D&D 5E Anyone else think the Bard concept is just silly?

[Ilbranteloth]

Man, it's been at least a decade since I've seen a random encounter at an actual DnD table.

Come by my table some time...

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Ah the usual defense when people run our of arguments. Its not my fault that your last D&D session is so far back that you have trouble actual in game combats.
You still present a scene not representative of actual D&D gameplay because even though you now add blurbs that there are other characters in the combat it is still a story about the bard doing stuff alone and placing him onto a pedestal. In actual gameplay the bard wouldn't solo his enemy unopposed while the rest of the party (maybe) does something in the background and then wonders how awesome the bard is, the bard would while his companions fight play his harp so that they hit harder and maybe throw out an insult at sometimes clearly unintelligent enemies which are currently also fought by his companions. He would not stand apart. I know why you present it this way. You want to lessen the disconnect between a singing, lute or harp playing bard and actively fighting characters by representing them separately. But thats not how it works in game.

Related back to your earlier quote:

Yes it is totally silly as again you create a special scene with the bard as the only protagonist. Yet that is not how D&D plays out. The bard is just one of the party and while he sings the fighter fights, the rogues backstabs and the wizard casts fireball.

So the bard doesn't just sing (and really doesn't have to sing at all). The bard can beef up the fighter, the rogue, or the wizard with inspiration as a bonus action, and then still cast a spell or go into combat. To me a bard has always been a type of rogue/wizard. Being able to increase your ally's chance of success and still getting your full turn is pretty darn good. They are decent fighters (well, the way 5e works, everybody is the same in terms of to-hit ability now), has some useful spells for combat, can help the rest of the party fight better, and can also help heal them after the battle.

I can't think of any other class that can help buff up the party and still attack in the same round. There might be a spell or something, but I can't think of anything off-hand.

As I pointed out in an earlier post, I don't consider them as always being the musical type.

When a bard does the same as the wizard, why isn't he a wizard?

Why have any other class that casts spells then? For that matter, when a rogue hits somebody with a sword, why isn't he a fighter?

Why does he have a harp instead of a wand? Why does the art, rules and fluff in the books present us with a guy playing a lute in the background to encourage others and hurl insults at stone golems when you could instead have someone in his place who throws a spear of lightning at the enemies? Even with the same effect in the rules the imagery of that makes a lot more sense than vicious mockery.

Oh and for extra silliness, imagine Orpheus keep playing while a tiger critted him and is gnawing on his leg.

Sure, they are often presented that way, and in pictures they always have an instrument, because how else would you know it's a bard. However, in my campaign, that's exactly the point. You see a guy in leather or brigandine armor, a sword at their side, walking down the street, they could be a rogue, fighter, bard, even some sort of spellcaster. Depending on the world, a cleric as well.

And the bard can encourage others and throw the spear of lightning. In the same round.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Ah the usual defense when people run our of arguments. Its not my fault that your last D&D session is so far back that you have trouble actual in game combats.

Give me an actual in-game combat, and I'll show you how a half-decent DM can translate that into a dramatic narrative. You can have the bard act however you like, as long as it's something a player who's trying to be serious would plausibly do. (If the player is trying to be silly, all you've proven is that players can be silly.) You can give him whatever rolls you like: he can triumph completely or die horribly, there's drama either way. Everything else is up to you too. The ball is totally in your court.

I'm not afraid of issuing this challenge because (notwithstanding your aspersions) I'm not trying to obfuscate or hide anything. I'm trying to show you something. You hate this "silly" bard you envision, so I'm trying to show you that there are other ways to envision the bard which you might not hate. Now, so far you've demonstrated that you'd rather keep complaining about your problem than learn how to fix it. You'd rather curse the darkness than light a candle. If you're going to persist with that attitude, then I can't help you -- and I'd appreciate it if you just came out and told me this is the case, so I don't waste any more of my time here. But if you instead approach this with an open mind, then maybe you can be a little bit happier the next time a player shows up at your table with a bard.

 

[Brandegoris]

To be fair It was ME who started this thread, not poor Derren
LOL

And I did concede for myself at least that ( Just as I had hoped) I had been shown a few good examples from players that might make me see the Bard in a different way. I am glad that we have all discussed this.
Initially I started the thread to see if anyone else had the same perspective problem with the Bard that made the whole thing seem silly and several others DID seem to share my issue ( Derren is one it seems). But I am glad to have seen a few examples of how a Bard might seem better so I think this conversation has been wroth it for me.
I still have a small problem with Bards because though I have heard good feedback I would still have to hope that anyone who plays with me decides to do something cool instead of be the typical sing-song minstrel fro Robin Hood Men in Tights...
But there is a small glimmer of hope now at least.

 

[Alexemplar]

I vaguely recall that part of problem that the 5e designers faced was that the bard's jack-of-all-trades niche did not necessarily work as intended, particularly when it came to spellcasting. In at least the core PHB of 3e, the bard was the sole 2/3 caster, sitting above the 1/4 casters (e.g. paladins, rangers), but below the full casters (e.g. wizards, clerics, druids, sorcerers). In 5e, the 3e 1/4 casters got upgraded to 1/2 casters, which placed the bard into something of an awkward position. Were bards more appropriate as half-casters or full-casters? To be honest, I can see the potential argument for either.

Hopefully you realize that these aren't even remotely exclusive ideas, right? Again, if we look at lot of the flavor-fluff of the bard, it remembers these tales and stories, epics and sagas, poems and songs, and the like because these are regarded as snippets of lore and history. That's even a HUGE aspect of what the bard was. Being a historian/lorekeeper (and occasionally other functions, such as law) and a musician were practically inseparable! There is even a sense that they are not learning these things to entertain, but, rather, they entertain because they have learned an overlapping set of skills.

Really? So the fact that bards are said to "enter long-forgotten tombs, discover lost works of magic, decipher old tomes" means nothing to you? Or nothing that the Creating a Bard even asks whether you attended "a college where you studied bardic lore and practiced your musical magic?" Or that the Lore bards spend their time "collecting bits of knowledge from sources as diverse as scholarly tomes and peasant tales" and "gather in libraries and sometimes in actual colleges, complete with classrooms and dormitories, to share their lore with one another"? Apart from Harry Potter and the Wizards of Earthsea, a lot of popular depictions of wizards veer away from "wizarding school." D&D tends to depict wizards as a solitary, keep-to-themselves sort who seclude themselves in their towers. And there is a less a sense that they are driven by a desire to "accumulate knowledge," but, rather, that they desire to "master magic."

It seems as if you are conflating two differing senses of "knowing stuff" then. I don't know if you are trying to have your cake and it too or what. You say you mean "knowing stuff" in the "seer/fortuneteller/advisor" sense, but when I look at what you describe, it is essentially the difference of three spells and a cantrip: Guidance, Divination, Commune, and Augury. These are also unique divination spells that even the divination wizard lacks. I guess the divination wizard isn't meant to "know stuff" or be a "seer/fortuneteller/advisor" either. But it's worth noting that both Divination and Commune are spells explicitly tied to "knowing stuff" through a deity or a divine proxy. This is not some rote fortune-telling and magic crystal balls we're talking about here. This is the sort of activity that belong to priests, shamans, and spiritual advisors. (Though it is certainly strange that a cleric seer/fortuneteller could not Identify, See Invisibility, or have lack Foresight.) And the bard's list of communication divination spells that make them "stand out" from the cleric amount to a whopping magnitude of two spells: Speak with Animals and Comprehend Languages. That's it, unless you count Detect Thoughts. A cleric has Tongues too.

The bard's "knowing stuff," however, pertains more to "lore/knowledge/information." Unlike the cleric, the bard has access to the spells Identify, Detect Thoughts, Locate Animals or Plants, and Foresight. How does that not constitute "knowing stuff"? How does Detect Thoughts, See Invisibility, Scrying, and Foresight not help the bard with the seer/fortuneteller/advisor sense of "knowing stuff"? How does True Strike, Detect Magic, Identify, See Invisibility, Locate Animals or Plants, or Foresight highlight the bard's social skills or role as an entertainer? Actually for that matter, what divination spells do you see on the bard's spell list make him an entertainer? You are clearly seeing something that I'm not there.

Like the bard on page 55 of the 5E PHB?

Can the Bard do other things? Yes, absolutely. However, in addition to all of that, the Bard is also saddled with the musical performer shtick.

This is why I cited examples such as the d20 Star Wars Noble, Fantasycraft Keeper and Sage, and the One Ring RPG's Scholar. All classes that do what the Bard does, but from reading the class description, class abilities, or looking at the art, you would not jump to the conclusion that those classes were intrinsically tied to music or the role of minstrel in the same way you do with the D&D Bard.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Come by my table some time...

Mine too, I roll random encounters all the time, especially in the OotA campaign I'm running. Heck any game though. "Oh you want to try and get a rest in do you? Trying to hole up in the dungeon to get some sleep I see? Well lets see what the dice think about that!"

 

[Brandegoris]

Mine too, I roll random encounters all the time, especially in the OotA campaign I'm running. Heck any game though. "Oh you want to try and get a rest in do you? Trying to hole up in the dungeon to get some sleep I see? Well lets see what the dice think about that!"

I do too! We have one player who is maybe the worst roller ( most unlucky) in the History of D&D and we all make A joke of forcing him to roll the groups Random encounters!
No matter How unlikely the encounter chance is he always seems to roll it and then roll the hardest possible creature!

 

[Aldarc]

Can the Bard do other things? Yes, absolutely. However, in addition to all of that, the Bard is also saddled with the musical performer shtick.

And so what?

 

[Alexemplar]

And so what?

So a lot of people find that idea silly.

 

[nightwind1]

Lots of cultures were known to sing or have music in combat.

This- bagpipes, drums, bugles, rams horns...