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I've always told my players a party is always better with a bard. I like the concept and the role they fill in a group, and that's why Deadly Performance doesn't work for me. I don't want to imagine a good-aligned bard spending 20 levels becoming the greatest performer in the land just so he can get the ability to kill things with his art. It seems rather counter-productive to me. Who is going to want to listen to you sing once they find out your voice kills people? An evil bard might take 20 levels solely for this ability and a neutral bard might decide to use it sparingly in desperate situations, but I could only imagine a good bard doing this once perhaps swearing to never sing again once the deed is done.
I know the game is mostly about killing monsters and taking their loot. I also know that most of the people I've played with don't care too much about things like character motivation, plot development and role-playing in general and rarely take 20 levels of anything (let alone bard) so this will probably never come up. However, I want a 20th level ability for bards that seems bard-like. Here's something I thought up that might work:
Proselytize (not 100% on the name but it gets the point across) - At 20th level, a bard reaches the pinnacle of her training. By giving a spectacular and passionate performance requiring a minimum of ten minutes, the bard is able to sway the thinking of a creature convincing it to give up its old way of life and take up a new path. The bard makes a Perform check and uses the result as the DC of a Will save made by her audience. Any creature that fails this save immediately converts to a new alignment equal to that of the bard. This change in alignment lasts for a number of days equal to the bard's Charisma modifier. At the end of this time, the creature makes another Will save. Failing this save makes the alignment change permanent. Targets receive a +5 circumstance bonus to their saves if their beginning alignment is diametrically opposed to the alignment of the bard. For example, a Lawful Evil creature receives a +5 bonus against the song of a Chaotic Good bard. Such creatures receive the same bonus on their secondary save. Any creature making its first save against this ability is immune to the bard's Proselytize for 24 hours. This is a mind-affecting, language dependent ability that affects 1 Hit Die of creatures per class level of the bard. Any threat or attack on the target creatures during the performance ruins the effect of this ability. The bard may combine this ability with her Fascination ability.
It might need a little tweaking or clarification, but I think this or something similar better captures the bard's role of diplomat/entertainer and it's an ability that makes sense for a bard of any alignment.
What do you all think?
I hear what you are saying, but in fairness I have had many bards in my games. Although all who have taken on this class enjoy the role playing aspect tremedoulsy they all would like to eventually get that ability which can match other classes in power. I actually am happy to see them get an ability such as this and would hope that it continues in the final version of the game.
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Well, another alternative I had considered was to make the bard's 20th level performance ability based on the character's alignment (similar to a cleric's turning.) Good bards would have one ability, Evil a reverse ability and Neutral would be allowed to choose one or the other.
I suppose I just don't see how bards need an ability with the sole function of causing death. It's unprecedented. Aside from a very small number of spells that cause a minimal amount of damage, there are no bardic abilities that even scale toward causing immediate death. It just isn't what bards are about.
My other issue with Deadly Performance is the time required to pull it off. As presented in Beta, it seems the ability can used as a standard action. In other words, it only takes a bard about six seconds to create such intense joy or sorrow in a creature that it kills them. I can understand that from a spell or a physical attack, and I understand the futility of trying to argue for realism in a game of fantasy, but there's just something really anticlimatic to me about the idea of a bard rolling a high enough intiative to go first, sing a few bars of the Happy Happy Joy Joy song and Lothar of the Hill People suddenly dropping dead from sheer glee.
I suppose in the end I'll probably just make up an alternative class feature and let my players choose between the two.