[3.5] Perform -- Does it annoy you as well?

[Kid Charlemagne]

But in reality, it's limiting, because some players (read: me) want their bards to be skilled in a variety of unconnected instruments and styles.

There's skilled, and there's expert. If you took those 2 extra skill points per level and divvied them up amongst 3 perform skill (while maxing out 1)you'd still be pretty darn good.

For example:

Bard 10
One skill @13+Cha Mod
3 skills at 8+Cha Mod

You wouldn't be the best at all of them, but you'd be pretty good. And if you wanted to be Expert in 3 Perform skills, you could max them out, and still have just as many skill points left over as in 3.0.

 

[BVB]

This really boils down to a matter of where a game mechanic comes into conflict with the overlay of roleplaying flavor. The mechanic in this case would be the "bardic music" effects. The stylistic overlay would be the manner of performance being used to trigger those effects.

Really, the particular "perform" skill choice shouldn't make a whit of difference to the "bardic music" effect -- as long as you flip the switch to make the power work, it doesn't matter what tune you're humming when you do it. And as a GM, I'd allow just such an application; if the player has maximum skill ranks in *any* performance style, I'd let him use his bardic music regardless and we could all just assume it's part of the magic of being a bard.

Consider other pseudo-magical effects from other classes: A paladin doesn't have to roll a particular skill to call his horsey. A mage doesn't have to roll a particular skill to get his familiar to do certain tasks. A barbarian doesn't have to roll a particular skill to trigger his rage effects. ... So why should a bard have to roll a skill to utilize his bardic music abilities?

The only time I think peformance skill styles would legitimately come into play would be when a musical instrument turns up in a treasure trove. And then it should be treated in the same manner as a fighter with a weapon of choice, the weapon he prefers to practice with. You find a Mandolin of Tree Talking? Too bad you don't have at least five ranks in stringed instruments to get the full benefits from it.

 

[buzz]

From a "realism" standpoint, I do like the 3.5 Perform. From a "pure fun" standpoint, I can see the merits of the 3.0 Perform.

Two things, however:

1. Balance is the province of the DM. Having multiple, specialized Perform skills *will* matter if the DM makes it matter. It's sort of like the ranger's favored enemy bonuses: if the DM never makes use of the favored enemy, the ranger's bonuses never matter. A good DM who cares about their players haivng fun will not let this happen.

2. Infrastructure. One of the many reasons that I thought Song & Silence was drek was the section on musical instruments. Under 3.0, it didn't make any difference what instrument you used, so all the descriptions really were just fluff (and poorly researched fluff, to boot).

Under 3.5, though, it could start to make a difference. We'll maybe have to wait and see what WotC and 3rd-party publishers decide to do with the change to Perform. E.g., a prestige class that makes it beneficial to be a "generalist" (i.e., skilled in different types of perform), and, conversely, one that emphasizes the virtuoso (*not* the lame PrC in So&Si) who focuses on a single type of Perform. Or maybe a Perform-realted feat for bards akin to Weapon Specialization for fighters.

As long as companies (and individual DMs) "support" the need for different Perform specializations, then the change won't seem like a waste of skill points.

 

[nharwell]

I'm always confused by those who talk about how "unrealistic" the Perform skill was in 3.0. D&D not "realistic"? How shocking! Seriously, if Perform bothered you, how did you tolerate the silly combat system? Do other skills not bother you? I have a MA in history, and I certainly find the idea of a single Knowledge:History skill completely unrealistic. Perhaps that should be separated into categories by race, nation, time period, etc. And what about Knowledge: Religion? One skill to cover all the religions of the gameworld? Totally "unrealistic."

One thing 3.5 did right was to combine some of the narrower skills together. Unfortunately, they did the exact opposite with Perform! Perform is really a useless skill for anyone except a Bard -- and penalizing Bard players for "roleplaying reasons" seems quite unfair to me. The perform skill could have easily been made a feature of the Bard class; other classes could simply use an appropriate Profession skill.

 

[BVB]

This really boils down to a matter of where a game mechanic comes into conflict with the overlay of roleplaying flavor. ...

Excellent, insightful points made, B. I agree completely with your assessment.

 

[Skaros]

I don't really see how it is so severely limiting. For those that want to be a well rounded performer, take those 2 extra skill points you get every level in 3.5, plus the one you would have spent before 3.5, and you can, for instance, have max ranks in 3 perform categories, allowing:

* Ballad, Chant, Melody, flute, pan pipes, recorder, shawm, trumpet, fiddle, harp, lute, and mandolin.

or maybe

* ballad, chant, melody, buffoonery, limericks, joke-telling, ballet, waltz, and jig

or whatever combination you choose.

Sounds like plenty of versatility to me!

Great change.

Skaros

 

[Dr_Rictus]

Most opera singers don't even own a cowbell.

Bad example. Cowbells aside, opera singers are judged on their ability to act as well as (if secondary to) the quality of their singing. The same applies even more to musical theater, which is something it's got to be hard to avoid if you're training as an actor.

 

[Dr_Rictus]

The perform skill could have easily been made a feature of the Bard class; other classes could simply use an appropriate Profession skill.

Except that Perform really should be Charisma based, whereas in general professions should not. But, yeah, for everyone other than bards it's just another way to make a living in the service sector.

 

[buzz]

Perform is really a useless skill for anyone except a Bard -- and penalizing Bard players for "roleplaying reasons" seems quite unfair to me. The perform skill could have easily been made a feature of the Bard class; other classes could simply use an appropriate Profession skill.

I could make the same argument about Craft and Profession; I find these skills useless to anyone but NPCs. There are a couple of players in one of my games that insist on pursuing Craft skills that are continually made irrelevant by the fact that the party generally has enough gold to buy whatever Craft or Profession(al) services we need. They could have been folded into the expert class.

But... that's not how they chose to do it.

And... this can vary depending on the tone of the campaign. Perform can be a useful money-making and social skill for any class. And what about character concepts that involve the (N)PC being a master musician, but not having any magical bardic music abilities? If Perform was a class feature, every musician/performer would have to be a bard, and all music/performance would be somehow magical. To me, that would make even less sense.

EDIT: And even if you fold Perform into Profession (or even Craft), you'd still probably end up with specializations, e.g., Profession(musician), Profession(actor), Profession(poet), Profession(jester). You're still speding skill points, regardless.

I dunno. I have no problem with it. There are ceraintly other skills that are more useful to some classes than others.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

I will probably house-rule that there are two types of Perform (X) -- Perform (Vocal) to include singing, chanting, joke-telling, whatever you want it to be; and Perform (Instrument) to include mandolin, drums,etc. Ranks in Perform (X) will stack for purposes of Bardic Music so long as you are doing both. If you have Perform (V) at 5 Ranks, and Perform (I) at 3, then you have Perform (X) at 8 ranks when singing and playing the mandolin while trying to charm that ogre. If your mandolin gets broken, or want to be able to speak to your comrades, or swing a sword instead, then you take the hit to your perform skill.

This will encourage some diversity in perform ranks without making the increase in skill points meaningless.

It *still* bugs me that bards are the only class that need to spend skill points to get a class ability.