Masterpieces are special performances for bards that represent the abilities of a grand master in a given bardic talent, and were first introduced in Ultimate Magic. Generally taken in place of a feat or spell known, masterpieces serve two useful functions for bard players. First, they give bards some flavor that makes them different than just “banjoplaying sorcerers with a lot of skill points,” and second, they increase a bard’s overall flexibility. GMs can gain similar benefits from adding masterpieces to a campaign or creating brand new masterpieces. Perhaps only the Choirsters of the Church of the Celestial Music have access to The Lullaby of Ember the Ancient, or the minotaur-dancers of Tarse are famed for their defensive cape dance the GM creates as a cultural option.
Of course, the ability to use a new option either for increased flexibility or as a backgroundappropriate flavor element is limited by how many examples of that option exist. Since Ultimate Magic had to cover all the spellcasting classes, it had only limited space to explore the idea of bardic masterpieces. It did give guidelines for GMs to create their own but that often takes time a GM may not have, and with only a few examples a GM might not be sure what kinds of things make good masterpieces.
To help expand the options available to bard players and GMs, Ultimate Options: Bardic Masterpieces presents a selection of new masterpiece options. At least a few options are given that will work for each of the Perform skills, and a few are listed that can be used by a bard focused on any type of Perform. In addition to typical performance masterpieces, there are several masterpieces for social skills – things learned as the pinnacle of a bard’s ability to understand, communicate with, and manipulate people. Although these masterpieces are often extraordinary abilities rather than supernatural (and carefully state this when it is the case) and represent a different kind of advanced bardic skill, they otherwise follow the normal rules for masterpieces.
Contributor; Developer, Super Genius Games
|
As some folks already know, I often post "raw" (undeveloped, unplaytested) support material for new SGG releases on the SGG Facebook page, and my own twitter account. The last few times I did so, a number of people expressed interest in seeing the material gathered in one, more convenient site.
Of course part of the *point* of releasing that material where I do is to interest folks in subscribing to my main social media outlets. But as an experiment, I'm going to include it all in this thread, and see if that has any noticeable impact on things like sales, followers elsewhere, or general noises of satisfaction from fans. :)
This material is not carefully vetted the way things we put in final products are, so add another whole grain of salt above and beyond your normal game filter.
The formats for these is also generally compressed, both because room is often limited (especially for the spells I release on Twitter), and to help drive home to fact these are initial ideas, not finished options.
First, today's feat from SGG's Facebook page.
Improv. Prereq: Versatile performance class feature, bardic spellcasting. You can cast a bard spell that is not on your list of bard spells known. You must expend a spell slot one level higher than the spell’s normal level, and must expend a number of rounds of bardic performance equal to the level of the spell slot expended. To cast a spell with improve you must have ranks in the appropriate Perf
orm skill equal to triple the spell’s level, based on the spell’s school, as follows: Abjuration = Sing; Conjuration = String; Divination = Keyboard; Enchantment = Dance; Evocation = Wind; Illusion = Act; Necromancy = Percussion; Transmutation = Comedy. You can use Oratory to qualify to use Improv with any school of magic, but must have ranks equal to six times the spell’s level.
Then three short spells from my twitter, all built using existing spells as shorthand on things like school, range, targets, et al. If you want to look for these on twitter, I use hashtags #Pathfinder #Spelltweets
Duet (Brd 3) As blessing of fervor, but effect is to give spellcasters +2 save DCs on language-dependent spells
Saber Dance (Brd 6) As transformation, but your base attack bonus is equal to your ranks in Perform (dance)
Voice of the Wilds (Brd 1) As charm animal, but only on friendly animals, & they gain 6 bonus tricks for duration
|
Contributor; Developer, Super Genius Games
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Continuing the collection of raw support material:
The Feat
Warning Tales. Prereq: Fascinate bardic performance, versatile performance for Diplomacy or Intimidate. You may spend 1 round of bardic performance to use epic tales of how powerful you and your allies are to demoralize all targets you already have fascinated. This acts as the demoralize function of Intimidate, except as noted here. Demoralized targets remain demoralized for one minute per bard level when outside combat (when they can take 10 on skills), but each round of combat (or stress and distraction that prevents taking 10 on skills) reduces the duration by one minute.
Microfeats
Patsy (Brd 2) As compel hostility (UC) but you may make any charmed or friendly creature the target of the spell.
Shattering Shriek (Brd 4) As ear-piercing scream (UM) but cone area and adds effects of shatter to area & 1 object
Words In Your Mouth (Brd 3) As forced quiet +fumbletongue + concentrate to control what the target says for 1 round
I started gathering the feats together for myself from your Facebook postings, as you may remember. The spell tweets are interesting and I now follow you on Twitter for that reason. I haven't been ambitious enough to try to collect those too at this point. Only so many hours in the day.
With regard to the Bardic Masterpieces, I have a question or two. The ones from UM generally have a cost of a Feat or a spell slot. In the Bardic Masterpieces that are a few that list Feat and spell slot. Intentional? Trying to build this as a HL dataset as it looked reasonably straight-forward.
Thanks as always.
Sethvir
|
Contributor; Developer, Super Genius Games
|
I started gathering the feats together for myself from your Facebook postings, as you may remember. The spell tweets are interesting and I now follow you on Twitter for that reason. I haven't been ambitious enough to try to collect those too at this point. Only so many hours in the day.
I feel the same way about trying to get it all written. :)
With regard to the Bardic Masterpieces, I have a question or two. The ones from UM generally have a cost of a Feat or a spell slot. In the Bardic Masterpieces that are a few that list Feat and spell slot. Intentional?
Yep, intentional design choice based on playtest feedback (among other things).
Trying to build this as a HL dataset as it looked reasonably straight-forward.
Great! You should get those to John Halipn, our interactive data coordinator. :)
Thanks as always.
You are, as always, very welcome.
Trying to build this as a HL dataset as it looked reasonably straight-forward.Great! You should get those to John Halipn, our interactive data coordinator. :)
Yep. He has already received a fair number from me...And I have several more in the works. Unfortunately, I am still trying to learn the scripting language, so it is a best effort to get as much done as possible, with the acknowledgement that there is stuff I don't understand how to do. Only so many hours in a day!