D&D 5E Bards Should Be Half-Casters in 5.5e/6e

[UngeheuerLich]

Have you read the 5e PHB's description of the Bard class? "Magical Muse" is a pretty apt summarization of what WotC felt best described the class when they were designing it for this edition. They're magical minstrels and poets that draw magic from their music and stories.

The description text pretty clearly illustrates that the 5e Bard is supposed to be a magical muse. Every example bard character given at the beginning of the class description is described as singing, humming, or playing an instrument, the "Music and Magic" section pretty clearly supports this position, as does the Learning from Experience section.

Being a "muse" is built into 5e's concept of the class. I don't know if that is accurate for all of the previous editions' versions of the class, but it is for 5e.

That's not supported in the fluff text and only supported in two of the class's mechanics (Jack of All Trades and Magical Secrets). "Magical Muse" is supported in all of the fluff text, Song of Rest, Countercharm, Bard's being able to use musical instruments as their spellcasting focuses, and quite a few spells.

Not as well as literally every other class in the game. Lots of classes' subclass abilities are frontloaded. However, not a single other class only gets subclass features at 3 levels.

Again, the Bard is that class. It's supported in the fluff text of not only the core class but also plenty of subclasses (Creation, Glamour, Eloquence, Spirits, Lore, etc) and it's supported by the mechanics. If the class wasn't supposed to be a "magical muse", it wouldn't have been written that way.

Then the easiest solution is changing the flavor text, because after all that is not what the class crunch tells us (except for the 3 instruments they gain at level 1). Subclasses of splat books actually have more musical abilities, but in the PHB both subclasses support the Idea of a loremaster/rogue or warrior/leader.

It is also not what I have seen in play for the last few decades... the bard was never the muse. They did perform on stage sometimes, but their roguish behaviour and their magical one always stood in the foreground.
In ADnD they were correctly classified as rogues. The 3e bard was more musical I admit, but 5e puts them back were they belong.

I am not totally against changes. But relegating them to half-casters and adding musical abilities to compensate is the wrong way.

As others have already suggested, the warlock model could have worked well for the bard. Imstead of invocations they could have learnt bardic secrets that could be magical, musical or skillbased.
They would have to do more stuff than just casting spells during an encounter, but their highest spells are still (nearly as) powerful as other spellcaster's.

 

[James Gasik]

Yeah, I'm liking the idea of a "Muse Pact Warlock" as a future Bard replacement. Obviously, we're stuck with the Bard as it exists for the foreseeable future, and that's not a bad thing- WotC wanted to get away from forcing people to play Clerics, but magical healing is still a requirement, and we still only have a few other classes that can provide that (sadly, the Cleric is still necessary, but the Bard is a good class to ease up that burden- Druids can heal as well, but let's face it, most Druids have other things to do).

The more I consider your arguments, Acererak, the more I'm convinced that maybe it's not the Bard that's the real problem- but the Sorcerer. If we feel the Bard's niche is not well defined, then the Sorcerer's is even worse. Ok, great, they get their power from a bloodline (though what makes "wild magic" a bloodline thing when past editions had wizards studying it is anyone's guess). And that basically means they have no unified identity, as each subclass has a different focus entirely. The fact that they even have a shared, stripped down wizard spell list and a narrow list of spells they can draw on is to the detriment of the sorcerer's identity as a class.

It seems likely that sorcerers should have existed before wizards, but the idea that sorcerers are basically cavemen painting on walls while wizards are tooling around in flying cars, and the only thing that makes them unique is that their great great grandpappy dated a demoness is kind of laughable.

OT, I know, and I apologize, but a thought I felt might be worth sharing.

 

[le Redoutable]

the Bard, as a Druid / Ruler ?

 

[Mordhau]

Honestly, I'd blow up the Sorcerer and the Warlock. Basically the same thing as a wizard but slightly different mechanics is not a good class concept.

 

[James Gasik]

I'm ok with the concept of the Warlock, as gaining powers from a Patron puts them somewhere between Cleric and Wizard. The implementation, though unique, probably could reflect this better. And I think we've all seen by now how the "limitless well of magical power, but you can only access a little at a time" is too highly dependent on a restrictive rest mechanic, making them strong if the party can afford to take their time, and very weak if they cannot.

Anyways, as long as WotC persists in cranking out new spells at the rate they do, preferring to dabble with new mechanics in bite-sized chunks, classes need -more- access to magic, not less. If anything, the 1/3 casters should be cranked up to 1/2, and options should exist for 3/4 class Paladins and Rangers.

Buuut...WotC isn't going to do that either, as there are players who don't want more spells, or even spells at all. It's funny how the same thing keeps happening in every edition, where we end up with a mountain of spells which just keeps giving the caster classes more and better options, and the non-magic classes get to hope a new subclass drops to give them more magic, or magic-adjacent abilities because the developers are afraid of the backlash if they actually created potent martial powers.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I agree with that, but I like the idea of the bard being a half caster and making it up with more and/or improved class features.

The issue is that unless they are a serious powerhouse elsewhere, they will need features as good as 7th, 8th, 9th level spells to match other high level characters. such features are probably going to be at least partially magical, and enabled by singing other other verbal means.
Add to that that there are quite a lot of spells modelled after capabilities of legendary Bards, and it becomes harder to justify changing bards to only half-casters than it does leaving them as full casters.

 

[Joshy]

The issue is that unless they are a serious powerhouse elsewhere, they will need features as good as 7th, 8th, 9th level spells to match other high level characters. such features are probably going to be at least partially magical, and enabled by singing other other verbal means.
Add to that that there are quite a lot of spells modelled after capabilities of legendary Bards, and it becomes harder to justify changing bards to only half-casters than it does leaving them as full casters.

The only spells I can think of off the top of my mind are Glibness, Otto's Irresistible Dance, and the Power Word spell line. I'll need to check later but I don't see why those can't be turned into class features or adjusted in some way.

Off the top of my head there are a few things that could be done. Some bard exclusive spells that allows you to spend Inspiration Points to improve, a word of power ability that improves with bard levels, some type of ability that requires playing a musical instrument.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

The issue is that unless they are a serious powerhouse elsewhere, they will need features as good as 7th, 8th, 9th level spells to match other high level characters. such features are probably going to be at least partially magical, and enabled by singing other other verbal means.
Add to that that there are quite a lot of spells modelled after capabilities of legendary Bards, and it becomes harder to justify changing bards to only half-casters than it does leaving them as full casters.

The only spells I can think of off the top of my mind are Glibness, Otto's Irresistible Dance, and the Power Word spell line. I'll need to check later but I don't see why those can't be turned into class features or adjusted in some way.

Off the top of my head there are a few things that could be done. Some bard exclusive spells that allows you to spend Inspiration Points to improve, a word of power ability that improves with bard levels, some type of ability that requires playing a musical instrument.

Don't forget simulacrum.
The whole Azure bonds Trilogy is based around the Idea of a bard that created a simulacrum...

 

[Joshy]

... I thought that was wizard spell but I could see it. One Man Band ability nice class feature name.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

... I thought that was wizard spell but I could see it. One Man Band ability nice class feature name.

I think it is indeed a wizard's spell, but a bard can access it with magical secrets. A very fitting ability for a bard.

The bard in the book actually was severely punished for his former experiment, but it sets a precedent for a bard that was a very highly accomplished spellcaster.