Bard - College of Glass

by KibblesTasty

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Bard Subclass

College of Glass

At the root a bard is the creation of inspiring and beautiful works of art; a Bard of the College of Glass gives form to the fleeting beauty of their creation in spectacular forms wrought from the air, spun into life as if blown from glass.

Their creations tend to be beautiful and fleeting, inspiring yet oft deadly. Bards that take this college are often Artisans that breath magical life into their creations, a fusion of two paths: art and magic, into something spectacular.

College of Glass Features

Bard Level Feature
3rd Level Glass Artisan, Magic of Glass, Crystalline Creation
6th Level Stained Glass
14th Level Masterwork Creations

Glass Artisan

When you join the College of Glass at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with Glassblower’s tools. If you already have proficiency with Glassblower's tools when you gain this feature, your proficiency bonus is doubled for any ability check you make using Glassblower's tools.

Additionally, you can work glass as if with Glassblower tool's without any tools, using magic.

Magic of Glass

Additionally at 3rd level, you can combine your art and your magic as one. You learn the following glass-versions of spells at the following levels:

Bard Level Spell
3rd glass knife*
3rd mirror reflections*
5th conjure glass menagerie*
7th glass body*
9th glass hand*
11th vitrify*

All spells learned from this feature are Bard spells for you. You can find their effects at the end of the subclass.

Crystalline Creation

Additionally at 3rd level, you gain the ability weave creations from glass out of thin air, spinning them into life with art and magic. As a bonus action, you can expend a Bardic Inspiration to create a glass creation, beautiful and fragile. Select one of the following options:


Glass Weapon:

You weave a simple or martial melee weapon out of glass. You have proficiency with this weapon. When you attack with that weapon, you can use your Charisma modifier, instead of Strength or Dexterity, for the attack and damage rolls.

It has a the properties of a weapon that that it takes the shape of, but half the weight and cannot have the heavy property.

When deal damage with this weapon, you can choose to let it shatter, breaking it and adding an additional die equal to your Bardic Inspiration to weapon's damage dice. For anyone besides the Bard, it shatters the first time it deals damage.

You can have one glass weapon at a time, and it shatters harmlessly one minute after being created if not otherwise broken.


Fragile Familiar:

You give life to a tiny creature woven from glass. It has the statistics and properties of creature summoned by find familiar of your choice, but only lasts for 1 minute. After 1 minute passes it or it's hit points are reduced to zero, it shatters, dealing piercing damage equal to your Bardic die to all creatures within 5 feet of it. You can have only familiar at a time created this way.


Crystal Curio:

You weave a tiny item of your choice out of glass. It must be no larger than a foot on each side and normally made of a single non-magical material. It's weight is halved compared a normal example of that item. Once the item is used once or one minute passes, it shatters harmlessly.

Stained Glass

Starting at 6th level, when you cast a spell provided by Magic of Glass that creates an object or creature or create a glass object using Crystalline Creation, you can stain the glass, coloring it Red, Blue, Yellow, Purple or Green.

Stained glass creatures or objects gain a resistance to a damage type, shattering stained glass or casting a damage dealing spell with it deals an additional 1d4 damage of a specific type matching the color, and a weapon created from stained glass gains the property of a specific magic weapon.

Color of Glass Resistance & Shatter Damage Weapon Property
Red Fire Flametongue
Blue Cold Frostbrand
Yellow Lighting Scimitar of Speed
Purple Force Sword of Wounding
Green Poison Dagger of Venom

Masterwork Creations

Starting at 14th level, your craft moves beyond mere perfection into masterwork creations, granting the following benefits:

  • Weapons or tools created by you from glass using Crystalline Creation add +2 to attack, damage, and ability rolls they are used for.
  • Creations from Crystalline Creation last up to 8 hours.
  • The value of any artistic item you create with Glassblower tools is doubled.
  • You can expend a use of bardic to add an additional color from stained glass to your creation, with one bardic spent per color added.

College of Glass Quirks

The following are some optional quirks for a character in the College of Glass

d6 Quirk
1 You make glass replicas of your party members.
2 You are offended by buildings with broken windows.
3 You find wooden mugs and bowls to be deplorably low class.
4 You believe that life is beautiful but fragile... like glass. Valuable, but easily broken.
5 You often find yourself entraptured by how light shines through different things, particularly when it makes rainbows.
6 You find the spell shatter repulsive.

Glass Magic

Glass Knife

1st level conjuration


  • Casting Time: 1 Action
  • Range: 60 feet (5 ft radius).
  • Components: S, M (a glass bead)
  • Duration: Instantaneous

The spell has the effect of ice knife, but it deals piercing damage instead of cold damage for the area of effect damage.

Mirror Reflections

2nd level illusion


  • Casting Time: 1 Action
  • Range: Self
  • Components: S, M (a glass figurine of yourself)
  • Duration: 1 Minute

The spell has the effect of mirror image, but if a mirror image is destroyed by a melee attack, the attacker takes 2d4 piercing damage.

Conjure Glass Menagerie

3rd level conjuration


  • Casting Time: 1 Action
  • Range: 60 feet
  • Components: S, M (a set of glass animals)
  • Duration: Concentration, Up to 1 hour.

The spell has the effect of conjure animals, but has the following changes:

  • The creature type of the summoned creatures is Construct.
  • The hit points of the creatures is halved.
  • The created creatures have resistance to slashing and lightning damage and vulnerability to bludgeoning and thunder damage.
  • When the creatures are reduced to zero hit points, they shatter. Creatures within 10 feet must make a Dexterity saving throw or take damage from the glass shards. The damage dealt when shattering by the glass shards is four times the creatures CR d4s. If the creature is slain with bludgeoning damage, the damage is increased by 1d4.

Glass Body

4th level illusion


  • Casting Time: 1 Action
  • Range: Touch
  • Components: S, M (a glass figurine)
  • Duration: Concentration, Up to 1 minute.

The spell has the effect of greater invisibility, but the target gains gain resistance to slashing and lightning damage and vulnerability to bludgeoning and thunder damage.

As a bonus action, you can end the spell early causing the effect of shatter centered on yourself.

Glass Hand

5th level conjuration


  • Casting Time: 1 Action
  • Range: 120 feet
  • Components: S, M (glassblower's tools)
  • Duration: Concentration, Up to 1 minute.

The spell has the effect of Bigby’s Hand, but hand is formed from glass and has resistance to slashing and lightning damage and vulnerability to bludgeoning and thunder damage.

As a bonus action, you can end the spell early causing the effect of shatter centered on the hand.

Vitrify

6th level transmutation


  • Casting Time: 1 Action
  • Range: 60 feet (5 ft radius).
  • Components: S, M (a glass bead)
  • Duration: Concentration, Up to 1 minute

The spell has the effect of flesh to stone, but the target is turned to glass instead of stone on their last failure maximum health is reduced to 5 * the creatures size (1 for tiny, 2 for small, 3 for medium, 4 for huge, 5 for gigantic) while it is glass, and it gains a damage threshold of it's maximum health. If it is reduced to zero hit points, it shatters and the creature dies.

Art Credits:
  • Glassblower’s Puzzleknot - MTG - Wizards of the Coast

Change Log

  • Moved Crystalline Creation down to 3rd level and reduced it's power.
  • Added Stained Glass at 6th level.
  • Removed bonus damage from masterwork, added duration instead.

Change Log 1.1

  • Glass Weapon now deals bonus damage equal to Bardic.
  • A bard gains proficiency in glass weapons and can use their charisma to attack with them.
  • The bard can use a glass weapon for multiple attacks.
  • Stained Glass can now be used to make potent magical weapons, but they shatter in one hit for anyone but the bard.

Supported By

Creation is made possible by generous patrons:

  • Andrew Hoertt
  • Angel Gomez
  • Ara Enzeru
  • Austin Fox
  • Chris Lynch
  • Code Ghoul
  • Corbin
  • Garion Pankievich
  • GMBinder
  • HerdSheep
  • Ihileath
  • Issac Dyne
  • James Sant
  • Jacob Herrera
  • Jau
  • Jack
  • Kybernetes
  • Lawrence Eger
  • Long Nguyen
  • Max
  • Michael Magarino
  • Nannette Groft
  • NotoriousOZB
  • Rory Collier
  • Seffykun
  • Seranata
  • Sergio Reyes
  • Spenser Birney
  • Stalwart Maiden
  • Thortron
  • Thought-Knot
  • Unlikely Alpaca
  • Verixa Okblek

...and many more!

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