Bards, Badass or Not

[Cavall]

Yes, fascinate, if I remember. Which meant no suggestion either.

 

[aboyd]

...which I never enjoyed using as a bard, so no loss to me. But regarding the errata, StreamOfTheSky, you didn't use your limited per day class feature to heal a whopping 13 hp with a cantrip. You used it after a fight, when everyone was wounded, to make ALL your cantrips do a whopping 13 HP. So if you needed to do 130 hit points of healing spread out of your 5 allies, you would sing the Healing Hymn, then cast 10 cure minor cantrips, and all the castings would benefit from that one song. Thus, 10 cure minor spells which would normally heal 10 points would instead heal 130 points.

That was always worth it in my campaigns, where the DM made every combat pretty tough. We needed healing after fighting. My bard was much-praised for the Healing Hymn. However, now with the errata, it feels utterly stupid -- "Hey guys, look, I gave up class features to get an alternative feature that doesn't actually do anything."

Ugh.

If they wanted to nix the cantrip trick, why did they castrate its use on all the non-cantrip spells? Man, they could have even relied on the wording in the feature itself -- it says that it adds to your healing spell's dice roll, yet cure minor has no dice roll, so they could say it didn't apply. Why did they have to use a stupid solution instead of an eloquent one?!? Grrr.

 

[Baveboi]

I think WotC employers are rather tired of people complaining into their ears how a lousy work they do. I would be, for sure.

I mean, the rules are guides, not Set In Stone. I bought them. I do with them whatever I want. What some people call "Homebrew" and "House Rules" I should call "specific details about a game".
If you don't like an errata or web add-on, don't use it.
I bought the game with it's rules and hundreds people screaming something is overpowered or unbalanced won't change MY mind about what I want.

Pfft. I'm even using the 2ed spells, monsters and packages on 3.5 games. I tell you, the faces someone can do when I use Spelltrap... Ahhh priceless.
For everything else, there is mastercard.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

...which I never enjoyed using as a bard, so no loss to me. But regarding the errata, StreamOfTheSky, you didn't use your limited per day class feature to heal a whopping 13 hp with a cantrip. You used it after a fight, when everyone was wounded, to make ALL your cantrips do a whopping 13 HP. So if you needed to do 130 hit points of healing spread out of your 5 allies, you would sing the Healing Hymn, then cast 10 cure minor cantrips, and all the castings would benefit from that one song. Thus, 10 cure minor spells which would normally heal 10 points would instead heal 130 points.

That was always worth it in my campaigns, where the DM made every combat pretty tough. We needed healing after fighting. My bard was much-praised for the Healing Hymn. However, now with the errata, it feels utterly stupid -- "Hey guys, look, I gave up class features to get an alternative feature that doesn't actually do anything."

Ugh.

If they wanted to nix the cantrip trick, why did they castrate its use on all the non-cantrip spells? Man, they could have even relied on the wording in the feature itself -- it says that it adds to your healing spell's dice roll, yet cure minor has no dice roll, so they could say it didn't apply. Why did they have to use a stupid solution instead of an eloquent one?!? Grrr.

If it's only useful for out of combat healing, then the nerf's even dumber than I thought! Have the writers never heard of wands of cure light wounds*? Out of combat healing is cheap and easy, all the bard thing does is save the party some money. SO worth the loss of three (very good, even if you didn't tend to like/use them) class features, right?

*And since we're pulling out a splatbook variant, I thik it's fair to expect wands of Lesser Vigor in a game with Healing Hymn. That's 11 hp healed per charge.

 

[Dandu]

I think WotC employers are rather tired of people complaining into their ears how a lousy work they do. I would be, for sure.

The correct reaction would be for them to stop doing such lousy work.

 

[Baveboi]

The correct reaction would be for them to stop doing such lousy work.

Not all of their work is lousy and the most part of what is often is in response to fans overeactions of some mechanical malfunction.

As a DM I never had a player exploit any mechanical defect, ever.
Everysingle time "karma" would bite them back for trying retarded things like curing an entire party with cantrips. I even exploded a character who insisted in getting permanent Fast Healing at all costs, a simple curse did the trick.

DMs all around should talk to their players and say what's bugging them and not go screaming something went wrong with "game balance". That way a player work on his own game and don't meddle in those of other people.


If a new player insist he can do X because it's in the RAW I often point out that it's also in the RAW that the DM has the calling on his own game. More than often my old players warn the new ones about that simple rule as to not insite later would-be rage.
But then again, I often focus more on the ROLEPLAYING and less on the mechanical and overated ROLL PLAYING.

 

[Dandu]

But then again, I often focus more on the ROLEPLAYING and less on the mechanical and overated ROLL PLAYING.

I find it easier to ROLEPLAY if the system works well right off the bat.

 

[aboyd]

Baveboi, this thread isn't a referendum on WotC. But it sounds like you would like to go make one. If that serves your purposes, go do that.

Here, in a thread specifically titled in such a way as to engender discussion of the good or bad aspects of bards, I'm afraid we're going to get into the good and bad aspects, including negative opinions about the class, features, spells, and even book text. So maybe this thread will be a little too frustrating for you to read.

 

[Baveboi]

I'm sorry aboyd, didn't mean to get things OOC. Won't happen again.

 

[aboyd]

No worries, I'm no mod. I have no say in what you do. I just can see the whole tone of this thread might feel pretty lame for someone who didn't want to read a discussion with negative points.

As for me, in my game I just houseruled the errata about Healing Hymn. That particular errata doesn't exist in my game now. Yay!

For the sake of good discussion, could you guys describe game experiences where you used the Fascinate/Suggestion feature of the bard well? For me, the problem I have is that there rarely seems to be an opportunity, and even if there is, when you activate it, doesn't it appear that you are making spell-like gestures or using arcane language or any of that? So the odds of the bad guys actually falling prey seems limited. Too often they'd be like, "Witchcraft! Plug your ears! Close your eyes!"

This is one of the reasons I drop it for Healing Hymn.

But maybe when you play, you flavor it differently? What are your play experiences like?