In the light of the PHBII coming out (I have not yet read through it but have read many reviews of it), I wondered what others have done to up the powerlevel of the bard. I'm not very interested in rebuilding the class from the ground up, but instead subbing out some abilities for another or granting the character more options than it had before.
A great example would be to allow the bard to sub out any of their bardic music abilties for bardic music feats. The Eberron CS orginally included this optional rule and some great feats for the class. Another tweek could change the activation time on bardic music from a standard action to a move action or free action, at least inspire courage. The knight's abiltilies seem to only require free actions to use and I would like to modify inspire courage so it follows the same concept. The bard already lacks the combat prowess of the other classes and I feel that this change would deversify their options in combat.
Another idea I'm toying with would be to offer the bard a number of skill based bonus feats, such as skill focus and the +2/+2 feats or expanding its bonus feat pool to include a pool of basic combat and metamagic ones, mirroring to the scout. They could get feats every fifth level starting at 5 or possibly earlier.
What have you guys done to improve the bard while still keeping much of the class the same?
A great example would be to allow the bard to sub out any of their bardic music abilties for bardic music feats. The Eberron CS orginally included this optional rule and some great feats for the class. Another tweek could change the activation time on bardic music from a standard action to a move action or free action, at least inspire courage. The knight's abiltilies seem to only require free actions to use and I would like to modify inspire courage so it follows the same concept. The bard already lacks the combat prowess of the other classes and I feel that this change would deversify their options in combat.
Another idea I'm toying with would be to offer the bard a number of skill based bonus feats, such as skill focus and the +2/+2 feats or expanding its bonus feat pool to include a pool of basic combat and metamagic ones, mirroring to the scout. They could get feats every fifth level starting at 5 or possibly earlier.
What have you guys done to improve the bard while still keeping much of the class the same?