This is not the way. It may be the end but it is not the way. You don't start your long pitch by saying "Make the Bard a half caster", you start it by saying "If we give the bard these really cool things they are cool and powerful enough that they don't need to be a full caster". Starting out "We should nerf the bard" (which is what your title says in practice) is just going to put people off.
You're . . . you're missing the point. I don't know where this happened, but you missed it.
The point of turning the Bard into a half-caster (IMO), isn't to "nerf" them. Yes, they will lose the power of having high level magic. However, a bard would make up for this with lower level features. No, they wouldn't be as powerful as 9th level spells, but IMO, the point of playing a bard isn't to get 9th level spells, it's to be a singing/instrument-playing/poem-chanting, charismatic support character (largely through Bardic Inspiration). The 9th level spells just don't vibe with the theme of the bard (especially not Power Word Kill).
Furthermore, I did not start by saying "if we give the bards these really cool things, they don't need to be a full caster" or "we should nerf the bard", I started out, quite literally, by saying "Bards have a weird place in D&D (mechanically and thematically), a lot of the subclasses have too much overlap, the high level spells don't fit, the class doesn't have a unified theme, and even though it's mechanically effective, turning it into a half-caster could solve a lot of these problems".
I'm perfectly fine with you disagreeing and arguing with me, but at least be honest about my own argument, please.
The conceptual problem with half casters is the action economy. Even if you can do everything you can only do one thing at any one time meaning that either they are a half-assed fighter, an inept spellcaster, or possibly a third rate rogue. If we look at the PHB half-casters they get round this by behaving as pretty much full fighters as far as the action economy is concerned. The ranger and the paladin alike have the fighter's fighting style and extra attack - and the paladin even gets to hack the action economy with their smites, burning spell slots for extra damage.
The artificer gets away with this because they come with a collection of permanent buffs that do not burn their action economy in the form of infusions. Oh, and their subclasses are excellent. The Battlesmith and the Armourer are both fighter tier combatants and the artillerist either gets free attacks to put them onto fighter tier or hands out superb AoE buffs. And the alchemist
. . . I disagree. How do Half-Casters have worse action economy than Full-Casters or Non-Casters? That assertion doesn't have any evidence to back it up, and is fully inaccurate (Paladins don't have an action economy issue when they cast one of their many bonus action spells and/or use Divine Smite, Rangers just have to use their bonus action spells and attack as an action, neither or which are action economy issues).
Artificers even avoid this further by having the ability to get mechanical servants that they can command as a bonus action (Homunculus Servant, Steel Defender, Eldritch Cannons). There's absolutely no reason why turning Bards into half casters would suddenly open up a ton of action-economy issues that they currently avoid. Bardic Inspiration is a bonus action, and most of their good buffing/debuffing spells are actions (the College of Creation further avoids the issue of action economy by being allowed to command their Dancing Item and give out a Bardic Inspiration as part of the same bonus action).
The argument that bards shouldn't become half casters because half casters have action economy problems and that there would be no way to avoid this as a Half-Caster Bard class even though you say a ton of reasons why Artificers also largely avoid the issue of action economy is . . . completely inaccurate and disingenuous.
Yeah, I don't see how any of this is relevant in any way. Previous editions did bards differently, and 5e handles Casters/Half-Casters way differently from the editions you're referring to. This . . . is just completely irrelevant to the argument, and seems like a red herring to me.
What are you offering that isn't just trying to gut the class?
Um . . . how about you read and address the OP to figure it out. I addressed things there. Maybe that would help get your points across, instead of accusing me of trying to nerf a class, not understanding how action economy/half-casters work, and so on.
Do that, and then we'll talk.
