Where's the Bard?

[kennew142]

My point though is that it shouldn't have to, what with faster combat and built in XP "story awards" and all.

But I think you're right -- combat ate a lot of game time in 3E due to rules issues, and 4E will eat a lot of game time due to design intent. I'm not suggesting makinga class that sucks in the context of the design philosophy, I am suggesting a design philospophy that means the class doesn't suck.

I'm still holding out for the idea that combat will eat less time in 4e because it flows faster. More time will be left for role-playing. I remember some of the designers claiming that combat would be faster in 4e.

 

[PeterWeller]

I have a few thoughts on this subject and the discussion it spawned.

First, I'm a little surprised no one has surmised that we might first see official Bards in the FR players' guide. Bards are a pretty big part of FR (Harpers, anyone?), and if we're getting a whole players' book for FR, I'd surmise that it would contain a couple of classes.

As for the discussion over how to balance classes, I'm all for the 4E approach. I think all classes should be useful and balanced in combat. My first 3E character was a Bard, and I've DM'd two Bard characters. Our shared experience of playing a Bard was that the class was fun "when we were Barding it up," but was pretty ass in a fight. Not one of these campaigns was what I would call combat heavy in the D&D sense, but all three of us felt that the Bard, even with his/her opportunities to mightily outshine the party in some social situations, was a marginalized class. When the Bard really got to "Bard it up," it was often at the expense of the rest of the party, and since these situations marginalized the rest of the party, the Bard didn't get to "Bard it up" a whole frikking lot. The other players would also want to be a part of the social encounters. This, combined with his/her combat ineffectualness led to the class feeling marginalized.

So, I'm all for a Bard with a distinct role in a fight. I'm of the opinion that D&D consists of two things: combat and "the other stuff." Combat is the one thing that happens most often in D&D and generally involves the entire party. "The other stuff," on the other hand, may happen more than combat because it constitutes anything outside of combat, but in a lot of instances isn't a situation that involves the entire party. Thus, while "the other stuff" might take up more of your session, it isn't necessarily a shared experience amongst all players. In addition, combat is really the only situation where the rules can really be balanced across the board; "the other stuff" can incorporate such a variety of actions that it often requires a level of DM fiat and adjudication to resolve.

Now, I should say that I come to the conclusions with a bias as far as gameplay is concerned. I feel that outside of combat, it is roleplaying, and when you enter combat, it becomes a game. That's not a hundred percent true, as I do want to roll dice outside of a fight, and I do want roleplaying to take place during a fight, but it's the easiest way to sum up how I look at D&D. If you feel differently, I don't consider that badwrongfun, but the reason why I'm so pro 4E right now is that the developers seem to consider my and my group's playstyle goodrightfun.

 

[Lurker37]

Faster or not, the fact remains that most pivotal plot points in an RPG are resolved through combat.

Furthermore, almost every single published adventure so far has hinged on combat. Hardly a session goes by without combat, and while social skills and rope climbing are means to expedite your progress, it's all going to culminate in a final battle with the Bad Guy.

If you're weak in combat then it really doesn't matter - AT ALL - what else you're good at. This game isn't built to resolve Big Plots with social rolls. There's going to be combat, and it's going to be those times that decide if the party triumphs or perishes. If you can't fight, then you're sitting out for not only large chunks of the game, but usually for the most important encounters in the game - the moments that players are going to get caught up in and talk about later. (You know that if they get together to talk about the game later, they'll be talking about that thrust through the beast's rib that turned the battle in their favour, not the witty retort made to the local Noble.) If the player deliberately chose to be a poor combatant, then they're probably having a great time while their character hides under the table. If, however, the player chose a class unaware that it was not going to be combat effective, then they will not be having fun, but will instead be disappointed, bored, and (since new players are most likely to make such a mistake) likely to look to other pursuits for their entertainment in the future. Designing a character to promote such incidents is sheer folly. Such classes should be for NPCs, not players.

The second issue is that combat outcomes are not influenced by roleplaying, but social interaction roll difficulties usually are. The grunt fighter can handle the negotiations if the player roleplays it well. In combat, however, the Bard can't improve their chances of vanquishing their opponent no matter how well (s)he roleplays the parry and the thrust of their dagger.

So it logically follows that the option most likely to appeal to all players is to give each character class the ability to participate meaningfully in combat - to take actions each round that will have visible and identifiable impact on the outcome of the fight. A player can chose to make a specific character less combat worthy, or to deliberately not play them to their full potential (deliberately is important - effectiveness should never rely on some specific combination of optional feats and skills), but that's their choice - the base class itself should be fine.

Now as to the siloing - the quote we have to go by is that mages will not have to choose between fireball and phantom steed - they'll choose combat spells and utility spells separately.

So by extension it seems that all classes will have utility options that do not affect their choice of combat abilities. Some of these non-combat abilities may be social, but there's no reason they have to be. So there's no longer any reason for Bards to be weaker in combat because they chose a strong set of social options. Instead, those social options will have come at the cost of some other form of non-combat utility, such as a travel ability or perhaps some form of augmentation to their ability to entertain an audience.

And when the manure hits the windmill, the bard can be in the thick of the fight with the rest of the party, instead of wandering out to the kitchen to pillage the snacks.