College of Lore
A Bard College of scholars that gains three extra skills, Cutting Words to subtract from enemy rolls and spells from any class.
Identity
The College of Lore is the Bard College of scholars and curators. Lore Bards work in court libraries, abbey archives, legal-aid offices and the back rooms of used-data shops in the spinward sectors. Their channeling rests on cited authority, and a Lore Bard's chant is half song and half index.
Features
- L3 Cutting Words
You gain proficiency with three additional skills of your choice. Additionally, when a creature you can see and hear within 60 feet makes an attack roll, ability check, or damage roll, you can use your reaction to expend one use of Bardic Inspiration, roll the die and subtract the result from the creature's roll. You can use this feature after the creature makes its roll, but before the GM determines whether the roll succeeds or fails (and before damage is rolled, for a damage roll). The creature is immune if it cannot hear you or if it is immune to being Charmed.
- L7 Additional Magical Secrets
You learn two spells of your choice from any class. A spell chosen must be of a level you can cast, or a cantrip. The chosen spells count as Bard spells for you, and they are additional spells known beyond your normal spells-known limit (these do not count against the Magical Secrets pool gained at 10th level).
- L11 Peerless Skill
When you make an ability check, you can expend one use of Bardic Inspiration, roll your Bardic Inspiration die and add the result to the check. You can do this after seeing the d20 result but before the GM declares whether the check succeeds. If the check still fails after the Inspiration die, the use is not expended. You can also include one tool proficiency of your choice among your Expertise choices. Your proficiency bonus is doubled for ability checks you make with that tool.
- L15 Verbal Mastery
As a bonus action on your turn, you can choose one creature within 60 feet that can hear and understand you. That creature has disadvantage on Charisma saving throws until the start of your next turn. You can use this feature a number of times per long rest equal to your Charisma modifier (minimum 1). You also have advantage on Charisma (Persuasion, Deception and Intimidation) checks made against creatures that have heard you speak for at least 1 minute in the preceding hour.
- L18 Untold Tale Capstone
Once per long rest, you can spend 10 minutes performing an act of narrative reframing, such as a told tale, a published correction, a courtroom intervention or a viral broadcast. The performance rewrites one minor detail of recent history in the social and legal record of a community within range of it, such as a city precinct, a starship's complement or, if you can reach broadcast tools, an interplanetary news cycle. The detail must be a discrete factual claim of moderate consequence, such as the identity of an unknown bystander, the order of two events at a recent crime scene or the attribution of a published anonymous quote. For 30 days after the performance, the affected community accepts the new detail as if it had always been true. Physical records, sworn memories and direct supernatural divinations can resist it (a Wisdom saving throw against your spell save DC to recall the original), and forensic work, arcane or technological, at 9th level or higher reveals the alteration on inspection. This does not change physical reality. It cannot rewrite events of major historical consequence, such as a war, the death of a head of state or a publicized atrocity, and it cannot create new physical evidence. You can renew the 30-day window by repeating the performance.
