I hear a lot about how some classes just do things better than what some classes who are designed for that purpose can do.etc...etc...
I am basically asking you guys:
Do you think the Bard has grown as a class compared to others in the pathfinder lineup, or do you think it has fallen behind?
Bard won skills in Pathfinder. It also managed to pick up some real combat abilities. Sure it isn't 3.5 Sublime Chord good, but really that a pretty high bar to clear.
|
Bards is very flexible. The versatility of the bard is amazing with easily the most interesting archetypes out there, sneak attack bards, bard with trapfinding (rogue replacement), mage bards (pick some wizard spells), bards with druid spells, bard with fire spells, dex bard, warrior bard(Arcane Duelist), Waterbender (aka watersinger Undine racial archetype) etc...
Bard has gotten a few more options because more options came out in other books, but they are still in the same position, solid, good class in general, easy to play and do exactly what it is set out to do.
It can be said that Skald (the hybrid class) can cover a more interesting role for martial focused parties nowadays by offering rage powers to everybody.
Leaps and bounds. The bard of today is solid, able to cover multiple roles in multiple ways, allowing for a large range of role and roll playing.
Compared to original Pathfinder, Bards have picked up a lot of flexible archetypes. Few are game-changers, but different enough to mix things up
Bards have a better emphasis on things other than inspire courage optimization now.
Bards are awesomesauce.
I definitely agree with the solid archetype options.
How about another one:
Does bard keep up with the arguable "power creep" of other classes?
I definitely agree with the solid archetype options.
How about another one:Does bard keep up with the arguable "power creep" of other classes?
Honestly I think it's done even better because it has managed to keep it's relative rank, has the ability to advance past it and still doesn't get cheesy.
I'm doing very well with a casting-focused bard in high-level RotRL, so I'd say "yes".
I do think the bard is a little annoyed that the investigator is trying to get all up in his best-at-skills kool-aid.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Pageant of the Peacock and Versatile Performance pretty much ensures no one is every touching the Bard when it comes to skills.
I do think the bard is a little annoyed that the investigator is trying to get all up in his best-at-skills kool-aid.
Yea but bard spells are better than investigators extracts. Early access to heroism also gives a big boost to skills.
Bards is one of the classes that paizo designers love the most, the result is a solid calss with multiple solid archetypes.
I wonder if a Rogue's stole someone's girlfriends, then...
Bards is one of the classes that paizo designers love the most, the result is a solid calss with multiple solid archetypes.
Well it took a lot of talking back in beta too. There was a lot needed on the poor chasis that was the bard 3.5
Pageant of the Peacock and Versatile Performance pretty much ensures no one is every touching the Bard when it comes to skills.
Well, sheer number of skills, maybe, but inspiration tends to help you be a lot better at those skills you actually have.
I'm by no means saying investigator is better than bard at skills, but pretty much equal from a different perspective.
How is a caster doing in casterfinder?
Pretty good.
Bards are quite a nice class. The problem is that, IMO, a lot of players don't want to play a primarily support/buff character. I've played a number of them under Pathfinder and I like them.
Pageant of the Peacock and Versatile Performance pretty much ensures no one is every touching the Bard when it comes to skills.Well, sheer number of skills, maybe, but inspiration tends to help you be a lot better at those skills you actually have.
I disagree with you here. Using Pageant of the Peacock and Versatile Performance, Bard can pretty much key every important skill in the game barring perception to charisma, the classes primary casting stat. On top of that there is the incestuous relationship skill bonuses to perform has for the Bard; for instance, one skill focus and you are getting a skill focus for at least two skills... if you use Pageant of the Peacock and take Skill Focus for a versatile performance perform skill keyed to bluff you are getting Skill Focus in Bluff, insert-performance-specific-skill, and every intelligence based skill with a single feat. That's not even counting the +1/2 level bonus Bard gets to knowledges or other skills depending on archetype.
I love the Investigator. It's probably my new favorite class. But I'd say it's still in second place for the title of "skill master."
Bards are quite a nice class. The problem is that, IMO, a lot of players don't want to play a primarily support/buff character. I've played a number of them under Pathfinder and I like them.
I love the Bard too, but I see it as the Bard really shines when in a party heavily suited to receiving its buffs. They are power multipliers. So pretty much a non-magic focused party is ideal for the Bard to be a part of. Inspire Courage, Haste, Good Hope, etc. don't really mean s#$@ to the guys throwing out spells that hit touch or using effects that don't require attack rolls. From a combat perspective, I personally wouldn't consider a Bard as an ideal member in a party with anything less than 3 others dedicated to beating things to death.
A class with archetypes named "Celebrity" and "Diva"...
What's not to like?
Heck you can play a very effective nerdy bard with the Archivist Archetype. A lot of variety.
|
I do think the bard is a little annoyed that the investigator is trying to get all up in his best-at-skills kool-aid.
Nah. Investigators are better at a lot of skills most times and most days, but Bards are still better within their particular area of focus...at least usually.
I disagree with you here. Using Pageant of the Peacock and Versatile Performance, Bard can pretty much key every important skill in the game barring perception to charisma, the classes primary casting stat. On top of that there is the incestuous relationship skill bonuses to perform has for the Bard; for instance, one skill focus and you are getting a skill focus for at least two skills... if you use Pageant of the Peacock and take Skill Focus for a versatile performance perform skill keyed to bluff you are getting Skill Focus in Bluff, insert-performance-specific-skill, and every intelligence based skill with a single feat. That's not even counting the +1/2 level bonus Bard gets to knowledges or other skills depending on archetype.
I love the Investigator. It's probably my new favorite class. But I'd say it's still in second place for the title of "skill master."
Pageant only works on Int based skills. And doesn't stack with Bardic Knowledge. It is very good combined with Skill Focus, as is basing Sense Motive and Acrobatics on Charisma via Versatile Performance.
However, that only applies to Int-based skills and, what, 3 others? Investigators, meanwhile, with Empiricist and Student of Philosophy can use Int for UMD, Diplomacy, Bluff (well, other than Feinting), Sense Motive, and Perception, and add +4.5 on almost all of them on top of that. That's an Archetype, a Trait, and a few Talents, but we're assuming a Bard with Skill Focus, specific Versatile Performances, and a particular Masterpiece so that seems fair.
So...the Bard is better at 18/35 skills (all Int and Cha based ones other than Diplomacy and Bluff), and probably right on par on Acrobatics and Fly...but that's including Handle Animal, Perform, Craft, and Appraise, which are four of the least useful skills around (plus the less useful Knowledge skills), while the Investigator is better at all the rest (including only Profession in its 'not-so-useful' skills category, and including Bluff, Diplomacy, Perception, Sense Motive, and Use Magic Device) to about the same degree and the bard's mastery of Int-skills costs Performance rounds, while with a few Talents, the Investigator's bonuses are free.
Pageant only works on Int based skills. And doesn't stack with Bardic Knowledge. It is very good combined with Skill Focus, as is basing Sense Motive and Acrobatics on Charisma.
However, that only applies to Int-based skills and, what, 3 others? Investigators, meanwhile, with Empiricist and Student of Philosophy can use Int for UMD, Diplomacy, Bluff (well, other than Feinting), Sense Motive, and Perception, and add +4.5 on almost all of them on top of that. That's an Archetype, a Trait, and a few Talents, but we're assuming a Bard with Skill Focus, specific Versatile Performances, and a particular Masterpiece so that seems fair.
So...the Bard is better at 18/35 skills (all Int and Cha based ones other than Diplomacy and Bluff), and probably right on par on Acrobatics and Fly...but that's...
Investigator is awesome at skills but I'm still not entirely convinced.
Thoughts in no particular order:
1. Based on dev commentary concerning how Versatile Performance interacts (or should interact) with bonuses to the skills it replaces, I don't see why Pageant wouldn't stack with Bardic Knowledge; the general idea was that special modifiers to a particular skill would still apply even if an ability said you could use another skill instead (i.e. you have a +5 to diplomacy from an item, so it gets added in to your Versatile Performance check in place of diplomacy). The idea there of course being that class abilities should not actually make you worse at what you are trying to do. It's not exactly the same thing but it would seem to follow the same logic. That's a debatable subject though.
2. When you say Pageant "only" adds to intelligence based skills, that seems to be not giving the ability its proper due. Like half of all skills are keyed off intelligence and most of them are high tier skills (knowledge: all and spellcraft). And then it also applies to straight intelligence checks, which while not directly related to the conversation, makes such checks laughable... any intelligence check DC is based on the assumption that it is a straight modifier roll and you are adding modifier, ranks, class skill, etc. How useful that is seems to vary by table of course.
3. Pageant's cost pretty much negligible to the point of not even mentioning it. A single round of performance for 10 minutes of effect is amazing. After the first few levels tracking Bardic Performance rounds becomes pretty much moot anyway. The activation time can be an issue, but as a performance the action time to activate it gets reduced as you level and it does have a long duration.
4. Isn't the average of a d6 roll 3.5 not 4.5?
5. As an counter example to yours, a Bard with Pageant of the Peacock (a 2nd level "spells known" slot), Skill Focus: Sing, and Versatile Performance: Sing (a class feature, so it hardly counts as an investment) gets to use charisma for Sense Motive and all intelligence skills and gets a +3 or +6 on all of them by placing ranks in one skill. At level 10 when that flat +6 comes online Bard would seem to win out over the variable d6 roll that Investigator gets. Any other random +X to perform abilities that come up also get multiplied.
That's assuming Bardic Knowledge has no effect, but that can be argued either way. That also has the side benefit of allowing Bard to dump intelligence if necessary and still essentially have max ranks for every skill of worth in the game. Empiricist gets a similar benefit from being able to dump charisma, but charisma was what, 2 (maybe 3 depending on what you are trying to do) skills that matter anyway? It's a much smaller benefit in any case.
Holy crappers, how did I not hear of PotP before? That...wow. That's crazy good! Drop skill focus in there, and you're getting like 50 skill points for the cost of one more feat! Whoa. Just...whoa.
I'm starting to think softcover splatbook sales must be down, with the stuff they put in there, I mean, yeesh.
|
|
Investigator is awesome at skills but I'm still not entirely convinced.
Thoughts in no particular order:
1. Based on dev commentary concerning how Versatile Performance interacts (or should interact) with bonuses to the skills it replaces, I don't see why Pageant wouldn't stack with Bardic Knowledge; the general idea was that special modifiers to a particular skill would still apply even if an ability said you could use another skill instead (i.e. you have a +5 to diplomacy from an item, so it gets added in to your Versatile Performance check in place of diplomacy). The idea there of course being that class abilities should not actually make you worse at what you are trying to do. It's not exactly the same thing but it would seem to follow the same logic. That's a debatable subject though.
I'm not sure I agree based on the nature of Pageant. Versatile Performance would be a different matter, IMO.
2. When you say Pageant "only" adds to intelligence based skills, that seems to be not giving the ability its proper due. Like half of all skills are keyed off intelligence and most of them are high tier skills (knowledge: all and spellcraft). And then it also applies to straight intelligence checks, which while not directly related to the conversation, makes such checks laughable... any intelligence check DC is based on the assumption that it is a straight modifier roll and you are adding modifier, ranks, class skill, etc. How useful that is seems to vary by table of course.
It's more like a third. :)
And yeah, Spellcraft and several Knowledges are very good, but so are Perception, Sense Motive, Diplomacy, etc.
3. Pageant's cost pretty much negligible to the point of not even mentioning it. A single round of performance for 10 minutes of effect is amazing. After the first few levels tracking Bardic Performance rounds becomes pretty much moot anyway. The activation time can be an issue, but as a performance the action time to activate it gets reduced as you level and it does have a long duration.
It does prevent you from using it on long-term stuff like Craftiung projects, though. Or translations, forgery, and code breaking, taking hours or days. It's relatively minor, but worth noting.
4. Isn't the average of a d6 roll 3.5 not 4.5?
There's a Talent to make it a d8. Kicks in at 9th, so around the same time the Bard's Skill Focus improves. A Half Elf, using their racial FCB, can actually make it 9.5 (though that's only at 20th level)...and can have 6.5 by 9th.
5. As an counter example to yours, a Bard with Pageant of the Peacock (a 2nd level "spells known" slot), Skill Focus: Sing, and Versatile Performance: Sing (a class feature, so it hardly counts as an investment) gets to use charisma for Sense Motive and all intelligence skills and gets a +3 or +6 on all of them by placing ranks in one skill. At level 10 when that flat +6 comes online Bard would seem to win out over the variable d6 roll that Investigator gets. Any other random +X to perform abilities that come up also get multiplied.
That's the Bard I was assuming, more or less. Assuming Cha 22, the Bard's got a +25 on that skill. The Investigator, with Int 22 and Empiricist, has only +23.5 on the two skills (unless a Half Elf, which'd jump them to +25.5), but has a similar rating in Perception and Stealth, UMD, and Diplomacy and better in Disable Device by quite a bit. The Bard can't equal any of those.
That's assuming Bardic Knowledge has no effect, but that can be argued either way. That also has the side benefit of allowing Bard to dump intelligence if necessary and still essentially have max ranks for every skill of worth in the game. Empiricist gets a similar benefit from being able to dump charisma, but charisma was what, 2 (maybe 3 depending on what you are trying to do) skills that matter anyway? It's a much smaller benefit in any case.
Right, but then we get into Skill Ranks. With Int 20+ an investigator can get a whole lot more skills than the Bard who dumps Int. Like, 11 to 4 kinda more skills. The Bard can fake the Int based ones, but he only has a max of 4 others...he can theoretically make that 8, but not until 14th level...and only by ditching Perception. 5-7 is more likely. That makes them better at Knowledge stuff, but worse outside that sphere.
It's more like a third. :)And yeah, Spellcraft and several Knowledges are very good, but so are Perception, Sense Motive, Diplomacy,
To be fair 2 of those 3 are already keyed to Charisma for the assumed Bard build and by being able to ignore ranks in all intelligence based skills plus Sense Motive being rolled into a Perform, the Bard has some room to spare even with low-mediocre intelligence. We're looking at the equivalent of max ranks in 16 skills (not all necessarily good ones true) by maxing out Perform Sing... 17 if we actually count Perform Sing, but who does that?
A Bard with 7 intelligence essentially has 20 (or 21...) skill ranks per level with just one Versatile Performance that includes Bluff and can get that slightly higher with more VPs, but VP is pretty bleh past two; all the other options are just too inbred with each other at that point. An Investigator with 22 int is looking at 12 ranks per level; the Investigator would have more leeway in his skill build though so that's a plus.
7 int is an extreme of course and you would only be able to max out three worthwhile skills beyond your super-putting-in-work Perform (so bluff, all int skills, Sense Motive), but hey you still got enough to max Perception and two others.
|
|
To be fair 2 of those 3 are already keyed to Charisma for the assumed Bard build and by being able to ignore ranks in all intelligence based skills plus Sense Motive being rolled into a Perform, the Bard has some room to spare even with low-mediocre intelligence.
Sure. But in Diplomacy's case the Investigator can make it Int-based and add +4.5 on top of that, making them better at it (unless the Bard invests in another Skill Focus).
We're looking at the equivalent of max ranks in 16 skills (not all necessarily good ones true) by maxing out Perform Sing... 17 if we actually count Perform Sing, but who does that?
This is true, but several of those skills should almost not count as well (Appraise, Knowledge (Engineering, History, Nobility), Linguistics, Craft). That makes it more like 10 useful ones. 13-ish with their other skills. Maybe 14-15 with other Versatile Performances. 9-10 of which are pre-decided.
A Bard with 7 intelligence essentially has 20 (or 21...) skill ranks per level with just one Versatile Performance that includes Bluff and can get that slightly higher with more VPs, but VP is pretty bleh past two; all the other options are just too inbred with each other at that point. An Investigator with 22 int is looking at 12 ranks per level; the Investigator would have more leeway in his skill build though so that's a plus.
Definitely has more options, and can get higher totals on, well, anything non-Int (or Cha other than Diplomacy) based. Though I find later Versatile Performances perfectly usable. Percussion and Dance are particularly nice as you can just do without those skills until you pick them, but will nevertheless appreciate them when you acquire them.
Retraining is also a thing, of course. And many GMs (myself included) allow for free retraining to some extent when you get a Versatile Performance. Heck, James Jacobs does that.
7 int is an extreme of course and you would only be able to max out three worthwhile skills beyond your super-putting-in-work Perform (so bluff, all int skills, Sense Motive), but hey you still got enough to max Perception and two others.
It's not an extreme for the Investigator's Charisma though (indeed, it's pretty standard), which means he has more build points if the Bard doesn't dump that much. Which is a definite advantage.
Note, I'm not saying the Investigator is a better skill monkey than Bard. They aren't. Just on par, with advantages and disadvantages depending on what kind of skills you want to be best at.