Tuzenbach said:
So, there are these two threads on this board that deal with what the majority feel are the "strongest" & "weakest" class, respectively.
The former is Cleric, while the latter is Bard.
What would you do to help blur the power lines between the two?
For me, the Cleric thing is easy. It's the armour issue. Not that they should not be allowed to wear it, but that an equation should be put forth that takes into account the Cleric's level, certain feats, and/or experience points so that Clerics can "eventually" wear armour at high levels without penalty of spell failure (the wizard would also be able to, but would be twice as difficult to do so). I had something worked out a few months ago, posted it in a thread, and lost track of it. Oh well.
But the Bard fix is elusive for me. I've really no idea!
Cuz it doesn't need to be fixed maybe? I played one for two years and the idea that they're naturally weaker than the other classes is just wrong, especially now that they're rolling in skill points and don't have failure rolls for light armor.
Just for considerations of elegance though, I myself would probably either integrate bardic music with the spell casting more closely OR bring back the old wizard-style spell preparation. The current situation with separate sound-dependent sorcerer-style casting and musical spell-like abilities is pretty goofy, especially since so many of the music effects duplicate spells anyway.
If you wanted to power the class up a little bit and open the gap between bardic music and bardic spellcasting (plus give it more of the older edition flavor), a very easy way to do it would be to simply say that bards prepare spells from books (or sheets of music or tabs) like they used to, keeping the same number of spells per day. It might also make sense to give them spontaneous casting with a series of enchantment spells, say, a version of Charm with a hit dice limit of oh... say... 3x the spell level.
At any rate, I really liked the idea that bards could collect new spells through their travel and adventures, rather than just pulling them out of their kazoos when they get a new level, as in the current system. If any single thing about the 3.X version of the class had us going "WTF?" a lot, it was this mysterious mechanism by which they learn new spells. Clerics get them from gods, wizards get them from books - I dunno where bards and sorcerers get them from.
If you want to close the music/casting gap, basically you add some spells per day, make BM effects into spells (the ones that aren't already), and say that bardic performance functions as the V/S component for casting, and you need a certain number of Perform ranks to be able to cast a certain level of spell. The spells that are the old Bardic music effects then can be cast as spontaneous spells, like with Cures and Summon Natures Ally spells for clerics and druids. That way you get BM and spells into one mechanic and pool, but the BM effects are still fairly cheap for the bard to use.
If you like casting check mechanisms, you could also say that this Performance-based casting requires a Perf check with a level dependent DC, with taking 10 allowed so that it would only be required for casting difficult spells with a low Perform skill. Thereby, if say you were trying to cast a spell with an unfamiliar Performance type, like your character has 12 Ranks in Perform (Sing) but you're trying to quietly use your 5 ranks of Perform (Juggle) to do it, you still have a chance, but you might fail. This approach has the advantage of keeping casting checks infrequent but bringing them into play when the bard is trying to cast difficult spells in an unfamiliar manner. You could also force casting checks for Performing in difficult cricumstances, like using a ventriloquism Performance while drinking a glass of water.
