Why do you think the Bard gets no play?

[Gregor]

Hey all,

As with a few other threads I had going on in this forum (e.g. Barbarian and Sorcerer changes), I am trying to pool ideas for some changes to the Bard class. What changes would you make to the Bard to make him/her a more effective class? What would you do to get the Bard out of the pigeon-hole of being the "5th character"?

I really enjoyed the Dark Sun version of the Bard, but I would like to keep spell-casting.

Any ideas or suggestions?

 

[tenkar]

Being the "fifth" character isn't all that bad... he'll never be as good as any of the "core four" in what they do, but can heal in a pinch, fight when needed, crowd control to some extent... I would give him 8 skill pts per level, and let him burn some point in the rogue's cross class skills for lock and traps. Again, he'll never be as good as a true rogue, but he can try to fill the role when needed.

Playing a bard you need to adjust to the mindset that you are not the best at any one thing, but you are the best at doing bits and pieces of almost everything. You are the utility infielder on a baseball team, filling the role that is asked of you at that moment.

 

[Bladesong]

We dropped spell-casting altogether, added a few more song types and increased the number of songs per day, and added bonus feats that could be taken from any classes' feat list. Now someone always plays a bard.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Demand more adventures where dealing with NPCs is important. That's the kind of situation where the bard is a star.

People also seem to like Monte Cook's bard in the Book of Eldritch Might/CBoEM.

 

[Darklone]

I love the bard class as it is... Yet I would have liked to see him a little bit better at spellcasting, not the power, but compared to the sorcerer: less spells per day but more spells known. And more spells to choose from.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

I'd say one reason to steer clear of the bard is if your GM doesn't allow you to "rollplay" diplomacy. If you are not a good player with it comes to schmoozing and your GM won't let you use your +15 Diplomacy to roll your way out you kind of lose the effect of having a rock star in the group.

DS

 

[der_kluge]

One of the biggest beefs with the bard that I have is the cha-based casting. Bards are supposed to be able to gather spells throughout their travels, yet the mechanics prevent that.

Give them a spellcasting mechanic like the sorcerers, but have them be able to add spells known via a spellbook.

That would make them much more versatile, and would go a long way towards making them the "jack of all trades" class they were originally supposed to be.

Right now, they are very clearly "enchanter musicians" and if you're not dumping ranks into Bluff and Diplomacy and spell focus (enchantment) you're not playing the bard to it's full strengths. The class is very pigeon-holed towards that role, and it's a shame.

 

[Spatzimaus]

In most AD&D campaigns I played, no one wanted to play the Thief. It's just not FUN to be sitting there making percentage rolls while the other players twiddle their thumbs. Same went for the Cleric; no one wanted to be a walking Band-Aid when they could be something flashier.
So, the DMs had only a few options. Offer "incentives" to play those classes (an extra level for the thief!); provide an NPC; or, worst case, design the adventures such that the lack of a certain class (thief) wouldn't cripple the party.

Fast forward to 3E. Being a Cleric is pretty good, thanks to the domains. Being a Rogue is pretty good, thanks to Sneak Attack and Tumble. But now, it seems that no one wants to be the "front man", the CHA-centric character who takes all those social skills. They either want to be able to "roleplay" every NPC encounter in a way that negates their characters' low CHA/skills, or simply do without those sorts of checks.

Bottom line: don't let them get away with it. If the party is consistently running into encounters that require diplomacy and finesse, don't let the CHA 8 Fighter do the talking. Or if he does, make sure that the players fail spectacularly, and leave no doubt whose fault it was. In the core rules, the only classes that can really excel at social skills are the Bard and Rogue, and the Bard definitely is better at it. If the players have reason to believe these roles will be absolutely needed by the party, they'll value them more.

The Bard is a fine class, as-is. It can fight, it has plenty of skills, it can cast mass haste and it can heal in a pinch. The spellcasting is spontaneous (low maintenance!), and covers a wide range of useful abilities. The class even gets a few nice non-spell abilities (the songs).
It's almost the only core class my friends and I have never heavily modified (we left the Fighter alone); the only changes we've ever made:
> We tweaked the spell list (remove the healing spells and add some extra protection from whatever spells to compensate)
> We made the "cast in light armor" change before 3.5E did.
> And finally, we changed the spellcasting bonus; instead of high CHA giving extra spells per day, we changed it to extra spells KNOWN. (Only permanent sources of CHA counted for this, though.)

 

[Jack Simth]

The primary problem with the bard is that it's mostly a generalist class in a game designed for four specialists.

The secondary problem with the bard is that what can be called the Bard's specialties (party buffs, party face) have issues:
Party Buffs: for the person casting the buff, they're usually fairly dull; players tend to want the "Yeah, I'm awsome, I killed it" aspect more than the "Yeah, I enabled him to kill it" aspect. It's dull for many players.
Party Face: You're liable to leave the other players on the sidelines when it comes up (in combat, at least, basically everyone has something useful to do when their turn comes up, except when there's variousn class-nullifying critters involved), it's done awkwardly (diplomacy skill, anyone?), or it's glossed over or otherwise rendered an unneeded role.

A sufficently skilled DM, or a sufficiently skilled player, can deal with it in such a way that basically everyone enjoys. But it's tricky.

 

[Jer]

Hey all,

As with a few other threads I had going on in this forum (e.g. Barbarian and Sorcerer changes), I am trying to pool ideas for some changes to the Bard class. What changes would you make to the Bard to make him/her a more effective class? What would you do to get the Bard out of the pigeon-hole of being the "5th character"?

I really enjoyed the Dark Sun version of the Bard, but I would like to keep spell-casting.

Any ideas or suggestions?

From a gaming perspective, the major problem I've seen with the 3e Bard is that it's like playing a Cleric but worse. Both mainly support other characters in combat without really getting to do much themselves (the Bard through songs, the Cleric through being the walking roll of bandages), and they both have specialties where they should be able to shine but the abilities themselves are kind of less-than-dramatic and only show up at the DM's discretion (the Bard in Knowledge and Interaction checks, the Cleric with their Turn Undead ability).

The Bard is arguably worse off because at least the Cleric's special ability allows for him to do something in combat -- even if it is dependent on the DM to throw some undead at the party every once in a while. Chances for interaction tend to show up sporadically in dungeon crawls, and if you're running a more interaction-heavy campaign, the other players will want to get in on the role-playing action too, and having multiple players doing interaction is harder than having multiple players acting in combat.

As for a major fix for the Bard, I'd move their song abilities to less "buff allies" and more "confuse and beguile enemies". I'd give them more offensive song abilities (cause fear, confusion, charms, hold person, etc.), and make their spellcasting ability more limited and like the factotum from Dungeonscape -- maybe basing it around their Bardic Knowledge ability so that they can cast a spell here or there but they aren't really a "spellcasting class" -- their major role would still be support, but more in the sense of keeping monsters off of the other character's backs until they're ready to deal with them instead of buffing other characters.