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Antedodoguemon

How to create a College of Dance Bard?

5e (2024)

College of Dance seems like an extremely Mad Subclass. Thanks to it Level 3 Features:

Unarmored Defense. Your base Armor Class equals 10 plus your Dexterity and Charisma modifiers.

Agile Strikes. When you expend a use of your Bardic Inspiration as part of an action, a Bonus Action, or a Reaction, you can make one Unarmed Strike as part of that action, Bonus Action, or Reaction.

Bardic Damage. You can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack rolls of your Unarmed Strikes. When you deal damage with an Unarmed Strike, you can deal Bludgeoning damage equal to a roll of your Bardic Inspiration die plus your Dexterity modifier, instead of the strike's normal damage. This roll doesn't expend the die.

College of Dance happens to be strongly leaned towards dextery, but at the same time, if he gets his Dextery to 16 and Charism to 17, he Con Goes to 14, wich is not great for any Caster (wich relies on concentration), especially one that plans to go melee and makes use of the subclass features.

Anyway, if you plan to do a melee Bard, Valor Bard can get a higher AC, and at the same time be SAD, either towards Shillelagh or a Dip in Sorcerer, two methods that doesn't work with your fists and Legs that Swords Bard should use.

All that said, how can i make a good use to Dance Bard Features, especially Unarmored Defense and Agile Strikes, in a class that seems so MAD.

Ps: i can already expect comments like "just play as any other bard", but before commenting that, consider that if i wanted to play as any other bard, i would play with any other bard, and not a bard so unique as College of Dance Bard.

Posted Sep 1, 2026, 4:33 PM UTC

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