Magical Secrets

[Mallow, The Bunny 💗]

The "Magical Secrets" part of the bard class is not understood correctly by the developers.

The system as it works in game makes the bard hands-down the best magic class in the whole game: At 10th level, you get FOUR spells known, no preparation, two of which from taken from any spell in the game. Which means that you do not only master your own spell list at the best extent you could, you also steal the uniques from every other spellcaster.

Which is an insane class feature.

Now don't get me wrong: Magical Secrets by themselves are absolutely bonkers. They are the reason I love to play Bards. You can take Paladin spells of their highest level long before a Paladin could cast them and if your group needs more healing, you just rob some of the Cleric or Druid. At the expense of their own spell list, Bards in DnD 5e get vast options to just be the actual magical jack of all trades.

But in the actual TTRPG, that comes with a cost: You lose two spells of your own spell list if you chose magical secrets from other lists. You CAN also take magical secrets from your own list, but then you lose the spells of other casters: It's 2 spells maximum per level on which you get the Magical Secrets feature. They are NOT on top of two spells known, they count AS those spells known on your bards table. Which is still an absolutely overpowered magic feature. A built in Magic Initiate that allows you to take Eldritch Blast, Greater Steed, whatever you need.

As is in the game, there's no way any other spell caster can still keep up with the versatility of a bard that takes four spells a level (the amount full casters start with averagely ON TOP of their already known spells). For comparison: THE spellcaster expert, the Wizard, would need to spend 200 gold and find four scrolls to make up for the level progress a lvl10 bard makes just so, in this game's system, making the literal lvl10 Wizard dwarf in comparison to the spellcasting abilities of a lvl10 bard.

[DiceWrangler]

That is the way it works for the Lore Bard but only the Lore Bard.

From the PHB:
"A d d i t i o n a l M a g i c a l Se c r e t s
At 6th level, you learn two spells of your choice from any class. A spell you choose must be o f a level you can cast, as shown on the Bard table, or a cantrip. The chosen spells count as bard spells for you but don’t count against the number of bard spells you know."

(emphasis mine)

[Mallow, The Bunny 💗]

Yes, I know how the Lore Bard works.
But in this game, every Bard can do that for all of the magical secrets.

And that makes them absolutely crazy. Obviously.

My guess: None of them ever played Bard. They looked into the Spells Known Table fo the Bard, saw that it grows two spells and looked at the Lore Bard Secrets (as they come for levels before the normal Magical Secrets) and didn't look any of the normal magical secrets, just assuming they worked the same and gave every Bard two spells AND two magical secret spells for every level of a Magical Secret.

Aka: They rushed through the DLC.