How does Bardic Music work?

[bensei]

I have some technical questions about bardic music. Does anyone have more experience with this than I do?

General:
How long can a bard use a single use of bardic music? Can he e.g. keep on reciting a countersong (or inspire courage) for 5 hours while the party is travelling through a dangerous forest?
What about short pauses (saying some words to a friend, drinking some water,...)?

Coutersong:
- Does it technically work as counterspell, i.e. ready an action?
- The PHB seems not to exclude enemies to take the Bard's perform check result in place of his saving throw. Weird...
- Since using a masterwork instrument may give a better perform result, are there any rules about playing instruments in combat (AoO, drawing instrument,...)?

Inspire Competence:
Can a Bard inspire competence in himself to improve his perform skill, i.e. receiving a +2 on perform by using bardic music?

Suggestion:
If the suggestion fails, but the Bard wants a second try:
- Can he just have another try (for free, for a use of bardic music)?
or
- Does he have to attempt to fascinate the still fascinated creature again and can then retry the suggestion?
or
- Does failing the suggestion also break the fascination?
or
- anything else?

Inspire Greatness:
Can a Bard inspire greatness in himself? (PHB says: 'another creature')
If not, can he at 12th level?

 

[Cullain]

I have some technical questions about bardic music. Does anyone have more experience with this than I do?

General:
How long can a bard use a single use of bardic music? Can he e.g. keep on reciting a countersong (or inspire courage) for 5 hours while the party is travelling through a dangerous forest?
What about short pauses (saying some words to a friend, drinking some water,...)?

Sure, as long as he doesn't want to cast any spells, or use another bardic music song, etc.

Coutersong:
- Since using a masterwork instrument may give a better perform result, are there any rules about playing instruments in combat (AoO, drawing instrument,...)?

Would seem to cause an unfair imbalance between bards who sing, and bards that use an instrument. Maybe not, the one bard in my campaign sings, so I can't say for certain.

Inspire Competence:
Can a Bard inspire competence in himself to improve his perform skill, i.e. receiving a +2 on perform by using bardic music?

Sure, but as soon as the bard uses a different song, he loses the effect of inspire confidence, so what would be the gain?

Suggestion:
If the suggestion fails, but the Bard wants a second try:
- Can he just have another try (for free, for a use of bardic music)?


or
- Does he have to attempt to fascinate the still fascinated creature again and can then retry the suggestion?
or
- Does failing the suggestion also break the fascination?
or
- anything else?

When the bard tries to give a suggestion to another creature, he is no longer using his fascination song, so I'd say that if the suggestion fails he no longer is fascinating the creature, and can't do another attempt to suggest, unless he re-fascinates the critter.

Inspire Greatness:
Can a Bard inspire greatness in himself? (PHB says: 'another creature')
If not, can he at 12th level?

I'd rule no, that at 12th level the bard can only inspire one additional 'other creature'

These are just my interpretations of the rules though, the Sage might have different ideas.

Cullain

 

[bensei]

Thanks a lot for your answers, Cullain.

bensei asked:
Can a bard e.g. keep on reciting a countersong (or inspire courage) for 5 hours while the party is travelling through a dangerous forest?
Cullain answered:
Sure, as long as he doesn't want to cast any spells, or use another bardic music song, etc.

So you would allow a bard to play for 5 hours without a break.
So also fascinate a person for hours, even if this person needs a bathroom
What requiring to talk to a person. Would that require ending bardic music?

bensei asked:
Since using a masterwork instrument may give a better perform result, are there any rules about playing instruments in combat (AoO, drawing instrument,...)?
Cullain answered:
Would seem to cause an unfair imbalance between bards who sing, and bards that use an instrument.

Well, playing a masterwork instrument gives a +2 on perform, but I would say, that a singing bard can fight, a bard playing an instrument cannot fight. Sounds like good balance to me.
Well, and playing an instrument in front of an adjacent foe should require an AoO, right?

Cullain wrote:
When the bard tries to give a suggestion to another creature, he is no longer using his fascination song, so I'd say that if the suggestion fails he no longer is fascinating the creature, and can't do another attempt to suggest, unless he re-fascinates the critter.

That sounds good. So when failing suggestion the do-not-fascinate-for-24-hours-rule does not apply, since fascination worked.

bensei asked:
Can a Bard inspire greatness in himself? (PHB says: 'another creature'). If not, can he at 12th level?
Cullain answered:
I'd rule no, that at 12th level the bard can only inspire one additional 'other creature'.

So you'd say, a bard can never inspire greatness in himself. IDHMBRN, but I interpreted it that with 12 ranks bard must choose another creature and at 12th level he can add another (besides the first chosen one) creature, i.e. himself is possible.

bensei stated:
Coutersong: The PHB seems not to exclude enemies to take the bard's perform check result in place of his saving throw.

What do you think about that one?

 

[Hypersmurf]

Countersong:
- Does it technically work as counterspell, i.e. ready an action?
- The PHB seems not to exclude enemies to take the Bard's perform check result in place of his saving throw. Weird...

The Countersong is an ongoing effect, not an instantaneous effect like a Counterspell.

For up to ten rounds, the bard can sing continuously. Even if fifteen things make sonic attacks in one round, the bard can Countersong all of them.

And to me it makes perfect sense that enemies can benefit as well... he's blanketing the area with sound-dampening anti-magic, if you like.

When he's inspiring courage in his allies by singing a song about how easy it is for hmans to hack orcs into little pieces, it's not surprising that the orcs don't get the morale bonus. But Countersong targets the sonic effect, not the people exposed to it.

-Hyp.

 

[Crothian]

For extending playing the Bard would have to make endurance checks to keep the music going.

 

[Hypersmurf]

For extending playing the Bard would have to make endurance checks to keep the music going.

Is that from Song and Silence? It's not mentioned in PHB.

-Hyp.

 

[Crothian]

No, personal experience. You ever play a musical instrument for a long time or sing for a long time? It's not easy. I can't imagine trying to do it for an hour straight with no breaks.

 

[Hypersmurf]

No, personal experience. You ever play a musical instrument for a long time or sing for a long time? It's not easy. I can't imagine trying to do it for an hour straight with no breaks.

Of course, most Bardic Music effects are supernatural abilities.

One would think that most people would have trouble knocking back shots of meths for an hour too, but a monk with Diamond Body wouldn't have a problem.

Supernatural abilities let people do some freaky things.

-Hyp.

 

[Crothian]

Of course, most Bardic Music effects are supernatural abilities.

One would think that most people would have trouble knocking back shots of meths for an hour too, but a monk with Diamond Body wouldn't have a problem.

Supernatural abilities let people do some freaky things.

-Hyp.

Ya, but you still need to play the music while it happens. the Magic effects are supernatural, not the Bards playing ability. But only Inspire Courage and Fascinate don't have set limits to them, so I doubt allowing the Bard to play for hours on end using them is a game breaker. And I can imagine how happy the group will be for the Bard to continually play as they are exploring through Deadman's Forest, or other such dangerous places.

 

[bensei]

Hypersmurf wrote:
For up to ten rounds, the bard can sing continuously.

IDNHMBRN, but I cannot remember having read this. Is that written in the PHB? Maybe I've just missed that.
And does it also apply to playing an instrument. Actually this seems a little short for reciting or beating a drum.

Crothian wrote:
And I can imagine how happy the group will be for the Bard to continually play as they are exploring through Deadman's Forest, or other such dangerous places.

So if a bard says, he does intend to play inspire courage or countersong for the next 5 hours, and he has 10 uses of bardic music available, how would you deal with that? Allow to play for 1 hour, then a break of 5 minutes must happen. Then restart with a new use of bardic music?
The other problem is that in reality it's hard to play a wind for 30 minutes without a pause, but beating a drum for 3 hours is not that a problem.