BoEM II Bard: How has it played?
- Thread starter Krug
- Start date
Wombat
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We've had a couple of players take in in our campaigns. I would like to play one myself campaign, but I am usually behind the screen 
Now the first thing to note is that our games tend to start low-level and we have never actually progressed characters beyond 12th level (only one ever achieved that, most of our games top out at about 7th). The highest level BoEM Bard we had was 5th level and the guy who was playing him loved it (until the character died, of course, but that is a separate matter).
At low levels the two Bards seem to play in a fairly similar manner, despite the differing mechanics. In both cases the "spell selection" is rather limited. The first person who tried the BoEM bard preferred the core bard; the second one preferred the BoEM bard, so I guess it came down to a split decision. The two of them argued many times about which one was actually more useful in combat with no resolution, but ultimately a bard will always be of greater use in non-combat situations.
My feeling looking the two over is that the BoEM bard is slightly less along the "jack of all trades master of none" category, with a bit more emphasis on social uses, but as I said I have yet to play the class myself. OTOH, the Diplomancer PrC (also in BoEM II) is a great boost to the social aspects of the bard
Now the first thing to note is that our games tend to start low-level and we have never actually progressed characters beyond 12th level (only one ever achieved that, most of our games top out at about 7th). The highest level BoEM Bard we had was 5th level and the guy who was playing him loved it (until the character died, of course, but that is a separate matter).
At low levels the two Bards seem to play in a fairly similar manner, despite the differing mechanics. In both cases the "spell selection" is rather limited. The first person who tried the BoEM bard preferred the core bard; the second one preferred the BoEM bard, so I guess it came down to a split decision. The two of them argued many times about which one was actually more useful in combat with no resolution, but ultimately a bard will always be of greater use in non-combat situations.
My feeling looking the two over is that the BoEM bard is slightly less along the "jack of all trades master of none" category, with a bit more emphasis on social uses, but as I said I have yet to play the class myself. OTOH, the Diplomancer PrC (also in BoEM II) is a great boost to the social aspects of the bard
PaulKemp
First Post
Krug said:
Had a player in my FR campaign play one through seventh level. Throughout, the character was comparable to other classes in terms of his impact on game sessions, value in combat, and value out of combat. The ability to use Spellnotes as move equivalent actions (we were playing 3.0) made some very interesting combinations possible (two spellnotes in a round; a spell note and a single attack, and so on). In one instance, the bard used a spellnote to shatter a tavern thug's ceramic tankard, and in the same round used his whip to remove the rope belt holding the thug's trousers up, thus "de-panting and de-drinking" him, all at once. It was a nice move for a bard.
At higher levels, the ability to swap out spellchords for spellnotes (and, had we gotten there, spell melodies for spellchords and spellnotes), was useful and added a great deal to the character's versatility. In practice, the ability to swap out the spells worked a lot like a modified spell point system. A good thing, in this case.
From a flavor perspective, I found Monte's bard much more coherent in terms of theme (that may be a plus or minus, depending on your conception of the bard) and the spellnote/chord/melody progression, what with the entirely different list of spells, made him much more unique as a caster.
In sum, thumbs way up to Monte's version. YMMV.
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