How long is a single use of Bardic Music?

[Barcode]

Suppose a bard just keeps on singing?

The last session I ran my group through, they had to cross a 5 mile space with groups of baddies at varying intervals. The bard wanted to be singing the whole time, consuming just one of his bardic music uses per day.

My ruling was that a use is a continuous song, and that he couldn't speak or take any other verbal action without resetting the song with a new use. To my chagrin, he complied.

I was thinking that I should also add a Con check or something to see if his voice gives out, but I wanted to check with the community to see what the feeling was on this.

Thoughts?

 

[Crothian]

Aren't their rules in the DMG of prolonged activity?

 

[Barcode]

If there are, I obviously don't know about them. Could you be more specific?

 

[Crothian]

Doesn't seem like i can. I just looked through there and didn't see it. However, having the Bard make a con ceck every hour DC 10 +1 per additional hour would not be out of line.

 

[Eldritch]

The one precedent I could find in the DMG regarding Bardic ability is for using the Lyre of Building. The lyre is intended to be used for lengthy periods of time and requires a Perform check (DC 18) each hour. Some sort of perform check (maybe DC 15 +1 per hour after the first) would be an alternative to a con check idea.

Or a perform or concentration check could be demanded if there is difficult terrain or activity.

 

[Stalker0]

This is interesting, why have there been so many questions about bard song length lately?

I'd say a simple con check an hour would be fine, you don't want to get too strict with this since the bard doesn't get to do all that much combat wise, any little boost should be encouraged