Inspire even more allies to combat glory with this 3rd party, Eberron subclass from Keith Baker.
A dirge is a mournful, lamenting song of death, often used at funerals. It’s appropriate then that dirge singer bards deal in war and death. Though rather than being the grim, depressive fellows we might expect with this name, they are in fact historians, strategists and students of war.
Armed with the education of a tactician and the tales of past glories, they inspire their allies to victory and use tactical insight to sway conflict in their favour.
The college of the dirge singer is primarily a goblinoid tradition developed by the empire of Kech Dhakaan. Known in goblinoid culture as duur’kala, dirge singers are used as historians, diplomats and spiritual leaders in the empire. While you don’t have to be a goblinoid to be a part of the college of the dirge singer, it is rare and you may need an explanation as to how you’ve learnt these traditions in your backstory.
The college of the dirge singer is a 3rd party subclass designed by Keith Baker (creator of the Eberron setting). It can be found in his supplement Exploring Eberron on DM’s Guild. In my article below, I dive into how good this subclass is, tactics you can use and how to build an optimised dirge singer bard.
At a glance
- Full spellcasters with a range of buffs and debuffs
- Able to enhance allies as well as being skill and charisma specialists
- Dirge singers are especially good at enhancing allies with bardic inspiration for 2 allies simultaneously
- Can use their reaction to help allies gain an extra attack in combat.
5/5 – The dirge singer leans heavily into what makes bards great in the first place. It’s one of the most focused subclasses at enhancing allies and does a great job of making allies’ turns more impactful and at aiding more allies than any other bard.
College of the dirge singer features
Broad inspiration – Lv3
How it works
You learn the guidance cantrip. Also, when you use your bardic inspiration, you grant it to 2 allies simultaneously (but still only expends one use of it). However, the size of your die increases more slowly growing to d8 at level 10 and d10 at level 15.
Tactics
- Guidance is a great cantrip and basically means slightly better skill checks for your party.
- Double inspiration is very potent. Bardic inspiration is already a powerful tool and doubling the influence is great. With more bardic inspiration going around, you’ll want to encourage allies to expend it more frequently so you can aid them more often.
- The trade off is the size of the die. This doesn’t matter at levels 3 and 4 but from level 5 onwards, you’ll be a die size smaller than other bards. I think the trade off is a net positive, but I’d be aware that this is a better trade off in a larger party where you can spread your inspiration out more. A 3 person party might only have 2 allies to inspire, if one doesn’t spend their inspiration in a turn, then you have a wasted die if you inspire the other ally, for example.
- Because your bardic inspiration uses are more potent than other bards, you’ll want to ensure your charisma is as high as possible to maximise on uses of bardic inspiration.
Keeper of history – Lv3
How it works
You gain proficiency in either history or performance and your proficiency bonus is doubled for one of these skills.
Tactics
- This is a ribbon feature really, but an extra skill proficiency and expertise can be handy. History isn’t normally a bard’s forte, but double proficiency can make up for a lack of intelligence.
Commanding voice – Lv6
How it works
When a creature is inspired by you, you can use your reaction when they make the attack action to grant them an additional weapon attack. They add a roll of the bardic inspiration die to the damage of the attack.
Tactics
- This becomes the best use of your bardic inspiration. While enhancing an attack to make sure it hits can save you from a miss, a whole extra attack gives you the chance for considerably more damage.
- This can be very useful on high damage attackers. Rogues can really benefit from this to become more reliable at landing their sneak attack. Barbarians can also be a great option for this with higher damage attacks and the possibility of easy advantage on their attacks. Rangers and possibly warlocks also make a good option for this with hunter’s mark or hex in play along with other potential damage buffs.
Master commander – Lv14
How it works
You can use countercharm as a bonus action and it gives allies the chance to immediately try to end the charmed or frightened conditions. It will also add D4 to ability checks and saving throws to those under its influence.
Tactics
- This is a considerable improvement on the action required to activate countercharm ordinarily. This tended to be problematic as a turn to maintain this would often feel like a waste.
- This version allows you to use countercharm both actively and reactively. You can use it actively by using it on any turn you’re not using your bonus action on already to maintain better defences (countercharm isn’t an extendable resource so you can use it as often as you like). You can use it reactively when allies are affected by charmed or frightened to help them end the condition.
- It’s a tad situational as it relies on enemies attempting to charm or frighten, but these are common enough conditions that this should be useful often enough.
How good is the college of the dirge singer subclass?
Double the inspiration, if a little less potent, and an extra attack for an ally on a lot of turns is quite potent. You’re not necessarily going to personally accomplish more in combat, but bards are all about enhancement and this is probably one of the most enhancing bards around!
Master commander actually makes your countercharm decent and an extra skill and expertise is an alright bonus.
Not only are these capabilities nicely unique, they are also really good and work well together while remaining balanced meaning not only is this a top tier subclass, it’s also one I’d happily allow at my table too.
5/5
Building a college of the dirge singer bard
Dirge singers are all about aiding allies so we’ll want to lean into these capabilities. Bardic inspiration is hugely important for this build. This means having a high charisma to ensure you have plenty of uses. You’ll also find that this lends yourself well towards spellcasting, especially as you don’t have things like the weapon capabilities of a valor bard.
Below I’ve gone through how you can build an optimised dirge singer 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: History expertise isn’t enough to bother investing in intelligence. More it compensates for a lack of intelligence. And even then, you might go for performance anyway. Otherwise, you’ve got little reason to invest in intelligence.
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
Deception: Important for a party face (which you surely will be as a bard) especially if you intend on lying a lot.
History: While not generally good at knowledge skills, dirge singers can have expertise in history and it’s a decent knowledge skill so could be worth taking.
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 dirge singer 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. Anything that can keep you safe then is a great boon. 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 dirge singer 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 decent. 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 dirge singer:
- 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
Dirge singers do better on the back lines casting spells and enhancing their allies 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 college of the dirge singer bard is for you. Why not check out one of our other class guides for more inspiration.
