D&D (2024) Bard Playtest discussion

[Micah Sweet]

In 5e, the songs or poems are inherently magical.

The satire of Cutting Words is different each time, depending on who the target of the satire is. Meanwhile Inspiration generally is versatile and impromptu. Each Bard makes up their own songs or poems for it.

I find the requirement of a musical instrument as a Spell Focus to be highly problematic for certain Bard character concepts that lack an instrument. Nevertheless, this tpo emphasize how it is the song itself that is the source of magic. It can be any instrument. The instrument itself doesnt matter. It is the artistic creativity of the Bard oneself − the song and speech − that causes the magic to happen.



2014 Players Handbook

"
BARD
SPELLCASTING
You have learned to reshape the fabric of reality in harmony with your wishes and music.

"

Bard magic is whim. It depends on the wishes of the Bard. The Bard actualizes ones personal wishes by means of ones personal music and poetry.

If it's based on their whim, why do they have to select their spells ahead of time, either as spells known (in the 5e bard) or prepared for the day (in the proposed 6e bard)? Wouldn't they just be able to create the effect they want right then, "on a whim" as you say?

 

[Yaarel]

If it's based on their whim, why do they have to select their spells ahead of time, either as spells known (in the 5e bard) or prepared for the day (in the proposed 6e bard)? Wouldn't they just be able to create the effect they want right then, "on a whim" as you say?

My impression from the UA is. To change the magic requires a long rest. In other words, the Bard needs to work on a song or poem, to ruminate on it, and to compose it, to make it a perfect self-expression in order to make the breakthru to the magic. Art requires effort, even training and practice, and the Bard does magic by means of this kind self-expression.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I'm saying it can only matter subjectively, at individual tables. That's can be very important, but says nothing about the game as a whole or about what's in the books.

And why do we need broken bones to matter in the game as a whole? Is it just the V word? Because that is also something that only matters subjectively, at individual tables.

And again, how do you propose to handle fighters and barbarians under a system where the more you get attacked, the longer you need to retire your character? The entire playstyle of Barbarians revolves around making themselves a target for enemies to hit with advantage, they are likely to get hit with any crits at the table, and so would suffer these lingering injuries more than any other class. Do barbarians need to be nerfed like that?

 

[Chaosmancer]

100%. I've been in homebrew settings where they don't even exist. They also didn't exist on Athas. They might not in fact be common in any particular game.

So, in a setting where they never exist, why would it matter? They don't exist, so you wouldn't fight them.

Also, if a guy comes up to you, why would you suddenly question "Is he resistant to fire? He looks like a normal dude, but I can't possibly know if he is resistant to fire?"

Way to ignore the other three races you lumped in with humans and elves. Very telling that.

As for common. They too might not even be in any given game. Or might be exceptionally rare and not a PC race.

Oh sorry, I forgot that I was dealing with you.

Humans -> The people playing the game and a playable race in the PHB
Elves -> A playable race in the PHB
Goblins -> A playable race, also an insanely common creature throughout all of folklore, myth and fantasy. In basically none of those depictions are they resistant to energy damage.
Wolves -> A real-life creature, who is not particularly resistant or immune to things like electricity or fire.
Owlbear -> A creature defined by being the blend of two real life animals, neither of which is particularly known to be fire resistant or able to avoid being electrocuted.

Now, sure, MAYBE these things are either the single most common fantasy races in the known world, are real life things, or are combos of real life things may not be common in any given game. But, again, you act like this is going to be some grand cheating strategy. But the thing is, people and animals exist in a DnD world, and normal people and normal animals have no resistances, immunities or vulnerabilities. And they would know that.

And this, again, doesn't address that I'm now supposedly metagaming by assuming a baseline of nothing.

Magma is a very thick fluid. It would seem to me like a mace might just scoop a large swath of the body out and flick it away doing extra damage.

Really? So I'm supposed to assume that because magma is thick my mace can scoop it and deal normal damage? And if I don't assume that, I'm meta-gaming? So, this isn't about "what do my character's know and how do they use that knowledge?" it is "What does Maxperson think is reasonable and how I should act?"

This is a fundamental problem with calling people out for "meta-gaming" is that at a certain point, you are just calling them out for using different logic than you. And you don't get to police other people's thoughts and conclusions.

So now you're limiting it to undead?

Are Animated Suits of armor undead? Also, it is very telling that instead of addressing the logic, you decide to attack what you perceive to be a moved goalpost.

No. Nor is every case of assuming something that is true a case of metagaming. As I said, if it makes sense for the PC to make that assumption, that's fine. If you have to look for a weak justification, you've walked into metagaming territory.

And none of the justifications have been weak. So why are we having this long multi-stage "I can prove my logic is better than your logic" discussion?

Once per type of monster isn't niche. Sure, if you could only use it once in your PCs life on one monster, that would be niche. DMs use many, many different kinds of monsters, though, so even if you don't personally like it, it will be very useful.

Okay, tell me this. Would Hold Monster be useful if it could only be cast on a single type of monster once? You get to hold one demon, ever. One Devil, ever. One Elemental, ever.

Would this be a good ability? Paralyzation is very powerful after all, and DMs might use many different types of monsters.

You mean that giant wizard?

The one that cast no spell and still called lightning to his hand to throw? Whose eyes blaze with lightning and whose realm is shaped by the storms he calls?

Yeah, him. Probably won't be effective to shoot him with a lightning bolt. Just a hunch from all the "I control the weather and elemental power", it also helps that they faced a Frost Giant before, so the idea that the giant's can be elementally themed is kind of a given at this point.

So creatures that are from three wildly different planes are like creatures who are all from the same plane?

You mean three neighboring planes whose only difference is alignment? Yeah. Kind of comes from that whole "is a fiend" thing.

Assuming incorrectly can bite you in the rear. I wasn't limiting that statement to demons and silver weapons.

Such as....?

Come on, what is the worst that can happen if a player assumes that an enemy is resistant to fire or lightning who isn't actually resistant? Where is the rear biting?

It varies. It could be as simple as something in your background about growing up near the troll moors or an uncle who was a troll hunter. It's very probable that he would know about troll regeneration and what to do about it.

Which has zero things to do with resistance, vulnerability or immunty. Don't make this about troll regeneration, this has nothing to do with troll regeneration.

Why is "lives in ice and fires ice from its body" not a good reason to assume it won't be effective to hit it with cold?

I'm the DM. I can't cheat. If I want to allow the troll's vulnerability to fire and acid to be revealed by a power that informs a PC what a monster's vulnerabilities are, I can.

Sorry, in this example you aren't the DM, you are a bard player. You can't assume an ability works a certain way for a playtest just because you plan on rewriting the rules. That just leads to a naughty word playtest.

AC, HP and average damage are not in-fiction things for a PC to learn. Those are OOC things. Special abilities, vulnerabilities, resistances and immunities are.

They are absolutely in-fiction things, and also... who cares? Why does my game mechanic need to be limited to only learning about Maxperson's approved list of game mechanics instead of learning about any game mechanics we want?

 

[Mephista]

In my view, this subclass gets TWO abilities which are on-theme. They are: Bonus Proficiencies (3rd level - but many other things get this), and Peerless Skill (14th level - too late for most bard players to care

Fun thought - those bonus skills? Arcane, Nature, Religion? They just so happen to correspond to the three spell lists - arcane, primal, divine. I don't think that's a cooincidence. So, we do start off with some connection to magic here.

Is it metagaming to know that Demons are immune to poison and weak to silver, and then assume the same thing is true about Devils and Yugoloths?

Demons are weak to iron, like fae. In fact, given the presence of Lolth in the Abyss, you can think of many demons as evil fae, and thus weak to iron. Easy way to remember the difference.

That said.... how do you know you're dealing with a devil versus a demon? Like there's several different ape-like monsters in D&D. How do you tell if its just a beast, a monstrocity, a devil or something else? Balors are giant fire weilding demons, no? But fire is generally a devil thing. It should be easy to confuse them, especially if they're not in their cliche'd appearance. Is the snake monster you are facing a maralith, a liliend or a yuan-ti? Really buff grunge with a grudge or a slaad?

Bard magic is whim. It depends on the wishes of the Bard. The Bard actualizes ones personal wishes by means of ones personal music and poetry.

As far as I'm aware, bard spells come from knowing Words of Creation. And likely stringing them together in sentences and the like. Not wish granting.
"Bards believe that the creators of the multiverse spoke and signed it into existence and that remnants of those Words of Creation still resound and glimmer on every planeof existence.The magic of Bards is an attempt to harness those words—which transcend any language—and direct them to create new wonders."

 

[Ruin Explorer]

None of that makes it make sense. Arcane spells are not just floating around the ether for bards to pluck out of nothing at their whim.

Sure they are.

There's no reason to believe they're not. It can't possible be an accident that people all cast identical Magic Missiles and so on.

Your argument might have made sense in 1E/2E, where magic was treated very differently, and essentially every arcane spell was unique, indeed, it wasn't uncommon to see adventures or the like where a spellbook had a different version of a common spell, but that hasn't been the case for 20+ years.

And again, how do you propose to handle fighters and barbarians under a system where the more you get attacked, the longer you need to retire your character? The entire playstyle of Barbarians revolves around making themselves a target for enemies to hit with advantage, they are likely to get hit with any crits at the table, and so would suffer these lingering injuries more than any other class. Do barbarians need to be nerfed like that?

@Micah Sweet - This is a really serious issue that needs to be addressed when considering any kind of "injury"-type system, and which typically, people completely ignore, especially people making house rules.

Some classes are specifically designed to get hit/damaged more than others. Those classes correspond, unfortunately, with some of the classes who have the least power to impact the game outside combat, and also who have some of the most selfless roles, because they're already in a position where they're essentially taking risks to protect the casters and the like.

If you introduce an injury-type system, especially one with permanent or longer-term injuries, you're taking these characters and making them significantly weaker and also meaning that they will burn out sooner and so on.

Now, that might make sense in some kinds of game, particularly dark fantasy-type ones. But in that sort of fiction, casting spell also extracts a terrible toll, and this is what tends to get swept under the rug. So we end up with deeply unbalanced sets of changes that make life much harder for front-line warriors in the name of "verisimilitude", but "verisimilitude" is suddenly nowhere to be found when the consequences of spellcasting come calling.

Equally, with the "Yoyo" issue (which I agree is a real issue), if we just slam level after level of Exhaustion onto the people getting yoyo'd, we're not really addressing the problem. In general, those PCs are trying to stay alive. Being the yoyo is not very comfortable or fun. They're usually getting downed because they're out front protecting other, more vulnerable PCs from getting downed. But as long as the people at the back are fine, they're not really going to care that the Fighter out front now has a -3 to everything on anything but a vague intellectual level. Not sure what the solution is, but it's very obvious it's not punishing the frontliners alone.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And why do we need broken bones to matter in the game as a whole? Is it just the V word? Because that is also something that only matters subjectively, at individual tables.

And again, how do you propose to handle fighters and barbarians under a system where the more you get attacked, the longer you need to retire your character? The entire playstyle of Barbarians revolves around making themselves a target for enemies to hit with advantage, they are likely to get hit with any crits at the table, and so would suffer these lingering injuries more than any other class. Do barbarians need to be nerfed like that?

It is mostly the V word, which matters to me, subjectively, at my own table, so I think we're on the same page in principle here.

As for the barbarian, they are an excellent candidate for a class feature that would make them more resistant to lingering injuries (but not immune), for the reasons you described. Whenever you add a subsystem, you have to think about how it interacts with different rules and different characters. I'm sure that could be worked out.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure they are.

There's no reason to believe they're not. It can't possible be an accident that people all cast identical Magic Missiles and so on.

Your argument might have made sense in 1E/2E, where magic was treated very differently, and essentially every arcane spell was unique, indeed, it wasn't uncommon to see adventures or the like where a spellbook had a different version of a common spell, but that hasn't been the case for 20+ years.

@Micah Sweet - This is a really serious issue that needs to be addressed when considering any kind of "injury"-type system, and which typically, people completely ignore, especially people making house rules.

Some classes are specifically designed to get hit/damaged more than others. Those classes correspond, unfortunately, with some of the classes who have the least power to impact the game outside combat, and also who have some of the most selfless roles, because they're already in a position where they're essentially taking risks to protect the casters and the like.

If you introduce an injury-type system, especially one with permanent or longer-term injuries, you're taking these characters and making them significantly weaker and also meaning that they will burn out sooner and so on.

Now, that might make sense in some kinds of game, particularly dark fantasy-type ones. But in that sort of fiction, casting spell also extracts a terrible toll, and this is what tends to get swept under the rug. So we end up with deeply unbalanced sets of changes that make life much harder for front-line warriors in the name of "verisimilitude", but "verisimilitude" is suddenly nowhere to be found when the consequences of spellcasting come calling.

Equally, with the "Yoyo" issue (which I agree is a real issue), if we just slam level after level of Exhaustion onto the people getting yoyo'd, we're not really addressing the problem. In general, those PCs are trying to stay alive. Being the yoyo is not very comfortable or fun. They're usually getting downed because they're out front protecting other, more vulnerable PCs from getting downed. But as long as the people at the back are fine, they're not really going to care that the Fighter out front now has a -3 to everything on anything but a vague intellectual level. Not sure what the solution is, but it's very obvious it's not punishing the frontliners alone.

Excellent point. I believe in, and have stated more than once, the idea that spellcasting should be more difficult and dangerous. To look at another way, I agree that every PC should be screwed over equally. Those are big changes (both of them), and I wouldn't institute one without the other.

 

[Maxperson]

So, in a setting where they never exist, why would it matter? They don't exist, so you wouldn't fight them.

You did get that I originally said "in a setting where they are rare" right? Settings can make them common, uncommon, rare, very rare, unique or gone entirely.

Goblins -> A playable race, also an insanely common creature throughout all of folklore, myth and fantasy. In basically none of those depictions are they resistant to energy damage.
Wolves -> A real-life creature, who is not particularly resistant or immune to things like electricity or fire.
Owlbear -> A creature defined by being the blend of two real life animals, neither of which is particularly known to be fire resistant or able to avoid being electrocuted.

Goblins are only a playable race if the DM allows it, and are only common in settings where the DM determines that they are common. This includes official settings like the Forgotten Realms where the DM has changed goblins to be rare.

Winter Wolves who are immune to cold exist, so why not a fire version?

Owlbears were created by magic. Who knows what magic might have done to them?

So, this isn't about "what do my character's know and how do they use that knowledge?"

It is entirely about what your characters know.

This is a fundamental problem with calling people out for "meta-gaming" is that at a certain point, you are just calling them out for using different logic than you. And you don't get to police other people's thoughts and conclusions.

That's false. It isn't about different logic and is entirely about what their characters know.

Are Animated Suits of armor undead? Also, it is very telling that instead of addressing the logic, you decide to attack what you perceive to be a moved goalpost.

There's no reason to think that animated armor would be resistant to weapons. PCs wearing armor do not gain resistance when enemies hit their armor, so why would walking armor be any different. Undead created through negative energy(necrotic) are opposite to positive energy(radiant). That was a shifted goal post.

Okay, tell me this. Would Hold Monster be useful if it could only be cast on a single type of monster once? You get to hold one demon, ever. One Devil, ever. One Elemental, ever.

No. It's a good thing for me that's a false equivalence. Demons have a variety of resistances and immunities. They are not all resistant to exactly the same things. Same with devils. Not sure about elementals, but after the first two I'm not going to look and see.

The ability proposed would continue to be useful against demons, devils, etc.

The one that cast no spell and still called lightning to his hand to throw? Whose eyes blaze with lightning and whose realm is shaped by the storms he calls?

How do you know he cast no spell? Not all spells use components. And I can flavor my wizard PC to have his eyes blaze with lightning when I cast electrical spells.

Yeah, him. Probably won't be effective to shoot him with a lightning bolt. Just a hunch from all the "I control the weather and elemental power", it also helps that they faced a Frost Giant before, so the idea that the giant's can be elementally themed is kind of a given at this point.

And they have wizards, clerics and such, so you've encountered those, too.

You mean three neighboring planes whose only difference is alignment?

That's an objectively false statement. Alignment is not the only difference between those planes.

Come on, what is the worst that can happen if a player assumes that an enemy is resistant to fire or lightning who isn't actually resistant? Where is the rear biting?

So you assume that the creature is immune to fire and use lightning, which is what it really is immune to. You've wasted a spell, done no damage for the round, and could end up dead because of it. In a tough fight one round of doing no damage could mean all the difference.

Assumption can bite you in the rear. Not will. Can.

Which has zero things to do with resistance, vulnerability or immunty. Don't make this about troll regeneration, this has nothing to do with troll regeneration.

I'm not sure why it's so important for you to make a troll's vulnerability to fire and acid not a vulnerability. It's not the same kind of vulnerability as taking extra damage, but when you can come back from anything, including death unless fire or acid are used, those are vulnerabilities.

Why is "lives in ice and fires ice from its body" not a good reason to assume it won't be effective to hit it with cold?

Because half damage can still be effective. I was talking about assuming immunity. You don't know whether something that uses cold and/or lives in the cold is immune or not. Resistance is just as likely an option.

They are absolutely in-fiction things, and also... who cares?

So you walk into a bar and ask the paladin what his armor class is? No. You don't, because while armor and being harder to hit/damage are things in the fiction, armor class numbers are not. Hit point numbers are also not a thing in the fiction.

 

[Maxperson]

There's no reason to believe they're not. It can't possible be an accident that people all cast identical Magic Missiles and so on.

Sure there is. It's the fact that wizard cannot just pluck spells out of the air and write them all in their books to memorize. No arcane caster can do it or has ever been able to do it.

There's no good reason to think that just because bards can play a musical instrument(the only real difference between bards and sorcerers with their spells), that they can just pluck any spell they feel like out of the ether to be able to cast that day. Hell, there's no good reason to think that they've even heard of every spell.