiding whispers and spirit focus into 1 feature. You gain a gaming set and proficiency with it. Slightly different spellcasting foci and the extra damage dealing from spells has been moved to the level 6 feature (but still kicks in at the same level).
- Spirits/tales from beyond: Can now use this when using bardic inspiration for a random effect or without using bardic inspiration to pick an effect. The individual spirit effects have changed a lot, generally becoming weaker. This is the cost of improved action economy and more predictability.
- Empowered channeling: Was previously spirit session and allowed you to pick a divination or necrotic spell each long rest along with some other unnecessarily complex mechanics. Now it gives an enhanced spirit guardians. Power from beyond now fits under here and no longer requires casting with a spellcasting focus.
- Mystical connection: Unchanged.
College of spirits features
Channeler (Lv3) – 2/5
Guidance is a solid cantrip. Gaming set proficiency is rarely useful but it’s something. The different arcane focuses are for flavour only really. This is mainly a ribbon feature.
Spirits from beyond (Lv3) – 3/5
You either get a random spirit channeled when you use bardic inspiration, or a chosen spirit when you expend a bonus action without granting bardic inspiration. With option 1, you get a free, but random effect with the bardic inspiration you’d have used anyway, with option 2, you can choose an effect to have available but pay with your bonus action and bardic inspiration for the privilege.
The challenge is you still need to use an action to activate this. That’s an action not used casting a spell. Which is fine if that action equals the power of a spell. Even better that it doesn’t require a spell slot.
The first couple of spirits feel equivalent to cantrips in power with other options increasing in potency the higher the number. There will often be times when a cantrip would be all you’d use your action for anyway, and most options are more potent than that. Essentially, this means free spellcasting. If you want to choose your option though, it’ll cost a bonus action and an action.
There are plenty of good options, and these get better as your bardic inspiration dice grows. How useful all of this is depends on the length of your adventuring days and how much you need to be preserving spell slots. You may find some options easily go wasted, especially when randomly acquired. Others may be quite useful but predicting that is hard to know.
Empowered channeling (Lv6) – 5/5
Boosted damage from spells is decent and if you can use this on AoE spells, then that damage boost is applied to every creature hit. This might mean spells like shatter, doomtide and synaptic static will work best. You could also grab AoE spells through magical secrets too.
Similarly, healing is enhanced too. The enhancement is for one roll for healing which is the case for mass healing spells like mass healing word and mass cure wounds (which are both on the bard spell list). I’d definitely recommend taking these for that enhanced healing which will be better even than many clerics as a result.
On top of this, you get an enhanced form of spirit guardians. Spirit guardians is already excellent, but for you, it will often grant half cover for you and allies in its area too which means +2AC. This does mean diving into the middle of enemies so you’ll want to up your resilience.
Mystical connection (Lv14) – 3/5
Rolling twice on the spirits from beyond table means somewhat more reliable spirits to utilise which is decent but remains unpredictable.
How good is the college of spirits?
I kind of struggle with the college of spirits. It’s not bad, but its main feature is a bit unpredictable or expensive on your action economy without reliably providing a huge benefit (though the benefit is usually decent, but perhaps not what you need in the moment).
If you want varied options and thrive on unpredictability, then that’s great. I think if the action economy were a little kind, then I might be happier with the unpredictability, but it pretty much consumes your entire turn.
It’s also worth noting that these effects are significantly less potent than they were for the original spirits bard. The randomness and action economy has also been improved and it’s a mostly fair trade off, but it may be disappointing to some.
Fortunately, empowered channeling is excellent and gives you reliable damage dealing and protection. You will need to be careful though as bards aren’t the toughest so getting your resilience higher is important.
I can applaud the college of spirits for doing things differently and I think some players will have loads of fun with this subclass. Mechanically though, it can be a challenge despite some good effects.
3/5
Building a college of spirits bard
Spirits bards are more spell-focused than the likes of valor and dance bards. As such, you’ll want to prioritise spellcasting elements in your build, especially as many of your features rely on a strong charisma. This includes needing as large a pool of bardic inspiration as possible to use your features consistently. You’ll also want to prioritise resilience as spirits bards tend to be best near danger, if not right next to it.
Below I’ve given a load of advice on how to optimise a college of spirits bard:
Ability scores
Recommended options
- Charisma: You’ll need this to ensure enemies fail their saving throws against your spirits from beyond. It’ll also give you more uses of bardic inspiration (for extra bardic inspiration dice and spirit summonings). Your other spellcasting and face skills will also get better as a result. This should be your priority ability score.
- 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 true strike or even poison spray will be better from level 5 onwards as their damage scales with your level.
- Constitution: Bards aren’t too resilient, but you should expect to be targeted a fair bit if you intend to use spirit guardians a lot. That spell will cause enemies all kinds of problems and they’ll likely want to kill you or at least break your concentration early. Constitution will not only give you more hit points, but also better concentration saving throws.
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
- Acrobatics: Choose this over athletics as a dexterity character as they’re often interchangeable.
- 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.
- Performance: The Lesser of the face skills, but still a decent option for a bard.
- Persuasion: Likely 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.
Species/race
There are a couple of things to consider when choosing a species for a college of spirits 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. Just be aware that these won’t constitute bard spells so are not eligible for damage and healing boosts.
- Resilience: Spirit bards aren’t naturally built for the frontlines, but their best feature encourages them to be there through an enhanced spirit guardians. You’ll want to find ways to increase your resilience a lot to help compensate for this. This might be through increased HP, AC or resistances.
Recommended options
- Changeling (2024): As the ultimate face class, bards and Changelings work incredibly well for impersonating others. On top of that, you’ll get face skills that are enhanced even further.
- Aasimar (2024): All the celestial revelation options are decent for a spirits bard. You can use flight when you need to get safe or use necrotic shroud or inner radiance when you’re surrounded. A bit of healing is decent too for a backup healer and you get necrotic and radiant damage resistance for some bonus resilience.
- Dwarf (2024): More hit points, poison resistance and poisoned resilience work nicely if you’re after a tougher bard.
- 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 spirits bard).
- Human (2024): If you want extra skills, origin feats and heroic inspiration, then Human is a good option.
- Shifter (2024): Beasthide will make you tougher while swiftstride will make you faster (good for affecting more creatures with spirit guardians).
- Warforged (2024): +1 AC and poison resilience make you a decent bit tougher. You also get another skill proficiency.
Backgrounds
Backgrounds are much more important now with D&D 2024 as ability score increases and origin feats are now tied to these. You’ll obviously want to focus on increasing charisma and dexterity with constitution a possible option too.
Below are the options I think work best for a spirits 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 |
| Genie touched (HoF) | Dexterity, wisdom, charisma | Magic initiate (wizard) | Perception, persuasion | Glassblower’s tools |
| Haunted one (RHW) | Constitution, wisdom, charisma | Survivor or a dark gift | Arcana, survival | One kind of gaming set |
| Merchant | Constitution, intelligence, charisma | Lucky | Animal handling, persuasion | Navigator’s tools |
| Moonwell pilgrim (HoF) | Constitution, wisdom, charisma | Magic initiate (druid) | Nature, performance | Painter’s supplies |
| Spellfire initiate (HoF) | Constitution, intelligence, charisma | Spellfire spark | Arcana, perception | Ome gaming set |
| 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, especially if you want even more skill proficiencies. If you’d rather go for enhanced spellcasting, then spellfire initiate is a good choice.
Feats
Origin feats
To help with picking your background (or if you’re playing a Human), I’ve some strong options for a spirits bard:
- Alert: Ensures your initiative rolls are higher allowing you to go earlier in combat. If you’re feeling really altruistic, you can pass your high initiative to someone more important like a sorcerer with a big AoE spell.
- Lucky: Great on any class to have some extra rerolls available.
- Magic initiate: Grab some extra spells known from another spell list. Something like toll the dead from the wizard’s spell list will outperform starry wisp for damage, at least if you don’t want to wait till level 10 for this from magical secrets.
- Musician: A generally excellent origin feat for helping your allies out with some heroic inspiration (kind of like a slightly better lucky, you give to your friends). Not that you need proficiency with 3 more musical instruments though.
- Skilled: If you need some extra skill proficiency, this will get you 3 of them.
- Spellfire spark (HoF): Reduce some magical damage and use sacred flame as a bonus action as you can’t always be using bardic inspiration.
- Tough: A strong option if you need some extra durability, which will definitely be good for a spirits bard.
General feats
At level 4, you can start picking up general feats. The following are good options for a spirits bard:
- Fey touched: Misty step is great if you need some extra teleportation beyond moon’s inspiration (and you don’t get it with your class). Plus you get more spells known.
- Genie magic (HoF): An extra spell to cast, and it can be any 1st level spell from the sorcerer spell list. Works great for a utility class.
- Inspiring leader: Temporary hit points after every rest for your whole party is very handy. Just make sure you’re boosting your charisma for this feat.
- Lightly armored: You’re already proficient with light armor, but if you want to wield a shield for the +2 AC, this is the easiest way to do so. Your cantrips are usually better than weapon attacks so you won’t need 2 hands for a light crossbow (unless using it with true strike). so this is a good option for your free hand.
- Mage slayer: Great for disrupting mages and gives you something similar to legendary resistance.
- Resilient: Grab proficiency in constitution saving throws to help you maintain concentration on your spirit guardians and other spells.
- Shadow touched: Invisibility and an illusion spell are great for a caster class. You may already get in combat invisibility, but this will help with stealth out of combat.
- Spellfire adept (HoF): Make your spirit guardians and/or sacred flame deal more damage (or other radiant spells). Your spirit guardians will also ignore radiant resistance.
- Warcaster: Great for better concentration and spells as opportunity attacks.
Weapons
Once you hit level 5, a damage dealing cantrip will be your best option for damage. True strike is your highest damage single target option. You may find thunderclap useful considering how close you’ll usually be to enemies too.
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 happens to be your only finesse option) but this should be used rarely.
Armor
Studded leather is your best option as you can only use light armor. It’s pretty cheap too. If you want more durability, you could grab the lightly armoured feat for shield proficiency.
Other class guides
Not sure a college of spirits bard is for you. Not to worry. Why not check out one of our other D&D 2024 class and subclass guides.
