D&D 5E Bards have an identity problem!

[Maxperson]

Bard are not just musicians, they're an magical tradition of their own. If a spell can be inscribed in a book then surely it can also be sung?

Wizard spells are very specific in the words, gestures and components that they require. Saying that an inscribed spell can surely be sung is like saying that surely those finger gestures can be replaced by flapping arms. Bards have their own spells that are sung and they learn them in a way that is closer to Sorcerer than Wizard. Innately.

 

[Coroc]

In 5e the Bard is as good of a caster as a Wizard or Cleric. But Bards that cast spells like Wizards cast don't feel very Bard-like. They feel more like a Charisma Wizard. That makes for a mechanically strong class but a thematically weak one. Do 5e Bards have the identity they should have?

From an RP pov they really have an identity problem: A bard, if I would not know D&D s 5e take on the class is one or more of these:

1. A travelling musician/poet
2. A (court-) jester
3. A gigolo
3. A skald

They implies to me these archetypical skills:

1. and 3. charisma, charming qualities maybe some enchantment magic

2 Acrobatics, wits, intelligence maybe some mage tricks or illusion magic

4 Knowledge history maybe some divination magic.

At no way any of these classical takes can be represented very well by 5e bards.
Neither is he a full caster, nor should he have access to clerical cure spells. He should be able to resolve conflicts verbally or by pacifying / dumbfounding his enemies with his skills. Apart from the gigolo (who needs this skill for the unavoidable honor duels), he also is not the sword/rapier artist, for the jester e.g. some double dagger build would be most realistic, or maybe something with improvised weapons.
A skald most surely uses the same weaponry as his tribe of "Northmen"

 

[see]

1e bard was a "prestige class" sotospeak with levels in fighter and rogue as prereq.

Thing is, the 1e bard wasn't the original bard, the 1e bard was what Gygax created because he didn't like the original mishmash bard but was putting all the already-published D&D classes into the 1e PHB.

The original bard, created by Doug Schwegman and published in The Strategic Review #6 (February 1976), was very much the precursor of the 2e bard -- "a hodgepodge of at least three different kinds, the norse ‘skald’, the celtic ‘bard’, and the southern european ‘minstrel’" and "a jack-of-all-trades . . . both an amateur thief and magic user as well as a good fighter". Could use any weapon, could wear leather armor or chainmail, had thief skills at 1/2 level, had a magic user spell progression, had a charm power and a legend lore power, knew languages up to their intelligence score, used the cleric attack progression and save table.

The 5e bard keeps some of the trappings of that hodgepodge origin around, but as a full caster really leans heavily into the music is magic trope, which is at least as sensible as the excuse for any of the other full-caster classes. And it'd be a lot clearer, really, if the sorcerer and warlock were moved to different casting attributes to emphasize their stories (probably Constitution for innate power and Intelligence for pacts, assuming you don't just admit that "taught magic by a creepy being" is an alternate wizard origin story and "agreed to be a channel for greater powers" is a cleric). The bard would then clearly be the one whose music is so moving that it actually causes animals, spirits, and even inanimate objects to react.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

In 5e the Bard is as good of a caster as a Wizard or Cleric. But Bards that cast spells like Wizards cast don't feel very Bard-like. They feel more like a Charisma Wizard. That makes for a mechanically strong class but a thematically weak one. Do 5e Bards have the identity they should have?

You've got it backwards.

Wizards have an identity problem because they ripped off Bards/Druids mythologically. If anything, we should adjust Wizards so they're less like Bards.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

1. A travelling musician/poet
2. A (court-) jester
3. A gigolo
3. A skald

At no way any of these classical takes can be represented very well by 5e bards.

None of those things except maybe a Skald is a Bard. They're jobs. That's like saying Wizards aren't great for sages, scriveners, researchers, librarians and so on. Yeah, because those are jobs, not classes. Same could be said for clerics and various religion-adjacent jobs or religious leaders who don't traditionally possess UNTOLD MAGICAL POWWWWEEEERRRRSSSSS (booming voice - Thaumaturgy, natch).

So that's an utterly nonsensical objection, and that the OP is giving it the thumbs up shows you guys are the source of the problem here, not the Bard class. If you want to be a gigolo, i.e. a male escort, you can do that as whatever class you like. Indeed, I daresay Bard has never been an ideal class for that. You don't want huge charisma in a gigolo - you want good looks, etiquette, attentiveness, compliance, and possibly athleticism. People should be listening to and staring at you, not hanging on every word of your hired escort. If you want to be a jester, work on your stand-up and get a stupid outfit. That's not a class. A travelling musician is not a class either - indeed, if they aren't gathering lore and so on, such a character actively could NOT be a Bard in any edition.

 

[Cadence]

You've got it backwards.

Wizards have an identity problem because they ripped off Bards/Druids mythologically. If anything, we should adjust Wizards so they're less like Bards.

How do the D&D wizards match the popular fantasy-literature wizards that the players are more familiar with? (That from the appendices and later. And how much has the D&D wizard influenced what's in those books over the past two decades?).

As far as being based on the Druids, how much do we actually know about the Druids (as opposed to say the later state of the Norse mythos, for example).

None of those things except maybe a Skald is a Bard. They're jobs.

Is fighter a job and rogue a state of mind?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

How do the D&D wizards match the popular fantasy-literature wizards that the players are more familiar with? (That from the appendices and later. And how much has the D&D wizard influenced what's in those books over the past two decades?).

As far as being based on the Druids, how much do we actually know about the Druids (as opposed to say the later state of the Norse mythos, for example).

One of the major problems D&D has always had is that the Wizard class isn't a great match for fantasy-literature wizards. D&D Wizards have had very limited influence on "wizards" in fantasy literature post-D&D (barring that directly based on D&D or parodying D&D). Most fantasy from say, 1985-present has wizards/sorcerers with fairly limited/specific powers. None, that I'm aware of it, uses a "fire and forget" approach (which is from the novels of Jack Vance). TH White, Ursula K. LeGuin and others have, overall, been bigger influences, and superhero comics and their approach to powers have been an increasing influence in fantasy fiction (indeed, as, I'd argue, have Steven King and others been).

I read tons of fantasy fiction, and it's notable that when fantasy has wizards with even D&D-levels of magical power, that's exceptional, not usual.

What real Druids did is irrelevant, but the mythology around Druids, particularly Irish Celtic mythology (as written down largely by Christian monks/clerics) is profoundly influential on a lot of stuff that leads to what we think of as "wizards". For example, Merlin was Myrddin Wyllt - explicitly a bard - before he became thought of as a wizard.

Myrddin Wyllt - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Is fighter a job and rogue a state of mind?

What? What are you even talking about? Gigolo is a job. Jester is a job. Caravan Guard is a job. Musician is a job. Clerk is a job. Scrivener is a job. Night Watch is a job. Soldier is a job. Apothecary is a job. Do I need to go on?

Fighter is a class. A Fighter could be a gigolo, or a caravan guard or even a scrivener. Likewise a Rogue could be any of those things as a job, but would remain a Rogue as a class. The idea that because a Bard doesn't make a good "gigolo" they're not a good Bard class is a total logic failure. It's ridiculous and nonsensical.

 

[FrogReaver]

1. D&D Bards are based on charisma and wit. They are dabblers. Decent at many things but not experts at many.

2. D&D bards are based Musical magic.

for 2, Music itself has no magic properties. What is the source of the bards music magic? That’s where I find fault in treating bards as about music magic. There needs to be more elaboration on how his music magic is coming about.

for 1, that’s what I envision as a bard. It doesn’t really mesh well with the concept of someone who is primarily concerned with music magic.

i think that’s the issue. To me the current bard is composed of 2 competing concepts. Smooth talking entertainer/Dabbler and music mage.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

1. D&D Bards are based on charisma and wit. They are dabblers. Decent at many things but not experts at many.

2. D&D bards are based Musical magic.

for 2, Music itself has no magic properties. What is the source of the bards music magic? That’s where I find fault in treating bards as about music magic. There needs to be more elaboration on how his music magic is coming about.

for 1, that’s what I envision as a bard. It doesn’t really mesh well with the concept of someone who is primarily concerned with music magic.

i think that’s the issue. To me the current bard is composed of 2 competing concepts. Smooth talking entertainer/Dabbler and music mage.

There's a lot of "facts not in evidence here". It's fine as an opinion, but I hope you're not suggesting 1 or 2 is actually fact.

Re: music magic - you don't need any more elaboration, I would suggest. There's no elaboration on where the magic that other classes use comes from in 5E. It's all extremely brief and vague. Indeed the most elaboration is probably Sorcerers and Warlocks, of all things. If you really want it, you can make it up. However I would suggest they're not "music mages" at all and this is in fact your own, somewhat idiosyncratic viewpoint.

As for "dabblers", that's just an outdated view. If they were "dabblers", like in 2E, they'd need a much faster XP table and so on. Rather all Bards in 5E are masters of lore and many are powerful spellcasters in their own ways, which are somewhat diverse. They fit much more closely to mythological accounts of sorcerers and wizards than actual D&D sorcerers and wizards tend to. Singing and music are very, very, very often magical in mythology. You seem to think this is unusual - on the contrary - magic that doesn't involve music or chanting (not stage magician, Harry Potter or SHAZAM-style phrases of power, either) is rarer in mythology.

Your own examples are incoherent. "Smooth talking entertainer" could be any class, in any edition. Dabbler is meaningless and clearly not the case in 5E (and it's got nothing to do with being a "smooth talking entertainer"), and "music mage" is your own projection. In fact most mages/wizards/sorcerers should be using music, chants, and understandable curses as part of their whole spellcasting deal, mythologically (and often in fantasy fiction too).

I think the real problem here is 3E.

3E had an exceptionally bad and stupid take on the Bard. It was ineffectual, it was bad at everything, and it had nonsensical magical abilities that seemed more like they were derived from EverQuest than earlier Bards or mythology or fantasy fiction. 3E introduced and locked in the mind of many people this ludicrous concept of the Bard as a fop with a lute who stands around singing "Sneak, sneak. sneak!" to help the Rogue. Some people want to return to that, I guess, just like some people want to return to LFQW, and so on.

 

[Maxperson]

Re: music magic - you don't need any more elaboration, I would suggest. There's no elaboration on where the magic that other classes use comes from in 5E. It's all extremely brief and vague. Indeed the most elaboration is probably Sorcerers and Warlocks, of all things. If you really want it, you can make it up. However I would suggest they're not "music mages" at all and this is in fact your own, somewhat idiosyncratic viewpoint.

Read the Music and Magic section of the 5e bard. It's pretty clear that music is the primary focus for their magic. While it does mentions words as well, it's almost an after thought when they do it. The vast majority of the section about music.