Lore Bard based on Intelligence instead of Charisma: would that create an imbalance?

Merudo · Jun 7, 2018

Would changing the Lore Bard so that Spellcasting & Bardic Inspiration are based on Intelligence make the class more powerful than it is?

I feel many Lore Bard concepts would work better with a focus on Intelligence instead of Charisma. After all, the four "lore" skills are Arcana, History, Nature, and Religion, and they are all Intelligence skills. You'd think a "Lore Bard" would be good at, you know, lore.

The main problem I can see with such a change is one of balance: the Lore Bard is already one of the best classes in the game, and I fear changing Charisma to Intelligence would somehow make it an even stronger class. The only imbalance I can think of is the Bard/Wizard multiclass, which could potentially be too strong, but maybe there is more.

Li Shenron · Jun 7, 2018

I don't think it will be stronger. Intelligence is useful for knowledge skills, and Charisma for social skills. As a Lore Bard you probably want both of them fairly high. With your change you might want to keep Int the primary rather than Cha, so the practical difference might be slightly better knowledge at the expense of slightly worse social.

Merudo · Jun 7, 2018

Li Shenron said:
I don't think it will be stronger. Intelligence is useful for knowledge skills, and Charisma for social skills. As a Lore Bard you probably want both of them fairly high. With your change you might want to keep Int the primary rather than Cha, so the practical difference might be slightly better knowledge at the expense of slightly worse social.

Some people recommend dumping Intelligence as Lore Bard. It seems people recommend investing in Dexterity, Constitution, and Wisdom more than in Intelligence.

Staffan · Jun 7, 2018

I don't think it would be an issue for balance. It would be an issue mechanically, because you're switching your primary stat at level 3. That means you're either gimping yourself for level 1 and 2, or you suddenly lose some spellcasting/inspiration ability.

5ekyu · Jun 7, 2018

Merudo said:
Would changing the Lore Bard so that Spellcasting & Bardic Inspiration are based on Intelligence make the class more powerful than it is?

I feel many Lore Bard concepts would work better with a focus on Intelligence instead of Charisma. After all, the four "lore" skills are Arcana, History, Nature, and Religion, and they are all Intelligence skills. You'd think a "Lore Bard" would be good at, you know, lore.

The main problem I can see with such a change is one of balance: the Lore Bard is already one of the best classes in the game, and I fear changing Charisma to Intelligence would somehow make it an even stronger class. The only imbalance I can think of is the Bard/Wizard multiclass, which could potentially be too strong, but maybe there is more.

I would think other than multiclassing it would be fine.

That said, i think perhaps there would be an argument made to better serve this with new class. A lot of the bard class foundation is based around charisma and related tasks so shifting a lot of those effects to INT would be noticabky skewed.

Merudo · Jun 7, 2018

5ekyu said:
That said, i think perhaps there would be an argument made to better serve this with new class. A lot of the bard class foundation is based around charisma and related tasks so shifting a lot of those effects to INT would be noticabky skewed.

Note sure what you mean here, the only 2 effects directly related to Charisma are spellcasting & Bardic Inspiration, and both can reasonably be shifted to Intelligence.

You can easily imagine Bardic Inspiration to be similar to the "historian" feat in that the Lore Bard tells the character inspiring lore.

Merudo · Jun 7, 2018

Staffan said:
I don't think it would be an issue for balance. It would be an issue mechanically, because you're switching your primary stat at level 3. That means you're either gimping yourself for level 1 and 2, or you suddenly lose some spellcasting/inspiration ability.

I'm actually considering this for a brand new character joining an existing campaign at level 4, so that wouldn't be an issue.

Gardens & Goblins · Jun 7, 2018

You'd be a smart arse, and you know what folks say about them!

Li Shenron · Jun 8, 2018

Staffan said:
I don't think it would be an issue for balance. It would be an issue mechanically, because you're switching your primary stat at level 3. That means you're either gimping yourself for level 1 and 2, or you suddenly lose some spellcasting/inspiration ability.

It's a house rule, he's going to use it in his games. It's not like he's going to publish it in a book and has to make it fit in everyone's game...

Dausuul · Jun 8, 2018

I have seldom seen a campaign where knowledge skills saw more play than social skills, and that's really the only difference here. Int and Cha are both minor stats with very little use outside skills and class abilities.

It's possible that there is some cunning wizard multiclass build that could exploit this change, but as long as you don't plan to MC wizard, there should be no problem.

Lore Bard based on Intelligence instead of Charisma: would that create an imbalance?

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