Welcome back to the weekly D&D and Tabletop Gaming thread!  Here’s a place where we can talk about Dungeons & Dragons or any other tabletop games that you nerds might be into.  Tell us about the games you’re playing, speculate about future expansions, recruit your fellow Avocados into new groups, whatever you want.

This week we’re looking at the Bard College of Eloquence, a subclass that first appeared in the Mythic Odysseys of Theros book and can now also be found in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. Bards who follow this path are orators more than musicians. They use a mixture of logic, emotional appeals, and clever wordplay to win over their audience, knowing that well-spoken argument can sometimes carry more weight than objective truth.

Starting at 3rd level, your Silver Tongue sets your minimum roll for Persuasion or Deception checks at a 10 (plus modifier), as you can treat any roll of 9 or lower for those skills as a 10 instead.

Also at level 3, you know how to use Unsettling Words to plant a seed of self-doubt in another creature’s mind. As a bonus action, you can choose a creature within 60 feet of you and roll one of your Bardic Inspiration dice. The creature must substract the number rolled from the next saving throw it makes before the start of your next turn. Note that there is no saving throw or ability check associated with this ability–it just happens.

At 6th level, your words are so powerfully persuasive that they grant Unfailing Inspiration. Whenever an ally uses one of your Bardic Inspiration dice and still fails on their attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, they can keep the Inspiration die and use it again on their next roll, until the roll succeeds.

Also at level 6, you can make yourself understood by any audience with Universal Speech. As an action, you can designate a number of creatures within 60 feet of you up to your CHA modifier who will magically understand your speech, no matter what language you speak. This lasts for 1 hour, and can only be used once per long rest, unless you expend a spell slot to use it again.

Finally, at 14th level, the power of your oration is so great that you can bestow Infectious Inspiration on your allies. Whenever someone uses your inspiration to succeed on an attack roll, ability check, or save, you can use your reaction to give a different creature within 60 feet of you a Bardic Inspiration die, without expending one from your total. Note that you can’t target yourself with this reaction, and you can only use this ability a number of times equal to your CHA modifier each day.

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[spoiler title=”Players and Characters”]Wafflicious is in the DM’s seat for this 5e Cthulhu Mythos adventure. Our players include:

• JosephusBrown as Anton Illinois (Human Inquisitive Rogue/Fighter), a disgraced archaeology professor who has turned to seeking arcane rituals
• CleverGuy as Bastian Updelver (Deep Gnome Alchemist Artificer), an eccentric local potionmaker
• TheHayesCode as Hazel Green (Dhampir Spirits Bard), a flapper, séance MC, and aspiring spiritualist
• Spiny Creature as Ku (Kenku Twilight Cleric), a local priestess of Bastet, goddess of protection
• The Wasp as Leah Zann (Tiefling Great Old One Warlock), a professor from Miskatonic University who accepted a deal with Yog Sothoth to get an advantage over her male colleagues
• Otto as Minty Rocksmasher (Dwarf Berserker Barbarian), survivor of an eldritch accident which decimated her tribe[/spoiler]

TheHayesCode wrote our recap this week. Thanks, Hayes!

[spoiler title=”Rescue and Retreat”]

Well, here we are, Diary, still stuck in this snake-hole but hopefully working our way towards the surface. Cathbad went out scouting and came back with a report that Sarai was off in another room, chained up and being whipped by one of the slithery sneaks! Of course, we had to rescue her, even if a couple of our so-called compatriots weren’t interested in helping. Hmph! Hazel Green never leaves a pal behind. Especially when she’s got a big, angry troll to hide behind.

With Bitey on our side, we burst in to the rescue! Minty smashed down the door and when the big cheese’s lumpy little minions rushed us, I lit ‘em up with a little St. Elmo’s fire! We hoped the little ones would run off once their big, mean boss was flattened, but instead, they got even madder! No accounting for loyalty, I guess.

No sooner had we finished stomping the snakes and rescuing Sarai then something even worse showed up. One of the little creeps got away and squealed to someone even worse, and now we had a couple of those awful spidery things breathing down our necks, plus a spell-slinger who dropped a smelly poison cloud right into the room.

Well, there wasn’t much your gal Hazel could do about all this, since my galloping ghosties follow my lovely lilted commands, and thanks to a silence spell in the room my lilting was wilting. Plus the troll was running for his life, which is usually a sign that it’s time to retreat.

Well, I booked it like nobody’s business, but I guess all that trudging through the jungle has really tightened up the old stems because I got ahead of the others. I almost hit a dead end where a bunch of our compatriots were holed up – they’d rescued another missing person – but I just yelled for ‘em that we were making a run for it, and to follow me.

Trying another route, I found a path up to another level of this wicked warren, a long, winding hall leading to heavy stone doors. The others caught up to me and we regrouped. Turned out the others set a room on fire behind us, then sealed up the doors, getting us out of danger – for now, anyway.

Now we’ve been poking around in this area, trying the doors and seeing what we can find. We’ve already recovered another prisoner and found a stockpile of gold and silver that could’ve given Bitey a hernia! Sure hope Minty doesn’t ask for too much extra for schlepping it out for us…

They were just about to open another door as I’m writing this, and from the hissing and growling echoing down the hall, my nimble noodle can draw a couple conclusions. They’ve got it open – and I’ve gotta go!

[/spoiler]