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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zimbel" data-source="post: 2664221" data-attributes="member: 29912">When I played a (3.0) Bard at low levels, I'd always console myself by thinking that one point of damage from each attack by each party member was due to my PC(due to inspire courage). Interestingly enough, if one counted that way (and added in the damage done directly by the bard), my PC was often one of the top damage dealers in the (fairly large) party.In 3.5, although they pumped up the bard's abilities base , they made a number of things that could be used to create a combat-effective bard (GMW, stacking enhancement bonuses between bow and arrow) weaker or harder to (ab)use. Although I don't think it's a useless class, I did vote for it as the weakest. It seems very difficult to create an effective combat build with one at high levels, and most of the other spellcasting classes are better force-multipliers. I'm skeptical that the Bardic songs are effective enough at high levels, save in very large parties.Frankly, I think they'd be pretty good if they just got a better spell selection (say, at least 1 good offensive sonic spell/spell level) and more spells known/spell level.My vote for the best 5th member of a (C/W/F/R) 4-member party? Druid.</blockquote>