College of Tragedy – D&D 5e Bard Subclass Guide (Tal’Dorei)

Foretell tragedy with this grim bardic subclass from Tal’Dorei: Campaign Setting Reborn.

At a glance

College of tragedy features

Poetry in misery – Lv3

How it works

Regain a use of bardic inspiration when you or a nearby ally rolls a 1 for a d20 test.

Tactics

• This is more of a silver lining kind of feature than one you want to work around too much.
• You don’t want more 1s being rolled, but maybe sticking near allies, especially those making lots of d20 tests will help you regain more bardic inspiration.

Sorrowful fate – Lv3

How it works

Once per rest, you can change the type of saving throw an enemy is forced to make to a charisma saving throw. If they fail, you’ll also cause psychic damage equal to a roll of your bardic inspiration die.

Tactics

• Charisma often isn’t that high in a lot of enemies so this can be used tactically. Focus it on important saving throws for big effects against enemies that might ordinarily do quite well with the given ability score.
• For example, a fireball requires a dexterity saving throw which a lot of creatures can be quite good at. But use it on one of the tough enemies within its area and there’s a much bigger chance of a failure.
• You’ll only get one use of these per combat at most though, so make sure it counts. Maybe work with an ally to get the biggest use out of this and to aid one of their more potent spells.

Tale of hubris – Lv6

How it works

When a creature lands a critical hit, you can foretell its downfall, causing weapon attacks against it for the next minute to land a critical on an 18-20 (17-20 at level 14). This will only occur once though.

Tactics

• An improved critical range is really good, but it is limited to just the one critical. Also, be aware that it only works for one critical hit, but you can reapply it.
• This does mean you can’t necessarily choose who or when you apply this, but I wouldn’t waste it against minions that might easily be killed anyway. It’s the kind of thing you only want to expend bardic inspiration on for tough enemies with lots of health.
• Ideally, you’d want your rogue or other heavy hitter (maybe a smiting paladin) to be landing the critical hit here, but actually making that happen can be tricky. Still, you’ll want to focus weapon attacks against this enemy to get the bigger chance of landing that big strike and eliminating them from the combat.

Unstoppable – Lv6

How it works

Gain +10 on an attack roll or saving throw, but get -10 on the next one of these.

Tactics

• A +10 can be really strong at an opportune moment, even at the sacrifice of a subsequent test.
• Bards aren’t generally blessed with big attacks so this is likely more useful for saving throws against really nasty effects.
• You may want to clear out your -10 on something unimportant like a cantrip afterwards.
• It’s interesting that this feature can’t be used again until you finish a short or long rest or until you’re reduced to 0HP. This means you could use it in a combat, get knocked to 0HP, be healed and use it again. Or even just use it on a death saving throw (of course, you’ll have a horrendous death saving throw the next turn, but it could be enough to stabilise yourself I suppose).

Nimbus of pathos – Lv14

How it works

Use an action to grant a creature +4 AC, advantage on attack rolls and saving throws and add 1d10 radiant damage to attacks for a minute. However, the target receives a critical hit on an 18-20 and is reduced to 0HP when the feature ends.

Tactics

• This is a phenomenal boost! Mainly, you’ll want this on your frontline warrior so they can survive a much bigger beating.
• You’ll also want it on an ally with lots of attacks like a fighter or perhaps a monk (though the monk will need to use weapon attacks). This is because the extra radiant damage is added to every hit.
• It’s also worth bearing in mind that this works on spell attacks too, so spellcasters with multiple spell attack rolls for their spells will benefit each time. Your best option here is eldritch blast so this can work really nicely on a warlock too. Something like scorching ray can work here too, but magic missile won’t (as it doesn’t make a spell attack roll, it hits automatically).
• Of course, the extra critical range could be a problem. I’d also be aware of dropping to 0HP. It should occur once the combat has already ended, but if you’ll be having multiple combats in a day, the character will need some serious healing to be ready for the next encounter, so use with a little bit of caution.

How good is the college of tragedy subclass?

The college of tragedy is a really interesting subclass. It has a lot of unique and flavourful features that could be quite fun to use with risks and rewards swinging heavily. This is typical of a lot of Matt Mercer character options like the blood hunter, where impressive abilities require a sacrifice of some kind to access.

Largely, I like it, but it is very reactive as many features are reliant on someone else doing something. This means that you can’t always choose how and when a feature can be used making tragedy bards a little less tactical.

While the risks and rewards can balance out a little, the fact that you have some autonomy over when these things are triggered means the rewards do stack in the bard’s favour. I’d also say that nimbus of pathos is extremely powerful, despite the drawbacks, and a brilliant one for tough encounters. Your lower level features are a little more evenly balanced though. This makes the tragedy bard a perfectly fun and interesting subclass, and one that on balance, is fairly decent without being more potent than perhaps some of the higher scoring subclasses around.

3/5

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Building a college of tragedy bard

Tragedy bards remain very bard-like. Their main roll is to provide support through buffs, debuffs and a bit of utility.

Below I’ve gone through how you can build an optimised tragedy bard.

Ability scores

Recommended options

Charisma: Essential for having lots of uses of bardic inspiration. It’ll also ensure your face skills and spellcasting are better.

Dexterity: Dexterity will get your AC up to a reasonable level and you can use it for weapon attacks when that’s more powerful than a cantrip (which it may be before level 5).

Constitution: You should be staying away from combat, but more hit points and better concentration saving throws will still be useful for you, if less important than charisma and dexterity.

Options to avoid

Strength: Bards have no need of strength, you can dump this.

Intelligence: You’ve also got little need for intelligence. You can dump this too.

Wisdom: Other than being useful for some skills and saving throws, there’s not much for a bard to gain from wisdom.

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

Skills

Recommended options

Acrobatics: Take this over athletics as the 2 crossover a lot and you should be a lot more dextrous than strong.

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

Insight: Important face skill and you may find you need this to compensate for a lower wisdom score.

Intimidation: Another useful one for a party face.

Performance: The weakest of your face skills, but you have an option for expertise in this and if someone’s going to be good at performance, it ought to be the bard.

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.

Options to avoid

Nature: Used far too little to be of much use and you don’t have the right ability scores for this.

Survival: Often used for things that aren’t that consequential and you won’t have a high wisdom for this.

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.

Races

I’d consider a race that enhances the following kinds of features for a college of tragedy 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: Bards aren’t particularly durable. Instead, you’ll need to keep yourself safe and out of harm’s way. This includes things like flight or misty step-like abilities.
• Ability scores: For races that prescribe your ability score increases, I’d prioritise charisma and dexterity with constitution as a third option.

Recommended races

The races of D&D 5e have gone through various iterations. Below I’ve recommended races that work well with a tragedy bard using the most recently published version from D&D 5e (2014).

• Aarakocra – Flight is the main thing here. This will keep you much safer when using hit and run tactics.
• Astral Elf – Teleport as a bonus action is great for bards who often need to avoid danger. Proficiency in perception is useful and sacred flame ensures you always have a damage dealing cantrip.
• Changeling – Having a bard that can shapechange is a phenomenal asset. You have all the charisma and skill proficiencies to really take advantage of your shapeshifting ability. Add to that 2 skill proficiencies and you have a very competent out of combat bard.
• Deep Gnome (Svirfneblin) – Disguise self is helpful for a bard, magic resistance is a powerful resistance to have (perhaps the most powerful) and advantage on stealth checks is helpful for any dexterity based class.
• Fairy – Flight is useful for any class that wants to stay away from enemies and you don’t need to worry about the restrictions on medium and heavy armour as you’ll only wear light armour. Faerie fire and enlarge/reduce are great buff spells to have in your repertoire too.
• Half-Elf – +2 charisma is always useful for a bard and +1 in 2 other abilities is great too (1 each in dexterity and constitution is normally the best way to go). 2 extra skill proficiencies and advantage against charmed work nicely too.
• Kenku – Can mimic the voices of others, which is great for a charisma based class. They also have 2 extra skill proficiencies plus multiple opportunities to give yourself advantage on skill checks you have proficiency in, making you nearly unstoppable for a few skill checks everyday.
• Owlin – Flight is great for a bard as it can keep you out of trouble, plus you get an extra skill to be proficient in.
• Tiefling – +2 to your charisma and, if you take the bloodline of Dis or Glasya, you’ll get +1 to your dexterity too. These bloodlines will also give you disguise self (a great spell for a bard). If you’re the bloodline of Glasya, then you’ll also get minor illusion and invisibility which are both excellent options. The bloodline of Dis will give you thaumaturgy and detect thoughts which aren’t as good but still OK. On top of this, charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells which works nicely for a bard.

Backgrounds

Backgrounds are great for adding a bit of flavour to a character and providing some small skill perks, gear and minor abilities.

Generally for a bard, you’ll want to focus on face skills and maybe some dexterity skills so you can fill in as a scout. With that in mind, below are some of the better background options for you:

• Charlatan – Deception and sleight of hand are great skill proficiencies for bards and disguise and forgery kit proficiencies are useful too. The ability to forge documents is a little niche but could be useful in some circumstances.
• Courtier – Proficiency in insight and persuasion are great and 2 languages are useful too.
• Criminal – A great one if you’re filling in the role of a rogue. Deception and stealth are great skill proficiencies. Thieves tools is always a useful proficiency too.
• Faction Agent – Insight and the choice of another skill make a great choice of proficiencies. You also get 2 languages and affiliation with a powerful organisation.
• Far Traveler – Insight, perception and a language are great for a bard. Unfortunately, proficiency in an instrument isn’t useful as you already have that.
• Guild Artisan – Insight, persuasion and a language are great for a bard. Unfortunately, artisan’s tools are rarely useful.
• Urban Bounty Hunter – 2 skill proficiencies from a choice of 4 great options plus thieves tools and a gaming set proficiency.
• Urchin – Sleight of hand and stealth are great skill proficiencies and thieves tools and disguise kit are great kit proficiencies, plus you can move across cities really quickly.

Feats

When taking an ability score increase or using a variant Human, you can gain access to feats, taking one instead of the ability score increase. Just check with your DM that they allow feats.

I’d recommend the below for a tragedy bard:

• Actor – A great way to further enhance your charisma skills with +1 to your charisma, advantage on deception and performance checks, and the ability to mimic speech. Complements a bard’s abilities well.
• Fey Touched – Increase your charisma by +1 and get misty step and another 1st level spell with a free use every long rest. Misty step is a great spell for bards to get out of danger (and isn’t on the bard spell list) and increases your repertoire of non-bard spells.
• Inspiring Leader – Grant a bunch of temporary hit points to everyone (probably) in your party. Very handy when preparing for battle and is better for high charisma characters.
• Lucky – Making 3 rerolls a day is powerful for any class!
• Magic Initiate – Get 2 cantrips and a 1st level spell from any spell list. Great for getting top cantrips from other classes like eldritch blast or booming blade.
• Metamagic Adept – Enhance your spells with the metamagic ability from the sorcerer class.
• Shadow touched – Invisibility will be beneficial for stealth if you go that route. Another spell is decent which you can also repeat cast.
• Skill Expert – Better at even more skills is great.
• Skilled – 3 more skills to be proficient in is also great.

Weapons

Tragedy bards do better on the back lines casting spells, enhancing allies and debuffing enemies than they do making weapon attacks. Having said that, before level 5, a light crossbow will likely do more damage than your cantrips. Once you hit level 5 though, your cantrips will be better so switch to these.

You can also grab a rapier for a melee option if you need it. You’ll definitely want a finesse weapon so you can use your superior dexterity rather than attacking with strength.

Armor

You’re only proficient in light armor so I’d grab studded leather and bump up your dexterity.

Other class guides

Not sure a way of the living weapon monk is for you. Why not check out one of our other class guides for more inspiration.