Wizards: Bard to no longer suck

[Agamon]

Then those players ought to play a fighter.

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.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Then those players ought to play a fighter.

Or a wizard, or a cleric, or a rogue, or a warlock, or a sorcerer, or a favoured soul, or a marshall, or a beguiler, or a druid, or pretty much any other class except the healer. Why is the bard the one class that doesn't have a role to play in combat other than cheerleader?

 

[freyar]

When the bard enters the 4th Edition stage, she’ll have class features and powers that help her fill what we call the Leader role.

Does that mean what I think it means? Namely, no bard in the PHB?

 

[Gargoyle]

The role name "leader" rubs me the wrong way, and I think embodying "leadership" in a class is asking for trouble. Real leadership isn't about the class you take, and simply taking class levels doesn't mean you really lead the party.

I do wonder if some groups, particularly new players will take that to mean that if you play one of the the "leader" classes you get to boss everyone else around.

I can't think of a better name for the role though.

 

[Agamon]

That said, I agree that calling the class "Leader" means that there's a good chance some problems may come up at the table. I can just see one of my players insisting that he MUST be the Leader because he has the Leader role.

Even worse, I can see the other players agreeing with him and letting him do it

The other bad thing to come from it...

Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-Leader!

 

[wildstarsreach]

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.

I'm a recent convert to loving Bards.1st ed bard was great but almost impossible to qualify. The 2nd ed bard sucked. 3rd/3.5 was average or mediocre if you use core only. With the other books it becomes a desirable class. I have found that the bard is now my favorite class. I'm a general gish player and the bard is a wonderful gish, enough fighter and spellpower to do the job. With a PrC of Sublime Chord you get access to 9th level spell for a +3 BA sacrifice.

 

[hong]

Come on people, we don't know if the words "leader", "defender", "striker" and "controller" will even see print in the rulebooks. Heck, I'm guessing not. They're just descriptive labels used for concepts that came up in the design process. This is a world away from terms of art like "feat", "skill rank", etc.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Come on people, we don't know if the words "leader", "defender", "striker" and "controller" will even see print in the rulebooks. Heck, I'm guessing not. They're just descriptive labels used for concepts that came up in the design process. This is a world away from terms of art like "feat", "skill rank", etc.

Does it scare anyone else that hong is sounding like a voice of reason?

 

[jasin]

That's just it, Bards are the perfect backup.

If you've got a team of four people, you want four stars, not three stars and a backup.

Also, the flavour of the bard suggests a charismatic, in-the-spotlight, faceman kind of guy, not a backup. This, I think, is a subtler but significant problem with the bard. It's a class that models attention hogs, and has mechanics perfect for players who are anything but attention hogs.

It's that whole generalist thing again. Sure the rogue might be the most charismatic or the wizard the smartest, but they aren't infallible, they fail sometimes at what they do best. To use a sports analogy, the bard is the utility guy on the team that plays every position and sometimes just happens to be the heart and soul of a squad.

But that's not really how the 3E bard works in practice. He's crap in combat unless he invests heavily in it. He's kind of OK at mind-control, but not as good as a sorcerer (or even wizard). He's good at lore, but only about as good as a wizard unless he invests heavily in it. The only thing he's really good at is social interaction, which usually doesn't make up enough of an adventurer's career to be viable as your single field of awesomeness.

I like bards enough to defend them in the "BARDZ SUX!!" threads, but I think it's much more difficult to play a bard you'll be happy with than a barbarian or a wizard. Which is an interesting challenge from a system mastery perspective, but it's in fact indicative of flawed design. If I could pick three 3E classes to rework completely, one of them would surely be the bard.

So with the opportunity presented by a new edition, I hope they do something cool with them.

I do hope 4E makes bards leaders, it sounds like a good direction.

Agreed.

 

[jasin]

Actually, the exact quote starts with:

"When the bard enters the 4th Edition stage..."

That doesn't necessarily mean that the bard will be in the PHB, just that when the bard DOES show up, they have some mechanics in place to make the bard the type of class that you want to have in your party.

In fact, the wording to me strongly suggests that the bard won't be in the PHB.

Ahem - snark aside, the bard should be a kickass class and I've always been disappointed in the 3rd edition version. I'd kind of like to see them get away from the "character who creates effects with the power of his music" and more to the "jack of all trades who adventures to find knowledge" type.

May I recommend human paragon/wizard/loremaster?