LOL really? I
knew someone would
have to get this in! Fine. Enjoy your 5E bard.
I can do that.
We had a play test bard that followed paladin and ranger spell progression, and it was given bonus spells at various levels to get ahead of them. It didn't work out in the end while there were suggestions that were similar it ended up with what we have in the name of simplicity.
The warlock chassis works fine for an alternative. Warlock spells known, songs instead of invocations, magical secrets instead of arcanum. Tailoring an eldritch knight or arcane trickster works well for different bard tropes too, especially the arcane trickster as a magical minstrel type.
In myth, a lot of magicians and shamans were bards, and they were all attributed magical abilities.
Myrddin was the basis for Merlin (often called a magician or wizard) and originally a bard. When a person understands that Merlin was a bard, and not a wizard (although they were often synonymous), then the full caster starts to appear based on some legends. Merlin, Amergin, or Talisien and more in the older legends is where we see powerful magic users. Amergin, for example, sang to the sky to part a magical storm the druids of the Tuatha Dé Danann had created to stop his ships from landing.
Way back when, bards were a branch of druids. We see that in AD&D and currently in some of the shared spells to fallow. Historically, they were healers, magicians, lawyers and judges, geneologists, historians, eulogists, advisors, and teachers among many other things. They were the keepers of oral tradition and using songs or poetry was mnemonic device to help remember and this version of the bard was well respected. When bards told stories, they were to give insight and not necessarily what their patrons wanted to here. Think Aesop's fables. The moral of the story or teaching through parable.
They literally went to colleges and were the super scholars of their time.
This isn't the only version of bards in history. It's the version I generally look at for bards. You can watch many documentaries or movies where you see a tribal shaman chanting while dancing around with drums or rattles for an instrument, who's job it is to keep custom and oral tradition, tell stories of their ancestors, and advise the chief. That's a bard by any other name. ;-)
Bards evolved over time and kept oral tradition even as the druidic origins was vanishing and written history was developing. Eventually a more modern association of being a story teller and musician. That's what a lot of people think when they hear "bard" and D&D includes that in the broad concept. This helps differentiate it from druids with some of their shared mythologies and roles, who were steered more towards the nature priest concept.
When I think of or envision a bard, I think of the version where wizard, druid, and bard were interchangeable concepts. It's mythologically and historically a thing so no one should be telling me "bards full spell casters is wronz". It's just not what you might envision based on your knowledge and experience. ;-)
The only actual difference in the history of D&D is bard were bumped up to 9th level spells one edition later than clerics and druids. Clerics and druids jumped to 9th level spells going into 3e and I thought that was odd at first. After playing a lot of 2e where all bards had 6th level spells and most clerics and druids had 5th level spells unless blessed with extremely high WIS (where they might get 6th level spells or 7th level spells) it was a big jump to 9th level spells for those classes. 3e is the only edition to actually have that big gap comparing bards to clerics/druids to make it the one-off scenario to which people cling. And, as I've said many time, the bard song already made up the difference (they could cast mass suggestion 20 times a day just off songs), and popular bard pre's commonly changed the spells known in a system much like magical secrets. Magical secrets is just a 5e implementation of a common pre ability kept with the class.
None of this is ground breaking or new. It's just better implemented and back to where bards had similarities to druids and clerics.
dnd4vr said:
Finally, PLEASE do not waste my time (or yours...) simply by saying "the bard is awesome, and great as it is" or something similar.
Telling us not to say it doesn't make it true, lol. ;-)
I thought you might benefit from seeing things from my perspective, however, and gave more information on why the current implement works. It covers a lot of versions of how people see bards depending on point in history, various cultures and mythologies, past editions of D&D, modern interpretations, and pop-culture. There is a broad scope to cover. Another example not coming from old myths.
Brom from Eragon is a bard. He is a bit of a rascal poaching chickens with a cutting humor when he cuts them down after getting caught, something that keeps him from getting punished or prosecuted other than the loss of the chickens. He opens as a storyteller, inspiring Eragon with tales of the Dragonriders to keep that history alive by oral tradition. He takes on the role of a teacher and advisor to Eragon. That's a classic bard role. Brom is a teacher, storyteller, magician, healer, and warrior all rolled into one. I'm pretty sure he's not what you were envisioning.
What you envision isn't wrong either. I find "bard" is a wide scope. It's doable by playing arcane trickster. I would say history, persuasion, performance, healer feat, and inspiring leader feat would make him more bard-like.
Hopefully that helps. Perspective is sometimes the difference.
I agree that any class is too much. I would limit to wizard, cleric, and druid. I'm still having problems with the bard picking paladin spells at 6th level and them being overpowered compared to 9-level caster spells.
Bards don't do that. One subclass can do that among the other options available. Meanwhile, the cleric already picked up 2 paladin spells and 1 wizard spell before the bard class got any magical secrets. Those war cleric poachers must be OP because of domain spells. ;-)
Paladin or ranger spells is irrelevant. Spells are rated based on spell level, and are not high level class features just because paladins and rangers gain spells at a slower rate. Banishing smite isn't a higher level spell than raise dead just because raise dead is available to bards at 9th level and banishing smite is available to paladins at 17th level because they are both 5th level paladin spells.
"But only high level paladins or rangers get this spell" has nothing to do with the spell level rating and what's really going in is niche protection / don't touch my toys. The level part isn't a logical argument.
Bards are also not more powerful and any other equal level spell caster based spell casting, except possibly cleric parity. The lack of class abilities related to improving spell potency or adding slot makes every other caster better at spell casting. Simply adding a few spells from other lists doesn't change that.
Sounds to me like the PF2e bard could be what the OP is looking for.
Sure, if he wants to keep
the PF2e bard as a full caster. PF2 did the same thing 5e did and gave bards the full caster chassis and then didn't increase the capability with those spells, adding a focus pool for songs et al instead. That's not that different from what 5e did with bardic inspiration dice as a short rest mechanic.
