Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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So during Jason's playtest (thanks for running!), I got to run an early draft of the bard.
Some highlights:
* More spells per day!
* +4 on saves vs. sonic or mind-affecting
* hp came out like I was getting D8s, as expected
* Bardic knowledge is now +3 on Knowledge skills, rather than a separate roll
* Something called Well-versed that I know not the meaning of :)
* Song of DOOM, which is like a reverse inspire courage (penalties to the die rolls of your foes)
I must stress that all of this is subject to change or my misinterpretation. The orc wardrummer I played was a blast, especially when my drumming caused the group to bleed from their ears. Go team bard!
thanks russ ......sounds intriguing
* Bardic knowledge is now +3 on Knowledge skills, rather than a separate roll
In the game I'm currently playing in, the low-int-score no-knowledge-skills bard consistently knows dramatically more about everything than my character, a wizard, does... including the things I have max knowledge ranks in.
So if you ask me, it's about f%$*ing time.. THANK you.
Yay! Maybe I can finally play an effective and fun Bard.
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So during Jason's playtest (thanks for running!), I got to run an early draft of the bard.
Some highlights:
* More spells per day!
* +4 on saves vs. sonic or mind-affecting
* hp came out like I was getting D8s, as expected
* Bardic knowledge is now +3 on Knowledge skills, rather than a separate roll
* Something called Well-versed that I know not the meaning of :)
* Song of DOOM, which is like a reverse inspire courage (penalties to the die rolls of your foes)I must stress that all of this is subject to change or my misinterpretation. The orc wardrummer I played was a blast, especially when my drumming caused the group to bleed from their ears. Go team bard!
I too was lucky enough to play "Oglam Death-Drum", Half-Orc Bard and proud member of the Cursed Lot!
"A bit of light music over dinner?" "NO!"
I believe that "Well Versed" was what provided the +4 to sonic and language dependent saves. Came in very handy when the Vrock gave its screech.
Here was his complete special abilities:
Orc Ferocity
Bardic Knowledge (+3 to all knowledge skills)
Well Versed
Bardic Music (6/day)
Countersong
Fascinate
Inspire Courage +2
Inspire Competence
Song of Doom (Enemies Take -2)
Suggestion
I primarily stuck with "Song of Doom" because it was "new" as well as because Jason kept throwing mean nasties at us! I was about to "Suggest" the raging Barbarian not try and attack me again but he calmed down on his own. (The Barbarian's curse was to sometimes go uncontrolled in his rage..)
Spells 6/4/4 (Cha16)
Oglam could also cast 0 level spells at will, like the other spell casters.
"If you think my drumming is bad, you should hear me sing!"
Btw, Jason, you should write this up into some sort of one shot. (You know, in your free time... Good God Man, Get Some Sleep!!)
It was hilarious and tons of fun!
My my my... sounds like a bright beginning for the Bard. I have a feeling though, we'll be seeing some ruffled feathers from the Sorcerer crowd, with the note about more spells.
Anyway, though, thanks for the scoop/preview. :o)
*wave*
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Getting rid of Bardic Music means loosing Bardic Music feats as well. I know they aren't OGL, but is everyone really abandoning ALL their books for Pathfinder? My barbarian player still uses Instantaneous Rage! Just because it isn't OGL (or Pathfinder, since we are only playtesting it with the existing systems), does not mean that players won't still use it.
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I ran a campaign where I allowed the bard to use her bardic abilities to cast her spells, ala Alan Dean Foster's SpellSinger. It essentially meant that she had "eschew materials" as long as she had her instrument in hand to use. It's fairly easy to allow and balance, especially in light of any non-verbal spells that now had a verbal component (thus subject to the dreaded "silence".) So sometimes it wasn't a benefit to the character, but fit in better with the "roleplaying".
So even though they're called "spells" and on the "spell list" if you work at it you can implement them in a fashion that fits with the flavor of the Bard without breaking the game too badly.
Even so, I'm not sure you'd want to muck with the Bard abilities that much in this initial release. Certainly having a house rule like that was easy to implement because the player and GM were in sync, but it could be easily abused.
-Pete
My my my... sounds like a bright beginning for the Bard. I have a feeling though, we'll be seeing some ruffled feathers from the Sorcerer crowd, with the note about more spells.
Anyway, though, thanks for the scoop/preview. :o)
*wave*
Well I'm not sure how. For one it sounds like the Sorc may be getting a bit more after review, which Jason reluctanly posted on another thread.
Also, it's hard to imagine too much complaint given the fact the sorc has always been at least a functional character an the bard often has not been.
Maybe you should submit this as a scoop to ENworld ;)
I just submitted this to EN World as a Pathfinder scoop.
DOOM SONG == Minmay Defense
Seriously, this is cool. Fighters have sword duels, monks have their tumbling kung-fu showdowns, wizards have their spellweavings, and now bards can do battle of the bands.
As far as 'bard don't need this', I'd recommend a quick look at the rogue. Maybe different bardic talents, allowing the bard to either branch out or specialize into one effect area?
I don't like the Harmony Pool idea. Might as well build bard spells with coda, refrain, and verse like in Vanguard MMORPG. (Although as spell systems go, that's one of the sweeter ones I've seen.) Lol, or the way the original Bard's Tale bards regained their songs only by imbibing alchohol.
I think a lot of the confusion with bards comes from different and conflicting sources about what a bard is capable of. I'll wait to see what the A3 bard looks like, but sounds like they have some cool ideas for it.
Any chance on unifying bardic music and spells?
The fluff usualy goes like "Bards work their magic thru music, yadda, yadda" and when you expect to find musical spells, you run into sorcerer-like spells and bardic music which operates under whole different mechanics.
Bards could lose their spells interely, and gain a wider variety of music effects, as well as a pool of "harmony points", similar to the barbarian's rage points. Monte Cook's alternate bard (bardic music are spells) and Iron Kingdoms' Fellcaller (just the music, no spells) could provide good inspiration.
This can make the bard more unique, rather than the guy that casts spells, does some rogue work and fight a bit, but never leave the field of mediocrity.
I just find it odd -- and annoying -- having two sets of mechanics to describe things that, fluff-wise, are the same -- music producing supernatural effects.
If there was a balanced way of doing it, I could even see the bard working like the Tome of Magic Truenamer with casting through Perform checks. IT makes a lot of sense flavor-wise, but I'm not sure I would want to tackle getting the mechanics to work, however. :)
I think those are some good fixes to the bard though I would like to see the Bardic Knowledge thing increase with level. But for now, I like it.
It sort of does, really--as the bard advances in level and puts more ranks into knowledge skills, yes?
I just submitted this to EN World as a Pathfinder scoop.Maybe you should submit this as a scoop to ENworld ;)
Lo and behold, it's on the front page, verbatim.
Director of Games
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Aurg!!! I can't wait much longer!!!
DOOM song? Excellent: LINK
Very nice. I would be lying if I said that this particular bit did not cross my mind as I was doing some of the design work...
But then again, Gir quotes pretty much run through my head all day.
Jason Bulmahn
"I had to make room for the tuna!"
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
DOOM song? Excellent!
DOOM song? Does that mean I can finally play a dire corby bard? Sweet! But don't let James Jacobs get wind of this; he'll nix the whole project... nobody hates a dire corby like he does!
I think those are some good fixes to the bard though I would like to see the Bardic Knowledge thing increase with level. But for now, I like it.It sort of does, really--as the bard advances in level and puts more ranks into knowledge skills, yes?
Not really. If that was the case, then everyone has a similary ability as long as they put points into the skill.
As it stands, this would be something similar to a Skill Focus feat. Maybe something like what Spycraft does with their origin descriptions (+2 to knowledge skills, and it increases by 1 for every 4 levels). That would allow one of the core abilities of the bard to scale with as the bard increased in level.
Or if that seems to be too much, since it applies to all knowledge skills, maybe start with the bonus to one skill, and increase the number of skills as the bard goes up in level.
Skaven13
Aurg!!! I can't wait much longer!!!
DOOM song? Excellent: LINK
Very nice. I would be lying if I said that this particular bit did not cross my mind as I was doing some of the design work...
But then again, Gir quotes pretty much run through my head all day.
Jason Bulmahn
"I had to make room for the tuna!"
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing
Best. Lead Designer. EVER.
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Getting rid of Bardic Music means loosing Bardic Music feats as well. I know they aren't OGL, but is everyone really abandoning ALL their books for Pathfinder?
If they are, they're kinda missing the point. Just because my interest in 4e has gone from shock to disappointment to curiosity to apathy to antipathy to borderline hostility doesn't mean that all of those third edition books from WotC on my shelves are somehow less useful than they once were.
* Bardic knowledge is now +3 on Knowledge skills, rather than a separate rollIn the game I'm currently playing in, the low-int-score no-knowledge-skills bard consistently knows dramatically more about everything than my character, a wizard, does... including the things I have max knowledge ranks in.
So if you ask me, it's about f@&%ing time.. THANK you.
That's the nature of the bard, he hasn't spent the last 10 years of his life in a tower apprenticed to a wizard, he's lived life and picked up a little of everything.
Anyway, I'm hoping this ability allows the bard to use any knowledge skill untrained much like the noble ability from Star Wars.
Personally, I kind of like the Bardic Knack ability from PHBII; I wish PRPG would implement something like that.
I are looking forward to this new bard. It was one of the few classes I never played in second ed(the others being the druid and the barbarian), and I love the bard I'm playing in my weekly campaign. Let's see what Pathfinder has in store for this class.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, 2011 Top 32
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I am so psyched to see the new Bard. I loves me the Bard; it's a one-character adventuring party. And I would second the idea of song talents, maybe giving the old bard the chance to either diversify or focus on a certain aspect. I also once floated the idea that since the bard is such a jack-of-all-trades, giving him the option of taking lesser forms of other classes' talents, such as a bonus fighter feat, a wiz/sorc spell he can cast as a bard spell, a +1d6 sneak attack, some sort on monkly talent, lesser rage 1/day or the ability to take a clerical domain. it would give him the range to become whatever he needed to be.
Oh, and for the love of Golarion, give the poor bugger some new Bard only spells or sonic damage spells. If he's the master of sound, he should be able to, I dunno, use them!
I wouldn't mind seeing the bard taking a page from the factotum class and allowing them to treat all skills as class skills.
I think that represents the "jack-of-all-trades" theme perfectly.
Song of Doom?
Now Kobolds need to get bard as favoured class!
DOOM DOOM DOOOOOOOOM DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOOOOOOOOM!
I love invader Zim (I could watch that doom song all day! and the Brains song from Billy and Mandy)...but seriously what level was the Orc Bard? I don't recall it being mentioned, and I have an eager player in my STAP playtest (almost off the ground) who's dying for the new rules. I don't want to get a 1st level noob all psyched for song of doom, and then find out it's an 8th level ability (they did mention they were fightin' Vrock so stands to reason that it's higher level)
YES!
I had house-ruled a version of Song of DOOM (Dark eye: in short, makes ennemies shaken) and we had rebuild the spell progression, I was afraid my player would feel short-changed when Alpha3 would come out but I think he'll like it just fine. He's already got the at will cantrips for play-test and I don't think he'd be happy to give it up.
I wouldn't mind seeing the bard taking a page from the factotum class and allowing them to treat all skills as class skills.
I think that represents the "jack-of-all-trades" theme perfectly.
They already have all but a bare handful of skills as class skills. Disable Device and maybe Intimidate are really the only questionable ones among those that aren't class skills.
They already have all but a bare handful of skills as class skills. Disable Device and maybe Intimidate are really the only questionable ones among those that aren't class skills.
Bards should definitely have those skills as class skills. A bard should be an expert intimidator by trade and dabble in causing devices to malfunction as part of their scoundrel image
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* Bardic knowledge is now +3 on Knowledge skills, rather than a separate rollI'm wondering if this was scalable (i.e. +1 every 3 Bard levels or some such). +3 in the late game seems rather small.
Appears to be Level/2. Oglam had +3 at level 6. The blog post has him at +4 at level 8. Seems reasonable.
Very very nice. It sounds like Paizo is doing exactly what I'd like to see: A boost for the bard, but not a class overhaul. (I am also of the camp that likes the 'little bit of everything' bard).