Ellis Mirari wrote:
Also, the Skald has Perform (Oratory). You can play this as a war cry, "RRRAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHH!" Or even bust out the War Poetry, "In the dark and cold of winter / Ice and snow can bite as wolves / battle's fury warms the body / but endless sleep awaits with hunger!" bonus points for improvising it, but you can easily write up a whole bunch ahead of time, and chant out a line per round. It's pretty fun seeing people reactions. :D
I have to say that, overall, I have been very excited and impressed with the playtest guide. A lot of fairly new mechanics, without cutting totally new things out of whole cloth. That, combined with the open (PFS friendly even) playtest, and the rapid turnaround of changes and revisions, are a fairly new experience for me. Are things perfect? Nope, that's why we're testing it. And from what I've seen thus far, it appears to be working.
The lack of any information That said, the blog post shows that they're definitely listening to our feedback, so I'm excitedly looking forward to the new updates.
Quote: Nooooooo! Spell Kenning is one of the coolest abilities they have! Agreed. I would go so far as to suggest that they remove normal spell casting, and expand Spell Kenning to 1st or 2nd level. Give them access to the Sorc/Wizard list, cap them at their equivalent caster level, and base it off of spending Song rounds per spell level. They'll be a rare, but effective "toolkit" caster.
In my opinion the Truesong should;
I really don't feel like this is anywhere close to overpowered when compared to the panoply of bard songs. Skald gets one song, hopefully it's a good one! :)
Personally, I think using the full strong/stupid rage mechanic on the skald is a misstep. He's not the frothing madman that drives his followers into a frenzy, he's the wise leader and scholar, a warrior who has a deeper knowledge of the world. With the ragesong being the keystone ability of the class, (with the Skald essentially trading the barbarian's martial abilities, and the bards entire musical variety for it) having it come with such an action-restriction penalty, and stat specific benefit is frustrating. Only certain classes benefit from Strength, and even they look twice a not being able to control their characters. As rage powers get into the mix, the cost/benefit analysis does shift, but when you need to stop the game so the other players can weigh the pro/cons of your MAIN class feature, that can be pretty disheartening. When a bard starts playing, everyone gets buffed. No questions asked. When a barbarian goes crazy, the baddies get smacked, and everyone else cheers. With the Skald, you trade both of these for "Eh, I think I'll pass this round" I think a cool way to shape the Rage song, would be to allow him to choose what stats are boosted. The Skald can use his knowledge and experience to heighten their reactions, expand their minds, or strengthen their hearts. Remove the blanket action restriction, but maybe bring back the fatigue penalty, with the idea that resuming the song wipes the penalty. TrueSong: The Skalds knowledge of the inherent power that weaves it's way through the world allows him to unlock the potential of his allies. With a successful Perform check (DC 10) the Skald grants all allies within 30 feet (+10 feet for every 5 the check exceeds the DC) a +2 bonus to two stats of his choosing. Maintaining the Truesong is a free action. Once started, the skald can choose to change the stats granted by the Truesong as a Standard action. If an ally leaves the area of the Truesong, they lose the bonuses granted by it at the end of their next turn, and become fatigued for one round per round of Truesong recieved. This fatigue is removed if they are granted the benefits of Truesong again. As for spells, think normal spell casting should be dumped, and Spell Kenning should be expanded. Give the Skald the ability to shape magic with his Words. (Or Perform Oratory if you rather) Give him a sharply limited ability to cast, based off his ability to Ragesong (Say, 2-3 rounds of rage per spell level), make doing so a full round action (Or, if the spell is already a full round, double the casting time) that provokes AoO, and give him a spell level cap based off of his Skald level. Let him cast any spell off of the Bard/Wizard spell lists, and see what rabbits he can sing out of a hat. I would also personally base both his casting and singing off of wisdom instead of charisma, but that's just me. Just some random ideas, loving the playtest as a whole. Keep up the great work!
So, tonight, myself and a group of friends decided to whip up some of the new classes and run them from the start. (We had a Swashbuckler, Arcanist, Investigator, Shaman, Warpriest, and myself as the Skald) Now, personally, I have been watching the Skald class with hungry eyes, as I absolutely love the fluff and idea behind the Warrior-Poet, the leader who sings his men to battle, and draws the magic out of the air with his mighty song. The wise jarl who charges into battle, accomplishes great deeds, and weaves them into legend. I had an absolute blast playing the character. I was Rig the Longtooth. Rig the Battlewright. Rig the Mad. I roleplayed him to the hilt, coming up with battle poems on the spot, carousing with the Ulfens, and getting into a bar fight. (The GM picked a perfect module for me) But at the end of the night, after discussing things, I realized something important. All of the fun, all of the fluff was from how I played the character. None of it was really supported by the class features. I largely snubbed the bard spells, as they didn't really fit the theme. My party almost entirely snubbed the rage, as it prevented almost all of them from doing their jobs, and the penalties of accepting make it a tough choice even for the melee characters. As the core feature of the class, the Ragesong just felt weak at best, harmful at worst. Having to keep everyone in range, remind them when it was running, figure out if anybody even wanted/benefitted from it, and in the meantime keep trying to pitch in. I was the big noisy impressive guy in the front lines with low HP, very low armor (light armor, rage penalty, low Dex) and when the bad guys rushed me in our first fight, I dropped pretty quick (thus fatiguing my party right away). The rest of the night, I managed to dish out some nice damage with my Orc weaponry, but the ragesong was an afterthought if anything. I made Rig a Half-Orc (for the weapon profs) and focused largely on balanced stats with higher Str/Cha, as these would be the primary stats I needed. Saying this class is MAD hardly scratches the surface. Str to hit, Dex to dodge (light armor), Con to live, and Cha to sing/cast. Not to mention skill/knowledge checks. I really like the idea of Spell Kenning. I think that it should be fleshed out further, come earlier, and replace his normal spell casting. He should be coaxing the magic out of the land with trueseeing, and truesinging. He's not as good as a normal caster would be, but the land grants him what he needs. (Basically make it low powered, small numbers/inefficient, but incredibly versatile) I think the class has potential. The richness of history and flavor this class could bring is immense. Keep him away from the idea of Beserk, bard spells and madness, and make him into a real warrior and leader. He is the canny King leading his sworn men from the front lines. The Bard who can sing the stones from the ground. The Steward of his land and his ancestry. He's not just "Guy who sings mad, and writes down spells." |