Thoughts on Bards?

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

My wife, in another campaign, is playing a Barbarian / Bard.

Nothing like a screaming, singing, falchion-wielding psycho to ruin your day.

 

[BSF]

Pbbbbt! You don't need any of the Complete books to make a bard useful, interesting or fun. I can even do it with just the PHB. But I highly recommend the Enchiridion of Mystic Music. You can do some fun stuff there by focusing on your mystic music and getting somewhat creative.

The Bard is not a good class for everybody. The class does a great job supporting other members to really excel. If you take a little bit of healing, the Druid doesn't need to devote as many spells toward curative magic. If you use your morale bonuses liberally, you make everyone more effective in combat. Your party composition is well geared toward outdoors activity, so you might want to get a feel from the DM on what kind of adventurers you expect. If you are going to spend months out in the wilds, your choices might be different than if you are going to be doing heavy dungeoncrawling or city adventures.

 

[sniffles]

I'm playing a bard in a new campaign. I'm really pleased with her skills, and her attack bonus isn't bad either. She's good with both melee and ranged weapons, even with a relatively low Dex. Her spell selection is limited, but useful, and this way I don't have to agonize over what spells to take as I would with a wizard or cleric. She can do backup healing. She can negotiate or gather information. All in all, I think she's a very useful character. As far as her bardic music ability (wish they wouldn't call it that; makes people think of lute-playing types too much), I'm actually not using that much because we have another bard in the party!

As Henry pointed out, a bard doesn't have to sing or play a musical instrument. A bard could be a poet or storyteller. A bard can also perform in other ways - juggling, tumbling and acrobatics, dance. Obviously you can't use the physical performance types for the things like 'Inspire Courage', but maybe your bard could be an acrobat who is just really good at encouraging and inspiring the other party members with his banter. Just think how cool it could be if your bard has a high Dex and lots of ranks in tumble!

I have a friend who's playing a bard in another game as a comedienne, who jabs at her opponents with her witty put-downs. Combined with the Goad feat, this could be very effective if the character has a good attack bonus, or Combat Reflexes. You could also multiclass as a swashbuckler for extra fighting abilities. And bards have some nice prestige classes. I'm planning to take my bard into the Worldspeaker class (from Dragon) so she can speak to all sorts of unusual creatures like elementals and plants, plus it stacks with her bardic music and knowledge abilities.

 

[Roger]

I happen to like bards just fine.

However, if you're looking for a character to support the fighty types, who isn't a bard, and who can lay down some damage himself, you want a marshal.

Marshals are a base class from the Miniatures Handbook.

Check 'em out.



Cheers,
Roger

 

[tarchon]

As we lack a rogue and an arcane caster, the bard semi-fills these roles, albeit weakly. I just don't see a whole lot of spellcasting power from bards to make me want to not just make a charismatic rogue. A simple Sorcerer may be even better, as he could act as the party face, and have some real spellcasting ability. The barbarian will take care of the locked doors and

Sorcs just don't have the skill points to take advantage of their Cha as effectively. Bards can be very effective spell casters - just think of bardic music as being another kind of spell. Unlike Clerics who tend to heal more damage after it's taken, the bard has an easier time laying on bonuses up front, kind of like preventive healing. It's especially true with Inspire Greatness.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I'm planning to take my bard into the Worldspeaker class (from Dragon) so she can speak to all sorts of unusual creatures like elementals and plants, plus it stacks with her bardic music and knowledge abilities.

do you have the issue number/description of the dragon in question? This sounds like a great prestige class for one of my favorite bard types.....

 

[Yeoman]

I've played quite a few bards since 3.0 came out, and I've learned a few things that may help you out a little.

Some sample bard character ideas

The Sage: Bard focused on information gathering and skill knowledge. Divinations and bardic knowledge are your big strengths. Consider Loremaster later on.
The Skald: Barbarian/Bard, As Patryn said, nothing ruins a day like a raging, singing madman.
The Warrior/Mage, Bard, or Fighter/Bard. Concentrate on support abilities, whether it's having cure spells to dispense as you move about the battlefield, using buffing spells as needed on yourself or the party, or just using inspire courage and flanking opponents to help your frontline bring them down. A nifty prestige class for this idea is Mindspy (Complete Warrior).
The General: Bard/Marshal, With a combination of the marshal's aura ability and the bard's inspire courage/heroism abilities, you will be a great support character. (However as my wife often reminds me, not everyone enjoys the support role. In which case, bard may not be your best choice of class.)
The Social Butterfly: Bard, Here you want to focus all your skills into social applications, tailor your spell selections toward the espionage/socializing direction. Spymaster is a nifty prestige class for this character type.



Feats I've found useful.

All of these inspire fear in opponents for various amounts of time. Also the saves are all charisma based, making them very useful for bards.

Daunting Presence (Libris Mortis/Miniatures Handbook)
Kiai Shout (Complete Warrior)
Greater Kiai Shout
Frightful Presence (Draconomicon)

These make your bard useful in various situations

Master Linguist (Races of Eberron)
This feat lets you learn a new language every level for free. It requires you to speak 4 languages to take it.

Obscure Lore (Complete Adventurer)
Gives you a bonus on Bardic Knowledge checks. Always useful.

Combat Intuition (Complete Adventurer)
Also a nifty feat for bards.

Ability Focus (Monster Manual)
This can be useful when applied to the fascinate, suggestion, or mass suggestion abilities.

Lingering Song (Complete Adventurer)
This makes some bardic abilities last twice as long after you stop concentrating on them.

Various Bardic Music Expansion Feats (Lots of Books!)
There are a bunch of feats out there that add new uses to your bardic music, or allows your music to affect different creatures. (Like undead, or plants)

Battle Dance (Epic)
I don't remember where exactly this came from, but it allows you to add your charisma bonus to your attacks, reflex saves, and armor class.

Anyways that's all I can think of at the moment.

Hope that helps you.

 

[ARandomGod]

Problem is, I just can't convince myself that this class would be 1)Useful, 2)Interesting or 3)FUN!

Bards can extremely useful, very interesting (in the right campaign), and VERY fun. That being said I don't like 'em. They're not my style. They may not be your style. You could certainly try. They also certainly aren't "powerful" when it comes to fights.

As we lack a rogue and an arcane caster, the bard semi-fills these roles, albeit weakly. Gruns

Well, allow me to suggest the best possible way to fill that gap (In my nonHumble opinion, of course). Arcane Trickster. Now there's a class that IS fun, interesting, AND powerful. Now you've got to play it right, the class is weaker than a straight mage in his magely ways. But he's got a lot more skill points... and is basically a rogue on magic steroids. And while you will always be one to two spell levels behind a full caster, take the Practised Caster feat and use spells that have a touch attack roll and do damage and you're potentially doing a LOT more damage (to sneak-attackable targets) than that straight mage would be.

And, as a rogue/mage class I say that it does a better job of filling in for the rogue and the mage than a bard does.

 

[William Ronald]

Good advice on this thread.

There are several characters in myth that can perhaps serve as insipirtion to players with bard characters.

Orpheus was so skilled a musician that rocks and trees moved to his music. Plus, he also played a song that moved Hades to release Orpheus' wife from the Underworld.

Amergin, who was one of the leaders of the Milesian invasion of Ireland (okay, I know that some scholars think that this myth was just created by the Kings of Ulster to bolster their rule), was able to dispel storms with his magic (counterspell, dispel magic, greater) and like Taleisin, claimed to have had many forms.

Taleisin, as a child, amazed a king's court with his lore, charmed the king's counsellors, and claimed to have had many forms in previous existence. (I would argue that the 1st edition bard, which was tied to the druid, in part may have drawn on the archetypes of Taleisin and Amergin. A few levels of druid might achieve the same effect in the current rules.)

Also, the summon monster spells may come in handy, and you may wish to have a few inventive bards work on expending their spell lists. Spells that influence or inspire people, summon something, or have some sound based effect might be good additions to a bard's spell list. (A bard, like any other caster, can try to research new spells.) There are also various bard supplements from WotC, Malhavoc Press, and other publishers for ideas.

 

[fafhrd]

If you have Frostburn, the snowflake wardance feat is worth a look. It lets you add your charisma bonus to attacks with fatigue at the end. Could be a pretty cool option for the barb/bard skald type.