College of Swords
Turn Combat Mastery into a Performance
Bards of the College of Swords are called blades, and they entertain through daring feats of weapon prowess. Blades perform stunts such as sword swallowing, knife throwing and juggling, and mock combats. Though they use their weapons to entertain, they are also highly trained and skilled warriors in their own right.
Their talent with weapons inspires many blades to lead double lives. One blade might use a circus troupe as cover for nefarious deeds such as assassination, robbery, and blackmail. Other blades strike at the wicked, bringing justice to bear against the cruel and powerful. Most troupes are happy to accept a blade's talent for the excitement it adds to a performance, but few entertainers fully trust a blade in their ranks.
Blades who abandon their lives as entertainers have often run into trouble that makes maintaining their secret activities impossible. A blade caught stealing or engaging in vigilante justice is too great a liability for most troupes. With their weapon skills and magic, these blades either take up work as enforcers for thieves' guilds or strike out on their own as adventurers.
Level 3: Martial Training
Your training in martial combat has granted you Medium Armour Training and proficiency with Melee weapons that has the Finesse or Light property. You can use those weapons as a spellcasting focus for your Bard spells.
Level 3: Fighting Style
You have honed your martial prowess and gain a Fighting Style feat of your choice (those feats have this feature as a prerequisite).
Whenever you gain a Bard level, you can replace the feat you chose with a different Fighting Style feat.
Level 3: Blade Flourish
Whenever you take the Attack action on your turn, your walking speed increases by 10 feet until the end of the turn, and if a weapon attack that you make as part of this action hits a creature, you can use one of the following Blade Flourish options of your choice. You can use only one Blade Flourish option per turn.
Defensive Flourish You can expend one use of your Bardic Inspiration to cause the weapon to deal extra damage to the target you hit. The damage equals the number you roll on the Bardic Inspiration die. You also add the number rolled to your AC until the start of your next turn.
Slashing Flourish You can expend one use of your Bardic Inspiration to cause the weapon to deal extra damage to the target you hit and to any number of other creatures of your choice that you can see within 5 feet of you. The damage equals the number you roll on the Bardic Inspiration die.
Mobile Flourish You can expend one use of your Bardic Inspiration to cause the weapon to deal extra damage to the target you hit. The damage equals the number you roll on the Bardic Inspiration die. You can also push the target up to a number of feet equal to three times the number you roll on that die, rounded to the nearest 5 foot increment. You can then immediately take a Reaction to move up to your Speed to an unoccupied space within 5 feet of the target.
Level 6: Extra Attack
You can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.
Level 6: Weapon Mastery
Your training with weapons allows you to use the mastery properties of two kinds of weapons of your choice with which you have proficiency, such as Daggers and Shortbows.
Whenever you finish a Long Rest, you can change the kinds of weapons you chose. For example, you could switch to using the mastery properties of Scimitars and Shortswords.
Weapon Mastery: Expanded
In Crown & Misery setting, the Weapon Mastery feature are expanded to allow more flexibility. More details can be found in the Weapon Mastery section.
Level 14: Master's Flourish
Whenever you use a Blade Flourish option, you can roll a d6 and use it instead of expending a Bardic Inspiration die.