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<blockquote data-quote="WheresMyD20" data-source="post: 6926408" data-attributes="member: 60772">I'm speaking from my personal experience.&nbsp; I played in a high level 1e game where one of the characters was a max level bard.&nbsp; He was underwhelming.&nbsp; The thief skills, like you said, are not very useful at that level.&nbsp; The seven fighter levels (max a bard can have) gave him an extra half attack and extra hit points.&nbsp; His druid thaco was much better than his fighter thaco (9 vs. 14).&nbsp; Even that was much worse than pure fighters who have a 4 thaco at that level.In total, he was basically a druid with a ton of hit points, but no 6th and 7th level spells.&nbsp; His ability to fight was slightly better than a cleric or druid, but much worse than a fighter.&nbsp; His spellcasting was much less useful than a magic-user or a cleric.&nbsp; Druid spells at high level are far less powerful than cleric or magic-user spells and on top of that, the bard is missing the two highest levels of druid spells.&nbsp; His thief skills were not terribly useful.The bard class sounds really powerful on paper, but it's meh in practice.&nbsp; I'd recommend just being a standard druid instead.&nbsp; You get fewer (but still quite decent) hit points, slightly less fighting ability (which is best left to pure fighters at high level anyway), but better spellcasting and much faster advancement.The Stoneskin spell in Unearthed Arcana only protects against a single attack or attack sequence.&nbsp; It's much less powerful than the 2e version, which protects against multiple attacks.&nbsp; I didn't find the UA version of Stoneskin to be unbalancing.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="WheresMyD20, post: 6926408, member: 60772"] I'm speaking from my personal experience. I played in a high level 1e game where one of the characters was a max level bard. He was underwhelming. The thief skills, like you said, are not very useful at that level. The seven fighter levels (max a bard can have) gave him an extra half attack and extra hit points. His druid thaco was much better than his fighter thaco (9 vs. 14). Even that was much worse than pure fighters who have a 4 thaco at that level. In total, he was basically a druid with a ton of hit points, but no 6th and 7th level spells. His ability to fight was slightly better than a cleric or druid, but much worse than a fighter. His spellcasting was much less useful than a magic-user or a cleric. Druid spells at high level are far less powerful than cleric or magic-user spells and on top of that, the bard is missing the two highest levels of druid spells. His thief skills were not terribly useful. The bard class sounds really powerful on paper, but it's meh in practice. I'd recommend just being a standard druid instead. You get fewer (but still quite decent) hit points, slightly less fighting ability (which is best left to pure fighters at high level anyway), but better spellcasting and much faster advancement. The Stoneskin spell in Unearthed Arcana only protects against a single attack or attack sequence. It's much less powerful than the 2e version, which protects against multiple attacks. I didn't find the UA version of Stoneskin to be unbalancing. [/QUOTE]

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