Bard does not suck!

[Ceraus]

'You are a coward!'
'The bard called him a coward, but that's Sir Yorick the Brave!'
'Give it a moment'
(TIME SPACE ALTERATION OCCURS)
'Oh, he's running away... like a coward....'

Yeah, that.

The Bard could have had half the powers he has now and I'd still consider it a success.

But with all those he has now, namely charms, illusions, insults, time-space-alterations, inspirations, music, wizard/cleric/warlord powers and all... wow. Major success. I am in awe of how much greatness the bard encompasses. Every power choice is a difficult decision, even moreso with the great multiclassing options.

I'd be slightly disappointed by the Paragon Paths, if anything. While Voice of the Seven is really unique, the others are simply standard. Note: standard is good, just not 4E-bard-good.

---

While I'm mentioning Bard Paragon Paths: the War Chanter's action point bonus is horribly broken.

It gives an ally +Con mod to all attack and damage rolls for the next turn. Unoptimized, it's +3 attack, +3 damage, which is on par with the very powerful +4 attack granted by many action point bonuses.

However, even slightly optimized, it's +5 att/def at the start and +7 by the end. A very optimal build could theorically reach +10. And that's cumulative with that ally's +4 attack with an action point (if applicable).

And I made an intentional mistake: it's not a boost to one ally, it's a boost to all allies within 5 squares.

Oh, don't tell me about the many situations where that bonus will be wasted. Truth is, it's unbalanced if even one ally is in range, which is pretty much always. At two allies, it's totally broken and only worsens from there. With a little planning (like, say, tell the other players to keep in range), it's an encounter ender.

Compare with the Demonskin Adept's action point bonus: +3 attack to him and all allies, but +3 attack to enemies against him.

(Which is very cool, by the way.)

(By the way again, I totally did not stray off topic. All War Chanters rule because of this.)

 

[Danceofmasks]

Well, warchanter/fatesinger = pure ridiculous.
(Aside from the ability mentioned above) Able to spend 2 AP per combat, and if used to grant an action to an ally (and they hit) it's not expended, that's some potentially serious AP abuse.

Also, on the subject of AP cheese, Flame of Hope (Invoker PP) is quite awesome, too.

 

[Firebeetle]

While I definately like alot of their abilities the thing I HATE about the 4e bard is that their music does damage. What the heck? My friend said "the song is so sad, you want to die" as the explaination, but that sounds crazy. It reminds me of the bards from various video game rpgs, like Edward in Final Fantasy IV (II originally here in the states).

Next we need a gambler class, one who uses a rod to pull the arm of an invisible slot machine. Roll 3d10, and depending on what combo you get, the enemy takes various effects. If you are really desperate, you can use your money to do 1pt of damage per GP you have in a close blast 3.

I think the bard would be better if they used regular weapons to attack and songs to only do special effects (buffs, grant actions to allies, dominate/slide foes, etc). I could picture one sort of charm spell "vs. Will: pull enemy CHA squares closer. Make a secondary attack vs. the enemy if they are within reach of your weapon". That'd be cool, and bardy, but not cause my brain to hurt. I just can reconcile the "music does damage" thing.

If I ever GM, and someone plays a bard, all enemies have DR 50 to music damage.

I like the gambler idea, hmmm. . .

Remember in 4e that hit points are more holistic. They represent a person's entire well-being. Before you start in on how "unrealistic" that is consider that the average D&D hero has always taken incredible amounts of damage that would kill an ordinary man, or even a very tough man, many times over. How do you explain the difference? The very hubris of heroes is quantified in their hit points. It is their greatness reflected in their stats. Thus, it is affected by all sorts of unusual things.

 

[Old Gumphrey]

Some "yo momma" jokes, perhaps?

No, puns so bad that they die. Like from Arnold movies in the 80's.

(referring to a guy that got cut in half with a chainsaw)

Where's Buzzsaw?

He had to split...

 

[Chimera]

We started a WotBS campaign about two years ago and I was asked to play a Bard for a number of reasons. I resigned myself to the fact that my character was next to worthless in combat and concentrated on feats to amp up my Bardic Music to ridiculous levels to help others, and my somewhat broken Diplomacy skills.

When we converted to 4 last fall, my GM and I took the variant bard that was posted on this board, seriously revamped it and I converted to that. I enjoyed having some good blasting and battlefield powers, but it was somewhat Wizard-like.

Despite being terminally broke, I went out and bought the PHB2 last Monday so that I could convert my character for our game session on Friday.

11th level. Went Voice of Thunder Paragon path, minor dabbling in Sorcerer multi-classing to get another more Thunder burst. While I have none of the ranged blasts I had with our variant, I've got a ton of close burst and close blast powers. Resounding Thunder feat + paragon special = much bigger Thunder blasts and bursts.

Charge into battle, flaming skeletons surrounding a lone survivor. Do Shout of Triumph to scatter the enemy and push the survivor out of harm's way. Then, and here was the real synergy, our Blood Mage pulls out Blood Pulse, and I (at that point mobbed) follow up with Rolling Echo (push 1 = d6 damage) to clear a path to move, then action point to blast Satire of Bravery (push 3 = 3d6 more damage) at some of them and a few others nearby.

Follow up at the beginning of the next round with the residual blast of Rolling Echo to finish the survivors, and then charge in to help my friends elsewhere.

At one point, the GM commented on my ability to do almost too much at once, with the free action and minor action powers and healing. Heck, I had so many that I kept forgetting them all, what with my equipment powers. Being my first time playing this character as now written, that was ok. I'll do better next time remembering them, especially my Virtue of Valor power.

And OH MAN, Word of Life against a bad guy who dropped a friend? Here you go, here's a nice -5 to all your defenses, no die roll. Hope you enjoy having everyone drop everything they have on you.

On my turn, Vicious Mockery finished that guy off.

Heck yes, I can kill with a word.

My Bard ROCKS.

 

[MarauderX]

I'm of the camp that the 3.5 bard does not suck if played well. The 4E bard secondary role seems to be quite a big part of the bard now. Either way, I'm looking forward to playing one.

 

[DracoSuave]

On my turn, Vicious Mockery finished that guy off.

Heck yes, I can kill with a word.

My Bard ROCKS.

Not just -any- word.

You defeated your enemies with your razor sharp wit.

Like Sarcastro.

 

[Imperialus]

So, given that Bards can literally mock enemies to death with Vicious Mockery, anyone have any cunning lines to use with said at-will?

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gpjk_MaCGM]YouTube - Monty Python - The Funniest Joke In The World[/ame]

 

[Ceraus]

Well, warchanter/fatesinger = pure ridiculous.
(Aside from the ability mentioned above) Able to spend 2 AP per combat, and if used to grant an action to an ally (and they hit) it's not expended, that's some potentially serious AP abuse.

Also, on the subject of AP cheese, Flame of Hope (Invoker PP) is quite awesome, too.

*faints*

That's even worse! The Invoker gets a bonus for himself that trounces his allies', and just so they don't lynch him, he gives them the same one.

I have a Math degree and an encyclopedic grasp of 3.5 and 4E rules, but I have no idea how these abilities passed playtesting.

I don't envy less master-of-the-rules DMs... they won't know what hit them. I'd probably allow those action point bonuses if they were reduced to a +2 bonus. They'd still be abusable, but at least they wouldn't be entirely broken. Heck, they'd be viable at +1, but clearly not as fun for the players.

Stat-dependant power bonuses/penalties to attack/defense tend to be unbalanced. For some, their effect is manageable as long as they have a bonus of maybe +2 or +3, but they get out of control from +5 on -- and that can happen before paragon.

Just look at Str Clerics and Int Warlords: their whole shtick is dependant on a single stat-based attack-boosting power.

 

[JonnyDoH]

Skip to 1:15, and you'll get a sense of what I'm talking about (clip is, by the way, from Chinese Ghost Story 2)

http://www.youtube.com/v/N7becm80dj4&hl=en&fs=1

I've always had this image of the Bard as the Taoist Monk from this movie. See, in this mythos, anything "unclean" or corrupted from the natural real could be damaged by the pure wisdom spoken or read from holy texts. The Taoist monk, by virtue of his own blood, his words or the writing on parchments thrown on his enemies-- could do damage. At least, that's where I'm going with my character concept.

For any of you who want to see things getting blown up by music, well... Here's something from the Cheesey Realm:

(No serious, this part is *crazy*-- makes me think seriously about my people) :

http://www.youtube.com/v/pmMyimlpciU&hl=en&fs=1

(sorry about the links-- tried embedding the videos but the code didn't seem to work).