Bardic music contest

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

My campaign's current adventure is a festival day celebrating the beginning of spring. Of course, there's green beer, two feuding clans of dwarves (my dwarves are more Appalachia than Misty Mountains), the advancement of subplots and meeting some important NPCs for the setting.

Although the main event is currently a 25 dwarf tavern brawl, with the player characters stuck in the middle (literally), the climax of the adventure will be a bardic music contest one of the player characters will participate in.

I took a flip-through of my books to see if there were rules for running such a contest, and there weren't any (not even in Tournaments, Fairs & Taverns, which surprised me), so I tossed together the following, based on the rules for the Grand Illusion in Complete Arcane:

The heart of the contest is a Perform check, naturally, but the difficulty of the composition also comes into play. The character decides how complex a composition they want to attempt, and set a difficulty level. If they succeed on the Perform check, the difficulty level of the composition is added to the Perform check score. The totals are compared at the end, and the highest (modified for judges' prejudices -- there's a much put-upon kobold bard from the local almost-but-not-quite hostile tribe who keeps getting screwed over by the human/dwarf/gnome judges) score wins.

Thus a performer could play it safe and pick a difficulty 5 composition (the equivalent of Chopsticks, perhaps) and not really wow the crowd, no matter how well it was done. Or a performer could try a dazzling display of virtuosity which, if they succeed, will clinch the performance, but if they fail, they fall on their face and might end up worse off than the dude who played Chopsticks at the competition.

Feedback appreciated on this system. Anyone used something else to good effect?

 

[Tsillanabor]

Not bad-how does the Bardic Music ability play in though? It is my belief that a true bard with 10 ranks in Perform will be far better than a Rogue with 10 ranks in Perform. Perhaps add in Bard level somewhere? Maybe +1 for every 4 bard levels.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Or a bonus for Bardic Music levels (so that virtuosos and other relevant PrCs would also stack). Hmmm.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Take a look at the policking rules in Dynasties & Demogogues if you can. The rules for swaying voters might be adaptable to your needs (if you want to include the idea of swaying judges based on more than the Perform checks and the DCs). It all depends upon how complicated you want to get!

If I had a DC 5 check and rolled a 15, my score would be 20? DC 5 + roll of 15 = 20. If I had a DC of 15 and rolled a 15, my score would be 30? Various forms of influence based on content of the performances could be circumstance bonuses to the check. Also, you might want to consider what using up a Bardic Music use might do to the check (thus differentiating bards from skilled non-bards). <----D'oh! Cross-posted! (I must start typing faster!)

RC

 

[Tsillanabor]

Or a bonus for Bardic Music levels (so that virtuosos and other relevant PrCs would also stack). Hmmm.

As someone building towards a Fochlucan Lyrist I wholeheartedly agree!