D&D 5E Anyone else think the Bard concept is just silly?

[thewok]

Obeliske wrote:
"I have never liked bards, until fifth edition. Granted I havn't done a lot with dnd and them (4th and pathfinder mostly) but for fifth I really feel like they have a spot and I really feel like they bring their own to the table."

I'm with you.

I currently play two bards in separate campaigns. IN one, my character is a scout of her country's military whose entire unit was torn apart (quite literally) around her. She was saved before her own death by her constant companion since then, and she went AWOL. She's since been found and, as the only living person with knowledge of the terrain in the past campaign, has been sent back to lead another team in the campaign against the dragons and their draconian minions (DM loves him some Dragonlance). She's a Lore bard who inspires her people by getting to know them and being able to tell them what they need to hear when they need to hear it, by mentioning heroes of the person's heritage, general encouragement, and so on. In the intervening years between backstory and campaign start, she made money by traveling and telling fanciful tales to tavern patrons, but, in combat, she's a veritable living Ginsu with her dual short swords.

The other bard is a valor bard from a Viking-esque society. She's a skald of the tribe, and she holds the entire history of her people within her. She is historian, judge, arbiter and mediator for the tribe. Her one real desire is to fight in glorious combat with her brother (a totem barbarian) at her side. Since losing her unborn child before campaign start--her own fault, as she was too far along to really participate in the raid "safely," but she threw caution to the wind--she has severe problems with how she views herself and her place in the world at large. Due to recent campaign events, she's had to step up as the primary arcane source of the group, and is starting to embrace her role in that regard. And so she's starting to open up, banging spear against shield in battle to keep rhythm as well as letting her brother and the others hear her voice over the clash of weapons to keep them fighting. Details are different, but every society has tales of its heroes. Soon enough, the bards will sing of their group and how they stood against the impossible--and succeeded.

Bards need not be Elan types. Bards can be any sort of inspirational type. Music is certainly a common theme, but it doesn't need to be as demonstrated by Elan. I save actual lyre playing for Song of Rest. In Combat, the music is more primal and raw, made by instruments of war rather than instruments of refinement and leisure.

I don't really care for the "spoony bard" archetype myself. But I also don't buy that that is the only representation of the bard in D&D.

 

[cbwjm]

Yes it is totally silly as again you create a special scene with the bard as the only protagonist. Yet that is not how D&D plays out. The bard is just one of the party and while he sings the fighter fights, the rogues backstabs and the wizard casts fireball.

I'd say that normally the bard is fighting or spellcasting as well. The only singing they might be doing in the middle of combat is granting someone inspiration which is done as a bonus action leaving the bard with plenty of time to make an attack or cast a spell which could again be a singing if that is how people want to run it.

Also, the scene described by [MENTION=6683613]TheCosmicKid[/MENTION] had a bard as one of the protagonists apparently dealing with one of the threats to the group, meanwhile, the other warriors in the group were also in the thick of things.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

yeah until Orpheous fails the roll the Animals Maul him and simultaneously what...? He keeps spouting Poetry?

You're describing a scene where a man has the focus and determination to be mauled by wild animals and literally not miss a beat. And your contention is that this makes the man look silly? Teddy Roosevelt was once shot in the chest while delivering a speech, and he just kept speaking. Most people would think this makes him an utter badass, but if you say it looks silly, then I guess the ol' Rough Rider is silly now.

Yes it is totally silly as again you create a special scene with the bard as the only protagonist. Yet that is not how D&D plays out. The bard is just one of the party and while he sings the fighter fights, the rogues backstabs and the wizard casts fireball.

Might want to read what I wrote again: "As silence descends over the battlefield, the other warriors, blood-spattered and weary, look with awe upon what their youthful companion has wrought."

Everybody gets their time in the spotlight. The game literally has the characters take turns. So don't worry about the fighter and the cleric. This is just what Orpheus' spotlight time looks like.

 

[Derren]

Might want to read what I wrote again: "As silence descends over the battlefield, the other warriors, blood-spattered and weary, look with awe upon what their youthful companion has wrought."

Everybody gets their time in the spotlight. The game literally has the characters take turns. So don't worry about the fighter and the cleric. This is just what Orpheus' spotlight time looks like.

That doesnt change anything, encounters do not end just because the bard starts to sing. This example was specially crafted for the bard and the rest of the party is just backround. While it does happen that from time to time a character gets the spotlight, during the vast majority of the game you do not have encounters which are solved by one character while everyone else stands back and watches, like in every Orpheus example here, but everyone is "doing their thing" at the same time, especially when it isnt a major BBEG encounter. So while everyone is fighting orks Orpheus stands back playing his harp and shouting mocking insults at the orcs. And even though this is effective in D&D rules as the insults do damage and the harp produces magical effects the imagery is silly. Yet those are exactly the images the rules try to evoke with both art and wording (except they usually go for a lute and not a harp)

If you want to bring examples use normal encounter and not spotlight scenes.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

It doesn't specifically have to be singing. my point is that anything other than swinging your weapon in a combat situation or casting a spell from a distance requires ( I believe) some type of "performance" on the part of the bard.

Nope. Unless you count shouting encouragement or the verbal component of spells (which could be flavoured as song if you wished.)
Bards are able to cast spells while holding a musical instrument, but that is more likely to happen out of combat: during combat component pouches are more likely to be used due to item/action economy.

It may be strumming a lute, Signing, dancing, poetry etc, but at the end of the day it seems hard to visualize some one doing that while people fight for their lives. That's the only thing I am saying here. The concept seems strange to me.

To be fair, that is a strange concept unless you were going full caster. I'm guessing that you don't really have an issue with the "magic-through-music" aspect of the bard? Chanting, waving and throwing bat guano while other people fight for their lives also seems a little odd to visualise.

I can't really speak for all previous editions, but I'm not sure where you're getting the concept of the prancing-around-with-a-lute-in-combat bard in 5e. There are two illustrations and three text examples of bards and in none of them is the bard actually playing a musical instrument in the middle of a fight. Only one illustration and one of the flavour texts have the bard playing an instrument at all.

I am actually unsure if the 5dition bard MUST perform while he does this or not, but if he Doesn't need to perform then he is the same as a wizard and Sorcerer I suppose....and so I begin to wonder why we needed to add a class when it already existed?

Because bards were a distinct class in previous editions, and even in 5th ed they are more distinct from wizards and sorcerors than wizards and sorcerors are from each other. As a class they have less emphasis on magical attacks and utility spells, and much wider range in terms of skills and party support.
They're pretty much the greatest jack-of-all-trades of the classes. The full-caster status is new in 5e, but the general class is still pretty distinct.

 

[KahlessNestor]

That doesnt change anything, encounters do not end just because the bard starts to sing. This example was specially crafted for the bard and the rest of the party is just backround. While it does happen that from time to time a character gets the spotlight, during the vast majority of the game you do not have encounters which are solved by one character while everyone else stands back and watches, like in every Orpheus example here, but everyone is "doing their thing" at the same time, especially when it isnt a major BBEG encounter. So while everyone is fighting orks Orpheus stands back playing his harp and shouting mocking insults at the orcs. And even though this is effective in D&D rules as the insults do damage and the harp produces magical effects the imagery is silly. Yet those are exactly the images the rules try to evoke with both art and wording (except they usually go for a lute and not a harp)

If you want to bring examples use normal encounter and not spotlight scenes.

Why do you get to define what examples he uses? A mark of a good DM is giving each player/character spotlight time. It wasn't mentioned or even implied in the example that Orpheus single-handedly ended combat. Just he opposite. It's a party, and the bard's role is to support and encourage his companions. A player can flavor that however he likes.

 

[Aldarc]

Fluff-wise, the fact that the 5e Bard page shows us a smirking elf with a lute/guitar. And the constant references to music, being an entertainer, and the approach that their knowledge comes mostly in the form of rumors and personally embellished tales. It does a very good job of contrasting the Bard as a genial, charming, sly spinner of yarns with other more knowledge based classes like the Wizard and Warlock. Even the class name Bard, despite its original origins is -in modern contexts- more commonly encountered as a synonym for a poet/minstrel/musician/entertainer.

Really? I would argue that "their knowledge comes mostly in the form" and approach of colleges, as per their subclass divisions. This idea is particularly overt in the College of Lore. Wizards may have their traditions, but bards have their colleges. And indeed, the bard's description says that even the discovery of the music latent in magic requires the sort of "hard study" that sets them apart from your average troubadours. In some respects, the music is a means to an end for bards, with knowledge commonly embedded in our cultural expressions of music, poetry, and theater. We see this, for example, in the first fluff example of the bard in the 5e PHB, who find "knowledge springing into her mind, conjured forth by the magic of her song—knowledge of the people who constructed the monument and the mythic saga it depicts." Compare that with the wizard's, which describes them almost akin to scribes and arcane mystics. The bard is as much of an entertainer and musician as a wizard is just a scribe and sage. They obviously both go well beyond that.

Mechanics-wise despite the change of Bardic Song to Bardic Inspiration (which still describes it as singing/music), we still get Song of Rest, and a spell list that focuses on illusions, charms, trickery but not much in terms of knowledge/divination etc. And the automatic proficiency with musical instruments which are also your spellcasting focus. You have to make a very specific effort to not fall into the stereotypical musical trickster shtick. The Skald comes across as more of a subversion than anything.

You mean apart from True Strike, Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Identify, Speak with Animals, Detect Thoughts, Locate Animals or Plants, Locate Object, See Invisibility, Clairvoyance, Tongues, Locate Creature, Legend Lore, Scrying, Find the Path, True Seeing, and Foresight? That's 17 total divination spells, which puts it one div spell higher than the cleric and equal to the total of the wizard! That's a list of comparable length to the total divination spells of either the wizard or cleric. The wizard gets Arcane Eye, Contact Other Plane, and Rary's Telepathic Bond, but lacks the bard's Speak with Animals, Locate Animals or Plants, and Find the Path. The cleric, in contrast to the bard, has 16 total divination spells, including Guidance, Detect Good and Evil, Augury, Find Traps, Divination, and Commune, but lacks a number of key divination spells that a bard has. The bard is arguably the premier lore diviner from their spells, which they can further back up with their actual skills.

And that's just 5e D&D. Not touching upon art/class abilities/options in other editions or in regards to the many D&D imitators I alluded to.

I suspect that the art frequently includes musical instruments a convenient shorthand for bard-spotting. How easy would you spot a bard in the artwork without these sort of semiotic shorthand clues?

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

Really? I would argue that "their knowledge comes mostly in the form" and approach of colleges, as per their subclass divisions. This idea is particularly overt in the College of Lore. Wizards may have their traditions, but bards have their colleges. And indeed, the bard's description says that even the discovery of the music latent in magic requires the sort of "hard study" that sets them apart from your average troubadours. In some respects, the music is a means to an end for bards, with knowledge commonly embedded in our cultural expressions of music, poetry, and theater. We see this, for example, in the first fluff example of the bard in the 5e PHB, who find "knowledge springing into her mind, conjured forth by the magic of her song—knowledge of the people who constructed the monument and the mythic saga it depicts." Compare that with the wizard's, which describes them almost akin to scribes and arcane mystics. The bard is as much of an entertainer and musician as a wizard is just a scribe and sage. They obviously both go well beyond that.

You mean apart from True Strike, Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Identify, Speak with Animals, Detect Thoughts, Locate Animals or Plants, Locate Object, See Invisibility, Clairvoyance, Tongues, Locate Creature, Legend Lore, Scrying, Find the Path, True Seeing, and Foresight? That's 17 total divination spells, which puts it one div spell higher than the cleric and equal to the total of the wizard! That's a list of comparable length to the total divination spells of either the wizard or cleric. The wizard gets Arcane Eye, Contact Other Plane, and Rary's Telepathic Bond, but lacks the bard's Speak with Animals, Locate Animals or Plants, and Find the Path. The cleric, in contrast to the bard, has 16 total divination spells, including Guidance, Detect Good and Evil, Augury, Find Traps, Divination, and Commune, but lacks a number of key divination spells that a bard has. The bard is arguably the premier lore diviner from their spells, which they can further back up with their actual skills.

I suspect that the art frequently includes musical instruments a convenient shorthand for bard-spotting. How easy would you spot a bard in the artwork without these sort of semiotic shorthand clues?

I think this is why I might raise an eyebrow over the 5E bard. Mechanically, it's a rough 'n tough class, capable of great things. I'm not fond of it being 9th level/full caster, but hey, if we subscribe to, 'music is magic!' then powerful music should be on par with powerful magic. Personally I'd want to bring the bard back to a more 'jack of all trades' - the wandering vagabond who dabbles here and there and brings a wide spectrum of assorted (rather than specialised) talents together into a cohesive whole. Valor Bard does bring a bit more fighty into the mix but then again, even they are getting Power Word: Kill, True Polymorph and potentially Wish, in time. But hey - if folks are happy with the bard being a 'musical mage' on par with wizards and clerics in terms of sheer magical power, then to each their own.

 

[Garthanos]

This is a Bard I liked back in the day, probably somewhat more approachable than Orpheus or the norse Eddas. I do not remember too many details though.

https://www.amazon.com/Bard-Keith-Taylor/dp/0441049133

 

[Alexemplar]

Really? I would argue that "their knowledge comes mostly in the form" and approach of colleges, as per their subclass divisions. This idea is particularly overt in the College of Lore. Wizards may have their traditions, but bards have their colleges. And indeed, the bard's description says that even the discovery of the music latent in magic requires the sort of "hard study" that sets them apart from your average troubadours. In some respects, the music is a means to an end for bards, with knowledge commonly embedded in our cultural expressions of music, poetry, and theater. We see this, for example, in the first fluff example of the bard in the 5e PHB, who find "knowledge springing into her mind, conjured forth by the magic of her song—knowledge of the people who constructed the monument and the mythic saga it depicts." Compare that with the wizard's, which describes them almost akin to scribes and arcane mystics. The bard is as much of an entertainer and musician as a wizard is just a scribe and sage. They obviously both go well beyond that.

I'm not saying the Bard doesn't have knowledge. However it is, like you said, presented as less of a historian/lorekeeper and more of an entertainer/musician in the default portrayal.

And while they do have "colleges", the more common (overwhelmingly so) portrayal has them picking up their skills and knowledge in their travels as opposed to study in a formal institution with a fixed curriculum. Sitting in a hall and studying tomes and listening to lectures is certainly more in line with how D&D presents the training of wizards and clerics. I suspect a lot of this is a hold over from 3e, when the the Bard became a spontaneous caster with chaotic leanings- not very conducive to portrayal of an especially academic/studious character. More like your stereotypical artsy theater school student than anything.

You mean apart from True Strike, Comprehend Languages, Detect Magic, Identify, Speak with Animals, Detect Thoughts, Locate Animals or Plants, Locate Object, See Invisibility, Clairvoyance, Tongues, Locate Creature, Legend Lore, Scrying, Find the Path, True Seeing, and Foresight? That's 17 total divination spells, which puts it one div spell higher than the cleric and equal to the total of the wizard! That's a list of comparable length to the total divination spells of either the wizard or cleric. The wizard gets Arcane Eye, Contact Other Plane, and Rary's Telepathic Bond, but lacks the bard's Speak with Animals, Locate Animals or Plants, and Find the Path. The cleric, in contrast to the bard, has 16 total divination spells, including Guidance, Detect Good and Evil, Augury, Find Traps, Divination, and Commune, but lacks a number of key divination spells that a bard has. The bard is arguably the premier lore diviner from their spells, which they can further back up with their actual skills.

I don't mean capital d Divination as in the "part of the Divination spell school" sense. I meant in the "seer/fortuneteller/advisor" sense. Just look at your comparison between the selection of Bard and Cleric divination spells. The Bard list stands out in it's access to all the spells that facilitate speech, personal connections, and generally highlight the Bard's social skills and role as an entertainer. The Cleric's array of divination spells involve a lot more actual divining and actually knowing stuff.

I suspect that the art frequently includes musical instruments a convenient shorthand for bard-spotting. How easy would you spot a bard in the artwork without these sort of semiotic shorthand clues?

Most works that have Bard-like classes but ditch the instruments and usually have art of the character speaking, gesturing, reading/studying/writing, teaching, pondering.