Bards have a new subclass to playtest in the latest Unearthed Arcana. Here’s what you should know about the College of the Moon.
With eight new subclasses in a brand new Unearthed Arcana, the playtest potential is high. While sure, four of the twelve D&D classes are without new subclass toys (sorry Warlock, Monk, Barbarian, and Druid), there are still plenty of toys to play with. Starting with Bards, who debut a new school to playtest: the College of the Moon.
In this playtest, College of the Moon offers Bards a little bit of Druidic power. Which is strange. Not bad, just a little weird, especially considering the flavor of the rest of the class. But mechanically? Very interesting to mess around with. Let’s take a look.
Bard College of Moon – Telling Tales Out of School
As the College of the Moon playtest explains, this Bard option is informed by Primal Tales. In other words, folklore and faerie stories. I don’t know why they called it College of the Moon when College of Folklore would have been a more accurate name—for the flavor of the class. But as far as mechanics go, well, you’ll see. But let’s start with what their deal is, including their specific grounding in the Forgotten Realms (this Unearthed Arcana is all about the Forgotten Realms):
The College of the Moon traces its origins to the ancient druidic circles of the Moonshae Isles, who entrusted the first bards of this tradition with chronicling the stories of the islands and their people. Bards of thie college draw from the isles’ Fey magic and the primal power of the monwells to bolster their allies, protect the natural world, and inspire their bardic works. Such works tend to be based on well-known Moonshae myths, such as the whimsy of fairy pranksters, the viciousness of the Beast, and the mysteries of the moonwells.
Practially speaking, this means you can “draw upon the power of folklore” to assume one of three Tales. These are different effects that go off of your Bardic Inspiration. You have the Tale of Life, Tale of Gloam, and Tale of Mirth. You can only have one Tale active at any point—kind of like an aura or stance or form or whatever, you decide which one you want, and switching between them takes an Action, so you can do it whenever, but in combat it’ll cost you.
The Tale of Life is a healing boon. While it’s active, you can spend a Bardic Inspiration die to add extra healing to any healing spell that restores hit points. Notably, this isn’t a Reaction, and is limited to once per Turn, not once per Round. So a clever Bard could have the Tale of Life empower something like Goodberry and give the party very efficient healing.
The Tale of Gloam is stealth-focused. While this Tale is active, whenever you give someone Bardic Inspiration with your Bonus Action, specifically, then you the Bard can take a Disengage or Hide action as part of the Bonus Action. Personally, I don’t see a Bard ever picking this one. For one, it seems way more niche and hard to use than the Tale of Life or Tale of Mirth which you’d use every turn.
The Tale of Mirth is the “prank” tale. And that means messing with people’s dice rolls. While it’s active, whenever an enemy within 60 feet of you succeeds on a Saving Throw, you can spend your Reaction and a Bardic Inspiration Die to inflict whatever you roll as a penalty on their saving throw, possibly causing it to fail.
College of the Moon Playtest – More Than Just Stories
Of course, in the College of the Moon playtest, Bards have a bunch of other tools to play with. You also get a Druid cantrip and an extra skill proficiency, but where the subclass really lifts off is at level 6.
At level 6, you gain the Blessing of the Moonwells. This is what gives the class its distinctive identity, and will probbably come into play even more than just being a Bard who’s really good at healing. At level 6, this ability gives you the Moonbeam spell. You always have it prepared, it doesn’t count against yourspel lsp repped. And more importantly, you can cast it as a Bonus Action once* per long rest without expending a spell slot. You can also restore your use of this feature by spending a level 3+ spell slot.
Free casting and faster casting is great. Especially considering that because you’re not using a spell slot or your Action, you can still cast a level 1+ spell with the rest of your turn, which can enable some spicy combos. But on top of that, the Moonbeam gets even more powerful.
Whenever you cast Moonbeam with the special feature, your Moonbeam not only damages your enemies, but whenever a creature fails its save against the Moonbeam, you can heal a creature of your choice within 60 feet for 2d4 hit points. When you consider that Moonbeam can damage multiple creatures at once, suddenly it becomes a powerful AoE and AoE heal.
Finally, at 14th level, the College of the Moon gains Bolstered Folktales. This is an upgrade to the earlier folktale ability, and improves the effects of each. The Tale of Life and Tale of Mirth can just roll 1d6 instead of using one of your Bardic Inspiration dice, so you can always use them even in the rare occasion when you’re out of BI to toss around. And the Tale of Gloam lets you teleport 30 feet as part of the Bonus Action you use to give someone Bardic Inspiration.
Does the College of the Moon Make the Grade?
One of the things WotC really wants to hone in on is maing sure that these classes get high approval across the board for each of these features. I think that there’s definitely room for improvement on this class. The folktale abilities feel too varied in power. It seems a no brainer to pick one over the other most of the time—a similar problem to the Druid Circle of the Stars.
The Moonbeam effect is very cool, and again, is where the class really kicks in to high gear, and it does so at 6, which I think feels good. And the higher level upgrade is nice, but again the folktales would have to be balanced better first. But that’s just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.
Whatever you think of the College of the Moon playtest, be sure to let WotC know by taking the survey, starting next Tuesday, February 4th.
Reading stories by moonlight just doesn’t have the same ring as “fighting evil”
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