Returning bardic music to 3.5

[Staffan Johansson]

In Pathfinder, most classes got a buff compared to how they worked in 3.5. Barbarians got rage powers, rogues got talents, paladin smiting became awesome, and even wizards got school abilities.

Bards weren't completely left out: Versatile performance and the new Bardic knowledge makes them compete with rogues for the top skill-monkey spot. But I think their flagship ability, bardic music/performance, took a pretty big hit.

Compare it to the barbarian's rage: in 3.5e, barbarians could rage once/day plus once/day per 4 levels. This was turned into 4+Con rounds at level 1, plus 2 rounds per level. Most barbarians probably get about the same number of rage rounds per day, but split up as they please, which is overall a buff. 3.5 Bards could use bardic music once per day per level, and the most common uses for bardic music (Inspire courage, greatness, and heroism) lasted for as long as the bard kept playing plus 5 rounds. Countersong could be kept up for 10 rounds on a single use of bardic music, and Fascinate for up to 1 round/level. Inspire Competence required concentration, but could be kept up for up to 2 minutes, long enough to take 20 on most skills. But in Pathfinder, bards get as much use of their bardic music as the barbarian gets from his rage (maybe a few rounds more since bards are likely to have a higher Cha than the barbarian has Con), and all these abilities are limited to as long as the bard keeps playing.

Sure, there are some buffs to bardic performance as well. You can now cast spells while keeping up a performance - that's no big deal though, since in 3.5 the effect of the music would likely last long enough to cover the whole combat anyway. At higher levels, the bard can start performances with lesser actions: move action at 7th level and swift at 13th. That's pretty cool. Some new performances were added: Distraction as a visual counterpart to Countersong, Dirge of Doom and Frightening Tune as offensive options, Soothing Performance for extra healing (though having to wait 4 rounds for some healing and removing some conditions is pretty bad), and Deadly Performance as the capstone ability. Inspire Courage scales faster, and Inspire Competence scales at all. On the other hand, Song of Freedom (single-target break enchantment for 10 rounds of singing) was lost.

I'm going to talk it over with the guy playing a bard IMC as well as the other guy who has a good grasp of rules (they're not the same person :) ), but I'm leaning toward returning bardic music to X performances per day rather than X rounds per day, and not being able to directly combine it with spellcasting. I will likely keep the actual performances from PF rather than 3.5, maybe with the reintroduction of Song of Freedom. I'm not sure about whether to still use the speed boost bardic performance gets at level 7/13 in PF.

What do people think? Am I completely out of whack thinking PF bardic performance lost quite a bit?

[Corlindale]

I don't think it's as bad as you make it out to be. I think bards are much better now than they used to be. Most combats don't last that many rounds anyway, I daresay a bard of a certain level will have more than sufficient performances, usually. If not you can take Lingering Performance, which will effectively triple your available rounds of performance - kind of, at least. Extra music also gives you 6 more rounds per day. How long are your combats typically, if even that isn't enough?

I would consider your return to 3.5 mechanics a clear nerf to the bard. Restricted spellcasting sucks, especially with all the nice combat buffs and immediate action spells the bard gets now. You would also have to think about what to do with all the Finale-spells that have a powerful effect but ends the performance. They would receive a nerf if you made it X performances/day. And the ease of activation at level 7/13 would also be sorely missed, in my opinion.

[Cheapy]

I have played at least 7 PF bards, and 2 or 3 3.5 bards.

Your fears are completely unfounded.

[Anonymous Visitor 163 576]

You could just double the rounds per level and call it a day. Would be easier.

[Cheapy]

Further, at higher levels, your return to the 3.5 version is a significant nerf to the PF bard.

[Staffan Johansson]

Corlindale wrote:

I don't think it's as bad as you make it out to be. I think bards are much better now than they used to be. Most combats don't last that many rounds anyway, I daresay a bard of a certain level will have more than sufficient performances, usually. If not you can take Lingering Performance, which will effectively triple your available rounds of performance - kind of, at least. Extra music also gives you 6 more rounds per day. How long are your combats typically, if even that isn't enough?

Lingering performance gives you triple rounds, at the cost of restarting your performance every third round. And 3.5e performances usually had that built in - the three primary bard buffs (Inspire Courage, Greatness, and Heroism) all lasted for five rounds after you stopped the performance as a built-in ability (as opposed to three rounds for a feat). If you wanted to keep it going for even longer, there was a feat in Complete Adventurer called Lingering Music that extended it to 1 minute. The 3.5e version of Extra Music gave you four uses extra per day, which is quite a bit better than 6 rounds.

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Restricted spellcasting sucks, especially with all the nice combat buffs and immediate action spells the bard gets now.

Remember that the main bard buffs lasted longer than you played. Spend one round activating Inspire Courage, and then the next five casting spells to your heart's content. Just like in PF, except you don't have to expend performance rounds to keep it up.

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You would also have to think about what to do with all the Finale-spells that have a powerful effect but ends the performance. They would receive a nerf if you made it X performances/day.

Haven't looked into those at all, to be honest.

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And the ease of activation at level 7/13 would also be sorely missed, in my opinion.

The way I see it, that's the main buff bardic music did get in PF. Being able to cast while keeping your performance up is rather inconsequential given that the effects of bardic music had a duration in 3.5e. This would let a mid-level 3.5 bard keep up both Inspire Courage and Inspire Greatness, which is completely impossible in PF (even with Lingering Performance, the effects of your performance end if you start a new one).

[Kaisoku]

In practice, all the in combat options work out pretty well.
One thing you missed is the stacking changes: inspire courage is now a competence bonus, stacking with heroism.

About the only change I'd consider is to make the normally out of combat options (primarily inspire competence) to last minutes per use instead if rounds. Perhaps even just a clause of "one round per check" for inspire competence.

This would give back some of the out-of-combat buffing versatility they lost from 3.5e.