The 5E supplement Bard College of Percussion is a 32-page product that contains two new bardic colleges relating to the type of instruments played by bards, as well as new spells, magic items, a faction and a short adventure.
Character Options
The two new bardic colleges are:
- The Pitched-Percussion Bards
- The Non-Pitched-Percussion Bards
Strictly speaking, it’s one bardic college with two different paths.
The first presents various ways of using your bardic inspiration dice to heal, although the wording of these abilities is often unclear. “Healing Melodies” can be used “when you use a bonus action on your turn”, so I presume that if you don’t have a way of performing a bonus action, you can’t use it? Meanwhile, “Mending Harmonies” has the unusual text of “Before using Mending Harmonies, choose one or more Bardic Inspiration dice you wish to cast aid, lesser restoration, healing word, or calm emotions on anyone within 60 feet of you who can hear you.” I understand what the text means, but it’s not written well.
The second has an ability that I’d never allow: At third level, you can use any bludgeoning weapon as if it had finesse. Beware the maul-equipped bard! The rest of the college has some intriguing abilities – I like using drums to induce panic! – but some seem more powerful than the features that other bardic colleges grant.
Three new backgrounds – street musician, military drummer, and shaman – provide options for these potential percussionists to have varied histories. I particularly like the idea of the military drummer, but the shaman manages to have nothing about them that links them to the theme of the book save that they have a percussion instrument in their starting equipment. I could imagine a shaman (or his apprentice) drumming to go into a trance, but that possibility isn’t mentioned. The street musician has a feature that allows them to spend an hour on an impromptu performance that nets up to 5d10 gold, and even 2d6 gold isn’t unlikely. This ability also reduces spectator’s Perception checks. This mechanic is unbalanced and makes the downtime activities in the Player’s Handbook and Xanathar’s Guide to Everything look underpowered, to say nothing of every other background’s feature.
Equipment and Magic
Four pages detail various types of percussion instruments, with prices, descriptions and, often, pictures. I find these nicely judged and one of the better features in the book.
A further five pages detail magical items, not all of which are related to percussion instruments. I quite like the mallets of Gruumsh, which can temporarily blind creatures they hit. Likewise, the idle swiftly, a dholak that allows you to cast the haste and slow spells has useful abilities and an evocative description. The less said about the name of “Bombo’s Transmenificator” the better, however.
I’m a little surprised there are no new bardic spells.
Dungeon Master Material
The book also provides a faction of kobold bards and their lair, which provides an adventure location for four level 2 characters.
Unusually, characters can join the kobold faction. The faction details beneficial ranks gained with renown, and it also has missions that characters can undertake.
All of which makes it very strange that their lair seems to be the adventure site. I expect you’re meant to use the seeds in the missions as quests the kobolds grant the players. The lair itself is mostly uninteresting, except for a giant egg guarded by the kobolds – the adventure provides several possibilities for what it is. That can be used by a DM to good effect!
Three NPCs round out the product. One is the leader of the kobolds, another is a wood elf hermit, but the best and most intriguing is a giant blue-ringed octopod, whose arms can hold many percussive hammers at once. I appreciate seeing such invention.
Final Thoughts
I found some of the character options in Bard College of Percussion are of questionable balance and use, but the new equipment, magic items and non-player characters provide intriguing material for the Dungeon Master. The adventure material displays good imagination and creativity, and I’d use the product more for that than for its player options.