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Bards Should Be Half-Casters in 5.5e/6e
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<blockquote data-quote="Neonchameleon" data-source="post: 8391276" data-attributes="member: 87792"><p>This is not the way. It may be the end but it is not the way. You don't start your long pitch by saying "Make the Bard a half caster", you start it by saying "If we give the bard these really cool things they are cool and powerful enough that they don't need to be a full caster". Starting out "We should nerf the bard" (which is what your title says in practice) is just going to put people off.</p><p></p><p>The conceptual problem with half casters is the action economy. Even if you can do everything you can only do one thing at any one time meaning that either they are a half-assed fighter, an inept spellcaster, or possibly a third rate rogue. If we look at the PHB half-casters they get round this by behaving as pretty much full fighters as far as the action economy is concerned. The ranger and the paladin alike have the fighter's fighting style and extra attack - and the paladin even gets to hack the action economy with their smites, burning spell slots for extra damage.</p><p></p><p>The artificer gets away with this because they come with a collection of permanent buffs <em>that do not burn their action economy</em> in the form of infusions. Oh, and their subclasses are excellent. The Battlesmith and the Armourer are both fighter tier combatants and the artillerist either gets free attacks to put them onto fighter tier or hands out superb AoE buffs. And the alchemist </p><p></p><p>If we look at the historical record of half-casting bards it's been ... mixed. And what has worked probably can't be repeated.</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The 2e bard hacked the XP system and levelled up at thief speed not mage speed. They therefore had more hit points than mages, could wear armour, could wield weapons, and were almost as good at casting as a mage. They traded low level power for high level power. This is not an approach that could work here due to harmonised XP systems.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The <a href="http://www.dragon.ee/30srd/bard.htm" target="_blank">3.0 bard</a> was a punchline. Good at nothing and could only do one thing at once. Never do this again.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The <a href="https://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/bard.htm" target="_blank">3.5 bard</a> took some skill to make work, but had two things going for them. <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Inspire Courage was technically limited by neither duration nor number of targets as long as they could hear you. Yes, there's endurance - but with a couple of buffs (a spell, a feat, and an item) a call and response <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_cadence" target="_blank">military cadence</a> could turn a party into a blending machine that hit a dungeon like a buzz-saw and last for hours while alternatively the Alphorn had a range measured in miles for an entire battle.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The bard spell list was heavily hacked with the bard getting broken unique spells like <a href="https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/glibness.htm" target="_blank">glibness</a>, and getting spells from Tasha's Hideous Laughter to Otto's Irresistible Dance early, so within their niche of enchanters and illusionists they could out-cast sorcerers. 5e threw out the idea of spells being different levels for different classes</li> </ul></li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The <a href="https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/bard/" target="_blank">Pathfinder bard</a> managed to break the 3.5 bard although it did remain better than the 3.0 bard<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">With a limited number of rounds per day and no "for five rounds after they stop hearing you" the long duration party buff aspect of Inspire Courage vanished. It just became a decent-ish spell</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">It lost most of the splatbook stuff bards could get - and that was never replaced</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The sorcerer got significantly better (which to be fair it needed to)</li> </ul></li> </ul><p>So that's just 2e and 3.5 not falling a long long way behind the full casters and the way 2e did it can not be repeated.</p><p></p><p>What are you offering that isn't just trying to gut the class?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Neonchameleon, post: 8391276, member: 87792"] This is not the way. It may be the end but it is not the way. You don't start your long pitch by saying "Make the Bard a half caster", you start it by saying "If we give the bard these really cool things they are cool and powerful enough that they don't need to be a full caster". Starting out "We should nerf the bard" (which is what your title says in practice) is just going to put people off. The conceptual problem with half casters is the action economy. Even if you can do everything you can only do one thing at any one time meaning that either they are a half-assed fighter, an inept spellcaster, or possibly a third rate rogue. If we look at the PHB half-casters they get round this by behaving as pretty much full fighters as far as the action economy is concerned. The ranger and the paladin alike have the fighter's fighting style and extra attack - and the paladin even gets to hack the action economy with their smites, burning spell slots for extra damage. The artificer gets away with this because they come with a collection of permanent buffs [I]that do not burn their action economy[/I] in the form of infusions. Oh, and their subclasses are excellent. The Battlesmith and the Armourer are both fighter tier combatants and the artillerist either gets free attacks to put them onto fighter tier or hands out superb AoE buffs. And the alchemist If we look at the historical record of half-casting bards it's been ... mixed. And what has worked probably can't be repeated. [LIST] [*]The 2e bard hacked the XP system and levelled up at thief speed not mage speed. They therefore had more hit points than mages, could wear armour, could wield weapons, and were almost as good at casting as a mage. They traded low level power for high level power. This is not an approach that could work here due to harmonised XP systems. [*]The [URL='http://www.dragon.ee/30srd/bard.htm']3.0 bard[/URL] was a punchline. Good at nothing and could only do one thing at once. Never do this again. [*]The [URL='https://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/bard.htm']3.5 bard[/URL] took some skill to make work, but had two things going for them. [LIST] [*]Inspire Courage was technically limited by neither duration nor number of targets as long as they could hear you. Yes, there's endurance - but with a couple of buffs (a spell, a feat, and an item) a call and response [URL='https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_cadence']military cadence[/URL] could turn a party into a blending machine that hit a dungeon like a buzz-saw and last for hours while alternatively the Alphorn had a range measured in miles for an entire battle. [*]The bard spell list was heavily hacked with the bard getting broken unique spells like [URL='https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/glibness.htm']glibness[/URL], and getting spells from Tasha's Hideous Laughter to Otto's Irresistible Dance early, so within their niche of enchanters and illusionists they could out-cast sorcerers. 5e threw out the idea of spells being different levels for different classes [/LIST] [*]The [URL='https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/bard/']Pathfinder bard[/URL] managed to break the 3.5 bard although it did remain better than the 3.0 bard [LIST] [*]With a limited number of rounds per day and no "for five rounds after they stop hearing you" the long duration party buff aspect of Inspire Courage vanished. It just became a decent-ish spell [*]It lost most of the splatbook stuff bards could get - and that was never replaced [*]The sorcerer got significantly better (which to be fair it needed to) [/LIST] [/LIST] So that's just 2e and 3.5 not falling a long long way behind the full casters and the way 2e did it can not be repeated. What are you offering that isn't just trying to gut the class? [/QUOTE]
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