Encounters for Bards

[Empirate]

Thanks for the all the suggestions!

I had an idea that I would like to run by you. I was thinking of expanding Countersong to be a bit more useful. It could be used in place of a Counterspell, but instead of negating the spell, it would force a Concentration check on the caster. The Bard will essentially try to drown out (or heckle) the spell caster's attempt at casting. This would only work for spells that have a Vocal component. The concentration check would be either DC 10 + Bard CL or against the Bard's Performance roll, I have not decided yet.

Also, after reading this thread, I'm thinking of house ruling Countersong so that it can be readied as an action just like counterspell.

Your thoughts?

Hmm. In my limited experience, countersong is already pretty useful in the situations where it applies. When my group fought some harpies, having a Will save = performance check was a lifesaver. Similarly, if you know there's going to be Suggestions from an opposing mage, countersong is extremely good. The difficult bit is when to start countersinging, i.e., you need to know what you're facing before it's too late. Bardic Knowledge might come in very handy here!

OTOH, a Harpy encounter simply relegates the Bard to countersong duty (much as Inspire Courage in other, normal encounters), while the other PCs can freely do their thing. I'd think about a way to make this better on the Bard - maybe start the encounter with the party separated, so the Bard has to walk around countersinging, collecting his suggested/fascinated/whatever allies on the way?