Best Feats for Bards 5e

Amazing Feats for Bards

• Inspiring Leader: Your high CHA modifier will certainly make this viable if you are able to get the time before a fight.
• Lucky: Because of Jack of All Trades, Bardic Inspiration, and Expertis, bards are usually relied on to be a skill monkey. Lucky helps ensure you don’t mess up when you need to succeed for your party.

Great Feats for Bards

• Divinely Favored: Bards can utilize spells like healing word or guiding bolt effectively, and sacred flame is a solid offensive cantrip for them. The flexibility of the holy symbol focus is beneficial for martial builds, like Swords or Valor bards.
• Eldritch Adept: Choose the Mask of Many Faces Invocation and cast disguise self at will to go with your great CHA modifier.
• Fey Touched: Great half-feat to boost CHA, pickup misty step, and a 1st-level spell. Seeing as the bard already gets access to most of the powerful spells in the Divination and Enchantment schools, bless would be a great pickup for bards looking for a bit more party-buffing capabilities. Hunter's mark and hex won't offer bards a whole lot of value as they are more often than not casting debuff/buff spells rather than damage spells. If you're playing a Valor or Swords bard, hunter's mark is a great choice.
• Magic Initiate: Magic Initiate a solid pick, no matter what you choose. There are a ton of great wizard spells to add to a bard’s setlist, and double-dipping into bard again offers more utility by allowing you to have more cantrips. Bards don’t get a lot of damage spells so taking something like eldritch blast would also be a great choice here.
• Metamagic Adept: Bards will love the ability to cast their spells subtly to avoid counterspells and weave big AoE effects, like hypnotics pattern, around friendlies. Only getting two sorcery points is a bummer, but bards can still make those points work for them to produce insane value.
• Rune Shaper: If you're looking for more damage options, you can grab chromatic orb, inflict wounds, and burning hands
• Scion of the Outer Planes: Both chill touch or sacred flame are going to be nice bonuses in your cantrip repertoire that sorely lacks damage spells.
• Shadow Touched: Most bards can get away with this, as they’re much more apt to use a free invisibility spell or other illusion magic. I don’t see a lot of situations where a bard wouldn’t want to pick this feat over others, especially when they have an odd CHA score.
• Skill Expert: Bards are one of the classes that are often relied on to succeed on skill checks outside of combat. With the class feature Jack of all Trades and bards already receiving expertise at 3rd and 10th level, this feat is a solid pick. You can’t pick the same skill twice, but you can heavily specialize in a few that you want to guarantee results.
• Telepathic: This feat is great for a party's face. Not only does it boost Charisma, but you can relate your thoughts back to your party while in social interactions and even use detect thoughts to subtly influence conversations.
• War Caster: Advantage on CON saves and casting spells as opportunity attacks are both beneficial components of this feat. You really need this if you are a College of Sword bard or a College of Valor bard.

Good Feats for Bards

• Alert: Being up higher in the Initiative order can be very valuable for a Bard as it allows them to drop a big spell like Hypnotic Pattern, lock down an enemy with Hideous Laughter, and dish out some Bardic Inspiration before the enemy has a chance to react.
• Chef: A great supplement, who doesn't like a dinner and a show? This isn't as potent as your healing spells, but it pairs really well with Song of Rest for a lot of healing.
• Gift of the Gem Dragon: Decent reaction-based attack that can buy you some space from attackers, all while boosting your Charisma.
• Gift of the Metallic Dragon: Bards don't normally get shield so this is a solid defensive boost. The free cure wounds is meh, but you can't complain about free healing.
• Gunner: Gunner isn’t a bad choice for flavor reasons, as bards typically do ranged damage anyway. This is an excellent alternative if you want to rely less on spells for damage.
• Healer: The additional healing resources this feat offers in Battlefield Medic, as well as the boost to healing from Healing Rerolls, makes this a decent choice for Bards who will be taking on a more support role for their party.
• Medium Armor Master: Can't be used with most bards, but Valor or Swords bards looking for a bit of extra AC will be well suited as they normally stack into Dexterity.
• Outlands Envoy: Unless you're some kind of inter-species negotiator for your party, Fey Touched is going to provide more value.
• Piercer: DEX-based bards who want to stay at a range with crossbows should pick this feat up. The same goes for College of Swords or College of Valor since you can use rapiers for melee weapons.
• Resilient: Proficiency with CON saving throws (which includes concentration checks) and +1 CON isn’t anything to turn your nose up at, especially if you’re a melee-focused bard. That said, they will likely get more value out of War Caster because it allows them to cast spells as opportunity attacks.
• Spell Sniper: Great way to pick up eldritch blast, which can significantly improve your bard's damage output.
• Telekinetic: Bards can get some decent mileage out of Telekinetic but tend to already have mage hand anyway. It gives them a little more breathing room and crowd control in a tight spot. Keep in mind that the Shove requires a bonus action, which bards already have a use for in their Bardic Inspiration.
• Tough: More hit points are always nice, but this feat is likely unnecessary unless you'll be in melee combat with a College of Swords/Valor build.

Situationally Useful Feats for Bards

• Agent of Order: Bards aren't known for their ability to output damage, and a turn you spend buffing, debuffing, or healing is a turn where you can't use this ability. Also, it doesn't really work with one of the bard's favorite spells, dissonant whispers.
• Baleful Scion: While healing when you output damage is a useful ability, bard's already have access to solid healing spells and are quite often going to spend their turn buffing or debuffing, not outputting damage.
• Defensive Duelist: Not a bad choice, especially for melee bards. College of Valor and Swords will allow you to benefit from this feat.
• Dual Wielder: Bards generally focus on spells and abilities that support their allies, making the Dual Wielder feat a less optimal choice. Bards could potentially utilize this feat if they're pursuing a more combat-oriented build, like College of Swords or Valor. That said, Bardic Inspiration and some of their most popular spells require their bonus action, making this feat a bit clunky for them.
• Durable: Nothing particularly exciting here for a bard.
• Elven Accuracy: Bards typically are a mix of spellcasting and ranged attacks so that they can benefit from this feat some of the time. That said, this feat is far from a must-have.
• Ember of the Fire Giant: The fire resistance, Constitution bump, and AoE effect offers a decent defensive and offensive boost to bards that will be in close melee distance.
• Fade Away: The ASIs aren't great, but you could still potentially boost your Stealth and AC through increasing Dexterity. In most cases, bards are out of combat enough that they'd rather take Shadow Touched and get access to the invisibility spell, rather than Fade Away's reaction.
• Fey Teleportation: Getting extra CHA is great for bars, but there are better feats out there. If you really want to get misty step, I would suggest picking up the Fey Touched feat instead, as you can get two spells in one feat.
• Fury of the Frost Giant: You have too many reaction-based spells to want to use this.
• Guile of the Cloud Giant: Seeing as you can pump Charisma with this half-feat, it is decently useful for keeping your bard alive. Still, Fey Touched is likely a better option if you're looking for misty step.
• Heavily Armored: Decent way to boost your AC, but with a 13 Strength score, you might as well take a level of fighter at 1st level for the heavy armor proficiency and other goodies. This is especially true if you're going for a Valor or Swords bard.
• Keenness of the Stone Giant: Seeing as the only ability you'd be able to use this with is Constitution, your attack rolls and the DC of the prone ability will be relatively weak. Plus, this may interfere with doling out Bardic Inspiration.
• Linguist: Bards might find the ability to learn additional languages useful for their role as social butterflies, but they might not get as much use out of the Intelligence boost.
• Martial Adept: This feat is not for spellcasting bards, but Valor and Swords bards wouldn't mind getting some of the Battle Master's maneuvers. Unfortunately, only getting one superiority dice per short/long rest, which drastically limits the effectiveness of this feat.
• Mobile: This is a stellar feat if you want to go for a skirmisher with the College of Valor or College of Swords. However, spellcasting or supportive Bards should pass on this, as they don’t want to be in melee for long at all.
• Moderately Armored: Being able to pick up medium armor and a shield can pump your AC by +4 and up to +5 if you take disadvantage on stealth checks. Only take this if you don’t get these proficiencies through your subclass.
• Observant: Bards already have a ton of skill bonuses, so this feat can either make them a monster or just more varied overall. However, keep in mind that you don’t need either stat.
• Poisoner: Some bards who want to lean into a rogue archetype might like this. However, they will only benefit from poisoning weapons and ammo, as they don’t know any poison spells innately. The biggest factor that gets in the way of melee bard's use of Poisoner is Bardic Inspiration, which also takes a bonus action and can be more impactful than effect of this feat.
• Righteous Heritor: If your bard is already stacked up with counterspell and silvery barbs, you likely already have a better use for your reaction than Soothe Pain. Otherwise, this is a decent way to further support your party.
• Second Chance: Bards have access to counterspell and silvery barbs, both of which are better than this feat.
• Sharpshooter: Bards get a little use out of it with various ranged weapons. Sharpshooter offers a good damage option outside of spellcasting.
• Skulker: This feat makes sense since most bards will be far away from the front line. It allows them to hide and support the team, playing as a pseudo-rogue. This feat works incredibly well for College of Whispers bards, as it will enable them to torment their foes from afar.
• Squat Nimbleness: Not much of use here, unless you're playing a halfing (or other Small race) Swords or Valor bard.
• Weapon Master: This could maybe be useful if you wanted to stat into a bard with a bow with choosing the College of Valor.

Bad Feats for Bards

• Athlete: Nothing here for a bard.
• Cohort of Chaos: Unfortunately, this is too unpredictable to be a efficient use of a feat.
• Crafter: With their assortment of spells, it's very unlikely Bards will need to craft anything.
• Crossbow Expert: Very few bard builds fit the bill of this feat. Bards aren't one to use crossbows, and even if they do they don't get extra attacks. Additionally, very few of their spells make ranged attacks, so it doesn't matter if their target is within 5 feet. Lastly, their bonus action will likely be taken up with handing out Bardic Inspiration, which conflicts with the attack granted by this feat. Valor and Swords bards are more often than not going to be melee fighters, who are also disinterested with this feat's effects.
• Crusher: Most bards won’t be in melee range, so this is a skip. Both of the melee subclasses can potentially use this feat, but I think they would be better off with more flexible utility feats like Lucky or Mobile.
• Elemental Adept: Most of your spells cover various damage types, so this is a skip. None of the subclasses work well with this feat either.
• Fighting Initiate: Most bards won't be able to this feat. College of Swords already get one fighting style, which will be all that subclass will ever need. College of Valor bards, on the other hand, don't get any fighting styles so they could certainly benefit from the AC buff of Defense or the damage boost of Dueling
• Gift of the Chromatic Dragon: Most bards don't make weapon attacks, so they can skip this. For Valor and Swords bards, this is okay, but they don't normally make enough attacks in a single combat to make this worthwhile. Plus, they have Bardic Inspiration or heat metal as bonus actions, which may interfere with activating this ability.
• Grappler: Nothing here for a Bard.
• Great Weapon Master: Bards cannot use Heavy weapons unless they are in the College of Valor subclass. Even then they will need a hand free to cast spells with their instrument, meaning this feat doesn’t work that well for them.
• Heavy Armor Master: Bards don't get proficiency with heavy armor.
• Keen Mind: Nothing here for a bard.
• Lightly Armored: Already has access to light armor at the start.
• Mage Slayer: I’d find it hard to think of a bard who would value this feat. Most bards are not in the front lines; they don’t typically want to spend their turns in melee range unless they need to. College of Valor and College of Swords can use this feat but need to make sure they can survive the frontlines.
• Mounted Combatant: Most bards don’t want to be up close for too long, except perhaps a College of Swords or College of Valor bard.
• Orcish Fury: Nothing here for a bard.
• Planar Wanderer: A bard with an expertise in Arcana and a stacked Intelligence ability that's a portal-cracking mastermind could be a fun and unique character, as long as you encounter interplanar travel frequently in your campaign. Otherwise, this feat doesn't do enough to be worthwhile.
• Polearm Master: Most bards won’t find Polearm Master very useful, as they typically don’t want to be on the frontlines. The College of Valor bard can undoubtedly use the features provided to up their damage potential. College of Swords bards will want to stick with a spear or quarterstaff to make the most of their Dueling Fighting Style.
• Revanent Blade: Most bards can skip this, but Valor and Swords bards will love access to the best Dexterity-based weapon in the game. Unfortunately, the double-bladed scimitar's bonus action will interfere with your bard's Bardic Inspiration usage.
• Ritual Caster: Bards won't want to invest the Intelligence or Wisdom necessary to take this feat when they could just take Magic Initiate.
• Savage Attacker: Skip this feat.
• Sentinel: Most won’t typically want to be in melee range that much, so this feat doesn’t benefit them. College of Valor bards might find better use of this, but it’s still not perfect. Those who are in the College of Swords subclass will find better use out of this, as they’re a little better off with weapon attacks.
• Shield Master: Bards can’t use shields outside of the College of Valor subclass, and they generally want a hand free for instruments to cast spells. Even when using the College of Valor subclass, they are more likely to stack into DEX than STR.
• Slasher: Bards won’t care much for this feat unless they prefer to be in melee range. College of Valor bards might be more interested if they want slashing weapons.
• Soul of the Storm Giant: Nothing here for a bard.
• Strike of the Giants: Bards won't be making melee weapon attacks nearly enough for this feat to pay off. Even if you go Valor or Swords bard, your Strength or Constitution won't be high enough to make the save effects count.
• Tavern Brawler: Nothing here for a Bard.
• Vigor of the Hill Giant: Seeing as you have Song of Rest, you've already got extra healing during short rests covered for your whole party.

Other Bard Guides

• Bard 5e Overview
• Bard Races
• Bard Subclasses Overview
• Bard Spells
• College of Creation
• College of Valor

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Mike Bernier

Mike Bernier is the lead content writer and founder of Arcane Eye. He is a Adamantine best-selling author of Strixhaven: A Syllabus of Sorcery on DMs Guild and is a contributing author at D&D Beyond. Follow Mike on Twitter.