The College of Dance is one of the oldest colleges that still practices the bardic arts. There is a wide schism that separates this college from the others. This is due to their performance, which does not rely on song, instruments, or sound at all, but dance.
Bards of this college are often simply referred to as Dancers, but the roles they play are anything but simple. There are Dancers who perform holy dances used in prayer, there are Dancers who tell stories and keep history alive through their performances, and there are those who dance in the very battlefield, mixing performance with combat, lifting the spirits of their companions and allowing them to perform feats beyond their normal capacities. These bards use dance to become a blur in the enemy’s eyes, dodging their attacks with expert grace and poise and clouding their minds with enchanting movements to become harder to pin down.
It takes courage to stand in the thick of battle among armed warriors and armored paladins, but it takes a bard to do so while dancing.
This bard subclass leans on the support role that the bard can embody. The cornerstone of the subclass is the Dance ability. A Dancer’s main job in the battlefield is to keep their dance ability up for as long as possible to enhance the damage capabilities of their allies and to prevent having to restart their dance with additional uses of inspiration. The bonuses gained by dancing are very strong, providing an ongoing bardic inspiration bonus to an ally once per turn and several advantages for the bard themselves. This is balanced by the ability’s drawbacks: the bardic inspiration roll decays every round; the bard needs to stay close to the ally they are inspiring while maintaining concentration on their dance, which puts them at risk of losing concentration because of enemy attacks; and the bard cannot cast concentration spells while dancing, as they have to maintain concentration on their dance.
In order for the bard to survive being closer to danger, they gain bonuses as they level up that make them harder and harder to hit as they go up in levels, culminating in an agile combatant who casts spells and deals damage, all while expertly avoiding the enemy’s blows and enhancing their allies’ attacks.
This is playtest content from Pointy Hat, and is subject to change. Please inform the DM if you plan to use this subclass, or use it for multiclass.
3rd Level: Somatic Performance
Starting at 3rd level, you are able to cast your magic using only the precise, meticulous, and elegant movements of your body. You may choose to replace all verbal or material components of a spell with only the somatic component of dancing, so long as the material components of the spell do not have a cost.
3rd Level: Dance
Also at 3rd level, you can perform an arcane dance that empowers and inspires an ally in combat. As a bonus action, you can start your dance and choose one creature you can see within 15 feet of you. Roll the Bardic Inspiration die. That creature can now add the result of your Bardic Inspiration roll to one ability check, attack roll, or saving throw per round. On the next turn, the creature you inspired can add your bardic inspiration roll again, so long as it remains within 15 feet of you and you keep dancing.
The bardic inspiration roll decreases at the end of your turn by one. For instance: you use your bonus action to start your dance and select an ally within 15 feet of you. You roll a 6 on your bardic inspiration die. The creature you’re inspiring attacks an enemy and adds 6 to their attack roll. After the end of your next turn, the creature you’re inspiring now adds 5 to their attack against that enemy. The creature you’re inspiring will add 4 in the next round, then 3, and so on until the bardic inspiration roll reaches 0.
The creature automatically loses all benefits of your dance when leaving the 15 radius of it. You must maintain concentration on dancing as if it were a spell. You can end your dance at any point during your turn without using any actions or bonus actions.
6th Level: Deadly Dance
At 6th level, your calculated movements blend dance with battle prowess, allowing you to double your attack prowess while you dance while moving across the battlefield seamlessly. While you’re using your Dance ability, your movement increases by 10 feet and you can attack twice, instead of once, when you take the Attack action on your turn.
14th Level: Danse Macabre
When you reach 14th level, you have mastered the art of dancing on the battlefield, your very presence inspiring even more combatants to transcend their physical limits in combat, becoming even deadlier in turn.
The radius of your Dance ability is now 20 feet. When you use your Dance ability, you may empower two allies simultaneously. Both allies must remain inside the 20-foot area of effect to receive the benefits of your dance. If one leaves while the other one remains in the dancing area of effect, the one remaining still enjoys the benefits, but you must use a bonus action and roll your bardic inspiration die if you wish to empower a second ally again. The new roll overrides the previous one.
For instance: The original bardic inspiration roll is 8, and you are inspiring two creatures. One creature leaves the radius of your dance and loses the benefits of the dance. A new creature enters the radius and you use your bonus action to roll your bardic inspiration die to inspire that second creature, the result being a 4. Both creatures now add 4 instead of 8 to their ability checks, saving throws, or attacks.
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