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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 6274194" data-attributes="member: 2067">I suppose if the concept of "arcane spell" is broad enough to be kind of meaningless, there's not much mechanical distinction between "9th level arcane spell called True Domination 1/day" and "I can dominate someone's mind and orchestrate their movements 1/day."I'm not really a fan of that level of meaninglessness in the mechanic, though. An arcane spell should represent something in the world, and the thing that I imagine arcane spells representing (esoteric knowledge on how to violate the laws of the universe) aren't what I imagine bards doing (Why isn't that True Domination an option on a high skill check, or even on an attack roll?).Enchanter Wizard is a distinct archetype from Bard (and distinct again from, say, an empath psion). In as much as classes exist to support archetypes, they should remain distinct. I think this might be a good subclass breakdown. I have zero problem with a bard subclass that focuses more on music or magic, and one that focuses on jacking-all-the-trades. I've got kind of an issue with that musical magical bard being enough bard for bard players who are more interested in jacking the trades. Musical magical mystical isn't necessarily what is interesting about the Bard.It's also worth saying that even the 4e bard had more than a few ways to get it out of the musical/mystical schtick. I had a dwarf bard with axes that mixed it up in melee more than pulling magical stunts (though he had that at-will that killed things with insults, because HA!). So this doesn't seem to be a new/old distinction. They're both good bardchitypes. <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=";)" /> I guess this just gets back to my point above about an arcane spell being pretty functionally meaningless in the world of the game, only a mechanical container. Which isn't great. It'd work, but...ick.That separation isn't what I'm looking for. I would like mechanics to support thematics. What I'd like to see is a bard who uses her diverse abilities to enhance each other. That makes the bard not as much a solo hero as she is a Swiss Army Knife hero: she can be whatever her team needs in the moment. Playing a bard should feel like playing an instrument in a spontaneous jam session, all improvisation and diversity and surprising harmonies and confident dissonance. A sword strike here. A spell there. A charm here. A bluff right....now. And then they all explode into exactly what the Bard wants to happen: victory, and themselves enshrined in legend.</blockquote>

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