Flagship Build: College of Eloquence Bard

Author: Esker

This Flagship Bard build has much in common with the Bard from our Basic Build Series, sharing a subclass, many spells and feat picks. This spellbinding sophist also adopts a generally similar “control caster” playstyle in combat, and is especially good at single target debuffs due to the College of Eloquence Unsettling Words ability. Out of combat, it is a classic Bard-style social interaction maven.

Compared to the Basic Bard, however, this version has significantly greater durability, as well as a choice between two variant options. One progression boosts its at-will damage and battlefield control capabilities from a 2 level dip in Hexblade Warlock, and the alternate achieves even greater defensive prowess and support via a 1 level dip in Divine Soul Sorcerer. 

Race: Custom Lineage

Ability Score Increases – +2 Cha. Custom Lineage allows us to pick a half-feat at character creation, providing us with the only way to start with an 18 in our primary ability score with point buy.
Size – Medium. Custom Lineage lets us choose between Small or Medium size. Small size has its benefits, such as being able to ride Medium size mounts, which are easier to come across, being able to fit into smaller spaces without squeezing, and being able to move through the spaces of Large size hostile creatures. However, we will learn dimension door, which only lets us bring a willing creature of our size or smaller, so unless your entire party is also Small, Medium is likely preferable.
Feat – Fey Touched (+1 Cha). Fey Touched puts our main ability score, Charisma, at 18 at level 1, which is great. Two spells known is also a great benefit, we will be taking gift of alacrity, in addition to getting misty step. Gift of alacrity is a fantastic spell for its level, especially when used with rest casting. Adding 1d8 to four PCs’ initiative rolls is roughly equivalent to the party having one extra turn in the critical first round of combat, which means dangerous enemies are disposed of earlier, giving them fewer chances to hurt you and your allies.
Variable Trait – Darkvision. It’s usually more useful to have Darkvision than to have proficiency in another skill, and with Jack of All Trades coming into play at level 3, the gap between non-proficient and proficient ability checks is cut in half, making this an even more clear-cut decision.
Languages – Common, Undercommon. Languages are mostly flavor picks, with little mechanical impact except when using spells that require the target to understand you, such as with the spell command. If your DM isn’t amenable to your character memorizing a handful of one-word commands in a variety of languages, consider your campaign and select a language commonly spoken by enemies that are least likely to also speak Common. Alternatively, sharing a rare language amongst all members of your party can allow you to speak freely amongst NPCs without your plans being divulged.

So before we move on, which version of the build would you like to see?

Background (Custom)

Skills – Perception, Stealth. Perception is typically the most commonly used and thus important skill in the game for any character. Stealth will help us sneak up enemies for surprise rounds.
Languages – Giant, Draconic. See the comment on languages above. You could opt to pick up a tool proficiency in one or both of these slots instead of a language. If nobody else is proficient in thieves’ tools for instance, that might be worth more than an extra language. We have a complete guide to tools you can refer to to guide this choice.
Feature – False Identity (Charlatan background feature). The features granted by backgrounds are generally minor, and this can be swapped out with anything else that fits your character concept. As a smooth talker and perhaps sometimes snake oil salesman, it seems fitting that we might have an alter ego that we can slip into from time to time.
Creator’s Note – Making a custom background is RAW:  “The sample backgrounds in this chapter provide both concrete benefits (features, proficiencies, and languages) and role playing suggestions. To customize a background, you can replace one feature with any other one, choose any two skills, and choose a total of two tool proficiencies or languages from the sample backgrounds.” (Player’s Handbook, pg 125). 

Equipment

Background Starting Equipment (Charlatan)

• A set of fine clothes
• A disguise kit
• A signet ring
• A pouch containing 15 gp

Purchasing Goals

Level 2: Bard (Warlock 1/Bard 1)

Level 2: Bard (Sorcerer 1/Bard 1)

Additional Proficiencies – Persuasion, Pan Flute (or another wind instrument of your choice). For most builds, proficiency in the contested grapple check skill of choice would be preferable, but College of Eloquence Bards are so useful for social checks that it behooves us to select Persuasion here. Wind instrument proficiency is the best tool proficiency as it is a requirement to use pipes of haunting, one of the best uncommon magic items in the game and one a friendly Artificer can produce with their Infuse Item feature.
Bardic Inspiration (d6) – Thanks to starting with 18 Charisma, you have four uses of Bardic Inspiration per day, but that’s still not a ton, so use them judiciously. Hand them out to allies when you’re in (or, ideally, about to get in) a big fight will let them boost an important attack roll or saving throw.
Spellcasting – The best feature in the game by far. For Bards in 5E, this is what it’s all about.
Spell Changes: +command, +healing word, +sleep, +unseen servant, +mage hand, +minor illusion.

Command – A nice non-concentration option that can disable a creature (later we will be able to upcast it to affect more than one) for a round, and potentially generate opportunity attacks from our melee allies in the process if we use the “flee” option.
Healing word – Emergency use for picking someone back up from 0 hit points. Aim to leverage your Arcana proficiency to scribe scrolls of this during down time— since it’s a spell that we use reactively rather than proactively, having a stockpile of scrolls on hand will alleviate the need to always keep a spell slot in reserve for an emergency. If you have a person in the party that can consistently scribe them for you, or you can accumulate a sufficiently large stockpile, you could eventually swap this for something else (or swap this instead of something else) at higher levels.
Sleep – This is our most powerful combat-winning spell at this level, though it won’t be for long. 
Unseen servant – This ritual can be used for out of combat utility, and can also be directed to deliver potions of healing or do things like drop caltrops or ball bearings in combat. For more info on uses you can check out our familiar guide, as many things they can do can be done using this spell as well.
Mage hand – Utility cantrips are always nice, and the ability to fiddle with things that may be trapped without having to be close enough to be affected by the trap is convenient.
Minor illusion – Create a minor visual or auditory illusion. Very versatile utility cantrip.

Level 3: Bard (Warlock 1/Bard 2)

Level 3: Bard (Sorcerer 1/Bard 2)

Song of Rest – Recharging pseudo-hit die for the whole party.
Jack of All Trades – This feature gives us a half proficiency bonus to all of our ability checks that don’t already benefit from proficiency. This includes non-proficient skills, and, importantly, initiative rolls. Later it will also apply to spells like dispel magic that sometimes require spellcasting ability checks.
Spell Changes: +silvery barbs, +Tasha’s hideous laughter, –sleep.

Silvery barbs – This is a brand new spell that is both potent and flexible. With this spell you primarily inflict a debuff on a target without an attached saving throw, and then if that wasn’t good enough for a first level spell, you simultaneously buff an ally as well. We will mostly be using this to make spells that are reliant on enemies failing their saving throw land more. The advantage you grant to an ally is less important, but it’s nice regardless. This is a must pick for anyone that can get it. If your game doesn’t allow Strixhaven content, pick up faerie fire instead, and when you get your 4th Bard level, drop faerie fire instead of unseen servant.
Tasha’s hideous laughter – This spell is for taking a single tough enemy out of the fight until they pass a Wisdom save. Make sure your allies know not to attack the affected enemy, however, as despite the prone condition giving advantage on attacks made within 5 feet, the target gets a save at advantage to break the spell every time they take damage, and assuming you used this against a tough enemy, having them lose turns is usually more valuable than doing a bit of extra damage when your allies could use those attacks to instead try to remove still active enemies from the battlefield. If your target for Tasha’s hideous laughter is concentrating, they will automatically stop concentrating if they fail their saving throw because of the rules for the incapacitated condition. If the target for this spell is the last enemy left to clean up, you should have someone grapple them, as they will automatically fail the grapple.

Level 3 Strategy

Sleep loses its luster very quickly, and we replace it with a long-term staple for us: silvery barbs. We don’t have a lot of great area of effect spells currently, a notable shortcoming of the early level Bard spell list. With two high value targets, casting Tasha’s hideous laughter on one of them to keep them off your back while the team dispenses with the other one is a good play. If there’s only one target, Tasha’s hideous laughter and command likely have a similar impact, as command only affects one turn (and can cause them to drop prone if your allies are melee-oriented), whereas Tasha’s drops them prone immediately on a fail save, and is all but guaranteed to end once everyone has hit them.

For enemies with high Wisdom saves, bless likely has more value, particularly if your teammates have a good damage output.

Level 4: Bard (Warlock 1/Bard 3)

Level 4: Bard (Sorcerer 1/Bard 3)

Bard College – College of Eloquence.
Expertise – Perception, Persuasion. The best skill in the game and our specialty, respectively.
Silver Tongue (College of Eloquence feature) – Puts a floor of 10 on our d20 rolls for Persuasion and Deception checks. Combined with Expertise in Persuasion, this means that our total roll cannot be below a 18 on these checks, a floor which will increase to 20 when our proficiency bonus scales at level 5. If your DM uses the guidelines for social check DCs in Chapter 8 of the DMG, 20 is the number needed to convince a friendly creature to take significant risk on your behalf, an indifferent creature to take on a minor risk, or a hostile creature to do things that you ask of them that don’t require risk or sacrifice on their part.
Unsettling Words (College of Eloquence feature) – Unsettling Words allows us to use our Bardic Inspiration as a bonus action to penalize the next saving throw an enemy makes before the start of our next turn. With our d6 inspiration die, we can effectively increase our spell DC by 3-4. For now, it can be used with command or phantasmal force to great effect, or on an enemy who is in the area of a web and hasn’t yet rolled their Dex save.

Spell Changes: +phantasmal force, +shatter, –Tasha’s hideous laughter.

Phantasmal force – This is a very strong effect that can severely impair a single enemy. A classic use is something covering the target—a bucket on their head, a cloaker, a swarm of biting insects—that blocks their vision and subjects them to heavy obscurement while potentially also dealing damage, but the sky’s the limit on other potential uses. It initially targets an Intelligence save, usually the weakest for monster stat blocks, and on subsequent turns, it is an Investigation check, something only 17 monsters throughout all official published material have proficiency in (if you look at just the Monster Manual and Volo’s Guide to Monsters, that number drops to 2!), making the spell as a whole very hard to stop. Note illusion-based spells tend to have fairly high amounts of variance in how they are run table to table, so make sure to have a chat with your DM on how monsters will react to this spell first.
Shatter – This isn’t a spell we’ll hang on to for long, but it’s a decent area of effect damage option at this level, and damage is something we don’t otherwise have much of as a Bard. 

Level 4 Strategy

At this level, shatter is still the best area-of-effect damage spell, and can be worth using if there’s a group of 3, but preferably 4 or more relatively low hit point enemies positioned in a 10 feet radius sphere (equivalent to a 20 feet cube on the grid). We upgrade our “high value target” option from Tasha’s hideous laughter to phantasmal force. Unlike its predecessor, this spell does not offer extra saves when the creature takes damage, and, DM-willing, can be used to grant one-way obscurement with a single failed Intelligence save, granting attacks advantage against the target and imposing disadvantage on their attacks. Or, you could use it to effectively immobilize an enemy by making them think they’re in a cage or have a leg iron around their ankle. They might choose to spend their actions making Investigation checks to break the spell, but even if they do, few monsters are proficient in them, and most don’t have particularly high Intelligence.

Command remains a useful tool in our kit.

Command and bless remain useful tools in our kit.

Aid – We should be looking to rest cast this with the highest level slot we have left near the end of a long rest, more than once if needed to cover the whole party as well as any companion creatures (such as familiars). It’s also usable in combat as a multi-target heal: since it increases current as well as maximum hit points it can bring up downed allies.
Locate object – Does what it says on the tin. One of the most versatile divinations in the game. Check out our Spell Spotlight article on locate object to get an idea of its potency and how to use it. Knowing where to go helps keep the game moving.
Mending – Or whatever utility cantrip you would like.

Level 5 Strategy

The only significant change to our combat game plan at this level is that our cantrips scale, and so now eldritch blast has higher average damage than magic stone. We don’t have Eldritch Invocations to enhance it yet, but we will soon. We still might cast magic stone regularly though if we have allies (or allies’ summons) who could do more ranged damage with it than using their own features. We drop unseen servant here, as despite its usefulness we need to make some space. If you have a read on whether unseen servant will be more useful than locate object, take it instead.

The only significant change to our combat game plan at this level is that we get 3rd level spell slots, though we don’t yet have 3rd level spells to use them with. We should now be looking to rest cast aid using a 3rd level slot if we have one at the end of a long rest, and we can afford to be slightly more liberal with command, upcasting bless, or occasionally shatter. We drop unseen servant here, as despite its usefulness we need to make some space. If you have a read on whether unseen servant will be more useful than locate object, take it instead.

Level 6: Bard (Warlock 1/Bard 5)

Level 6: Bard (Sorcerer 1/Bard 5)

Bardic Inspiration (d8) – Inspiration dice were good when they were d6s; they’re even better as d8s. 
Font of Inspiration – We get our Bardic Inspiration dice back on a short rest now, which often doubles, and sometimes triples the number of uses we get on the day. Excellent. We are now a “short rest class,” and we should be aiming for one, preferable two short rests per adventuring day, which is a more than reasonable request unless your party is under extreme time crunch.
Spell Changes: +hypnotic pattern, +plant growth, –shatter.

Hypnotic pattern – This is one of the best spells for its level in the game, becoming our biggest play in hard fights. It incapacitates and immobilizes creatures in a 30 foot cube who fail a Wisdom save, and they don’t get any additional saves in subsequent turns. Their allies can use an action to break them out of it, but even if they do, that’s more creatures doing things with their turns that aren’t attacking you. The biggest limitation of this spell is that it doesn’t work on creatures immune to being charmed. It is likely worth using an Unsettling Words on a high priority target just before casting it to increase the chances that the spell sticks.
Plant growth – If your DM rules that plant growth only affects squares that have pre-existing plants, then it’s probably not worth taking, and there are several other options to choose from. Leomund’s tiny hut (if no one else has it) or dispel magic are probably the best options here. 

Level 6 Strategy

Most people with any optimization experience know that hypnotic pattern is one of the best control spells for its level in the game, and nearly everyone who has access to it should take it. And in a tough combat worthy of a spell slot of our highest level, it is capable of winning fights single-handedly. Make sure of course that your allies know not to do damage to any affected targets until everyone else in the fight is dealt with, and then to make use of readied actions and focused fire to take out the affected targets one at a time.

Less widely appreciated, however, is plant growth, which may be even better than hypnotic pattern if its effect and usage requirements are interpreted favorably. We discuss the various interpretations at greater length here, but even without the most favorable interpretation, as long as the spell is ruled to affect the ground in the 100 feet radius (an absolutely massive area), it all but removes melee-bound enemies (a large proportion of published monsters in the game) from the fight. Unlike hypnotic pattern, enemies in a zone of plant growth can still move and act, but if they are any significant distance from you when you cast this, they may as well be incapacitated for as long as it will take them to cover the distance at, effectively, a quarter of their normal speed. Moreover, unlike hypnotic pattern, you don’t need to avoid doing damage to them, their allies can’t shake them out of it without dispelling the whole effect, it can potentially affect far more enemies, and it doesn’t even require concentration. Don’t think just because plant growth isn’t a concentration spell that that means it is only for casting after you have another spell up. In a circumstance where it can prevent several enemies from getting to you for multiple rounds, this should absolutely be your first choice.

If you have spell slots to spare or want to do some rest casting, aid is a good spell to upcast.

Now that Unsettling Words dice refresh on a short rest, you should be making use of the feature liberally. If you can aim for two to three combats per short rest, that’s two uses of Unsettling Words per combat. -4.5 on average to enemy saves is like increasing your save DC by 4.5, which is 50% stronger than a +3 foci. This is your strongest class feature and it’s readily available to you in most combats now, so it’s time to start using it.

Level 8: Bard (Warlock 2/Bard 6)

Level 7: Bard (Sorcerer 1/Bard 6)

Countercharm – A pretty situational and challenging to use ability. You have to start using it before anything happens, which means you have to predict ahead of time that there’s going to be a dangerous charmed or frightened effect, and you have to use your action every turn to maintain it. It might come up, but you may never use this.
Unfailing Inspiration (College of Eloquence feature) – Makes your Bardic Inspiration dice stick around if they don’t do their job. Not bad, especially since you’re likely using most of them for Unsettling Words, so having the ones you do use for “regular” Bardic Inspiration be more reliable is nice.
Universal Speech (College of Eloquence feature) – As an action you can cause any number of creatures within 60 feet of you to be able to understand you for an hour. That means your command spell just works against anything that’s not undead. The requirement to use an action makes it a little harder to use in combat, though—command is strong, but probably not strong enough to spend two actions casting it.
Spell Changes: +dispel magic, (-locate object, +Leomund’s tiny hut)*.

Dispel magic – Versatile, and is made more reliable by way of your Jack of All Trades feature. If you cast it to remove a spell that winds up being above the level of the slot you used on this spell, you’ll need to make an ability check with your Charisma with a DC of 10 plus the spell’s level. Since this is an ability check that does not benefit from proficiency, it qualifies for the “half proficiency” bonus from Jack of All Trades, making us more effective with the spell than many other casters that have access to it.

Level 9: Bard (Warlock 2/Bard 7)

Level 8: Bard (Sorcerer 1/Bard 7)

Spell Changes: +polymorph.

Polymorph – Very powerful at this level, and versatile too. It can be used together with Unsettling Words to take one enemy out of the fight — although phantasmal force should be able to achieve nearly as powerful an effect with a lower level spell slot. More often, you’ll use this on an ally to turn them into a giant ape, which both buffs their offense and gives them a big pool of hit points to absorb any damage they take before their own health is touched. This spell has a very long duration, so if your party has scouted ahead and knows a fight is coming you can cast this proactively and have your allies begin combat immediately as polymorphed beasts (which are likely as strong as or stronger than your party’s martials, and certainly more durable due to the massive health pool despite low AC), to save you from having to use your action in combat.

Level 10: Bard (Warlock 2/Bard 8)

Level 9: Bard (Sorcerer 1/Bard 8)

Ability Score Improvement – +2 Cha. Boosting our Spellcasting Ability Score makes our spells harder to resist, and also gives us an additional use of Bardic Inspiration each short rest. With one short rest in a day that’s two more uses. Unsettling Words with a d8 Inspiration die effectively boosts your spell DC by 4-5, which is better in most cases than imposing disadvantage, so these additional dice have a lot of value, on top of the base increase to our DC. If you have obtained a magic staff, you will want to pick up War Caster as soon as possible, however, so that you can hold it and a shield and still cast spells with somatic components, chiefly shield.
Spell Changes: +dimension door.

Dimension door – A good “back pocket” option to get away from danger, or to get into a location you want to be in. Note that unlike lower level teleportation spells like misty step and thunder step, dimension door doesn’t require you to be able to see your destination, just describe it. Being able to take willing creatures of our size or smaller is a primary reason why we went with Medium size over Small. 

Level 11: Bard (Warlock 2/Bard 9)

Level 10: Bard (Sorcerer 1/Bard 9)

Song of Rest (d8) – Slightly more healing for our allies when they spend hit dice during a short rest.
Spell Changes: +synaptic static.

Synaptic static – Basically a “psychic fireball” but targeting Intelligence (not a great save for most creatures) and with a debuff rider. The damage isn’t great for a 5th level spell, but the rider is a doozy, making the spell quite good overall. Subtracting a 1d6 from enemies’ attack rolls is like giving the party +3 to 4 AC against those enemies. Spellcasters who fail also have to make tougher concentration saves. And really, in a situation where fireball is the ideal solution to a problem, it’s probably worth a 5th level slot to replicate even that much, setting aside the fact that enemies are less likely to make their save and less likely to resist or be immune to the damage of this spell.

Level 12: Bard (Warlock 2/Bard 10)

Level 11: Bard (Sorcerer 1/Bard 10)

Expertise – Deception, Arcana. Deception is the other skill (in addition to Persuasion) that our Silver Tongue feature enhances, and taking Expertise in it synergizes with that enhancement. It also happens to be useful to be able to lie convincingly to NPCs. Arcana has some defined mechanical benefits, such as potentially disarming magical traps, and, if your table uses the optional rule from Xanathar’s Guide to Everything about identifying spells as they’re being cast, having Expertise will make you a pretty reliable spell-identifier.

Be careful though, because if you use your reaction to identify a fireball and your side doesn’t counter it, you now can no longer use absorb elements to reduce the damage from it!

Bardic Inspiration (d10) – In this case, bigger is better. On average equates to +5.5 to your spell save DC, and you should have 4-5 uses per short rest.
Magical Secrets – Wall of force, find greater steed. For non-College of Lore Bards, every time you can get Magical Secrets there’s one spell available that’s so good it becomes an autopick. For the other spell choice, you should be looking to address specific deficiencies in your party’s composition, then gaps in your personal repertoire of spells. Check out our guide to Magical Secrets for more details! The autopick spell at level 10 is wall of force. For the second slot, priority picks would be pass without trace, or counterspell if no one else in your party has either spell. If those are covered, either conjure animals or find greater steed are likely the best selections that will benefit your party the most, probably more than a second counterspell caster. We assume by default that others in the party do have pass without trace and counterspell covered, however, so we take find greater steed for our second pick. Making this choice work with your exact party is often about filling important gaps that no one else can fill.
Spell Changes: +wall of force, +find greater steed, +prestidigitation.

Wall of force – This spell from the Wizard list is an amazing control spell that can trap one or more enemies with no save, blocking all attacks and spells. Enemies inside can still teleport out, but even dispel magic doesn’t end the spell (disintegrate does, though, according to lead rules designer Jeremy Crawford on Twitter). In addition to being extremely powerful in its own right, this spell complements our Bard spell kit nicely, which, aside from plant growth, is light on persistent battlefield control effects, making it an auto-pick for Magical Secrets here.
Find greater steed – Learned from the Paladin list, this lets us summon a flying mount that will stay around indefinitely without concentration until it falls to zero hit points. Since we have no desire to be in melee, a high speed flying mount means we can stay above the action casting spells from above. A pegasus is the optimal pick here, with better saves and a higher movement speed than the griffon, though the griffon does perhaps offer a few more style points. Note also that casting simulacrum on yourself while mounted on your steed (assuming your thighs can stand being mounted for 12 hours straight) will produce a duplicate of your steed as well, albeit with half of its hit points and no ability to regain them by resting. Moreover, your simulacrum can cast this spell and command the resulting steed to follow the commands of one of your allies. If that steed outlives the simulacrum itself, your next simulacrum can repeat the process, perhaps eventually allowing you to provide pegasus mounts for the entire party. You can learn more about this spell in our Spell Spotlight: Find (Greater) Steed.
Prestidigitation – A utility cantrip. Pick whichever one you want, but this is the last time you’ll get to learn a cantrip, so keep that in mind.

Level 12 Strategy

Level 11 Strategy

We have a potent new option in our arsenal, courtesy of our Magical Secrets feature. Our really big gun at this point is wall of force, which we can use to bypass Legendary Resistance of enemies who would shrug off a hypnotic pattern or phantasmal force, allowing us to do what we do best—dividing deadly fights into separate smaller fights—in almost any circumstance. Keep in mind though that just because a wall of force can trivialize an encounter doesn’t mean we necessarily should use it, even if we are not worried about needing that slot later: if nothing else, having high level slots left at the end of a day is useful for higher level or additional rest casts of aid; plus, you never know when there might be a tough night time ambush you’ll need to deal with, so in a difficult game, it’s smart to adopt a resource conservation mindset.

We also have a new friend to add to our party, courtesy of find greater steed. As mentioned in the blurb above, check out our Spell Spotlight on the subject for more in-depth insights.

Level 13: Bard (Warlock 2/Bard 11)

Level 12: Bard (Sorcerer 1/Bard 11)

Spell Changes: +heroes’ feast, +mass suggestion, –polymorph.

Heroes’ feast – If you’re playing in a game where gold flows freely, stock up on gem-encrusted bowls (the material component for this spell) and cast it every night before the party goes to bed if you haven’t used your 6th level slot. Or, provided nobody is secretly a Mogwai, cast it into the rest to give everyone a midnight (or 5 A.M.) feast, powering them through the next night’s rest. Advantage on Wisdom saves, immunity to poison and the frightened condition, and an increase to everyone’s maximum hit points (which stacks with those from aid, as, unlike with temporary hit points, there is no rule preventing this type of hit point buff from stacking) is a very nice package indeed. If gold is scarcer in your game you might not be able to do this every night, but if you know you’re facing a green dragon the next day, this is an instant win button. It’s well worth it if you expect to face any kind of big enemy that affects the mind; Wisdom saves are by far the most common of the mental saves. If you have a Cleric or Druid in the party, don’t bother with this swap; keep polymorph instead, or pick up some other utility spell you didn’t have room for or swapped out before (locate object, etc).
Mass suggestion – This can affect up to twelve targets, offers only one save, and doesn’t require concentration. Like regular suggestion, expect some table-to-table variation in what DM’s consider “reasonable,” but in most cases you should be able to use it to (quite truthfully) convince a bunch of minions who can understand you and be charmed that they are going to be better off running away than sticking around and inevitably dying. If understanding you is a barrier, you can use Universal Speech to overcome it, at least for four creatures. That said, just because you have a 6th level spell doesn’t mean that it’s always the best use of your 6th level slot. On many occasions, simply using the slot to cast another wall of force, even though its effect is not enhanced by upcasting, may provide more value than mass suggestion, as the enemies that this spell can affect are often dealt with adequately with much lower level spells, whereas sometimes you need to circumvent saves and immunities to affect a tough creature at all, for which wall of force has no equal among spells of 6th level or below.

Level 14: Bard (Warlock 2/Bard 12)

Level 13: Bard (Sorcerer 1/Bard 12)

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – War Caster. Advantage on saving throws to maintain concentration can be useful for when we take a lot of damage at once and can’t automatically succeed. This also lets us ignore wonky spellcasting component requirements if we’re holding a magic staff and a shield. You likely won’t be making opportunity attacks often, but you can swap out an opportunity attack to cast command (or other single-target spells, but command doesn’t break concentration).

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – Resilient (Wis). At this level we are likely going to be making Wisdom saves with high DCs and potentially devastating effects. Getting proficiency in those saves gives us an additional +6 (if we started with 13 Wis; +5 otherwise), which has a significant chance of letting us succeed outright, and even if it doesn’t do that, of getting us to a roll where Favored by the Gods can get us the rest of the way. As noted before, if you have obtained a magic staff, you will want to pick up War Caster, so that you can hold it and a shield and still cast spells with somatic components, chiefly shield. 

Level 15: Bard (Warlock 2/Bard 13)

Level 14: Bard (Sorcerer 1/Bard 13)

Song of Rest (1d10) – Bigger is better.
Spell Changes: +forcecage, +mirage arcane, –phantasmal force.

Forcecage – This is the best in-combat spell at 7th level hands-down, and it’s right there on the Bard list natively. It has a similar function to wall of force, locking up one or two tough enemies while we handle everyone else, but this one can have gaps that we can launch spells and arrows through to kill a melee-only enemy without even needing to let them out, requires a Charisma save to teleport out, and best of all, doesn’t even require concentration!
Mirage arcane – This is a truly insanely good spell, because the illusions it creates can be interacted with physically, and there is no restriction on which kind of interactions. Lower level illusions such as major image specify that the illusions can’t do damage, while this clause is nowhere to be seen on mirage arcane, and in fact, Jeremy Crawford has confirmed the design intent that this spell can have real, physical, and even lethal effects. With a range of sight and an affected area of a mile, you can use this spell to create a complex net of adamantine walls, pitfalls hundreds of feet deep, lava pools, difficult terrain, and other creative uses to absolutely demolish any tactical advantage your enemies might have. It even works on enemies with Truesight!

Level 15 Strategy

Level 14 Strategy

We get an upgraded version of wall of force in the form of forcecage, which means we now have four spell slots that can be used between the two spells. Most likely we will end up using these in four separate encounters (if we use them all, which, again…), but because forcecage doesn’t require concentration, we could potentially trap one set of enemies in a forcecage and another in a wall of force, splitting an especially deadly fight into three parts: a group not trapped by magical force, followed by the wall of force group, and finally the forcecage group. Alternatively, we can trap melee-bound enemies in the barred version of a forcecage, and kill them with near or total impunity through the bars using ranged attacks. Forcecage the biggest threats while using hypnotic pattern to divide a group of weaker enemies and divide and conquer the battlefield.

In the event we have 10 minutes of setup time before a fight, or we have a consistent home base where we might encounter enemies, laying down a mirage arcane can provide a massive tactical advantage.

Level 16: Bard (Warlock 2/Bard 14)

Level 15: Bard (Sorcerer 1/Bard 14)

Infectious Inspiration (College of Eloquence feature) – Use a reaction to transfer a Bardic Inspiration die from one ally to another when it succeeds. It complements Unfailing Inspiration nicely: if it fails, they keep it, when it works, you can give it to someone else. Like Unfailing Inspiration, this helps you get more mileage out of regular Inspiration dice, leaving more uses available for Unsettling Words. Keep in mind that this competes with reaction spells like shield, silver barbs, or counterspell.

Infectious Inspiration (College of Eloquence feature) – Use a reaction to transfer a Bardic Inspiration die from one ally to another when it succeeds. It complements Unfailing Inspiration nicely: if it fails, they keep it, when it works, you can give it to someone else. Like Unfailing Inspiration, this helps you get more mileage out of regular Inspiration dice, leaving more uses available for Unsettling Words. Keep in mind that this competes with shield and absorb elements (and counterspell if you took it with Magical Secrets) for your reaction.

Magical Secrets – As before, one no-brainer pick and one pick that depends on party composition. Simulacrum is the autopick: an extra concentration, an extra turn, and an extra set of spell slots is extremely strong (and has some synergy with our previous pick, find greater steed). For the second pick, as before, filling party gaps comes first. If nobody else had pass without trace that should have been your top priority for your second pick at Bard level 10; if you took pass without trace then, and nobody has counterspell, that would be our recommendation here. Assuming those are covered there are a nice handful of other spells to choose from. We will be selecting magic jar for this build, but as before, consult our Magical Secrets Guide for more discussion.
Spell Changes: +simulacrum, +magic jar.

Simulacrum – This spell is incredibly strong, letting us essentially make a copy of ourselves, which means another complement of Bardic Inspiration dice, another set of spell slots, another turn, and another concentration spell that can be active. It has half of your hit points, is a construct and therefore can’t be healed through normal means or be targeted by anything that can’t target constructs, and can’t regain spell slots, but other than that it’s like a second you. According to the spell text as written, it does regain its Bardic Inspiration dice on a short rest, but check with your DM on this. Don’t forget to secure the ruby dust you need for the material component (the snow and fingernail clippings don’t have a listed gold cost, so should be covered by your spell focus or component pouch), and then cast the spell as soon as you have enough downtime for the 12 hour cast.
Magic jar – Possess a humanoid indefinitely, gaining most of their statistics while maintaining your own class features. If you can capture a strong humanoid you can gain a lot of power by using this spell. There isn’t as much official content for this tier of play, so our base set of assumptions are bit more flimsy— judge for yourself whether you will be able to get any use out of this or not. Keep in mind that you do lose your own racial features, but it is often worth the trade-off. Notable features to gain in general include higher Dexterity and Constitution scores, heavy armor proficiency, more hit points, and spellcasting. Just keep the gem close by, and be mindful of dispel magic. We will list off some good forms for magic jar purposes later when we learn true polymorph and thus a way to guarantee them, but to summarize: keep your eyes open for strong martial enemies or ones with spellcasting. Here you can find a video by Treantmonk’s Temple on the spell, which is an excellent primer. Stay tuned for a Spell Spotlight on this in the future, as there is still a lot more to talk about!

Level 17: Bard (Warlock 2/Bard 15)

Level 16: Bard (Sorcerer 1/Bard 15)

Bardic Inspiration (1d12) – We max out our die size for both regular Inspiration and Unsettling Words. An average +6.5 bonus to allies saves or an average -6.5 penalty to enemies’ saves is truly massive.
Spell Changes: +antipathy/sympathy, +mind blank, –heroes’ feast.

Antipathy/sympathy – Use antipathy to make you and preferentially your party members into walking control machines, making creatures of a certain type have to succeed on a Wisdom save once they get within 60 feet or be frightened of the target and as such be unable to approach any further, which spells doom for most creatures. Stock up multiple castings of this spell for the creature types you expect to encounter.
Mind blank – Level 8 spells tend not to be the most exciting for any class (compared to 7 or 9), and Bard is no exception. However, since this is a 24 hour buff, we can cast it at the end of any day when we haven’t used our 8th level slot to get some protection against some fairly nasty things throughout the next day, getting the slot back in the morning for an extra forcecage.

Level 18: Bard (Warlock 2/Bard 16)

Level 17: Bard (Sorcerer 1/Bard 16)

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – Lucky. This gives us a way to reroll critical saves that we fail the first time. We are hopefully not failing many concentration saves with proficiency and advantage from War Caster, but if we take a lot of damage at once, we may need to. More likely we will use this on failed mental saves. We have proficiency in Wisdom saves, giving us a +7 at this level, but many scary monsters have abilities that force saves with DCs of 20 or above, so being able to reroll a failed save with a +7 has significant returns. In contrast, rerolling a high DC Intelligence save that we failed has (for us) a much lower chance of converting that failure to a success.

Ability Score Improvement (Feat) – Lucky. We have solid bonuses to our proficient saves (Constitution, Wisdom and Charisma), and an added layer of protection in Favored by the Gods, but even so, DCs tend to be high at this level, and sometimes you roll a 1 or 2 and fail even with a bonus of +13. This feat gives us three opportunities a day to re-roll a failed save. Use Luck points on high stakes failed saves if you’ve already spent Favored by the Gods or to at least get your roll in range for Favored by the Gods to make up the rest of the ground. Intelligence saves, albeit fortunately rare, remain an Achilles’ heel for us, though Favored by the Gods helps there as well, and has a better chance of making a difference if we also have the opportunity to reroll. This pick assumes, however, that we don’t have anything we need to hold in our main hand (the other will of course have a shield equipped at all times), such as a staff of power. If we do have a magic staff, then it would be a good idea to take War Caster here instead of Lucky, for advantage on concentration saves as well as the ability to cast spells like shield and absorb elements which, because they lack a material component, can’t be cast with both hands full even if one hand is holding an arcane focus.

Level 19: Bard (Warlock 2/Bard 17)

Level 18: Bard (Sorcerer 1/Bard 17)

Song of Rest (d12) – A free Barbarian hit die for everyone! 
Spell Changes: +foresight, +true polymorph, –mass suggestion.

Foresight – Unlike mind blank, this one only lasts 8 hours, so rest cast it whenever possible. We drop mass suggestion for this, as its marginal value over an extra wall of force or synaptic static is relatively minor. Though in most cases a higher level spell is more powerful than a lower level spell cast with a higher spell slot, particularly if the lower spell does not even receive any enhancement by upcasting, that isn’t always the case, as we discuss in our article on upcasting.
True polymorph – This is just an insane spell. If you have a Fighter, Barbarian, Monk, or Rogue in the party, there’s little chance they won’t be more effective as an adult silver dragon. Of course, convincing them to stop using their own character sheet is another matter, which optimization can’t help with. Note that the spell lasts until it is dispelled, without concentration, if we first concentrate for the full hour duration. So this is something you want to do when you have an hour of downtime.
A world of options has now opened up to you with true polymorph. First of all, there is the option to obviously turn you, your simulacrum, or your friends into creatures. It is time to very carefully convince your teammates about the wonders of new forms. You should be trying to turn creatures into these to magic jar them, to retain your class features. Here are just some prominent options:

Adult Silver Dragon – Legendary Resistances, nice proficiencies, great flight, breath weapons, Frightful Presence, and Change Shape! Notably, Change Shape grants flexible access to humanoid stat blocks.
Planetar – Solid actions, proficiencies, flight, half decent Innate Spellcasting, and immunity to exhaustion. Pretty good! We’ll get into more things you can do with this lad in the future.
Draconic Shard – The big part of this creature is its ability to inhabit objects, buff the creature wielding that object, and cast telekinesis at will. It otherwise shares some of its abilities with other dragons, like a breath-esque ability and flight. Overall a great way to hide a Huge creature until you have space for it to use its fullest potential while still having it contribute the rest of the time. 
Lesser Star Spawn Emissary – Not necessarily the strongest creature in the list, but it indirectly allows you to get a CR 21 creature, a greater star spawn emissary, to, for example, true polymorph. This creature is CR 19, so keep that in mind (you might need to wait with your endeavors).  
Sibriex – A lovely looking creature with Innate Spellcasting, Legendary Resistance, Magic Resistance, Truesight, and decent actions.

Level 20: Bard (Warlock 2/Bard 18)

Level 19: Bard (Sorcerer 1/Bard 18)

Magical Secrets – Wish, death ward. As with each other level at which we get Magical Secrets, there is one auto-pick and one pick that is up in the air and will vary depending on the needs of the party. This time, wish is the auto-pick, likely surprising no one. The second selection at this level may be a surprise, however: death ward is not the sexiest spell in the game. We could take another high level powerful control spell here, like maze, or a summoning spell like conjure celestial, or even a healing spell like mass heal. Any of these would be perfectly solid choices. But death ward has a subtle and counterintuitive but powerful interaction with the rules on overlapping spell effects that make it a strong choice, particularly for a character with extra spell slots from a simulacrum.
Spell Changes: +wish, +death ward.

Wish – This lets us cast any spell, on any list, of 8th level or lower, with a single action and no material component cost. Using wish to cast simulacrum saves you 12 hours and 1500gp, and that’s just the start of what you might use this for. However, unless the campaign is about to end, don’t fall into the trap of trying to use this for anything other than casting other spells, as few if any uses are worth the 1 in 3 chance that you give up the use of this spell forever.
Death ward – This may seem like an unconventional Magical Secrets pick, and it is. However, at a table that follows the Rules as Written about rest casting and overlapping magical effects, it is powerful for us, especially now. For one thing, we can use any slots of 4th level or higher that remain at the end of a long rest and aren’t being used for aid, gift of alacrity, mind blank or foresight on this spell, possibly using more than one on each party member. If we are mounted on our pegasus when we cast it on ourselves, the pegasus gets the benefit for free. Moreover, now that we can recreate our simulacrum with wish, if we are about to end a rest with a simulacrum that is running low on resources and we have our 9th level slot remaining, we can spend their remaining slots to rest cast buffs, and then use wish to create a fresh simulacrum, something we might have wanted to do anyway. If your table does not interpret the overlapping spell effects rule this way, and/or has a house rule prohibiting rest casting, however, you may want to pick something else here, such as conjure celestial or mass heal.

---

Hopefully, you now see that the HexElo (and DSSElo) delivers on its promise of being an immensely capable controller, debuffer, supporter, and utility caster, with the ability to uniquely fill in certain spellcasting gaps that can manifest even in a highly optimized party.

By mid- and especially later-tiers, few other spellcasters of any class have the same combination of strengths the Flagship Eloquence Bard has, and we believe these multiclasses compliment the core Bard strengths by efficiently shoring up a few glaring Bard weaknesses. The end result is a build that is capable and powerful at every level, but pleasantly grows more effective as the campaign progresses.

What did you think? Any questions, comments, or things you would have done differently? Let us know in the comments or on our Discord!