D&D 5E Bards Should Be Half-Casters in 5.5e/6e

[Charlaquin]

I wouldn't mind different kinds of casters having different ways of interacting with the magic system as a whole, similar to how the warlock doesn't fit within the full/half/third paradigm. They use slot progression to keep everything consistent, but coming up with a separate subsystem might make the bard more distinctive and just as powerful, but not in a access-to-9th-level-spells sort of way

God, I wish! Too complex for 5e’s general audience though, I’m afraid. Early playtest casters were much more varied in how they interacted with the spellcasting system, but sadly the warlock was the only one that made it to print with anything unique about its casting. Every other caster got gradually more similar over time because everyone loved the hot new neo-vancian style of casting that was originally the Cleric’s thing and wanted that for their casters too.

 

[Yaarel]

No offense, but I've seen people claim that Merlin is everything from a Wizard, to an infernal Sorcerer/Cambion, Warlock, Druid, and Bard.

Merlin is a composite of two separate somewhat historical figures, a Roman military leader and a bard called Merlin. The magical traditions are mainly Celtic bardic ones. Merlin compares to Taliesin, a bard with extremely powerful magic.

The word "wizard" means someone who knows magic, a generic term.

One of traditions says Merlin is the son of an "incubus". Given the provenance of place and time, this probably relates to later Scottish traditions of witches and elves, making Merlin something like a half elf. Nevertheless, the Merlin tradition probably demonizes the incubus, whence "cambion". But even then this is part of the Celtic magical concept ot the union of opposites, where this demon Merlin kinda sorta gets baptised as a Christian. In an other union of opposites, Merlin is born as an elder, and becomes more youthful as he ages.

I have no opinion about a reallife warlock. Besides the fact that (certain) communities referred to male witches as "warlock", everything else is obscure.

The term "druid" came to mean a generic term for mage. What the original druid is originally, we can guess at. They are a priestly caste (sacred family) who served Celtic gods, whose social role probably resembles Irish Catholic priests, and who in times of war fought magically and did not use weapons.

Some things are clear. Merlin is a bard.

I've heard all of those and the arguments for them, but I still don't "get it"/agree with that claim. I think that Merlin is a character from a fairy tale/legend that was not told predicting everything that Bards could do in a non-existent game called Dungeons and Dragons. I also don't think that Merlin is the prime/only inspiration for the Bard class (that is, if he was even part of the inspiration for the Bard class, which I have yet to have seen), and even if he was, that doesn't mean that Bards can't be used differently in D&D.

My approach is, when using a reallife cultural heritage term, make sure one knows what one is talking about. Make sure knowledgeable people from that culture consider the use of the term reasonable.

Big disagree. Paladins aren't historically accurate paladins (thank goodness), Warlocks aren't historically accurate Warlocks/Witches, Clerics aren't historically accurate clergy, Berserkers/Barbarians aren't historically accurate Berserkers, and Alchemists aren't historically accurate Alchemists (okay, this one, I could get behind. Alchemists would be way better and much cooler if they were related to discovering the 5th element "Aether", the Philosopher's Stone, and stuff like that).

I feel D&D doesnt entitle gamers to violate other peoples cultures.

The name "Music Mage" would certainly fit in with the names "Fighting Man" and "Magic-User", but that name wouldn't/doesn't fly in 5e ("Fighter" is still a semi-contentious name, as it's so bland. IMHO, "Warrior" or something similar would be way better). Bard works.

I agree the term "music mage" is bland. But obviously the term "bard" wouldnt work if the result is something that isnt what a bard is. Think about the concept, then try come up with a catchy (accurate) name for it.

It is so easy to not use a specific term from someone elses culture. If one wants to use it, do it accurately.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

OK. Let's respond to this.

• Teleportation Circle is more a bard spell than any other class. Bards are the people to whom all doors are opened - and Teleportation Circle in specific is about going through a door someone else has made.

Where does it say that in the PHB's section explaining the bard? Furthermore, having the charisma to have people like you and be more willing to accept them into your home is absolutely not the same as having the ability to draw a magical, runic circle on the ground to create a permanent wayport between other teleportation circles. That's not Bardic in theme, that's Wizardry.

• Power Word Kill - the spell about having the right word to stop someone's heart or make them lose the will to live? Yes, that's bardic magic.

Yeah, no. If Bards were more "Words of Power" and "True Naming" magic, sure. I could absolutely see "Avada Kedavra" be a spell that they get access to. However, the rest of the bard spell list and the bard's flavor text both beg to differ.

• Foresight is the sort of low key but powerful spell I would expect out of bards wearing their lorekeeper and loremaster hat more than I would any other class.

. . . That's not what foresight does. Foresight lets you see a few seconds into the future. It's not a "lorekeeper/master" spell, it's a "time-magic" spell. That's not at all bardic. (Especially because the actual Lorekeeper class, the Wizard, is the one that have that theme. Especially Chronurgy Wizards.)

• Prismatic Spray is leaning in to the rockstar element of being a bard - it's the light show.

. . . Which, again, is not explained in the PHB's Bard fluff text, and there's a major difference between a Light Show (Dancing Lights, Minor Illusion, Silent Image, or the many other illusion spells that the bard gets access to) and the "I will incinerate/freeze/dissolve/poison/electrocute you to death, or possibly of blinding you and sending you to a random plane of existence, or turning you to stone, or do two of these options".

Tell me how that's bard magic again? (And, if Bard Magic (or at least a major part of it) is a "light show", why don't bards get the radiant-damaging spells that are literally light shows?)

• Resurrection if you're going to allow anything to draw someone's soul back into their body a bard should be on the list. Personally I think it's too easy.

I agree that it's too easy. However, Clerics are traditionally the "I will bring back dead people", class, as well as Druids for Reincarnate. Bards don't have that theme.

• Regeneration is solid if you have bards as healing and high level casters. Healing is well within the bard archetype and

. . . But why? Why is healing a part of the bard archetype? I'm guessing it's for the reason I explained in the OP (WotC not knowing how to do buffing unless it's just plain healing, when other types of buffing work way better for bards).

So yes I think that every single one of those spells does belong on the bard list if high level bards are to be a thing.

I only gave a few examples. There are many, many others that I chose to leave out but I also feel have absolutely no point being on the Bard's high level spell list (besides giving them a high level spell list, when, IMO, they should be half-casters).

What role do wizards fill in the game? They're primarily direct damage blasters? Or are they primarily control characters? Or are they primarily utility characters? Because a lot of the time they're doing different things from that list. Bards are a stronger mythical archetype and more focused than wizards.

Wizards are the arcane casters. The studiers of the nature of the universe, magical scholars, etc. Yes, there will be overlap between the two classes that study their way to magic. However, making it more clear that one is the magic of emotion/story/song (the Bard), and the other is the magic of the Arcane/Eldritch/fabric of reality (Wizard) helps differentiate them and have their own niches. 5e fails at that, IMO (especially due to the higher-level spell list issue that I mentioned before).

Valour and Swords I agree are an overlap.

Agreed, as any sane person would.

College of Whispers isn't a weapon combat subclass - it's a spy and assassin.

. . . Besides their main mechanical feature that they get upon taking the subclass at level three being about dealing extra damage through their melee weapon attacks, that scales greatly as they reach higher levels? Yes, besides their main feature being focused on using their Bardic Inspiration to bolster their own melee combat, there's absolutely no overlap between the College of Whispers and that of Swords/Valor Bards.

Nope. College of Glamour is a rockstar who wants to be the center of attention. College of Eloquence is a diplomat or grifter who promotes or manipulates others. These are not the same thing at all.

That's not how they work mechanically, and they have a great deal of thematic overlap. Yes, the Glamour bard wants to be the "center of attention", just like the Eloquence bard who will be the face of social interaction for the party (due to Silver Tongue and Universal Speech). Yes, the Glamour bard has a bit more fey/illusion magic in theme, but there's too much overlap between them, IMO. The "Magical Center of Attention Bard that manipulates and debuffs enemies with subclass features" and the "Less-Overtly-Magical Center of Attention Bard that manipulates and debuffs enemies with subclass features" are absolutely currently thematically independent bard subclasses .

Oh noes. A PHB subclass doubles down on part of the thematics of the class and is distinct from the other PHB subclasses. That's well over half the PHB subclasses.

You say that like it isn't a bad thing. It's a bad thing that the Berserker's flavor is "Barbarian, but MOAR BARBARIAN!", that the Land Druid's theme is "Druid, but even more nature-connected", that the Champion and Battlemaster Fighters are "Just the Fighter, but even better at martial combat", that the Open-Hand Monk is "Just the monk, but even more monk-y than the other monks", that the Hunter Ranger is "the Ranger, but with more Ranger added", and so on, and so on, and so on.

Those . . . aren't good subclass ideas. If the subclass choice is between "cool differentiations from the base class" and "the base class but with more base class theme", that's not creative or intelligent design. Yeah, my criticism of the Lore Bard applies to much of the other subclasses in the PHB, but that doesn't make me wrong.

So, yeah, you're right that other subclasses in the PHB do that. That doesn't mean that they're "thematically different ideas" from the rest of the subclasses, because you can't be thematically different as a subclass if your theme is the base class.

7 of the 8 subclasses are thematically different, with the only exception being Valour/Swords.

Okay, you want me to be a bit more fair? Fine. I'll count the Valor/Swords as one subclass identity (martial bard), the sneaky, scary Whispers bard as 1/2 of a subclass identity (because it still relies a ton on the martial bard theme), the Creation and Spirits bards each as their own thematically different subclasses, and have the "Illusion Fey Bard" and "Extremely Social Manipulator/Persuader" count as 1.5 thematic ideas. The Lore Bard doesn't count, because it's just "The Bard! But as a Bard subclass!" (Oh, the ingenuity with this last subclass is staggering!)

That's a grand total of 5 out of 8, with many of them being very, very similar in theme. Drop the Lore Bard, drop either the Valor or Swords Bard, drop the martial part of the Whispers Bard, drop the overlapping part of the Glamour/Eloquence Bard, and you've got some thematically and mechanically distinct subclasses.

Meanwhile this compares pretty favourably IMO to e.g. wizards where all the PHB wizard classes are just "Wizard but good at this type of spell" and there are eight of them.

They're thematically different. There's no question that Illusion Wizards are different thematically from Necromancers, who are different from Evokers, who are different from Transmuters, and so on. However,

And that you personally do not find them thematically different and interesting means that you are someone who shouldn't be trying to fix the bard because you do not understand how it works when the bard is about as popular as any other class except the fighter, the rogue (who are a consistent first and second), and the druid (who's a consistent last).

"I don't like it" isn't even to being close to proof that something that is decently popular is broken. All you've shown is that you don't get the bard and you don't like it - and that the two are probably linked.

Oh, please. You don't even know me, @Neonchameleon. Stop making assumptions about my person and my taste in classes just because I think there are mechanical and thematic problems with one, please. Just because I don't like the execution of the bard in 5e doesn't mean that I don't like the idea of the bard in D&D. Those are two very, very distinct issues, and you would do better to not conflate them when debating with me in this thread.

I love the theme of the bard. I'm a musician in real life. I grew up in a home of musicians (my mother is a music teacher, all of us that are/were old enough have/had been in Choir/Band in 5th-12th grade as well as in college, did musicals and plays for extracurriculars, etc). I was in my high school's chamber choir for 3 years (I'm 19, so that wasn't long ago for me), would always sing in my church's choir (back when I was a member of the church), and so on.

I love music. I love how music makes me feel. I love the idea of a fantasy character using song or instrument or poem or story to make/channel magic, and to support their party. Bard characters on D&D livestreams and campaign stories are some of my favorite out of all of them. I love the idea of the bard. I just think that it's executed poorly in 5e, and want to fix it in a manner that suits my tastes.

I know bards are popular. I've played a bard, both as a player and as a DM (not a DMPC, but as an NPC that was there to support the party due to them lacking players). I love bards. I just dislike how they're executed mechanically and thematically (to an extent, as described in the OP).

Disliking how a class is mechanically and thematically executed is not the same thing as disliking the class. Don't conflate the two, and especially don't accuse me of not liking a class (or even worse, accuse me of wanting to nerf a class because you think that I don't like it).

And as I mentioned earlier you don't start off by saying "We should nerf this" unless it's gamebreaking. You start off by presenting a positive vision of what something could be rather than simply slagging it off as your reason it should change.

Again, no. That's not what I'm saying. Read the OP, please. I gave some examples of how to make up for the loss of 6th-9th level spells there. Stop painting me as a "Evil, bard-nerfing, music-is-magic minstrel killer". You're mistaking me for someone else/painting me as someone that I am not. @Snarf Zagyg is the one that dislikes bards (or at least, jokes a ton about how much they hate bards), not me.

 

[ReshiIRE]

The main part is that they're one of the 4 Charisma-based caster-classes from the PHB, while Intelligence has 1 (Wizards, but now has Artificers), and Wisdom has 3 (Clerics, Druids, and Rangers). I've addressed a way to solve/reduce this issue (which is an issue, in my opinion and experience, but you may disagree) in a thread about making Sorcerers be Constitution-casters, but this could also be used to give Warlocks a bigger thematic niche as the full caster (or full-caster equivalent) Charisma-based-class.

I want to address this part, which I know is only a small apart of the OP, but I think it's an important thing to address.

Part of this issue is caused by Wizards changing Warlocks from being an Intelligence caster in D&D Next to being a Charisma caster in the PHB. It simply doesn't align with what the lore of the class is, and while I have seen interesting arguments that a Warlock's patron should decide what stat they use for casting, etc., I think the default, especially for the PHB sublcasses, should have been Intelligence. That would have better balanced out the important of each casting stat in the PHB (with the addition of the Artificer later making it so there are three casters that do something with Intelligence) and wouldn't make Warlock such an easy mark for multi-classing.

Further on, to build upon that point, if that mistake had not been made, I feel what a Charisma based caster is would be clearer: it is based upon the will of the caster, which thematically ties in well with the themes of Paladins, Bards and Sorcerers. This helps the bard themselves.

I would also object to the point made earlier that a Bard and Sorcerer are thematically confused in some way. That's not true thematically (and certainly not mechanically). While they both impose their will onto the world, a Bard requires training, some measure of expertise, and some sort of learning. A Sorcerer just does. They just are, as their lore is presented. That's already a major difference in the two themes that provide them both with space to exist, thematically.

Actually, in many ways I think perhaps Sorcerers, if well designed, could be interesting half-casters, who gain less access to spells but have much more use and much more access to metamagic in exchange, meaning that they draw upon inate power within themselves to create powerful, modified spells that leave them as unpredictable as their powers. I wouldn't entirely be in favour of it (they should get access to higher spells somehow... perhaps they would use their metamagic to create a higher level spell slot?), but it would give somewhat give a nice balance to the caster classes alongside my Warlock change, each having 1 half-caster, and 2 full-ish casters.

This might also be a good time to reflect on how other systems, such as Pathfinder 2e, do their Bards and Sorcerers.

 

[Charlaquin]

Benjamin Button was a bard

or something.

 

[Yaarel]

or something.

Who is Benjamin Button?

Heh, I googled it. Aging backwards. I will probably like that movie. I will look out for it.

 

[Charlaquin]

Who is Benjamin Button?

It’s a movie. The eponymous character comes into being as an old man in a nursing home and gets younger over time. When you said Merlin did the same it made me think of that.

 

[Mordhau]

I'm less interested in whether they should be half or full casters.

My issue with them is that the design space is boring and little of interest is done with them. They are yet another Charisma caster in a game that is full of them, just with a slightly different and overlapping spell list.

They're magic is just not sufficiently different.

I would probably lean into the bards buffing and magical ability a little more.

What I think would be cool is to give the Bard the ability to have a song (or a war chat or whatever) that breaks the rules for concentration. Let them weave new spells into a song that has already started, so they can maintain several spells at once.

Make them the only class that is able to do that - and then consider how to balance their casting around that capabality.

 

[Umbran]

I think Anderson was influenced by the legendary Frankish knight named Roland.

The Paladins were a dozen legendary knights of Charlemagne's court of the Holy Roman Empire back in the 8th century (or so goes the stories). Roland (often called Orlando) was first among them.

Paladin - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

With all the controversy over Oriental Adventures I'm surprised some people can so casually toss aside cultural sensitivity. Literature is an important part of culture.

So, you are rather missing the point of cultural sensitivity. If you are borrowing from an author who is of your culture, it isn't a sensitivity issue. Anderson and Gygax were both borrowing from European legends, and so weren't making that much of a hash of sensitivity.

 

[Ath'kethin]

I’d like a return to the « rogue bard » of 2e AD&D. Half caster frame sounds appropriate, with evocation/infusion like powers to round it up.

Me too, except I'd like a return to the bard with a spellbook too. Cap them at 5th level spells; that's fine. But don't kneecap them with the Spells Known baloney.