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Bards have an identity problem!
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<blockquote data-quote="see" data-source="post: 8072442" data-attributes="member: 10531"><p>Thing is, the 1e bard wasn't the original bard, the 1e bard was what Gygax created because he didn't like the original mishmash bard but was putting all the already-published D&D classes into the 1e PHB.</p><p></p><p>The original bard, created by Doug Schwegman and published in The Strategic Review #6 (February 1976), was very much the precursor of the 2e bard -- "a hodgepodge of at least three different kinds, the norse ‘skald’, the celtic ‘bard’, and the southern european ‘minstrel’" and "a jack-of-all-trades . . . both an amateur thief and magic user as well as a good fighter". Could use any weapon, could wear leather armor or chainmail, had thief skills at 1/2 level, had a magic user spell progression, had a charm power and a legend lore power, knew languages up to their intelligence score, used the cleric attack progression and save table.</p><p></p><p>The 5e bard keeps some of the trappings of that hodgepodge origin around, but as a full caster really leans heavily into the <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicMusic" target="_blank">music is magic</a> trope, which is at least as sensible as the excuse for any of the other full-caster classes. And it'd be a lot clearer, really, if the sorcerer and warlock were moved to different casting attributes to emphasize their stories (probably Constitution for innate power and Intelligence for pacts, assuming you don't just admit that "taught magic by a creepy being" is an alternate wizard origin story and "agreed to be a channel for greater powers" is a cleric). The bard would then clearly be the one whose music is so moving that it actually causes animals, spirits, and even inanimate objects to react.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="see, post: 8072442, member: 10531"] Thing is, the 1e bard wasn't the original bard, the 1e bard was what Gygax created because he didn't like the original mishmash bard but was putting all the already-published D&D classes into the 1e PHB. The original bard, created by Doug Schwegman and published in The Strategic Review #6 (February 1976), was very much the precursor of the 2e bard -- "a hodgepodge of at least three different kinds, the norse ‘skald’, the celtic ‘bard’, and the southern european ‘minstrel’" and "a jack-of-all-trades . . . both an amateur thief and magic user as well as a good fighter". Could use any weapon, could wear leather armor or chainmail, had thief skills at 1/2 level, had a magic user spell progression, had a charm power and a legend lore power, knew languages up to their intelligence score, used the cleric attack progression and save table. The 5e bard keeps some of the trappings of that hodgepodge origin around, but as a full caster really leans heavily into the [URL='https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicMusic']music is magic[/URL] trope, which is at least as sensible as the excuse for any of the other full-caster classes. And it'd be a lot clearer, really, if the sorcerer and warlock were moved to different casting attributes to emphasize their stories (probably Constitution for innate power and Intelligence for pacts, assuming you don't just admit that "taught magic by a creepy being" is an alternate wizard origin story and "agreed to be a channel for greater powers" is a cleric). The bard would then clearly be the one whose music is so moving that it actually causes animals, spirits, and even inanimate objects to react. [/QUOTE]
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