I played a BARD!

I played a Bard for the first time yesterday and had fun! He was introduced to the party as a fighter type but then the table was in shock to discover that a Bard was in their ranks! There has been much Bard hate and I'm on the fence. What do you all think of the class? The APG has some pretty cool new spells and variants.

Congrats, Elan!

jk! The bard got some love. The new flavors make it more fun to play to various concepts, so you can better compliment your particular party, or just play something a little different.

Bards are awesome!

Along with rangers, paladins and sorcerers, they're probably my favorite class in Pathfinder.

Wait until the first time you rock out the buffs at 7th or 11th level.

Good Hope and inspire courage and haste all in the same round?

For a total of +6 to hit, +5 to damage, and extra attack +30 move speed (base), +3 on reflex saves, +2 on fort and will (with +2 more on saves vs fear), +2 on all skill checks and +1 on AC?

They'll go from being "ok" to being superhuman.

It's almost a crime to let bards get to level 11 because of the amount of sheer awesome they bring.

My group liked having my bard around (technically it was a 3.5 game but close enough). He was a force multiplier. Our group was melee heavy (druid + animal companion + TWF rogue + cleric) so it was an ideal situation. I was definitely never bored either. Always had something to do during combat and was the party face. What's not to love?

Having played bards in the past (and fully planning on playing more in the future) let me just say: AWESOME!

Bards work just fine in any game that is not all about the numbers. Bards make excellent party centers; buffing, healing, Face-work.

I hope you enjoy your Bard :)

GNOME

I made a medium armor-wearing bard using the Divine Bard variant from Unearthed Arcana a while back. It took a bit for my party to figure out that I wasn't a cleric since he buffs by using Perform(Oratory) to deliver inspiring sermons. He even has the holy symbol of his god etched into his breastplate.

Having played bards in the past (and fully planning on playing more in the future) let me just say: AWESOME!

Bards work just fine in any game that is not all about the numbers. Bards make excellent party centers; buffing, healing, Face-work.

I hope you enjoy your Bard :)

GNOME

Bards also work just fine in a game that is all about numbers too because of their force multiplier effects. They really stomp people hard.

Bards kick a lot of butt in Pathfinder.

In 3.5 they were decent, but still suffered from a really bad rep in 3.0 - and they definitely weren't out at the front of strong options.

In Pathfinder... they can hold their own *just* fine, while boosting the rest of the party out of orbit.

Bards also work just fine in a game that is all about numbers too because of their force multiplier effects. They really stomp people hard.

Especially if your DM allows 3.5 material that boosts the effects of your inspire performances. Being level 11 and having an inspire courage that gives either a +9 or +12 (depending on how your DM interprets some of the interactions between boosts) to attack and damage is just gross, but instead of stealing the thunder from everyone else in your party, you make everyone in the party feel like gods.

I played a Bard for the first time yesterday and had fun! He was introduced to the party as a fighter type but then the table was in shock to discover that a Bard was in their ranks! There has been much Bard hate and I'm on the fence. What do you all think of the class? The APG has some pretty cool new spells and variants.

Not sure why, but this Subject heading made me think of a drag queen bard who dresses like Katy Perry and sings " I played a bard and i liked it."

Well that is probably pretty close to where the bard hate comes from.

Den

Bard: Probably the most underrated class in Pathfinder.

<3 me some bard

It depends on the campaign.

In combat-oriented campaigns, a bard is a valuable support and buffing character.

In roleplaying-oriented campaigns, bards can be the most awesome character in the party. With high ranks in bluff and diplomacy, the bard can simply talk their way through most encounters without a fight.

In either case, a bard's strength is not in direct combat. Sure, have a crossbow and rapier on hand when you need them, but use bardic music and spells most of time.

I hate the flavor of the bardic performance mechanic, and I always have. Excluding that, they are a very cool class. I'm even playing one myself this Sunday! Archivist, though.

Bard is up there with Barbarian, Witch, and Paladin as one of my favorite classes. EVER.

I'm honestly a little intimidated by the PF bard. I played a few 2nd and 3rd edition bards and enjoyed them thoroughly, but a lot of it was the fun of trying to overcome their shortcomings. The Pathfinder bard is just rockin, so playing one really gives you a lot of options.

I particularly like bards in small campaigns, because they really can act as a semi-functional substitute for most party roles if you're understaffed(though I've never seen them as effective frontliners). Of course as others have pointed out, they also shine in large parties because they multiply the effects of others.

I just started playing my first bard yesterday. So far so good!

Good Hope and inspire courage and haste all in the same round?

I must be missing something. How can a bard do all three? I caught that they can use inspire as a move action and eventually a swift, but how do they pull off two spells without quickening?

Abraham spalding wrote:

Good Hope and inspire courage and haste all in the same round?

I must be missing something. How can a bard do all three? I caught that they can use inspire as a move action and eventually a swift, but how do they pull off two spells without quickening?

Boots of speed perhaps?

I played a Bard for the first time yesterday and had fun! He was introduced to the party as a fighter type but then the table was in shock to discover that a Bard was in their ranks! There has been much Bard hate and I'm on the fence. What do you all think of the class? The APG has some pretty cool new spells and variants.

I have been playing a bard by the name of Aoric in a play by post Spine Castle Campaign on Cannonfire. He is know as the Chanter of Spirits the bard who speaks for the dead. Follow the link to the forum.

http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml//modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewforum &f=48

The other link is his story.
http://www.canonfire.com/cfhtml//modules.php?name=News&file=article& ;sid=1001

Check it out let me know what you think.

Abe probably has some other combo up his sleeve, or was just assuming Rod of Quicken,
but there´s a Metamagic Feat called Harmonic Spell (pre-req 5 ranks of perform)
that lets you ´ride´ a Performance on top of a spell, letting you get 2 Performances at once essentially.
Zero Spell Level Adjustment, amazingly enough... 8-O

My favorite archetypes is Magician...
If only they had a Familiar (which is the best thing about the Pirate Archetype, or whatever it´s called)

Abraham spalding wrote:

Good Hope and inspire courage and haste all in the same round?

I must be missing something. How can a bard do all three? I caught that they can use inspire as a move action and eventually a swift, but how do they pull off two spells without quickening?

At level 11:

Move action: Inspire Courage
Standard action: Good Hope
Swift action: Haste (with a metamagic rod of quicken spell)

It's not something you'll do every fight -- but three times a day is good enough.

Quandry's method works too. There are a few other ways to go about it -- but I'm not giving everything away today.

I suffer from barditis: I can no longer, it seems, roll a character without at least two levels of bard...

In the game I run, the Bard PC is not just the party's face, he's also become the de-facto party leader. (His build is a bit awkward, so that he's pretty crap at combat, but he excels at just about everything else.)

Bards are a blast, IMO. They're a pretty flexible build, and you can do a lot of support work. When I played through Legacy of Fire, I got brought in in the middle of the first mod, and was told the group needed a healer. Rather than gen the group another cleric, I picked up a gnome bard. And never got bored.

The bard class, differing builds aside, is a great enabler, and can just as easily attain the ridiculous level of skill-monkey that only rogues can rival. Handing out +1 and +2 fairly early in the game, as well as being able to countersong sonic effects is pretty huge. And these are all features of the base class. The savage skald is a very cool gimmick for a 'barbarian' bard, just to name one of the archetypes.

My newbie group just sat down to their first game with a bard in the party, and after all the facetime and performing the bard put in in the first session, one of my players essentially stated "We need a bard in every party."

Maybe not gospel, but bards are solid all the way around.

FYI, technically the Harmonic Spell thing can still accomplish that all those affects in 1 round without a Quicken Rod, but since it DOESN'T bypass the normal restriction on having 2 performances in effect at the same time, you will have to end the previous performance to start a new one... Still, it's still useful, esp. if you want to switch performances e.g. to Counter a sonic/visual effect, but would also prefer to switch back to an effect that is more permanently useful...

but basically, bards are usually one step ahead of full casters on the action economy game... they have less spell levels to play with metamagic, but since they gain early access (at least spell level-wise) to so much stuff, metamagic rods are very useful for them... Magician Bards just further extend this dynamic by their ability to 'cash in' their performances with Immediate Action Dispels.

Given Harmonic Spell is freakin awesome, would you allow it?

It might be viewed as OP. With bards measuring performance in rounds rather than per day, how many extra rounds should it consume?

Imagine a arcane Duelist busting out a Haste harmonic spell (inspire Courage)+ Bladethirst straight away!!

Did you read my last post?
You can't have 2 performances active simultaneously, Harmonic Spell does nothing to counter that.

It's useful for when you want your actions for other things (like really Moving), or for briefly switching to a performance that you only need instantaneously active (e.g. Countersong, Rallying Cry, Deadly Performance), but most Performance effects only have effect for the duration of the Performance itself.
And it explicitly says you pay for rounds of this performance as normal from your Rounds per Day, i.e. double what you would normally pay and you are prematurely ending one Performance effect before it's round has run out.
...Not really at all OP. IMHO.

...And I realized, it DOESN'T really achieve what was discussed, namely 2 spells (haste/good hope) and a performance effect (inspire courage), though Arcane Duelist can cause a 1-person Haste effect with Keen Weapon Quality, and Sandman can cause Deep Slumber on an already Fascinated target.

The Sandman Slumber Song is probably the most powerful combo with this Feat: Swift/Move Perform (fascinate), Cast Spell (any) including new Performance (Deep Slumber). You can even tack on a Swift Spell for an extra Casting... And apparently that has the normal duration of Deep Slumber, so you can switch to a new Performance right away as well (with the Swift Spell on the same round if you want!). I probably would say that combo is OP, I've never really seen it because I haven't seen a Sandman Bard in action.

Uh... Did you read my last post?

You can't have 2 performances active simultaneously, Harmonic Spell does nothing to counter that.
It's useful for when you want your actions for other things (like really Moving),
or for briefly switching to a performance that you only need instantaneously active (e.g. XYZ)
And it explicitly says you pay for rounds of this performance as normal from your Rounds per Day.
CAN be useful, and technically achieves what was mentioned, but not at all OP. IMHO.

However, Harmonic Spell and Lingering Song combo quite nicely.

I think the Bard hate comes from 2nd edition, where they had all the thief skills that didn't see much use, and were 1/2 rate wizards on top of it. For those that didn't see 2nd edition, 3rd kept them weak as well. The boost the bard got in 3.5 was HUGE. 2 additional skill points per level, bardic music adding much, much, more, actually being able to cast spells in light armor, and so on. Pathfinder took a little away (Bards used to be able to have multiple perform bonuses running at once) but added in other areas (more skills via versatile performance, earlier boosts to inspire courage, more types of performance).

They have been a great class since 3.5. Glad to see you trying to play one. They aren't for everyone, as they still primarily are support characters, and have so many odd little options that they could have easily been put into the APG if it wasn't for the fact that they are traditionally a class out of whatever editions core book.

However, Harmonic Spell and Lingering Song combo quite nicely.

Lingering Performance

The effects of your bardic performance carry on, even after you have Benefit: The bonuses and penalties from your bardic performance continue for 2 rounds after you cease performing. Any other requirement, such as range or specific conditions, must still be met for the effect to continue. If you begin a new bardic performance during this time, the effects of the previous performance immediately cease.

I'm sure there's some usage, basically the FINAL performance being able to linger just as if you had lingered a performance WITHOUT using a harmonic spell combo, but there's nothing really OP amazing here.

Brotato wrote:

However, Harmonic Spell and Lingering Song combo quite nicely.

Quote:

Lingering Performance

The effects of your bardic performance carry on, even after you have Benefit: The bonuses and penalties from your bardic performance continue for 2 rounds after you cease performing. Any other requirement, such as range or specific conditions, must still be met for the effect to continue. If you begin a new bardic performance during this time, the effects of the previous performance immediately cease.

I'm sure there's some usage, basically the FINAL performance being able to linger just as if you had lingered a performance WITHOUT using a harmonic spell combo, but there's nothing really OP amazing here.

Yes, I noticed that right away. I will say, though, that it's very useful for performing for just one round consumed of performance, let it linger for two more rounds, so you basically triple your rounds of performance.

Bards are really good nowadays. I think Sorceror might have become the "weakest" of the Rulebook classes these days.

I'd play them all the time, I just can't manage the "wanders around singing all the time" thing in my own head.
-Kle.

Bards are really good nowadays. I think Sorceror might have become the "weakest" of the Rulebook classes these days.

I'd play them all the time, I just can't manage the "wanders around singing all the time" thing in my own head.
-Kle.

Bards don't have to sing. Our group's bard took "Oratory" as his performance skill (he's basically a diplomat), so he gives stirring speeches and tells rousing stories during combat. I suppose you could even choose "comedy" as a performance skill, if you wanted to go that route.

3.0 Bards weren't all that bad. I played a 3.5 game a little while back with an Exalted Deeds theme. When I heard we were having a bard I pointed out Words of Creation to the player. We never missed an attack after that (sans nat 1s of course).

"Bards suck."

I don't "get" bards. I really don't. I've never played a bard, barely read the description....they seem cool, I just haven't bothered to take a look.

I enjoy adding low level bards to groups of enemies to make it so they have less issues hitting. Its great when someone who is too low level to give the PCs xp is one of the priority targets.

Bardic knowlege nuff said :)

Bards rock; and some of their axes have strings.

Bards don't have to sing. Our group's bard took "Oratory" as his performance skill (he's basically a diplomat), so he gives stirring speeches and tells rousing stories during combat.

Best bard I ever saw was a half-orc with an alphorn/greatclub.

I played a Bard for the first time yesterday and had fun! He was introduced to the party as a fighter type but then the table was in shock to discover that a Bard was in their ranks! There has been much Bard hate and I'm on the fence. What do you all think of the class? The APG has some pretty cool new spells and variants.

I thought that was an NPC/cohort only class.

Given Harmonic Spell is freakin awesome, would you allow it?

Reluctantly. I think it crosses the line where a feat is not supposed to be so good that every character would take it.

I can't imagine making a bard and not taking Harmonic spell.

If an effect that good is that easy to get, it should just be a default feature of bardic music.

Don't you wish your buffer was a bard like me?
Ducks and runs

** spoiler omitted **

You sir get 4 internets. And I also believe you may need a catscan.

Howie23 wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

You sir get 4 internets. And I also believe you may need a catscan.

Possibly something for that rash you had to get just making that too.

The only people who thinks Bards suck are the ones who haven't played them or min/max cheesers.

The only people who thinks Bards suck are the ones who haven't played them or min/max cheesers.

huh? Min maxers LOVE bards, they give seriously good stacking bonuses those minmaxing number crunchers love. They may not play them, but they definately dont think they suck.

Deyvantius wrote:

The only people who thinks Bards suck are the ones who haven't played them or min/max cheesers.

huh? Min maxers LOVE bards, they give seriously good stacking bonuses those minmaxing number crunchers love. They may not play them, but they definately dont think they suck.

Exactly, they want somebody else to play them. Of course most of them then forget the awesome buffs they got that allowed them to win and still think in terms of how awesome their own character was in the fight.

I Played A Bard ** spoiler omitted **

Win.