Summary
As you prepare to begin your newDungeons & Dragonscampaign, one of your players shows you their character, a bard. Bards are amazing options to play because they are powerful on the battlefield and also during conversations, making them formidable party faces when the moment calls for one.
All that said, it’s important to challenge your players, meaning you must create obstacles for your bard to deal with, not only in combat but during ability checks that require such conversations - otherwise, they’ll just convince NPCs to do whatever they want. So, how do you make sure your bard player will be appropriately challenged?
While we’re here to help you make the game more challenging for your player, it’s important not to exaggerate with our tips, meaning they shouldn’t be used too frequently. That can raise the challenge too much, ruin your player’s enjoyment of the game, or even kill their character. Thus, proceed with caution when implementing these into your game.
9Focus On Them When Necessary
They’re Easy To Kill
As spellcasters, bards have low-hit dice and are particularly easy to hit, meaning they’ll usually stay in the back casting spells - though some of them can be on the frontline. Regardless, taking them down in combat isn’t difficult unless you have great tanks in your party preventing you from reaching the bard.
To maneuver other players, you can use ranged attacks, teleportation, and flight, for example, and still hit the enemy you want. And while bards aren’t always the priority target, they can be if they keep healing the other characters or if they have a big concentration spell active. Sure, you don’t need to roleplay enemies that are smart all the time, but it still adds more challenge and makes the fight more dynamic.
Avoid Their Magic
Another good tip against spellcasters is to spread their enemies across the battlefield or leave enemies near the bard or other allies. Spellcasters enjoy area attacks - as they should, they are amazing - which means they’ll take advantage of a group of enemies staying next to one another.
Though most of these spells aren’t the damaging type, they still have many options that will weaken your enemies if possible, such as Fear, Faerie Fire, or Silence. And nothing stops them from getting a Fireball at later levels, so it’s still worth worrying about.
7Annul Their Spellcasting
Render Them Useless
It’s time to address Counterspell,one of the best spellsin the game for good reason. If one of your players is a spellcaster, having enemies capable of counterspelling them during a fight is a big deal.
They don’t get this spell by default, so you may stop them easily. Even if they get it through Magical Secrets, whenever they Counterspell your Counterspell to proceed with their attack, they’ll still waste two spell slots, which is beneficial for you in the long run.
Still, life is more than Counterspell. Dispel Magic is also pretty useful, and you’re able to also apply conditions to prevent more spells from happening, such as creating areas of silence, paralyzing the target, or even using conditions such as restrained (and paralyzed again) to break their concentration rather than just attacking.
6Play Around With Reactions
Use Bardic Inspiration In Your Favor
One of the best features bards have is their Bardic Inspiration, adding an extra die to the target’s Attack Rolls, Ability Checks, or Saving Throws (and more, depending on the subclass and optional rules). While there isn’t much you can do for Ability Checks and Saving Throws (other than increasing their difficulty), you can play with Attack Rolls.
Along with adding a high armor class to your enemies, you can also add reactions that are triggered whenever they get hit. This means that even if Bardic Inspiration helps get an attack in, there will be a consequence. Whether it’s a counterattack, a teleportation, or movement that doesn’t trigger opportunity attacks, among many other options, you can make the fight more complicated with these reactions.
5Attack Them While They’re Resting
A Fun Challenge For The Whole Group
Though bards only recover their spells during long rests, they can recover their Bardic Inspiration through short rests (depending on their level), which means they’ll try to short rest as much as possible. They can also increase the amount of health everyone will recover during short rests, so the party can proceed without long rests longer.
This means short rests are perfect moments to catch them by surprise, forcing the party to deal with the situation without finishing their rest properly. The bard will likely not recover their Bardic Inspiration in time if that happens, making things harder for them, too.
4Analyze Their Subclass And Role
Bards Can Play Many Different Roles
This tip is a bit broader, sadly, but bards are one of the most versatile classes in the game. We’ve focused a lot on dealing with a bard if they’re casting lots of spells since that’s their basic feature, but what about aCollege of Swordsor Valor, for example?
Once your player has made their subclass choice, it’s up to you to analyze their tricks and the best way to counter them. As ‘martials,’ for example, they can be severely hurt by multiple minions since they lack the same amount of health as fighters or barbarians. You can use weak encounters to study their strategies in battle before finding ways to counter them later.
3Analyze Their Spell Choices
And See Which Ability Score Saves You From Them
Another thing you may analyze through these weak encounters is their signature spells. Bards have a huge list of spells they can get, meaning each bard character can function quite differently from one another.
Many of their spells force enemies into wisdom Saving Throws, for instance, meaning that you may challenge your player by making characters who are good at these rolls. Dexterity and constitution are also others you should look out for, though wisdom is more prominent here.
2Create DCs For Charisma Checks
Don’t Let Them Talk Their Way Out Of Everything
Outside of combat, bards will likely represent the group in important conversations due to their high charisma and proficiency (or expertise) in skills such asPersuasion, Intimidation, or Deception.Prepare specific DCs they need to beat depending on who they’re trying to convince, what they’re asking for, and their argument. Difficulties can range from 15 to even 20, 25, or 30 (a high-level bard can beat 30 if they roll well).
You can also let the enemy’s charisma or wisdom influence the difficulty, making particular characters more stubborn. Trying to convince a noble to help them for no apparent reason should be near impossible, for example.
We recommend saying ‘no’ sometimes rather than letting the player roll. It’s like the famous example of a character rolling Persuasion to convince a King to give up their throne. Unless there’s an excellent in-game argument for that, there’s no reason they can convince the King. Giving agency to players is important, but some things are just impossible.
1Consider Their Other Skills
Bards Are Very Versatile
You can apply the same logic above to other skills, depending on which skills your bard took. Bards can be proficient at any of them, and they’ll even be good with the ones they aren’t proficient thanks to Jack of All Trades, so check their choices and adapt.
Just like combat encounters, let them go through your dungeons and show which skills they are best at, and use that information to create proper challenges in the future. That way, your bard won’t just beat every check they do but also make sure that these checks aren’t impossible for them - they still need to be beatable.
