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I'm wondering, for almost every class there exists some magic item interacting with or improving on a class feature, especially those items like the robe of arcane heritage for sorcerers or the bane baldric for inquisitors, that lets the class use certain class features at +x levels. However, there seems to be nothing that, for example, would interact with bardic performance.
Of course a bard can use a lot of generic magic items, but so can everyone else, so these don't count.
I think the only item I've found that actually mentions the bard is the resplendent robe of the thespian form Ultimate Equipment, which can only be used by bards, but doesn't really do anything specifically bardish, and costs a whopping 75,000 gp.
Why is that,I wonder. Or am I missing the good stuff somewhere?
There is the Lyre of Building.
It isn't useful in combat though. But makes building objects easier/faster.
There is the Lyre of Building.
It isn't useful in combat though. But makes building objects easier/faster.
And it's an item anyone can use. A bard has no special advantages when using it.
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Harmonizing Armor
Musical Staff
Staff of Accompaniment
3.5 had many items that boosted Inspire Courage.
I don't think there are as many in PF:
Goblin Fire Drum (move action, +1 fire dam/die) but again not Bard specific though it does require Performance skill.
I miss all of the great Bardic Instruments from 1st edition.
Harmonizing Armor
Musical Staff
Staff of Accompaniment
Thanks for pointing these out. While the musical staff isn't really something bards can use better than other characters, the other items indeed are. The harmonizing armor ability is rather expensive and doesn't really do much if you do have the Lingering Perfomance feat, and regarding the staff of accompaniment, I find there's rarely necessary to make actual Perform checks when using bardic performance, so the +2 bonus on these checks isn't all that useful. Hm.
I miss all of the great Bardic Instruments from 1st edition.
Well you can't really compare a 1st Edition bard to the class from d20 games.
Thanks for pointing these out. While the musical staff isn't really something bards can use better than other characters, the other items indeed are. The harmonizing armor ability is rather expensive and doesn't really do much if you do have the Lingering Perfomance feat, and regarding the staff of accompaniment, I find there's rarely necessary to make actual Perform checks when using bardic performance, so the +2 bonus on these checks isn't all that useful. Hm.Harmonizing Armor
Musical Staff
Staff of Accompaniment
I agree that they are not great items. They were the best I could find, so I'm probably proving your initial point.
I miss all of the great Bardic Instruments from 1st edition.Well you can't really compare a 1st Edition bard to the class from d20 games.
True, but the Voice of the Wild archetype, with its access to the Druid/Ranger spell lists, gets closer to the flavor of the 1st edition bard than has been possible.
It is a little strange, isn't it? Especially considering it is a core class.
It is a little strange, isn't it? Especially considering it is a core class.
Especially considering it is James Jacob's favorite class! :)
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And it's an item anyone can use. A bard has no special advantages when using it.There is the Lyre of Building.
It isn't useful in combat though. But makes building objects easier/faster.
Lyre of Building is great once you have enough ranks and skill bonuses to beat the 18 DC reliably to continue building all day (and only a bard benefits so much from Perform (strings) to have these ranks).
I switched over from player to GM during one campaign but kept the character around as a kingdom building mechanism.
In one day he build 4 galleys (two for the local armada, 1 for the party to explore new lands, and 1 to become a gambling ship for our gnome friend whose casino was swallowed by a sand worm (our fault mostly).
By the numbers:
8hrs of playing (calling this at the max/day a bard could use it non stop)
x 100 men
x 6 days of work/hour
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4800 days of unskilled labor
By rules of unskilled Profession, you earn 1 sp/day, so by playing 8 hrs, you make: 4800 sp --> 480 gp
But the lyre also allows you to make things like buildings and mines (which seem more than unskilled if they don't fall down/collapse). Say you combine the lyre of building with a craft check to represent this skilled work:
4800 days/
6days/work week
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800 work weeks
Skilled professions earn 1/2 Profession check in a week, so the grand total for 8 hours of lyre of building could come to something like:
400gp*(1d20+5 Profession+2wis+2circumstance)
or
~ 4,000 gp for one day's work
Not too shabby when considering for every 3 days work you could theoretically buy another lyre and eventually work 6 days a week on 6 lyres:
4,000gp*6days = 24,000gp/week
That's enough to buy a small town in a week (or since you can build them at half price, build two small towns for yourself).
For reference, one bard on since lyres could conceivably build an airship armada (26 ships or so) in a single year.
The question then becomes, why wouldn't the average person want to be a bard of building outside of combat or at least have one around since they would let you go into combat with whatever advantage you choose?
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These are pretty awesome:
Tuned Bowstring
Poet's Cloak
Courageous (weapon quality)
Here are some others of varying awesomeness:
Harp of Contagion
Entwined Syrinx
Scarf of the Suggestive Dance
Three Reasons to Live
Torc of the Primal Song
Trollbone
War Drums of Savagery
Windsong Lute
Bards also have sketchy feat support. All their feats are must haves (lingering performance, Discordant Voice) or total bleh (Fire Magic, Hymn Singer) with no real in betweens.
Yes I've noticed that too. Spell Focus and Greater Spell Focus (Enchantment) of course are useful, too, as is Spellsong, but beyond that, it's slim pickings. But at least, a bard can use feat slots to gain bardic masterpieces.
The banner of the ancient kings and the three reasons to live look interesting. Both of them, coming from rather specialized campaign books or modules, are not necessarily freely available, though.
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The banner of the ancient kings and the three reasons to live look interesting. Both of them, coming from rather specialized campaign books or modules, are not necessarily freely available, though.
They certainly sound interesting.
I'll take this potshot: The Bard has traditionally been the "nexus of all worlds" class, and the one class with the most ability to freely play with magic items meant for other classes (it looks like the Occultist will outdo them in this when they hit the scene, though), so maybe that's part of the reasoning.
Why are there so few magic items for bards?
Because bards are so OP.
the one class with the most ability to freely play with magic items meant for other classes
How so?
I'd really like to know how the bard profits from items explicitly meant for other classes, such as a phylactery of channeling, a blessed book, incense of meditation, a pearl of power, or a robe of the archmagi, for example.
They don't: not really. What he's talking about is the theory, the idea that bards were supposed to be "Jack of all trades" kind of a thing.
There were, in theory, magic items that restricted themselves to classes without restricting it to class features, but bards, having a high charisma, were presumed to have a high UMD, thus being able to bypass needing the features "required". Didn't quite work out that way in practice, however.
As for incense of meditation, and a robe of the archmagi, those are pretty straight forward: bard uses 'em with UMD, gains the benefit, moves on. The others don't do anything because that's explicitly not how bards work.
An arcane healer bard can use a phylactery of channeling.
Maybe, but in reality, no one really will use the phylactery, as anyone who can channel will want to use that item slot for a headband.
... then why bring it up as a "class only" item, if no one would want it? It's not a valid comparison in that case. "Why can't bards use an item that no one wants?" isn't really a great case for bards getting more stuff. I mean, if you'd want equity, it's basically saying "bards need more stuff that no one would ever use!" which, I'm pretty sure you don't want, but... meh?
Also, a nifty thing that bard's get that no one else does: a nymph's blessing.
There are lots of them. Ring of protección and cloak of resistance come to mind
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Feel the pain of the fighter. I believe the only truly useful item for fighters only in PF are Gloves of the Duelist. Every other magic item that references a class ability basically sucks.
In 3.5e, there were a few magic items that boosted the numbers of your Bardsong, sometimes significantly, all must haves for bards. For feats, Song of the Heart was killer.
==Aelryinth
There are lots of them. Ring of protección and cloak of resistance come to mind
I wasn't talking about items that are useful to every character. This is about items that interact and improve class abilities.
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I'm going to defend harmonizing armor some.
Lingering Performance isn't a must-have feat; it just stretches your uses of bardic performace over longer durations. Bards get enough rounds per day they shouldn't be running out anyway.. lingering performance is somewhere between a waste of a feat and a fix for a problem that doesn't exist.
So, yes, if you do have lingering performance then harmonizing armor is a waste. But if you didn't spend a feat on that, the armor gives you most of the benefit for none of the action economy problems all while preserving the feat slot.
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I miss all of the great Bardic Instruments from 1st edition.
Me Too. And I suggest you do the same thing we did:
Use 'em!Nothing wrong with updating older materials to fill a void.
As a GM, I start my games with just PF materials as a default.
I then recommend that for new magic items to craft, spells to research, or even prestige classes; they can look to 3.0/3.5 materials.
All but a few need minimal work to update for use, and it is a lot easier than starting out with a blank slate.
Between official products and an army of 3rd party publishers, there is certainly no lack of 3.0/3.5 materials to use. Older version stuff would just need more work to update/balance if you found something that really fits a need.
I've always wanted a Bugle of Destruction...
I'd kill for an item that gave Spell Kenning to Bards (or other casters that could meet the requirements of spontaneous arcane spells + some random feature like Bardic Knowledge)
Why are there so few magic items for bards?Because bards are so OP.
Honestly I'm inclined to agree with this one even if it wasn't meant to be serious. Bards are very powerful and all of their class abilities are very powerful or complete garbage so providing a benefit on an already incredibly powerful ability is something you've got to be pretty hesitant about doing particularly for the abilities which affect entire groups of people.
I would not call them "OP", however: that's the trick.
Are they powerful? Oh, absolutely. They are excellent and great force-multipliers: the more people you have, the more powerful a bard is. It's pretty impressive.
They also don't really have "bad" abilities - some that take some work and planning to pull off properly, or perhaps are situational, sure, but nothing that I'd qualify as "bad" or really "wasted".
However, what I compare bards to is the rest of the game. A bard would fit in really well with barbarians, paladins, rangers, alchemists, and similarly potent entities, without the overpowering shenanigans of arcanists, oracles, summoners, or wizards.
That's the major difference, I'd say.
The "joke" as it were, actually comes from the early 3.X era where, early on, they were quite possibly the worst class. They could do nothing exceptionally well, and most everything was pretty weak. Much later on, they gained access to special feats, spells, and prestige classes that made them rather amazing, especially in 3.5; early on, however... notsomuch.
PF, on the other hand, made them solid right out of the gate.
Honestly I'm inclined to agree with this one even if it wasn't meant to be serious. Bards are very powerful and all of their class abilities are very powerful or complete garbage so providing a benefit on an already incredibly powerful ability is something you've got to be pretty hesitant about doing particularly for the abilities which affect entire groups of people.
Well items like this exist for other classes, improving certain class signature abilities such as, for example, the sorcerer's bloodline powers, the inquisitor's bane ability (granting greater bane at level 7), or even the paladin's smite ability, all powerful abilities as well.
I am not really a fan of items like this, because I think it's not generally a good idea to make abilities that are designed to enter the game at a certain level (such as grater bane) accessible 4 to 6 levels earlier, but they do exist for several classes, just not for all, which is kind of unfair.
Tangent: personally I would remove this kind of item from the game or replace then with a variant that works for multiclass characters, so the class level for a certain ability might be improved, but not above the character's total character level.