Bard Alteration: Good or Bad?

[vulcan_idic]

I'm considering a house rule in my home campaign that would replace all bardic music mechanics with aura mechanics from the the Marshall (MHB). The flavor would remain the same, but I like the other mechnics better.

Opinions?

 

[airwalkrr]

The marshal class is prone to far more abuse than the bard is, simply by virtue of the ease with which a skillful player can abuse the marshal abilities. Marshal is the only class in my home campaigns that I ban out of the whole 3e lot (including ToM and MoI). It is that bad. Imagine PCs with +10 to initiative and +10 to damage when flanking. It's silly. That is not to say that the bard cannot be abused either (it can: fascinate is one of the most powerful abilities in the entire GAME), but the bard abilities tend to be more situational and not as universally useful as the auras of the marshal, hence, playing the bard tends to be a bit more difficult.

Now the marshal class is a great idea with a poor implementation, one of those looks good, plays bad things. The bonus never should have been based on the marshal's charisma, or at least there should have been some kind of limit placed on its uses. If you would like to use the auras in place of bardic abilities, it's not a bad idea, but you need to be circumspect about other things this will affect, and I recommend house-ruling the way the auras work (i.e. don't base the bonus off Charisma). Find another way to make Charisma important. Here are some suggestions to "fix" the marshal auras. Some of these are mutually exclusive but you can mix and match to taste.

-A marshal's minor auras grant a bonus equal to +1 per three levels, maxing out at +6 at 18th.
-A marshal can provide the bonus from his auras to a number of allies equal to his Charisma modifier (minimum 1).
-The radius of a marshal's auras is equal to his Charisma modifier x 10 feet.
-A marshal has a limited number of uses of his auras. Activating an aura is an immediate action. A marshal can activate each of his minor auras a number of times per day equal to 3 + his Charisma modifier and he can activate each of his major auras a number of times per day equal to his Charisma modifier.
-A marshal can use each of his auras a number of rounds per day equal to his Charisma modifier. For example, a marshal with a Charisma modifier of +3 who knows 2 minor auras and 1 major aura can use each of those auras for 3 rounds per day, divided up however he wishes.

Also, be aware that bardic music is not the bard's only ability. Bard's also have a better skill list than the marshal and spells, which means that the marshal auras in relative power terms are better than bardic music. You might want to limit bards to minor auras only.

 

[vulcan_idic]

The marshal class is prone to far more abuse than the bard is, simply by virtue of the ease with which a skillful player can abuse the marshal abilities. Marshal is the only class in my home campaigns that I ban out of the whole 3e lot (including ToM and MoI). It is that bad. Imagine PCs with +10 to initiative and +10 to damage when flanking. It's silly. That is not to say that the bard cannot be abused either (it can: fascinate is one of the most powerful abilities in the entire GAME), but the bard abilities tend to be more situational and not as universally useful as the auras of the marshal, hence, playing the bard tends to be a bit more difficult.

Now the marshal class is a great idea with a poor implementation, one of those looks good, plays bad things. The bonus never should have been based on the marshal's charisma, or at least there should have been some kind of limit placed on its uses. If you would like to use the auras in place of bardic abilities, it's not a bad idea, but you need to be circumspect about other things this will affect, and I recommend house-ruling the way the auras work (i.e. don't base the bonus off Charisma). Find another way to make Charisma important. Here are some suggestions to "fix" the marshal auras. Some of these are mutually exclusive but you can mix and match to taste.

-A marshal's minor auras grant a bonus equal to +1 per three levels, maxing out at +6 at 18th.
-A marshal can provide the bonus from his auras to a number of allies equal to his Charisma modifier (minimum 1).
-The radius of a marshal's auras is equal to his Charisma modifier x 10 feet.
-A marshal has a limited number of uses of his auras. Activating an aura is an immediate action. A marshal can activate each of his minor auras a number of times per day equal to 3 + his Charisma modifier and he can activate each of his major auras a number of times per day equal to his Charisma modifier.
-A marshal can use each of his auras a number of rounds per day equal to his Charisma modifier. For example, a marshal with a Charisma modifier of +3 who knows 2 minor auras and 1 major aura can use each of those auras for 3 rounds per day, divided up however he wishes.

Also, be aware that bardic music is not the bard's only ability. Bard's also have a better skill list than the marshal and spells, which means that the marshal auras in relative power terms are better than bardic music. You might want to limit bards to minor auras only.

Very interesting suggestions, and some very good points I had not considered - I must admit I hadn't actually read the mechanics for them in a while, I was mostly operating from memory.

I like some of your suggestions, but I think some I may go a different way with. What do you think of this?

-A bard's minor auras grant a bonus equal to 1 for a Perform DC of 15, plus 1 for every ten that he beats the DC by (+2 for 25, +3 for 35, etc), maxing out at +6 at 20th. A perform check is made each round the Bard wishes to continue activation and consumes a standard action for the turn. In order for allies to be affected by the auras they must be within Range (see Below) *and* aware of and able to appreciate the performance - i.e. not deaf, in an area of silence, etc.
-A Bard's Auras affect all in range considered by the Bard to be allies.
-The radius of a bard's minor auras is equal to his Charisma modifier x 10 feet.
-The radius of a bard's major auras is equal to his Charisma modifier x 5 feet.
-A bard has an unlimited number of uses of his auras. Activating or deactivating an aura is an full turn action. A bard can activate one minor aura and one major aura at a time. To change Auras he must deactivate one, and activate another. Aura number of times per day equal to 3 + his Charisma modifier and he can activate each of his major auras a number of times per day equal to his Charisma modifier.

I'm not sure how to run aura's known, how is it the Mashall does it? (I don't have the book on me atm)

Does that seem fair/balanced?

 

[vulcan_idic]

Also in order to grant a bonus to a particular skill the bard must have a certain number of ranks in the skill - 3-5 maybe? This encourages the bard to diversify the skills he has ranks in encouraging the "Jack-of-All-Trades" concept of the bard

 

[Spatzimaus]

Also in order to grant a bonus to a particular skill the bard must have a certain number of ranks in the skill - 3-5 maybe? This encourages the bard to diversify the skills he has ranks in encouraging the "Jack-of-All-Trades" concept of the bard

A little off-topic, but a long time back my group added two rules to limit the sheer amount of skill-boosting abuse; people were constantly buying every +20 Search or +20 Hide item they could find.
1> A caster can't make an item that boosts a skill by +X unless he has at least X ranks himself, or is assisted throughout the process by someone with 2*X ranks. Generally speaking, this limits most items to +10ish.
2> Someone using a skill-boosting item or spell can only increase his bonus by Y/2, where Y is the number of ranks he has already. (i.e., a Rogue with 12 ranks of Hide puts on an item that boosts Hide by +10; he only gets a +6 bonus from the item.)

So, in this case, the Bard can use his songs to boost any skill, but the recipient only gets a bonus based on how many ranks he already has.

 

[airwalkrr]

I like the idea of basing the bonus of the aura on the bard's Perform check. You might have something there.