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15:53, 28th March 2024 (GMT+0)

Does anyone else hate Bards?

Posted by Jarodemo
willvr
member, 642 posts
Thu 5 Mar 2015
at 01:53
  • msg #85

Re: Does anyone else hate Bards?

In a normal DnD adventure, which hasn't been specifically tailored for the characters, a bard does not fill in the skill monkey rogue; because they can't find traps; or even if they somehow found them, remove them.

Now in Pathfinder, with their rules of it, they can. But not in any of the versions of DnD I'm familiar with.
darknash
member, 51 posts
Thu 5 Mar 2015
at 01:59
  • msg #86

Re: Does anyone else hate Bards?

RPOL says this isn't enough text to reply to Willvr but here it is.

As has been pointed out, the 1st Edition Bard. But that was different than anything since.
willvr
member, 643 posts
Thu 5 Mar 2015
at 02:01
  • msg #87

Re: Does anyone else hate Bards?

Okay yeah, fair enough. I have a passing familiarity with 1st; but I have never seen a 1st edition bard in action.

Point remains the same for 2nd and 3.5 though. I'm not really sure about trapfinding mechanics in 4e or 5e admittedly.
Cygnia
member, 250 posts
Amoral Paladin
Thu 5 Mar 2015
at 02:12
  • msg #88

Re: Does anyone else hate Bards?

I'm the rogue for our group, but I'm not a "face" con artist type.  I prefer doing the sneaky DEX stuff rather than social CHA.

As I said earlier, when we were introducing a new player to 3.5ed D&D, she wanted to try a Bard.  And it's actually been a good way for her to get her feet wet in gaming overall.  Bardic Knowledge rolls gets her involved in the world and helps her immerse herself into what the heck is going on.  She can "stance dance" with songs, be a back-up healer if needed and pepper the heck out of enemies from a distance.

And she's been perfect as our diplomat.  Which is great, because the few times I've attempted it before she joined the group, my d20 decided to go on strike.  And so did the cleric's....
srgrosse
member, 2252 posts
Thu 5 Mar 2015
at 02:13
  • msg #89

Re: Does anyone else hate Bards?

Willvr, I said skillmonkey, not trapfinding. Trapfinding is one part of the skillmonkey role, but it is not the only part. The role also covers social skills, stealth skills, and so on.
willvr
member, 644 posts
Thu 5 Mar 2015
at 02:17
  • msg #90

Re: Does anyone else hate Bards?

Yes, but, if you don't have a trapfinder in DnD, you're going to be in strife.

It is actually quite annoying that they're said to be the perfect skill monkeys, but rogues get more skill points, but that's something else.
srgrosse
member, 2253 posts
Thu 5 Mar 2015
at 03:06
  • msg #91

Re: Does anyone else hate Bards?

Rogues are also perfect skillmonkeys. As for trapfinding, that depends on what kind of game you're in. There are published modules, for instance, with little in the way of traps, for various reasons. Speaker in Dreams focuses more on the Weird Drek, for instance, while the Savage Tide adventure path takes place mostly in the ocean or a jungle. On the other hand, if you're venturing into Castle Ravenloft, you'll definitely want someone who can find traps.
facemaker329
member, 6599 posts
Gaming for over 30
years, and counting!
Thu 5 Mar 2015
at 08:34
  • msg #92

Re: Does anyone else hate Bards?

willvr:
I have a passing familiarity with 1st; but I have never seen a 1st edition bard in action.


To the best of my recollection (granted, it's been close to three decades since I looked), 'bard' was not actually a character class in the 1st edition rules.  I think there were enough various spells that a player could make a vaguely bard-like character, perhaps, but having it become a bard, as the class is understood now, would have involved truckloads of house-rules and hand-waving on the GMs part.
willvr
member, 645 posts
Thu 5 Mar 2015
at 12:34
  • msg #93

Re: Does anyone else hate Bards?

Arguably, the 1st edition 'bard' was the first prestige class. YOu had to take levels of fighter, thief before finally druid (I think.) But when you went to druid you were actually levelling as a bard. Or something like that. But they were -nothing- like later versions of the bard. From people who did play it, they said that if you could actually manage to do it, they could be amongst the most powerful characters.
Heath
member, 2850 posts
If my opinion changes,
The answer is still 42.
Thu 5 Mar 2015
at 17:27
  • msg #94

Re: Does anyone else hate Bards?

In reply to facemaker329 (msg # 92):

Actually, there was an official "bard" in first edition.  But as willvr states, it was more like one of the first prestige classes of D&D.

In other words, you can't start as a bard.  Instead, you have to dual class in fighter and thief (at least five levels each), have minimum prerequisite skills, and then switch to bard (which was essentially a druid loremaster that put you on a druid track while keeping fighter and thief skills).

It's a rare species in 1st edition....
Brianna
member, 1960 posts
Thu 5 Mar 2015
at 17:52
  • msg #95

Re: Does anyone else hate Bards?

In reply to Heath (msg # 94):

And if you finally managed all those levels in other classes, IIRC you would end up playing a very underpowered character compared to the others who have been levelling in one class all that time.
Heath
member, 2852 posts
If my opinion changes,
The answer is still 42.
Thu 5 Mar 2015
at 20:38
  • msg #96

Re: Does anyone else hate Bards?

That hasn't really been my experience, not with 1st edition anyway.  2nd edition and on, I think that may be true.  But I don't think 1st edition really increased power over levels as much (or as disparately) as 2nd edition and later.

I think that's largely a product of giving so many options that characters would specialize and choose things to boost power within a specialty, whereas 1st edition was more of a lockstep tradition that would empower dual classing more--in fact, as an alternative to the specialization in later additions.
Shiv
member, 406 posts
Thu 5 Mar 2015
at 20:41
  • msg #97

Re: Does anyone else hate Bards?

In reply to Heath (msg # 96):

Once you got to your Bard levels the Experience Chart was very forgiving too.  In short order you'd catch up to and then bypass other Classes in overall level.
Heath
member, 2854 posts
If my opinion changes,
The answer is still 42.
Thu 5 Mar 2015
at 20:52
  • msg #98

Re: Does anyone else hate Bards?

Exactly.  It's like accelerated power ups, which some people like, as opposed to waiting several game sessions to advance your character any.
Brianna
member, 1961 posts
Fri 6 Mar 2015
at 17:34
  • msg #99

Re: Does anyone else hate Bards?

I just remember trying to work through the levels of other classes needed.  None of us ever made it.  For one adventure that required a bard, I created an NPC for the party.
Andrew Wilson
member, 578 posts
Scary? My mask is to keep
your viscera off my face
Thu 12 Mar 2015
at 09:24
  • msg #100

Re: Does anyone else hate Bards?

I have no clue why people associate bards with lute hippies. My bard wore an iron mask and spiked armor and blasted foes to gib with his sick riffs, rose the dead with his unhallowing wails and kept all that he had rocked.
locojedi
member, 51 posts
Thu 12 Mar 2015
at 17:35
  • msg #101

Re: Does anyone else hate Bards?

In reply to Andrew Wilson (msg # 100):

As for singing a song in six seconds mentioned earlier, how many of us really know all the words to songs anyway? Let's say we're all fighters who've spent our time studying the art of the blade and not the lyrics of well known tunes. We'd recognize certain parts of a song, perhaps the chorus or such. Now let's say that we're about to go into a fight, or we need to rally once the battle has engaged. From somewhere to our flank or rear comes the voice of our bard, "My, my, my, I'm once bitten twice shy, baby!" or perhaps "Ex-it light! Enter ni-ight!" or maybe "Goin' out in blaze of glory!"...

Those are just a few "riffs" a rockin' bard might sing in six seconds or less that would conjure an image in the heads of a fighter and inspire him to kick some goblin booty! ;-)

I do not hate bards. I hate how certain interpretations of rules make them appear to be useless. I think they have their place, and can add a lot of flavor to a campaign if handled by the right player and GM, each of which should have some creativity. What if every character in a party was a bard? A troupe for hire? True none of them would be an expert at anything, but would be 'good-enough' at most things to get by.

I also liked how the 1e bards were handled as a sort of prestige class. That makes for a believable IC conversation:

"You can pick locks and speak Old Gnomish? I thought you were a mercenary. Where did you learn all that stuff?"

"Ah, well I grew up as an alley rat on the streets, but was later taken in by a kind forest druid who saw some promise in me. But that was all before the war broke out and I needed to take up the sword and defend the Barony. Since I took an arrow to the knee, I've slowed down a little, ya know, realized my limits. I enjoy music more now, and reading..."

"What? You can read too?"

Or in newer editions, role-playing the bard as a veteran who's had a lot of life's lessons to forge him into the Jack-of-all-trades.

I'm sort of that way in real life. I'm not the best builder, I'm not the best welder, I'm not the best at running equipment, I'm not the best computer technician, I'm not the best animal doctor, etc. but I can do all of those well enough to get the job.

I think the Jack-of-all-trades is a realistic (heh.) class, and a necessary class, and that's why I don't hate bards.

Oh, and Andrew Wilson: Rock on brother! ;-)
DeeYin
member, 25 posts
Thu 12 Mar 2015
at 20:47
  • msg #102

Re: Does anyone else hate Bards?

Andrew, I do not suppose you called your character Sir Sabbath the Black? ;)
Andrew Wilson
member, 581 posts
Scary? My mask is to keep
your viscera off my face
Fri 13 Mar 2015
at 02:34
  • msg #103

Re: Does anyone else hate Bards?

No lol, he only went by his show name "The Blackest Jack"
Jarodemo
member, 776 posts
My hovercraft
is full of eels
Fri 13 Mar 2015
at 07:22
  • msg #104

Re: Does anyone else hate Bards?

In reply to DeeYin (msg # 102):

Lol! Married to the Maiden of Iron!
Andrew Wilson
member, 583 posts
Scary? My mask is to keep
your viscera off my face
Fri 13 Mar 2015
at 07:43
  • msg #105

Re: Does anyone else hate Bards?

Marriage was one of those forbidden words he refused to utter, lest it was to mock it and its ideology :P

"Why buy the cow, When I get the milk for free?"
jase
admin, 3422 posts
Cogito, ergo procuro.
Carpe stultus!
Fri 13 Mar 2015
at 13:43

Re: Does anyone else hate Bards?

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.
DarkLightHitomi
member, 878 posts
Sat 14 Mar 2015
at 23:40
  • msg #107

Re: Does anyone else hate Bards?

My bard doesn't even sing. Instead uses perform oratory and is noble leader that says awesomely inspiring things, but of course, as a noble, has a well rounded education in many topics including combat and magic.
elecgraystone
member, 854 posts
Sat 14 Mar 2015
at 23:50
  • msg #108

Re: Does anyone else hate Bards?

Cool bards use totem spears as weapons/wind instrument. ;)
Undeadbob
member, 1860 posts
RPGA member #6004591
Just a little weird
Sun 15 Mar 2015
at 00:03
  • msg #109

Re: Does anyone else hate Bards?

In reply to DarkLightHitomi (msg # 107):

See their is more to the Perform Skill than musical instruments. A Bard could also be that wisecracking buddy by the use of Perform- Comedy, winning kings and commoners over alike with a witty one-liner. Even distracting opponents in a melee with his constant banter.
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