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

[Jester David]

I actually agree with most of that. What if we keep Bardic Inspiration, but simply add a second feature to it where you can spend a die to use a Words of Power feature, as I described in my follow up post?

The catch is that's still not much. A 5th level bard will be lucky to have 18 Charisma and use their Inspiration/ Words of Power four times between rests. If you have three combats, that's once per combat with a spare use. It's something you'll use once at the start of an encounter and then skip the remainder of the fight.

It's a neat boost, but it's not defining your character. And as a bonus action, you're still doing something else most of the time as your one big thing, be it casting a non-bardic spell or making a poor attack with a secondary stat.
The Lore bard is the bard that spends their action casting spells, and the Valour bard is the bard that spends their action stabbing. But the default bard needs to add some other active action power for all bards.

If adding a Words of Power system, it probably needs to be additive. Something that takes your action but only lasts for a round, so you can swap it up each round.
This could be more cantrips, or something the same power as cantrips gained as a bonus, relying on the action economy and limited turns per combat for balance.

 

[CleverNickName]

A bit of a segue, but if the assumption is that the bard must use a particular ability every battle, why not rewrite it as such? "When you roll initiative, you may use your bonus action to Do The Thing" is a lot more efficient than "You may Do The Thing a number of times per long rest equal to X, where x equals..."

It brings the ability to its logical conclusion, requires less management, and doesn't pressure the group to take rests after every battle.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It may be overly complex, but I'd remove spells and add a list of songs that affect allies in an aura centered on the bard.

Something like this:

Hymn of Battle.
1 minutes
This old battle song inspire your allies to fighter ever harder.

Overture: As part of the action used to begin this song, you must make a melee attack with a weapon against one creature within your weapon range, otherwise the spell fails. On a hit, the target suffers the attack's normal effects, and it takes an extra 1d6 thunder damage. You then begin the chant part of this song.

Chant: Until the end of the song or until you lose concentration, up to 3 allies within your aura range deal 2 extra thunder damage on a successful attack. At the end of each turn you are chanting, you gain 1 escalation point.

Climax: As an action, you can spend 3 escalation point to summon 1 berserker. It appears in an unoccupied space you can see within range, and the berserker disappears when it drops to 0 hit points or when the song ends. Roll initiative for the berserker, which has its own turns. When you summon it and on each of your turns thereafter, you can issue a verbal command to it (requiring no action on your part), telling it what it must do on its next turn. If you issue no command, it spends its turn attacking any creature within reach that has attacked it.


etc

I like those. A half caster bard could get abilities that model those spells as special abilities they can use once per long rest each.

The catch is that's still not much. A 5th level bard will be lucky to have 18 Charisma and use their Inspiration/ Words of Power four times between rests. If you have three combats, that's once per combat with a spare use. It's something you'll use once at the start of an encounter and then skip the remainder of the fight.

It's a neat boost, but it's not defining your character. And as a bonus action, you're still doing something else most of the time as your one big thing, be it casting a non-bardic spell or making a poor attack with a secondary stat.
The Lore bard is the bard that spends their action casting spells, and the Valour bard is the bard that spends their action stabbing. But the default bard needs to add some other active action power for all bards.

If adding a Words of Power system, it probably needs to be additive. Something that takes your action but only lasts for a round, so you can swap it up each round.
This could be more cantrips, or something the same power as cantrips gained as a bonus, relying on the action economy and limited turns per combat for balance.

I disagree. They would mostly last 10 minutes, which means you do it before a fight most of the time. As well, making it a bonus action makes it additive to whatever you do with your action.

One thing I hate about the 3.5/PF bard is using effectively your turn to activate a song.

The times per rest can be Any number. Tying it to charisma modifier was just an off the top of my head number.

Probably ditch concentration, though.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

A bit of a segue, but if the assumption is that the bard must use a particular ability every battle, why not rewrite it as such? "When you roll initiative, you may use your bonus action to Do The Thing" is a lot more efficient than "You may Do The Thing a number of times per long rest equal to X, where x equals..."

It brings the ability to its logical conclusion, requires less management, and doesn't pressure the group to take rests after every battle.

Like spells or anything else on a half caster, I don’t personally see the need for the bard to use its Words of Power every fight (especially assuming a 6+ encounter day).

 

[Weiley31]

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.

Less like that and more Tenacious D vs. Satan in The Pick of Destiny.

 

[Xeviat]

Rebuilding the Bard as a 1/2 caster that can dabble in spells from all the spellcasting traditions would be interesting. You'd have more room for building in features that way. I originally wanted it that way, but I have grown to like the Bard as a full caster.

I'd be interested to see what you come up with.

 

[Gadget]

Well, bards have traditionally been viewed as sub-par in many editions, the whole "jack of all trades, master of none" thing really hurt them in some editions (specifically 3e). I can't remember the specifics of the AD&D bard much, other than the unique duel/multi-classing progression they had to go through in 1e.

Personally, I don't have problem with bards getting access to 9th level spell per se, but I think they are given far too many 'non-bardish' spells that together with magical secrets, make it far too much of 'cherry-pick the best spells around' type class (Spells like Polymorph, Animate Objects, Mordenkainen's Sword, Forcecage, among others, don't feel very bardish to me).

I could see their spell casting reduced to half-caster status (and more appropriate spells) with better and more flavorful class features to go along with it.

 

[Minigiant]

Bards being a full caster with heals, buffs, tricks, utility, and some offensive spells and Expertise is the problem.

It's a sorcerer who trades the non-thunder attack spells for heals and Expertise. It's too OP and also not OP..

It crowded out and hogs up the power of the bard's nonpell features. Either it gets "Song" spells or has to be downgraded to a 1/2 caster to boost it's inspiration.

 

[Flamestrike]

I removed Magical Secrets, and put in its place the ability for the Bard to grant bardic inspiration to up to 5 creatures it can see within 30', and that can see or hear the Bard, as a single Bonus action (using only 1 use of their Bardic Inspiration) in its place.

The Die type is 1 'step' lower.

 

[tetrasodium]

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.

I tried so many times to push/encourage words tales & the like on bard players explaining how it fits the setting & all... but the tavern minstrel themes are so heavy that I've practically gotten to the point where i don't even try fighting it anymore. I agree that it just feels wrong on too many levels & just about all the points you raised. While it's been too long since I gave a spit about trying to care about bards to help on the mechanical aspects. Replacing all the nonsense about music & instruments (including those proficiencies/focus item/etc) might be a good start. Making them a full caster instead id half with more lass specific spells and/or class specific spell levels would have helped too