A Guide to the Best Feats for Bards in Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) 5E

Bards are an excellent all around character, with practical spellcasting, good skills, decent hit points and armor, and excellent supporting qualities. Bards excel in terms of versatility and are an excellent choice for anyone who wants to have something up their sleeve in both combat and social situations.

Depending on the kind of bard you want to play and the subclass you choose, certain choices might be of more value to you than others as each character and play style is always going to be different. Nevertheless, this list should give you insight into why each choice is of value to you, and help you determine which you want to use.

Inspiring Leader:

This feat is at the bottom of the list because comparatively, it is not that good. But, it does have its uses. Inspiring Leader allows you to give a speech and give up to 6 friendly creatures temporary hit points equal to their level plus their charisma modifier. While this might not seem like too many, a creature can benefit from this feat again after a short or long rest. It might not be too many hit points, but it will decrease the load of healing from your dedicated healer, especially if that is also you, and since you can use it multiple times per day as long as a rest is used in between, then it can be of value if you decided to take multiple rests, such as when dungeon crawling or on a long travel day.

Silver Tongued:

This feat is Unearthed Arcana, which means your DM may or may not allow it, so check with them before you decide to take it. You immediately gain a +1 to your Charisma score and you gain proficiency in Deception. If you’re already proficient you essentially gain Expertise in it, and it never hurts to have more Expertise. Lastly instead of one of the attacks on an attack action, you can deceive a humanoid you can see within 30 feet by making an opposed Deception check to their Insight. If you succeed, you do not provoke Attacks of Opportunity and your attack rolls have advantage until the end of your next turn. If you fail, you can’t deceive the same target for an hour. This feat is excellent for Bards who find themselves in melee more often, especially for College of Swords Bards.

Spell Sniper:

Opposite of the Silver Tongued ability, Spell Sniper is for squishier bards who want to focus on hitting their opponents from even further away. First and foremost you gain an additional attack cantrip, and can be from other spell lists, which means you can grab things Eldritch Blast. Spell Sniper also doubles the range of spells you cast that have an attack roll and gives the ability to ignore 1/2 and 3/4 cover with those attack spells, which is quite useful!

Magic Initiate:

This feat gives you additional cantrips, even ones from another class, in addition they also learn a 1st level spell from another class’s list, though it can only be used once per long rest. Since Bards have a limit to the spells they know, this helps Augment their Magical Secrets ability to gain even more spells from different classes.

Fey Touched:

Taking this feat nets you Misty Step, which is a very useful spell you normally would not have access to, and a 1st level Divination of Enchantment spell and you can increase either Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma by 1, though unsurprisingly this bonus will probably be going into Charisma to get your primary spellcasting stat as high as possible!

Actor:

You gain a +1 to Charisma as well as Advantage on some Deception and Performance checks, which obviously works well for most Bards. This is a particularly fun feat for games that have a higher level of roleplaying than combat. It also makes sense to talk to your DM about how they will play with this feat and how many different rolls you might be able to get advantage from.

Warcaster:

This is basically a go-to for any fullcaster, it allows you to hold things while casting, even if your hands are full, it allows you to make Attacks of Opportunity with a spell as a reaction and it gives advantage on Constitution saves to avoid losing Concentration, which is certainly the most important part. In any campaign that has a fair level of combat or higher, Warcaster is potentially the first feat any full caster should get simply because of the value of not losing concentration over the course of a fight.

Lucky:

This is probably the most banned feat per table for a reason, but it is also extremely good. Taking this feat gives you 3 luck points that allow you to roll an extra d20 when you make an attack roll, ability check or saving throw, or to make an enemy reroll. It’s like having the ability to give yourself advantage or an enemy disadvantage, because of this it is extremely handy. You have to decide to use Luck before you know the outcome of the die, but after you roll it, so if you have a shitty roll or an enemy has a good one, it is very easy to assume the outcome and use Lucky.

Skill Expert or Skilled:

Skill Expert allows you to increase one of your ability scores by one. It also gives you one skill proficiency and gives you expertise in one skill you don’t already have expertise in. Skilled simply gives you 3 skill proficiencies. If you are choosing to be more of a skill monkey type character closer to a rogue, either of these feats are extremely good options.

Metamagic Adept:

Perhaps one of the best feats in the game, Metamagic Adept allows you two Metamagics as if you were a Sorcerer and 2 Sorcery Points as well. These can be useful for a variety of choices, such as twinning spells, quickening, empowering or taking distant or subtle to keep yourself safe. There are simply enough metamagics to almost always make this feat worth it, and it’s one of the best spellcasting feats in the game.

If you like this article or any others I have written, consider liking, subscribing, tipping or pledging here on Vocal as it really helps me continue writing! If you're looking for other Bard articles follow the links below!

• Archetypes for Bards
• Backstories for Bards
• Backstories for Bards Pt. 2
• Magic Items for Bards
• Best Spells for Bards

If you're looking for the best feat choices for any other class, simply follow the links below!

• Artificer
• Barbarian
• Bard
• Cleric
• Druid
• Fighter
• Monk
• Paladin
• Ranger
• Rogue
• Sorcerer
• Warlock
• Wizard