Is Bardic Knowledge = to a feat ?

[nittanytbone]

There's an alternate class ability that replaces Bardic Lore with the ability to use any skill -- whether you have ranks in it or not -- as if you had ranks equal to 1/2 your class level. I think its called Bardic Knack. It seems somewhat useful to me in that all the knowledge skills automatically get 1/2 CL ranks, freeing up valuable SP for you to max things that are opposed checks (HIde/MS for example).

 

[Driddle]

In my experience, Bardic Knowledge exceeds the value of a feat. And I'm not just talking about the players. It's a great DM tool as well.

I agree that it does have that potential, IF the players are willing to recognize it as such. Experience on this board has shown that there's a mixed perspective of its utility, however, much like how people feel about the wizard's familiar.

There are ways to water-down a powerful ability. In this case, I think it would be a simple matter of setting knowledge prereqs (as I mentioned in my post above this), AND establishing the lore as a skill itself which requires the expenditure of skill points as the character progresses in experience. Or in other words, don't allow bardic knowledge improvement without an investment along the way. (Appropriately enough for this discussion, bardic music has a similar mechanic: you can't get better music abilities unless your performance skill has maxed ranks. That's effectively a forced skill point investment.)

 

[Masquerade]

Is the Bardic Knowledge ability about equal to a feat?

According to d20 Past, yes, although it is renamed "Obscure Knowledge," IIRC.

 

[SteveC]

I laughed when I read this, because I think bardic knowledge is utterly essential and useful. Then again, I like games where information flow is more valuable than lootz0r, so my opinion is probably slightly skewed.

I have to completely agree with this. All too often, I have all sorts of interesting back story for a particular location, famous person or obscure magic item, and the bardic knowledge ability is one of the best ways for me to give it to the players. To me, bardic knowledge is a godsend for the DM far more than it is for the player.

In the Shackled City game I'm running at the moment, we had a player with a bard, who had the character leave the game, I don't know if anyone actually realized how much they had learned from that character's random bits of knowledge until he was gone. "Hey, what are those strange series of symbols on this tablet?" "Anyone have a skill they think is appropriate to find out? No? Okay, how about an Int check..." In the end, no one figured anything out, and they are going to likely spend a lot more time working on a puzzle than they would like.

So it goes, unfortunately. My group can be pretty resourceful, so I'm sure they'll figure something out eventually.

--Steve

 

[JustinA]

IMHO Bardic Knowledge is weak.

YMMV.

I think this is definitely an issue where it depends on who your DM is. I know lots of DMs who, after going to all the hard work to come up with the details of their campaign world and adventure, are going to make sure the PCs get that information no matter what. In such a campaign, bardic knowledge is nothing more than an avenue of opportunity for the DM.

In my campaigns, OTOH, I feel no compulsion to give the PCs access to information they wouldn't have access to. Players in my campaigns quickly learn to invest in Knowledge skills and Bardic Knowledge is insanely useful (the information it's capable of uncovering being equaled only by spells like legend lore).

Parties that don't invest in those resources find that they're either (a) severely disadvantaged or (b) paying the large fees demanded by sages.

With all that being said, I think Bardic Knowledge could be appropriate as either:

(1) The end of a feat chain with 1 or 2 prereqs (probably Educated and maybe an appropriate Skill Focus).

(2) A stackable feat. Taking the feat would give you a bardic knowledge check of 4 + your Intelligence bonus or give you a +4 bonus to your Bardic Knowledge checks (if you already had bardic knowledge).

What makes me suspect it's not worth a feat without prereqs is that it would actually give you an ability BETTER than the class feature (since it would not be dependent on your bard level, but presumably your character level).

Justin Alexander
http://www.thealexandrian.net