Spin off of this thread.
So, here I am thinking we have two parts to bardic performance: Themes, which are the individual effects (minutes to cast, duration of hours) and Techniques, which are add on powers that increase the utility of performance. Techniques maybe should be tied to specific levels?
For techniques I have 3 ideas, please suggest more if you have any:
For Themes, which are the "fun" part:
More suggestions from my brother: Mneumonic Rhyme, Riddle, Somber Dirge, Bawdy Tune, Air of Sadness, Aria of Purity, Heraldic Saga, Killing Joke, Incantation
Let me know if you can think of powers (or better powers for the ones offered).
I aim to accommodate all the ways music affects battle in real life, non-magical ways first.
You forgot my favorite bard song, raining blood :P
This is great, I've been waiting for this thread to appear after your comments on the other thread. The bufing themes make sense to me, but for the ones that affect your enemies, will they be done during battle similarly to the current mechanic?
I assume this method requires bardic music to be a times/day deal, as I can't see this working as rounds per day as so much of it is out of or earlier than combat.
Finally, I'm not sure what the Reverberation technique is supposed to do.
Looking good! Keep it up!
I'll keep thinking on it, but I'm a little distracted by other concerns at the moment, so I'd love to hear from some of the others who agreed on that thread.
Especially (but not exclusively) musicians!
I really like the concept of bard as "beacon of morale" having set up his party the night before. But for using music against enemies, I am thinking that might be either employed as something similar to the current system or perhaps akin to dazzling display. I think it depends on the "delivery" (hmm another relevant game term maybe?).
Perhaps offensive bardic music (dirges?) are akin to curses. But then I am wondering if that should just be covered by spells? What makes a use of bardic music different from a spell?
now another question. If the bard sets up bardic music the night before (or perhaps just earlier in the day, before an encounter for example) who activates its bonuses? Does it provide the other party members with a single use ability, such as freedom of movement? Would it be be cool for bards to provide special abilities that others activate? I think that might make for an interesting buff system. Probably needs the bard to be present though, since its based on moral. Perhaps there is higher level technique that lets bardic music work without the bard present.
In MMOs and in Asian single-player RPGs, the bard often acts as a sort of mass status effect guy. From granting resistances, fast healing, or other bonuses to allies as well as manipulating, penalizing, or bestowing vulnerabilities onto a large number of enemies. The current bardic performances capture this a little bit already, but only at the higher levels. As a matter of fact, the abilties that were granted by the siren prestige class in the 3E splatbook Savage Species I often felt better functioned as a bard than the actual bard class!
I like the idea of the themes, or more precisely, the idea of bardic music creating particular effects thematically modeled after existing forms of functional music (love song, anthem, hymn, etc.). Another idea that came up in the progenitor thread was that the songs would be learned at every other level like rogue talents or fighter bonus feats. I'd also like to see some more offensive songs included in the theme roster . . .
It might also be great if there were specific bonuses or abilities granted on a performance specialty as we see in the cleric domains, sorcerer bloodlines, and wizard schools.
For example, if the bard decided at first level to specialize in Perform (sing) he would get the following abilties:
Enduring Charm (Su): Whenever you cast a enchantment (charm) spell, increase the caster level by 1/2 your bard level for the purpose of determining the spell's duration.
Mighty Lungs (Sp): As a swift action, you can draw in a powerful breath to empower your voice when using sound-based attacks. Until the end of your turn, if you cast a spell that deals sonic damage, add 1d4 points of sonic damage per level of the spell cast. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Charisma modifier.
Lullaby (Sp): At 8th level, you can cause a living creature who hears you sing to fall asleep as a standard action for a number of minutes per day equal to 1/2 your bard level unless it succeeds on a Will save with a DC equal to 10 + 1/2 your bard level + your Charisma modifier. Creatures with more Hit Dice than your bard level are unaffected. You can have only one creature asleep in this way at a time. These minutes do not need to be consecutive, and you can dismiss the sleep effect at any time as a free action. Each attempt to use this ability consumes one minute of its duration, whether or not the creature succeeds on its save to resist the effect.
. . .
Perform (sing) as seen above would obviously focus on charm effects, sleep, and obviously vocal abilities, but other instruments like wind instruments might have more offensive abilities, while strings could focus on maintaining multiple musical effects simultaneously (since many of the plucked stringed instruments can be played contrapuntally). Just spit-ballin'.
Thoughts?
If we're making it anew, let's really crank it up. Let's add crazy weird stuff to this. We ain't bound by no Vancian! We ain't bound by no previous classes!
The class - I'll call it Musician for ease - start off with a few chords/moves/abilities/spells/whatever you want to call them. I'll go with Notes.
So, early bards have a couple of Notes they can use. We'll call them Basic Notes for ease of use. The Damage Note is a very short range attack that does untyped magic damage. Bravery Note gives a +x morale bonus for y time frame. These are just examples.
As Musicians advance, they can do two things. First, they can learn new Notes - call them Advanced Notes - with some needing higher level and being more powerful. Second, they can start combining them with Basic Notes.
The higher level notes don't have stand alone effects - rather, they combine with Basic Notes to do other things. So an early Advanced Note could be "Group," which lets you effect multiple targets with your Basic Note. Say it's learned at level 2, and Group Morale would give your whole team the morale bonus, or Group Damage is an AoE attack.
If you can't tell, I don't exactly have all this set in stone just yet ;p.
The idea here is taking various Notes and mixing/matching/combining them, to, you know, make your own songs! The difficulty will be in making notes, giving other abilities, and deciding on how to restrict note usage so you don't get a healing note and just sing it nonstop to become invincible. I've not yet tried my hands at making a class...so maybe I'll do this one :D
All the stuff you said.
Haha, are you familiar with Monte Cook's spellsong version of the bard from the Book of Eldritch Might? It's almost like you're channelling the variant with your description! His bard also has multi-tiered musical magic that is organized around the combinations of notes, chords, and melodies (all with varying degrees of complexity).
All the stuff you said.Haha, are you familiar with Monte Cook's spellsong version of the bard from the Book of Eldritch Might? It's almost like you're channelling the variant with your description! His bard also has multi-tiered musical magic that is organized around the combinations of notes, chords, and melodies (all with varying degrees of complexity).
Can't say I've seen it :p.
I was taking inspiration more from one or two video games with musical protagonists.
I think it's better to make a whole new class then try to modify the bard, to be honest. The Bard as it stands now isn't just about music. How would pitch or notes work with a dancer or oratory perform? A full magic-user style musician would be better as it's own thing.
I like the notes idea. For some reason it reminds of of Eternal Sonata (although I don't really remember a lot of musical fighting in that).
Ah yes.
Under a lacerated sky...
I played a Bard in a super-mega-epic level campaign back in 3.5 and we made 7th-9th level Bard spells for my character based off of songs (mainly for kicks and giggles). 1 of my favorite moments was having a 100ft radius of blood fall from the sky (raining blood) followed by summoning a sand golem (enter sandman).
Just a few things running around my brain at the moment...
- I seriously want a "Doomspeaker"-kind of bardic performance. Like, talking about the enemy's weaknesses and shortcomings and stuff and proclaiming in all seriousness his inevitable downfall.
- Perhaps this could be made into the "new Bard"'s basic choice - strengthen your companions or weaken the enemy.
- How about remodelling the "new Bard" after the Rogue's power progression?
Basically, the Rogue's build could be translated as follows:
1st level: iconic ability (sneak attack)
2nd level: cool stuff to do with either the iconic ability OR a class skill
3rd level: iconic ability +1
4th level: cool stuff to do with either the iconic ability OR a class skill
5th level: iconic ability +2
...
You get the idea. Going this route, the "new Bard"'s spellcasting might be removed from the class altogether, since his performances/dirges/prophecies might grant him all the versatility he needs.
- Another thought:
One could change the effect of the Bardic Music from Rounds/Day to Hit Dice Affected. Buff your companions or boost an army.
- Mix and match the "almost bardic" abilities from the bardic feats in Complete Adventurer (Iron Skin Chant and so on), the Marshal's abilities and the Dragon Shaman - at least as far as their effects go.
Also, reverse the benefits of those abilities when used against an enemy (like, if your companions would gain +saves, +ATK, +AC, the enemy would gain -saves, -ATK, -AC and so on).
- Having spoken of Prophecies and remembering the PrC from Savage Species, a few times per day the "new Bard" might give out a buff that can be activated by the player anytime. No two such buffs can be present upon any one character at the same time, but they might possess permanent duration until triggered. That way, the bard might also qualify as some kind of sooth-sayer. Like "In the hour of need, you will know where to strike." (I was going to write "Use the Force, Luke.", but that's just cheesy. ;-) ) That buff might be something akin to True Strike or something like that.
Like, what about giving out spell-like effects to other characters a few times per day without casting the spell themselves. And IF they use these effects on themselves, the "new Bards" might gain a bigger bonus from them.
...
Okay, I'm sort of spent right now. ^^
For my part, I'd be torn between divorcing magic and utilizing magic (existing magic anyway) as it stands to make this happen.
Clearly, where this is headed "standard" magic won't cut the cake. Like ... AT ALL. So, we're lookin' at whole new spells, and a LOT of them. This, IMO, would be less than ideal.
I'd rather prefer the rogue-like progression and movement pointedly *away* from spells and spell casting in favor of the performance-based magical selections made/learned/acquired/whatever by the Bard as he progresses in levels.
Rogues get SA and it gets progressively good/powerful with level increases.
Bards, going this rout, need to get similarly powerful and potent options for use with their "iconic ability" so to speak.
Rough ideas:
*Increased effects (dur)
*Increased durations
*Fascinate mid-combat w/NO penalties (the music is full on "magic" of a different sort here, so "realistic" excuses are tossed out big-time)
*Status affliction/relief/neutralization
*Direct damage - not on par w/SA, though - but more like "cone of cold" sort of things (ie: sonic cone of power and the like).
Mechanically speaking - I'm at blanks on most of that. Sorry - best I got at the moment, but I LOVE this thought experiment/project/whatever!!
Another bard idea I would like to see for bards, one for each type of creature that rangers can pick for a favored enemy.
Bane song X: a members of the selected type find the song painful to listen to. The take penalties equal to the bards normal inspire courage bonuses. A will save halves the penalties.
As an addendum to my previous thoughts, perhaps bards using monophonic instruments (singing, bowed string instruments, wind instruments) could excel at affecting single targets to tremendous effect, while bards using polyphonic instruments or instruments with drones (plucked strings, keyboards, bagpipes, hurdy-gurdy, nickelharp) would be more adept at effecting multiple enemies/allies. It sort of musically reflects the number of affected targets in the number of simultanous musical ideas (ie. pitches being produced).
Also, what if a variant bard using a two-handed instrument (which is pretty much all of them) can cast their spells without somatic components so long as they are maintaining a bardic music effect? Hopefully, that would soften the problems inherent in deciding to play an instrument instead of simply singing.
As an addendum to my previous thoughts, perhaps bards using monophonic instruments (singing, bowed string instruments, wind instruments) could excel at affecting single targets to tremendous effect, while bards using polyphonic instruments or instruments with drones (plucked strings, keyboards, bagpipes, hurdy-gurdy, nickelharp) would be more adept at effecting multiple enemies/allies. It sort of musically reflects the number of affected targets in the number of simultanous musical ideas (ie. pitches being produced).
Also, what if a variant bard using a two-handed instrument (which is pretty much all of them) can cast their spells without somatic components so long as they are maintaining a bardic music effect? Hopefully, that would soften the problems inherent in deciding to play an instrument instead of simply singing.
I like 'em both, honestly.
Making the instrument choice itself matter = like weapon selection I guess. Damage Die, crit ranges, crit multipliers, etc. We just need to look at musical equivalents. Maybe in the form of Perform boons? Targets affected most easily, etc? All of this will become a bit strange, though, as *reasonably* any musical instrument *should* be able to affect many targets (ie: anyone that can hear the songs ...)
I like the idea of magic substitutions (components OR gestures) being substituted through musical performance of some sort. Hell ... maybe even non-musical ones can manage a similar effect as part of their "routine" or whatever.
My group is creating a musician class. Our ideas so far are similar to what Saxon said:
Medium BAB, can use light armor and any weapon a rogue can.
Take off the spells. The musician should gather his magic through song.
Gains a new performance at 1, 2 and every even level after. Can choose from a list of performances, some can only be choosen after a certain level, some have increased/different effects depending on what performance skill you use. Different musicians have different repertoirs.
All require a perfomance roll to activate and a good roll increases it's effects (so the song you choose at first level get's more powerfull whit time). The better musician you are the better your songs are. Makes sense right?
On 3 and every other odd level you get something like the rogue talents (still looking for a name, best so far Trick of the Trade). This can be to increase the effects of your music, to increase your hability as the party's face, to give you better fighting hability, or even to learn some low-level magic. You can use these to play jack-of-all-trades and fill a specific role in a small party. Or to increase your music and your fighting to create your own role in a large group.
One idea that Evil Lincoln gave that I intend to pass to my group is that some musics can be spent before going to sleep and activated later during a fight, that works wonderfull for buffs and spell like effects. For performances that affect the oponnents tough (debuffs, sonic attacs) I think they shoulb like powernotes or riffs: you pull out the instrument, throw some notes together to get the effect, put it back and join the fray again.
So what do you guys think of it so far?
I *think* as a full on trade for casting, the songs learned should hit *at least* level 6 sorts of effects over time (to more or less compensate and approach a similar level of effects).
I like swapping magic outright and the layout of the class progression you pose as well.
Spin off of this thread.
So, here I am thinking we have two parts to bardic performance: Themes, which are the individual effects (minutes to cast, duration of hours) and Techniques, which are add on powers that increase the utility of performance. Techniques maybe should be tied to specific levels?
For techniques I have 3 ideas, please suggest more if you have any:
Projection - the range of the bardsong increases to a great distance, perhaps hundreds of feet?
Reverberation - forces a perception check to find the source of the bardsong, with the DC based on the bard's level
Meditation - this might be an early ability of the class, that the bard can use his performance before rest, and the duration begins as soon as the creature wakes. This works well for a long night drinking and singing, and makes the bard a very valuable guy for nighttime ambushes. For Themes, which are the "fun" part:
Anthem of Freedom - Grants a bonus to will saves, and each listener may use freedom of movement once
Cautionary Tale - grants a bonus to any one save, chosen at the time of singing
Hymn - All cure/cause spells are maximized when cast during the hymn
Enlightening Tone - Boost monk's AC bonus.
Love Song - Not sure about this one. The majority of songs in reality are love songs, this ought to be done right. Maybe we should have more than one, tragic, whimsical, longing, etc. to keep from being too simplistic.
Maddening Jig - A distracting tune that gets in the enemies head, providing a penalty to actions for the duration. Equivalent to psychological warfare in real life.
Outlaw Ballad - Tales of derring do, grants a bonus to acrobatics and doubles the bonus for flanking.
Peace Carrol - Modeled after the WWI Christmas truce. Non-evil enemies become amenable to diplomacy. Must...
I like these ideas. I think there should probably be prerequisites for themes, with more powerful themes having more stringent prereqs. A certain number of ranks in Perform (perhaps even a specific Perform skill if a specific instrument or technique is involved), a minimum level of Bardic Performance (Bard levels and levels of similar classes stack, and there could be a Practiced Bard feat that works like Practiced Caster and add 4 to your Bardic Performance Level).
And specific reqs might be needed for specific themes, such as Knowledge Religion for Hymn.For example: Hymn might need 2 ranks in Perform, Bardic Performance level of 1, and 1 rank in Knowledge (Religion). Something like Mindblowing Melody might require 15 ranks in Perform, Bardic Performance level of 11, and 5 ranks in Knowledge (the Planes).
Love Song might require a Will Save to avoid falling in love with an appropriate target who is in sight. This would imply a high level ability.
I like to imagine songs that I hear converted to fantasy actions, so there could be more specific songs such as Boots, which allows allies to trample over their opponents, even if they do not have the proper size category to do so.
Might there be a way, such as a feat or prestige class, that allows bards to "prepare" a performance, the way that a wizard "prepares" a spell? I would not want to give this to any bard, so it should probably be reserved as a feat or PrC so that not everybody gets it.