Björn Tarras's page

I'm playing Bard in my current campaign, and I have to concur with the majority here. Vanilla Bard is glorious. Haste, inspire courage, and good hope with a ranger, his pet, a monk, a summoner, and a meelee cleric (my party) is fabulous.

I wouldn't give up bardic knowledge, versatile performance (got dance and comedy m'self) and suggestion for the world. Rest is secondary to me. Archer bard is fab, go rapid fire, your bonuses are more than enough to compensate for the -2.

Personally I like a background that provides seeds for the GM to fill in without the player providing all the details, the pc may perceive that something happened without understanding the full context, this allows the GM freedom to get creative and surprise the pc with some interesting twist. The pc presenting the background can't know all the motivations or intentions of others involved. The answer to your question is really going to depend on the GM though.

I wholeheartedly agree. A background that a GM (if he wants to) can draw some sweet adventure hooks from is really helpful. I like players to think about background reason for character quirks and demeanors, as that can help them to act more IC. If the party are a group when we begin, i also tend to have them think about relationships towards eachother, how they met, how their relationships toward the other group members are, etc.