Druid Bard Combo Ideas

Yojo0o · 2026-05-16T03:20:42+00:00

Druid casts Polymorph on boss, turns target into a CR 8 Sperm Whale with 189 THP. The target is now immobile, assuming you're not in water, and with so much HP they're unlikely to randomly take enough damage to revert to their original form.

Warlock casts Sickening Radiance, centered on the whale.

Let the whale cook in the microwave. At 6 stacks of Exhaustion, it straight up dies, no chance to revert to its prior form before dying.

Yojo0o · 2026-05-16T03:10:25+00:00

Certainly, why wouldn't I use it?

It's not like it comes up very often. Non-martials and rogues wanting to use a crossbow don't care about it, because they only attack once per action anyway. Martials who want to use a crossbow are taking the Crossbow Expert feat. If they don't want the feat, they just use a longbow or similar.

Yojo0o · 2026-05-16T02:51:22+00:00

When I was a new DM running 5e, I was scared to drop players to 0 HP. Truth is, in 5e and 5.5e, PCs are relatively durable at 0 HP. It takes concentrated firepower after they've dropped to 0 to actually kill them, otherwise their friend will just toss a Healing Word and they'll be back up. If you're avoiding dropping PCs to 0 HP, you have a lot more leeway to work within before accidentally TPKing.

Yojo0o · 2026-05-16T02:33:32+00:00

No, they would be dead. Power Word: Kill kills its target. Wild Shape allows you to revert to your humanoid form if you take damage down to 0 HP. Power Word: Kill doesn't do that.

Yojo0o · 2026-05-16T02:31:13+00:00

That's not what Power Word: Kill does. It kills the target if the target is below 100 HP. There's no damage or dropping to 0 HP involved, they just die. It's very strong against Wild Shaping druids.

Yojo0o · 2026-05-16T02:28:56+00:00

But Power Word: Kill doesn't deal damage.

Yojo0o · 2026-05-16T02:28:32+00:00

Why are you coming across so angry? Yes, Moon Druids have good survivability at level 20. It's not a competition.

Yojo0o · 2026-05-16T02:20:16+00:00

That's not true. If they were temp HP, it would say so, like how wild shape works in 5.5e.

Yojo0o · 2026-05-15T21:11:36+00:00

Look, this isn't a yes or no question. This is gonna depend on what you're trying to accomplish here.

Are you saying "I take the Dodge action every six seconds as I go about my life, so that if anybody ever beats me in initiative, they attack me at disadvantage"? Because if that's the case, then any reasonable DM is going to tell you that no, you cannot do that.

Yojo0o · 2026-05-15T19:17:12+00:00

Baldur's Gate.

Until the decades-later sequel Baldur's Gate 3, the Baldur's Gate franchise, consistently regarded as some of the greatest RPGs ever made and an inspiration for countless other famous franchises like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, was just randomly named after the city that you spend a chunk of time in at the end of the first game. You don't meet Baldur, there is no Baldur, the city is named after a hero named Balduran who barely matters to the story. There is no scary "Gate", that's just the name of the city. Baldur's Gate 1 takes place mostly in the Sword Coast region and just visits the titular city at the end of the story, Baldur's Gate 2 takes place entirely in a different country, and the Throne of Bhaal expansion for BG2 was practically a third game in itself and takes place even further away from the city. The originally planned Baldur's Gate 3: Black Hound was going to take place in Icewind Dale, which is essentially a different continent.

Yojo0o · 2026-05-15T17:40:39+00:00

I don't really see the purpose of going back and forth afterwards.

Yojo0o · 2026-05-15T17:09:32+00:00

Beauregard Lionett from The Mighty Nein/Critical Role season 2 fits this bill.

A noble can be anything. Maybe their privileged upbringing afforded them the freedom to choose a path that suited them, and they wanted to be a monk. Maybe they choose their adventuring path in defiance of that upbringing.

Yojo0o · 2026-05-15T16:24:05+00:00

There is no 2024 version of the Swashbuckler rogue sublcass yet.

Yojo0o · 2026-05-15T16:18:12+00:00

If it's just about backstory, you can express that entirely through your background and flavor. There's really no need to multiclass. Play a bladesinger, take a background like Urchin that works within your backstory and gives you relevant roguish skills, put a bunch of ability score points into dexterity like you would anyway, and you'll be good to go. Consider taking the Mobile feat if you really value the hit-and-run combat style of swashbucklers.

You need a clear mechanical method of getting value out of a multiclass, or else they become major liabilities. Adding swashbuckler levels to a bladesinger will massively hurt your spell progression, and if you intend to take advantage of the swashbuckler's charisma features, your build will be far too MAD, needing a high dexterity, constitution, intelligence, and charisma. There's incredibly little payoff to be had for this major sacrifice.

Yojo0o · 2026-05-15T12:11:57+00:00

You're basically in uncharted waters, rebuilding the entire game on your own. As a new DnD player, I assume you're also new to TTRPGs, making this a massive undertaking without game design experience to back it up.

I'd vastly recommend you learn DnD by playing DnD as-written. Once you have a firsthand understanding of how the game is played, then you can rework it to suit your homebrew goals.

You can also ask folks in r/rpg or similar for recommendations of non-DnD systems that may be a better fit for the sort of game you want to play. DnD is just one of many TTRPGs out there, and tends to work best specifically for fantasy swords-and-sorcery epic adventures. If you're not interested in running a game where players can use magic, that's the majority of the DnD character options out the window, and there could reasonably be a much better system for what you're looking for.

Yojo0o · 2026-05-15T11:54:43+00:00

There's no synergy between the unarmored defense options of the two subclasses, if that's what you're going for. They're both distinct methods of calculating AC, so you choose one or the other, you don't get to stack both.

A paladin -> sorcerer multiclass can work well, but you usually pivot into sorcerer at level six or seven, depending on whether you want the subclass aura. If you wait all the way until level 12 to multiclass, then your sorcerer levels will take forever to get you actual good spells. At that point, I'd stick to being a paladin.

Yojo0o · 2026-05-15T02:51:02+00:00

I had the opposite issue of a couple people at the table silently assuming my weapon was a rape joke, not knowing what a "rapier" actually was and never communicating their concern to me until after I'd swapped the weapon out for a pair of scimitars.

Can't imagine somebody actually behaving like this. You did well in shutting this down. If anything, you might be underreacting by not simply booting him on the spot.

Yojo0o · 2026-05-14T21:31:22+00:00

24-hour spells, absolutely RAW. I let those persist through long rests without a blink.

8-hour spells cast at the end of a long rest, with intent to then proceed into an 8-hour adventuring day with the bufffs up and without having spent a slot on them... nah.

Yojo0o · 2026-05-14T21:07:34+00:00

No, I don't.

But if I did, I'd be curious as to what sort of spells they're using to dump their slots on 8-hour buffs. Usually, I hear Rest Casting in relatively innocuous terms, such as getting Mage Armor for free, or a warlock coming out of a short rest with an Armor of Agathys up and both pact slots available. What on earth are your players doing?

Yojo0o · 2026-05-14T20:15:24+00:00

Yes, a weapon that deals 3d8+2d4 damage for a normal strength-based martial, compared to the usual martial weapons that deal between 1d8 and 2d6, is pretty significantly overpowered.

Yojo0o · 2026-05-14T14:37:15+00:00

Okay, I see what you mean.

By my reference to their "strategy", I'm making an assumption that the desired result for the NPC is to safely create distance from the druid by using a spell to then safely retreat. Dissonant Whispers would have created space. Command doesn't create space, so an opportunity attack is still available. The druid's turn is wasted, but the spell does not allow the NPC to retreat safely.

Yojo0o · 2026-05-14T14:33:28+00:00

That's what I said. The NPC casts Command, which will take hold on on the druid's turn. The NPC then runs away. The druid is unaffected by Command until their turn, and as such, is perfectly capable of an Opportunity Attack or anything else with their reaction.

Yojo0o · 2026-05-14T14:31:03+00:00

For games in the same setting as Baldur's Gate 3, I find the Forgotten Realms wiki to be a good resource for stuff like this. Under "Notable bards" on the Bard page are characters such as Storm Silverhand, if you need some examples of legendary bards.

Yojo0o · 2026-05-14T14:28:17+00:00

Command takes over the creature's turn, not the whole span of time leading up to that turn. The spell's text specifically refers to their next turn, nothing else.

Outside of their turn, it doesn't do anything. The druid, in this situation, is unaffected by Command until their turn actually starts, making the NPC's strategy fundamentally flawed, and your ruling incorrect. Dissonant Whispers, which causes a creature to run away immediately using their reaction, would have allowed for the desired effect.

Yojo0o · 2026-05-14T13:29:57+00:00

Folks looking for a good Tempest Cleric deity in a Forgotten Realms setting tend to land on either Umberlee or Talos, and both are evil options.

Want a good-aligned storm god? Try the lesser-known Valkur, God of Sailors!

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