D&D 3E/3.5 3.5 Bard's power?

[Gottohneaffen]

One of my players [really new to the game] enjoys the bard for 3.5, I thought they were quite weak in comparison to other classes and looked online for other opinions to see if I was incorrect and one of the opinions was: jack of all trades, master of nothing.

Should anything be done to improve bards? Are they still a good class if so why? One thing they have going for them is skills, the player has a 10 int though so not really optimized there. But rogues get even more skillpoints & alot of class skills, even disable device & open lock and sneak attack. The bard does get a little small amount of spells but another caster gets way more.

 

[Dandu]

No.

 

[Empirate]

Bards can become quite powerful, given enough options. A Bard straight out of the Player's Handbook will always feel a little underpowered, but lots of interesting options have come out over the years. I'd advise you to take a look at the Bard's Handbook and Inspire Courage Optimization.

My favorite Bard build uses a lot of those additional options:

TN Human Bard 5/Lyric Thaumaturge 1/Mindbender 1/Lyric Thaumaturge 2-4/Sublime Chord 6/Fatespinner 4
Notable Feats: Melodic Casting, Doomspeak, Mindsight, Lyric Spell, Extra Music.

 

[akbearfoot]

Core Bards = very sucky

Bards with access to 4 or 5 extra books, including cross-setting sources = a very strong support class with stupid high Inspire courage bonuses. They can even hold their own in melee combat if they rely heavily on use magic device.


In my experience, DMs do not react well to the single-minded focus, inspire courage optimization cheeze. The bard linked above is a good example...a ton of sources, and 3 or 4 settings. Apparently he gets around, lol.

Same reason all the games I've played in recently had source limitations. To avoid the whole RKV +Persistant Divine Metamagic + bag o nightsticks sort of combos.

 

[Argyle King]

I remember -back when I played 3.5- that I had a GM ban me from ever playing a bard again because he actually felt it was too overpowered.

Consider this... to resist most of your abilities, the enemy's save has to beat your perform check. It's pretty easy to pump your perform check up to nigh unbeatable levels.

At that point, why bother fighting? Fascinate and suggest to the enemy that they lie down and go to sleep. That was just one of many tactics I used. At epic levels it got even worse once I had 'Music of The Gods.' It allowed me to use my abilities on creatures which were normally immune to such powers... including the gods... who's going to mess with the guy who has Nerull as his best friend?


I can't remember the name of the prc offhand, but I remember one of my other bards having a prc in which I could create damaging abilities with my music. I remember there being one which caused lightning damage unless the target made a save (again, with the DC determined by my perform check.) I then later got an ability which forced any mage who could hear me play need to make a concentration check opposed by my perform check whenever they wanted to cast. Imagine the look on the GM's face when uber-wizard-BBEG just stood there and got beat upon by the lowly fighter while I rocked the lyre.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

The Bard is as good a healer as the Druid and the best buffer in the game, period. If your campaign involves any level of interaction with NPCs, there is no class in the core rules with better abilities for dealing with them.

I add a number of spells to the Bard's spell list and allow them to learn a limited number of spells from other lists, but that's for flavor purposes. (And to replace a class ability in Pathfinder that I just do not like.) They don't need any improvements to contribute to a party.

 

[TanisFrey]

I remember -back when I played 3.5- that I had a GM ban me from ever playing a bard again because he actually felt it was too overpowered.

Consider this... to resist most of your abilities, the enemy's save has to beat your perform check. It's pretty easy to pump your perform check up to nigh unbeatable levels.

At that point, why bother fighting? Fascinate and suggest to the enemy that they lie down and go to sleep. That was just one of many tactics I used. At epic levels it got even worse once I had 'Music of The Gods.' It allowed me to use my abilities on creatures which were normally immune to such powers... including the gods... who's going to mess with the guy who has Nerull as his best friend?


I can't remember the name of the prc offhand, but I remember one of my other bards having a prc in which I could create damaging abilities with my music. I remember there being one which caused lightning damage unless the target made a save (again, with the DC determined by my perform check.) I then later got an ability which forced any mage who could hear me play need to make a concentration check opposed by my perform check whenever they wanted to cast. Imagine the look on the GM's face when uber-wizard-BBEG just stood there and got beat upon by the lowly fighter while I rocked the lyre.

Read Bardic Music more carefully. ONLY the Fascinate ability uses a preform check. Suggest can be use only one creature at a time and has a DC based on 10 + CHA mod + 1/2 bard level. One you suggest you first target, the rest of the fascinated creatures begin to come out of the fascinate effect. Why? The bard stops playing the fascinate music to play the suggest music, all the will come out of the fascinate effect in 5 rounds.

Recently the my DM used a Nymph half-fiend with levels of bard at us. Turnabout is fair play.

 

[Brother MacLaren]

Inspire Courage is amazing. It gives a bonus on par with what magic weapons of that level can give. +2/+2 is equivalent to "Aid Another + Favored Enemy: All." In a low-optimization Core game, it adds about 20% damage at level 4 and 40% at level 8, mostly because of the bonus to hit. In a high-optimization game, since IC is also optimized, I assume it is around the same contribution, but I haven't done the math.

Now, the problem is that the DM might just scale encounters to match. But then again you'll gain XP faster. So, IC is awesome, but it's not. YMMV.

IC is, of course, just one of the bard's standard actions. Boosting weapon damage output by 40% at level 8 with a single action is already pulling his weight, and then he still has spells, skills, and decent weapon attacks, which is just gravy.

I found the IC bonus to be exceptionally powerful in a party with TWF rogues and druids (depending on your game, druids, their companions, and their summons often have many attacks with only a fair-to-good probability of hitting). +2 to hit shifting your summons' to-hit rolls from 18+ to 16+ is very, very nice.

 

[Greenfield]

A well played Bard is awesome, in RP encounters. Skill wise he's second only to the Rogue, and because his prime attribute is Charisma, he can easily become the master of Diplomacy, Bluff, Gather Information, etc.

In combat he'll be second string at best.

There area couple of spells needed to get him up to that second string status, however. One is Bladeweave.

It's a 2nd level Bard spell, swift action cast, that lets him make touch attacks each round, in addition to his normal melee attack. if the touch succeeds, the opponent has to make a Will save or be Dazed for the round. That means they essentially lose the round. No attacks, no actions.

In essence, it lets a Bard tie up a melee monster, one round at a time, and maybe nickel and dime the thing on hit points while waiting for a real fighter to come up and actually kill the thing.

Another is Alter Self. It lets him change into something that's effective in combat. Troglodyte gets +6 Natural Armor, for example. Avariel (Winged Elf) gets to fly (very slowly). Sea Elf or Sahaguin gets gills and underwater movement.

The spell limits you to creatures of your own type, such as Humanoid, but if your Bard happens to be a Half Dragon it can get nasty!

Illusions, when well planned and played, can be powerful. Our Bard likes to throw a Silent Image of a cloud of fog around us. He'll advise us that it's an illusion, so we get the Save (with a +4). Enemies don't get a Save at all unless they have reason to think it isn't really an Obscuring Mist. So they're messed up by it and we aren't.

Enthrall can be a powerful spell in a social situation, capable of holding an angry mob immobile, or gathering and holding an audience when you really need a traffic jam.

Beyond things like this, he's there as a buffing character. He makes others more effective in combat, but will never be really effective alone. The larger the party, the more effective his buffs become.

Typical PC party of 4? Leave the Bard at home. Party of 6 or more? Bards become worthwhile.

 

[kitcik]

Inspire Courage is amazing.

Try it with Words of Creation (this is just an excerpt of the feat):

The Words of Creation doubles the effect of several bardic
music abilities:
• Inspire Courage: Double the morale bonus on saving throws
against charm and fear and the morale bonus on attack and
weapon damage rolls (+2 at 1st level, +4 at 8th level, +6 at 14th​

level, +8 at 20th level).