Non-Casting Bard: Balanced?

[CustosObscurus]

A friend of mine has been working with me to create a non-casting Bard. We wanted to make a bard that was more mystical than the fantastical effects of most casters, and to really exemplify the title "Jack of All Trades." I was hoping to get some feedback on the balance of the class (by the way, our game is core plus Bo9S):

Removed: all spellcasting abilities (not including songs)

Change: Hit die becomes d8, skill points become 8 + Int modifier, can use bardic music once per bard level plus his charisma modifier

Add:

Quick Thinking
A bard can continue his performance as a move action rather than a standard action as long as his performance does not involve an instrument. If he is using an instrument, he may choose to attack during his turn, however his performance ends at the end of that round.

Jack of All Trades...
Starting at first level, and every two levels thereafter, a bard may choose one skill that he has at least one rank in. Any time the bard would use that skill, he may choose to take ten, even if that would normally not be allowed.

Charismatic Fighter
A bard of third level gains a bonus on his attack rolls, damage rolls, Will saves, and Armor class equal to his Charisma up to a maximum of +1. This maximum increases by one every three levels thereafter, up to a maximum of +6 at 18th level.

Bardic Knack
A bard may substitute the number of ranks in a skill with half his bard level if that number is higher than the number of ranks he has in that skill. However, he may not take ten or take twenty with a skill using Bardic Knack.

...Master of Some
Starting at fourth level, and every four levels afterwards, the bard may select one skill that he has chosen with Jack of All Trades.... Any time he takes ten, he takes fifteen for that skill instead.


Everything else, including proficiencies, saves, and base attack bonus stay the same. So what do you think? Is it too powerful, or is it underpowered and I'm completely overestimating the power level of some of these abilities?

 

[Nyeshet]

Charismatic Fighter
A bard of third level gains a bonus on his attack rolls, damage rolls, Will saves, and Armor class equal to his Charisma up to a maximum of +1. This maximum increases by one every three levels thereafter, up to a maximum of +6 at 18th level.

"But only when he makes a pun!" was the first thing that came to mind when I read this one.

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0390.html

Everything else, including proficiencies, saves, and base attack bonus stay the same. So what do you think? Is it too powerful, or is it underpowered and I'm completely overestimating the power level of some of these abilities?

It is weaker than - or at best about the same in weakness as - the typical bard. Consider what you lose without spellcasting: arcane healing, break enchantment, various illusions and enchantments not available through bardic music, and several other useful spells besides. Don't forget also that with spell casting a bard can use a feat to take Craft Wondrous Items or Craft Magical Arms and Armor: for one feat they gain access to quite a few magical items. Craft Wands or Craft Scroll can increase the casting for the day greatly - even if its just a Craft Wand of Cure Light Wounds it can be phenomenally useful.

Beyond about 10th to 12th level casting begins to eclipse non-casting in terms of power. By having casting at all the bard is - although not able to keep up with pure casters, at least able to keep up or almost keep up with non-casters. Removing casting and you have to significantly empower the bard to keep up at all.


I'd suggest new songs - perhaps one or two a level, covering the major bases of enchantment, illusion, abjuration, and divination - perhaps with a bit of minor conjuring thrown in (although shadow based illusion go a long way towards dealing with conjuration, I admit, and are better in theme with the bard).

Hmm, I might treat it as a variant warlock having many more invocations at the expense of no eldritch blast and requiring to use music to cast invocations. Change the specials that warlock gets for the bardic specials you have already mentioned, the d8 HD, two good saves, and simple weapon proficiency with light armor proficiency and one or two martial weapons (rapier, etc), and I think we may have a winner. The bard would have several songs that could be used at will for minor effects at first but notable ones at higher levels, enough hp and armor to last in a fight (at least as support), and enough skill pts and skill based specials to deal with most other situations the party may need. Hmm, give me a day or two and I'll post my view of this. It may not be balanced at first (although whether it is over or under powered is questionable), but with some work we should come to a balanced arrangement that might suit your needs.

 

[CustosObscurus]

Hehe, I love OotS. Maybe he should take a prestige class from an old sourcebook instead...

I had a few ideas:

I have the old Songs and Silence book from 3.0, and it has a PrC called the Virtuoso which adds a few more songs to the list. I can't name them off the top of my head, but there were some combat based and mind-affecting songs available.

Maybe he could get a song that grants the listeners temporary hit points to counteract the lack of healing? The world we're playing in is more magic-light than most D&D settings, which is why we're going for a less obviously magical character.

Full BAB, medium armor proficiency, and/or all good saves, maybe?

Maybe he could gain the ability to have multiple song abilities active at once, which would fit with the idea of making the bard a more versatile class.

 

[Nyeshet]

Dual Harmonics

The bard gains the ability to make two perform checks in any given round. He may only use this to combine instruments that might actually be combined in such a manner: vocal and guitar, for example, but not vocal and flute.

When making a normal performance (to gain gp, for example), then he would use the higher of the two rolls, with the lower of the two rolls granting a synergy bonus of +2 for every five ranks and +1 for every 10 points rolled.

Example: a bard is singing while playing the guitar. He has 12 ranks in guitar and 14 in song, but he rolls an 11 for guitar (total 23) and an 8 in song (total 20). He treats his total performance as being 23 + 4 (synergy from 10+ ranks in song) + 2 (synergy for rolling 20 points in song), for a total of 29.

Special: A Bard may use Dual Harmonics to use two Bardic Songs simultaneously, however, the songs do not gain a bonus in their rolls from each other; each song uses its own roll to determine its effect. The uses of bardic music are reduced as normal for each song. If the bard does not have enough uses for two songs, he cannot use Dual Harmonics to produce two songs simultaneously. Note that the songs do not have to start (nor end) at the same time. Dual Harmonics merely allows two to exist simultaneously. As with normal performances, the bard can only use dual harmonics if he has two methods of performing that can be made at the same time (such as vocal and a non-wind instrument, a wind instrument and a drum, etc.


Hmm, for combat considerations, is there an instrument that can be used one-handed without the use of the mouth? Only the drum comes to mind - and a rather small and wearable drum at that.