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The University in the Vale has one of the finest Arts programs in Animosia. By day, their students are trained in all manner of skills befitting the bardic profession. But not all is as its seems.

 

Forged in the dimly lit seedy basements of residence halls and fraternity houses, political extremists train warriors of both weapon and word. These students are versed both in the art of speech craft and the art of bloodshed. Liberty is their cause, and they see both words and warfare as a means to this end. Their rhetorical tact is usually their preferred means of achieving their ideals, but deeply rooted in their ideology is the reality that often, blood is the price of freedom.

Bonus proficiencies:

 

When you take this College at 3rd level, you gain expertise in Deception and Persuasion, and proficiency with the Forgery Kit.

Charming Gesture

 

Starting at 3rd level, you have gained an acute awareness of your body language. As an action you may expend one use of Bardic Inspiration and select one creature that can see you within 30 feet. For the next 10 minutes, you have advantage on Charisma based skill checks against the creature.

Bleeding Strike

 

Starting at 3rd level, you have learned to imbue your strikes with lingering necrotic effects. If a weapon attack you make during your turn hits a creature, you may expend one use of your bardic inspiration to gain the following effect: At the start of its turn, the target must make a Constitution Saving throw with a DC equal to your spell save DC. On a failed save, the target takes 1d6 Necrotic damage. This effect continues until the target succeeds the saving throw, and the save DC decreases by 2 each subsequent turn.

 

The Necrotic damage increases when you reach certain levels in this class, increasing to 2d6 at 6th level, 3d6 at 10th level, and 4d6 at 14th level.

Extra Attack

 

Starting at 6th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.

Undeniably Compelling Rhetoric

 

Starting at 14th level, you have mastered the art of rhetoric. Once per day, you may cast the spell Glibness without expending an 8th level spell slot.

The University in the Vale has one of the finest Arts programs in Animosia. By day, their students are trained in all manner of skills befitting the bardic profession. But not all is as its seems.

Forged in the dimly lit seedy basements of residence halls and fraternity houses, political extremists train warriors of both weapon and word. These students are versed both in the art of speech craft and the art of bloodshed. Liberty is their cause, and they see both words and warfare as a means to this end. Their rhetorical tact is usually their preferred means of achieving their ideals, but deeply rooted in their ideology is the reality that often, blood is the price of freedom.

Bonus proficiencies:

When you take this College at 3rd level, you gain expertise in Deception and Persuasion, and proficiency with the Forgery Kit.

Charming Gesture

Starting at 3rd level, you have gained an acute awareness of your body language. As an action you may expend one use of Bardic Inspiration and select one creature that can see you within 30 feet. For the next 10 minutes, you have advantage on Charisma based skill checks against the creature.

Bleeding Strike

Starting at 3rd level, you have learned to imbue your strikes with lingering necrotic effects. If a weapon attack you make during your turn hits a creature, you may expend one use of your bardic inspiration to gain the following effect: At the start of its turn, the target must make a Constitution Saving throw with a DC equal to your spell save DC. On a failed save, the target takes 1d6 Necrotic damage. This effect continues until the target succeeds the saving throw, and the save DC decreases by 2 each subsequent turn.

The Necrotic damage increases when you reach certain levels in this class, increasing to 2d6 at 6th level, 3d6 at 10th level, and 4d6 at 14th level.

Extra Attack

Starting at 6th level, you can attack twice, instead of once, whenever you take the Attack action on your turn.

Undeniably Compelling Rhetoric

Starting at 14th level, you have mastered the art of rhetoric. Once per day, you may cast the spell Glibness without expending an 8th level spell slot.

Edit: After working out the math behind this one, at 3rd level, against a creature with +0 to CON saves and a spell save DC of 14, the extra damage averages out to 3.36, which is only slightly higher than the College of Swords expected damage. So this one doesn't become noticeably more powerful than the College of Swords until the damage gets scaled up at levels 6, 10, and 14. What potentially breaks the balance of this ability is the progressively increasing spells save DC: At 14th level, a CHA 20 character would have a spell save DC of 18, together with the 4d6 damage, gives this an average extra damage of 23.4, which is a tiny bit less than the College of Whispers ability which maxes out at 8d6 for an average of 24 damage. I reworked some of my math, I was misrepesenting the spell save DC of CHA 20 14th level Bard. This seems to be right one track with the College of Whispers, eventually maxing out at 27.3 with spell save DC of 19.

Edit: Here is a graph with table of Bleeding Strike vs. College of Whispers Psychic Blades average extra damage. These numbers are calculated with a targets CON save of +0, so higher bonuses for the target creature will reduce the effectiveness. So I conclude that on average, this ability is going to be weaker than CoW Psychic Blades. (This also assumes my characters plan for ASIs, YMMV depending on when you take ASIs toward charisma. In particular, my Bard takes a feat at 4th and a +2 DEX ASI at 8th, taking +2 CHA from 18 to 20 at 12th level.)

Edit: After working out the math behind this one, at 3rd level, against a creature with +0 to CON saves and a spell save DC of 14, the extra damage averages out to 3.36, which is only slightly higher than the College of Swords expected damage. So this one doesn't become noticeably more powerful than the College of Swords until the damage gets scaled up at levels 6, 10, and 14. What potentially breaks the balance of this ability is the progressively increasing spells save DC: At 14th level, a CHA 20 character would have a spell save DC of 18, together with the 4d6 damage, gives this an average extra damage of 27, which is a bit more than the College of Whispers ability which maxes out at 8d6 for an average of 24 damage. I reworked some of my math, I was misrepesenting the spell save DC of CHA 20 14th level Bard. This seems to be right one track with the College of Whispers, eventually maxing out at 31.9 with spell save DC of 19 (creature CON save modifier +0).

Edit: Here is a graph with table of Bleeding Strike vs. College of Whispers Psychic Blades average extra damage. These numbers are calculated with a targets CON save of +0, so higher bonuses for the target creature will reduce the effectiveness (23.4 max average damage at +2 CON, 17.3 at +4). So I conclude that on average, this ability is going to be slightly weaker than CoW Psychic Blades. This also assumes my characters plan for ASIs, YMMV depending on when you take ASIs toward charisma. In particular, my Bard takes a feat at 4th and a +2 DEX ASI at 8th, taking +2 CHA from 18 to 20 at 12th level.

Edit: Here is a graph with table of Bleeding Strike vs. College of Whispers Psychic Blades average extra damage. These numbers are calculated with a targets CON save of +0, so higher bonuses for the target creature will reduce the effectiveness. So I conclude that on average, this ability is going to be weaker than CoW Psychic Blades. (This also assumes my characters plan for ASIs, YMMV depending on when you take ASIs toward charisma. In particular, my Bard takes a feat at 4th and a +2 DEX ASI at 8th, taking +2 CHA from 18 to 20 at 12th level.)