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Is the Bard broken?
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<blockquote data-quote="Geron Raveneye" data-source="post: 2811404" data-attributes="member: 2268"><p>To answer the title question...no. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> </p><p></p><p>To pose a counter question: Why do you think the bard sucks?</p><p></p><p>A bard is a secondary fighter and a secondary caster. He can cast spells while wearing light armor and using a sword or rapier. He can cast most of the low- and mid-level buff spells a cleric can cast, except for the purely divine ones. For those, he can buff with his songs, for as long as he is singing + 5 rounds. He can heal. He has a decent skill selection and ample skill points to stat them up...he has 2 skill points/level less than a rogue, and 3 or more class skills less to cater to. On top of it, a bard gets Bardic Knowledge, which can come up with the answer for a lot of questions others have to spend skill points for Knowledge (Local), Knowledge (Nobility) or Knowledge (Obscure ancient legends).</p><p></p><p>Handwaving a bard's combat abilities away is as silly as doing so with the rogue. A 1st level bard has the same combat abilities as a rogue, instead of the sneak attack (which depends on the opponent losing his Dex bonus) he has spells (who depend on him not getting konked on the head while casting them). With a well-placed <em>Daze</em> I can be as much of a threat. And my buffing runs as long as I sing. <em>Bless</em>, a cleric buff with comparable effects, doesn't give me the +1 to damage, doesn't give me +1 to saves vs. charm effects, its range is 50' around the caster instead of every ally who can hear me (which can be much further than 50'), and lasts for 1 minute = 6 rounds, while the bardic music lasts for as long as the bard can sing + 5 rounds afterwards. So I'd say bardic buffing at first level is already as good as a cleric's.</p><p></p><p>And one more thing...those "bardy" things mainly revolve around interactions with NPCs, influencing the mood and disposition of others, and providing answers for questions about lore, legend, nobles and heroes. Saying those activities don't influence the game is cutting off a lot of potential roleplaying material in order to make a character class look broken. A bard can easily hold his own without DM's preferred treatment. Some adventures emphasize combat and dungeon-crawling, and some emphasize social interactions and detective work. Not every class is equally useful in a one-on-one blood brawl deep under the earth, and not every class is equally useful in rooting out informations about the assassin of the duke's son and his hideouts from the local underworld. Whoever claims that every class has to be equally useful in every kind of situation has missed the point in a class-based system.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Geron Raveneye, post: 2811404, member: 2268"] To answer the title question...no. ;) To pose a counter question: Why do you think the bard sucks? A bard is a secondary fighter and a secondary caster. He can cast spells while wearing light armor and using a sword or rapier. He can cast most of the low- and mid-level buff spells a cleric can cast, except for the purely divine ones. For those, he can buff with his songs, for as long as he is singing + 5 rounds. He can heal. He has a decent skill selection and ample skill points to stat them up...he has 2 skill points/level less than a rogue, and 3 or more class skills less to cater to. On top of it, a bard gets Bardic Knowledge, which can come up with the answer for a lot of questions others have to spend skill points for Knowledge (Local), Knowledge (Nobility) or Knowledge (Obscure ancient legends). Handwaving a bard's combat abilities away is as silly as doing so with the rogue. A 1st level bard has the same combat abilities as a rogue, instead of the sneak attack (which depends on the opponent losing his Dex bonus) he has spells (who depend on him not getting konked on the head while casting them). With a well-placed [i]Daze[/i] I can be as much of a threat. And my buffing runs as long as I sing. [i]Bless[/i], a cleric buff with comparable effects, doesn't give me the +1 to damage, doesn't give me +1 to saves vs. charm effects, its range is 50' around the caster instead of every ally who can hear me (which can be much further than 50'), and lasts for 1 minute = 6 rounds, while the bardic music lasts for as long as the bard can sing + 5 rounds afterwards. So I'd say bardic buffing at first level is already as good as a cleric's. And one more thing...those "bardy" things mainly revolve around interactions with NPCs, influencing the mood and disposition of others, and providing answers for questions about lore, legend, nobles and heroes. Saying those activities don't influence the game is cutting off a lot of potential roleplaying material in order to make a character class look broken. A bard can easily hold his own without DM's preferred treatment. Some adventures emphasize combat and dungeon-crawling, and some emphasize social interactions and detective work. Not every class is equally useful in a one-on-one blood brawl deep under the earth, and not every class is equally useful in rooting out informations about the assassin of the duke's son and his hideouts from the local underworld. Whoever claims that every class has to be equally useful in every kind of situation has missed the point in a class-based system. [/QUOTE]
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