Carry Your Lute My Wayward Bard

First off let me start by saying I'm a huge fan of bards, I always have been and always will be, they are my go to class when I have nothing else to play. But lately I've been a little peeved by some obvious holes around the spell casting focus of a D&D 5e bard and how it relates to actually playing a bard in combat.

The Bard by Exarrdian - used under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

Let us start by adding, if you came here thinking that every bard just plays an instrument and you live in a one bard size fits all world, this isn't the post for you. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, in short a Bard is an entertainer, a caster who inspires his or her party though gifts of song, dance, prose, or music.

Sadly this leads most to believe that a bard is simply the background musical track, there to remind the party, though the gift of song, that at any given moment, your nostrils could be raped.