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Perform Is not Only Music... If it feels better for you can Inspire by just saying Inspiring things through Oratory. Thats not the point. The point is - to wich situations belongs the performance of the Bard. And for me, thats not combat.
Well whatever type of perform a Bard uses, for me it belongs to social situations. Thats where the Bard should shine with his music. I want to see a Bard be able to influence a crowd by his music, bring the crowd to:
Performing during comat seems not to be right for me. Of course there are large Battles where musicians inspire the courage of the troops. But i dont see this for small skirmish combat. And an adventuring party is doing skirmish combat, no large battles. I'd like to see the Bard taking an active role in skirmish combat, and shine in social situation through their music/performance. That seems to be right.
I love Bards, i love music! I love playing music related characters! BUT: I want to decide:
because for me its a matter of roleplaying, not a matter of forced to do this during combat because my class dictates me to do so, wich is a silly thing in my eyes.
As i said here i think there has to be a Base Class wich can fit into any role someone wants to play. (Without the need for multiclassing) As other people have suggested, the dilletant-Bard (who is NOT an arcane Trickster) should be a Variant of the Bard. If you wanna play a guy/girl who's singing in all circumstances, well do it. There are a lot of characters i can think of where a Class with some magic and some fighting abilities is the way to go. The best thing the Bard has now is, that he's an arcane Spellcaster with cure spells. There's definitive a need for that in my eyes. Abosutley no need, to chain this character to a role: Singing "Bluff bluff bluff the supid ogre" or things like that. I cant think of any roleplaying wich is more silly, more limiting, more lame... If i cant give my character style and color without such silly things, i would stop roleplaying immediately. I see such a character class nessecary, without the limiting to performing.
Perhaps you can point out for me wich role you do see for the Bard? There's a lot talking about this issue and it seems that everybody has a different understanding of this role.Thx Calden
Well i think there should be one basic Class wich should fit into any roleplaying role you can think of. Since Dnd 3.0 the bard has a unique Class Feature - his music. Its the sadest thing about that Class, becuase its negating roleplaying possibilities. I'll explain why: There are lots of extremly specialized Classes & Prestigeclasses in Dnd, well most of them unplayable because they are too specific. For me, roleplaying is about this: i think of my character, what is he supposed to be what i want to play in the next campain, and then i go and create my character. As the ultimate versatile character, you should be able to build this character using the Bard class, cause there is no versatile class with some spellcasting at all. For me thats what the Bard is supposed to be. We have the opposite of that: You play a Bard, then you are supposed to act like this.... play music during battle... What the hell is that for? I dont want to be a Troubadix "#!?~@" I want to play exactly the role i want to play, and because the Bard(Jack of all Trades, master of none) should do that job. And no more. Maybe there are some people who think it was a good idea to give something unique to the Bard, i'm not. For me it makes the Class nonsense. I think there are lots of people who want a class where they can build whatever character they want, sure there will be specialist who can do things better, but maybe there is that specific Prestige Class missing for the role i think of. (Try to play a group healer in a stealthy Rogue Campain)
Hey thats a pretty nice idea! I like it. I even can think of another change here:
I think based on his very limited list of spells this would not be too much of a bump. Otherwise almost all Bards have nearly the same lists of spells known, cause there is a short list of spells wich you can use in almost every situation, wich means some of the spells on the bard list will never seen in a game.
Whats the Bard meant for? - seems to be a good question. In my opinion it should be some kind of (versatile) arcane adventurer. There we have the first point. The bardic music if far away from being versatile. When i look at other classes and the choices they can make, the bard seems to bee the class with almost no choices. When i think of the Bard as an ultimative generalist as wich he is described in the PHB, i would really really like to see an option WITHOUT any Bardic music/performance. The Spells known + Spells per day are really really good in Pathfinder, each level minimum one new spell known and per day. Thats great! The problem for me with the Bardic music is: Almost everything i can think of a good effect for a music effect is already available as spell anywhere. Thats of course because of every effect you can think of is available as a spell. this leads me personally to the point where i think, be better get rid of the whole music stuff, let the Bard be a 2/3 spellcaster and add something usefull to the class. I had think of something like this:
Of course there has to be put some more brain in it. But thats the idea. Per haps the Bard could end with something like this (adapting rogue stuff) Level 2: Evasion
and so on. The Bard is still the most difficoult Class to biuld and play. And i would really like to see some options, so the bard could really fit into some more usefull role that staying beid the others singing and healing the rest of the group. My 5 cent. Calden Sorry for my writing, i'm not a native english speaker, so i apollogize for bad grammar and so on. |