D&D General What's Bardier than a Bard?

[MichaelSomething]

How about "Multi classed Fighter/Rouge/Sorcerer?"

 

[UngeheuerLich]

How about "Multi classed Fighter/Rouge/Sorcerer?"

That is not quite right.
Edit: remove the rouge, add rogue and also add warlord, probably druid for good measure.

 

[Yaarel]

When I run bards and druids, I like to keep them tied to Celtic culture.

The thing is. The 5e Bard derives from Celtic culture. Divination, charm, curse, transmutation, are the kinds of things that a Celtic bard does.

The 5e Druid doesnt derive from Celtic culture.

But the modern fantasy bard archetype — the happy-go-lucky, charming rake who uses both actual magic and sleight-of-hand to pick unwary pockets, and uses music to bolster allies, sooth savage beasts in the vein of Orpheus, and seduce anything with a pulse (or not, if you count undead and constructs)

The 3e "spoony" Bard is a modern archetype.

It is like the Trickster Rogue, but more glamorous and a celebrity. Some of the reallife rock stars inspire the archetype.

"Enchanter" (literally someone who chants magic, a singer) is a reasonable name.

"Artist" might work.

Even "Illusionist" (literally to play with, a player) can work.

Heh, "player" might work.

— doesn't quite fit a more historically grounded bard (or skald or scop).

The Norse skald is the same thing as the Celtic bard, entering in the Nordic lands during foreign Christian influences.

 

[MGibster]

Dragon Magazine had a Jester class for 1st edition. It was closer to the thief than a bard I think.

 

[Ashrym]

Really? I remember from The Mists of Avalon Merlin (a title) to be a druid first, a sage second, and a minstrel third. I have an impression 1e (?) Bard was trying to emulate that, with all those levels in fighter, thief, and druid before going bard. I never played 1e, though, that's just an impression from reading the PHB a few times a long time ago.

The class abandoned any druidic roots it might've had starting with 2e (my first edition). They kept its loremaster legacy, though. I suppose if we remove the druidic aspect of the Merlin, the 5E Bard is enough of a loremaster and minstrel to play a Merlin-like character. Good catch.

That is pretty much where the bard origins come from. They were sages who kept history and customary law through those stories and songs as part of the role, and mythologically were magicians. 5e does this better than previous editions even if it adds the troubadour / jongleur characteristics that are part of construct we see as bards in game.

I just ignore the fluff and call bards and bard and play them how I envision the character. Works for me. If I were to change the name I would probably go with shaman as well because those were similar societal roles.

 

[Jer]

I'd pick something without a real world tie because any word you pick is going to have the same issue as Bard.

Songmage, Glamourspinner, Enchanter (if that wasn't already overloaded), Charmer, Guitar Hero - none of those sound great though.

I think we're stuck with Bard the same way we're stuck with Druid and with Barbarian.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I'd pick something without a real world tie because any word you pick is going to have the same issue as Bard.

Songmage, Glamourspinner, Enchanter (if that wasn't already overloaded), Charmer, Guitar Hero - none of those sound great though.

I think we're stuck with Bard the same way we're stuck with Druid and with Barbarian.

I would have gone with fluffer, scobberlotcher, fopdoodle, lubberwort, or assistant to the undersecretary to the adult bookstore mopper.

But then again, Bard is a sufficient epithet.

 

[Scars Unseen]

Songmage...

...none of those sound great though.

Spellsinger sounds better IMO, but it also sounds like a completely different class than a bard. Maybe Monte Cook's alternative bard from Book of Eldritch Might II.

 

[Jer]

Spellsinger sounds better IMO, but it also sounds like a completely different class than a bard. Maybe Monte Cook's alternative bard from Book of Eldritch Might II.

Part of the problem is "what is a bard in 5e"? The bard is a spellcasting class that can also perform in melee that is a jack of all trades but also is expected to be a performer whose magic is tied to their performance and inspire their colleagues. As a concept it's kind of all over the place, though the core component of "performer of some type" seems to be the element that holds the class together.

I don't blame 5e for this either - the Bard has kind of been a mess of a concept since, oh I dunno, the appendix of the 1e PHB? Though to be fair I don't know that anyone ever expected anyone to actually play a 1e Bard so I'd say the 2e PHB instead...

 

[Mannahnin]

"Trickster" is a bit too generic, I think. But "jester" has at least two really good things going for it: it's close enough in meaning to "minstrel" to convey almost the same idea (but more adventurous-sounding, and without the unfortunate implications attached to the term in the 19th century); and it already has a functional character class which is mechanically very similar to the 2e-style bard archetype that I'm trying to preserve here (first appearing in Dragon #3 and then revised in Dragon #60).

My aim in starting this topic — to perhaps make matters a little clearer — is that I'm designing a class system that will have both a 2e-style "magical thieving street-entertainer" bard (in the vein of the 2e class) and a "druidic warrior-poet" bard (perhaps most directly inspired by the Castles & Crusades version of the class, which is a straight-up warrior-type with d10 hit dice and the full attack bonus, but no thieving or magic at all). While most gamers might be inclined to continue calling the former archetype "bard" and the latter "warlord," I'm not going to do that, because to me, a bard is a very Celtic and warlike archetype. A proper bard class IMO should evoke "The Minstrel Boy" more than Jaskier — but that leaves me needing a name for the Jaskier archetype, and "jester" is pretty damn good for that.

"Minstrel" is the term used a half dozen times in the 1957 short story by Poul Anderson which debuts Cappen Varra, the pulp character who most closely resembles the 2E Bard archetype.

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Valor of Cappen Varra, by Poul Anderson

www.gutenberg.org

For a frontline combat bard, I favor the name Skald. I liked the 4E class of that name too. The last 4E game I played in, I played one.

The couple of commenters who've noted that the full-caster 5E Bard more closely resembles an Irish druid than the actual Druid class does make a pretty solid case.