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To me though in an optimized to the max game, generalists like the bard, are rarely a good choice. Since by definition they aren't optimal at anything. In most min/max situations your goal is to find something you do well and focus to the extreme on doing it as good as you can.You just don't understand how D&D works. D&D is all about pushing numbers off the RNG. If characters DON'T do that, they're going to die.What is RNG?
Also, this post is hilarious - I don't even know what RNG is but i've been enjoying dnd for years, without the implied endless character death. Maybe enjoying and understanding are not reliant upon one and other?
Allow me to translate: "If you are not optimizing your characters to the fullest, stacking as many bonuses on top of any random role as possible, you are , quite frankly, made of suck and full of fail. It is a wonder you ever graduated from Chutes and Ladders, loser."
Or something like that, kids these days with their slang...
Hence my post half way up the thread: We're talking about the bard, people. No need to get panties in a twist...
If you're a min/maxing power gamer, wtf are you doing worrying about the bard? If you're a role-player, why are you crying about numbers?
And, Thurgon, I tend to agree with some of your assessment. Look, I know I'm a huge fighter guy, but even I can't stand (with a capital WTF??) the spell nerfs. All I wanted was less mobile casters and a somewhat harder concentration DC. I didn't want their teeth pulled...
It's more of an issue when you're the roleplayer and your fellow PCs are of the min/max variety. You get a whole lot less jeering when people don't think you're wasting a spot that they need to survive.
But then again why can't a person be both? Is there some rule that someone can't be an effective roleplayer and still want to be effective in...
Ah, the old "Whateverhisnamewas Fallacy". Ok, go min/max a commoner and get back to me. Let's see, why can't you be both...
If you buy in for a dime, you buy in for a dollar, so, if you're going to be an "effective min/maxer" you have to buy into the "tier" system. Which means, no one plays fighters, rogues are comic relief, and spell casters that aren't "tier one" are pointless. Sure, you could come up with a nice back story, play him well at the table with a funny voice and everything, but you're following the "min/max" script, which lays everything out for you in order to, what did that dude say? Oh yeah, "push numbers off the RNG".
The beauty of the 3x system is the options. Min/maxing eliminates options, it doesn't enhance them. Anything "sub-optimal" is right out, and likely to result in those jeers you so wish to avoid. Even if the character's background makes such a choice eminently logical. If it ain't "pushing numbers off the RNG" it's crap.
"Roleplaying" is about more than just creating a persona for the table, it's about making a character that is more than just numbers. A "roleplaying" table may not ever fight the biggest, baddest monsters in the game, they might just try and tell a good story. And you don't need to "push numbers off the RNG" to do that.
Effective and optimal are not nearly the same thing. An optimal character can be a roleplayer as well, but he wont be a bard. Bards are as I said generalists, and by default because of how optimization works generalists are in general not optimal. But bards can be effective but you have to accept in a group of min/max'ers your level of effectiveness will be less then theirs.
It's more of an issue when you're the roleplayer and your fellow PCs are of the min/max variety. You get a whole lot less jeering when people don't think you're wasting a spot that they need to survive.But then again why can't a person be both? Is there some rule that someone can't be an effective roleplayer and still want to be effective in the war game portion of the game as well?
I remember from my earlier days of playing D&D getting very frustrated with the system that penalizes not min/maxing. See, I come from a GURPS background and the first time I played, I built my D&D character like a GURPS character spreading my points around till I had a character that looked like what I imagined him to be. I put points in places based on how much I figured each skill was actually used.
But in D&D, which lives in the optimal, we can all imagine what happened with my attempt number one. In D&D the challenges can be designed to challenge the optimal and wipe out the sub-optimal or be a cake-walk for the optimal and a challenge for the sub-optimal. The die swings very quickly with each +1.
What I was hoping for was not another run at the sub-optimal bard, but instead making the bard an optimal buffer. I can understand the coolness of the jack-of-all-trades master of none concept. I can even get behind it in other systems that are designed for that to work. But very, very rarely do I ever see a bard in a party that doesn't already have the core four accounted for (tank/healbot/arcanist/skillmonkey). Forcing their jack-of-all-trades into a permanent backup position. And I don't like playing hoping that the primary gets taken out so I can finally get my shot at the big leagues only to disappoint because I'm sub-optimal.
I encourage the idea, but in practice I've never found it to work in this system. Let the bard be the most kick-ass optimal buffer out there and let that make up for the fact that you don't have yet another paladin or cleric or arcanist.
Ah, the old "Whateverhisnamewas Fallacy". Ok, go min/max a commoner and get back to me. Let's see, why can't you be both...
If you buy in for a dime, you buy in for a dollar, so, if you're going to be an "effective min/maxer" you have to buy into the "tier" system. Which means, no one plays fighters, rogues are comic relief, and spell casters that aren't "tier one" are pointless. Sure, you could come up with a nice back story, play him well at the table with a funny voice and everything, but you're following the "min/max" script, which lays everything out for you in order to, what did that dude say? Oh yeah, "push numbers off the RNG".The beauty of the 3x system is the options. Min/maxing eliminates options, it doesn't enhance them. Anything "sub-optimal" is right out, and likely to result in those jeers you so wish to avoid. Even if the character's background makes such a choice eminently logical. If it ain't "pushing numbers off the RNG" it's crap.
"Roleplaying" is about more than just creating a persona for the table, it's about making a character that is more than just numbers. A "roleplaying" table may not ever fight the biggest, baddest monsters in the game, they might just try and tell a good story. And you don't need to "push numbers off the RNG" to do that.
First, my goal is the roleplay first and war game second. My friday night GURPS game spends almost no time rolling and almost all 7 hours actually playing our characters and the system supports that.
But in a system that requires d20 rolls for checks and such, there has to be a tie-in to what actually happens in the game world. It's hard to produce a narrative as an effective leader and diplomat when you fail all your checks. I'm not out there trying to be Aragorn or whomever. I'm just trying to produce a narrative and a character who fits that narrative. And I really like playing flawed characters who aren't good at everything, but good enough to do the job. D&D heavily penalized you with that since a +5 swing is a huge, huge swing.
And the whateverhisnameis fallacy is no more a fallacy than the fallacy of real roleplayers don't need rules, they should just roleplay. In an ideal world you might be right, but people who are great roleplayers play with not-so-great roleplayers and GMs and life is messy and things matter that maybe shouldn't but please don't pass judgement on the rest of us for wanting to roleplay our hearts out and maybe do a good job once in awhile.
PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE:
And this is where the thread devolves into yet another religious debate about rollplaying versus roleplaying. May I suggest that if you have any more comments about that particular topic you take it somewhere else as I'd like to be able to read about the bard here and not the age-old argument that can and will never be solved.
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I don't really give a crap about the role v roll debate. I'm pretty much a power gaming min/maxing fool for the most part. 3x demands it. If I want to "roleplay" I'll play 1e, since the numbers don't mean squat, really.
Thank WotC for turning D&D into Rolemaster for the dilemma. But don't pretend it doesn't exist...
I don't really give a crap about the role v roll debate. I'm pretty much a power gaming min/maxing fool for the most part. 3x demands it. If I want to "roleplay" I'll play 1e, since the numbers don't mean squat, really.
Thank WotC for turning D&D into Rolemaster for the dilemma. But don't pretend it doesn't exist...
Wasn't trying to. I was saying that in a system that requires min/maxing the solution to making the bard attractive to all but the most masochistic of us was to make it a full-time buffing class and not the jack-of-all-trades it is now.
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Wasn't trying to. I was saying that in a system that requires min/maxing the solution to making the bard attractive to all but the most masochistic of us was to make it a full-time buffing class and not the jack-of-all-trades it is now.I don't really give a crap about the role v roll debate. I'm pretty much a power gaming min/maxing fool for the most part. 3x demands it. If I want to "roleplay" I'll play 1e, since the numbers don't mean squat, really.
Thank WotC for turning D&D into Rolemaster for the dilemma. But don't pretend it doesn't exist...
Well, you see, the designers are handcuffed by two things: backward compatibility and the mistaken idea that 3x is suitable for sub optimal characters if monsters and NPCs are played to the hilt. When a fighter has 2x (on average) the hit points of their 1e counterpart at 18th level, but dragons have nearly 10x the HP, the fighter had better be squeezing every ounce of juice out of his swing (i.e. he'd better be optimized to the hilt). He's more than likely only going ot get that one swing, after all, and, as a ratio of his opponent's hit points, he's not going to come close to his 1e counterpart. 15th level 1e fighter will get three swings on the dragon, which only has 88hp, so he may do half to 3/4 of its hp total in damage. 15th level 3x dude will be lucky to do 1/4th...
To bring it back home, in 3x, bards were never meant to be primary characters. They were designed to be complimentary characters. They existed to enhance the archetypal four's abilities, not replace them. Even historically speaking, bards sang about heroes, they weren't heroes themselves. So, in 3x terms, they're embedded reporters of a sort.
I don't know what to tell you. You decided to back the Willy Loman of D&D classes...
then tape a cut out of the 3.5 power attack and Weapon Expertise feats over their counter parts in the PRPG
Not to pick on Devil of Roses (however fun), but I've seen this sentiment a lot.
I *personally* wouldn't agree with it for the Beta Power Attack, but have you *SEEN* the Fighter Preview?
Power Attack is stronger than ever now! Full penalty as bonus to off-hand damage, DOUBLE penalty as bonus to main-hand damage. *Possibly* TRIPLE penalty as bonus to two-handed weapons.
Wasn't trying to. I was saying that in a system that requires min/maxing the solution to making the bard attractive to all but the most masochistic of us was to make it a full-time buffing class and not the jack-of-all-trades it is now.I don't really give a crap about the role v roll debate. I'm pretty much a power gaming min/maxing fool for the most part. 3x demands it. If I want to "roleplay" I'll play 1e, since the numbers don't mean squat, really.
Thank WotC for turning D&D into Rolemaster for the dilemma. But don't pretend it doesn't exist...
Well, you see, the designers are handcuffed by two things: backward compatibility and the mistaken idea that 3x is suitable for sub optimal characters if monsters and NPCs are played to the hilt. When a fighter has 2x (on average) the hit points of their 1e counterpart at 18th level, but dragons have nearly 10x the HP, the fighter had better be squeezing every ounce of juice out of his swing (i.e. he'd better be optimized to the hilt). He's more than likely only going ot get that one swing, after all, and, as a ratio of his opponent's hit points, he's not going to come close to his 1e counterpart. 15th level 1e fighter will get three swings on the dragon, which only has 88hp, so he may do half to 3/4 of its hp total in damage. 15th level 3x dude will be lucky to do 1/4th...
To bring it back home, in 3x, bards were never meant to be primary characters. They were designed to be complimentary characters. They existed to enhance the archetypal four's abilities, not replace them. Even historically speaking, bards sang about heroes, they weren't heroes themselves. So, in 3x terms, they're embedded reporters of a sort.
I don't know what to tell you. You decided to back the Willy Loman of D&D classes...
And I wasn't having an issue with it until the amount of time I could be the court reporter was cut down to rounds/day instead of uses per day. I was perfectly happing being the assist and not the hero of the day (how's that for a mixed metaphor). But in the games I played, they nerfed the buffing aspect, but thankfully also added a nice little suggestion to simply double the number of rounds you get per level which I'll happily take if I can get my GM to accept it. I don't mind being Willy Loman; I just don't want to be the Willy Loman to Willy Loman.
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*THUNDERING MUSIC*
*DEEP BARITONE VOICE*
In a world full of 400 HP Dragons... Incorporeal Advanced Elite Dire Fiendish Behold*BEEEP* Eye Tyrants ... and evil Druid/Commoners ....
... where Wizards can kill you with but a thought !
... where Rogues can kill you before you can think !
... where Monks can think really hard about killing but not much else !
ONE BARD DECIDED TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
That's how the preview should start, IMHO.
When a fighter has 2x (on average) the hit points of their 1e counterpart at 18th level, but dragons have nearly 10x the HP, the fighter had better be squeezing every ounce of juice out of his swing (i.e. he'd better be optimized to the hilt). He's more than likely only going ot get that one swing, after all, and, as a ratio of his opponent's hit points, he's not going to come close to his 1e counterpart.
This is a deeply flawed analysis. The options and abilities of both the dragon and the fighter are vastly more open than they were in 1E. This simple comparision leaves so many critical factors out of the analysis that it is meaningless.
Obviously an optimized character will kill faster/ kill more / live longer ....
But it is far from true that optimization is mandated. It is very greatly far from true.
And the idea that you must elect to forego roleplay options just to be certain you are survivable is assinine.
To use your own example - knowledge skills generally don't take an action, because you either know stuff or you don't, and the check is made to see if you do know it. I find it ridiculous that a party might encounter a ward on a door, and the wizard would wait for the bard to start singing before he rolled his Knowledge: Arcana check.
I always thought of it as the wizard thinking he had read something about the subject somewhere back in his apprentice days and some nice, soothing, Jeopardy-style music might help him remember exactly what it had said.
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Our GMs have a nasty habit of having the enemies have multiple buffs on them. They hear us coming and then starting chugging all the potions they can. Perhaps they shouldn't, but that's something that should come up in the suggestions for GMing book that's coming out.I remember the last two fights we had with Strahd in 3.5. In each, he had 13 buffs on him. I did a targeted dispel, followed by a quickened targeted dispel. Otherwise we'd have some dead PCs on our hands above and beyond the ones we normally get (about 1 every 2 sessions). I shudder to think what would happen if we had the Pathfinder version that only gets one spell.
One of my favourite tactics is to use clairvoyance (or similar spying technique) to peek into a room to see what the bad guys are doing. If they're buffing up/waiting for us, I wait until the buff durations expire or they lose interest. If they're clueless, we attack. Attack a foe when he is at his weakest and at a time of your choosing.
Sorry to bring this up so late, but this thread has been going a mile a minute and I needed to take a break for sleep and TF2. :)
One of my favourite tactics is to use clairvoyance (or similar spying technique) to peek into a room to see what the bad guys are doing.
Off-topic: I hope that Pathfinder shortened the 10 MINUTE CASTING TIME of Clairvoyance so that you can actually cast it without your target wandering off in the mean time.
Well I've just finished reading through the preview Bard (though not all of the hundreds of posts in this thread yet!) and thought I'd offer my 2 cents on one of my favourite classes. The short answer is that there's a lot I won't be able to fully appreciate until I've played one, but I like it so far. The class seems to keep the essence of what made me enjoy the class, but has changed enough that there are a lot of new toys to play with.
For 'The Big One' I'm not really sure what I think about switching Bardic Performance to a number of rounds per day. I've got no problem with it in principle, I'll just be interested to see if in play situations the number of rounds seems to be generous or stingy. I'd quite like to see a mechanic which allowed use of some weaker Bardic Performance abilities out of combat that don't count against the round limit. Or possibly that take off one round but last for five. For all I know something like that may already exists however and I'll just look forward to reading the full description in a month or so.
Some of the new abilities seem crazy good (keeping in mind I don't really know how things were in Beta, since I've only recently discovered Pathfinder). I like the way that Bardic Knowledge works now, essentially quantifying it as a less comprehensive but far broader knowledge skill. Lore Master provides an incredibly useful icing on the cake though. The ability to take 10 means a Bard essentially knows every piece of reasonably straight forward knowledge (i.e. DC 15) and the ability to take 20 once a day means he's a font of rare knowledge as well. This will presumably lead to the Bard being incredibly useful in a lot of non-combat situations.
I'll need to read up on versatile performance in the Player's Guide to understand just what the restrictions are. Though it sounds extremely useful and maybe overpowered as it stands I really like that it will potentially make it useful game wise to have a whole slew of perform skills. A Bard may well be able to spend almost all of...
I agree that killing with Bardic Music doesn't appeal to some, maybe not as much as creating a permanent dominate person. "Hey now we're buddies"
Overall there's much to love in the Pathfinder Bard. I'll just have to try and adjust the number of rounds up.
When a fighter has 2x (on average) the hit points of their 1e counterpart at 18th level, but dragons have nearly 10x the HP, ...This is a deeply flawed analysis. The options and abilities of both the dragon and the fighter are vastly more open than they were in 1E...
Definitely. Plus... I *hated* 2nd edition, but even I used those dragons over 1st edition, way too few hp in 1st. (Plus the Purple dragon was statted up for 2nd...)
... was this forum about bards?
Hmm... it seems that the best pure buffing spell that I could find in core is Good Hope. I'm sure once you start introducing splat books it gets more insane, but that's something I guess I was looking more for.
I was hoping for more Enchantment spells that buff the party coming from the bard (especially since Bardic Music in my games will be of more limited use).
Edit: Actually after looking through the Spell Compendium, there's not much there either. Could a spell bards gets at 7th level be as good as it gets for party-wide d20 buffs?
It's 1d8 now. A swashbuckler would shift his focus a bit: He'd probably not be a loremaster (and thus have lower Int). Average Wis is okay, too, since you get the strong will save (and bonuses against some of the will stuff via well-versed). So Dex, Con, Cha, with some Str thrown in (you'll use weapon finesse, anyway), and you have the swashbuckling bard.
Actually in the beta I have a level 2 bard cohort with 20 hit points. There's all sorts of ways to keep those suckers alive. I cast Shield Other to extend their life. There's also aid and other spells as well.
Additionally the bard gets to play it smart and go in after the AoO have been taken and they're also proficient with the whip which is useful for being useful while staying out of range. Additionally a casting of Sanctuary from the cleric can make the bard a healing machine with wands while staying relatively safe.
And finally don't forget that Bards...
All of my rips on the Bard have been for the 3.5 version as implied in my original post. I like the newer PF Bard a lot better. Someone else stated that splat books really helped the [3.5] Bard out and that's very true. It'll be nice to build a decent one straight from core, though.
If you're a min/maxing power gamer, wtf are you doing worrying about the bard? If you're a role-player, why are you crying about numbers?
I'm a min/maxing roleplayer, and think the bard rocks.
Allow me to translate: "If you are not optimizing your characters to the fullest, stacking as many bonuses on top of any random role as possible, you are , quite frankly, made of suck and full of fail. It is a wonder you ever graduated from Chutes and Ladders, loser."Or something like that, kids these days with their slang...
This is a good time to promote my groundbreaking idea that will revolutionise education: The Kid Matrix!
After birth, the little rugrats are plucked into a huge VR system where computer programmes take care of their education and all that. They get unplucked when they turn 18.
Think about it: It's perfect:
And, the best part:
Damn, this idea is so great, someone should make me president of the universe right now!
Had an interesting thought: Versatile Performance may have a very good exploit if you allow 3.5 splatbooks. One of the Complete Splatbooks had a feat (which I believe was called, of all things, Versatile Performer)
Punpun still kills you.
My main worry with the bard is combat effectiveness.
Then don't play one. Seriously. Not everything needs to be about being hyper-effective in a fight.
With regards to bardic music, I see alot of "Well we catered to this play-style" and "Just house-rule it" and alot of "The bard doesn't need that many rounds"
This worries me quite a bit, because it implies that, like the 3.0 designers, you're assuming that everyone will play the game the same way you do, and if not they can house-rule. This is somthing I hope ins't the case, since I think alot of aspects I really hate about 3.0 and 3.5 (some of which continue into PFRPG) could have been avoided if the origonal designers stopped to think "What if they decided to play the class this way?" CoDzilla, Batman Wizards and other issues never cropped up during their internal play-tests because they always assumed those classes would be played a specific way (I.E. Cleric as a healbot, even though the 2nd Edition cleric only received healing spells by taking either the healing or nature domain).
Please don't tell me "If you think XY or Z is a problem, you could always just house-rule otherwise" because it leaves me thinking that you're following the same style which is only going to result in other problems arising.
I have to ask: What role playing game doesn't, at the end, do this? The games set a certain baseline with the rules they include. If you play or want to play differently, the burden is on you to house rule it.
It's true that problems can be missed in any design when some exploit isn't detected and closed. That's why a good playtest will push at the boundaries as well as test typical features. If WotC missed problems with CoDzillas, I don't think it's because they assumed they'd just be healbotting around. In fact, given the changes they made to the cleric to prevent them from having to preallocate resources to healing, they were thinking they'd do more than just act the healbot. I would be curious if they provided too stringent guidelines to the play testers that discouraged pushing the boundaries.
When it comes down to it, whenever you design the function of something from software to game rules, you do have to follow some sort of decision rule that embraces the larger proportion of the audience. Where I work, we talk a lot about the 80-20 rule. If we meet the needs of 80% of the clinicians working with our software, it's OK because we really can't afford to worry about the 20% non-conformists as well. We'd never release the code. Ultimately, we also provide hooks into the system that custom programming can fill in to meet at least some of the needs of those 20%-ers. RPGs do the same by allowing space for and encouraging house rules.
My impression of the Pathfinder Bard is that it is generally an improvement over 3.5. The only thing I have any real reservations about is the round of bardic music vs uses per day, which seems to be the major point of contention of those who are not happy. I wouldn't be surprised if most of those complaining would not be giving their approval this one point aside.
Absofreakinglutely. The rounds/day was the only thing I had a problem with and it wasn't the mechanic, but simply the stinginess of rounds gained per level. The other issue is that as has been posted before many of the uses of skills require more rounds than a bard could effective keep up. If you have to take 10 rounds to do X, then that's half to a third of a bard's rounds for that day.
For long battles (say 10+ rounds), one could easily burn through their daily allotment of rounds quickly The 3.5 uses per day lasted for a minimum of 6 rounds (1 round of singing + 5 after the bard stopped) to as long as the bard sang + 5 rounds. This was great for long battles. For short battles (say about 3 rounds), especially if the bard sang for more than the first round, a good portion of that was wasted.
What I see is a shift from "roll initiative and press play on the bard" to "a boost only when you really need it".
The problem of "boost when you need it" is that it's often very difficult to know when you're going to need it. If you really didn't need it in the first few rounds because no one was engaging and you didn't really need it in the last few rounds because it's just mop up duty, then what is the harm in having it since it's not going to turn the tide of battle having it in the first few rounds and the last few rounds.
My only lingering concern is "will we now actually see bards playing instruments instead of just carrying them to signify that they are bards?"
Part of the problem is it's always seemed kind of crapish to me to have a player who does nothing but sing which is why sing a couple of rounds and have it last for 5 more was perfect. Just imagine the guy in the corner singing about how you hit the guy real good in the face, but not doing anything active. I understand you're helping, but it's kind of like knowing that managers are helping -- it doesn't always leave you with a satisfactory feeling.
But bards need that boost to make up for the fact that they suck in combat. Instead of doing 16 damage to the baddie like my barbarian, rogue or sorcerer friends, I make each person hit a little more often and do a little more damage.
Every class besides the bard is designed to do damage or heal damage in combat. Now some people think that people should be good in combat and some people shouldn't be, but pretty much in the games I play everyone gets to shine even in out of combat scenarios. The tank with strength checks, the rogue with dex/skill checks, the cleric with diplomacy, and arcanist with knowledge.
But if you look at the weak classes, you'll see a common trend of not quite being up to snuff in the out-of-combat arena or the in-combat arena.
I think people forget that for a few hours a night, D&D is still a war game and no one that I know of wants to being sucky for that significant a portion of the night.
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Had an interesting thought: Versatile Performance may have a very good exploit if you allow 3.5 splatbooks. One of the Complete Splatbooks had a feat (which I believe was called, of all things, Versatile Performer) which allows the bard to treat all of their Perform skills as if they had the same number of ranks as their highest perform skill. <snip>
This may have been addressed, as I haven't caught up on the thread quite yet...
To clarify: The 3.5 feat "Versatile Performer" only gives you equivalent ranks in a number of performs equal to the bard's Int bonus.
So yes, as you mentioned this would be a very nice feat given the new bard class ability of similar name. But it wouldn't be quite as annoying as you imagined. :)
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But bards need that boost to make up for the fact that they suck in combat. Instead of doing 16 damage to the baddie like my barbarian, rogue or sorcerer friends, I make each person hit a little more often and do a little more damage.
That's the whole point. All of that little bit extra adds up big time. The bard forgoes that personal glory and leads their team to victory. They don't have to be accomplished at dealing the hurt, although they can be pretty effective with the right choices.
EG. I could see a half orc bard with TWF, a double axe, arcane strike and inspire courage laying down a lot of hurt. Not as good as the fighter, but better than the wizard and probably the cleric.
But bards need that boost to make up for the fact that they suck in combat. Instead of doing 16 damage to the baddie like my barbarian, rogue or sorcerer friends, I make each person hit a little more often and do a little more damage.
That's the whole point. All of that little bit extra adds up big time. The bard forgoes that personal glory and leads their team to victory. They don't have to be accomplished at dealing the hurt, although they can be pretty effective with the right choices.
EG. I could see a half orc bard with TWF, a double axe, arcane strike and inspire courage laying down a lot of hurt. Not as good as the fighter, but better than the wizard and probably the cleric.
I don't think anywhere I was advocating that the bard should be able to dish out the hurt directly. I'm just saying, don't limit his boosting ability in combat, it's one of the few things he has.
Now if they had increased the DC of his illusion and enchantment spells then we might have been talking, but in combat the bard will fail at most things besides Bardic Music. I just wanted it to last as long as it could.
By 4th or 5th level you should have everything you need to survive every fight and get in those critical rounds of boosting. Now you'll have to take Extra Music a number of times to get that same benefit (at least where I play). I don't like must have feats (though I loathe to bring that up because it'll cause yet another religious war).
You just don't understand how D&D works. D&D is all about pushing numbers off the RNG. If characters DON'T do that, they're going to die.What is RNG?
Also, this post is hilarious - I don't even know what RNG is but i've been enjoying dnd for years, without the implied endless character death. Maybe enjoying and understanding are not reliant upon one and other?
Allow me to translate: "If you are not optimizing your characters to the fullest, stacking as many bonuses on top of any random role as possible, you are , quite frankly, made of suck and full of fail. It is a wonder you ever graduated from Chutes and Ladders, loser."
Or something like that, kids these days with their slang...
Dude!
Don't be a h8tr!
Pwnd!
;)
But bards need that boost to make up for the fact that they suck in combat. Instead of doing 16 damage to the baddie like my barbarian, rogue or sorcerer friends, I make each person hit a little more often and do a little more damage.
That's the whole point. All of that little bit extra adds up big time. The bard forgoes that personal glory and leads their team to victory. They don't have to be accomplished at dealing the hurt, although they can be pretty effective with the right choices.
EG. I could see a half orc bard with TWF, a double axe, arcane strike and inspire courage laying down a lot of hurt. Not as good as the fighter, but better than the wizard and probably the cleric.
I don't think anywhere I was advocating that the bard should be able to dish out the hurt directly. I'm just saying, don't limit his boosting ability in combat, it's one of the few things he has.
Now if they had increased the DC of his illusion and enchantment spells then we might have been talking, but in combat the bard will fail at most things besides Bardic Music. I just wanted it to last as long as it could.
By 4th or 5th level you should have everything you need to survive every fight and get in those critical rounds of boosting. Now you'll have to take Extra Music a number of times to get that same benefit (at least where I play). I don't like must have feats (though I loathe to bring that up because it'll cause yet another religious war).
My serious suggestion: Buy a black marker when you get your pathfinder (3.5 melee) books and just "fix" all the issues you have with it. I know it's what I am doing, 3.5 melee has some nice changes and some truly terrible ones. Change the ones that don't work for you and make it a good game for you and your group.
I have to ask: What role playing game doesn't, at the end, do this? The games set a certain baseline with the rules they include. If you play or want to play differently, the burden is on you to house rule it.
A few, though saddly 3.0 D'n'D was not one of them. 2nd Edition did a better job of taking into account different play-styles, since it took into several possible character ideas, such as a cleric of X type of gods or spellcasters who focus on X range of spells. The writers of 3.0 activly admit that they only expected clerics to be used as heal-bots and wizards to be nothing more than fireball throwers. Other types of spells were created mostly because they existed in previous editions.
It's true that problems can be missed in any design when some exploit isn't detected and closed. That's why a good playtest will push at the boundaries as well as test typical features.
To be fair, even this playtest had bounderies. Paizo are attempting to make PRFG as backwards compatable as possible, which saddly means that some flaws aren't going to be so easily removed.
If WotC missed problems with CoDzillas, I don't think it's because they assumed they'd just be healbotting around.
Saddly it was though, one of the writers admitted that this was the case in an interview, I beleive it was just before the release of 3.5. I'm not sure exactly where, but there are written copies of the interview floating around the web. It may take a while to find, but it's there.
In fact, given the changes they made to the cleric to prevent them from having to preallocate resources to healing, they were thinking they'd do more than just act the healbot. .
Actually, most of the changes from 2nd to 3rd edition only put more focus on a cleric as a healbot. Before they only had access to healing spells by selecting the healing domain (or lesser healing spells by selecting the nature domain). When 3.0 came out they had a set spell list with healing spells and good aligned clerics became able to cast them spontainiously. Whilst beforehand a cleric could only use healing magic by focusing on it, now even evil clerics who despise life in all shapes and forms have the ability to heal wounds.
RPGs do the same by allowing space for and encouraging house rules.
Perhaps, though I suppose I am a little peeved at the "If you don't like it, just house-rule it" approach, since if Paizo really considered that a viable option then I don't see why they'd bother with PRPG, since house-ruled 3.5 versions are better able to solve group specific issues. As it stands, the only issue I have with the bard preview was the point/rounds system for music, somthing which seems very out of the blue and does make certain ideas hard.
Such as fascinating a group of townsfolk for a long period of time. The preview bard will barely able to last 3 minutes doing that. And in all honesty, I've never heard anyone complain about the lengh of Bard Songs, it's a "problem" I don't think anyone was asking to be solved.
My serious suggestion: Buy a black marker when you get your pathfinder (3.5 melee) books and just "fix" all the issues you have with it. I know it's what I am doing, 3.5 melee has some nice changes and some truly terrible ones. Change the ones that don't work for you and make it a good game for you and your group.But bards need that boost to make up for the fact that they suck in combat. Instead of doing 16 damage to the baddie like my barbarian, rogue or sorcerer friends, I make each person hit a little more often and do a little more damage.
That's the whole point. All of that little bit extra adds up big time. The bard forgoes that personal glory and leads their team to victory. They don't have to be accomplished at dealing the hurt, although they can be pretty effective with the right choices.
EG. I could see a half orc bard with TWF, a double axe, arcane strike and inspire courage laying down a lot of hurt. Not as good as the fighter, but better than the wizard and probably the cleric.
I don't think anywhere I was advocating that the bard should be able to dish out the hurt directly. I'm just saying, don't limit his boosting ability in combat, it's one of the few things he has.
Now if they had increased the DC of his illusion and enchantment spells then we might have been talking, but in combat the bard will fail at most things besides Bardic Music. I just wanted it to last as long as it could.
By 4th or 5th level you should have everything you need to survive every fight and get in those critical rounds of boosting. Now you'll have to take Extra Music a number of times to get that same benefit (at least where I play). I don't like must have feats (though I loathe to bring that up because it'll cause yet another religious war).
As yes, but I'm not the GM in all my games which means sometimes I'm going to be on the losing end of the stick.
Absofreakinglutely. The rounds/day was the only thing I had a problem with and it wasn't the mechanic, but simply the stinginess of rounds gained per level. The other issue is that as has been posted before many of the uses of skills require more rounds than a bard could effective keep up. If you have to take 10 rounds to do X, then that's half to a third of a bard's rounds for that day.I won't claim to know if the number of rounds gained per level is enough or not. Would it have been nice to have had the chance to determine that during the Beta? Certainly. But that is a luxury we didn't get. There is also no official answer yet on whether or not out of combat uses of bardic music use up one round per 6 seconds of activity or if they use 1 round per check or per attempt (1 round of bardic music to climb an entire wall regardless of number of checks required to reach the top). We only have pieces, not the entire picture.
The problem of "boost when you need it" is that it's often very difficult to know when you're going to need it. If you really didn't need it in the first few rounds because no one was engaging and you didn't really need it in the last few rounds because it's just mop up duty, then what is the harm in having it since it's not going to turn the tide of battle having it in the first few rounds and the last few rounds.
It's no more difficult than knowing when to cast one of your limited number of spells per day. I'm not saying having more than you need is bad. But would you cast a 1 minute buff for a 3 round random encounter an hour before you reach the dungeon? Yes it is more resource management than bards had before, but I don't see it as being too much of a burden.
I understand you feel 'buffing' is the bard's niche and see this as weakening the ability to fill that role. I hope it will be an opportunity to expand beyond that niche.
In the end, you can't please everyone.
The problem is that for the most part the bard has to be preconginent where the cleric does not. The cleric casts bless or shield of faith (similar with the arcanist) and their buff lasts the whole fight. They don't have to know which round they're really going only miss by 2 and have needed that buff.
Do we have a ruling on how bardic feats work? Do they consume rounds or 2 X rounds?
Resource management is not so much round by round but encounter by encounter. The PCs have to measure the risk they're facing in the battle. If they see a single goblin with no armor or weapons, they're probably not going to waste valuable buffing spells for what should be an easy fight ... until it becomes clear that the goblin is actually a 20th-level monk. That's when they backpedal and the casters try to get off their spells, and that's when the bard would start playing.
Per 3.5 or Beta rules, the bard on Easy settings would most likely just start playing anyway. As my husband pointed out, if the bard's going to play every round of every combat, all the players might as well mark down the +2 as a permanent part of their character sheet.
And even with resource management, clerics & wizards need valuable rounds to get their buffs in place. Only a very lenient DM allows the party to get fully buffed before every encounter. The selling point of the bard is that his buffs are immediate and apply to all his allies at once.
As it stands, the only issue I have with the bard preview was the point/rounds system for music, somthing which seems very out of the blue and does make certain ideas hard.
Such as fascinating a group of townsfolk for a long period of time. The preview bard will barely able to last 3 minutes doing that. And in all honesty, I've never heard anyone complain about the lengh of Bard Songs, it's a "problem" I don't think anyone was asking to be solved.
Clarification: in 3.5 lasted 1 round per bard level.
The problem of "boost when you need it" is that it's often very difficult to know when you're going to need it. If you really didn't need it in the first few rounds because no one was engaging and you didn't really need it in the last few rounds because it's just mop up duty, then what is the harm in having it since it's not going to turn the tide of battle having it in the first few rounds and the last few rounds.
Once the bard gains the ability to use bardic magic as a move action it's almost the opposite If a Clerics only has 4 bless spells memorized in a day, burning one for an easy encounter burns 25% of that resource and one standard action. With Lem at 8th level he enters an encounter and he can initiate his bardic music as a move action and launch a sling bullet or a spell in that same round. If the encounter is done in 1 round Lem doesn't renew it and has burned 2% of his buffing capacity. If the encounter is winding down and there are only a couple easy targets left Lem can save his Bardic Performance for later... the Cleric has burned his Bless spell and the remaining rounds in it are lost.
To be fair, even this playtest had bounderies. Paizo are attempting to make PRFG as backwards compatable as possible, which saddly means that some flaws aren't going to be so easily removed.
That's the design having boundaries, not the playtesting. A playtest with assigned tasks coming from the developers and soliciting only feedback on those issues is more of what I mean by a constrained playtest that isn't going to push the boundaries. Paizo's playtest, being much more free form (anyone who could download could do it, test, and report whatever they wanted) had the potential to test the boundaries. Whether or not it did so is hard to tell - one of the disadvantages of such a broad and undirected playtest.
Saddly it was though, one of the writers admitted that this was the case in an interview, I beleive it was just before the release of 3.5. I'm not sure exactly where, but there are written copies of the interview floating around the web. It may take a while to find, but it's there.
I'm finding this very hard to believe given the design of the 3e cleric. I'm going to have to ask you to find the citation on it for me since you're the one who says you've seen it before I'll take this at face value.
Actually, most of the changes from 2nd to 3rd edition only put more focus on a cleric as a healbot. Before they only had access to healing spells by selecting the healing domain (or lesser healing spells by selecting the nature domain). When 3.0 came out they had a set spell list with healing spells and good aligned clerics became able to cast them spontainiously. Whilst beforehand a cleric could only use healing magic by focusing on it, now even evil clerics who despise life in all shapes and forms have the ability to heal wounds.
You can't look at just 2e when assessing the cleric changes. 3e's changes were designed, deliberately, with a return to 1e form in mind. There, all clerics had healing, bar none. And they had to preallocate all of their healing. Spontaneous casting frees them of that so they can be something other than a healbot (whether or not circumstances pull them into that task).
Per 3.5 or Beta rules, the bard on Easy settings would most likely just start playing anyway. As my husband pointed out, if the bard's going to play every round of every combat, all the players might as well mark down the +2 as a permanent part of their character sheet.
It seems to me that this is the expectation that many folks have of the bard. I would suggest that if Inspire Courage were intended to be a permanent boost the ability would simply be listed as an aura. "Allies within 50' of the bard gain a +x bonus to attacks and damage."
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Also, think how silly the rounds/level concept is. Lem can only play his Flute 2.8 minutes a day, lol. All concert musians must be Epic level.
Silly it may be, but an abstraction necessary to maintain game balance and possibility of challenge to PC's.
Also: "Concert Musicians" would hardly be providing a magical boost to peoples' combat abilities or causing them to pay attention to them and only them (to the extent that fascinate does.)
The idea of a "inspire courage" aura up all the time is intriguing, however. It combines some of the Dragon Shaman and Marshall aura abilities, and frees up the actions of the bard. Perhaps with the caveat that it can't work if he's immobilized/stunned or in some kind of Silence/Antimagic area...
Hmm....now I have yet another Bard related idea to ponder....
-t
Also, think how silly the rounds/level concept is. Lem can only play his Flute 2.8 minutes a day, lol. All concert musians must be Epic level.
I have the feeling you're just being silly, but of course bards can sing/play/dance/perform/orate more than just X rounds per day. That's how they make their living. They can only infuse their performance with magic X rounds per day.
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Also, think how silly the rounds/level concept is. Lem can only play his Flute 2.8 minutes a day, lol. All concert musians must be Epic level.
Silly it may be, but an abstraction necessary to maintain game balance and possibility of challenge to PC's.
Also: "Concert Musicians" would hardly be providing a magical boost to peoples' combat abilities or causing them to pay attention to them and only them (to the extent that fascinate does.)
-t
See psion is right. A bard is not just a musician. That be an expert. And a bard can play his flute all day if he likes. What he can not do is produce a magical effect with that flute all day, every time he plays. He can do it a few times per day.
After all he is a dabbler not a full time magic man