Bards of the College of Delusion are masters of deception, weaving illusion and persuasion into indistinguishable art. With a silvered tongue and a confident smile, they blur the line between truth and falsehood—bending perception itself to their will. Their words plant ideas like whispers in the mind, guiding others to act as the bard intends while believing it was their own choice. These tricksters thrive on manipulation and misdirection, turning charm and cunning into powerful tools of control.
Level 3: Friendly Guise
You can adopt a persona of charm and approachability, subtly adjusting your tone, posture, and expression to disarm a creature’s suspicions. Choose one creature that can see or hear you within 30 feet. As an Action (which can be a part of an attempt to communicate with it), you force the creature to make a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC. A hostile creature has advantage on the saving throw. On a fail, you gain advantage on all Charisma ability checks made to influence that creature for 1 hour.
This effect ends early if you or your allies damage the creature or otherwise take hostile actions toward it.
Once you use this feature on a creature, you can’t use it again on that same creature until you finish a long rest.
The duration of Friendly Guise increases to 8 hours at 9th level and to 24 hours at 13th level.
Level 3: Seeds of Doubt
When one of your Bard spells causes a creature to be charmed or frightened, you can expend one use of your Bardic Inspiration (no action required) to overwhelm the target’s mind with psychic distress. The target takes psychic damage equal to your Bardic Inspiration die + one additional die for every 2 spell levels above 1st (for example, 2d6 for a 3rd-level spell).
When the spell’s effect ends, the creature immediately takes psychic damage equal to one roll of your Bardic Inspiration die.
This damage doesn’t break charm or fear effects.
Level 6: Compelling Charm
As a Bonus Action, choose one creature that can see or hear you within 60 feet. That creature must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC. On a failed save, it is Charmed by you until the start of your next turn.
While Charmed in this way, the creature has disadvantage on the next saving throw it makes. Once it makes that saving throw, or when the Charm’s duration ends (whichever comes first), the Charm immediately ends.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
Level 14: Irresistible Charm
When you cast a Bard spell that requires a Wisdom saving throw, you can expend one use of Bardic Inspiration to weave irresistible magic into your words. Before the creature rolls its saving throw, increase your spell save DC for that spell by half the number rolled on your Bardic Inspiration die (rounded up).
You can use this feature once per long rest. You can also use an action and expend a 3rd-level spell slot or higher to regain one use of this feature.
Additionally, when you cast a spell that deals psychic damage, it ignores resistance to psychic damage.