Top 10 5E D&D Homebrew Bard Colleges by a Factor of Three

Over at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel Nerdarchists Dave and Ted explore the most popular homebrew spells for fifth edition Dungeons & Dragon from D&D Beyond. Here on the website I zero in even more when it comes to spells like these Top 10 force spells for 5E D&D. It’s a lot of fun to see what folks come up with and share their creations in posts like this. (There’s lots of these posts whether for homebrew subclasses, magic items, spells, feats and more floating around for the curious.) This time around I’m looking at perhaps the most versatile class in 5E D&D — the bard — and checking out the Top 10 homebrew Bard Colleges. There’s currently over 1,525 homebrew of them so let’s get into it.

Bard Colleges at D&D Beyond

Before getting started it’s important to note you can create homebrew content for private use and share your homebrew content publicly at DDB at no cost — there’s no subscription required to access these services. However if you want to add any of the homebrew Bard Colleges mentioned below or any other homebrew content you come across to your 5E D&D collection you must subscribe at the Hero Tier or above. There’s a lot you can do at DDB for free. Check out what you can do here.

The DDB homebrew collection uses several statistics to track entries. Views shows how many eyeballs any particular homebrew creation received, Adds shows the number of times a creation was added to someone’s collection and Rating is an upvote/downvote system. Since there are over 1,525 Bard Colleges in the collection I’m going to share the top 10 highest rated, most viewed and most added selections and to see what’s out there along with any crossover between these three lists.

Top 10 highest rating Bard Colleges

1. College of Dance. Bards of the College of Dance are fearless performers who entertain and enchant their audiences with endearing, seductive, or technically impressive choreography, while using the same skill set to strike unexpectedly at their enemies. Basically an unarmed fighter bard it basically incorporates combat enhancements with every feature so not very interesting to me. I feel like players would get more mileage by playing a monk. Side note — a College of Dance bard seems like it would find a wonderful home among the Sirens: Battle of the Bards (but I suspect there’s several bard options even more interesting in the setting).
2. College of Hymns. Bards of the College of Hymns are unique in that they weave divine magic into their songs and music. A divinely inspired bard all incorporate healing or minor buffs during combat. Two in a row almost entirely consisting of combat features doesn’t bode well for this homebrew exploration.
3. College of Songbirds. Even the finest voice is but a simple melody when performing alone. Now this is something different and fun. A magical little bird companion enhances some bard features but then it takes a left turn at the capstone and frightens creatures.
4. College of Soulsong. Bards of the College of Soulsong mingle with the forces of undeath, using their music to lay wandering spirits to rest and destroy blasphemous undead. I’ve got a hard time getting past summoning Charisma modifier + proficiency bonus ghosts at 3rd level with no limit on how many times this can be done. Let’s put this one back to its rest.
5. College of Jesters. These Bards are students of comedy who live for the sound of laughter. As a big fan of stand up comedy I was intrigued. These bards borrow the College of Lore’s Cutting Words and build upon the feature. Kind of neat.
6. College of the Road. Not an officially recognized college, the College of the Road represents the personal and eclectic sets of skills, knowledge, and techniques a wandering bard picks up along their journey. Now we’re talking. This reminds me of the factotum class from 3.5 D&D, which I greatly enjoyed.
7. College of Satire. Bards of the College of Satire are called jesters. Way too powerful of features for my taste and also there’s a disconnect between the theme and flavor with the mechanics.
8. College of the Painter. The College of the Painter is a comfortable home for bards who have a lack of interest or no knowledge in the playing on instrument, instead having chosen to weave their performances and abilities through their painting and artwork. A wonderful marriage of theme and mechanics somewhat akin to College of Creation but much more manageable and cool. Bravo!
9. College of Clowns. Practitioners of clownhood are known to travel the land, bestowing the gift of laughter to the masses; using quick movement, ridiculous costumes, and slapstick comedy to tell their story. The designer was onto something with the Slapstick feature but the rest are basically borrowed from other classes to buff this bard in combat. Sad clown face.
10. College of String Instruments (Remnant). The college of strings is about laying down those sick solos, playing those power cords until your fingers bleed and your audience’s minds have been thoroughly blown. Great start with a cool mechanic but I would’ve liked to see more done with it and here again seeing nothing but combat features.

Top 10 most viewed Bard Colleges

1. College of Dance.
2. College of the Painter.
3. College of Jesters.
4. Bartender. You’ve paid your dues; spent your days as a muse, a tumbler, or performer by any other name, but that life is tiring and demanding. I’m not so sure the designer has a firm grasp of either bartending or 5E D&D design.
5. College of Red Mages. Red Mage is a hybrid ranged/melee style achieved via high-speed positioning. I am forever a sucker for Final Fantasy themed stuff so I was half in the bag already. But this one suffers a double dose of the fatal flaw despite some cool mechanics — it’s all about combat and it’s all about self-buffing. Ouch.
6. College of Hymns.
7. College of Clowns.
8. College of Soulsong.
9. College of Culinary Arts. Bards of the College of Culinary Arts have spent their time perfecting the skills required to cook extraordinary meals and imbuing magical effects on the consumers of their meals. Is it me? Today’s batch of homebrew seems like they’re dropping the ball on great concepts. When it comes to culinary 5E D&D I’ll admit some bias though. Between Dragon Stew and Ingest Quest I feel like so much more can be done with the concept.
10. College Of The Necrodancer. Bards that take up necrodancing often travel alone, as they don’t other people in their lives. Great name and reminds me of the great time I had playing a Dirge Singer bard in 3.5 D&D. Starting off with nigh-unlimited regeneration kills it though. The capstone payoff is pretty cool on the other hand.

Top 10 most added Bard Colleges

1. College of Dance.
2. College of Jesters.
3. College of Hymns.
4. College of Songbirds.
5. College of Soulsong.
6. College of the Road.
7. College of the Painter.
8. College of Satire.
9. College of Charm. Bards of the College of Charm excel through magically enhanced duplicity. There’s some great ideas here but I feel like another revision would serve this one well. Of all the ones I’ve looked at today this does the best job of marrying the concept with the mechanics. It just needs some polish to really shine. I am disappointed it only showed up on one of these lists and so far down!
10. College of Red Mages.

Bard Colleges rising to the top

In addition to 5E D&D rules and design philosophy etched into my mind through voluminous writing and our own content creation plus exposure to tons of third party homebrew from creators like Kobold Press and MCDM all the way down to the stuff at DDB I feel pretty confident in assessing things. These assessments also incorporate my own tastes too of course and I’ve got to say when it comes to these Bard College homebrew subclasses I am disappointed. Almost every single one I looked at feels like flavor and creative mechanics take a back seat to buffing bard damage output. The bard class comes packaged with it’s own unique mechanics — Bardic Inspiration — practically begging to be used in new ways. A few of these homebrew Bard Colleges take a step down this road but seem to get cold feet.

College of Dance walks all over the other 1,525 homebrew Bard Colleges to sweep all three categories, which frankly shocks me since it is essentially a bard whose features all try to make them a monk. In contrast the most interesting one to me — College of Charm — explores the bard as a magical beguiler and only barely makes the cut in one category.

5E D&D bard resources

I mention our own forays into homebrew content creation for 5E D&D several times to plant the seed in your mind. Now you’re wondering, “What kind of homebrew content do you create, Nerdarchy? I’m extremely interested!” In addition to the monthly rewards our Patreon supporters receive we’ve presented tons of material in our videos and right here at Nerdarchy the Website ready to drop right into your games too. Another place we frequently create new content for Dungeon Masters and players to drop right into games is Nerdarchy the Newsletter and you’ll also get several gifts including $9.99 in store credit so you can add whatever you like there to your own collection when you sign up. We’ve explored the bard class many times already. Here’s some resources to check out if you dig 5E D&D bards.

• College of Dazzling – Special Effects Bard Subclass for 5th Edition
• Play Your Next 5E D&D Game as a College of Ghosts Bard
• College of Mirrors
• College of Cataclysm
• College of Rime
• College of Style and Design
• Play Your Next 5E D&D Game as a Bardbarian
• Inspire Revolution in Sirens: Battle of the Bards 5E Campaign Setting
• Exploring Eberron through the College of the Dirge Singer Bard for 5E D&D
• Best in Show 5E D&D Magic Items for a Bard
• A Group of Bards is Called a Troupe
• Tier 2 Bard Spells and Spellcasting in 5E D&D
• D&D Party Composition — Playing an All Bard Party

*Featured image — Whether scholar, skald, or scoundrel, a bard weaves magic through words and music to inspire allies, demoralize foes, manipulate minds, create illusions, and even heal wounds.

New videos every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at Nerdarchy the YouTube channel here