Retreater said:
Mithril chainmail is around 4,150 gp and mithril full plate is 10,500 gp. That's a lot of change to drop for your armor. We have a house rule (and I've seen it in several groups I've played in) that you can't own a single item worth more than 1/2 of your character's total wealth. That would mean that for a bard to afford mithril full plate he would have to be up in the mid levels. Even if you don't use this rule, your bard is going to be very limited by spending all of his starting wealth on a suit of armor.
Just as limited as anyone else in the party. Sure, the wizards won't be worrying as much about armor as the fighter, but what the party spends thier gold on is their business. If Mithral is out of the Bard's budget it likely is out of everyone elses budget as well. The Bard is in no better or worse position that the rest of the party in this aspect
Retreater said:
Okay. I thought we were discussing the Rules as Written, which don't include all of the strange new abilities from the Complete books. Since I have none of the class books, I can't comment on the changes made to the bard.
They are Rules as Written though not Core. Printed by WotC. I don't think Core was ever specified in this argument.. But... anyway... onwards...
Retreater said:
Except things like attack rolls, damage rolls, spells, saves, hit points. All of these are things that aren't really dependant on DM fiat. I'd rather not trust the DM and trust in the abilities of my character.
I've seen lots of houserules on how hit points get rolled so I think that needs to be removed from the list. You place your trust in the DM every time you sit down to game. You trust them that they are following the rules (official or house), have at least working knowledge of the rules and that the DM isn't out to purposely get a TPK because they had a bad week. If you have questions or concerns about a certain aspect of the game talk to the DM. If you simply don't trust the DM then you need to find a new DM.
Retreater said:
It requires singing to keep the song going, meaning you can't do anything else with a somatic component or command word. So that limits you to fighting. If you take a hit, you have to roll a Concentration check to keep it alive.
If you don't want to do melee then pull out a bow. Change position to better assist the other party members. Move to a location so you have easy access to other party members to either buff or heal them when they need it in a couple of rounds. Move into flanking to help the rogue because the fighter is currently busy.
There is a lot of stuff you can do that doesn't require you stop singing. When it becomes time to cast a spell or otherwise break off the song the effect lasts for an additional five rounds. Plenty of time to do stuff other than sing. Then you can pick it up again. Once you get to... say... level 5 or 6 you shouldn't be that concerned about dropping a couple of Music uses per fight. Many fight won't even last long enough to require a second use.
Retreater said:
And big deal about that +1 to damage. It hardly justifies the bard class.
Tell that to my fellow players. That's +1 damage per successful attack. Let's assume a four person party. Average size. If everyone lands one attack that is an additional four damage per round. If the wizard has enough spells to not do a regular attack during the fight than the fighter likely has multiple attacks so I will stick with four attacks per round.
Four damage per round. Not a heck of a lot. Over five rounds that can be twenty damage. That can be anywhere from a decent sized mook at mid levels to a big bad at lower levels.
That isn't even taking into account the bonus to hit the Music provides. A simple +1 isn't much. But that is like having your d20 roll be one higher. That is almost like making your attacks be 5% more likely to hit (there is a real mathimatical breakdown around here somewhere but I don't recall what it is). Over five rounds of four PCs that is like saying one of those hits was because of the Bard. So he can take credit for that roll of 15 hitting when the PC normally needed to roll a 16.
It only gets better with more uses of the music and higher bonuses.
Retreater said:
I'd rather be a rogue and flanking about every round dealing +1d6 at first level, usable unlimited times per day.
Except for Undead, Constructs, Fortification Armor, Oozes, pure Rogue bad guys when you multiclassed and any of the other bad guys that are immune to Sneak Attacks and Criticals. I'll take my +1/+1 that won't work when silence is in effect oppsed to to that list.
Retreater said:
And the bard doesn't have the strength score of the fighter, because he's been beefing up his useless Charisma score.
The Wizard doesn't have the STR score of the fighter so is he useless? Is the Rogue useless because of his low STR score?
There should be more incentive to use CHA - I agree. I'd love to have a couple more benefits from my Bard's highest stat. Social situations will let the CHA character shine and there are feats in the non-core WotC books that help the people that have a high CHA. It may not be as flashy as STR or DEX but that doesn't mean it is "useless".
