There are a few threads and even some guides out there on bards, and I have read all that. I'm making a bard and I've really only seen one perform in a campaign (at two levels below party, as a follower). Even for an unoptimized lower level character she was very much an important element who added some nice abilities during combat. I'm hoping to see the vital things your bards do and incorporate those into my own.
So rivet me with the "and one time, at bard camp" stories. I'll go first:
Just the fact that the character had saving finale up all the time was absolutely awesome. Since she performed nearly every combat, especially at the beginning of each combat, she always had the chance to save the most important party members from certain doom with this spell by allowing them a reroll of any failed save as an immediate action.
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My party was returning to a previously visited ruin to consult an NPC they had met the first time. Traveling the same jungle river as before, I decide that they should get ambushed by the same archers than had done so the first time. The gnolls had disappeared by the time the party had reached the shore last time, so here was a chance to get payback or have a repeat episode.
As initiative is going, the bard asks if the archers are within 440ft of the party. Distracted with battle tracking, I say yes. When his initiative comes up, he declares his action and reminds me that the party has gained a few levels since last time.
"I grab Kurgan (party fighter) and Jarek (party cleric) and cast Dimension Door."
The archers didn't know what hit them.
Both of these happened several levels apart in PFS games. Also both times I was playing up, and extremely outgunned.
The first we were doing an underwater fight where there was a ghost and a negative channelling cleric, who was doing a ton of damage to us. Good old Vuvu Zuella popped his head up the ladder and kindly asked the cleric "What is brown and sticky?...A stick" and watched the Cleric collapse into laughter for several rounds, just long enough for us to take care of business. Cleric rolled a 1 on the save, I think he needed a 5 to pass the will save.
The other was more recent, again I was playing up and kind of hiding at the back, when a magma elemental popped up and we were having a hard time breaking his DR (my +2 to damage) was helping. I watched out monk get almost one shotted through a wall, obviously one hit would take me out. 3 times in a row I hit the elemental with glitterdust and not only made it beautiful and shiny, but more importantly blinded it. Managed to keep it blind for about 6 rounds which was enough for us to take it out.
I just started a Magician Bard in a home campaign and he had a pretty awesome opening espionage gambit, with the innocence spell, a hat of disguise and a lot of bluff and act.
I pulled victory from the jaws of defeat on Saturday due to stacking long-term buffs and being awesome.
Notable moments include:
Samurai at 6 hp with a d8 bleed on him. Turned him invisible and he dismounted his horse. Resolve kept him alive at -1, but the invisibility misdirected a fireball onto every square but his, keeping him that way.
Freedom of movement let an ally saunter out of a mudslide induced by transmute rock to mud.
Used a scroll of illusory wall to let the samurai charge downwards (petitioner campaign-- he has wings) into a bunch of mooks with reach weapons readying attacks by making an illusory brick wall five feet off the ground, interfering with their attack reach. When he hit low HP and was going to be full attacked by two of them, I used major image to make the first attack that hit the samurai bloodily and gorily kill him. The two stunned mooks then, well... they used the rest of their actions to take cover versus the archers.
Thanks to dirge of doom and dazzling display, made a very annoying shaitan who was separating party members due to wall of stone and playing keep away due to earthglide fail a DC 15 Will save. He rolled a 5 and succeeded by 2, but the penalties made it fail. Going prone and losing his action-- in the middle of his turn, when he had revealed himself to full attack-- ended the encounter.
I'm not going to talk about the party bard in Curse of the Crimson Throne who always felt they were useless... mostly because when the bard missed a session the party, who was entirely 3/4ths BAB characters, could not hit anything and floundered and wished several times a round the bard was there to save them. :)
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I love nothing more in D&D/Pathfinder than the Bard. As such, I play alot of Bards. In a general sense of "what does your Bard do?", I can't tell you how many times I've had this conversation:
Party Member: Does a 22 hit?
DM: Nope, sorry.
Me: Did you remember inspire? Does a 23 hit?
DM: ...yes.
Or
Party Member: I do 24 damage.
DM: He looks like he's hanging on to life, but just barely.
Me: Did you remember inspire?
Party Member: Oh yea, 25 damage.
DM: He collapses to the floor, unconscious.
For a specific story of what I've done as a bard I have a story that really had very little effect on the mechanics of the game, but is one of the most, if not THE most, memorable moment I've had in gaming.
It was an Ebberon game where I played a Bard (multi-classed, but bard none the less) from House Lyrander. Game had been going for well over a year and had come to an epic story line that had us traveling continents to find these dragon eggs to try and uncover the meaning of the prophecy. We wind up on Argonessan ready to wrap up an epic game when we find out the Council of Dragons decide what we are doing is blasphemes and cannot continue and the fate of the world basically hangs in the balance of the battle that will inevitably ensue. We had a big bad ass black dragon as an ally who, a few hours before the council was to arrive decided that our story to this point needed to be told to the world, regardless of the outcome of the next few hours. So with a little GM magic a magic circle was conjured which amplified my voice to the entire world of Eberron. The dragon gave me a magical lute which, as I told our tale slowly carved a visual representation of the events into the wood to aid in my story telling. Everyone thought this was an awesome moment and began dropping any and all buffs possible to get my perform check as high as it could go. The bonus total turned out to be a +60. I picked up the die and rolled in in-between my clasped hands for awhile, and said aloud to the party and GM "I've never wanted to roll a nat 20 more in my entire life". And on a roll that didn't lead to a crit and wasn't a save that kept me from dying I wound up with a total 80 Perform in a moment of true epicness.
Oh, and the ensuing multi-dragon throw down after that was pretty awesome too.
Anyway, a smart bard with well placed skills, clever spell usage and a small library of scrolls can be quite unstoppable and SO much fun to play. Enjoy.
Low level adventure, the party is sent into the woods to rescue the kidnapped daughters of some nobleman. The rogue and the bard go ahead to scout and come across the cabin where the girls are being kept. The cabin has a big main hall and then a back room with the girls. The back room has a heavily trapped window. The front room is guarded by 2 heavies. We'd already snuck past the small army of mooks who are supposed to be called back to the cabin to help in the event of an alarm.
The rogue sits by the back window and sets to work on the traps. The bard reaches into his backpack of booze and pulls out two whiskey bottles. He upends one on himself, takes a few sips from the other, and walks around to the front of the cabin.
He then proceeds to take a flying leap through one of the windows and launches immediately into a perform (oratory) fascinate as he drunkenly stumbles around talking to the two heavies, "his friends," about how they have played a prank on him by rearranging all the furniture in his cabin. As he hams it up out front, the rogue gets the two girls out. The heavies call the guards back when they finally break the fascinate, but nobody can beat the bard's insane bluff check that he really just drunkenly got confused. The guards now out of the way, the rogue and the girls walk back to the party, joined a few minutes later by the bard. Their "scouting" mission solved the whole adventure.
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Just last week. RotRL. PCs are walking through a corn field at night when a mysteriously fog bank begins approaching from the south. They get to one side of the path, put the Barbarian/Oracle in front, and get ready. Barbarian steps into the fog bank and comes face to face with the sandpoint devil. It bays ... Bard, Sorcerer and Cleric make their saves, Ranger and Barbarian/Oracle do not. They are panicked. These are the party's hitters. The players look about ready to run and pray they can make it far enough away before the monster can eat or burn them all to death.
Bard says "saving finale" for her inspire courage, and the ranger is saved. Bard's turn comes up before the Barbarian/Oracle and she begins countersong, giving the Barbarian/Oracle a new save. Barbarian now does not panick, holds his weapon, and a turn later critical hits the beastie, forcing it to flee.
Gallant inspiration aids the tracking effort. They track the wounded beast to a nearby patch of wood and slay it. From TPK to victory, all thanks to the bard.
I now have time to share my favorite from the other night. Long story short a rival adventuring group had framed one of our members as a thief. He was in jail and was going to have a hand chopped off. First the good old Bard managed to (with the help of innocence) convince the local Captain that "We had evidence that he had been set up, and we just need him with us to secure it. We promise to bring him back in 24 hours if you let him out on bail." Gotta love the 34 Bluff check to convince them to let him out. This allowed us to get him out of jail legally when it looked like we were going to have to bust him out.
Once we found out who had done it, it was time for the trusty Bard to go to work again. He took on the guise of "Francis the very nervous Jeweler" and went in all alone to "hire" the rival group. He managed to completely convince the leader of the troop to come himself to protect Francis from a shady client. Once they arrived at the ambush (meeting) location the dwarf who had been framed dropped the hood of his cloak. When the bad guy turned to Francis the nervous Francis hit him in the face with some flash powder (a homebrew creation for Dirty Trick delivery) and blinded him for two rounds. They baddies never knew what hit them and we handled that part of the campaign with nary a scratch.
Bards are super effective in the hands of a creative player!! :)