College of Heavy Metal (5e Subclass)
College of Heavy Metal[edit]
Bard Subclass
A bard of the college of heavy metal plays at blazing speeds and earth-shaking volume. You can’t kill the metal, and if you’re unlucky, the metal may just kill you. Their very music is a weapon against the senses of their foes, of which there are many. Prudes, preachers and those afraid of deafening freedom, just to name a few. One way or another, the metal will prevail.
- Bonus Proficiencies
When you join the College of Heavy Metal at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with Woodcarver’s Tools, Medium and Heavy Armor and Greataxes, Pikes and Mauls.
- Fighting Style
At 3rd level, you adopt a particular style of fighting as your specialty. Choose one of the following options. You can't take a Fighting Style option more than once, even if you later get to choose again.
Duelling. When you are wielding a melee weapon in one hand and no other weapons, you gain a +2 bonus to damage rolls with that weapon.
Great Weapon Fighting. When you roll a 1 or 2 on a damage die for an attack you make with a melee weapon that you are wielding with two hands, you can reroll the die and must use the new roll, even if the new roll is a 1 or a 2. The weapon must have the two-handed or versatile property for you to gain this benefit.
Two-Weapon Fighting. When you engage in two-weapon fighting, you can add your ability modifier to the damage of the second attack.
- Overkill
At 3rd level, you learn how to truly weaponize your music. Using Woodcarver’s Tools, you can spend 1 hour and a weapon to customise a musical instrument. You can do this during a short or long rest. The instrument now functions as both the weapon used to make it and the original instrument. When wielding this weaponised instrument, you can perform some special actions, as follows:
Power Chord. By playing your weaponised instrument, you can fire a concussive blast of sound. Make a ranged spell attack against a target you can see within 90 feet, a burst of sound zooms toward the target, dealing 1d10 thunder damage on a hit. This attack functions like an attack from the pre-selected weapon for the purposes of attack roll and damage roll bonuses.
Mosh Pit. As an action, you can play your weaponised instrument and let out a wave of primal music. The wave has a 15-foot radius centred on you, and extends around corners, similar to the fireball spell. Any creature hit by the blast in the 15-foot radius must succeed on a strength saving throw or be thrown away from you outside of the radius, knocked prone, and take 1d6 thunder damage. On a success, the creature is not moved and is not knocked prone, but still takes the thunder damage. Instead of a 15-foot radius, you can choose to effect a 20-foot cone instead, originating from your instrument.
Hand of Doom. As an action, you can play your weaponised instrument and create a doom-laden whine, sending a haunting wave in a 30-foot radius around you. If there are three or less creatures other than yourself within the radius, each must make a wisdom saving throw. If there are more than three creatures other than yourself within the radius, the saves are done in order of the closest creature to you, to the farthest. Once either three creatures have failed the saving throw, or all creatures in range have made saving throws, whichever comes first, no more creatures need to make saving throws. If a creature fails the saving throw, it takes 1d6 thunder damage, and is then frightened of you until the end of your next turn.
Metal on Metal. When you successfully hit a creature with a melee weapon attack with your weaponised instrument, you can play a short riff or ostinato as a part of the attack action, overwhelming the target. Expend a use of your Bardic Inspiration to roll a bardic inspiration die and add an amount of thunder damage equal to the number rolled on the die to the attack. You can use this once per turn.
When a creature makes a saving throw against an effect from this feature, the DC equals your spell save DC. When you make your weaponised instrument, you can choose up to four creatures you know of. These creatures can choose to completely ignore any effects of this trait when subjected to them, and you can change which creatures you give this benefit to upon completing a long rest.
The amount of damage dice on each effect increases at certain levels. 2 dice at 5th level, 3 dice at 11th level and 4 dice at 17th level. For example, at 5th level, your Power Chord would deal 2d10 thunder damage, your Mosh Pit would deal 2d6 thunder damage, your Hand of Doom would deal 2d6 thunder damage and your Metal on Metal would deal thunder damage equal to two rolls of your bardic inspiration die. Even at 5th level and above, Metal on Metal still only costs one use of Bardic Inspiration.
The weapons that are compatible with this feature are Greataxes, Pikes, Mauls, Rapiers, Longswords and Shortswords. Your DM may allow other weapons, the only rule being they must be melee weapons. Some weapon-instrument combinations may seem impractical or impossible, such as a rapier and a lute, but whether certain weapon combinations are viable is left up to both player ingenuity and DM discretion.
- Extra Attack
Starting at 6th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.
- Metal Lord
At 14th level, you have ascended to become a metal lord. The DC for saving throws from your Overkill feature is increased by 2. Additionally, when you use the Metal on Metal effect of the Overkill feature, you can choose to not expend a use of Bardic Focus to do so, but the damage is limited to 1d8 thunder.
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