College of the Crow’s Nest by R Morgan Slade
TLDR: The College of the Crow’s Nest subclass is an excellent expansion for the bard class. Being quite honest, it literally made me want to play a bard, something I’ve never really had any desire to do. In the hands of the right player and DM, this supplement could prove to be amazingly fun and presents lots of opportunities for roleplay and storytelling. I do have a few critiques but is it worth $4.95? Yes, absolutely! If you are any bit interested in it, you should read through the full preview which is available on DMsGuild. If you want a more in-depth review, then read on!
Quick summary
This supplement provides players and DMs with an additional subclass option for the bard, The College of the Crow’s Nest, a sort of treasure hunter. The supplement begins by giving a bit of lore on the subclass before getting into the abilities and features of the subclass. After this, there are 15 brand new options for familiars. Each one has a cool unique feature which synergizes very well with the abilities that the subclass grant to the bard. After this, there are adventure hooks for the sought treasures which are really excellent. There are also some examples of sought treasures, an optional feat, and some optional spells.
The Subclass abilities
At level 3 you will be getting some bonus proficiencies and access to all the extra familiar forms included in the supplement. Additionally, you gain access to ‘sought treasures’ and ‘ethereal keepsakes’. A sought treasure is a magical item that is the focus of your latest treasure hunt. You must locate this item and then return it to its rightful heir. But wait, I do all this hard work of finding it and get nothing?! No need to fear ethereal keepsakes are here! Once you return the treasure to its rightful heir the treasure manifests as what’s called an ethereal keepsake (stored in your familiar’s pocket dimension). This ethereal keepsake is a perfect replica of the treasure with a few extra benefits.
At level 6 you gain access to a very fun ability called ‘familiar aura’. This allows you and your party to use the special abilities that your familiars’ possess. You also gain access to ‘treasure vault’. This ability grants extra bardic inspiration, depending on how many ethereal keepsakes you have.
Finally, at 14th level, you gain access to ‘familiar bond’. This ability lets you protect your familiar. If your familiar would take damage you can expend a bardic inspiration and take the damage yourself. You also gain access to ‘treasure trove’. This lets your familiar bring ethereal treasures back and grant their abilities to your allies.
Onto the feedback
This subclass is really well written and laid out. It’s very clear to follow and is aesthetically pleasing. It has fantastic artwork and it’s clear a lot of thought and love went into the project. As I mentioned earlier, I don’t really like bards so I went into this a bit skeptical but was pleasantly surprised by how good it is. The mechanics of the class are very solid. The sheer amount of opportunity for roleplaying and storytelling it presents is amazing!
I only really have two major issues with the supplement.
Firstly, I think the level 14 capstone ability is a bit underwhelming. Letting you protect your familiar with the familiar bond ability is nice, but I don’t like the ‘treasure trove’ ability. I just can’t think of a situation where I see it being really good. Now in fairness compared to some of the other 14th level bard subclass abilities it’s fine, but I would’ve liked something… more.
My second gripe with the supplement is I feel it could easily make the bard the main character in the story. If the bard’s thing is hunting down these ‘sought treasures’ it could derail the campaign, as all the party does is travel from one place to the next hunting down these treasures. To exacerbate things, after spending all the time finding the items, they then have to spend more time finding the rightful heir. On the flip side, the party might just refuse to help the bard track down the items. Then there’s just no point playing the character at all. Also, ultimately the DM decides what the sought treasures are so if you have a mean DM you might not be in for a good time (but I mean if you have a mean DM why are you in their group..).
This is why I said that this supplement could be great in the hands of the right player, DM and ultimately you need the right group. It has the potential to make or break a campaign. However, I don’t know if I can fault the author with this because I can’t think of a way around the problem. It’s just something inherent with the type of thing that this subclass is. Also, I don’t think it’s that big of a problem because the DM could easily fit it in that these items are placed where the story is going. Still, something to be aware of.
One thing I loved about the supplement is the amount of opportunity for fantastic storytelling it adds for the DM and the player. Sometimes players’ characters have very little to help the DM drive the plot forward. They lack motivations other than ‘I like gold and want more of it’. You are not going to have that problem with this. Storytelling is built into the class. But wait it gets even better. If you’re stuck for ideas and can’t come up with where to put the character’s sought treasures there are 11 amazing adventure hooks included. There are also random tables included for where the sought treasure is and who its rightful heir is which helps remove lots of the work for the DM.
This next thing isn’t so much a critique just something I thought I’d mention. I’m not sure exactly why it’s called the college of the ‘crow’s nest’? From the name, I was expecting a real heavy pirate theme but that’s not really what you get. I think ‘College of the Treasure Hunter’ would be a better title.
My last critique of the supplement is that I feel like the ‘familiar aura’ ability at level 3 could break the game. If you have your familiar be an owl, all of your allies within 30ft benefit from the ‘flyby’ ability. This means they just don’t provoke opportunity attacks. Now I don’t know how game-breaking this actually is (one thing I know for sure is it frees up bonus actions for rogues etc) but this is just one example that I quickly came up with. There’s probably more. Just something to be aware of
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Another thing that the adventure adds is a plethora of brand-new familiar forms! Each one has a cool unique ability which is definitely needed as I feel the normal familiars are a bit bland. I loved the spells that are included in the adventure. They fit the whole theme of the subclass very well and would work great.
Ultimately, despite the few issues I mentioned earlier, I feel the supplement accomplishes what it set out to do very well. It is extremely well put together and presented with exceptionally fantastic artwork to boot! I would highly recommend this adventure! 5/5
If you want to pick this up click here!
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