Since a lot of people seem unhappy with the bard's combat capability, why not bolster inspire courage for the bard alone? Normally, it grants a +1 moral bonus on attack/damage rolls for the rest of the party. For the bard, though, it grants additional damage on attack rolls equal to 1/2 the bard's ranks in Perform (up to a maximum of his bard level).
I actually don't see many people complaining about the bard's combat ability at all. He's a Jack of All Trades, not Conan--from my perspective, most of the discussion is about their perform abilities and flavor.
In my Alpha playtest, our Bard was thrilled with the bump to a d8. That seemed to fix most of the "combat effectiveness" issue that he had at earlier levels, namely falling down alot with a negative hit point total. The handfull of hit points he gained was enough for him to take one or two more hits in combat and still be awake long enough to retreat once he gets hit too hard.
There have been several posts talking about making the bard more effective in combat. In particularly somebody suggested allowing the bard access to sneak attack--giving the bard additional bonuses to damage rolls would do something akin to this.
But the bard's job isn't to slug it out toe to toe with enemies, or even to pick off foes that the front line fighters are engaging with, but to improve everyone's abilities in the fight, and then be competent enough to contribute after they have started buffing the party.
"Several posts" does not equal "a lot of people."
Just sayin'.
But the bard's job isn't to slug it out toe to toe with enemies, or even to pick off foes that the front line fighters are engaging with, but to improve everyone's abilities in the fight, and then be competent enough to contribute after they have started buffing the party.
QFT
But the bard's job isn't to slug it out toe to toe with enemies, or even to pick off foes that the front line fighters are engaging with, but to improve everyone's abilities in the fight, and then be competent enough to contribute after they have started buffing the party.
Isn't that what the Cleric does, and better than the Bard?
Point being... the Bard's buffing bardsongs just get overshadowed after a point. I explain it better in the Five Relevant Bard Issues thread.
-Matt
I'm not sure I completely follow. In general terms, taking damage and reliably hitting the enemy applies to fighters, barbarians, paladins, and even rangers, but they all do so in different ways. The bard doesn't buff the party in the same way that the cleric does, and the cleric, while no more likely to hit than the bard, is less likely to get damaged due to his armor, but the bard has a lot more skill based options available to him.
I guess what this kind of boils down to for me is, are we starting with 3.5 as our baseline, or are we trying to vaguely rebuild all of this from scratch?
Oh, I agree that the bard's purpose isn't to "slug it out" with the enemy. However, bonus damage is not going to make that particularly possible--it will just enhance the bard's ability to function in combat. The rogue is still getting +10d6 (+35, on average) damage per attack. The bard would be getting +10 extra damage per attack. While this would be strong, it would not be particularly powerful when one considers that the bard has 3/4 BAB, a poor Fortitude save, low AC, and a very limited supply of feats.