Changing The Bard

[Luguolo]

hey there, i recently got sucked back into the world of Never Winter Nights, and i liked the idea of the curse song feat, and have now applied it to my game. however, i also liked the different type of song progression they got.

so here is a link to the bard spell progression (now the effects stack) and i wonder if it would unbalance the game to apply it to the bard, while still giving them their non-buff songs (suggestion, counter song, etc), what do you think!

Bard song - NWNWiki, the Neverwinter Nights Wiki - your guide to the game of NWN

 

[Stillgrave]

At first I was going to say it would way overpower him, but then I noticed that it goes to level 30 and doesn't max out at level 20. So I have just one question at the moment, do the bonuses all apply at once, or is it random, or do you choose which bonus to get?

 

[Luguolo]

At first I was going to say it would way overpower him, but then I noticed that it goes to level 30 and doesn't max out at level 20. So I have just one question at the moment, do the bonuses all apply at once, or is it random, or do you choose which bonus to get?

at the levels it dictates you get all the bonuses it shows for that level, as do those around you, and with the curse song feat, you can apply those as penalties to your enemies for another use of the song (so one daily use for bonuses, one daily use for penalties*.

 

[Stillgrave]

Hm.. if all the other classes in your campaign are unchanged from core classes, then I'd probably have to say this power is overpowered to add to the bard without taking something away.

 

[Luguolo]

i thought so for a bit to, but given all those bonuses apply to his team mates as well, is it truly that over powered? and if i were to allow this, what would you recommend removing?

 

[Celebrim]

In some cases, it's strictly inferior to the SRD. For example, at 20th level, an SRD bard is granting +4/+4 to hit and damage, where as the 20th level NWN bard is granting +2/+3.

The only real advantage the NWN bard has is the ability to stack all of his song effects with one round of effort, and the apparant ability to effect an unlimited number of allies.

The SRD bard, spending 3 rounds to stack different song effects can actually grant signficantly higher bonuses to everything but skills.

I don't think that the NWN table is significantly overpowering, especially considering that the bard is a fairly weak class in the small groups you see in PnP gaming. I think I'd try to do more to reconcile it with the SRD though.