The 12 Days of Critmas: The Bard

I love bards and am determined to not end up with another half-orc greataxe menace. Also, Great Weapon Master is now GWM.

Let’s start again with subclass. Almost all the bard subclasses are great, and there are 6 which could be contenders here. We can group these into spell people and sword people, and we’ll start with the latter set to get them out of the way. Valour bards have extra attack, which is pretty much it for extra damage. So we’ll go half-orc with GWM and Weapon Master so they’re actually proficient with the greataxe, sadly with only a +2 to hit as strength isn’t a main stat, which adds up to 48 points (1d12 +2 +10 + 1d12 +2 +10). We still have a free bonus action though, and with metamagic adept and quickened spell can break the action economy and basically take two actions. To do this, we’ll need another feat, so we’ll switch from a half-orc to a variant human. The highest damage spell a bard can cast at level 8 is Raulothim’s Psychic Lance, for 7d6, so our total for the turn reaches 90 damage (1d12 +2 +10 +1d12 +2 +10 +7d6). Even with crits, the half-orc build loses out to this one, reaching 72 damage. You still have a free bonus action with the half-orc, but the bard spell list has no bonus action spells which do damage. With crits, the metamagic adept build gets you to 108 damage.

Swords bards get to use a weapon as a spellcasting focus, one of two fighting styles, an extra d8 damage once per turn, and extra attack, all by level 8. The main options then are the choice of weapon, and whether Orcish Fury can beat Metamagic Adept for increasing total damage. Take a turn where the bard uses extra attack, then a bonus action attack if they have two weapons. A greatsword deals 48 (2d6 +2 +10 +2d6 +2 +10) with GWM, a mounted bard with a lance and duelling deals 32 (1d12 +2 +2 +1d12 +2 +2), and a mounted bard with the Dual Wielder feat, duel wielding fighting style, and two lances can do 42 (1d12 +2 +1d12 +2 +1d12+ 2). Greatsword looks like the best option, but we need to be proficient in it as well. Half-orcs aren’t proficient with greatswords, and the bonus orcish fury damage won’t beat a quickened spell, so we can return to the variant human with Metamagic Adept, GWM and Weapon Master to get greatsword proficiency. Or, more fun, a githyanki gets this proficiency for free at level 1, and is an alien. So our gith takes two greatsword attacks with GWM (one gets the bonus d8 from blade flourish), then uses metamagic to quicken Raulothim’s Psychic Lance, and deals 98 damage (2d6 +2 +10 +1d8 +2d6 +2 +10 +7d6), narrowly beating the valour bard. For crits, this goes up to 122.

Whispers bards can only hit once per turn, but deal an extra 3d6 damage with psychic blades. Following the same formula, they deal 84 damage (1d12 +2 +10 +3d6 +7d6), so just lose out here. Creation bards can deal 1d10 +3 damage on a bonus action with their dancing item, then cast a spell as their action, but this won’t do anywhere near as much. Similarly, spirits bards can do 2d8 +cha on a bonus action, which doesn’t get them much closer. We’re left with lore bards, who don’t pick up any features explicitly increasing damage, but do have access to any 3rd spell in the game, so can cast fireball if they like. If our lore bard has Metamagic Adept, they can cast fireball as a bonus action, and if they take Magic Initiate they can also cast booming blade with a greataxe attack as their action. With two feats already, the orcish fury build can’t be used, and they’re not proficient with their weapon so can’t use GWM. We’ll take Martial Adept instead then, to deal a total of 82 damage (1d12 +2 +1d6 +1d8 +9d6), going up to 98 if the bonus booming blade damage is triggered. A booming blade crit doesn’t double the damage from moving, so with crits this build can’t beat the githyanki swords bard for pure damage. It can drop its axe after this turn though and go back to normal bard stuff, so would be a lot more viable in a long campaign, whereas the gith is built around their not very bardy weapon.

Our winner today then is a githyanki swords bard with GWM and Metamagic Adept, which is a fun change from half-orc wannabe fighters. It might be fun to predict who’ll win this weird contest for level 8 kills, and I’m guessing action surge is so powerful that no other class will beat fighter. Ignoring action surge though, I’ll say fighter, sorcerer or warlock will do the most damage in a single turn.