Gnome Favored Class: BARDS?!?

[KarinsDad]

Personality: Gnomes adore animals, beautiful gems, and jokes of all kinds. Gnomes have a great sense of humor, and while they love puns, jokes, and games, they relish tricks—the more intricate the better. Fortunately, they apply the same dedication to more practical arts, such as engineering, as they do to their pranks.

Gnomes are inquisitive. They love to find things out by personal experience. At times they’re even reckless. Their curiosity makes them skilled engineers, since they are always trying new ways to build things. Sometimes a gnome pulls a prank just to see how the people involved will react.

Sounds like a pretty good description of at least one aspect of the bard.

Is your point that Bards are now clowns and buffoons?


Face it, WotC did a 180. In 3E, Gnomes did not have a Bardic tradition. In 3.5, they are suddenly the Elvis Presleys of the under 4 foot tall masses.

 

[Artoomis]

Is your point that Bards are now clowns and buffoons?


Face it, WotC did a 180. In 3E, Gnomes did not have a Bardic tradition. In 3.5, they are suddenly the Elvis Presleys of the under 4 foot tall masses.

I've always thought it an odd change.

 

[irdeggman]

Is your point that Bards are now clowns and buffoons?


Face it, WotC did a 180. In 3E, Gnomes did not have a Bardic tradition. In 3.5, they are suddenly the Elvis Presleys of the under 4 foot tall masses.

Is your point that

3.0:

PERFORM (Cha)
You are skilled in several types of artistic expression and know how
to put on a show. Possible Perform types include ballad, buffoonery,
chant, comedy, dance, drama, drums, epic, flute, harp, juggling,
limericks, lute, mandolin, melody, mime, ode, pan pipes, recorder,
shalm, storytelling, and trumpet.

or 3.5:

PERFORM (CHA)
Like Craft, Knowledge, and Profession, Perform is actually a number of separate skills.
You could have several Perform skills, each with its own ranks, each purchased as a separate skill.
Each of the nine categories of the Perform skill includes a variety of methods, instruments, or techniques, a small list of which is provided for each category below.
• Act (comedy, drama, mime)
• Comedy (buffoonery, limericks, joke-telling)
• Dance (ballet, waltz, jig)
• Keyboard instruments (harpsichord, piano, pipe organ)
• Oratory (epic, ode, storytelling)
• Percussion instruments (bells, chimes, drums, gong)
• String instruments (fiddle, harp, lute, mandolin)
• Wind instruments (flute, pan pipes, recorder, shawm, trumpet)
• Sing (ballad, chant, melody)

Are not viable perform skills for a bard?

Bards are the class that best captures interaction. Gnomes have always been a highly interactive race.

 

[Bad Paper]

...as a matter of fact, my gnomish bard's Perform ranks are in Perform (comedy). He tells jokes in combat, granting his allies morale

"How many orcs does it take to change a lightbulb?"

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

"How many orcs does it take to change a lightbulb?"

"What's a lightbulb?"

 

[Pickaxe]

Look, favored classes are just there to provide a guideline for nubs. For experienced gamers, I suggest applying the human's favored class rule to all races.

I disagree. My take is that favored classes and XP penalties exist to channel multi-classing in a way that leads to something resembling the restrictions of 1e and 2e. Multiclassed dwarves will be fighter/X, elves wizard/X. Presumably humans got a reversal of fortune compared with earlier editions (where they were essentially unable to multiclass, at least in 1e), and that dove-tailed nicely with making half-elves like humans, giving them the multiclassing flexibility that characterized them in 1e. The XP penalties were also meant to make many multiclassed characters (especially triple-classed) look like 1e, i.e. with balanced levels. The "guidelines for newbs" is the flavor text at the beginning of each race/class description.

Of course, one could argue whether or not the designers were successful in achieving the results that (IMO) were intended by these rules. Probably not, since spellcaster/X multiclass are almost universally considered bad, and the fighter/cleric, fighter/wizard, etc. were staple multiclassed characters in older editions. Furthermore, most multiclassing seems to take advantage of "dips" into characters with advantageous low-level abilities that scale well, which doesn't really resemble the typical multiclassed characters of old.

Whether you think this is a good thing or not is a matter of taste. I'm not a big fan of multiclassing; it smacks too much of games like Champions where your objective was to collect powers, rather than pursue some sort of calling as a character, so I generally would rather keep the XP penalties and favored classes. Although I didn't really like the 3e multiclassing model at first, I've actually grown accustomed to it, if not to actually like it. It's pretty well balanced, and the restrictions are sufficient to maintain the value of single-classed characters. But that's just me.

--Axe

 

[Nyaricus]

*get working furiously on a poll*

That comment on seeing what the new favoured classess for the races has inspired me! I'll be posting the first up very soon, doing so alphabetically [Dwarves first!].

 

[pawsplay]

Of course, one could argue whether or not the designers were successful in achieving the results that (IMO) were intended by these rules. Probably not, since spellcaster/X multiclass are almost universally considered bad, and the fighter/cleric, fighter/wizard, etc. were staple multiclassed characters in older editions.

You can still play those characters. It's just that they look a little differently than you'd expect from intuition. A fighter 1/wizard 6 is very much like a a classic fighter/wizard; you take one figher level for the proficiencies and the BAB and Fortitude boost, and advance as a wizard. These days, the kids are going Fig 1/wiz 6/Eldritch Knight, but it's the same idea. A fighter/cleric/MU would be a Fig 1/Wiz 3/Cler 3/Mystic Theurge.

The tricky one is the half-elf fighter/rogue/cleric/MU. I think you're stuck with Fig 1/Rog 2/Cler 3/Wiz 3, advancing as a Mytic Theurge and taking a rogue level every so often... or you could let your Cleric levels pause after a point like a real old-skool half-elf, and take Arcane Trickster levels.

 

[Bad Paper]

The tricky one is the half-elf fighter/rogue/cleric/MU. I think you're stuck with Fig 1/Rog 2/Cler 3/Wiz 3, advancing as a Mytic Theurge and taking a rogue level every so often... or you could let your Cleric levels pause after a point like a real old-skool half-elf, and take Arcane Trickster levels.

I think I threw together one of these a long time ago, and settled on Dwarf as the most satisfying to me. I don't recall the 1st ed. racial restrictions (other than that race=class, but oh! the bard was so wonky!). I doubt I would bother slapping any PrC on top of that.

 

[KarinsDad]

Bards are the class that best captures interaction. Gnomes have always been a highly interactive race.

Best?

Last I saw, Perform was on the Monk's and Rogue's class skill lists as well.