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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jasin" data-source="post: 3744615" data-attributes="member: 7531">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.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.Agreed.</blockquote>