The Choreography Bard out of The Griffon’s Saddlebag: Book One adds yet another dance-themed Bard subclass to the mix.
What is it about Bards and Dancing that just goes so well together? Is it the grace and elegance? The idea of a fight that’s majestic to watch and also be a part of? Whatever the answer actually is, some kind of sexy dance fighting is just ingrained into the idea of Bards.
And now there’s a second way to explore that idea on D&D Beyond, thanks to the Bard College of Choreography out of The Griffon’s Saddlebag: Book One. This new subclass is all about moving with “Fey-like grace” and using magic to evade harm while inspiring others. And as you might imagine, this means all new creative ways to use your Bardic Inspiration. But what else lies in store? Let’s check it out.
The Bard College of Choreography – Dance-spiration For All
Dancing is perhaps the most combat-oriented of the various performance arts that people usually associate with Bards. Certainly more so than, say, combat lute – but in the case of the College of Choreography, you are learning magical dances. Just like that one song in the Labyrinth.
As always, this is a third-party subclass, so you’ll probably want to look at it for yourself/talk to your DM before you set your heart on playing it. But there are plenty of well-balanced and well-designed subclasses; WotC isn’t the be-all end-all of D&D. You need only look at the D&D subreddit to find people practically shouting that in the comments.
So how does this third-party subclass work? Well, with the Bard College of Choreography, it all kicks off with a new way to use your Bardic Inspiration in the form of Inspirational Dance at level 3. As you learn how to use the universal language of dance, you can use a Bonus Action and a Bardic Inspiration to do a little dance and give an ally Temporary Hit Points equal to whatever you roll on your Inspiration Die + your Charisma modifier.
Plus, whenever you give someone temporary hit points, you also give them the chance to move up to their speed without provoking Opportunity Attacks, or they can take the Dodge Action. Both of which are pretty great – this is a remarkably effective defensive maneuver for allies. Sure, it’s not adding to an attack roll, but as an alternate use for Bardic Inspiration? I really like it.
You also get Fast Movement, which increases your base Speed by 10 feet at 3rd level, and then goes up to 15 feet at level 6, and 20 feet at level 14. More mobility is nice for anyone, honestly, but I don’t know that it’s necessarily as important to the College of Choreography Bard as it is, say, a College of Valor Bard that needs to be reaching targets.
Higher Level, Higher Concept Dances
At higher levels, you unlock more opportunities to unleash your dance upon the masses. Starting at level 6, Entrancing Movement grants you the ability to try to hypnotize your enemies with the power of dance. No, literally, you gain the Charm Person spell added to your list of Prepared spells, and can cast it without a verbal component or spending a spell slot once per rest. And when you use your Entrancing Movement feature to cast that spell, you cast it at level 3 and without the penalty for “allies fighting the enemy” which is pretty nice.
The other aspect of this ability gives you a bonus to resisting opportunity attacks because your dance is so good your enemies feel bad about trying to stop you. In this case, that means whenever you get hit with an Opportunity Attack or get hit while you’re taking the Dodge action, they take Psychic damage based on your Charisma modifier.
At level 14, the subclass caps off with Endless Dance, which is another manifold ability. There’s a lot of these worked into this class, but I think that it’s in part because Bard subclasses only have levels 3, 6, and 14 to play with. Endless Dance lets you grant an ally the ability to make an attack instead of gain Temporary Hit Points from your dance-spirationg.
On top of that, you can Dodge as a Bonus Action. Also whenever you use a Bonus Action to spend a Bardic Inspiration die, you can Dodge as a part of that Bonus Action. Which is all well and good, but man, I wish this subclass had a little bit more bite to it.
Don’t get me wrong. It does its job well, which is to act as a big party support type class. If you’re a College of Choreography Bard, you will be choreographing fights by giving your allies the ability to move and keeping them topped up with Temporary Hit Points. And that’s while you still have your Action to do things like cast spells or make attacks.
But it feels like the whole subclass is centered on Bonus Actions that it forgets to give you something a little more active to do for yourself, as a treat. Maybe that’s just my own preferences talking here. But compare the level 6 feature to something like Extra Attack or picking a spell from another class’s spell list and it feels a little pale. But only a little. I would still one hundred percent play this – just, if I did, I might be a little bit more self-focused when picking spells.
You can check out the Bard College of Choreography and 11 other subclasses in The Griffon’s Saddlebag: Book One on D&D Beyond!
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