What the heck is up with bards?

[Darkness]

Those kender had an evil alignment. They believed that their ability to take your stuff made them the owners - ie "might makes right".

So burning down their village was no worse than burning down a village of orcs who thought that driving humans off the land made the land rightfully theirs. Except you could probably argue that the orcs were less evil because the kender weren't really stealing stuff that they needed to live...

So driving away people from their land is less evil than stealing their stuff?

 

[Caedrel]

Only one step along the evil axis?

Phew, I'm glad you're not in my campaign - that would have been worth a lot more than just one step. But then, torching a village of orcs is also pretty suspect to me (ok, ok, so I like Paladins - so sue me! )

Still, why would becomine Chaotic Evil turn your character into an NPC? If your character is going to do evil things, that's their choice - they just have to wear the in-game consequences, like the good aligned deities not being terribly impressed with them, reluctance of good aligned folk to trust them, etc etc etc. The NPC solution seems a bit heavy handed to me...

 

[Al'Kelhar]

God! Bards are SO broken!!!

Actually, IMHO, they are, but on the down-side, not the up-side. Their spell progression is slow and has fewer useful spells than any of the "primary" spell casters, and they have access to as many skills as rogues but half as many skill points. Also, bardic spell progression makes no sense, as the table in PH assumes that the bard has sufficient Charisma to gain a bonus spell of the highest level available to him/her. This seems to imply that bards DO gain knowledge of additional spells for high Charisma, c.f. sorcerers, BUT since a bard needs Cha 20 to gain a bonus 5th-level spell, AND Cha 20 gives a 2nd bonus 1st-level spell, why isn't the 2nd bonus 1st-level spell added to the number of spells known by 13th+ level bards? My solution to this is to take 1 from every number on the Spells Known table - except those related to 0-level spells - and then to state clearly that bards DO know additional spells for high Charisma. I have also made the following adjustments to bards to put them slightly on par with other character classes:
- In both the Spells Known and Spells per Day tables, added a "0" above the first number in each column. Like rangers and paladins with high Wisdom, the addition of a "0" at the head of the columns means that bards with high Charisma can access their "bonus" spells at lower levels than they would otherwise normally be able to.
- Bards gain 6 skill points + Int bonus for every level after the first. The bard still only gains (4 + Int bonus) x 4 skill points at first level. This represents the "jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none" aspect of the bard - he or she can "max-out" only a few skills, but has the skill points to be at least competent in many.

Cheers, AK

 

[Breakdaddy]

LOL, you think they are broken NOW, go check out the 1st Edition Bard again

 

[Ulrick]

Re: Only one step along the evil axis?

Phew, I'm glad you're not in my campaign - that would have been worth a lot more than just one step. But then, torching a village of orcs is also pretty suspect to me (ok, ok, so I like Paladins - so sue me! )

Still, why would becomine Chaotic Evil turn your character into an NPC? If your character is going to do evil things, that's their choice - they just have to wear the in-game consequences, like the good aligned deities not being terribly impressed with them, reluctance of good aligned folk to trust them, etc etc etc. The NPC solution seems a bit heavy handed to me...

Let me say again "I was mad."

The DM didn't allow evil characters in the game. If your character became evil, he simply became a villain. The DM allowed Good and Neutral characters. That's just how the DM ruled things.

And this DM did have a history of forcing characters into situations where all their stuff gets taken away. Like we'd get captured a lot and all are stuff would be take by our captors. I had to go after that sword three times, counting the one I mentioned.

Once a city got taken over by undead and he got captured. He sword fell into the hands of a Death Knight. He challenged him to a duel but was unarmed, so the Death Knight gave him the sword back. Then Stephano ran away...

Another time he got separated from the party in the dungeon. He was suddenly surrounded by gnolls and captured. The dungeon's overlord took his sword from him. Stephano managed to get free and he wound up killing the overlord with the sword.

Yet for those who thought Stephano did something horrible by killing those kender and torching their village, he did get his comeuppance:

In his last adventure he got torn apart and eaten by a Pit Fiend.

Ulrick

 

[Darkness]

Actually, IMHO, they are, but on the down-side, not the up-side.

The usual term for this is "shafted," BTW.

 

[Fenes 2]

Thief takes your stuff. You find thief and stuff. Thief resists repossession off stuff. No legal authority able and willing to help you - you take appropriate action against thief. No matter if the thief is a demon, or an innocent-looking kender.

Now some people may call it an overreaction - but you must be careful with those vermin masquerading as civilized beings that infest Krynn. There is no such thing as "overkill" when dealing with kenders.

We once had a kender in our party. He tried the same thing as that village. Too bad that the party had not much patience for such antics. The player switched PCs just before the rest of the party had a little red justice.

 

[tarchon]

Actually, IMHO, they are, but on the down-side, not the up-side. Their spell progression is slow and has fewer useful spells than any of the "primary" spell casters, and they have access to as many skills as rogues but half as many skill points. Also, bardic spell progression makes no sense, as the table in PH assumes that the bard has sufficient Charisma to gain a bonus spell of the highest level available to him/her. This seems to imply that bards DO gain knowledge of additional spells for high Charisma, c.f. sorcerers, BUT since a bard needs Cha 20 to gain a bonus 5th-level spell, AND Cha 20 gives a 2nd bonus 1st-level spell, why isn't the 2nd bonus 1st-level spell added to the number of spells known by 13th+ level bards? My

Because bards don't automatically get a 20 Cha at 13th level. When it says 0 in the spells per day table, what it means is that IF you get a bonus spell, then you can cast spells of that level. There will be a corresponding entry in the spells-known table that says 2*, but you don't actually get those 2 known spells unless you have the Cha to get the bonus spell for that level. The PHB tersely explains this in the footnote (*) to Table 3-5 on p. 27.
Like my 8th level bard character won't get 4th level spells until 11th level, since my 17 Cha isn't enough to get a bonus 4th level spell. If I did have an 18 Cha, then I'd get my first 4th level at 10th.
This is something I find a lot, that people who think the class is "broken" often have just misunderstood some of the rules, plus they usually have a very narrow view of what constitutes a useful spell.

 

[KnowTheToe]

Yes they do. However, the Sorcerer can cast more spells per day, has better spells to choose from and faster spell progression. I'm not sure what point your trying to make, but I think you might be over analyzing things.

Over analyzing, on this site? I think sir, you are mistaken.

 

[Mr Fidgit]

LOL, you think they are broken NOW, go check out the 1st Edition Bard again

but 1e bards were the original prestige class! and they got druid spells! (hmm, maybe they were broken...)