The limit of 1 free action per trigger is too limiting. My prime example is the bard who have a number of interesting spell point abilities to modify their performances:
- Lingering Performance (extend duration of a performance to 2 or 3 rounds based on a hard DC perform check).
- Harmonize (make one performance a harmony that allows you to get off another performance in the round).
- Inspire Heroics (bump inspire courage bonus to +2 or +3 with a hard DC perform check).
But I can't make harmonize/lingering composition (keep the buff going and then use frightening tune to scare people). Or a lingering/inspired heroics composition (to increase your buff and extend it). It makes most of these composition abilities sort of mediocre expenditures of your spell points but the bard otherwise doesn't have alternate uses.
I would recommend giving the bard a built in class feature to allow multiple triggers on a free action or to relax the action economy restriction (probably around level 6). I am unsure of whether this is a big issue for other classes or not at this point.
The specific text from page 297 showing that you can't trigger more than one free action is below:
- Free actions are usually triggered by actions that you use, but many can trigger at the start or end of a turn. Unlike reactions, there’s no limit to how many free actions you can use. The exception is that you can use only 1 free action for a given trigger.
From a balancing perspective it would be absolutely horrible to generally have multiple free actions effect single triggers and from a roleplaying perspective the different magical effects you add as a bard probably don't work together.
Yeah, much as the powergamer in me wants this, it would be a bad idea. Choose each round, or specialize and only pick one of these options.
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From the perspective of the Bard though you still need to make a hard DC perform check. That is still a high % chance of failure for your spell point investment.
Lets just take L5 as an example a hard DC is 21. You'd have a modifier of +11 at best (4 from casting stat, 5 proficiency, 1 from expert, 1 from a instrument). That is a 50% chance of failing a level appropriate check. It only gets worse if you are trying to influence someone of a higher level than you because you use their level hard DC.
You don't have an infinite supply of spell points. It could easily be 1/3 of your total to activate two at a time (either for 1 round or to make it linger for 2 to 3 rounds) and a 50% or worse chance of failing. It doesn't seem like something that is overpowered at all. Also flavour wise, you'd think a very inspiring performance could linger or that you could strike up multiple harmonizing tunes with a base lingering performance. Maybe it doesn't make sense for other classes, but for the bard I think it makes both mechanical and flavour sense.
Most other classes have a guaranteed spell point effect. The bard gets less casting per spell level to offset their one action cantrips. I think they should be allowed to use them with their class features.
Red Griffyn wrote: From the perspective of the Bard though you still need to make a hard DC perform check. That is still a high % chance of failure for your spell point investment.
Lets just take L5 as an example a hard DC is 21. You'd have a modifier of +11 at best (4 from casting stat, 5 proficiency, 1 from expert, 1 from a instrument). That is a 50% chance of failing a level appropriate check.
Add in +2 from Virtuosic Performer feat, so you're at 50% success, 15% crit, 35% failure. It gets better as your improve your Cha above 18 and get higher item bonuses.
You shouldn't be trying to influence higher level people unless you've got a GMNPC along for story reasons. Just don't include him and buff the rest of the party at better odds.
Lets just break it down then assuming someone goes whole hog into investing into performance/CHA at the expense of everything else. Note to get these values you need to hold a 2 handed instrument, so you are committing to having no weapons in your hand and having to use cantrips to attack. Now if you want a bard who doesn't hold an instrument and stead hold a weapon that is a 5-25% reduction in success. If you didn't put an 18 in CHA and bump it every level that could be another 5-10% reduction at various levels. If you didn't want one of your 3 legendary skills to be performance and spread your skill bumps to be more versatile that could be another 5-10% drop in success rates below. If you didn't want to spend a skill feat on Virtuosic Performer that is a drop in 10%. So below represents the best but you could achieve, but for a more normal build you could easily have 15-55% worse success rates then what is stated below. Again your spell point usage isn't guaranteed like other classes who get to have the effect they want. People in 1e get iffy about a 5-10% arcane spell failure chance so having much higher numbers isn't very tenable (especially for someone who specializes in achieving it).
Also you GM might decide that to activate two trigger would constitute and extreme DC (5-15% harder depending on level). That might be an appropriate balance for activating two separate performance free action triggers.
At L1 the DC is 14 vs +5 (55% success rate, 10% critical success):
* +4 in casting stat (18 starting).
* +0 Item Bonus
* +0 Virtuosic Performer
* +1 For Class Level
* +0 for Trained
At L5 the DC is 21 vs +13 (60% success rate, 15% critical success):
* +4 in casting stat (18 starting).
* +1 Item Bonus
* +2 Virtuosic Performer
* +5 For Class Level
* +1 for Experienced
At L10 the DC is 27 vs +22 (80% success rate, 30% critical success):
* +5 in casting stat (18 starting +2 level bumps).
* +3 Item Bonus (Maestro's Instrument L10 Item)
* +2 Virtuosic Performer
* +10 For Class Level
* +2 for Master
At L15 the DC is 35 vs +29 (75% success rate, 25% critical success):
* +6 in casting stat (18 starting +2 level bumps + 2 from circlet).
* +3 Item Bonus (Maestro's Instrument L10 Item)
* +2 Virtuosic Performer
* +15 For Class Level
* +3 for Legendary
At L20 the DC is 41 vs +37 (85% success rate, 35% critical success):
* +7 in casting stat (18 starting +4 level bumps + 2 from circlet).
* +5 Item Bonus (Virtuoso's Instrument L18 Item)
* +2 Virtuosic Performer
* +20 For Class Level
* +3 for Legendary
Red Griffyn wrote: Lets just break it down then assuming someone goes whole hog into investing into performance/CHA at the expense of everything else. Note to get these values you need to hold a 2 handed instrument, so you are committing to having no weapons in your hand and having to use cantrips to attack. Now if you want a bard who doesn't hold an instrument and stead hold a weapon that is a 5-25% reduction in success. Of course you'er going to invest everything in Performance, it's your most important skill that many of your abilities key off of.
You only have to be down 5% from optimum with a Persona Mask or Dancing Scarf, which you should absolutely use because instruments are a mechanical trap only for maximalist concept roleplayers who don't mind getting their party killed.
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Xenocrat wrote: Red Griffyn wrote: Lets just break it down then assuming someone goes whole hog into investing into performance/CHA at the expense of everything else. Note to get these values you need to hold a 2 handed instrument, so you are committing to having no weapons in your hand and having to use cantrips to attack. Now if you want a bard who doesn't hold an instrument and stead hold a weapon that is a 5-25% reduction in success. Of course you'er going to invest everything in Performance, it's your most important skill that many of your abilities key off of.
You only have to be down 5% from optimum with a Persona Mask or Dancing Scarf, which you should absolutely use because instruments are a mechanical trap only for maximalist concept roleplayers who don't mind getting their party killed. Fair enough, I didn't see those magic items. Those do help with losing the item bonus. I could easily see the average build with those items sitting behind at 5-10% (item loss + stat bonus loss) which puts you at:
L1 - DC14 vs +4 (50% success rate, 5% critical success):
L5 - DC21 vs +12 (55% success rate, 10% critical success):
L10 - DC27 vs +20 (70% success rate, 20% critical success):
L15 - DC35 vs +30 (80% success rate, 30% critical success):
L20 - DC41 vs +35 (75% success rate, 25% critical success):
You hit a local maximum at around L14/15 when you've capped out your stat bonus (someone with a 16 starting) and item bonus (+4 scarf or mask) that is higher than I had it in the last post. That isn't that great to me. Again this is just to activate 1 kind of trigger. Its worse if there is a higher level ally (who I'm pretty sure you can't arbitrarily select out and most GMs would rule it that way). That is primarily a PFS issue, but that is a 5-15% loss in success rate. There can also be environmental effects (wind/sound/visual obstruction) that isn't incorporated that could bump the DC in -1 or -2 increments.
Bottom line is - given a totally IDEAL set-up for a performance focused bard you still suffer a significant failure rate of success to even use your spell points whereas other classes have a 100% success rate. You have a MUCH lower critical success rate (for inspire heroics) to achieve the +3 modifier and it only lasts for 1 round anyways without being able to add lingering spell to it. I think that is unfair to the class. More than that I think it is unfair for the class not to combine their triggers because they should clearly work together to have a lingering awe inspiring performance. Or a lingering song you continue to harmonize with. Having reviewed it I think the performance check should be against an average level appropriate skill DC (10% increase to success rate). I also think it should be compared against the individual's average level DC such that the whole effect doesn't fail if there is a higher level person in the party.
The original post wasn't about whether the DCs for achieving these things were fair. It was to say that the bard should be allowed to make logical application/combinations of these 'free action' trigger features. If you can't combine them, then it becomes mediocre to invest into other spell point features you'll never get to use as the best bang for your buck is lingering performance. At this point it is likely there is a hidden common spell that gives a similair bonus for 1 minute, which makes performing at all redundant at higher levels. Perhaps another suggestion is to say that your inspire courage bonus/inspire competence bonus is equivalent to your proficiency bonus (i.e., master = +2, legendary = +3). That would also get around the need to allow more free actions.
These skill checks also seem like a recipe for annoying gameplay, by adding another roll and GM DC check to the Bard's turn. And by having the Inspire Courage bonus change from round to round.
I'd really rather they gave Inspire Courage a Heightened (3) and Heightened (5) bonus increase.
Markov Spiked Chain wrote: These skill checks also seem like a recipe for annoying gameplay, by adding another roll and GM DC check to the Bard's turn. And by having the Inspire Courage bonus change from round to round.
I'd really rather they gave Inspire Courage a Heightened (3) and Heightened (5) bonus increase.
I think that is a good option as well. The mechanic already exists to auto heighten cantrips. This will allow the effect to remain mechanically relevant. If they were worried about it being to powerful, perhaps change the heightening levels as desired.
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