Reduce the ranks of the required skills by 3. Then take a good long hard look at the song abilities, I think they were called refrains?. thos are all based on USES per day, not rounds per day. You need to figure out how many rounds per day each special ability to go along with a song is worth. I think it should be just 1 or 2, but I'd have to give it a good look, and I dont have complete arcane in front of me.
Looking over the class, it should be an easy conversion, albeit a bit weak for a prestige class. Here are my recommendations:
*Have bardic performance continue to work the way it does: activate and sustain a performance using 1 round of your bardic performance each round you keep it activated.
*Because of the new rounds/day mechanic, I recommend having the refrain cost 1 additional round and require a standard action to activate.
*Because of the new mechanic, I recommend that each level of Seeker of the Song grant the player 4 rounds of bardic music instead of two. You aren't getting spellcasting anymore, and you can't rely on your now sub par BAB.
Just thinking out loud.
I have looked over some of the other forums for ways to adapt the uses per day vs the rounds per day, and I think that a 2:1 for the rounds vs uses is a good way to go. It seems to make the most sense. to kyrt-ryder, what are the problems that you see with the Prestige class?
No worries on the formatting. Looks good for a revision. I appreciate the time and effort that you put forward into making the changes.
I've rolled most of the bard PrCs into options choices for our rewritten bard class. I STILL can't seem to get anyone to play a bard, though...
I've rolled most of the bard PrCs into options choices for our rewritten bard class. I STILL can't seem to get anyone to play a bard, though...
I have only seen one person in my entire gaming career play a bard. And the party killed the bard about 10 sessions into the game (the player had a bad habbit of singing irritating songs to RP the bard songs). I think the reason people avoid the bard are 2 fold.
First is the flavor. Despite its prevalence in lore, the wandering minstrel just isnt a heroic archtype. The bard is the sidekick, the historian, or just a secondary character. Most players want to be heroic. Its really hard to shake the image of, "Oh no, goblins have ambushed us, I know, I'll sing a song. That will show them." And I totally get there is alot more to the bard then that. But the image is very much a part of general gaming conciousness.
Second is the mechanics. The 3.x bard has been slated as the jack of all trades. But the problem with that is, he is master of none. If you wanna cast spells, sorcerors and wizards do it better. If you want to heal, clerics and druids do it better. If you want to fight, most character classes can do it better or summon something that can do it better. If you want to deal with skills, rogues do it better. The only place bards are superior is social interaction. These are ofcourse important, but in my experience, groups that run social heavy games care alot less about dice in social encounters then they do actual roleplay (what your character says and does). Sure a bluff check is good, but in games i've been in, the nature and content of the bluff is almost as important as the bluff.
I think the pathfinder bard is superior to his 3.x bretheren, but he still has to shake off the bard brandname that we have learned over the last 10 years. Kind of how ford is putting out very reliable fuel efficient cars but still has the stigma of its past mistakes to deal with. We were promised some additional options in the APG, perhaps that will do the trick.
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Bards rule. People just don't get how invaluable it is to a party. Inspire courage with moment of greatness wins games.