Wizards: Bard to no longer suck

[Firebeetle]

Great news!

Leader Role

There it is, from a 4th Ed designer himself. 3rd ed bard sucks, 4th ed bard won't. What a wonderful day.

Let the "3rd Ed Bard DOESN'T suck" stream of denial begin! Me, I feel very satisfied and I officially look forward to the new edition.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Considering that they've been saying that the current edition of their own game sucks, left and right (in order to pre-sell the next one, obviously) I would take that claim with a whole planet's worth of salt. Or so.

Unless, of course, you happened to have a strong desire to feel justified for some kind of extreme bias, past and/or present. Then, well, it might appear to be deeply meaningful. Yes.

 

[thundershot]

Unless Bard is going to be in a future supplement, then the Druid and Monk are the ones that aren't going to be in the PHB, right? We were told we'd have LESS classes than 3E, and they've added at least one new one. So in order to have LESS, we'd have to drop TWO...

But yeah, I know this will make one of my players very happy..


Chris

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

That report implies the bard won't suck ... but it doesn't imply he makes the first cut of the PHB, unfortunately.

I love bards, but if it came down to a choice between the bard, druid, or monk to make the PHB, I'd vote druid.

Edit: You know, personally I never thought that bards sucked; they were just tough characters to play well. A certain amount of the "disparage the old edition so we make the new edition look cool" that is going on is a little tired, if you ask me. You can make the new edition look and sound cool without first saying that the old edition sucks. That's a general observation, not a jab any anyone who has posted in this thread.

 

[MerricB]

Except that bards *did* suck a lot of the time.

Round 1: Bard Song
Round 2: Haste
Round 3... oh, what do I have that is actually effective?

Sure, you could outskill anyone, but a lot of D&D is about combat, where their options are... limited, to say the least.

Cheers!

 

[Doug McCrae]

If the bard doesn't suck then it's not D&D.

 

[Mortellan]

The bard is (or was) all that is great about roleplaying D&D, they are chroniclers, information gatherers and morale support. Make it another combat class and they should just rename it. Bards aren't supposed to be effective as everyone else.

 

[Piratecat]

Bards aren't supposed to be effective as everyone else.

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?

 

[Mercule]

If the bard doesn't suck then it's not D&D.

Well, it could be 1E, where the XP tables allowed you to hit 17th level bard before you could hit 17th level fighter -- including traversing 8 levels of fighter and 9 levels of rogue before your 17 levels of bard?

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

The bard is (or was) all that is great about roleplaying D&D, they are chroniclers, information gatherers and morale support. Make it another combat class and they should just rename it. Bards aren't supposed to be effective as everyone else.

Player 1: Aww, man! My character sucks.
Player 2: Why?
Player 1: 'Cause he's good at stuff.