D&D 5E Legends & Lore 03.10.2014: Full-spellcasting Bard

[Dausuul]

The articles about the sorcerer and warlock had me really excited. The bard, on the other hand, is a letdown for me. I don't like the direction they're taking the class.

I have to agree. I really liked the bard in the most recent playtest--it was a nice mix of wizard, rogue, and the "special sauce" of bardic performance. Had my wizard gotten killed, my next character would have been a bard. I don't want bards to become just another quasi-Vancian caster class. We've got plenty of those already.

I can see the argument that bards need a more distinct class identity, but in that case they should focus more on that "special sauce." Performance is the one thing bards get that nobody else does. Why downplay that in favor of spells, which seven other classes also get? I'd rather eliminate bardic spellcasting altogether and assume that bards who want to cast spells will multiclass sorceror. Instead, focus on making performance powerful and versatile enough to be the centerpiece of the class all by itself.

 

[Giltonio_Santos]

Well, I can always keep the playtest bard for future reference. It's probably the first thing about 5E that I don't like at all. I played a lot of bards and the dabbling nature of the class was always my favorite thing about it. My current playtest group has a bard and the player loves the way it plays. If they wanted to change the spellcasting pattern of the class, moving in the direction they are going with the warlock would have been much better.

Cheers!

 

[TwoSix]

I don't know why full spellcasting was presumed to be a good idea in this case, but I'm not necessarily a fan. Give me versatility and combos that eclipse 9th level spells and 5 attacks/round. Don't just give me big charm magic. If I wanted that, I'd play an Enchanter.

I'm wondering if (and also hoping) that the Bard managed to charm the Wizard into giving him the Enchantment school.

Also, I think it's a little silly to have a class defined as "Able to do a bit of everything" when you have a open multi-classing system that will allow you to do, well, a little bit of everything! If you want a skilled trickster who's good with a blade, make a Fighter/Bard. Or go Druid/Bard if you want to mix in some Celtic goodness.

 

[Dausuul]

Also, I think it's a little silly to have a class defined as "Able to do a bit of everything" when you have a open multi-classing system that will allow you to do, well, a little bit of everything! If you want a skilled trickster who's good with a blade, make a Fighter/Bard. Or go Druid/Bard if you want to mix in some Celtic goodness.

We already have an improvisational Charisma-based caster. Why not play a sorceror/rogue and get rid of the bard altogether?

 

[I'm A Banana]

Pretty much all of that can easily be done with a Rogue using the correct background and either Multiclassing or a few feats.

This is the symptom of a few problems:

• You can say the same thing about almost any class, especially those that are "hybrids." What is a paladin if not a fighter/cleric? What is a cleric if not a fighter/mage with buffs and heals? What is a druid if not a mage or cleric with a specific spell list? I think it's pretty clear that the bard -- this kind of bard -- has its own D&D identity that makes it viable as an independent class.
• The "rogue" is a class so broad as to be meaningless. Literally every non- or lightly- magical person who doesn't wear heavy armor has been shoehorned into the rogue at one point or another. So saying the rogue can handle this archetype is like saying everyone who uses weapons should be a fighter or everyone who uses magic should be a wizard. Sure, if we were going for a limited number of classes. But the Bard as I described it earns its class by being distinct from the Bilbo Baggins/Grey Mouser/James Bond that the D&D rogue has been part of.
• That there should be a distinct Bard class is probably not at issue by WotC. What is at issue is what form that class should take in 5e. The full-spellcasting bard doesn't appear to satisfy what I want a bard to be (which is, in part, not a master of arcane magic).

I think making the Bard a full caster with its own spell list (which is likely, since even the Sorcerer is getting his own list) can open a lot of possibilities and reinforce the class' own identity.

In what way does a full spell list make the Bard a jack-of-all-trades better at versatility and unexpected combos than a broader ability to pull on more elements?

I'm wondering if (and also hoping) that the Bard managed to charm the Wizard into giving him the Enchantment school.

I can't imagine that would make people who want to play Enchanter wizards very happy. It also wouldn't make me very happy.

Also, I think it's a little silly to have a class defined as "Able to do a bit of everything" when you have a open multi-classing system that will allow you to do, well, a little bit of everything! If you want a skilled trickster who's good with a blade, make a Fighter/Bard. Or go Druid/Bard if you want to mix in some Celtic goodness.

That's part of why in my mind, the bard is the master of "the whole being greater than the sum of the parts." Bards take a little bit of magic, a little bit of combat, and a little bit of flourish, and make the harmonious union of the three a lot stronger than any one element can be on its own. You can be a druid/mage/fighter/rogue and be broad and unfocused, OR, you can be a Bard, and be focused on your versatility.

It might help to characterize it in terms of what it might look like in my mind:

You've got a druid who is good at plant an animal magic. At higher levels, it becomes awesome at controlling plants and animals, making trees walk and befriending monstrosities and turning into wooly rhinoceroses. The ultimate nature warrior!

You've got a thief who is good at stealth and skullduggery. They bluff and hide and do a little sneaky biz. At high levels, they become awesome at stealth and skullduggery, being nigh invisible and effortlessly successful.

You've got a fighter who is good with weapons and armor. They hit things hard, and take hard hits. At high levels, they become nearly invincible, with a sword arm that decapitates giants.

You've got a wizard who is tapped into the mysterious otherworld. At low levels, they're twinkling lights and magical force, at high levels, they're turning enemies into toads and transcending dimensions.

You've got the bard. They do nature magic, they are tapped into the otherworld, they are skilled at skullduggery, and they're handy with a blade. But what makes the bard special is their ability to blend these.

They're not just good with a blade. Their sword-slices are enchanted with eldritch magic. They duel with the land itself aiding them. They fight with a skillful flourish that makes them unpredictable. They blend their disparate skills into being an awesome warrior.

They're not just handy with some tweety birds. Their bond with nature is deep and mystical. They transform creatures with their enchantments, they fight with the speed of a hummingbird, climb with the agility of a squirrel, they know the pulse and needs of the natural world.

They're not just dabblers in the arcane. They know the arcane energy that lies within every body movement and sound, and that magic makes their blades sparkle, makes their eyes twinkle, and makes life bend to their will.

They're not just skillful charmers and dilletantes in lore. They use words to hypnotize, to speak with the wild creatures of the world. They know the legend they are forging with their blade is stronger than the armor of their enemies, and that gives them power.

The best D&D bards are things like the Harpers, or Elan, and these things are not about magic. They're about using magic as one skill among many.

I imagine the kind of bard I want is probably going to be somehow possible in 5e, but I'd like to know why they thought full spellcasting was The Thing That Was Good. It's not clear to me from here how that helps.

 

[TwoSix]

We already have an improvisational Charisma-based caster. Why not play a sorceror/rogue and get rid of the bard altogether?

You could, certainly, if you gave sorcerers access to enchantment magic, and a spell that gives players a skill bonus (a la Bardic Inspiration). Why don't they?

My personal hope is that they're siloing magic between classes to a greater extent than they have in previous versions. So that a bard has access to enchantment effects that a wizard or sorcerer doesn't.

The other possibility I can think of is that they're worried about people losing their <redacted> if the bard isn't the PHB, like during the 4e release. Saying "Oh, bards are sorcerer/rogues now" isn't going to cut it.

 

[Plaguescarred]

That bard sounds cool enought IMO. I like that it has both spellcasting and bardic inspiration, which is both versatile and fun ability. I also expect bards to be good with skills and it is reflected well enought with doubling prof bonus on certain trained skills and 1/2 prof bonus on other untrained ones.

 

[DEFCON 1]

As someone who has never seen spells always as "Spells!"... in other words, treated every single ability gained through a spellcasting table as automatically "Magic"... the full caster table doesn't bother me, and in fact will give the Bard some much needed variety.

When you design a class, you can hand out class feature abilities in several different ways. You can just put a small list of abilities into the class itself that the player chooses (like the list of abilities each Fighter sub-class gets)... or you can give them a spellcasting chart that has a larger number of abilities (that the game has defined as "spells") that a player can select from. But for me... just because the book has identified this method as "spellcasting", and those abilities as "spells" (just for the ease of explanation of how the class gets and uses the abilities if nothing else)... it doesn't ipso facto mean I personally HAVE to describe those abilities as "Spells" and "Magic". So a large list of Bard spells does not mean in my fiction that he therefore has a large amount of Magic. Rather, he has a select list (once I've chosen his "spells" for him) of Bardic Abilities he can use throughout the day. Some of them might be "Magic"... some of them might just be high-powered abilities he gets because he's a trained Bard.

It's the same reason why the Ranger having "spellcasting" never bothers me. Because if I want a non-spellcasting Ranger... I just hand my Ranger the Hunter's Mark and Animal Friendship "spells", scrub off the "mystical" fluff to them... and treat Hunter's Mark and Animal Friendship as just two regular Ranger abilities they might've otherwise had in their class features had the designers arranged them differently. After all... why is Hunter's Quarry considered non-magical in 4E, and yet Hunter's Mark *is* magical in 5E? Merely because it's been placed in the "Spells" section of the 5E book. Now you just ignore that... and both abilities can be treated exactly the same.

 

[jrowland]

The best D&D bards are things like the Harpers, or Elan, and these things are not about magic. They're about using magic as one skill among many.

I imagine the kind of bard I want is probably going to be somehow possible in 5e, but I'd like to know why they thought full spellcasting was The Thing That Was Good. It's not clear to me from here how that helps.

I imagine that they are thinking similar things. It all depends on the spell list itself, doesn't it? If the spell list has a nice mix of Druidic, Cleric, Wizard, etc spells plus a few "Bard Only" spells then I think the archetype you are talking about is possible. I think what we are seeing is "Spells are what magic stuff is in D&D" rather than "magical stuff as class features". That may not be satisfying, but I think that is the mechanical outline of what they are doing. Add in Skill mastery stuff, weapon and armor mastery stuff (ie proficiencies as well as an aggressive feat gain vis a vis fighter) and it might be ok. Then, subclasses can focus on Jack-of-all, Fighter Bard, Spell Bard, Druid/Cleric Bard, etc.

I am not too bothered by the full spellcasting. It really depends on the spells. If I see Meteor Swarm and Heal on the same list (eg), then I'll have a problem.

 

[TwoSix]

I can't imagine that would make people who want to play Enchanter wizards very happy. It also wouldn't make me very happy.

Why do we need Enchanter Wizards again? I'm sorry it doesn't make you happy, but I think the whole point of a class system with open multiclassing should be to create classes built around pillars of specificity. Blending things together should be the whole point of using open multiclassing.

Plus, it's super easy to have a wizard subclass that can pick some spells from the bard spell list, or even replace the wizard spell list with the bard one. Or just do a multiclass Wizard/Bard. Maybe a Bard subclass that uses Intelligence as its casting stat. WotC should be looking at what Paizo does with class archetypes for some inspiration here.

You've got the bard. They do nature magic, they are tapped into the otherworld, they are skilled at skullduggery, and they're handy with a blade. But what makes the bard special is their ability to blend these.

Maybe it's my new-school roots showing, but to me, the defining element of the bard has always been its mystical link with music. The jack-of-all-trades schtick, to me, has always been secondary. (And done much better with classes like the 3e factotum.) Of course, I also think the iconic bard is Edward from Final Fantasy IV.

The best D&D bards are things like the Harpers, or Elan, and these things are not about magic. They're about using magic as one skill among many.

I imagine the kind of bard I want is probably going to be somehow possible in 5e, but I'd like to know why they thought full spellcasting was The Thing That Was Good. It's not clear to me from here how that helps.

Again, this may be my new-school (especially 4e) roots showing, but all that stuff is just different kinds of bardic magic to me. Maybe something like an Arcane Strike ability to turn spell slots into attack and damage bonuses for the "mystical warrior" stuff, and a spell list that borrows some nature highlights from the druid, as well as enchantments and buffs.