What Core Class was actually fun to play

[Hussar]

Poll results:

The poll: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?p=3973406#post3973406

has had some votes.

Who was not fun: Paladin was not fun. By the gods of lawfull good, not fun. The Paladin had the highest "never played" and lowest ratio of liked to play vs. dislike to play. More voters liked the monk then the paladin.

The "four core" (including wizard but not sorcerer): hands down most popular to play. Most liked? Mostly, Rogue is the top, Wizard and Cleric also do well, and fighter is middle of the pack. Druid stands out for being less played, but liked when played.

But the Paladin....unfun!

The problem with the poll is the same as the original post that spawned it. Rogues are not "unfun to play". They aren't.

What's unfun is sitting on your thumbs for significant amounts of time (what is significant varies from player to player) because of the mechanics.

I've never EVER disliked a class that I've played. Why would I play a class I didn't like? That would be stupid. However, just because I like a class doesn't mean I absolutely must love every aspect of it and NEVER EVER change anything about it. Everything can be improved.

For example, I'm playing a gnome binder right now in a campaign. Loving the heck out of it. However, binders from level 5 to 8 gain no new class abilities to speak of. A few hit dice, some BAB and saves and that's about it. Nothing new for three levels. That's a big old dead spot.

My fix would be to stuff something in on level 7 to jazz up the level a bit.

Does that mean I'm having unfun with binders? Nope. It's just that I recognize that there is room for improvement.

 

[Will]

It's a point about flexibility.

A bard can cast Haste and Glitterdust, which means he's giving the wizard/sorcerer a chance to cast Scorching Ray/Fireball/whatever.
A bard has healing magic, which means if the cleric happens to bite it or isn't near someone who needs it, the bard can save the day.
A bard has UMD, which means the ability to use oddball items when needed. (This isn't as huge as the previous things, but is darn handy)
A bard is an arcane caster/healer with the ability to move silently and make decent perception checks.
A bard is an arcane caster who never needs to cast Mage Armor.
A bard can also manipulate intelligent creatures without using spells (Fascination, Suggestion, etc)
A bard can provide a variety of basic buffs, without eating spells.
Unlike 'gish' builds like fighter/sorcerer, a bard's caster level is equal to overall level.

Oh, also note there are some bard spells that can turn inspire courage into a +10 bonus. I forget the details, and granted it's non-core (probably Complete Adventurer or Spell Compendium), but still pretty nice.

Unique core bard spells:
Glibness. +30 Bluff, and anyone with truth magic has to make a caster level check to determine if you're lying.
Modify memory. Ability to edit someone's mind.
Zone of silence. Well, ok, a little limited but when it comes up...
Song of Discord. Enemies fight each other. Heh
Sympathetic vibration. Destroy buildings.

Yes, bards lack the damage capability of fighters and wizards. But they are masters at utility, with a spell list that includes lots of cleric spells (not just healing, either!) and sorcerer/wizard spells. They can sneak and tumble, have wide-ranging lore of enemies (great if you use Knowledge Devotion from Complete Champion), and social skills galore.

Flexibility is important.
Yes, a barbarian can do more damage, the wizard has Haste, the cleric has Silence and healing, and the rogue can sneak.
But if any of those three are disabled, busy, or need help? The bard can do it all while making everyone better at the same time. He's unpopular because he doesn't shine, but he's cool because he's always there, making that one bit of difference.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I've met a couple DMs who revel in doing this. They'd ask to look at your list of prepared spells, jot them down, then make sure most of them are useless. Needless to say, they never lasted more than one game session.

I like to do the opposite. I check to see whether the cleric or wizard have spells that have limited usefulness outside of specific situations, and then try to include challenges that allow them to make use of some of these spells. If someone takes delay poison, I might throw in a giant spider with the goblins, or a poison needle trap. Players like it when they feel like their choices were wise, and so I like to provide them with the illusion that they have all sorts of foresight and good judgement.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

It's a point about flexibility.

The problem is that flexibility requires the ability to change your role quickly and have a large variety of special abilities at your disposal.

Bards can do all the things you mention. However, they have so few spells known that they are forced to choose only a couple of options which reduces their flexibility. Since they are spontaneous casters they can't change their spell list depending on what sort of adventure they are going on. If they are on a dungeon crawl they will have to expect that charm person is going to be a wasted slot for 90% of the game. If they are in a social adventure then haste will be useless more often.

Sure, a bard can cast healing...poorly. When the fighter takes 80 damage during a round, the bard's healing isn't going to cut it no matter how high level he is. At that point the cleric HAS to be the one to heal the fighter.

The thing about versatility is that if you can cast Haste or Glitterdust and someone else can cast both of those AND Fireball, they are more versatile than you are. If, on any given round, the best choice is to do something other than haste or glittterdust then you are less powerful.

Casting Mage Armor isn't that big of a deal once you are level 8 and higher. Most adventuring parties go to sleep after 8 hours. Plus 1st level spells are coming out of their ears and they never run out of them. The ability to wear poor armor isn't a big deal.

Fascination and Suggestion are so limited in use they might as well not even be listed. I mean you have to get someone to sit there and listen to you sing/play music and pay attention to you for over a minute straight willingly before they even have to make a save against fascination.

Flexibility is important.
Yes, a barbarian can do more damage, the wizard has Haste, the cleric has Silence and healing, and the rogue can sneak.
But if any of those three are disabled, busy, or need help? The bard can do it all while making everyone better at the same time. He's unpopular because he doesn't shine, but he's cool because he's always there, making that one bit of difference.

And this is actually my key point as well. The bard doesn't do anything himself. He does what other people do...poorly. IF they are disabled he might be able to shine for a while as "good enough for now" but with any other character around he is sub par and is about making the other people look better.

The thing is that you can do 90% of what the Bard can do by playing either a wizard or cleric. What you lose from the last 10% you instead gain a large list of stuff that the bard CAN'T do that is easily 10 times more powerful than the 10% you are losing.

As a cleric you might not be able to cast haste and glitterdust, or use bardic knowledge, or bardic songs. In exchange you get to wear full plate, get more hit points, the ability to heal MUCH better, spells like Righteous Wrath of the Faithful, Prayer, Recitation, Divine Power, Righteous Might, Protection from Energy, Flame Strike, Raise Dead...and so on. Some of these spells give bonuses close to or better than bardic music. Righteous Wrath is really close to being able to cast haste, and you can turn yourself into a better fighter than the fighter is.

As a wizard you might not be able to heal, use bardic knowledge or songs, or wear light armor. In exchange you get an entire suite of damaging and paralyzing spells. The ability to change all of your spells around every day, to cast more of them per day, the ability to fly, teleport, protect yourself from damage, and much, much more. Pretty much you get close to all the same buffing spells as the bard and some of them earlier than the bard does. The only difference in your buffing ability to a bard is bardic music which doesn't stack with Bless, Recitation, Heroes Feast. So often its ability is redundant and useless.

It isn't so much a matter of not being the one up front shining. It's that if you are looking to play a leader type that Cleric is a much better choice overall. It needs to be more equal. Mainly, you need to be able to heal just as well as the cleric to be on equal footing with them and bardic music needs to be ramped up to be more powerful.

 

[moticon]

Fighter: Not fun because I get outclassed in damage at higher levels.

No offense, but what kind of a fighter are YOU playing? A fighter who isn't the center of his party's offensive power is either built REALLY poorly or in the middle of a party of fighters.

Of course, I'm assuming by "fighter" you mean fighter-type, with maybe a level dip into barbarian. But even still, assuming equal quantities of cheese from PC to PC, the fighter will always out-damage any spellcaster. Always.

And your complaints about the core feats? Yeah, they're pretty weak, but that's why they wrote new ones.

 

[The Little Raven]

I like to do the opposite. I check to see whether the cleric or wizard have spells that have limited usefulness outside of specific situations, and then try to include challenges that allow them to make use of some of these spells. If someone takes delay poison, I might throw in a giant spider with the goblins, or a poison needle trap. Players like it when they feel like their choices were wise, and so I like to provide them with the illusion that they have all sorts of foresight and good judgement.

I'm the same way. I like the idea of collaborative storytelling, so I tend to take off-hand comments by players (and their characters), specific builds my players focus on, and make them central to the story presented. Nothing makes me feel warm inside like talking to me players after the game, and them expressing surprise that some off-hand comment about their dad, or some weird spell they had prepared, came up as a central point in the adventure.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

The problem is they're all a simulationist nail in a fantasy game, they're all based off real-world tactics, which make them really good vs other Fighter Types (what a warrior could reasonably expect to fight in RL), but sub-par against, say, Dragons the size of a house, or a flying invisible Wizard. The problem is that there are few "tricks" that are good against these creatures because simulationists get up in arms about it "being too unrealistic" for a Fighter to trip a Dragon, ignoring the fact that anybody who's taking one a Dragon that size with full plate & Zweihänder is going to be fairly "unrealistic" in the first place, or that Fighter types in a world where it's expected they're going to fight such things is going to develop tactics against them.

That's a good point. That might indeed be the fundamental issue with these "maneuvers". They are grounded in real-world combat, and they make sense as such. But in a magical setting, they quickly lose effectiveness, since these maneuvers don't really work ("logically/realistically") on the monsters of D&D.

Bards can do all the things you mention. However, they have so few spells known that they are forced to choose only a couple of options which reduces their flexibility. Since they are spontaneous casters they can't change their spell list depending on what sort of adventure they are going on. If they are on a dungeon crawl they will have to expect that charm person is going to be a wasted slot for 90% of the game. If they are in a social adventure then haste will be useless more often.

Spontanous casting, by the way, is a thing I am not too fond off for bards. I mean, think about it - to play good music, you usually train the piece you want to play a lot. You prepare for it. But you are also incredibly flexible - you can train a new piece anytime, and play it.
I think Bard spellcasting should be closer to wizard spellcasting then to sorceror spellcasting. And they should probably be able to "Play" a few more spells per day - since most musicians can play several songs in a day, and they can also repeat them very often.