Homebrew:College of Keys
(OOC: This is an implementation of the College of Keys subclass from Xanathar's Lost Notes to Everything Else)
Base Class: Bard
Bards of the College of Keys believe that performance can manipulate anything, be it person, magic, or machine. Their preternatural charm allows these daring performers to delve into dungeons seething with traps, assured that they can use their words and song to protect themselves and allies. These bards often become spies and infiltrators, since no lock can stand up to their charms.
Bonus Proficiency
When you join the College of Keys at 3rd level, you gain proficiency with thieves’ tools, if you don’t already have it.
Key Change
Also at 3rd level, you learn to bend locks and traps with dashing style. If you have Expertise in one of your Charisma skills, you can use that skill instead of making a Dexterity check with your thieves’ tools.
Timbre Illuminous
At 3rd level, you can coax a variety of information from a mechanism regarding its composition using merely verse and rhyme. When you spend at least 1 minute speaking or singing to a construct or inanimate mechanism, you can expend one Bardic Inspiration to learn certain information about its capabilities compared to your own. The DM tells you two of the following characteristics of the mechanism, of your choice:
- Purpose (lock, trap, surveillance, etc.)
- Intricacy (singular, compound, or complex)
- Nature (magical, mundane, or otherwise),
- Approximate difficulty class (easy, hard, nearly impossible, etc.)
- Elemental energies present (if any)
- Additional imbued magical qualities (if any)
Cypheric Ostinato
Starting at 6th level, you learn to control vocal range and resonance of your voice to offset the magic or material mechanisms within security and surveillance spells.
When you use your action to disarm or dispel a trap, or when you make a saving throw to avoid the full effects of a trap or magical ward, you can choose to expend one use of your Bardic Inspiration, rolling a Bardic Inspiration die and adding the number rolled to the ability check or saving throw. You can choose to use this feature after seeing the roll but before the DM determines whether the ability check or saving throw succeeds or fails.
Master Keynote
At 14th level, you learn how to hone pitch and rhythm to disarm all nearby mechanical impediments. You can expend one use of Bardic Inspiration to temporarily disarm all traps and open all locks within 30 feet for a number of rounds equal to the number you roll on the Bardic Inspiration die.
Once you use this feature, you can’t use it again until you finish a short or long rest.