Tunewalker's page

Tunewalker wrote:

While I like all of the ideas for Performances (such as the insults, and the marching drum and the like) my specific worry is making them to much like alchemy and other crafting skills does not feel right to me. In addition the complication is not just in how it is implemented but in the shear number of choices a starting bard would have....

Oh, it would testing, a lot of it {another thing which I didn't even mention was how many you could remember each day. I was thinking 1 for each prof level in Performance, with the Bard getting a +2 on top of that.} Personally I was trying to limit the mundane effects to simpler and only slight effects to combat complexity in every class, but it would need a lot of testing and balancing.

I can see what you mean with to many options. I don't personally think that would be the case, as your spell list is set day by day, so you would only need to worry about the performance aspect, and generally like the wizard, you would have a set layout generally. But it would be more options, and while I would not think it would happen, I would not be surprised if it did. {again need for fine tuning in testing.}

Though I agree we have exhausted that topic enough for now.

Tunewalker wrote:

Slight change of subject back to Versatile performance line of feats, am I the only one annoyed that the Versatile performance feat requires the Performance skill, but nearly all of the feats that Versatile performance unlocks requires you to top out your Occultism skill. That is some straight up cross backwards design, so now not only are you getting the performance skill tax as a versatile performance bard if you want to get any of those other feats you are now facing an Occultism skill tax...

Yes, that was a big problem I was having with the Feat, and the Feats in the Bard class in general, which lead me to making the thread. You are skilled taxed with the frist feat you choose. Its just with the VP line, you get taxed twice on...

Ya looking at it I mind performance for Lingering Composition much less. It is still a skill tax since it is a skill that does nothing for your except let you use your class feats, but at least with Lingering Comp line of things it is consistent you are taking performance adding in inspire heroics and inspire competence to the list just means more things to do with performance that you picked up.

It does not excuse it but it is no where near as bad as versatile..... Starting to think about going through the bard featss and features one by one in another thread and see if we can not narrow down some of the class issues. It is funny to me that a lot of people think Bard is really good, but I think that might be down to just "inspire courage" is really good.

Tunewalker wrote:

From the beginning we have agreed on the problem not on the solution and this is slowing working its way into something workable. So I am going to begin this thread talking about the ways Performance could theoretically work as you suggest and what niche it would have to play if it WERE to work this way to make it both make sense from and RP perspective and make it not just a direct copy of another skill. And then I will talk about issues with it mechanically....

Hmm… Didn’t really think about performance being used for a more downtime activity, although now it has been pointed out to me, it seems obvious.

Though getting into the meat of it, I do agree a lot of classical fantasy performance is routed in encouragement, and encouraging effects would be one from of performance. However this would not be the only from a performance can take. For example siren song is known allure, a shaggoth maddening sounds are known to madden, and many rituals incorporate chanting to contact the sprits, or to summon creatures. The use of Performance as bolstering is a very good start, but don’t be limited by it.

The idea I was having would be Performance itself would consist or more mundane effects that could be caused. For example a ‘Inspiring Word’ performance that would take one Verbal action and have the effect “Target gains +1 against Fear until your next turn.”, on a passed check. Or an ‘Insulting Joke’ {Perhaps 2 actions} where you make a performance check against the targets Will DC. On a pass they take a -1 on attack rolls, -1 AC, and -1 on Perception checks made against everyone except you for 1 round. Regardless of the result the target gets a +2 on attack rolls, AC, and Perception against you for one round.” Or, incorporating what Performance already has with a “Delightful Ditty” that gives the user a +1 to its next Diplomacy check against the target, as long as its made within the next hour on a pass check. Or “Marching Drum” which you use at the start of...

Some of the stuff you are mentioning (siren song and the maddening stuff) to me sound a LOT like spell like effects and stuff we kind of have access to in the Occult spell list, like Charm command, Paranoia and so on and so forth.

While I like all of the ideas for Performances (such as the insults, and the marching drum and the like) my specific worry is making them to much like alchemy and other crafting skills does not feel right to me. In addition the complication is not just in how it is implemented but in the shear number of choices a starting bard would have.

A starting alchemist has all of the alchemist recipes that it has to choose from when leveling up and when starting to figure out which ones he wants.

A Wizard has a lot of spells to choose from for starting and every time he levels up.

Currently The bard is like the Wizard with a lot of spells to choose from and to plan out when leveling. Add in a list of performances and stuff that he can get when leveling up and you will have the complications of a Wizard and an Alchemist all rolled into 1 horror show of a class called Bard and not only is this an issue, but every single charisma based class that may consider picking up performance (and with it becoming a strong skill a lot will think about it) you technically increase the level of complexity for every single class that considers making a 14, 16 or 18 in charisma and picking up the performance skill.

Anything would be better than we have right now, but I do worry about adding unnecessary levels of complication and I worry about Choice paralysis causing character creation to take entirely to long.

Slight change of subject back to Versatile performance line of feats, am I the only one annoyed that the Versatile performance feat requires the Performance skill, but nearly all of the feats that Versatile performance unlocks requires you to top out your Occultism skill. That is some straight up cross backwards design, so now not only are you getting the performance skill tax as a versatile performance bard if you want to get any of those other feats you are now facing an Occultism skill tax....

So I think a short version of my rant is..... If performance is going to stick around it needs to be a skill used during short rests that elongates the adventuring day by healing a parties spirits instead of their bodies.

Interesting thing to note there are actually only 5 Bard feats that are affected by the Performance skill..... Lingering Comp, versatile performance, inspire competence, inspire heroics and Melodious Spell. The others only reference to performances in bard feats is to the versatile performance feat (which Ironically most of the other feats associated with this feat requires you to have good Occultism skill... it is very odd) not the skill and to performances, as in composition powers and cantrips that you can keep going, also not the skill.

So only 5/23 feats actually require the performance skill (22%).... it really is just kind of useless, but if you want to have versatile performance or Lingering Composition (2/3 level 1 muses) than you will need performance up.... so I think this is really a good show here, you need it to use maybe 2 class defining feats for you, but there just isn't a use besides this and if you do not keep it maxed out you completely waste your level 1 choice which just feels bad.

I think our difference is Roleplay versus Mechanics, which is fine. And some points of yours I have found interesting.

And the problem with Performance, is, in its current form, it has no real use, both inside and outside the Bard class {unlike craft which does have a use}

So that idea I said {not fleshed out, as it would take a lot of time and work} is to structure Performance and the Bard Class like the Alchemist and its Alchemy. SO Performance would have some minor Bardic like benefits, that other classes that invest in performance would be able to perform {perhaps similar to crafting, you gain a 'Song Book" to place performances in. You can prepare each day a number of Performances equal to you Cha mod, with a Performance DC of some sort to use it.} The effects of these Performances would be relatively minor, but useful. Has for the Bard, the class gives them the ability to remember more of these performances, and the ability to add, say 2 performances, to the book each time they level up for free. In addition they gain access to special types of Performances, and get to substitute a Cha skill with their performance. The idea of making it useful for everyone, but only the bard can use its full potential, while keeping the flavour behind it.

From the beginning we have agreed on the problem not on the solution and this is slowing working its way into something workable. So I am going to begin this thread talking about the ways Performance could theoretically work as you suggest and what niche it would have to play if it WERE to work this way to make it both make sense from and RP perspective and make it not just a direct copy of another skill. And then I will talk about issues with it mechanically.

Ok so performances memorized could definitely be type of performance and now we have things like brass instrument performance, woodwind instrument performance so on and so forth adding even greater flavor to the Performance skill. The issue here is for them to be effective in the adventuring world they will have to have some form of mechanical effect on the party.

Now if these performances just had some raw magical effect it would be really awkward RP wise even though mechanically it would be appealing as it would just be a skill a martial class or a rogue would pick up to basically get a "make scroll" skill and that is definitely not what performance is.

So what fantasy does performance fit in a Fantasy setting. To me the answer is there is always one comic relief character or performer in a fantasy group that keeps the spirits of the group high. When everything seems rough and the adventure seems like it may be impossible the performer may tell a joke, or sing a song that reminds everyone of home or tells a tale from a story he heard as a kid. The Performer inspires, motivates, distracts and eases the minds of his allies. The question is how can we recreate this mechanically beyond the Bard abilities of Inspire Courage, Inspire competence, and soothing ballad?

The answer to me is long term party buffs, spell recovery and minor healing all that would be performed during 10 minute rests that others would be using to treat wounds and repair objects. Much like repair kits and crafting kits you would have to have the appropriate kit or instrument for your performance this could be the performers way of improving the spell casters in addition to martial classes as right now the more martial classes you have the more effective the Bard is in adding to them and their adventuring day. Of course I would think that characters would become bolstered to performances after the effect as there is only so many times peoples spirits are going to be lifted like this, but it is a way of elongating the day in a satisfying RP way.

Now the mechanical problems.

One mechanical problem of this is it seems that the developers are really wanting to move away from long term buffs and weakening spell casters also seems like a goal, while they will need to buff spell casters I do not know that allowing more spells per day through performances is the right way to do that.

Further the idea for pathfinder 2.0 is to become LESS complicated and more easily accessible for people wanting to play and adding performances like this would massively increase complications and rule sets making things more difficult rather than less.

Finally, there are only so many buffs that can really be done and only one performance is needed for minor healing (soothing ballad) or spell recovery. Which means that even if the bard new "more" of these performances that would not actually be helpful as people would just find the best 2 buff spells that do not stack + the spell recovery performance and that would be the only number of performances necessary.

Now if they made it to where performance did the spell recovery and/or a minor buff and just gave Bards and/or the Performance skill feats that increase the number of Spells recovered or the strength of the buff given by a 10 minute performance and/or added extra long term buffs to these performances or even do things like we have with quick repair and the like adding "quick performance" reducing the time needed for a performance down to 1 minute if you are expert and down to 1 round if you are Legendary, we may very well have found a way to make performance a useful skill and a way to improve bards abilities with it without to great a complication, but it does still make things more complicated.

The primary reason I advocate rolling Performance into other skills is to fix clutter. Removing things is easier to do and makes for less clutter than adding things. Since performance does nothing mechanically the only reason it currently exists is because of legacy and bard. RP wise when something has no mechanical effect it does not matter if the action even has a skill roll. If it would have some sort of effect and it is not covered in the book then the gm can just choose whichever skill it deems appropriate. As some have already mentioned the easiest thing they can do is just remove performance from the skills and from all the stuff that references it replacing all of the stuff that mentions it in bard to "class or Spell DC" or "appropriate skill" or something and it makes things simpler without a mechanical change at all and leaves the flavor to the players and the GM.

Now if they wanted to do the slightly more complicated route than more power to them, but if they wanted to get spell caster or alchemist level of complicated with it, than we would see Bard become one of the most complicated classes with both performances and spells. In addition the game itself might alienate even more casual players which are some of the ones they are trying to appeal to and bring back to pathfinder. Players that find 5e not structured enough and find Pathfinder 1 to be much of a mess and to complicated.

Tunewalker wrote:

The whole thing you did on trumpet here is why I suggested something like Society unlike things like Intimidation as while Yelling CAN be intimidating considering Intimidation is based on Charisma and Not constitution (the characteristic that would measure your physical ability here) means that it isn't as simple as "breath control"....

While I did make breathe control a part of it, it was more than simply that, as in learning how to use it {in conjunction with pitch among other things} allowed me to resonate my voice in a more intimidating matter. I would have gone further in depth, and how different skills learnt from the Trumpet could have been used for other abilities as well, but it was already a long post, in a thread headed by VP {though the discussion of Performance in general is a natural evolution.)

And I do believe alot of musicians {and artist in general} flock to table top games such as this because its another creative outlet for generally creative people.

And I can also understand your idea of using Int because most types of Performance require training {with a better understanding of you position given your own formal training}. And with society, you can even go further then that, going into physiological effects, to understanding the impact of music in subcultures of societies {Religion, politics, social class, ect). However this could be said for other things as well, such as Thievery {knowing the culture your stealing from, the value societies places on items, the knowledge of security and the justice system, knowing the people that system would protect and would not, knowing areas in society where your own brand of thievery is seen as more acceptable through social convention, the psychology of society as it relates to crime in general, ect) And just like learning an instrument, it can be taught {though often through less official means). Nor does it mean you need official training to learn how to Perform, for example observing music in the world...

This was an interesting read, but I think the thing I am looking at here is much like the Alchemist. The Bard already has other unique aspects of its class other than the performance aspect. It is now the primary occult spell caster. Alchemist is also a class built entirely on a skill, in fact it is built entirely on one skill FEAT. The alchemist Crafting feat. This is a feat that any class can pick up along with other crafting skill feat, but that has not invalidated the Alchemist.

The primary problem with Performance is it does not have a use outside of Bard or making money on the side. If we made the performance skill useful outside of that thing than the skill would no longer be a skill tax, but to do so we have to have skill feats for it that do things outside of make more money without taking things away from what makes the bard special so we have to come up with a way for Performance to do unique things (not copy other skills like diplomacy, intimidate, deception or even medical if you want to argue soothing songs) in combat and social situations other than make money without them overlapping with Bard things like Inspire courage or competence or the soothe spell or any of that.

Do this in reverse though and roll performance type stuff into other skills and other classes get to put on a show and add flavor without having the mechanical benefits of performances that only the Bard, or someone truly dedicated to picking up Skill feats can get like inspire courage and Inspire competence and lingering composition all of the things that currently require performance and are the root of the skill tax that bards face. Imagine if Lingering Composition was just charisma + Level + proficiency of related skill, now you can get any skill you want as a bard and it will be useful for all the things it is useful for besides just Lingering composition.

I was merely stating an example of how Performance in comparison to other skills can have overlap in ability and training, but also differences which separate them. Not choosing sides, merely showing that fact, that an ability in one will get you part way for another, but not all the way.

I used Acrobatics {as one that is used for more Par-Cor stuff and states nothing about entertaining} in the PF2 book and Dance as a comparison because its a simpler one to make, and it was one of the skills Dance provided you in PF1 with VP. I could have gone with the ability to play the Trumpet and how it can help Intimidation, but that would require more explanation, as its a bit easier to see the connection between Dancing and Acrobatics, versus practice in the Trumpet and Intimidation, as our view and experience color these option's.

But encase you do believe I am throwing out some random instrument with a random skill, here is how. In order to play the Trumpet, there is a couple of things you will quickly learn about the instrument. You will need to learn how to control your diaphragm, as the ability to breathe deeply and how to properly control your air flow is essential to the instrument. This is because, unlike some other instruments, the same valve placement can produce entirely different notes dependant on air flow and the position of the lips on the mouthpiece by buzzing into it. For example, a Trumpet with zero of its values held down can produce from lowest note to highest note= C, G, C, E, G, C, 6 different notes. Another thing you need to learn about air flow and notes is when notes are modified, such as in the case when notes are staccato {brief blast of the note, followed by a brief pause} or slured {one note leads to the next without pause or break}. And, trumpets, especially on the higher notes, takes a lot more effort and air, meaning as you are keeping the beat {something you will also learn} you also got to learn to control your air supply, because once you run out, you instrument is not making a...

The whole thing you did on trumpet here is why I suggested something like Society unlike things like Intimidation as while Yelling CAN be intimidating considering Intimidation is based on Charisma and Not constitution (the characteristic that would measure your physical ability here) means that it isn't as simple as "breath control".

I am a musician as well (seems like that overlap of musicians and RPers is pretty common) went to college for 2 years as a Trombone player I also play a little trumpet, tuba, baritone, piano and singing(not good singing) in addition I am well versed enough in music theory to have written fragments of symphonies.

The reason I suggest society is according to the book:

You understand the people and systems that make civilization run, and you know the historical events that make societies what they are today. Further, you can use that knowledge to navigate the twisted workings of settlements, whether they’re physical, SOCIETAL, or economic.

Society is also Intelligence based, suggesting that these society based skills are something that you have to train for (like music, Music theory and Musicianship) and in the era these books take place Music was one of the few things upper society really did. I do not really see another skill that fits this criteria for all musical type skills besides society, because a pianist does not require breath control at all while a majority of musical skills do overlap (specifically the theory and musicianship) and once you have those skills it does not make it that hard to learn a new instrument (which is why I can play most brass instruments).

Now all this said I understand people having disagreements about it, but that does not mean we shouldn't discuss it.

Right now Bard is suffering from a skill tax. Bard has historically been one of the stronger/ secondary skill monkeys of a group and as of now they are worse at skills than the Wizard because they are being forced to take Performance skill to remain relevant in combat.

In addition the performance skill is not being taken by anyone else as it is a waste of a skill for anyone that is not bard as it does nothing to help but in down time or for flavor. So by removing the skill you stream line the game and remove a needless skill tax from the Bard.

This is less about 100% realism if it was every single thing a person does would be a skill. You would not have theivery for disabling traps unlocking doors and pick pocketing you have each of those tasks. You would not have performance you would Brass instrument performance, Dance Performance...... and a million other type of performance skills. Intimidation would be shouting skill, and a menacing skill and so on and so forth.

What we are attempting to do is simplify an action for a skill. The Bard is a performer and without that we would not even be worrying about or talking about a performance skill nor would we even be discussing how a performance works. Instead some one would sit down at a table and go "hey gm my character wants to pass the time with a fun song" and the GM would respond "um ok..... you do that" and a skill check would not even be talked about as it would just be flavor.

As is we need to talk about a skill checks and we can talk about the pro's and con's of removing performance. What we think the best ones would be for varying performances (Honestly we could just have a subsection say.... talk to GM about what performance would fall under what skill) and just make the performance feats General skill feats that apply to any skill of the appropriate level. And much like Alchemists start with the Alchemic crafting feat the bard could start out with the "performance feat" for any one skill (or 2 skills) he desires. (also for an example of what I am talking about with performance feats as a general skill that could be applied to just about any skill look at the general skills that apply based on which magical knowledge skill you have.).

I think some gating is fine.

Specifically Trained gating. I really like that an untrained person does not get access to all of the actions of a trained individual.

The other kind of gating that is fine is Feats.... Needing expert in Diplomacy to get a diplomacy feat that makes you better in specific diplomacy situations or allows you to do something faster is fine.

Gating that is not ok is gating actions behind Expert or higher. I am already not getting the full + and I am already not getting some of the better feats for this skill that I am trained in I do not need to be further punished for not dedicating all of my resources to this skill.

Let me try what I am going to try and if I fail I fail. This is especially true with characters that are supposed to be "decent at skills" but not as good as the rogue. These characters start with more trained skills but no one gets any more bonuses to feats or skills than any other non- rogue character. Which means with current gating the number of trained skills you have does not matter only the number of maxed out skills, but by removing the gating from action from anything above trained all of a sudden starting number of trained skills matter and the "secondary" skills characters can at least attempt a larger amount of things without the benefits of as many + or as many skill feats as a person who dedicated it.

This way the ranger can be good at dedicated skills but by starting with more skill they also have a wider breadth of abilities they can at least attempt to cover for or reasonably assist with.

I was thinking about the mini discussion of how Performance would be implemented with other skills, and both the disconnect and overlap between real life counterparts. And I think its because the core is the same, but the goals are different.

For example, {note this is oversimplified, because this could devolve into an argument of semantics} at the core of Dance and Acrobatics is the ability to move ones body in a way it does not natural, usually through physical conditioning and training. It is in this core that there is an overlap between the two skills, where one could care over to another. Both concern training the body how to move, conditioning the body is generally the same, and have at least some simple overlap in the moves they both perform.

However the goal these skills aim for are different. At its core, Acrobatics uses this movement to get from point A to point B. Its used to ensure you can maintain your balance, escape and squeeze through things that block your way, roll/flip over things that block you ect. You are required to anticipate the requirements of getting to point B, and ensure precision within the movement itself to allow you to continue. Dance, on the other hand, is to use movement to invoke emotion upon the watcher. It is the use of more exaugurated movements, combined with natural or musical rhythm, and body language to convey and evoke said emotion onto that of the audience.

So, someone whom is trained in Acrobatics would be greater at Dance then someone whom was not trained in either, as they know how to control there body, and have trained to do so. However they would still need to learn how to evoke emotion in those movements, such as learning how to incorporate body language or though the use of exaugurated movements. On the same hand, someone whom is trained in Dance would be greater at Acrobatics then someone whom isn't, as again they know how to control there body, and have trained to do so. But they would still need to learn how to anticipate the movement needed,...

I agree with this the issue I am having is going beyond just dance and the fact that just because a skill does not perfectly represent an action does not mean we need an entirely different skill for it. In the case of performance it is currently covering a wide variety of skills that are vastly different than one another. Why should a skilled actor also be able to dance, sing be a comedian a tight rope walker play every instrument in the world all because they picked 1 single skill. That makes much less sense than an acrobatic person being able to dance.

Further I didn't suggest instrument playing as diplomacy I suggested it as Society, which is intelligence based skill and thus indicates a lot of trained educational experience to play a musical instrument which is exactly what it does take in the typical times we are taking place in.

A skilled oratory or spoken comedian would need diplomacy skills.

A skilled singer would likely need Society skill as well for the same reason as the other type of musician, and often times in this setting a musician WILL be trained in multiple instruments and singing so this works.

Now I am in fully agree that just because a person is good at acrobatics doesn't mean they are a better dancer than the trained dancer, but we have ways around this..... it is called Bard and Skill feats. The bard is the best performer to ever have performed, and skill feats exist to expand skills. By making a skill feat that someone who is an Expert or a Master of Acrobatics can take to become a renowned dancer means you are taking advancement points (feats) to become more skilled in the performance aspect of the skill associated with each performance type all while making more sense than a person untrained in acrobatics, which is defined as:
1 : the art, performance, or activity of an acrobat
2 : a spectacular, showy, or startling performance or demonstration involving great agility or complexity
but legendary in performance being a better trapeze artist than the guy who is legendary in acrobatics and has 0 performance skills. As the actual webster definition of Acrobatics shows it is rooted not in par-core but in PERFORMANCES and all of a sudden an Acrobat that is not a performer can not perform acrobatics?

Tunewalker wrote:

As far as performance being rolled into other things. Playing an instrument might be a diplomacy or a society roll. Juggling, dancing, high wire acts... sounds like acrobatic performances to me. Singing and oratory is definitely Diplomacy, acting is deception. Comedy can be dependent on what kind of comedy, slapstick could be athletics while stand up could be diplomacy or society again. These are just a few thoughts.

I like it. It's like a reverse of PF1's versatile performance.

Arguments could be made that some people shouldn't be great performers due to other skills, but they'd need the charisma to pull it off anyway, so it should work out pretty well. This would also solve some relevance problems with performance. A human who has never heard a goblin song before shouldn't be able to impress goblins with human fiddle tunes as well as someone who has studied enough in society to figure out what the goblins would like. And anyone who has done standup knows that you aren't just telling jokes, you're negotiating with the mood of the room.

For the need of Charisma to performances they can just write in the rules that if utilizing your skills to entertain for the purpose of making money you use your diplomacy skill to gather information and hype up the audience and then use the related skill for the performance you are making. This could actually add to your GROUP being performers as you have the Bard, who's spells are based on Charisma and has a good Diplomacy, being the hype man for your Rogue Daring acrobatics where the Bard uses diplomacy to gather the info and hype the audience and the Rogue simply preforms his acrobatics.

The more I think about it the more I like the idea of using other skills for performance and just doing away with performance as a skill all together can make for a more interesting breadth of characters and situations.

Yep paladin is pretty solid, though I would not be surprised if the tone that one down when everyone moves from the fighter one to the Paladin.

Also I do not think for a moment anyone will pick a spell caster archetype they are all SUPER bad.

I still get that Spell casters used to be too strong mid to late game, but I feel like this edition has gone way to far making them horrible start and not good until super late game in which case they are super strong again. There needs to be a way to level this stuff out where casters aren't gods in late game and yet can actually bring something to the table before level 11

De-tuning the monsters a bit would solve a lot of problems, IMHO.

I"ll note that my bard in Doomsday Dawn part 2 casts Inspire Courage and smacks creatures with a 2-handed bastard sword (and wears full plate). Fighter Dedication FTW (admittedly, multi-classing may be too good).

Yep fighters are good no surprise that just about anything multi-class + fighter works. So far that has been the only way I have seen Bards be super good is they put a bunch into strength and take the fighter level 2 multi class feat. Which limits races to Goblin and Human and does make Inspire Courage worth it since now you are not sacrificing another fighter slot while simultaneously providing buffs for all the rest of the martial classes and cleric in your group, but the fact that this seems like the only good path for bards shows the inherent problem with the base bard in my opinion.

To be clear not saying this shouldn't be an option it definitely should, but it should also be perfectly acceptable to never cross class and get access to better skills or spell casting ability through bard feats. Which at the moment it really isnt because the 2nd level feats are locked behind your first level feat choice.

If you went versatile (which starts out as a skill thing) you can get "better spell casting" with a prepared book (which costs a crap ton of money to maintain) and that better spell casting is all of 1 spell either known or heightened.... and since spells are all kind of garbage until super late it doesn't really matter in addition to how minor this is, just do not play a spell caster.

If you went Lingering, you get to make other people better at skills sometimes for some skills.... probably would have been better off with a rogue here, just be better at skills and do more damage.

And if you went Lore you get to remember things slightly better... a limited number times per day. Bring a pen and paper and write things down and play something that contributes...

Sorry being negative...

Oh in addition, spell casters all kind of suck until really late levels except Clerics which are Gods in this game. Bard included. The only reason people think bard is "alright" is because people are used to Bard sucking and doing nothing but Inspire Courage to make martials better, that they are ok with Bards still sucking and only doing Inspire Courage to make martials and Clerics better. Inspire Courage is still miles ahead of some other buff spells, but most of the buff spells are so horrible that it isnt saying much. In most cases of 4 man parties it would be better off smacking someone with a bigger ax instead of a short sword or a rapier + inspire courage, or you know pick a rogue and bring some skills to the table they are better than most of the spells + you can attack with the same weapons AND get dex bonus added to damage and sneak attack. Just my thoughts.

Tezmick wrote:

Didn't read it all but had to comment on your Rogue opinion. Are you comparing it to unchained rogue in 1e? Because the Rogue in the playtest absolutely destroys the core rogue in pf1e. It's not even close.

Dex to damage, Access to skill increases every level. They even gave them Debilitating Strike. Just a straight upgrade. They also have some of the best class feats in the game like nimble dodge, and dread striker.

I used an unchained rogue last time, however my biggest gripe with them is skills I didn’t play a rogue to be ok at skills I chose them to be AWESOME at skills, I agree that dread striker is really good but found nimble dodge to be a wasted feat with how high monsters to hit bonuses become, I also don’t see why they reduced sneak attack damage but left a lot of creatures with immunity to it, people can beat the ‘realism’ horse all day I don’t buy it, in a world where people can gain flight by being angry realism is a pretty poor argument.

Rogues are awesome at skills at least by comparison to everyone else, especially other "skills" characters like ranger (always thought of them as the nature skills people) who is not better than a wizard or a cleric when it comes to skills right now or the bards (always thought of them as social skills people) who at later levels have the worst skills of any character since they have to get performance up to legendary so unlike the wizard or the fighter who can actually get 3 skills topped out bard only gets 2 actual choices of skills while the third is eaten up by performance. Rogues are the only class that can get more than 3 skills to legendary. The problem you are having is with skills in general because of monster stats not the class itself if they didnt touch the class and instead dropped monster numbers your complaint would disappear as the Rogue outstrips every class in the game by miles in terms of number of skills and skill feats it can focus on.

I've now played 5 different bards at various levels and 1 from level 1 to 10. Cantrips are not living up to the hype, especially after level 5. Spells in general are a big problem.

Part of me feels bard may feel very different is spellcasting wasn't so pointless at the moment. Not only do you not have enough spells, you run out quickly (at least in the play test) and are left with cantrips that don't do a lot. Like melee combat, around 7 or 8 the effectiveness of spells wear off. Bard is suffering from all the problems Wizards and Sorcerers are seeing.

I know the design team is aware of both the issue with melee for casters and casting, however, cantrips do not in any way "save" the bard from the issues we're talking about. Though, I agree, if one or both of those issues are fixed it would make bards feel more relevant.

Though, I think one vein that bards are lacking on the class feat spectrum is actually combat feats. Maybe Diva Style type feats for a new Melee focused Muse. This would add both new options for bard and help shore up weaker points. Maybe there is a Caster Muse introduced as well that introduces more spell options.

But spells are in a not good place right now and that includes cantrips and compositions.

I fully agree with this, but I also feel like Skills are a big problem as well. Being gated into having to take and upgrade Performance and likely even Occult skill while not getting any more upgrades than a fighter or any other class except a rogue makes every "skill" based class other than Rogue feel like they aren't skill based at all. It doesn't feel like it matters that bard has the second highest base starting skills when we are pigeon holed into upgrading one of them and we do not get more upgrades.

In addition to this anyone that wants to play the swashbuckling bard is also at a big disadvantage because while bards can get shields, and finesse martial weapons in addition to light armor the rogue is once again the only character that gets access to dexterity being added to damage.

This is not simply a problem with bard either, Ranger is feeling this same problem. I always thought of the ranger as a nature and survival skills based ranged fighter, but right now they get nothing in terms of extra skills by comparison to the fighter and thus live and die simply by the feats with what feels to me like very little real identity.

To me the best designed classes right now are, Fighter, Rogue and Cleric, probably Barbarian as well, have not played with and do not know enough about Monk or Druid to have an opinion on them.....

For spell caster fixes I really think they should make spell casters stronger early and may drop off the scale a little bit in the late road if they are worried to much about later strength.

For Example: Instead of having 3 of every spell level as you get higher, Have it more like
1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th
1: 4
2: 6
3: 6 3
4: 6 5
5: 6 5 3
6: 6 5 4
7: 6 5 4 3
8: 6 5 4 4
9: 6 5 4 4 2
10:6 5 4 4 3
11:6 5 4 4 3 2
12:6 5 4 4 3 3
13:6 5 4 4 3 3 1
14:6 5 4 4 3 3 2
15:6 5 4 4 3 3 2 1
16:6 6 5 4 3 3 2 1
17:6 6 5 4 3 3 2 1 1
18:6 6 5 4 3 3 2 2 1
19-20:*******************************************

Basically allowing lower level spell casters to feel stronger while also taking away some strength of higher level casters by severely limiting higher level spells and spell slots. This way you can also make mid level spells a little bit stronger as well, or even have spells that scale all right with character level.

As far as performance being rolled into other things. Playing an instrument might be a diplomacy or a society roll. Juggling, dancing, high wire acts... sounds like acrobatic performances to me. Singing and oratory is definitely Diplomacy, acting is deception. Comedy can be dependent on what kind of comedy, slapstick could be athletics while stand up could be diplomacy or society again. These are just a few thoughts.

Unless they've changed it, there isn't a size/weight/bulk limit on telekinetic projectile. There should be some object not bolted down in the room, a wagon, a corpse, something.

You would think but that is still technically GM dependent if he wants to say the cave in the middle of the woods is kept spotlessly clean by its inhabitants and if you want a rock to do anything besides pierce damage you need to bring a substantially sized rock by the spells description he has every right to say that making the cantrip gm dependent.

Secondary note: Telekinetic Projectile as a cantrip relies heavily on a GM that actually allows you to use it and is reasonable with the type of damage you find just lying around or for you to waste bag space on carrying around random small knick knack items and having the gm not require you to carry anything to large to count as anything other then pierce damage a lot of if's if you ask me.

Tunewalker wrote:

If the party is a lot of martial classes or martial classes and a cleric I am counting on not being useful for 80% of fights.

In that case, Inspire Courage alone would make you useful, and you still have 2 other actions each round. Also, don't underestimate the usefulness of a 3-action Magic Missile when you need it.

To make my claims on Inspire courage a little bit more accurate. I am finding that using it as an action over attacking has a chance of doing much less and since Martial classes can attack better it might be better to simply play a martial class.

Now some random math.... if you are the 4th party member of say a barbarian a Paladin and a rogue you have 3 people that are going to go in swords a-swinging so this is your best possible group set up this should be where a bard shines, you have a second person that can do some healing and you have 3 people that will attack with weapons.

If you use inspire courage and each of them has a 55% chance to hit a target you increase both their chance to hit and their chance to crit by 5%, so with your one action you have 10% chance per attack of adding another die of damage to the enemy. With 3 people attacking your action is equivalent to adding a 27% chance of adding an extra die of damage to the round if each player makes 2 attacks this actually increased quite a bit to a whopping 49% chance of adding an extra die to the round

Now compare this to attacking yourself if you have a 55% chance of hitting the first attack than simply making an attack has better odds of adding a die of damage, if you make a second attack at minus 5 you have a 35% so using it when you have an extra action after moving and attacking (something you wont have if you decided to cast a spell that takes 2 actions like T. projectile) and while these numbers are the same for a fighter when the fighter hits he is likely doing 1d8 + 4 damage or 5-12 while you with a short bow are doing 1d6 or 1-6 or with a rapier if you didnt stack strength also a d6 for about 1-6. If you did stack strength than you either took a hit to dexterity which is bad for your survivability and your spell attacks or you took a hit to something like wisdom which is bad for some skills (perception sense is the biggest) or constitution which could leave you pretty low on health for some one that wants to get up close and personal or your primary stat charisma which if you did than why play bard???

This said the extra 1 damage over the course of 3 attacks at 55% will mean you contribute 1 damage 83% of the time. 2 damage (spread out over 2 attacks) about 60% and 3 damage (spread out over 3 attacks about 17% of the time) The chance that the single damage dealt over each of these attack has to make a difference in the actual fight though is even smaller as it depends on how much damage a player can do vs how much health a creature has. Now if you happen to be playing a bard then yes Inspire courage is great, but do not prioritize it over actually attacking yourself the odd of it actually helping by comparison to your attack helping is much smaller.

The biggest issue is this is best case scenario we are working with here and it still doesn't quite shine. In this scenario we would still want a second healer but it would always be the cleric. They are just to good and if I replaced the Paladin with a cleric to begin with then and only then would a bard start to look good, but only about as good as every other caster which in early levels they are not good at all.

I think this may just be a "caster problem" in general right now. They needed to be toned down at higher levels but brought up at lower levels. The fact is the linear fighter and the quadratic casters problem is more than just a caster power problem at high levels it is a caster problem at all levels. They are too weak at low and too strong at high, nerfing them at all levels doesnt solve this problem it just makes them unappealing at all levels of play.

Corwin Icewolf wrote:

Vic Ferrari wrote:

John Mechalas wrote:

I am also frustrated that Grapple is locked behind Athletics.

Me too, grappling/shoving should not be tied to skills, 5th Ed made this mistake, now too have high level bards and rogues (due to Expertise) that can pin ogres and pit fiends to the ground with impunity.

... I have no problem with that whatsoever... W00T for dragon wrestlers!

Ha, that's not the problem (I wish they had a class feature and/or Feat that lets you grapple Huge creatures), it's that Expertise is exclusive to Bards and Rogues, so, welcome to 5th Ed, where Bards and Rogues are the best wrestlers in the multiverse!

Expert is not in any way exclusive to bards or rogues. Every single class I have read so far gets to increase their proficiency from trained to expert or pick up a new skill as trained at 3rd level and can upgrade again every 2 levels (5,7,9,11,13,15,17,19) and are able to get their signature skills (Athletics is not a Signature skill for bard) up to Master or Legendary at levels 7 and..... 15 I think.... respectively.

Thank you guys for replies. Also I would like to hear thoughts on the class from others so far as well. My feelings may change as we continue to play, but ya this has so far been the "feeling" I get when playing.

As for the inspire courage, while I know it is one of the stronger buffs of the game, I also acknowledge that SO far we haven't had an enemy that had an AC lower than 14 to my knowledge and I do not believe even with my + 1 that we can beat that by 10 with anything other than a 19 or a 20 so I guess it does increase crit range by 5%, which would kill completely 5% of the time, but I could also have attacked and hit the thing with literally any other class and had around a 50% chance that when my ally attacks it on the next turn it dies (chance of my to hit with other class) and if that was a melee class I could moved to flank the thing giving a good bonus anyway.

Further while it is adding to multiple of my allies attacks it is still just 1 damage per attack. If that 1 damage is not the difference between alive and dead than it is still over kill. Whether that over kill ends up being 1 damage, 2 damage or 4 damage by the end of the fight 4 not real damage is still not real.

That said I know for a fact that my +1 damage from inspire courage HAS been the difference between a character living and a character dying at least 2 or 3 times with just the first adventure, but I also know that if I played a martial class myself I would have had the same results with just hitting the thing 1 time and by now I would have either killed more targets or been the difference more. I think the case here may be Sacrificing Charisma down to 16 at the start to have better strength or dexterity might very well be the way to go with a bard that does not have more than 2 team mates or 3 team mates as being good with a weapon and being able to contribute directly to a fight with a weapon just seems more efficient, also in this case I believe myself just moving more towards the front so that I can move swing and cast shield on my first round and cast inspire should it go beyond that may make me feel more useful.

First level spells feel useful and powerful, only having 2 though makes me feel completely useless pretty quickly if I do not hold onto them. I am sure most casters feel like this. If the party is a lot of martial classes or martial classes and a cleric I am counting on not being useful for 80% of fights.

Inspire courage, The + 1 starts out feeling really cool, but I quickly realized it doesn't do a lot. +1 to attack only makes the attack 5% more likely to hit with how high Monster AC is it is unlikely to affect crit chance at all as Nat 20's seem like the must hit for a crit. The + 1 damage sounds useful, until you realize that if that 1 damage is not the difference between it being alive and it being dead than it is just adding to overkill from a later hit.

Skills: this is actually what feels the worse about this class. You start with 6 skills + your intellect bonus trained, but because you do not get anymore skills ranked up per level than any other class it does not feel like it matters if it is 6 skills, 5 skills or 3 skills, you will still only be able to get 3 to legend or 2 to legend and 1 to master and 1 to elite, and you will always feel the need to get performance up first which causes you to fall behind everyone else who will be taking what ever skill they feel is most useful for the campaign. It makes the bard, which I have always felt to be the "skill monkey" next to the rogue, feel like the least flexible character in terms of skills as you are pigeon holed into maxing out one of your skills for in combat performances.

Overall: spells are nice in the few fights you get to use them, if you do not have a cleric you will not get to use anything except healing spells because you do not have enough slots and your spells are not strong enough to justify using them over keeping the fighter or barbarian topped off. Skills feel awful do to being pigeon holed into a skill and thus having less flexibility than other classes while still having just as few skills as them. As cool as Inspire courage sounds on paper it has very little real affect. Ultimately there seems to be very little reason to bring a bard or even an occult spell caster for that matter over any other class. They just do not bring anything to the table except a good laugh at how ridiculous you can play them.

First level spells feel useful and powerful, only having 2 though makes me feel completely useless pretty quickly if I do not hold onto them. I am sure most casters feel like this. If the party is a lot of martial classes or martial classes and a cleric I am counting on not being useful for 80% of fights.

Inspire courage, The + 1 starts out feeling really cool, but I quickly realized it doesn't do a lot. +1 to attack only makes the attack 5% more likely to hit with how high Monster AC is it is unlikely to affect crit chance at all as Nat 20's seem like the must hit for a crit. The + 1 damage sounds useful, until you realize that if that 1 damage is not the difference between it being alive and it being dead than it is just adding to overkill from a later hit.

Skills: this is actually what feels the worse about this class. You start with 6 skills + your intellect bonus trained, but because you do not get anymore skills ranked up per level than any other class it does not feel like it matters if it is 6 skills, 5 skills or 3 skills, you will still only be able to get 3 to legend or 2 to legend and 1 to master and 1 to elite, and you will always feel the need to get performance up first which causes you to fall behind everyone else who will be taking what ever skill they feel is most useful for the campaign. It makes the bard, which I have always felt to be the "skill monkey" next to the rogue, feel like the least flexible character in terms of skills as you are pigeon holed into maxing out one of your skills for in combat performances.

Overall: spells are nice in the few fights you get to use them, if you do not have a cleric you will not get to use anything except healing spells because you do not have enough slots and your spells are not strong enough to justify using them over keeping the fighter or barbarian topped off. Skills feel awful do to being pigeon holed into a skill and thus having less flexibility than other classes while still having just as few skills as them. As cool as Inspire courage sounds on paper it has very little real affect. Ultimately there seems to be very little reason to bring a bard or even an occult spell caster for that matter over any other class. They just do not bring anything to the table except a good laugh at how ridiculous you can play them.

breithauptclan wrote:

Scythia wrote:

Sanmei Long wrote:

From what I've heard, it isn't what people do or don't do that kills them, it's the fact that monsters have a relatively high chance of hitting, critting, and sometimes even killing the PC in one blow -- and that's if they're optimized. Battles are very swingy when optimized (apparently the average chance for a fully optimized character to land a blow or a spell against a same level opponent are never better than 55%) and tend to flatten you if you're not.

I agree. While I didn't have a TPK, I did have to use the dying rules in the very first battle I ran. An enemy had gotten an easy first hit on a PC, then crit on the second.

Any battle since that lasted beyond the first round has involved a PC falling to five or less HP. Enemies are basically stronger and better than PCs, including free magic bonus damage despite not having magical gear.

I can vouch for it not being PF1 assumptions, I didn't use AoO in PF1.

This was our experience with the Lost Star scenario. We never TPK'ed, but it was close a couple of times. Enemies would regularly knock out at least one of our party every encounter. This was even with retreating from the dungeon and healing up in town several times.

For our party healing we had one Paladin with the improved (d6) Lay on Hands. Which is not nearly enough.

We also weren't poring over the rule book trying to build the most optimized characters either. We like to play characters based on them being cool and interesting characters. So we pick skills and feats based on what interests us.

As a result, Drakus could one-round KO any one of our characters. And did so twice. Two hits in the same round, no crit needed. Once was after being hit with enfeebled(2) by the Paladin. That guy was seriously unable to miss our player characters.

I was part of a group that TPK'd during the Lost Star and a lot of this was similar to our experience. One of our members felt we could have beat...

Oops double post. didnt write anything except to quoting going to do so now.

Update for this week our rogue did not show up this week since we were a player down the GM created an NPC wandering Cleric. It was determined that rest was not a possibility because the town was a week away on foot and the woods are dangerous and the rest of the goblins were not going to just sit around while we rested and did nothing.

With cleric healing npc though we killed elite goblins with little difficulty, and skeletons died super easy as well. Traps have been a bit of an issue... also finding anything. We have called our barbarian players dice "murder dice" ironically it does not appear to matter which dice he is rolling give him a die and ask him to do a skill check 70% it will be lower than 10, ask him to hit something with a hammer 70% it will be above 14 the barbarian doesnt do skills he only smashes.

We are still good health cleric STILL has more healing (dear lord the difference between a cleric healer and any other kind of healer is insane.... must have 1 cleric if you are not planning on resting every couple of fights).

So far I believe the best way to go about things with a group of 4 is 1 Cleric, 2 martial classes (doesnt matter which ones) and one member that is capable of big AOE stuff for dangerous things (alchemist with bombs, or wizard, or sorc or what ever) is ideal for longer adventuring days, but you will have to know that the AOE person will only be able to contribute in a couple fights outside of cantrips. If your group has a lot of casters rests will be required a lot.

Summoner. I just like the idea of a fully dedicated pet class. I also like the idea of them being a single target buff/ healing class with it but that could be just me.

Well so far my group has only made through about half the first dungeon and I am pretty sure we are going to wipe.

I am the only caster in the group (I am a bard) and I was dumb and used my first spell to early in the dungeon and was left with only 1 spell to heal with. I did so and it worked out fine, and we found a healing potion which the barbarian used for a whopping 1 health. So far we have kind of figured that if we leave to go back to town it is a fail as the mission implies a tight time constraint on finding and killing the main big bad.

I am at around 7 health, the barbarian has 3 health left, the rouge only has 3 damage and the ranger has only taken 3 damage, but with me out of spells and half a dungeon to go I am not counting on us surviving to the end without finding a few more healing potions and hopefully the barbarian rolling higher than 1 on the heal effect for it especially since he probably only has 1 or 2 resonance left.

I meant to put this hear because honestly the way the spells are currently split up with Occult being for bards, Divine for Clerics, Primal for Druids and Arcane for Wizards and Sorcs get to pick ONE of the 4 it makes more sense just to put stuff with the class it goes with and make the beginners nightmare of trying to organize spells a thing of the past.

I actually also wish they would just put the spell lists for each of the primary classes at the end of their class section and just have the sorcerer reference the end of those class pages for theirs.

It is honestly a chore to go back and forth between the spell list and spell descriptions to find what spells you need when the spell list is in class, Lvl, Alphabetical order and the Spell description list contains both spells and powers and is entirely alphabetical.

It is an annoyance that has carried over from pretty much every D20 game and I just dont understand that if you are going to have spell lists by class pretty much why you do not just put those spell descriptions with the class.

Kind of like this.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1odoss3akhpJrpXnzw1Kzhwqth51YIFhT/view

Putting something like this in the bard section of the book and the relevant spell list after each of the classes organized like this makes it much more intuitive for some one trying to level up. Not saying this format is perfect as I prefer the formatting for the spell list portion to this.

Also in the spell list portion it would help tremendously if you put not only which spells could be heightened but also what level they can be heightened to next to them since spontaneous casters have to know a spell at that level to cast it at that level knowing which of the lower level spells might be relevant to know at a new level at a glance on the spell list would save a tremendous amount of time looking up old spells that may or may not heighten to the level you are currently at.

I actually also wish they would just put the spell lists for each of the primary classes at the end of their class section and just have the sorcerer reference the end of those class pages for theirs.

It is honestly a chore to go back and forth between the spell list and spell descriptions to find what spells you need when the spell list is in class, Lvl, Alphabetical order and the Spell description list contains both spells and powers and is entirely alphabetical.

It is an annoyance that has carried over from pretty much every D20 game and I just dont understand that if you are going to have spell lists by class pretty much why you do not just put those spell descriptions with the class.

Kind of like this.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1odoss3akhpJrpXnzw1Kzhwqth51YIFhT/view

Putting something like this in the bard section of the book and the relevant spell list after each of the classes organized like this makes it much more intuitive for some one trying to level up. Not saying this format is perfect as I prefer the formatting for the spell list portion to this.

Also in the spell list portion it would help tremendously if you put not only which spells could be heightened but also what level they can be heightened to next to them since spontaneous casters have to know a spell at that level to cast it at that level knowing which of the lower level spells might be relevant to know at a new level at a glance on the spell list would save a tremendous amount of time looking up old spells that may or may not heighten to the level you are currently at.