OK, I’m about to start a single player campaign. The player wants her character to be a bard, and has come up with a good back-story for it. But when I look at a 1st level Bard, 28 point-buy, I can’t help but wonder if it would be able to survive an encounter with a single rat. I mean, its going to be an urban campaign without that much combat, but still, it is just me, or is the Bard a really weak class?
As I look at it, there are several things that bother me about the Bard class, and I wanted to have your opinion on them.
1) The Bard doesn’t seem very musical – there are not many abilities, and after first level, they seem weak for the level at which they are gained (except Inspire Greatness at 9th level, which seems far stronger than Inspire Heroics at 15th level). I mean, Inspire Courage +2 at 8th level? That bonus is nice, but nothing special, by 8th level. Since music is the main thing a Bard is supposed to be good at, it seems like there isn’t much there.
2) The Bard doesn’t have enough skill points – the character the player has in mind grew up as a Gypsy. She wants to take ranks in Perform (Sing), Perform (Dance) and Perform (Percussion – finger cymbals and such). That’s great, except that without a high Intelligence score, that’s half her skill points right there!
3) The Bard, a jack-of-all-trades, is strangely focused in their magic – only a maximum of 5 spells known per level, choosing primarily from enchantment and illusion. It just seems like, magically, the Bard cannot diversify at all, which seems counter-concept. I’m not complaining about the spell list as much as the number of spells a Bard can learn from it.
4) The Bard, a wandering lone minstrel, seems unable to properly defend herself. Without the feats of a fighter or the sneak attack / evasion / uncanny dodge of a rogue, the Bard is barely better than a wizard in combat unless she uses her spells to enhance herself – which wouldn’t be so bad if this didn’t force you to spend half your precious 5 spells known slots on combat enhancers instead of the player’s character concept.
Am I simply not seeing the potential in this class? I’m not trying to munchkin the Bard – I just don’t want to kill off a pretty cool character concept the player developed with a weak encounter that any other character class could have sailed past without trouble. Again, I’m not planning on that much combat, but I could see a 3rd level bard being killed by a pair of street thugs (CR ½ each, EL 1, if I remember right). And even if she lives, she better not get into any trouble for the rest of the day!
What’s funny is I once created a Rogue / Sorcerer combo – the character couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, but he was always pretending he was a Bard – used his Bluff and Perform (String) for all it was worth. For every 2 Rogue levels, I took 3 Sorcerer levels. I can’t help but think that this character was far more effective, in almost any given situation, than a Bard of the same level would be. That isn’t the debate I want to start, but just that the issue is open makes me think that there is a serious problem with the Bard.
Go easy on me please, its my first post.
Welcome to the boards!
Have you considered allowing the player to do a fighter/bard gestalt character? (With gestalt, you level in both classes at the same time.) That would give the character access to fighter feats, more hp, and better survivability. The gestalt rules are in the SRD. I've found them to be useful when you're low on players--we're running a Shackled City campaign, which is designed for six PCs, with only three players. My players didn't want to run two characters each, so we decided to use the gestalt rules instead.
Good luck with it.
--Fang
This topic has gotten a lot of play.
So you will probably see a lot of responses both ways.
The real answer is that it depends on the type of campaign. And really thhere is no way to judge that until you are into it a few sessions.
A bard is a combination of melee fighter, spell caster, healer archer, skills guy, and party buff magic caster. They are true generalists and are not really the best at anything.
To maximize survivability and keep the flavor, and think focusing on the skills, archer, and music works best - but thats me.
There are also some house rules you might want to implement - but again that depnds on what you want to do - perform, I would let the player pick a number of perfrom styles equal to their charisma or intelligence bonus (you pick) - and they would advance in perform in all of those styles rather than having to invest skill points in multiple styles.
I would also look at suggestion - you get to save versus fascination - then save versus suggestion - and it takes a long time.
I would either scrap it and replace it with another skill (uncanny dodge), skill bonus, a bonus feat.
Change the mechanics so that it had a better chance of success.
That said I like bards (Kyr - was my favorite character and a bard PC) - I think they are the most like the adventurers of folklore, song, sword, spell that appeals to my idea of the game. But you give up a lot in terms of smash'em up power to get that blend of attributes. Its not for everybody.
What Kyr said.
Don't forget the bards ability to mesh stealth skills with mind effecting magic, not sure how powerful it will be but it's loads of fun!
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Bards are generally good as the only man in an adventuring party or the fifth man in an adventuring party. They're versitility makes them good for solo play, but you wouldn't want them in lieu of a real tank, caster, healer, or rogue in a party of 4. Once you get to a party of 5, the bard is the pitch hitter that can fill in almost any other role.
One thing to look at is the whip and the improved disarm and trip feats. A bard gets the whip without spending a feat and can use it to make back row trips and disarms.
I think the Bard is a great class in a group. As a solo chracter they are just too generalized and their special ability to buff the group through song is really lost. I would think that your better off doing a gestalt character with a combination that gives a "Bard" feel. A sorcerer/rogue gestalt would be pretty close. Not an up front fighter type but the sorcerer spells could be fairly deadly. I think a combo that would feel even more bard-like to me would be a Fighter/Beguiler. The fighter part gives the combat and hit points, while the Beguiler giver the finesse, stealty magic aspect. I've not sure I would allow the combo in a group but as a solo player it woould make them fairly well rounded.
If there's only one PC you don't have equity issues, so you can house-rule away to create a version of the bard that would seem munchkinized by comparison to other classes. Since there's no issue with one player hogging all the glory, there's no real problem, and if you create a monster, you can just throw tougher challenges. You could easily give the bard more skill points per level, add an extra spell or two at each level, beef up bardic music, give the bard a d8 HD, etc. You could also run the campaign so its focused more on the challenges that bards thrive at. Give XP for a musical duel, for successfully insinuating yourself into the coterie of a powerful nobleman, for talking the king of a neighboring country out of going to war, etc.
Mongoose put out a good resource book for bards that had a lot of cool ideas in it, back in 3.0. They had a lot of interesting ideas for how to use music, feats you could take to enhance your bardic music, etc. Also lots of stuff to enhance a bard-focused campaign. If you can get ahold of this, it should help your campaign.
For gestalt or multiclass, the swashbuckler from Complete Warrior might be a good combo with bard--emphasizes light armor and dextrous defense.
The best defense is running away. If bards don't already have expeditious retreat, put it on the spell list. Make sure the bard has a route of escape in all potentially tough encounters.
Give out some interesting tailored magic items that enhance the bard's abilities. For an example of one I cooked up myself, you can dig in the archives under the Age of Worms to pull up the thread I started on "Manzorian's Gifts to the PCs".
IMO bards are an awesome class, but they haven't gotten that much love from WotC in terms of optional rules, magic items, PrC's, etc. because of all the core classes they have the most trouble fitting in to the basic paradigm of racking up XP for overcoming physical threats (monsters and traps)--the bard excels in areas that are much harder to definitively simulate using dice, and thus publishers and DMs shy away from them.
For gestalt or multiclass, the swashbuckler from Complete Warrior might be a good combo with bard--emphasizes light armor and dextrous defense.
I agree with this here. Gestalting a bard/swashbuckler for a single player campaign makes perfect sense.
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A bard as a solo adventurer can work pretty well, you just have to make sure you tailor your adventures to his capabilities. At first level, he should be facing creatures with a fraction CR at most, and will probably get decent XP for soloing them. Not to mention, as another post stated, XP for successful roleplaying encounters.
On the skill points issue, a bard with ranks in sing, dance, and percussion will work fine, but chances are, he will only be making his bardic music checks with one of the three. I would put max ranks in sing, and just put a few token ranks in dance and percussion at level 1. That way the character can do all 3, but isn't hemorrhaging skill points left and right.
And that's without going gestalt (I like the swashbuckler idea) or beefing up the class through houserules, both of which should pose no problems for your campaign.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Hmmm...maybe my solo bard comment shows my 2e bard bias. I guess there are other classes that are better for soloing (cleric comes to mind), but I've always thought the bard's ability to do some fighting, do some casting, do some sneaking, and do some healing was a good combo for solo play. Maybe a better combo is not getting hit much or killing your enemy before they hit you (ala cleric, pally, fighter, barbarian).
One thing that might help with the situation presented by the OP is to give the bard some extra perform ranks. It's not as if the additional perform skills are useful or have a significant game effect. Heck, having additional profession skills is more likely to have an impact on the game than the ability to play the lute, the flute, and the tamborine.
(Unless you're playing that polyhedron variant based on Josie and the Pussycats. Maybe being able to play the drums, the guitar, and do a sexy dance is an overpowered combo under that rules set).
1) The Bard doesn’t seem very musical – there are not many abilities, and after first level, they seem weak for the level at which they are gained (except Inspire Greatness at 9th level, which seems far stronger than Inspire Heroics at 15th level). I mean, Inspire Courage +2 at 8th level? That bonus is nice, but nothing special, by 8th level. Since music is the main thing a Bard is supposed to be good at, it seems like there isn’t much there.
Take a look at the Waking Lands. Kolja has variants for all the core classes in there - and his bard is a deal beefier than the official version.
2) The Bard doesn’t have enough skill points – the character the player has in mind grew up as a Gypsy. She wants to take ranks in Perform (Sing), Perform (Dance) and Perform (Percussion – finger cymbals and such). That’s great, except that without a high Intelligence score, that’s half her skill points right there!
It's been suggested here recently by some that an extra 2 skill points for each class would work very well in a role-play intensive campaign. So if you want to have him with even more versatility, you can go this route. Better even - let him purchase any skill as a class skill with those 2 extra points. Since he's your only player, he's going to need access to skill that would normally be covered by other classes. We are talking power creep here, but it shouldn't be an issue since again, you've only got the one player.
3) The Bard, a jack-of-all-trades, is strangely focused in their magic – only a maximum of 5 spells known per level, choosing primarily from enchantment and illusion. It just seems like, magically, the Bard cannot diversify at all, which seems counter-concept. I’m not complaining about the spell list as much as the number of spells a Bard can learn from it.
Allow your player to use the Character Retraining option from the Player's Handbook II. Basically, he can change one option about his character each level - a spell known, a feat, skill ranks - as long as he could have legally made the character with the new options chosen. Note that this is in addition to the Bard's ability to swap a spell known at every 4th level.
4) The Bard, a wandering lone minstrel, seems unable to properly defend herself. Without the feats of a fighter or the sneak attack / evasion / uncanny dodge of a rogue, the Bard is barely better than a wizard in combat unless she uses her spells to enhance herself – which wouldn’t be so bad if this didn’t force you to spend half your precious 5 spells known...
See my above post. Gestalting is the way to go if you want him to have a tougher bard.
TK
I just let bards pick another instrument/style with every two skill points invested. It may not be especially realistic, but as Sebastian noted it's not as if being able to play the flute and the clarinet is ever going to be an advantage warranting spending points on.
I believe that was the rule in 3.0, wasn't it?
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I believe that was the rule in 3.0, wasn't it?
I don't recall, sorry. It's a system used in several other games that I've played and run, but I might have been remembering it from some earlier incarnation of D&D as well.
An aside: While trying to figure out a way that having multiple Perform styles could be worth spending points on, the image of a bard using mime to exhort his comrades to glory came to mind. (Just the thing for those embarrassing Silence spells.) Heck, you might even be able to use it to improve someone's Move Silently skill.*
I had to inflict it on the rest of you.
*Yes, I know you have to be able to hear the bard for the effect to work, but that rather spoils the joke, don't you think?
I believe that was the rule in 3.0, wasn't it?I don't recall, sorry. It's a system used in several other games that I've played and run, but I might have been remembering it from some earlier incarnation of D&D as well.
An aside: While trying to figure out a way that having multiple Perform styles could be worth spending points on, the image of a bard using mime to exhort his comrades to glory came to mind. (Just the thing for those embarrassing Silence spells.) Heck, you might even be able to use it to improve someone's Move Silently skill.*
I had to inflict it on the rest of you.
*Yes, I know you have to be able to hear the bard for the effect to work, but that rather spoils the joke, don't you think?
I thought there was a feat in the Complete Adventurer that let you use your highest Perform score for a number of instruments equal to your Intelligence bonus (I thiink that what it was). Whether it's worth using a feat for is up to you.
I really feel like the spells that made it onto the Bard spell list in PHII and the Spell Compendium fleshed out their casting options nicely, but overall I agree that the Bard has a long hard road, and a solo bard needs some serious TLC to be effective.
I think for the situation in question, gestalt is a near perfect solution, as long as they don't elect to be a gestalt Bard/Ranger or something wacky.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I just let bards pick another instrument/style with every two skill points invested. It may not be especially realistic, but as Sebastian noted it's not as if being able to play the flute and the clarinet is ever going to be an advantage warranting spending points on.I believe that was the rule in 3.0, wasn't it?
I think 3.0 was an additional instrument/style with every rank. It was a funny system because not only did you pick up a new performance medium with each rank, you were really good at it immediately because you got to use your full perform skill for each medium. So, a 20th level bard would (in all likelihood) be really good with 23 different types of performance.
I really feel like the spells that made it onto the Bard spell list in PHII and the Spell Compendium fleshed out their casting options nicely, but overall I agree that the Bard has a long hard road, and a solo bard needs some serious TLC to be effective.
I think for the situation in question, gestalt is a near perfect solution, as long as they don't elect to be a gestalt Bard/Ranger or something wacky.
What's wrong with bard/ranger? Good Base Attack, d8 hit die, arcane and divine spellcasting (with both arcane and divine healing), an animal companion (remember, inspire courage), and bonus combat feats! Plus Track makes for instant adventure hooks.
"Hmm... he didn't get my clue. How about I just put some tracks leading here..." *rolls 1d20, doesn't matter the result* "You see some tracks..."
What's wrong with bard/ranger? Good Base Attack, d8 hit die, arcane and divine spellcasting (with both arcane and divine healing), an animal companion (remember, inspire courage), and bonus combat feats! Plus Track makes for instant adventure hooks.
"Hmm... he didn't get my clue. How about I just put some tracks leading here..." *rolls 1d20, doesn't matter the result* "You see some tracks..."
I knew someone would bite on that *mischievous grin*. All excellent points. The only reason I said it was that a PC in one of my last campaigns chose this option, was roundly mocked by the other players, and wound up being the party leader, MVP and most dynamic character in the campaign for all the reasons you mentioned above and more.
Someone who is good with both people and animals has little trouble winning friends and influencing creatures, eh?
All:
Thanks for all the help! I appreciate all the ideas and suggestions. Please keep them coming!
Fang:
Thanks for the suggestion. You are right, a gestalt certainly solves the player’s problems. I’m still concerned about the apparent underlying problem with the Bard class itself – maybe its the powergamer in me, but I just think it is missing something.
Kyr:
I like your Perform Suite concept – several separate perform skills (number based on the Int or Cha bonus) which advance together as a single skill, useable only by Bards. It’s the sort of thing that a Bard, as a musical character, should have had in the 3.5 rules anyway.
I agree that fascinate and suggestion are underwhelming as Bardic music abilities. Since the Bard class seems to have too few music related abilities as it is, I’d prefer to change the mechanics. Did you ever change them in your games? I’m curious to know what worked and what didn’t.
I’d really like some ideas for new / original music abilities that could be added – not just rogue / fighter abilities – to really enhance the theme of a music oriented class.
Peruhain of Brithondy:
I really like the idea of more bard-related challenges. Do you have any ideas that would work for that style of game? Especially for a low level bard? I’ll try to find that book from Mongoose.
I agree with your point about encounters and experience points – I’m going to have to change my thinking to make that work. I.e., if she successfully talks the thugs out of mugging her, that is a victory and should be treated as such for XP purposes.
Sebastian:
Well, she does want her bard to be a gypsy, and one of her performance options will be her singing and dancing to the finger cymbals. That could get pretty provocative! Maybe there should be a synergy bonus . . . .
Thanis Kartaleon:
Thanks for the link! There are some good ideas there. I wish there were more bardic music abilities (although the Harmonics one was good). That’s the sort of thing that would really add to the bard class – make it more its own class instead of a combination of other ones.
I’d never seen the character retraining option before (alas for the book budget!). I like the idea though – she can use feats / spells known for survival in combat early and change them out to skill / characterization options later once she is no longer in danger of being killed by a rat. Is there any limit to how much can be changed at each level?
The limit for character retraining is one choice per level. That means swapping one spell, or one feat, or one skill (from one skill to another), etc. etc.
Feel free to increase this if you want.
You dont need to max out ranks in every skill you take to be considered "good" at it. A standard bard with a Cha bonus of +2 or +3 can easily get a 14 or 15 result on any Perform check with just 2 ranks in it.
One thing to understand about skills is your skills relative to the rest of the populace, as well as which ones can be used untrained. Just by having one or two ranks, if your key scores are above average then you are ahead of the curve.
Most classes excepting perhaps the druid or cleric can be killed by an otherwise "easy" encounter, especially if solo. The fighter can be taken down in two hits. A barbarian MAY last three hits. Even the cleric, however, will have to spend most rounds curing madly just to stay up, and once shes out, she goes down to. Regardless, you are going to have a lot of rest periods involved unless you run a game that shys away from a standard D&D game, especialy at the start.
I thought there was a feat in the Complete Adventurer that let you use your highest Perform score for a number of instruments equal to your Intelligence bonus (I thiink that what it was). Whether it's worth using a feat for is up to you.
Yeah, "Versatile Perfomer." I'm also allowing a near-identical feat in my Savage Tide AP for knowledge skills: "Versatile Sage."
A strong possibility is to use the Prestige Bard from Unearthed Arcana (available on the expanded SRD). You might also look at the Fochlucan Minstrel PrC. Finally, you need to remember that WotC intended the bard as a non-essential support character. If you already have a combat guy, a wizard, and a cleric, then go for it (to a limited extent you can take the place of a rogue, with your 6 skill points/level). Bard is for backup in the scheme of things.
Someone else mentioned a gestalt bard/fighter. Now THAT's an idea I can't wait to put into action!
As far as flavor goes, on those long quests, heroes are bound to get depressed after sleeping on hard dungeon floors and eating nothing but cold iron rations for a week. Your bard's music allows them to regain their morale. There seem to be no mechanical rules for this (shame on WotC!), but as a geologist, I'm painfully aware of how important morale is in the field (Napoleon said of warfare: "Morale is to physical as three is to one"). You might houserule this: one use of bardic music negates horrific morale penalties for those living in inclement conditions. The "realism" factor of your game thereby increases a hundred-fold, and the bard becomes a core class instead of a red-headed stepchild to the rogue.
Not exactly related to the question:
Personally, I'd play Bards if it wasn't for the utterly unappealing musical abilities. I like the rest of the class just fine - and who doesn't like being able to use a whip without burning a proficiency feat to do so ?
If there were alternate bard class builds (like so many core classes of late are alternative builds on the "standard 4" - fighter seems to have the most alternative builds [Barbarian, Paladin and Ranger in the PHB plus the follow-on Complete book series' core classes], followed by rogue, cleric and wizard more or less evenly), I'd sure take a hard look at them for future play. Assuming my players ever stop feeding thier characters into meat grinders of course ...
i am still used to the 2nd ed bard... man that was a monster class... i altered my bards in 3rd ed and made them more soloable they work well in my groups but it might be due to the hi powered games i tend to run. But Bard compaired to the other classes to me seemed a bit underpowered. i added a bit to their skill points and gave them a few extra feats ( i think like 3 over 20 levels ) to make them feel like more of the "red mage" or "jack of all trades" that i allways saw them as
i am still used to the 2nd ed bard... man that was a monster class...
Right on, brother! And the 1st ed ones ("the original prestige class!") were off the charts in terms of coolness, but nobody had the patience to become one. WotC has tried to resurrect the 1e bard with the Fochlucan Lyrist; one of the characters in the Savage Tide campaign I'm involved in is trying to go that route, and I'm anxious to see if he can keep up with the others in the long run.
i added a bit to their skill points and gave them a few extra feats ( i think like 3 over 20 levels )
The more I think about it, the more I like your bonus feats idea, especially in light of the "Dead Levels" article recently posted on WotC's D&D page (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/cwc/20061013a). This is especially cool because you can tailor your bard more as a combatant (with combat feats) or as a music buffer (with the various splat-book music feats), or, as you mentioned, as a "red mage" (with metamagic feats)-- without gestalting.
well, i think about it like this: the classes are designed to be in (ideally) a 4 person group; thus no class should be great at soloing. that said, any class with 'cure x wounds' is much more survivable.
about bards in particular: i think they tried to make them a bit too general. bards really dont fit as anything other than support, and a bit of adventurer (high skill points). if they were designed more with their music abilities in mind, rather than some music, some magic, as the current design is, they would probably pick up a much more specialized role, as their music abilities would be an effective replacement for buff-type spells and perhaps even some kind of healing song (among other things).
no, i havent thought alot about what i would change about the bard if i was designing it for the next edition, why do you ask? ;)
tog
When i run games with one other person i buff them a bit, mostly so i dont have to waste alot of time altering mopnsters more then i allready have to. when i came to bard i grew up playing with a 1st and then later 2nd Ed bard... i am used to them being VERY tough and able to fit in to any encounter and end up being really useful.
in 3rd ed i had a player level his bard to 10th along with a party of a Paladin Fighter Rogue and Cleric the bard was the new guy on the block and was really kinda a 5th wheel i did give him a few chances to shine but i kinda felt bad. so i altered the class a bit ( as per my last post ) and now i am much happier with them as a whole... they are not yet the 1st ed bard i love so much... but i am gonna end up makeing that bard again one day...
Not exactly related to the question:
Personally, I'd play Bards if it wasn't for the utterly unappealing musical abilities. I like the rest of the class just fine - and who doesn't like being able to use a whip without burning a proficiency feat to do so ?
Me - I like the musical abilities, it many folk traditions, norse, finnish, celtic - cultural roots to the game.
As to "the whip" well probably the dumbest thing about the class right there - actually having one as a weapon period is IMO fairly absurd - but thats the great thing about the game - different strokes.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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about bards in particular: i think they tried to make them a bit too general. bards really dont fit as anything other than support, and a bit of adventurer (high skill points). if they were designed more with their music abilities in mind, rather than some music, some magic, as the current design is, they would probably pick up a much more specialized role, as their music abilities would be an effective replacement for buff-type spells and perhaps even some kind of healing song (among other things).
Well, if we're talking about the ideal 4e bard, I'd like to vote for a modular bard with the ability to either be very music focused or very jack of all trades focused. The class's biggest flaw IMO is that, as it stands, it pleases neither the bard as musician nor the bard as jack of all trades crowd. If it were constructed more like the monk or ranger, where there are choices to be made at various points during the leveling process, and one set of choices related to music and the other to jack of all trades aspect, that would be a nice class.
Well, if we're talking about the ideal 4e bard, I'd like to vote for a modular bard with the ability to either be very music focused or very jack of all trades focused. The class's biggest flaw IMO is that, as it stands, it pleases neither the bard as musician nor the bard as jack of all trades crowd. If it were constructed more like the monk or ranger, where there are choices to be made at various points during the leveling process, and one set of choices related to music and the other to jack of all trades aspect, that would be a nice class.
Now THAT is a great idea! Allow the Bard to develop as a musical magic class if desired, or as a true jack-of-all trades if desired.
I could see that working well – at levels 1, 4, 8, etc (or some other progression) allow the bard to either take a feat (which could help fighting or magic using abilities), or a rogue ability (backstab / evasion / uncanny dodge / etc.), or a bardic music ability.
I’m still trying to work out some additional / bardic music options. Right now I’m leaning toward converting several bard spells I found in the compilation at www.crystalkeep.com/d20 into bardic music abilities. Only problem is how to limit that so it doesn’t make the class too powerful. As things stand right now, a 9th level bard could use inspire greatness 9 times a day, which is the equivalent of casting a (roughly) 3rd level spell 9 times in a single day! That’s already pretty powerful and I don’t want to make that get out of hand.
The limit for character retraining is one choice per level. That means swapping one spell, or one feat, or one skill (from one skill to another), etc. etc.
Feel free to increase this if you want.
Thanks for the info. No, one spell, feat or skill per level should be all she will need (unless skills are reassigned one point at a time). Do you impose a retraining time on the process (i.e., give up the old ability right after going up a level and get the replacement ability after the next level up)? Either way, I like the idea and will use it in all my games.
The feature works as part of leveling up (as the last part) and takes effect immediately. If you're using the "downtime" option from the DMG, skill and feat retraining times are the same (1 week/rank changed, 2 weeks for a feat, one week/2 levels for a class feature). Its still 50 gp for feat training, but skill training and class features are at half cost. Spell retraining takes a day and costs 5 gp/spell level.
I recommend picking up the Player's Handbook II if you can. It's one of the better splats WotC has come out with recently. It includes alternate class features for all of the PH base classes and many of the base classes from the Complete Role line of books. And the feats inside are pretty darn nifty, for the most part. (I especially like the picture they used for the Master Manipulator feat) The new spells I haven't looked through in detail yet, but even without that chapter (30 pages), the book stands up well. It also includes affiliations - one of the better systems for organizations that I've seen so far in D&D. If you've played EverQuest at all, you'll see some similarities - perform a mission/find an item: gain faction. Betray the organization: loose faction. The Savage Tide adventure path has made good use of affiliations thus far.
TK
(unless skills are reassigned one point at a time)
The written limit is 4 ranks at a time.