Bards - The Greatest of All Classes

[jrients]

Ok, I should have labeled the post as humor except that the core message is one that I think is important to FRPGs, and that is that I believe most gamers do not know enough about bards to do them justice, either as a DM or a module author.

Assuming I agree that "doing them justice" ought to be a goal of the game, then the problem is hardly limited to bardic lore. Most gamers do not know enough about [X] to do it justice, where X is wizardry as depicted down the ages, the art of swordfighting, the principles of ancient religion, riding horses, or any of a dozen other issues.

 

[gizmo33]

I probably would have agreed that this was poor design. It is important to use the right tool for the right job. As someone who understood all your references, I would assume that the first rant was aimed mainly at people like me, since anyone else would just scroll through it without realising their import, so your choice clearly wasn't aimed at them. And even so, I don't buy the original argument.

Yes Rystil, Ogma bless you, I certainly could not have explained all of my references in a post under a million words so I was relying on a segment of the gaming community to take up the cause. (And hoping most of them would laugh this off). Yes, you are my audience and I respect the fact that you don't agree.

The fact, as I see it, is that gamers, while not experts on history, understand far more, in general, about swords and magic summoning circles. What actually constitutes bardic lore has to be gleaned from indirect sources. For 3E DnD to have dimissed bardic lore as some sort of miscellany gleaned from gabbing with people in taverns is incomprehensible to Gizmo the Evangelist of Bards.

It's like I woke up in a parallel universe and read something like "Clerics get no spells because the gods aren't real. They have the ability to raise money and make people feel guilty." I would think "jeepers, didn't these people even try to research and create a heroic cleric?

You say that some sources tell you Amairgen is a druid. I tell you that some sources will tell you that the druids built Stonehenge. Don't believe everything you read. Some of those sources you are reading were struggling to understand a world thousands of years remote whose knowledge was encoded in a form foreign to their education. But I can assure you that the bards knew the truth of it.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Yes Rystil, Ogma bless you, I certainly could not have explained all of my references in a post under a million words so I was relying on a segment of the gaming community to take up the cause. (And hoping most of them would laugh this off). Yes, you are my audience and I respect the fact that you don't agree.

The fact, as I see it, is that gamers, while not experts on history, understand far more, in general, about swords and magic summoning circles. What actually constitutes bardic lore has to be gleaned from indirect sources. For 3E DnD to have dimissed bardic lore as some sort of miscellany gleaned from gabbing with people in taverns is incomprehensible to Gizmo the Evangelist of Bards.

It's like I woke up in a parallel universe and read something like "Clerics get no spells because the gods aren't real. They have the ability to raise money and make people feel guilty." I would think "jeepers, didn't these people even try to research and create a heroic cleric?

You say that some sources tell you Amairgen is a druid. I tell you that some sources will tell you that the druids built Stonehenge. Don't believe everything you read. Some of those sources you are reading were struggling to understand a world thousands of years remote whose knowledge was encoded in a form foreign to their education. But I can assure you that the bards knew the truth of it.

My sources are as close to primary as they come, so of course, while it is pointless to argue that anyone "got the legend factually incorrect," your sources were certainly not more enlightened (in fact, I would suspect they are excerpted from the same). The fact is that everything we know about the Celts was written down ex post facto, due to their oral transmission, which allowed a colonialising influence to be exerted by those who had more efficient writing than Ogham runes (in fact, I just wrote a paper on this topic). The Leabhar Gabhala (which, in translation, is the source of your quote "The Song of Amairgen") is certainly a key source on Amairgen, and even it considers him to be the first druid of Ireland, and bardic on the side. Indeed, Amairgen's mastery of the elements in the very setting you conferred is usually seen as druidic when put into context. Of course, that's why the 1e bard with druid spells was the best match. Really, Taliesin or Oisin are better choices for pure Celtic bards (well okay, Oisin also had some fighter or barbarian levels, so really Taliesin is the best choice).

 

[DungeonmasterCal]

Leave it to a modern human to be jarred by a level of passion and hyperbole that rises above the soothing hum of their television set and assume that some chemical must be involved.

Better living through chemistry!

 

[gizmo33]

Seriously, the lack of good spellcasting, the *flavor* of the bardic songs, the lack of exceptional combat skills... The main thing I don't like is that the only reason to advance in bard after first level are for the paltry songs (the best one comes first), and to get that +1 per level to the bardic knowledge skill.

Preach on brother Kluge. Bards got the shaft ever since 2E. The bardic songs are a joke. It's like someone got caught up in the excitement of a mosh-pit at a Slayer concert and thought somehow that this constituted the end-of-all-ends with regards to the magical potential of music. That's not to say that Slayer doesn't rock, it's just that I find the bard class in 3E to be much more hampered by realism than any of the other classes, though before 3E I would have said something similar about thieves. I wish they would have used the name "minstrel" for the class.

Which is the other problem I have with the class - it's not a jack of all trades.

And "jack of all trades" is even too lame. High level bards are Kings of All Trades. Google "Lugh Samildinach". I sure wish someone at WotC would have.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Preach on brother Kluge. Bards got the shaft ever since 2E. The bardic songs are a joke. It's like someone got caught up in the excitement of a mosh-pit at a Slayer concert and thought somehow that this constituted the end-of-all-ends with regards to the magical potential of music. That's not to say that Slayer doesn't rock, it's just that I find the bard class in 3E to be much more hampered by realism than any of the other classes, though before 3E I would have said something similar about thieves. I wish they would have used the name "minstrel" for the class.



And "jack of all trades" is even too lame. High level bards are Kings of All Trades. Google "Lugh Samildinach". I sure wish someone at WotC would have.

Lugh is the Tuatha god whose portfolio makes him "king of all trades," so he is even more irrelevant to the discussion than anyone else. That's like saying that all high-level Necromancers rule the realm of the dead and the entire afterlife because the god of death does.

 

[Whimsical]

Monte Cook's Akashic was mentioned in this thread. Behold the coolness of this class here.

 

[Klaus]

I hate it. Therefore it sucks.

Seriously, the lack of good spellcasting, the *flavor* of the bardic songs, the lack of exceptional combat skills... The main thing I don't like is that the only reason to advance in bard after first level are for the paltry songs (the best one comes first), and to get that +1 per level to the bardic knowledge skill. That, and the concept of a charisma-based caster for the bard makes no sense. This is a class who is supposed to pick up his skills from various sources along the way. Yet, his spellcasting is inate? That utter rubbish, in my mind. That makes sense for sorcerers, but makes no sense for bards. The designers only did that because they wanted to reinforce the charisma aspect of the bard. Which is the other problem I have with the class - it's not a jack of all trades. It's specifically designed to be a manipulator/enchanter, and nothing more. If you're going to do that, you're better off playing a sorcerer specializing in enchantment spells.

Eberron gave a bit of oomph to the bard. In ECS there are a few feats that enhance bardic music or give new music effects. A bard can take these as bonus feats instead of gaining new bard music effects (stuff like "Soothe the Beast").

 

[Henry]

I find myself agree with Klaus. Are you SURE a given bard hasn't heard the story? No diviner in ages past ever gained remote knowledge of the event, then recorded it in some obscure journal somewhere, or told a friend about it, or confessed it on his deathbed, and someone told another, and another, until our Bard happened to glean it out of an old manuscript, or heard a retelling of it? It might be a DC 30 or so, but somebody's got to have seen it, if only the gods.

Bards are NOT just singers of songs. They are also orators, diplomats, and scholars of knowledge. I'd argue that a Bard with reasonably high intelligence is even a BETTER scholar than a wizard. 2 skill points versus 6, and all knowledge and languages are class skills, baby.

 

[gizmo33]

My sources are as close to primary as they come, so of course, while it is pointless to argue that anyone "got the legend factually incorrect," your sources were certainly not more enlightened (in fact, I would suspect they are excerpted from the same).

My thesis here is that your sources are not adequate for a definition of Bardic Lore. I quote them only to hint at the possibility of what lies underneath. Please keep in mind that I'm taking the plainest of legendary facts and embellishing them into what I think would be the proper frame of mind with regards to making a character class that could stand it's ground with the great fighters and wizards. I believe a healthy dose of anthropology supports my thesis, you would need to go beyond the nostalgia of medieval clergymen.

The fact is that everything we know about the Celts was written down ex post facto, due to their oral transmission, which allowed a colonialising influence to be exerted by those who had more efficient writing than Ogham runes (in fact, I just wrote a paper on this topic).

True, but I hate to see you make too much of a system of writing that was never taken seriously by druids and exists only in the form of a few tomb inscriptions. Bardic knowledge was sacred knowledge, and to write it down was blasphemous. It's like looking for the tenets of Christianity in pornography and trying to draw conclusions from the that. The real direct source of bardic knowledge is verbally trasmitted, and so you don't have it. My crazy thesis here is that only by viewing the written sources through the lense of what anthropology/comparative mythology has to say about pre-literate societies (and this term is prejudiced in assuming some sort of "progress" to writing) can you really do justice to the way that the people of the time period thought. I think a serious attempt at a character class worthy of the name "bard" would recognize what the people who invented the term would have understood about the class.

The Leabhar Gabhala (which, in translation, is the source of your quote "The Song of Amairgen") is certainly a key source on Amairgen, and even it considers him to be the first druid of Ireland, and bardic on the side.

Again - druidic knowledge is, in fact, unwritten and to the extent that it is not derived immediately from the powers granted by gods, I would argue that such knowledge is in fact BARDIC Knowledge. An analogy is that arcane spells cast by a non-wizard are still arcane spells, and a general discussion of their capabilities is relevant to the discussion of the wizard as a character class.

Indeed, Amairgen's mastery of the elements in the very setting you conferred is usually seen as druidic when put into context. Of course, that's why the 1e bard with druid spells was the best match. Really, Taliesin or Oisin are better choices for pure Celtic bards (well okay, Oisin also had some fighter or barbarian levels, so really Taliesin is the best choice).

"Mastery of the elements" equating with druidic power is a fantasy cliche that's on shaky ground in terms of the sources. IMO - for the societies we're talking about, mastery of the elements means mastery of everything - we certainly don't know what powers druids would have had over the automobile or a knight in platemail for that matter. It could be argued that the source of his elemental mastery was the poetic/bardic knowledge, and so regardless of what you might think his real character class would have been in DnD, I think he is a fair example.

And so is Lugh, for that matter. These societies we're talking about did not consider bardic lore to be the exclusively the domain of just bards. I define bardic lore as any non-written source of knowledge - and there is a VAST amount of such information that was encoded in poetic form. In fact, I argue that such knowledge covered the entirety of all sentient knowledge as far as these cultures were concerned. 20 YEARS of study needed to master it - according to the Greeks? Romans? That's not just wandering around picking up a few stray facts as 3E would suggest.

Taliesin - ok - the classic legend of this bard has him shapechanging to a degree that you can only accomplish by being an 17th level WIZARD in 3E (At one point he turns himself into a kernel of corn !!). I think instead of "wizards" we should call them "rogues" for stealing power away from the bards.