Tell me about your bards

[JoeBlank]

Check out Alya, played by our own biorph, in this story hour, where she joins the group about page 8. Get character details here.

Don't tell him I said so, but biorph plays a perfect bard, the best I have seen. In combat, Alya is everywhere, singing to help everyone, an invisibility for the halfling rogue, healing where it is needed, and fighting with her bow. Out of combat, she is a manipulative bitch. In fact, she was responsible for some underhanded dealings that greatly affected angelsboi's character in his last session with the group. All in good fun, of course.

 

[dave_o]

I love playing bards, since, I'd probably be a bard - were I anything in DnD. Think Laurie from Feist's Riftwar saga, and you've sorta got me.

I do something sorta interesting when I play bards, though. I've played guitar for around ten years, and I've studied bardic music. So I'll have my six-string at the table, belting out stuff as appropriate.

 

[Ao the Overkitty]

The first of my two bards was an Elven woman with a love of the finest things in like. Priss was a primadonna. She would have loved to have just stayed in her home town telling stories and singing, but her parents wanted her to see the world, so they paid a travelling bard to take her on as an apprentice. Forced to travel against her will, she eventually was able to ditch her mentor and started to make her way back home. She hated walking, hated sleeping out, and hated everything that was lacking the luxuries of high society. The group she joined up with on her trip home heard about it often.

Along the way, she became swayed by the words of the cleric of Sune and became a cleric herself. But, as she journeyed back toward her hometown, She was confronted by a "friendly" Thri-Kreen and fled from the disgusting creature, right into a oneway portal to Sigil.

She joined up with another group to find her way home. They found her ability to demand others to bow to her whim very useful, even if her complaining was annoying.

She used a sack and a create water cantrip every night to make herself a waterbed. She also made good use of Leomund's Tiny Hut.

While she never got home, she found a new home at the High temple of Sune as a Divine Agent of Sune.

 

[Ao the Overkitty]

The second of my Bards was a human commoner name Seth Lochmar.

His family ran the local cemetary in his home town in a Byzantine type civilization. He worked as both a grave digger and a singer of funeral dirges and player of bagpipes. He was a realistic, and mostly pessimistic man.

His family was repeatedly troubled by the debts of his banished noble gambling grandfather. One day, these problems arrived in the form of a necromancer who animated the contents of the graveyard. Seth died protecting the local priest from a skeleton. After being raised, he received a letter from a member of the noble part of his family, saying that the banishment had been reversed and the family was allowed back on the lands.

Having a desire to learn more about this branch of his family, and to see if they were all as useless as his grandfather, he set off for the far away city of Arleans (Scottish Highlands area).

Shortly after arriving, he found the house deserted and only a bunch of new arrivials to help. He also quickly found himself in charge of family, acting as laird. Worst of all, on his journey, his only pair of pants was destroyed by a Weretoad, forcing him to wear those drafty kilts all these silly people were wearing.

While clearing the lands and making them habitable, he inspired his family members with funeral dirges, most often, but not always, for the enemy.

After a while, he became a paladin, following in the footsteps of the old lairds.

He continues to lead this family in regaining their prestige and titles and has become the official laird when the last laird returned from his campaign in the 9 Hells to gain more supplies and renounced his claim to the title.

Right now, after dealing with too many previous family members turned meenlock, he has become VERY paranoid (having lost twelve points of Wisdom) and his cohort, a lantern archon cleric, is unconscious.

Now that I've seen the Mourner Bard Prestige Class, if he hadn't gone paladin, it would have been perfect for him.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

My dead bard - Vatzlav Dobroushkan

In the (mostly) human land of Bohavia, a powerful wizard eventually turned into a lich named Boscobelous. Unfortunately for the residents of the small village Dobroushka, the lich's lair was not too far away. So the local priests of Smurt (a death god) engineered a deal with this devil. In turn for the first-born of every family, the priest and his followers held the forces of darkness at bay. The deal was evil, yes, but many more lived. Some went mad at the price paid, but most dealt with the horror of their situation in less drastic ways.

For five hundred years, the village lived in isolation. Unbeknownst to them, the wild land around them grew in a mighty kingdom eventually called Bohavia. The villages knew none of this; they just lived fearful lives in the shadow of the lich. Fortunately, they had the priests of Smurt to protect them. A rallying cry of the village was "Better death than undeath!" Anything to avoid the evil the lich could force upon one. The kingdom of Bohavia had its own troubles to deal with; for recently the land was taken over by the vile Nyemetz (orcs).

One day, a band of freedom fighters, looking to overthrow the Nyemetz and restore the rightful king to the throne of Bohavia, stumbled on the village. Despite dire warnings from priests, the hearty band ventured to the lich's lair. Though some fell to the powerful evil there, eventually the group marched victoriously back to the village--the lich was no more!

The town was free, but a greater evil was soon discovered. The elf Jihan, searching the Smurt temple, found a secret door which revealed the priests' deception. There was no sacrifice of the first-born children. Instead, they were chained up in a room and eventually sold into slavery. In retaliation, the villagers chained the priests into the room and bricked it up permanently.

This was the background created by the DM and players in the game. Eventually the game ended, and the DM decided to start a new group in the same world. So, I created a character from this village: Vatzlav Dobroushkan.

Into the forgotten village, Vatzlav was born. He never knew his older sister, for she had been sacrificed as all first-born were.

Once Vatzlav realized what these revelations meant, he planned to set out and look for his sister. She was not dead, but somwhere still lived as a slave. Over his mother's objections, he left home the next spring, hoping to track down leads regarding the whereabouts of his sister. If he could not find her, perhaps he could find some of those adventurers and they could help him. (He did not know that several of those adventurers were dead by this time.)

Caught in a downpour, stuck in a remote inn with about 20 other stranded travellers, he gave his first public performance. This is the song he sang (this was a play-by-email game):

The village slept
five hundred years
The parents wept
five million tears

The meager harvest
pulled from dirt
Went most of all
to priests of Smurt

Baltzarek led
the way was clear
to sacrifice
that held most dear

All first born child
Would die by knife
evil but need-
ed sacrifice

In the shadow
of tower black
the first-born die
to stay attack

"Better death than
Undeath!" they cried
But twas uesless
It was a lie

There is a sudden change in mood of the tune, from oppressive solemnity to bright, quick hopefulness:

Until the day
outsiders came
And stopped the
priests' evil games

A pointy ear
found the door
that led them down
such shock in store!

The humble priests
Lived like three kings
First-borns chained up
Under evil's wing

Those villagers
fooled by the knaves
first-born stolen
and sold as slaves!

No need for judge
Nor a trial
Our only thought
escape's denial

Here, the tune again changes back to its pondering toe of the first verses, though a bit quicker as if compromising between the two previous moods of the piece:

They bricked them up
In the foul gloom
Where slaves once wept
now slaver's tomb.

Remains rot there
cover'd with mold
Length life lasted?
We'll never know

The tune finished, Vatzlav can not help but smile. He looks at the crowd expectantly and then notes their faces. "Uh, I've got to work on that last verse," he says a bit sheepishly. "I call it 'The Tale of Dobroushka' - not a very exciting name, I know, but at least it's accurate."

Eventually, the bard hooked up with some other adventurers. In combat, his inspirational singing was used quite often, and with low level characters that +1 to hit is very nice. His social skills were useful in negotiations and urban settings. And this was a play-by-email game, and it was more about "role playing" than "combat" although the game (like most) did both.

Unfortunately, I went AWOL for a while (personal problems), and the DM killed him off. He returned as a zombie (how ironic!) and his companions were forced to kill him. He was about 3rd level when he died, so I never got to the higher level bard abilities.

 

[pogre]

My brother played the only Bard I have seen in my campaigns. His character was named Quint, based on one of the main character's in Jaws - the shark hunter. He was loud and sang a lot of dirty limericks and was the only one to survive the party's final encounter. The most manly bard I have seen - not a fop bone in his body!

 

[ThoughtBubble]

I'm currently playing a bard in a game. It goes from being very fun to stupidly miserable.

My bard is Rellin Westgate, a human.

Rellin Westgate acts like a groundless vagabond, interested in only his old enjoyment. He uses his magic in a sort of understated manner, drawing more attention to him, than the spell itself. He also uses it to make his life a bit more enjoyable, adding flavor to dry trail rations and such. He also feigns a weakness for wine and women, just to keep people from thinking too much of him. He also professes a dislike for hard work, just to keep people from asking it of him.

Little has come out of his history. He makes a point of brushing it off whenever the group asks. When he does talk about himself, the stories never quite match up. Did his parents abandon him, or die to fire? Is he self taught, or did he have a mentor?

In actuality, he's part of a noble family from a town a long distance from where the campaign takes place. They were involved in underhanded dealings throughout the area. He was the youngest, spoiled son who doesn't care about the family business. However, he refused to cooperate with his eldest brother, and left in the middle of the night. He's kept on the move, because his family is still looking for him, and he's run into some trouble because of it.

I've always been drawn to bards because they've got an interesting combination of magical aptitude, combat skill, and style. However, being the only perosn around willing to DM, I've never got a chance to play. I was bouncing between a paladin, or a bard. I was asked to poay a bard simply because no one else had seen one.

Rell is the active leader of the party, which is odd, since he's not very fond of any of them, and at least two of them profess a great dislike for him. Howver, his tendancy to get information, make decisions, and be polite has everyone following behind him. Though they typically follow with a complaint or two, or five, or ten.

How well he does in combat situations depends directly on where we are. In fairly open areas, he does fine. However, as an archer, when we're in dungeons (typically 5 foot corridors everywhere) I never have a clean shot. 3E is rough, with ASF, and a troubling spell list. The small range of non simple weapons also hurts. And with 7 skill points a level (4 +int bonus + race bonus), I still am spreading myself out very thin.

Unfortunately, a great many of the Bard's abilities come down to DM fiat. Bardic knowledge is one such thing, it plays whatever role the DM wants it to when he wants it to. Likewise, I have a tendancy to get ripped off on social skills. "Dude, I just got a 25! What do you mean he won't schedule me for an appointment?" or "How did I do another bad performance? You realize that I've got a +9 to perform, right?"

The most important thing about playing as a bard is making sure you're not in a group with jerks. I've got one particular one in my group who doesn't let things by, and it really brings down the expierence for me. This is the guy who complains when I use bardic music during combat because someone might hear.

Provided the DM is being fair and consistant about things, the bard is the master of social situations. Everywhere else, the bard is like a spare tire, useful for fixing a flat, but normally not of high use.

In short, the bard is fun, but there are very good reasons that you don't see so many. I'm not likely to play another unless I really trust my DM.

 

[Will]

As I continue to run 3.5, I'm finding more and more I like about it.

Amongst other things, bards are now _very_ cool.

They get more skill points, a few more music abilities, better spells, and the ability to ignore ASF for light armor.

In my game, the PCs started at 10th level. The bard has been instrumental in finding out the stories behind various unusual things (the landscape is littered with megaliths and remnants of an ancient dragon civilization).

He has a crossbow with +1 undead bane quarrels... which were handy agaisnt, dum dum duuum. Undead. ZOT.

Countersong neutralized vrock screams and gibbering from gibbering mouthers. His inspirations were very helpful in bolstering his allies.

And on top of all of it, his magic was handy. Haste is limited, yes... but it affects multiple people! Colin, the bard, cast it on the entire party before battle.

See invisibility to look for invisible opponents (this time there weren't.)

The group found a bard mighty handy.

I think I may try a bard the next time I create a character. I generally like social characters but don't want to be penalized for that choice by lack of support in the game. I think bards in 3.5 are finally viable enough in a variety of situations.

 

[katzemagische]

The guy that introduced me to D&D told me, when I asked about playing a Bard, about PCs that he and a friend had played, They were Astral Bards.... I believe (no joke) that they were based off of Bill & Ted. So, they couldn't sing or play their instruments. He continues to lament how truely great they really were.

In the long run, Astral Bards aside, I did create a Bard as a family member of my standing character. DM liked him and he ended up as an independent character. His name is Anasylon, which if I remember correctly is German for silence or something inane like that. He took a while to take off, but once he found the spell Tasha's Hideous Laughter, he sprouted like a weed. He ended up a God's lackey with magic Tatoos all over his body and defending the rights of Elves in an consentration camp. The last he was played he was cursed on his wedding night and couldn't perform ( ha Ha!!) for his bride.

 

[Djeta Thernadier]

Djeta as a bard...

Djeta Thernadier is the bard/sorcerer I play in my main game.

She was born on the outskirts of Sembia to an Elf mother ( a sorcerer) and a married (not to Djeta's mother) human father. When she was very young, her village was destroyed and only a handful of her elf family members survived and since her mother died, they found her father, and she went to live with him. She has two older half - brothers and two older half -sisters. One of her sisters was killed in a freak accident. Her remaining sister adores her. One of her older brothers adores her as well. Her other brother despises her and considers her to be the reason their family fell apart before both parents died.

Her father was a "collector". He collected and sold antiques, artifacts, gems etc. This took him all over the place on journeys and he brought Djeta along often, since his wife had no use for her around their home.

Thus, Djeta took that up as a profession. As a child, she learned how to sing, spin stories and play the madolin from her friend, Cameron who taught her. She soon learned she was very good at it, and being very exotic looking and charismatic, began playing wherever possible to earn some quick coin.

She tends to use that money to either buy artifacts for her older brother Japeth to sell in his shop, or, more often, to pay her nights rent while adventuring.

For Djeta, being a bard is mostly for this reason. She is only a second level bard (5th level sorcerer).

Because the bardic music can not be used while casting a spell, I don't use it often in combat , unless her sorcerer spells are not needed. The fact that Djeta can cure light wounds has come in handy on more than one occasion, as well.

So, that's Djeta. And that's how her bard skills come into play in most of the games.

~Sheri