Mystic-Scholar:
My NPCs and Monsters never give them time to sing, no matter what it is they wish to sing. When they try, they never make their Concentration checks.
Concentration checks? Yes, silly, when you get hit with an arrow you have to Concentrate on your singing just as you do your spell casting . . . and they never succeed.
Mystic-Scholar:
Since the Bard rarely has an AC of 247, he usually ends up . . . shot!
Now he must roll a Concentration check, to insure that he doesn't change the timbre, the cadence, the key, etc.
The more common Bardic Music abilities do
not require a concentration check to start or maintain.
Inspire Courage (the most common ability in my experience), for example, requires a standard action to initiate (as they all do) but then leaves the Bard free to do pretty much anything in the rounds thereafter, including combat.
Fascinate (thus also
Suggestion and
Mass Suggestion),
Inspire Competence, and
Song of Freedom are the only ones that require concentration checks.
Inspire Courage,
Countersong,
Inspire Greatness,
Inspire Heroics do not.
I know the rules are only guidelines, but there's a huge difference between "they suck because the book says xxx" and "they such because my houserule says xxx". If it's the latter then it's your right to make Bards ineffective, but if it's the former then you've misinterpreted the book and you're making Bards make concentration checks when they should not.
But enough of those rules.. err, guidelines.
What's better than being a warrior fighting alongside another warrior who's trying to out-shine you? Fighting alongside a semi-warrior who makes you a better warrior, I say! (c; I want to be that unique snowflake, darnit!
Love bards when they're played by people who want to contribute positively to the campaign. My only issue is when people want to play them as some foppish fool, but that's probably more a beef with the player than the character or their class.
Perhaps I'm not alone and that's where umbrage for others stem from -- how people interpret and play Bards. I've never really understood people who play adventurers-come-heroes who are clearly neither.