D&D 5E D&DN going down the wrong path for everyone.

[AbdulAlhazred]

So, you're happy with the design if the 4e bard and feel it was a good representation if the bard? That the mechanics were a good representation of the unique hooks and flavour of the bard?

Yeah, I thought so. It was a fun class to play and DM for. Nor do I think that doing some damage makes you a 'blaster wizard'. It makes you a character that can make the enemy lose, just like the other characters. We made some great narrative around our bard. In fact it was pretty funny. The character used to mock the rest of the party constantly and once won a battle by making the enemy laugh so much they never knew what hit them. There's still a story circulating around Eastern Kinergh to the effect that the dwarf and the cleric battled giant squirrels and rabbits to recover the Shield of Kinnis. They all roll with laughter whenever it gets told at the Old Roadhouse Inn.

 

[Obryn]

So, you're happy with the design if the 4e bard and feel it was a good representation if the bard? That the mechanics were a good representation of the unique hooks and flavour of the bard?

Between the incredible non combat utility, jack-of-all-trades skills, free multiclassing, bardic rituals, Charisma focus, utility power selection, and leadership in combat?

Yeah.

-O

 

[JRRNeiklot]

I beg to differ. It is a class and is listed as such. It has all the abilities of a druid, most of the spells, no limit to hit points, bardic music, , and the fighting and thieving abilities of its previous classes.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

Wait a minute. So it's okay for 1E to be dependent on a good DM but not 4E? I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with any point you've made but that's some serious goalpost moving.

No goalpost moving at all here, I think this is my first post in this bit of the thread.

And you misunderstood my point. Every RPG is dependent on having a good GM, including both 1E and 4E. I think the designers of 4E misspent a lot of effort on achieving mechanical combat balance between classes when that issue is better addressed through encounter design, i.e. DM skill. I think their efforts would have been more productive in other areas. Also, sacrifices were made in the interest on mechanical combat balance that made 4E unappealing to me.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

So, you're happy with the design if the 4e bard and feel it was a good representation if the bard? That the mechanics were a good representation of the unique hooks and flavour of the bard?

i've played several, and it's just as much fun as it has always been. Perhaps more, in part due to having way less MAD. Looks like I'm not the only one who thinks so.

Between the incredible non combat utility, jack-of-all-trades skills, free multiclassing, bardic rituals, Charisma focus, utility power selection, and leadership in combat?

Yeah.

-O

Pretty much this.

 

[Jester David]

i've played several, and it's just as much fun as it has always been. Perhaps more, in part due to having way less MAD. Looks like I'm not the only one who thinks so.

Meh. To each their own.
I just found the bard running around hitting people with a sword (using charisma no less) to be weird, as was the bard waggling their wand. Nothing particularly wand-ish about the bard class. The multiclassing was a fun nod to their 1e roots but in practice it just led the bard to feel less like a bard and more like other classes. Very few powers had a musical or song hook, other than some loose flavour text. And instruments were just implements, pretty much wands with "wands" crossed out and "instrument" written in its place. The majority of the powers could have been any leader class' powers. Words of Friendship was ridonkulous; skills were never the best system in the game for hard math but giving a class with high Charisma who was likely trained in Diplomacy a +5 bonus pretty much whenever made their Diplo bonus unbeatable.

Personally, I always found 4e's alternate attack stats broke my verisimilitude. "Hey, I'm a bard. Strength and Dexterity are my dump stats so I can barely lift my rapier and am as clumsy as a legless dwarf, but I can stab you in the face using my charm." Yeah, a bard should have a high Charisma and might want to be in melee, but there had to be a better way to get the math to work than just saying "okay, you stab people with your personality."
But 4e was never the edition for people who wanted any semblance of verisimilitude in their game.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Meh. To each their own.
I just found the bard running around hitting people with a sword (using charisma no less) to be weird, as was the bard waggling their wand. Nothing particularly wand-ish about the bard class. The multiclassing was a fun nod to their 1e roots but in practice it just led the bard to feel less like a bard and more like other classes. Very few powers had a musical or song hook, other than some loose flavour text. And instruments were just implements, pretty much wands with "wands" crossed out and "instrument" written in its place. The majority of the powers could have been any leader class' powers. Words of Friendship was ridonkulous; skills were never the best system in the game for hard math but giving a class with high Charisma who was likely trained in Diplomacy a +5 bonus pretty much whenever made their Diplo bonus unbeatable.

To each their own indeed. I had no problem with any of the things you mention. I'm pretty sure swinging swords has always been a part of the bard's repertoire; they're supposed to be jacks-of-all-trades, after all. In AD&D they could pick any WP, in 3.x they could choose some martial weapons, and in 4e they get a smattering of them as well. The fact that they use Charisma to attack, I recognize, is a glaring issue for some, but I have no issue with it. As for the implements, I see no reason why they shouldn't use wands, and instruments as implements makes sense if that's the angle you want to approach the class from - and this is a key point about the class - that you can approach it from the musical angle, but aren't forced to. The concept is broad enough to cover many different ideas, from roguish conman to swashbuckling warrior, to gish, and beyond, and this has always been true of the class.

I agree that instrument support could have been better overall, but this was not a huge concern of mine.

Words of Friendship makes sure they win one Diplomacy check per encounter. They're bards. I see no issue here. Working as intended.

Personally, I always found 4e's alternate attack stats broke my verisimilitude. "Hey, I'm a bard. Strength and Dexterity are my dump stats so I can barely lift my rapier and am as clumsy as a legless dwarf, but I can stab you in the face using my charm." Yeah, a bard should have a high Charisma and might want to be in melee, but there had to be a better way to get the math to work than just saying "okay, you stab people with your personality."

Again, I take no issue with using non-strength or -dex stats to attack; melee with charisma can represent a deceptive or merely supremely confident combatant. I get that some people have trouble with this, but I am not one of them; it makes sense to me. It can sound silly if you deliberately try to make it so. If it doesn't work for you, that's fine, but without this feature, I am decidedly less interested in Next.

Also, while you don't need to max it for every build, Dex is not a dump stat for bards in any edition that I am aware of. Strength can be, but not necessarily, and this has always been true, depending on how you build or roll.

But 4e was never the edition for people who wanted any semblance of verisimilitude in their game.

Aside from fallacious content, this statement is borderline edition-war material here. Besides, who says that sim should even be any kind of holy grail. It's a game - it will contain abstractions.

 

[Jester David]

Also, while you don't need to max it for every build, Dex is not a dump stat for bards in any edition that I am aware of. Strength can be, but not necessarily, and this has always been true, depending on how you build or roll.

Bard kicker stats are Intelligence and Constitution. So you can likely have either Dex or Strength, but likely Con since that nabs hitpoints. So you're generally looking at Con/X/Cha with Str and Wis as always dump stats. Dex/Int are variable, but with many powers going with Int it's a handy fallback for power variability. While there are equal numbers of skills for both Int and Dex the bard only has 1 Dex skill on its list but all three Int skills (and Arcana is the auto-trained skill). Given it's a skill class, Int gives the best bang for your buck. So a well-built bard should just be Con/Int/Cha.

I'm sure there's some character variation and alternate builds, but a low Str and Dex are a fair assumption for 4e bards.

Aside from fallacious content, this statement is borderline edition-war material here. Besides, who says that sim should even be any kind of holy grail. It's a game - it will contain abstractions.

I don't mind abstractions when I play a board game, but I expect an RPG to at least attempt to explain its abstractions or larger breaks from reality.
Simulation has its place in games as well. I don't particularly want hard reality or more-real-than-real because reality is sometimes weird and odd things happen. But I like a game not to shatter my sense of immersion and suspension of disbelief in the first round of combat, let alone each and every round.
I like to refer to it in terms of action movies. I like a game that feels real even if the situation is implausible and the actual events end up busted in five-seconds on MythBusters. Stuff like Die Hard or the Bourne movies where you watch it and say "yeah, I'd buy that" but not a Bruckheimer or Michael Bay movie were you just blink and go "What the actua ****?!"

 

[Obryn]

I think the designers of 4E misspent a lot of effort on achieving mechanical combat balance between classes when that issue is better addressed through encounter design, i.e. DM skill. I think their efforts would have been more productive in other areas. Also, sacrifices were made in the interest on mechanical combat balance that made 4E unappealing to me.

As a DM myself, I want the system itself to do that sort of thing for me as much as possible so I can concentrate on the other things that need my attention. It's one of the things I expect the designers to consider.

-O

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Bard kicker stats are Intelligence and Constitution. So you can likely have either Dex or Strength, but likely Con since that nabs hitpoints. So you're generally looking at Con/X/Cha with Str and Wis as always dump stats. Dex/Int are variable, but with many powers going with Int it's a handy fallback for power variability. While there are equal numbers of skills for both Int and Dex the bard only has 1 Dex skill on its list but all three Int skills (and Arcana is the auto-trained skill). Given it's a skill class, Int gives the best bang for your buck. So a well-built bard should just be Con/Int/Cha.

Unless you're a skald, or a Prescient bard (Wisdom secondary), or you are building to concept, or to qualify for specific feats/paths/etc.

I'm sure there's some character variation and alternate builds, but a low Str and Dex are a fair assumption for 4e bards.

No, they're really not. Your ignorance of 4e is showing. That's fine in and of itself, since I know you bailed early on, but it's not as cut and dry as you seem to think.

I don't mind abstractions when I play a board game, but I expect an RPG to at least attempt to explain its abstractions or larger breaks from reality.
Simulation has its place in games as well. I don't particularly want hard reality or more-real-than-real because reality is sometimes weird and odd things happen. But I like a game not to shatter my sense of immersion and suspension of disbelief in the first round of combat, let alone each and every round.
I like to refer to it in terms of action movies. I like a game that feels real even if the situation is implausible and the actual events end up busted in five-seconds on MythBusters. Stuff like Die Hard or the Bourne movies where you watch it and say "yeah, I'd buy that" but not a Bruckheimer or Michael Bay movie were you just blink and go "What the actua ****?!"

I guess we have a different idea of what games make for a better cinematic feel then. We're pretty much not going to agree on this one, ever.