Bards in 3e

[Grishnak]

Has anyone played as a bard in 3e and found it to be more for a roleplaying aspect than for fighting? Not that I don't like roleplaying but I'd also like to be able to hold my own against a creature for longer than 6 seconds!! Each encounter ended up as though there were 2 wizards in the group as I couldn't contribute much in the fighting department.
I've played a Gnome barbarian/bard/Skald. Now in theory you'd think a good person for fighting and the party and maybe let down by a poor str (10) but there was a mistake in making the char as it was a 12th level char but we only recently found out that magic items were picked by the pc's at the char creation phase. Now this char had some good aspects for example the knowledge that the bard uses helped to find info out on how to defeat a few monsters and that the music aided the party with pluses to hit & damage.

 

[BiggusGeekus@Work]

Take a healing spell. That might make combat a little more fun.

And, yeah, bards are more support characters. That said, you get to do all the talking, which can be fun.

 

[Zogg]

Bards are great for dual classing...you can strengthen any particular aspect of a bard PC this way. If you want a bard that can fight you should give him a level (or 4) of fighter. If you want a bard that can heal, buff and turn undead, give him levels of cleric. If you want to make your bard more of a rogue, you can either give him levels of rogue OR move him into a prestige class that allows rogue-like abilities. Same deal with arcane spellcasters and the nature-lovers.

I personally am playing a cleric/bard. I enjoy it - my PC can buff and use a sling quite well in combat and then work the town NPCs for info. when we aren't adventuring. Eventually my PC will have access to some serious buff spells and can wade into the fray with a mace (or a whip for disarming).

The beauty of the bard is that you can really do anything you want.

 

[Grishnak]

The basics of my bard were that he was from the plains and very rare clan of Gnomish barbarians and that he was their chief story teller of the generation. Now to suppliment the bard with a bit of fighting ability I gave him the barbarian class and a skald prestige class. Now in theory it looked like a good selection but in play didn't quite work that way, maybe just the nature of the campaign or possibly just a flaw in my creation.

I do want to give the bard class another blast so maybe I'll try it with something like a rogue, being my favourite class this time around!

Thanks for the speedy replies and some ideas to play around with, might use a few in my adventures as revenge for the abuse recieved off the pc's I play with hehe

 

[psionotic]

I would recommend focusing on either illusion or enchantment spells as your main offensive strategy. Take Spell Focus (and greater focus, if allowed) in whichever school fits your character concept best, and concentrate on foes least likely to have good Will saves. (meat shields/tanks/pets)

I've played a very effective bard enchanter in 3e, and I'm looking forward to making a gnomish bard focusing on illusions as a future 3.5 character.

If you want to go for physical combat, make sure that you go the archery route, and not melee. Whichever path you choose, make bountiful use of Mirror Image, Invisibility, Blur, etc so you don't get hit. Your light armor and puny hit points aren't going to allow you to take much damage.

 

[kenjib]

If you want to go for physical combat, make sure that you go the archery route, and not melee.

I strongly agree with this. Bards can kick booty at archery with all the buffs they can give themselves. Plus, since you can stack up more to-hit bonuses with archery your lower BaB doesn't matter as much as it does in melee. Of course, in revised edition it won't stack as much, but at least for now...

 

[fusangite]

I'll just agree here. My experience is that in combat, bards are the least useful class and outside of combat, they dominate. I think for a bard to be a successful character who doesn't feel over- or under-powered the campaign needs to have just the right balance between combat and politics/NPC interaction.

 

[Saeviomagy]

A bard is ok in melee, especially combined with something like barbarian.

A 12th level melee character (any barbarian should be primarily melee, or possibly melee/thrown weapons) with a base strength of 10 is...

Well...

You get what you pay for.

Especially when you're restricted in the size of weapons you can use.

Believe it or not, effectiveness in melee (or indeed any other arena of combat) is primarily dependant upon the amount of damage you can dish out. When you take a level of barbarian, you're somewhat focussing on this aspect. If you then take a race like gnome which negatively impacts this, and compound that with a lack of attention to the appropriate statistic (strength), you shouldn't be surprise to find that the results are sub-par.

If you re-made the character, putting your strength as your first or second stat in importance, and possibly taking a race which doesn't suffer from the problems of gnomes WRT melee, I think you would find that your character would be a lot more viable as a melee combatant.

 

[Steverooo]

For a Bard, I would choose an Elf. That gives you all bows and the longsword as weapons, and then you can take the whip as your one special Bardic weapon. Magical light armor/Bracers is/are a must, as soon as possible.

 

[Bubbalicious]

Although I am intentionally not playing my current Bard this way, Bards CAN be effective in melee...as field generals. While Bards, like military Generals, shouldn't often risk themselves by diving into toe-to-toe combat, they are still very useful. Buff up your companions. Inspire courage. If you are useful with a bow, take an occasional shot where needed. If you are more roguishly inclined, make a backstab on an otherwise occupied foe. And for God's sake, take healing spells!

Bard is, in my opinion, the most versatile of all classes as written. It can be multiclassed very effectively with just about anything else or it can stand alone. Still, it is WIDE open to great swings of focus. Bards who can heal also help make Clerics in the party more versatile as they can be freed up to use a few spells, at least, for something other than healing. My biggest peeve with the way most seem to play is that Clerics become expected to not waste their power on anything but healing and become very one-dimensional. I'm not saying, though, that the Bard should take even a large portion of the healing responsibilities from the Cleric, just ease his (or her) load a little so that Cleric can actually be fun to play again for someone else.

The main thing to remember is that while they are called rules, all we really have are guidelines. If you have a creative, forward-thinking DM, he (or she) will work around the "rules" if you come up with a cool alternative that comes from a character slant rather than meta-gaming, and doesn't throw things out of balance.

Bottom line, if your not having fun playing it (no matter what class), play it differently before you blame the guidelines. If that doesn't work, play something else. If you're not having fun with it, why are you doing it?