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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rystil Arden" data-source="post: 2665557" data-attributes="member: 29014">It isn't the Rogue's job to buff the party, however.  By changing the focus to buffs and calmly stating that buffs can do more damage eventually than a flat-out attack (and they can, you're right), you are implicitly requiring the comparison to cleric.  If I already had a cleric or wizard to give me (admittedly smaller than a maxed Inspire Courage) morale bonuses with their own spells, I would want the Rogue over the Bard though, anyway.I do like how you chose level 14 to make your comparison instead of, say, level 13.  At level 13, the Rogue will do over 100 damage per round if he can hit consistently, perhaps 50, then, if he's having trouble hitting.  The Bard gives the whole party +2 to attack and damage.  Does it eventually add up to more?  Sure.  Do the other classes have morale boosting buffs that would have been a fine substitute?  Yup.  Even so, comparing the Bard's buffs to the Rogue's attacks is like comparing those buffs to the Monk's attacks or the Fighter's attacks.  Yes, the buffs are useful, but if you don't have someone who can make use of those buffs, then not so much.  Without that Rogue, there's one less person who wants the attack buffs.  If my party consists of a Wizard, the Bard, a Psion, and a Barbarian, how much is the song helping now?  On the other hand, if you have a group full of seven fighters and the Bard, it helps a lot.  That's why the Barbarian who took a level in Skald was popular with his group in my melee-heavy game.        As a player?  I love the concept of Bard, but the class is poorly executed.  I've played a 3.0 Wizard/Virtuoso, though.  As well as a Telepath who pretended to be a Bard and had her psicrystal in her harp.As a GM, I've run plenty of Bards, and I've seen players choose them as PCs and cohorts.  I haven't met one in person yet who hasn't regretted the decision, though I do hear plenty of success stories with Bards on these boards <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />--the key is that your analysis makes a lot of assumptions.  You were right to point out that the Rogue's combat skill can become useless in certain situations.  For Bards, certain parties make them incredibly useless, and short battles make them less so too (If the Sneak Attacking Rogue can ambush the opponents and with the help of the Wizard and Barbarian take all the baddies out in three rounds, the Inspire Courage wouldn't have been preferable.</blockquote>

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