Don't underestimate the Bard

[Roman]

That's just fluff. You can easily take Perform: Oratory and use your bard ability with inspiring speeches rather than "Bluff, Bluff, Bluff the Stupid Ogre". Winston Churchill clearly had Bard levels, and was using Inspire Courage over the BBC...

Yes, it is just fluff, but fluff is important, particularly kernel fluff that is fundamental to the class and especially when all additional options for the character build on the kernel fluff.

I am not saying it would be impossible to purge the Bard of the 'offending' fluff, but it would be a major fluff undertaking and would probably have to start with the name of the class itself.

 

[Roman]

Purely mechanically speaking, bards are a good class. They have the second best skill progression, an excellent skill selection, decent spellcasting, two good saves and OKish combat ability. Flavour-wise, although appropriate to a fantasy setting, they just don't jive with me (pun intended).

 

[Wik]

Kind of an aside, but...

One thing a buddy of mine likes to do is start off as a bard, and then build towards prestige class levels in a class that mimics one of the "four standards" (cleric, mage, fighter, rogue). For example, he might decide to play an "arcane bard", and build towards Lyric Thaumaturgist (Complete Mage) before taking levels in Sublime chord (CA), eventually creating a character with 9 levels of spell progression.

I've heard of similar war bards, roguebards, and even a healer bard (don't know particularly how he did them, though).

Actually, I kinda want to try out that Arcane Bard for myself. Could be a lot of fun.

 

[Roman]

Kind of an aside, but...

One thing a buddy of mine likes to do is start off as a bard, and then build towards prestige class levels in a class that mimics one of the "four standards" (cleric, mage, fighter, rogue). For example, he might decide to play an "arcane bard", and build towards Lyric Thaumaturgist (Complete Mage) before taking levels in Sublime chord (CA), eventually creating a character with 9 levels of spell progression.

I've heard of similar war bards, roguebards, and even a healer bard (don't know particularly how he did them, though).

Actually, I kinda want to try out that Arcane Bard for myself. Could be a lot of fun.

Well, yes, the jack-of-all-trades aspect of the bard enables them to qualify for some prestige classes more easily/faster than many other classes would.