Snapdragyn
Explorer
My ongoing Organized Play experience of the (playtest - so could be different to an unknown degree) 5e bard (8th & a bit of 9th levels) has been a bit mixed so far.
In the first combat, I did 16d6 damage before I ever hit anything. Just by singing. Of course, we had 10 players, so the additive damage through their attacks scaled up rather insanely high. Still, while the numbers may work about the same (or even lower) adding damage rather than a chance to hit as in 3.x, I personally found it more satisfying to see those extra dice being rolled & knowing 'I did that!'.
OTOH, the spell selection seems sorely lacking in anything with a good range. I've gotten some decent use out of Soundburst, but that's still a pretty short range spell. In encounters in larger spaces (such as we've faced the past few sessions), I'm really not contributing as much as I'd like (one problem being that this is a leveled-up pregen character using a hand crossbow, rather than a bow - again, the range is killing me). Also, my own mistake playing the character: I keep forgetting that, as a Valor bard, I could give an ally advantage on a foe whenever I attack (D'OH!).
Overall I think it has a lot of potential, but I do note that the abilities seem to boil down to 'songs, skills, spells' - looking over his list of abilities, there's really not much (anything?) else. Skills are, of course, highly situational; you can only sing one song at a time (& the range kinda sucks - 25'); & a fair proportion of the spells are of limited value to the class since they require concentration (the same as song - oh, oops). Thus in combat it's 'sing, fire off an instant spell or two (at short range & for low-to-middling damage), attack (which isn't horrible - yay extra attack & duel wielding! - but not fighter or rogue levels). It seems to be a class where number crunchers will really have to look at the sum of the parts, & not let the (frequently - that 1st combat was an exception) low individual areas give a false impression of the overall performance (hah! see what I did there?
). More role-focused players, of course, will have few to no issues.
(A lot of caveats on this limited review, though. The size of the group I'm in is skewing things a lot - not only the supplemental damage from that first encounter (16d6!), but also the lack of ability to move in & contribute before everything is dead from the 5 fireballs we can fire off in the 1st round of combat. Since I was coming into a pre-existing group, I did tailor my spell selection a bit to avoid overlap; some of the spells I skipped might have been a lot of fun (I'm looking at you, illusions). And, finally, I've only played the guy 4 times in 2-hour sessions.)
In the first combat, I did 16d6 damage before I ever hit anything. Just by singing. Of course, we had 10 players, so the additive damage through their attacks scaled up rather insanely high. Still, while the numbers may work about the same (or even lower) adding damage rather than a chance to hit as in 3.x, I personally found it more satisfying to see those extra dice being rolled & knowing 'I did that!'.
OTOH, the spell selection seems sorely lacking in anything with a good range. I've gotten some decent use out of Soundburst, but that's still a pretty short range spell. In encounters in larger spaces (such as we've faced the past few sessions), I'm really not contributing as much as I'd like (one problem being that this is a leveled-up pregen character using a hand crossbow, rather than a bow - again, the range is killing me). Also, my own mistake playing the character: I keep forgetting that, as a Valor bard, I could give an ally advantage on a foe whenever I attack (D'OH!).
Overall I think it has a lot of potential, but I do note that the abilities seem to boil down to 'songs, skills, spells' - looking over his list of abilities, there's really not much (anything?) else. Skills are, of course, highly situational; you can only sing one song at a time (& the range kinda sucks - 25'); & a fair proportion of the spells are of limited value to the class since they require concentration (the same as song - oh, oops). Thus in combat it's 'sing, fire off an instant spell or two (at short range & for low-to-middling damage), attack (which isn't horrible - yay extra attack & duel wielding! - but not fighter or rogue levels). It seems to be a class where number crunchers will really have to look at the sum of the parts, & not let the (frequently - that 1st combat was an exception) low individual areas give a false impression of the overall performance (hah! see what I did there?
). More role-focused players, of course, will have few to no issues.(A lot of caveats on this limited review, though. The size of the group I'm in is skewing things a lot - not only the supplemental damage from that first encounter (16d6!), but also the lack of ability to move in & contribute before everything is dead from the 5 fireballs we can fire off in the 1st round of combat. Since I was coming into a pre-existing group, I did tailor my spell selection a bit to avoid overlap; some of the spells I skipped might have been a lot of fun (I'm looking at you, illusions). And, finally, I've only played the guy 4 times in 2-hour sessions.)
