Wizards: Bard to no longer suck

[Brother MacLaren]

Said players should probably take on the Leader role in 4E, looks like. That way, they can do the whole strategic-force-multiplier thing without having to sit back and watch. I don't know anybody who actually _wants_ to sit back and watch, as opposed to accepting it as a side-effect of how the class is designed.

Sitting back and watching happens in any RPG for a number of reasons.
Only the rogue and bard are sneaky enough to scout, so everybody else is stuck watching while that happens.
Your PC is temporarily incapacitated, so you're stuck watching for a while.
Your PC's abilities aren't useful against this opponent, so you're stuck watching for a while.

The key to having fun in my experience is to be able to enjoy those moments, to be able to have fun watching your allies succeed.

The most memorable moment in MarauderX's campaign was against the party's former paladin (now a death knight) and two liches. My druid was entangled (Black Tentacles), the Arcane Trickster was choking in a Cloudkill, the rogue was polymorphed into a squirrel, and the shadowdancer was blinded. This left the bard facing the undead. He dodged or resisted spell after spell, blasted them with fire, battled the death knight, destroyed the cleric-lich, and made this epic one-man stand until my druid could get free.

What I've read a lot of is "It's not fun to not be able to do anything in a round." And I disagree with that. In a good game, what the other PCs are doing can be just as exciting and entertaining as what your own PC is doing.

 

[azarias]

Sitting back and watching can be fun, but having a class enforce that situation on a player isn't great design. There are enough druid-in-black-tentacles moments in the game when the action forces one into that role without class design protracting the situation.

I'm coming out of lurking mode to say how glad I am that the bard is (a) appearing at some point in 4E, and (b) appearing bright and shiny and new. I've tried playing a 3E bard. I love the concept of power gained from words and music. I was lucky enough to have 32 point buy to play with, and had enough physical and mental stats to play to the hilt the jack-of-all-trades part. I had Power Attack, a longspear and whip and a shortbow, stonking noncore bardic (Eberron) feats, a perfect (Changeling) race, and a creative and amenable DM. None of that was enough to make my 3E bard a satisfactory playing experience for me. In melee he lacked stamina, at range he lacked damage, when he cast spells he lacked DC, and social situations were handled as they always are in our games; by roleplaying first, with social skill roles a secondary backup.

The one thing I did enjoy was the musical/oratorical abilities. I would love it if they emphasized this aspect in 4.0. This was the angle that felt to me totally the bard's own, distinctive and flavoursome. Potent, too. But not limelight-grabbing. Curse me for a foolish bard player, but I want to grab the limelight. A perfect 4E bard, for me, would be a class that keeps the music/oratory, boosts it to limelight-grabbing status, and strips away anything else they want to remove. Even the whip...