Go Metal With Your 'Dungeons & Dragons' Bard

A new third-party Dungeons & Dragons subclass allows players to turn their bard into a rock metal god capable of converting power chords into actual magic.

Earlier this week, Brian Patterson released a new "College of Metal" bardic subclass on DMs Guild, a Wizards of the Coast affiliated site that allows third parties to publish material using D&D intellectual property. While bards are typically seen as the comic relief of a Dungeons & Dragons' campaign, the College of Metal embraces the darkness and power of heavy metal music and turns bards into death dealing, thunder wielding musicians of destruction.

The College of Metal presents two options for players, allowing them to choose from a Thunder or Death discipline. Choosing Thunder allows bards to call down lightning using their power chords, granting them the ability to add Lightning damage when they make a melee attack. The Death discipline focuses on the dark lyrics of heavy metal music, converting it to Necrotic damage when they make a melee attack. Both disciplines also allow players to learn a specific spell (either Call Lightning or Hunger of Hadar) that they can expend Bardic Inspiration on to gain some extra benefits.

Interestingly, the College of Metal requires bards to enter melee in order to fully utilize their abilities, and players gain proficiency in several types of weapons that thematically fit with their newfound college. However, the College of Metal doesn't add any armor proficiencies, so players will need to either multiclass or take a feat if they don't want to go down in an epic blaze of glory in every combat encounter.

The College of Metal seems like a fun subclass, one that embraces the mystique of metal at its thematic core. Some might scoff at a metal bard, but they won't be laughing after a bard literally melts their faces off during an epic guitar solo.

College of Metal is available to purchase and download for $2.99 on the DMs Guild.