Bards are, I'll be honest, one of my least favorite classes in D&D. I know that plenty of people love playing them, and all the power to them, and for sure they're one of the classes that has the most useful stuff outside of combat. But I've never really wrapped my head around them as a combat class, except for the martial subclasses of Valor and Swords.
However, when Van Richten's came out with the College of Spirits, I was really excited at the prospect.
The problem, though, was that some of the mechanics were... a little clunky. So, let's take a look at the revamp in today's UA.
Unlike the Reanimator, which was a fully new subclass, I'm mainly going to be comparing and contrasting, though in the interest of giving a clear picture, I will go through each feature.
Level 3:
Channeler combines the Guiding Whispers (giving the Guidance cantrip and extending its range by 60 feet) and the Spiritual Focus feature. Spiritual Focus is a little different: As before, it gives you new options for what to use as a spell focus, which includes a deck of playing cards (no longer only Tarokka) as well as the Crystal or Orb Arcane Focus options, a Candle, or an Ink Pen. The only one removed is a Skull, which is lame. Additionally, you gain proficiency in the Playing Card Gaming Set (so if you want to win at card games, you'll be better at that now!). Also removed is a Spirit Board - but honestly, this is the sort of thing that I'm never going to be a stickler on as a DM.
Tales from Beyond is now Spirits from Beyond, and the primary change is that its action economy has become more efficient. As before, you expend a BI die as a bonus action and roll on a table to get a random effect.
The big change, though, is that effect happens immediately, rather than requiring an action once it's rolled to use the result, which is, honestly, massive. It does mean you can't "bank" one, as before, but I think this is well worth losing that ability to be able to do this more efficiently.
Given that all the options on the table have different names, and the effects are different unless they were just shuffled around, I'm just going to list them here. Obviously, there are only 6 options to start, and as your BI die goes up, you'll eventually get 12.
(Note here that "BI" mean "a roll of your Bardic Inspiration die")
1: Beloved: heal a target for BI+Cha
2: Sharpshooter: deal BI+Cha force damage to a target (notably, there's no attack or save here)
3: Avenger: Until the end of your next turn, any creature that hits the target with a melee attack takes BI force damage.
4: Renegade: The target can immediately use its reaction to teleport up to 30 feet to an unoccupied space it can see.
5: Fortune Teller: The target has advantage on D20 tests until the start of your next turn.
6: Wayfarer: The target gains Temp HP equal to BI+your Bard level, and while they have these Temp HP, their speed increases by 10 feet.
7: Trickster: The target makes a Wisdom save. On a failed save, they take 2BI psychic damage and are charmed until the start of your next turn, or half as much with no charm on a success.
8: Shade: the target becomes invisible until the end of its next turn, or until it makes an attack roll, deals damage, or casts a spell. When the invisibility ends, each creature within 5 feet of it must succeed on a Con save or take 2BI Necrotic damage.
9: Arsonist: The target makes a Dex save and takes 4BI on a failed save or half as much ona success.
10: Coward: The target and each creature within 30 feet of it must make a Wisdom save or be frightened until the start of your next turn. While frightened, a creature's speed is halved and they can take either an action or bonus action, not both.
11: Brute: Each creature in a 30-foot emanation originating from the target must make a Strength save. On a failure, they take 3BI Thunder damage and are knocked prone. On a success, they take half damage only.
12: Controlled Channeling: You pick one of the other options.
So, again, as I said before, the change to have these happen immediately will, I think, make it a lot easier to use these abilities. It does seem like they're reoriented to be a little more aggressive. I think they're probably pretty good, overall, though the random element of course makes it a little unpredictable - something that's fun but of course somewhat less powerful (though I think all of these will be useful in combat).
Level 6:
Empowered Channeling replaces Spirit Session. This has two sub-features.
Power from Beyond allows you, once per turn, when you cast a Bard spell that deals damage or restores HP, to add a d6 to a damage roll or the "total HP the spell restores," which I think means it would be limited when doing something like Mass Healing Word.
Spiritual Manifestation gives you the Spirit Guardians spell, and you can cast it once for free per long rest. You can also, once per short or long rest, cause the spell to gives you and allies Half Cover within the spell's emanation.
So, Power from Beyond is fine, if a little underwhelming (I might have made it a BI die to scale a bit). Spirit Guardians is a good spell. What makes me sad here is the flavor of Spirit Session. Bards, of course, can get lots of other spells now with Magical Secrets (albeit at higher level) but I really loved the notion that this is a "séance" class.
Level 14:
Mystical Connection lets you roll twice on your Spirits from Beyond table and choose between the options when you use the feature. Weirdly, they took away the option to pick any of them when you roll the same on both dice.
Now, of course, the 12 option allows you to do this. What are the odds of getting it? In the old version, your odds of rolling the same value are one in whatever your max roll is, so once it's up to a d12, it's 1/12. At this level, I believe it's a d10, so 10%. With this, once you are up to a d12, you have a roughly 16% chance to roll a 12 on either d12, compared to a roughly 8% chance to roll the same value twice. So, you should be able to choose more frequently, but only after your BI die upgrades to a 12.
I think the subclass is probably a bit more powerful now, at the cost of a bit of its flavor, which is a shame. I think they could easily just bring back Spirit Session as a secondary 6th level feature and it wouldn't be overpowered.
Honestly, with the 2024 changes to Bards, I'm a little more inclined to actually try one out, and this subclass is one I'd consider.
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