D&D 5E I Told Ya So 2014!! (or not)

[Zardnaar]

I will. He said they rocked in AD&D, but which one? 1e? Or 2e? There's a big difference there. In 2e they were decent, but nothing that super rocked or anything. And in 1e, they were far too much of a pain the butt to multiclass just to get to be a bard in the first place. In my book, that qualifies as "really bad".

Bards were good in both 1E and 3E. In 2E it was because they were a better magic user for most of the game. For example level 4 bard and level 3 mage required the same xp and had the same spell pattern and Bards had this up to level 16 or so IIRC.

1E Bard was a pain to get to but bucket oh hit points relative to the other classes.

 

[Ancalagon]

What usually gets done wrong is comparing guy using vanilla attack to guy using Sharpshooter all the time. They always forget that Sharpshooter and Great Weapon Master are optional.

That is incorrect. I have never forgotten this, and my math did not make that supposition.

If you only use them in advantageous circumstances, you will always do a great deal more damage than guy not using them because guy not using them has no other means to boost his damage.

Yes he has - he has a greater chance to hit, and more chances to hit means more damage. And he may have taken an extra ASI (thus giving himself +1/+1) or another spiffy feat that makes his character better.

Thus they are always increasing damage and almost never decreasing it.

A feat being good doesn't make it OP.

It is always better to take the appropriate combat feat (Sharpshooter for bow use and Great Weapon Master for heavy weapons) over not taking it. Whether that makes them OP or not is dependent on what the table considers OP.

It's definitely better, if you want to be a master of weapon X, to take the feat that makes you good with weapon X, than not taking it. Otherwise "master of weapon X" feats would suck at making you better at wielding weapon X! That doesn't make them inherently OP.

I'm much more concerned about sharpshooter to be honest given the multiple inherent advantages to ranged weapons in this edition.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Bards were good in both 1E and 3E. In 2E it was because they were a better magic user for most of the game. For example level 4 bard and level 3 mage required the same xp and had the same spell pattern and Bards had this up to level 16 or so IIRC.

1E Bard was a pain to get to but bucket oh hit points relative to the other classes.

Um, you're completely ignoring the other factors of the class. A 2e bard had a lot higher requirements just to be a bard, and is pretty much guaranteed to have a lower INT than a wizard, can't specialize, and doesn't automatically get new spells every level. That's not what I would call "better at magic". That's the opposite of what I'd call that.

In 1e, you had to have a 15 or higher in STR, WIS, DEX, and CHA, as well as a 12 INT and 10 CON. Extremely unlikely in 1e to roll those stats. The fastest you could become a bard was 11th level (5 levels of fighter, then 5 levels of thief, then 1 level of druid which was actually bard). That's another thing very rare in 1e, to have a PC reach that level. A class that is a giant PitA to achieve isn't what I'd call a great class. YMMV of course.

 

[Ancalagon]

As far as bards go... in 3.X, bards had ... weak foundations. They could be made to be very good PCs, but the player had to be clever both in character build *and* with in-game play. You had to *do something* with the class, it didn't just perform by itself. A poorly designed bard was... ugh.

 

[Zardnaar]

Um, you're completely ignoring the other factors of the class. A 2e bard had a lot higher requirements just to be a bard, and is pretty much guaranteed to have a lower INT than a wizard, can't specialize, and doesn't automatically get new spells every level. That's not what I would call "better at magic". That's the opposite of what I'd call that.

In 1e, you had to have a 15 or higher in STR, WIS, DEX, and CHA, as well as a 12 INT and 10 CON. Extremely unlikely in 1e to roll those stats. The fastest you could become a bard was 11th level (5 levels of fighter, then 5 levels of thief, then 1 level of druid which was actually bard). That's another thing very rare in 1e, to have a PC reach that level. A class that is a giant PitA to achieve isn't what I'd call a great class. YMMV of course.

I'm assuming you have the stats to back the class up.

 

[The Myopic Sniper]

I still think if they had it to over again that they probably would have put the -5/+10 Power Attack in the DM combat action options section with Marking and Tumbling through opponents spaces, etc. Even though part of me just wishes those DMG options were available as Feats or standard combat options instead.

I am still not seeing anything particularly game breaking going on with the two feats that allow power attack, not in the same sense that things were broken in 3e with certain classes being utterly inept at their main focus above a certain level.

 

[MechaPilot]

I have to say that I've never seen these feats come into play.

I DM for a group that contains an optimizer who, to be blunt, likes to tell other players "better" ways to build their characters. That optimizer has never once suggested those feats to the other players in my presence.

 

[Rabbitbait]

I Told Ya So 2014!! (or not)

Or not. You told us in 2014. You were wrong then and you are wrong now. Nothing has changed.

 

[crashtestdummy]

Scissors are fine, but Paper is overpowered
-- Rock

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

In 2E it was because they were a better magic user for most of the game. For example level 4 bard and level 3 mage required the same xp and had the same spell pattern and Bards had this up to level 16 or so IIRC.

That's not at all accurate. Here's a breakdown:

Starting out at 0 XP, the wizard knows a few spells and has a spell slot - the bard knows zero spells and has zero spell slots (sure, he picks up a spell slot at half as many XP as the wizard needs to get a second slot, but there is zero guarantee of having any spells to cast it with, and the bard doesn't even get read magic as guaranteed so they could fail a learn chance and not even be able to use scrolls to learn new spells).
When the Wizard reaches level 2, the bard is level 3 - they have the same spell slots, but the wizard is guaranteed to know a few spells and the bard isn't (and that's reiterated enough, so I'll stop mentioning it now).
When the Wizard reaches level 3, the bard is level 4 - they have the same spell slots.
When the Wizard reaches level 4, the bard is level 5 - but from this point forward the wizard always has more numerous spell slots of at least one spell level
When the Wizard reaches level 5, the bard is level 6 - but from this point forward the wizard not only always has more numerous spell slots, but has higher level spell slots too.

The only thing which might make the bard be considered "better" is all of the parts of the class that aren't spellcasting, because the bard has a number of such features which is greater than the zero the wizard has, unless they are a specialist in which case their ability to cast spells is even more potent than the bard because all the above XP values where I've said the spell slots are the same the wizard actually has more than the bard, plus better learn chance and a save penalty for the favored type of spells.