D&D 5E (+)The 5e Bard Doesn't Feel Right. Help Me Fix It?

[doctorbadwolf]

Now, obviously, if you disagree that the Bard needs fixing, this thread may not be for you. Fair warning, I don't care and won't have much patience for "the bard is good stop" type opinions. The purpose of this thread is to establish elements of the Bard that don't feel right to some of us, and workshop ideas for variant class features, new spells, enhancements in the form of new uses of bardic inspiration, or whatever else we can figure out, that will make the Bard feel like a Bard.

So, what feels off?

1) Bardic Inspiration. It's not just that I miss 3.5 "Song of XYZ" mechanics. If it was, I could just add them back in as new spells. Bards inspiring one friend at a time, for a benefit the friend can use later, at such a fairly low level...it's just weird. It feels completely off, to me. A group buff that buffs the group for the duration, or other zone effects, would feel right. The Paladin's aura feels more bardic than bardic inspiration, to me.

2) The spells. Both, how much spellcasting the bard gets, how limited the list is, how focused on enchantment and trickery it is, just all of it. Vicious Mockery is cool, and then it just sort of...is powerful and bland. Meh. I literally can't play a bard without tweaking the spell list. It's, for me, garbage.

3) It almost never feels like a bard is emboldening the hearts of their allies and demoralizing their enemies with "mere" words.

4) It's mostly sparkle and mechanical efficacy, with no substance. It gets so many features, and I can't imagine why to care about half of them. Song of Rest and Expertise are about all I can imagine keeping in a total ground-up rewrite. Even Jack of All Trades I would put in a feat or something. Hell, switch the Bard and Rogue, and give the Rogue JoAT and give Bards earlier expertise and another trained skill.

5) Words words words. Do they even matter to the Bard? Song or no song, the Bard should be able to make people weep or dance on command.


So, what can be done? What needs to go in order to turn bardic inspiration into a group buff that is more specific in effect but effects all allies that can hear you when you use it? Or maybe who can hear you within 100ft, whatever.

What can be done about spellcasting? Drop secrets and instead lean into subclasses with bonus spells, and reconfigure what spells the bard naturally gets? Drop it to artificer style 1/2 caster to make more room for Bard abilities, or beef up the list with unique Bard spells?

What kinds of things can be done as class features to make the Bard the person you don't want to allow to speak, even if their hands are tied and they're tapped out of spells? The person you're afraid to anger, even if your know your guards are more than a match for the bard and their allies? The person who can turn a nation against her monarch in a single season, with a single song? The person who can heal with words, without it being clear if it involves spellcraft or not. Maybe even the person who can calm the savage beast like a druid, without using druidic magic, and can command the dead to rest or to live again, without investment or holy blessing? The person who knows the power of names and the old words and of old and new stories.

 

[Zardnaar]

Bardic inspiration, NPC knight ability, refresh on short rest. Gets extra use level 5 or so. Basically bless but better.

 

[Stormonu]

It seems a lot of the abilities you want to incorporate into the bard are out-of-combat, roleplay abilities. Nothing wrong with it, but it's a lot like the Stronghold and Follower rules of older editions. Some folk may be interested in it, but probably not a large percentage.

I would suggest for your needs to add ritual-like uses of Bardic abilities (something that takes 10 minutes or so to accomplish as the bard talks, sings, tells stories, composes poetry or the like). One path to take may be to modify the Bardic inspiration thusly:

At low levels (tier 1?), these abilities would ingratiate the bards among others - somewhat like the old Friends spell. By this, the bard is making himself indispensable - others want to hear what he/she has to say and will be irked if you attempt to get rid of them. Old man Jenkins sneers at the town guard. "Leave 'im alone an' let 'em play his tune, Rugby. He ain't a hurting no one"

In the next grouping (tier 2?), the bard expands his ability to begin influencing individuals. Effects would be along the lines of an Emotion spell, where the bard can now get a reaction from his audience, influencing them towards a course of action the bard desires. The peasants mutter, and curse the tax man, singing the bard's words back at the sheriff, taunting King John.

As the bard becomes more proficient (tier 3?), the bard is no longer influencing individuals, but affecting mobs, and inspiring those individuals to feats beyond their normal abilities. This is a bit of Suggestion and Bless in the works. The peasants revolt, storming the king's stronghold, with cries of "viva la revolution!" as they knock the king's guard aside.

At the highest levels (tier 4?), the bard no longer influences - they demand action and are in control of the outcome. At this point, the bard's abilities become Domination. The bard can make the king give up his crown with but a word.

 

[Don Durito]

One mechanic I would play around with if re-writing the bard is breaking the rules of concentration.

I would allow them to do this with songs.

So for example a bard can cast a second concentration spell so long as they maintain a song - in effect they weave it into the song. Possibly put in some increasing DC to maintain the spell (or possibly limit the number of spells to the proficiency bonus.

Possibly allow them to take single target buff spells and make them multi-target.

This would give them a clear role as the ultimate party buffer.


Maybe reduce them to half-caster in the process.

 

[Iry]

You could remove their spellcasting entirely and give them Bardic Inspirations (Warlock Invocations). But to make the system a little more unique, divide them into Prime Songs and Support Songs. A bard could sing one of each at a time, but have some Inspirations be branching choices that are mutually exclusive. Prime Songs can have both continuous effects and Action effects. The core class can even have Climaxes that terminate a song for some kind of benefit.

It's very Pillars in retrospect.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

1) Bardic Inspiration. It's not just that I miss 3.5 "Song of XYZ" mechanics. If it was, I could just add them back in as new spells. Bards inspiring one friend at a time, for a benefit the friend can use later, at such a fairly low level...it's just weird. It feels completely off, to me. A group buff that buffs the group for the duration, or other zone effects, would feel right. The Paladin's aura feels more bardic than bardic inspiration, to me.

So more like a wide-scale Bless spell? Should this boost everything that anyone tries to do under the effects? Or would there be more targeted options for attacks, saves, ability checks etc?
100ft range seems reasonable for singing, 10 rounds of concentration seems reasonable for a powerful performance, and 1/long rest before level 5 and 1/short rest afterwards.

Perhaps turn this "Performance" into the major class mechanic - Give it more uses and allow different riders similar to be spells to be picked. Bless, Heroism, Bane etc at low levels. Haste, Fear and Suggestion at high levels.
Even give the ability to add more riders on subsequent rounds at the cost of more uses or harder concentration checks.

2) The spells. Both, how much spellcasting the bard gets, how limited the list is, how focused on enchantment and trickery it is, just all of it. Vicious Mockery is cool, and then it just sort of...is powerful and bland. Meh. I literally can't play a bard without tweaking the spell list. It's, for me, garbage.

Bard spells have traditionally been about fairly subtle influence and trickery. Its not always obvious that the bard is even using magic to influence or trick someone.
What spells do you believe that it is missing? Or what type of spells?

3) It almost never feels like a bard is emboldening the hearts of their allies and demoralizing their enemies with "mere" words.

Outside of mere words like bardic inspiration, song of rest etc, is the issue that a lot of the bard's words are magical? (i.e. spells) Would a bard whose abilities weren't coded as magic fix that?

4) It's mostly sparkle and mechanical efficacy, with no substance.

Which bits do you feel lack substance? Or what is the substance that you feel that they should have?

5) Words words words. Do they even matter to the Bard? Song or no song, the Bard should be able to make people weep or dance on command.

In a way outside of what expertise in persuasion, or performance allows? Currently Bards can do that with a little magic. Does this tie in to the "mere words" bit?

I've turned a Bard into a Warlord simply by requiring non-"flashy" spells and stating that they require the recipient to hear the warlord, but making them nonmagical. There were no major balance concerns that came up during play.

I think 5e bards are built more around the concept of the companion who keeps people's hopes up and keeps them going with encouragement, or even insults, but also pitches in when the party has to fight. Rather than the earlier concept of the gaudy fop standing to the side and singing a tune in the middle of combat.

 

[Krachek]

I would not try to fix the bard, but propose another one!
for me another bard would be a half caster, no cantrip.
keep expertise, Jack of all trades, song of rest, countercharm, but get rid of inspiration.
i don’t like inspiration, as well as guidance. Nice idea at first, but soulless source of goodie bonus on the long term.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I would not try to fix the bard, but propose another one!
for me another bard would be a half caster, no cantrip.
keep expertise, Jack of all trades, song of rest, countercharm, but get rid of inspiration.
i don’t like inspiration, as well as guidance. Nice idea at first, but soulless source of goodie bonus on the long term.

Bard ain’t a bard if they can’t inspire.

It just needs to work differently.

 

[Krachek]

Bard ain’t a bard if they can’t inspire.

It just needs to work differently.

I have try very hard to imagine a bard, deep in a sewer, using its instrument and sing to inspire its friend the fighter avoiding to be engulf by an aberration monster, but sorry I can’t.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Okay, from all your feedback so far, I think the following will work.

*Ditch Magical Secrets.

*Create at least a half dozen bard song spells that all bards get access to

*add additional spells to each subclass

*Trade Bardic Inspiration for Words of Power. A set of effects on the same resource recharge, with different effects and their own scaling by bard level. Bonus action, last for 10 minutes with concentration, you can use a bonus action anytime during the duration to speak again and include new creatures in the effect. Use Cha mod per long rest, then eventually per short rest. All allies who hear it within 100ft gain;

**Words of Courage. a bonus to 1 saving throw and THP equal to the Bard’s Charisma modifier, once per round, and advantage on saves against fear. At later levels it’s 1/turn, and eventually adds to death saves and concentration saves.

**Words of Alacrity. A +10 speed bonus and add Bard’s Charisma Mod to their AC against opportunity attacks.

**Words of Doom. Allies get +Cha to 1 damage roll per round. Enemies who hear your words have disadvantage on saves against fear, and you can use a reaction when an enemy affected by your words of doom attacks you or an ally to strike fear into their heart. They must succeed on a Wisdom saving throw or be frightened of you, and take 1d8+Cha mod psychic damage.

**Words of Secret Knowledge. A bonus to Spell save DC?

**Words of [that feeling that gets people off the couch to go march on Washington. Righteous Fury?]. Non-hostile creatures that hear you are influenced to do soemthing about a situation. They gain [bonuses] and will try to effect change in a way determined by what problems you present to them as needing fixed, as determined by the DM. Any of your allies who hear you words are also emboldened

Higher level options, come online at major tier levels? Stuff like Words of Forbidding (stuff can’t come near without succeeding on a save) and Words of Healing (just a light group heal effect, with bonus action thp grant for the duration) and even some of the wild stuff I mentioned like commanding the dead to rest or reviving an ally, or effect similar to calm emotions.

In heroic fiction, bard types can often shame someone into acting correctly when they are not, causing surrender, or a corrupt king to do what’s right, etc. I like that, but it needs to walk the line of avoiding actual mind control.

*Add an ability to effect social groups, like a town, county, nation, or region, with the sphere of influence growing as you level. You write stories or songs or nail your manifesto to temple doors, and the word spreads, depending on a skill check? Just Charisma+proficiency? Maybe a scale with a table shows how big an influence you can have, and it’s Cha+prof+bard level?