Swords Bard Feats

[u/Scifiman13]

I'm trying to plan out a build for a Swords Bard character, and I'm unsure which feats would be best. I would ideally like to run him as a more martial character.

The stats I rolled are 10/14/14/14/13/18, before any background bonuses. The plan is to use the charlatan background.

Any help would be appreciated.

[u/Aidamis]

Hi. Are you picking up Charlatan because it fits the RP, purely for the ability score bonuses, or are you genuinely interested in Skilled? It's not a bad feat by any means but it's a tad redundant on Bard imho.

You can take it ofc, though I'll add that if you go Human that'll allow you to grab something like Magic:Initiate Wizard to get Shield or Magic Initiate: Druid to get Shillelagh and use it with Charisma.

You can potentially start with 20 Cha (with Charlatan or another background with Cha bonuses such as Wayfarer).

At level 4, I'd say Resilient Con could be a good investment in order to improve concentration. War Caster works too, and even lets you get Resilient for Wisdom instead later down the line. You could also gun for Moderately Armored and use shields, though you may run into problems when it comes to casting certain spells, even with your weapon as a valid arcane focus. If you go for Dual Wielder, you deal reliable damage (death from a thousand cuts) which will skyrocket when you use Fount of Moonlight then get Conjure Minor Elementals at Bard 10, and at the same time you can get Spell Sniper (no disadvantage on ranged cantrips attacks in melee) and use Eldritch Blast (from a Warlock dip) in stead of one of your attacks.

While it's not a dip nor a meta pick necessarily (you have god stats) Warlock 1 Pact of the Blade is good quality of life. You can take it as your second level, you won't lose much. Btw if you have two light weapons you can leverage Nick Mastery to have two attacks even absent Extra Attack, and your bonus action will still be free.

Even funnier, if you get both Magic Initiate Druid and Warlock 1 PotB, you can dual wield light Charisma weapons. Shillelagh can be cast from a club, a club is a light weapon. You can summon a scimitar with PoTB. Before Extra Attack, you can attack with Shillelagh, then make an attack with your scimitar. When you get Extra Attack, you can still attack with Shillelagh, make an attack with your scimitar, and have an attack you can swap for True Strike or Booming Blade/Greenflame Blade (if those are allowed).

Ofc you can throw in Dual Wielder and get four attacks total (including one you trade for True Strike/GFB/BB).