Rocker26a
Adventurer
I do like the snowball thing, and the Tasha’s Favored Foe ability has that a little, since the language of it means that you can reasonably conclude that each turn you can add another d4 to your damage, so round 1 is 1d4, round 2 is 2d4, etc.
I did the math back when it came out though, and it still doesn’t outperform Hunter’s Mark on average.
Exactly, they were close with Tasha's Favoured Foe. But they were still too safe with it! Can do it as a part of your attack and it gets better at nice levels, but. Still concentration, still single target, a reduced base damage die from Hunter's Mark even! And then as you say, even if you interpret it as an additional die each turn (which lets be real, they almost certainly didn't intend and they just weren't explicit enough), it's not even better than just casting the damn spell all this has spiralled off from! Phooey.
Honestly I think the bard would have a better niche if they aimed a little more toward the mytho-historical Celtic and Germanic bards.
The theming of Bards is pretty scattershot in general, I think you can easily feel stuck between things whatever you lean into. It was only the other day that I found out, rules as written, Bards can only use musical instruments as their spellcasting focus, even explicitly non-musical subclasses like Eloquence or Spirits or whatever. Swords is only saved by it's starting feature letting you use a martial melee weapon.
For instance, rather than favored enemy or Hunter’s Mark, Banes that reduce the potency of a type of monster or make it more vulnerable, like making it hard and painful for a creature to fly if they fail the save when you hit them. You know how to make it easier to kill dragons because you studied them, and you know how to craft Dragon’s Bane which makes the target’s breath weapon deal less damage and reduces its speed, especially with special movement types like flying. Troll’s Bane would shut down healing and regeneration and make the target take extra damage from fire and acid. Etc. useful against many creatures, but especially potent against one, and it makes the whole party more effective.
I think those are cool ideas! You may be suggesting more along the lines of features than spells with these, but I've long believed that a few spells comparable to the Smites would be a great addition. They'd add a degree of legitimacy to the Ranger's role that they otherwise lack.
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