Wizards: Bard to no longer suck

[Kirnon_Bhale]

Bards and leaders in general

This whole discussion about Bards etc. has finally prompted me to log on and post.

The way I see the Leader is the Tactician so they could call the role "tactical support" or "Tactical" for short to avoid people turning their noses up at the word support.

Tactical roles are what is being described in the playtests, not that the character is the leader merely that he provides a tactical advantage in encounters, if by healing when striking with a crit or by opening up an enemy to an attack from a party member. I see the Controller and Leader(tactical) roles competing in a similar way to the Attacker/Defender roles.

Controllers will influence enemies while Leaders(tactical) will influence allies. From everything I have read it in no way implies a Party Leadership role and I am sure that if "Tactical Support" were an acceptable(in many RP'ers eyes) word(or 2) then it would have been used.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I suggest a small name change - cheerleader.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

That's restricting player choice based on their own personality. In a roleplaying game, I expect to be more-or-less comfortable playing any role. That's the idea, playing someone you are not. Making more options more viable to everyone is good thing, I would think.

If you want a light/fast/DEX melee combatant then those are options that should be available to the fighter. Fighter does not have to equate with "guy in plate mail" though I'll grant you that's the way its been since 1e.

And 3e bards don't suck. Adventures without skill checks suck.


Anyway, it sounds like they're expanding skill availability though, so that's turf the bard loses. I guess its only to be expected that the bard gain combat effectiveness in exchange.

 

[Eric Tolle]

Because the bard shtick of Tale, Music and Song is not what it takes to bust heads in a dungeon. His skills make for a fine magical troubadour / carnie / con artist. He’s tough enough to travel in a hostile land, but he is not bringing the fight to a foe unless he is bringing a lot of troops / red shirts with him.

He does not study magic enough to be a professional in that field nor does he study combat to be a professional in that field. That means he is half and half, something that goes unrewarded in Extreme Dungeon Crawling.

I think that right there is probably the root of the discrepancy between my views of bards and the majority view of bards. I rarely if ever am involved in "kick in the door" style dungeon crawls, in fact the last three D&D campaigns I've been involved with were city ones with a lot of investigation and skullduggery, so my view of Bards may be distorted. Also, the Bard's secondary abilities were very useful- there's a huge difference between "Bardic knowledge? What's that?" and "Well, you remember hearing that Terasian Monks only walked on the blue tiles in their temples...". If the GM gives you all the information you need, without expecting you to find it, a bard may be handicapped the same way a rogue would be in an undead campaign.

If its a "kick in the door" campaign where the extend of out-of-dungeon activities consist of "Your back in town. You buy stuff. And uhh...a wizard gives you a quest. You're at the front of the dungeon now..." then the bard may be less then useful, the sameway a Druid may be less useful in a city setting. As for me, based on the games I'm in, I find the bard to be a very flexible and useful class.

 

[gothmaugCC]

Why not?

Seriously, I'm not being snarky here. Why shouldn't bards be equally effective as other classes both in and out of combat?

Bards in 3eD are billed as the "jack of all trades" They can do a little of everything, but not as well as someone who specializes in it. They make fantastic 5th members to a party (after the quinnesential fighter/mage/rogue/cleric). They have a small ammount of healing, great buffs, can go sneaking around with the rogue, and can stab/shoot people as needed.

Granted they are not a flashy uber-combat class, but ive never seen a bard in the course an adventure say "Aww shucks, I have nothing to do".

Oh and Bardic Lore? A lifesaver. You don't know how many times ive managed to steer wayward adventurers back to the main plot with a well timed bardic lore check.


EDIT: Oh as for 4th edition, the more i read about it, the more it becomes a hackfest. Bards worked just fine, they were a heavy skill and RP class which fit some players personalities, but not others. The new edition sounds too much like a World of Warcraft, or other point and click videogame for my tastes. I'll have to wait and see.

 

[frankthedm]

I think that right there is probably the root of the discrepancy between my views of bards and the majority view of bards. I rarely if ever am involved in "kick in the door" style dungeon crawls, in fact the last three D&D campaigns I've been involved with were city ones with a lot of investigation and skullduggery, so my view of Bards may be distorted.

Secrets and Skullduggery tis not the name of the game. Interaction and combats can happen in town, but the system was not made with that in mind as the mainstay.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I think that right there is probably the root of the discrepancy between my views of bards and the majority view of bards. I rarely if ever am involved in "kick in the door" style dungeon crawls, in fact the last three D&D campaigns I've been involved with were city ones with a lot of investigation and skullduggery, so my view of Bards may be distorted. Also, the Bard's secondary abilities were very useful- there's a huge difference between "Bardic knowledge? What's that?" and "Well, you remember hearing that Terasian Monks only walked on the blue tiles in their temples...". If the GM gives you all the information you need, without expecting you to find it, a bard may be handicapped the same way a rogue would be in an undead campaign.

If its a "kick in the door" campaign where the extend of out-of-dungeon activities consist of "Your back in town. You buy stuff. And uhh...a wizard gives you a quest. You're at the front of the dungeon now..." then the bard may be less then useful, the sameway a Druid may be less useful in a city setting. As for me, based on the games I'm in, I find the bard to be a very flexible and useful class.

Exactly so.

And, the more the classes become equally able to deal with all things, the less they become actual roles, and the more the game points towards the things that all classes do equally well. In D&D, this means combat. The presence of characters who have a reason to be in the wilderness, or in the city, and who have good reason to deal with problems using methods other than sword and spell, the more variety of location and action a game is liable to have.

And, Umbran, I agree with you about the whole "leader" role thing. They should have just called it "action buffer".

 

[Li Shenron]

I actually liked the way factotums (from Dungeonscape) imitated bards as the "generalist." They were great at info gathering, etc. yet had abilities that were very useful in the midst of combat. If the 4E bard followed similar suit, I could learn to love it.

Mmm... I'm sorry to say but I hated the factotum concept with all my heart. In a game of roles, the worst character that can be is IMHO the character that doesn't want to choose a role and wants to be effective at everything.

And that's basically the bard in D&D: wannabe half-fighter, half-rogue, half-wizard, half-cleric... ends up being full-cr*p

I think a good Bard character should try to be "bardic". Focus on charisma, leadership, morale boosting, buffing the allies, deuffing the enemies. Give those abilities a music/drama flavor, add lots of knowledges (which are anyway out-of-combat abilities) and you get a character that has its own meaning...

Then medium BAB, skill points etc, are just useful things, but are not "the" thing about being a bard. Is the cleric a missed fighter because he has only medium BAB? No, he's the cleric! Is the ranger a missed rogue because he has only nearly as many skills? No, he's the ranger! So let's just stop thinking of the bard in terms of missing opportunities

 

[Aust Diamondew]

I have always been somewhat baffled by how much people think bards suck at combat.
Compared to an unbuffed cleric a bard comes pretty close and is more than equal to a rogue who isn't sneak attacking (and I'd say at least half of a given rogues attacks aren't sneak attacks) they're just as good.

My only assumption can be that most people play low stength/constitution bards in favor of very high charisma and dexterity.

The key is a well balanced set of scores like (28 pt buy) Str 14, Dex 14, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 8, Cha 15 (you could easily switch charisma with str dex or con for more of a combat focus). PBS and Rapid Shot or Power Attack/Cleave and you'll be doing pretty well in combat. When fighting anything immune to critical hits you'll be better than the rogue.

I guess its impossible though to make them #1 at any activity (other than providing combat bonuses or lying, glibness anyone?) therefore people dislike them.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

This whole discussion about Bards etc. has finally prompted me to log on and post.

The way I see the Leader is the Tactician so they could call the role "tactical support" or "Tactical" for short to avoid people turning their noses up at the word support.

Tactical roles are what is being described in the playtests, not that the character is the leader merely that he provides a tactical advantage in encounters, if by healing when striking with a crit or by opening up an enemy to an attack from a party member. I see the Controller and Leader(tactical) roles competing in a similar way to the Attacker/Defender roles.

Controllers will influence enemies while Leaders(tactical) will influence allies. From everything I have read it in no way implies a Party Leadership role and I am sure that if "Tactical Support" were an acceptable(in many RP'ers eyes) word(or 2) then it would have been used.

Welcome.

I agree, and I've seen this disagreement on leadership in D&D before. I'd sum it up as : does leader mean "boss" or "manager"? When a class has leadership abilities in D&D, I translate that as management abilities. Coordination, increasing everyone's effeciency. Not authority to tell the rest of the party what to do, ability to organize the rest of the party into getting it done.

Now, I've found that some people have a very strong objection to this view of leadership (particularly if the "party" happens to be on board a floating object at the time). "Tactical Coordinator" might be a less ambigious term, I suppose. I'm fine with Leader because I don't see it as "boss".