Is This Bard Helping?


Pathfinder Second Edition General Discussion


Our 6-person party includes 2 melee, an arcane caster, a healer, a skills/skirmisher type... and the Bard in the Next Room.

This is his only tactic, and he uses it in every combat. He follows 30' behind the party everywhere they go and never enters the room that the rest of them enter, under any circumstances. He's always at least 40-60 feet away. When combat occurs, he spends each round doing Inspire Courage, sometimes mixing it up with a doubled-up performance for an added perk (such as an AC boost) or slowly moving in a bit for a ranged heal via Soothe, then moving back out. But that's his only action each turn; look up for a moment to say "Same thing; I make sure I'm out of line-of-sight, repeat Inspire Courage, done." He has never made an attack roll. He has never taken a point of damage.

Now, obviously, this tactic works great for him. He doesn't have to do much, and his character is completely safe. And to be fair, a reliable to-hit and damage bonus in combat is wonderful, especially in 2nd edition where every +1 counts. But is that really making good use of a bard's abilities? Are there other things he could be doing that would be more beneficial than a consistent +2 hit/damage and occasional backup heal?


What level are you? If you're low level, over reeliance on soothe makes more sense. Otherwise, bards are full casters and he should probably have other spells besides soothe with spell slots to spare.


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Are his tactics problematic for your party?


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

I might be wrong, but I think the line of effect rules would stop Inspire Courage from affecting players in another room. The emanation could go through the doorway but any solid walls would block the effect. Same goes for Soothe.

Line of Effect wrote:

Line of Effect

Source Core Rulebook pg. 457 2.0
When creating an effect, you usually need an unblocked path to the target of a spell, the origin point of an effect’s area, or the place where you create something with a spell or other ability. This is called a line of effect. You have line of effect unless a creature is entirely behind a solid physical barrier. Visibility doesn’t matter for line of effect, nor do portcullises and other barriers that aren’t totally solid. If you’re unsure whether a barrier is solid enough, usually a 1-foot-square gap is enough to maintain a line of effect, though the GM makes the final call.

In an area effect, creatures or targets must have line of effect to the point of origin to be affected. If there’s no line of effect between the origin of the area and the target, the effect doesn’t apply to that target. For example, if there’s a solid wall between the origin of a fireball and a creature that’s within the burst radius, the wall blocks the effect—that creature is unaffected by the fireball and doesn’t need to attempt a save against it. Likewise, any ongoing effects created by an ability with an area cease to affect anyone who moves outside of the line of effect.


I'd wonder more about the healer (if only healing). :)

The Bard's +1 makes the two melee & one skirmisher do about +16% damage (vs. normal range of enemies who can be crit) so that's about 1/2 a person there. The Soothe-ing bumps that up on the other end depending on how much time added "up and swinging" vs. "down and not swinging" (and this could include the Will bonus in specific instances, i.e. staying vs. fleeing to fear).
That seems to me to be scraping by, especially if the healer's already filling the latter position.

Easy remedy would be Magic Missile.
I'd only recommend it for bosses (or others with unusually high defenses), but it makes a difference in those battles and from far away.
Reach Spell could alleviate some of this too.
Even a decent shortbow w/ 14 Dex is worth one shot/round, and those should all be doable from more than a move (or even two) from the enemy.

In his defense, there is some sense to him trying to remain more than a move away from enemies. This all depends on the difficulty level of the campaign though.
Also, if the party's clogged up OR if the party's spread thin, it can be quite hard for a squishy to position themself. (They have less agency in their options.) Maybe he's recognized his fragility after seeing how badly mauled PCs with better defense get.

And I'd balance it versus his other contributions too. Maybe he'd skipped Con for Int because he wanted to contribute more via skills.
If he's not contributing there, then yes, I'd say objectively he's not pulling his weight though the solution's easy with spell selection.


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This is about as ineffectual as a Bard gets. Still pretty effective because Bards are just good like that, especially in a larger party. He should at least be throwing out Telekinetic Projectiles with his extra actions if nothing else.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

A party of 6 can get a little unwieldy so if the player is happy doing that/wants that to be their turn, I wouldn't feel compelled to make them miserable for it, but being so far away from your allies can present dangers to the character as well, from invisible or hiding foes, as well as enemies just doubling back around. With a party of 6, there should be some encounters with enough extra people to threaten the player.

At the same time, NEVER presenting themselves as a target will put a lot more threat on the melee characters in the party, and depending on your table, you might occasionally want to throw something at them, that needs 6 people picking away at it from different directions, or making it waste turns moving instead of just wailing on the only one or two people that actually threaten it.


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Hmm... definitely seems like he's helping, but possibly not as much as he could be. We'd need to know the rest of his build and how he typically performs out of combat situations to be able to give a more educated answer, really; if he's your primary problem-solver outside of combat with a build to match, for example, then his utility and ability to handle non-combat encounters should more than make up for his lackluster combat performance. (And to be fair, having a healer far enough away to not be shot first by enemies can be a strong insurance plan, if the rest of the party can reliably soak up damage without constantly being downed.)

That said, the question I'd ask is whether he finds combat uninteresting, and how involved he is with the rest of the game. It may be that he's just going through the motions so your group can get the fight over with and move on to something he enjoys more, which suggests it may be worth consulting the group and determining their expectations for the campaign.


At very low level, with a party that large, I don't actually think the bard is doing too poorly. Inspire courage scales with party size, so keeping those coming consistently is a good idea. At mid/higher levels, occult spellcasting gets some really hard-hitting spells that makes mixing things up important.

Beyond that basic advice, the GM might adapt to this as enemies get smarter. If the enemy can set up an ambush with pincer tactics that could be pretty bad for the Bard.


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Is the Bard helping.....

Yes a +1 to hit and damage can be massive and with 6 players he could easily be turning significant numbers of misses into hit and hits into crits to be doing a lot of damage through the other PCs.

Could he be doing more yes, but he could be doing less too.


Perhaps if you were to recommend the Warrior Muse and the feats it can take (courageous advance and courageous assault, to be specific), the player would be happy to use some of their own character's actions while hanging back trying to stay out of sight to let a character actually in the room with the enemy move or attack.


That sounds like bard life. You can do more if you want, but barring hiding all the time that is pretty much what I did as a bard. I spent most of my time doing Harmonize, Inspire Courage and Inspire Defense.


So...he plays like Edward from Final Fantasy IV? Hiding in the back while doing his basic performing duties?


Calybos1 wrote:
But is that really making good use of a bard's abilities?

It sure is: nothing wrong with Inspire Courage and heals.

Calybos1 wrote:
Are there other things he could be doing that would be more beneficial than a consistent +2 hit/damage

It's hard to beat this. There might be other options depending on feats taken and cantrips available.

Calybos1 wrote:
and occasional backup heal?

Well it's never a bad thing. Other options depends on spell, feat and equipment he takes. He might fire a bow, Demoralize or any number of other things but he HAS to take the initiative to branch out to do so.

My question to you would be, does the group have an issue with his performance? Do you? Does he? The answer to those really shifts the conversation.


The issue is that our group (currently level 7) gets wiped a LOT. Despite having 6 PCs going up against encounters set up for four players, we can never bring down enemies.

The bard never deals any damage; the healer never deals any damage. The skirmisher only uses trip maneuvers; the arcane caster throws out attack spells that always fail. And that leaves two melee warriors hoping for lots of crits. End result is we can't deal enough damage to bring anybody down, and the GM just offers free "reset" mass resurrections and moves on to the next stage of the story to keep the game going. Sometimes he cuts the next encounter in half to make sure we survive it.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Calybos1 wrote:

The issue is that our group gets wiped a LOT. Despite having 6 PCs going up against encounters set up for four players, we can never bring down enemies.

The bard never deals any damage; the healer never deals any damage. The skirmisher only uses trip maneuvers; the arcane caster throws out attack spells that always fail. And that leaves two melee warriors hoping for lots of crits. End result is we can't deal enough damage to bring anybody down.

How can your group be getting wiped if one of you never takes damage?


Captain Morgan wrote:
Calybos1 wrote:

The issue is that our group gets wiped a LOT. Despite having 6 PCs going up against encounters set up for four players, we can never bring down enemies.

The bard never deals any damage; the healer never deals any damage. The skirmisher only uses trip maneuvers; the arcane caster throws out attack spells that always fail. And that leaves two melee warriors hoping for lots of crits. End result is we can't deal enough damage to bring anybody down.

How can your group be getting wiped if one of you never takes damage?

Once 2-3 PCs are dead, the others run.


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Calybos1 wrote:

The issue is that our group gets wiped a LOT. Despite having 6 PCs going up against encounters set up for four players, we can never bring down enemies.

The bard never deals any damage; the healer never deals any damage. The skirmisher only uses trip maneuvers; the arcane caster throws out attack spells that always fail. And that leaves two melee warriors hoping for lots of crits. End result is we can't deal enough damage to bring anybody down.

If you've got 4 characters actually contributing to their fullest, and 2 that are adding on some help, and the encounters are "built for 4 characters" then there is some other cause behind the getting wiped out than the players that aren't "doing more."

Because there's a whole range of encounters that are "built for 4" but are actually harder than the guidelines recommend, whether it's because the GM is using too many "boss" monsters to fill out their encounters, is setting the difficulty of each encounter higher more frequently than appropriate, or is just because the GM is selecting actions for NPCs in a way that is playing to a different degree of difficulty than the players are collectively playing towards (because encountering a well-oiled machine of an encounter when your party is operating in an uncoordinated fashion is going to be a lot more difficult than if the very same creatures were being played as uncoordinated too)


Calybos1 wrote:

The issue is that our group (currently level 7) gets wiped a LOT. Despite having 6 PCs going up against encounters set up for four players, we can never bring down enemies.

The bard never deals any damage; the healer never deals any damage. The skirmisher only uses trip maneuvers; the arcane caster throws out attack spells that always fail. And that leaves two melee warriors hoping for lots of crits. End result is we can't deal enough damage to bring anybody down, and the GM just offers free "reset" mass resurrections and moves on to the next stage of the story to keep the game going. Sometimes he cuts the next encounter in half to make sure we survive it.

Well, I'm not sure why the look at the bard specifically. For instance, the skirmisher is going out of their way to avoid gaining the bards bonuses to hit and damage. The caster can pick up new spells that might have a better chance damage the enemies or if nothing else, they can magic missile for auto-hits. Not sure what class your healer is, but clerics don't have very exciting attack options IMO at least at lower levels [they might only have daze as an attack cantrip for example].

So again, when only 2 out of 6 are doing any damage it seems odd to me to say 'hey, why isn't THAT guy not doing damage! when the other 3 are contributing far less to the damage totals.


The group sounds like it's playing PF2 with a PF1 mentality, and the Bard's player got scared because he wasn't dominating, not realizing he has to be closer to make maximum usage of his abilities.
Ex. Every time he has to move to Soothe (as mentioned), he's not doing a Composition.
And it's causing focused damage, likely on the two doing damage.

And yeah, I hadn't been kidding about wondering about somebody being called "the healer" in PF2. Everybody needs to bring in offense.

Between them, using Magic Missiles, the caster & the Bard could wreck a solo opponent if the martial provide a barrier. And against groups, even the Bard's dinky shortbow should hit and help.
Anyway, I can't even get into a fraction of the issues if a 6-person party is struggling that much, but it's not simply the Bard because a 5-person party w/ that Bard's modest support should also not have that many issues. (To be clear, I'm not saying zero issues; the published material is difficult. But gosh, if the Bard simply did that little then cast Magic Missiles vs. the Boss, that's significant.)


The bard's player says that he's chosen this as his 'most optimal combat tactic for a 2E bard.' His only complaint is that he's bored because it never varies.

As for the other PCs... those are for other topics.


Inspire Courage->Cast a Spell is basically the optimal combat tactic for a 2E bard. That guy, as annoying as he may be, is definitely not the problem. The skirmisher (trips are good but you can still attack at -5!) and the arcane caster (some of the best spells on that list are big damage AOEs, use them!) sound like much bigger concerns. And the healer... Healing is great in PF2, but it is something you do in addition to your main schtick. That should be obvious when a Barbarian is capable of being an effective healer.


Calybos1 wrote:
The bard's player says that he's chosen this as his 'most optimal combat tactic for a 2E bard.'

It could be for him: if he doesn't have a very good grasp of tactics, it could be best that he stays out of direct combat. With the way people die, it's hard to say that the bard wanting to be as far from the bad guys as possible isn't optimal.

Calybos1 wrote:
His only complaint is that he's bored because it never varies.

It's a common complaint with the bard: they can be a huge boon but once you get your pattern down, there is little reason to switch it up.

Calybos1 wrote:
As for the other PCs... those are for other topics.

*shrug* I don't think much will change even if you could get the bard to do more stuff: the off shortbow shot or Demobilize isn't likely to shift things without also doing something with the other 3.

A very simple way to increase his output is to have him #1 take Warrior muse, #2 take Intimidating Glare and Battle Cry: this allows him to #1 Inspire Courage, #2 Demobilize a target and ignore the language/auditory requirement and #3 fire a longbow from up to 60' away from the front line fighters with the bonuses from his Inspire Courage. This means he could pass out frightened 2 to a foe, buff everyone AND have a pretty good chance to hit with the longbow in a round. The thing is that this isn't necessarily a more interesting pattern to play, so if the bard does this, he might still be bored.


Arachnofiend wrote:
and the arcane caster (some of the best spells on that list are big damage AOEs, use them!) sound like much bigger concerns.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the arcane caster might be using incapacitation spells and targeting higher level targets if the spells keep failing.


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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Quote:
Inspire Courage->Cast a Spell is basically the optimal combat tactic for a 2E bard.

When doing that, the best spell to cast as part of that equation definitely does not stay constant.


graystone wrote:
Arachnofiend wrote:
and the arcane caster (some of the best spells on that list are big damage AOEs, use them!) sound like much bigger concerns.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the arcane caster might be using incapacitation spells and targeting higher level targets if the spells keep failing.

Not that I've noticed. Most common choices are Fear, Lightning Bolt, Confusion, Paralyze, and the auto-leveling Electric Arc or TK Projectile cantrips. They all fail (aside from the occasionally lucky attack roll on TK Projectile). But again--that's for the wizard topic.


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So telikenetic projectile is a ranged spell attack so to quote hunger games the odds are not in your favour.

But electric arc does half damage on successful save so with two targets you are likely to do at least spell level d4 + 4 damage per turn which isn't nothing.

Parlyze is incapacitate and sticking single target save or sucks like confuse or slow on bosses and getting them to fail that is difficult but not impossible were usual talking something like a 25% chance of making a boss (level +2 or more) and 5% they will critically fail a save. Not great odds but if you roll the dice enough you should have come up trumps once or twice.


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From a tactics standpoint; your bard is helping, but not nearly as powerfully as they could. That said, you don't need to play 2e optimally to have a good time or beat encounters.

From all of my experience in quality control and troubleshooting, I would advise against speculation about a problem before getting all the info. It is tempting to wonder if the person dropping buff then hiding isn't pulling their weight, but there's a lot to consider if you keep getting wiped:

-Are the encounters level appropriate?
-Is the terrain providing extra challenge that the DM did not factor in?
-Is the party as a whole using good tactics?
-Do you have an abnormal party composition? If so, are you playing to your strengths? Is your DM designing encouters with your abilities in mind, or trying to fit a square peg in a round hole?


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Sounds to me like your bard is doing fine. Yes he could mix things up and if he is bored of what he's doing he absolutely SHOULD.

But giving a consistent (effectively) 10% to hit AND to crit with the way accuracy works in this system is a potent effect.

Based on your descriptions, your bard is not the problem. He might be able to do "more" but it wouldn't necessarily be "better".


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Calybos1 wrote:
Most common choices are Fear, Lightning Bolt, Confusion, Paralyze, and the auto-leveling Electric Arc or TK Projectile cantrips.

I see a LOT of will saves. Could be that he's targeting people that are god with those. Maybe throw some Fort saves spells in there to be more balances and less focused on mental spells. Electric arc pretty much the best cantrip around and if you're targeting 2 targets even if both make the save, you're still dealing as much damage total [1/2 damage x2] as is a normal cantrip hit.

Calybos1 wrote:
But again--that's for the wizard topic.

I'm not sure what more we can offer for the bard without knowing his current build to see what resources there are to work with, so why not offer advice for the others too? ;)


Calybos1 wrote:

But is that really making good use of a bard's abilities? Are there other things he could be doing that would be more beneficial than a consistent +2 hit/damage and occasional backup heal?

I play a bard. Usually standing right behind the martials. Playing DoD, casting spells. We've had combats where I had a bless up 15 feet, circle of protection, and DoD. In range of the champion in case of an attack, wielding a whip and using Guardian deflection (swashb arch) or One for All to help the Pick wielding flurry ranger on his first attack.

Max AC on a bard means that AC is not bad. Shield Champion (liberator) near means lots of damage mitigation and step options. The Animal companion (bird) and Ranger, Thief (gang up, opportune backstab) means if opponents want to go behind the lines they get slaugtered. Around the bard is also where all bonuses stack (flanked, buff, debuff), so the martials hit a lot.

Spells are Phantasmal Killer, Animated assault, Synesthesia, Haste, but if it can be done with cantrips and/or skills that is even better. Bon Mot, One for all both very useful. Hideous Laughter in case of AoO from bosses. Soothe if needed. Last char in the party is a primal witch. Heal, damage spells/cantrips.

The closer the bard is to the frontline, the more effective the character is. So what if you het hit sometimes.


As a GM, if a player believes they have found an 'optimal' strategy, I feel I'm not doing my job (especially if it's boring). A few ideas to liven things up:

- a hungry beastie has been following the trail of corpses left by the party, and when the rest are busy in the next room, it decides the bard will make easy pickings.
- the baddies have skirmishers of their own, who sneak around to attack from behind.
- a spellcaster baddie casts summon monster through the open door, or heightened silence on their bruiser.

Or, to come at it another way, institute an Anathema for the bard class: you lose the power to inspire courage in someone if they see you acting cowardly. Important to make sure they know this isn't calling them a coward for playing smart, just trying to give them a more interesting challenge and help the mechanics line up with the fiction.

Obviously this isn't a lot of help to you as a player, but it's what I got.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

With 6 players, it also possible that small dungeons drawn on maps designed to fit in a quarter of a page might be creating too intense of choke points for every player to get drawn into the encounter. I recommend having a few more encounters staged outside, on larger maps, where movement can be more dynamic and having martials block up the door way and fight everything is not possible.

It can be easy for players to get bored when the battlefield is trying to support a party that is 50% larger than intended.


The player is certainly making the combat harder with their relatively small contribution. Slotted spells should come out in the early parts of tough fights or cantrips/weapon attacks in easier ones.


Alchemic_Genius wrote:

From a tactics standpoint; your bard is helping, but not nearly as powerfully as they could. That said, you don't need to play 2e optimally to have a good time or beat encounters.

From all of my experience in quality control and troubleshooting, I would advise against speculation about a problem before getting all the info. It is tempting to wonder if the person dropping buff then hiding isn't pulling their weight, but there's a lot to consider if you keep getting wiped:

-Are the encounters level appropriate?
-Is the terrain providing extra challenge that the DM did not factor in?
-Is the party as a whole using good tactics?
-Do you have an abnormal party composition? If so, are you playing to your strengths? Is your DM designing encouters with your abilities in mind, or trying to fit a square peg in a round hole?

It's an Adventure Path, the Gm is using the standard 4-party encounters against a 6-person party most times when he doesn't take extra steps to scale it down further.

Good tactics? The frontliners block for the others; the skirmisher grabs and trips; the bard Inspires Courage; the dedicated healer heals; the arcane caster blasts. And it doesn't do a blessed bit of good, the PCs get steamrolled time and time again.

Sovereign Court

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I'm a fan of shortbows for bards.

* If you don't need to move, you can Inspire > Telekinetic Projectile
* If you need to move, you can Move > Inspire > Shortbow
* You still have a hand free for anything else you need to do.

---

It also sounds like maybe too much of the party is playing in support roles, and not enough main damage dealers? If all you do is heal, trip enemies, buff attacks... but don't actually make many attacks, then those buffs aren't really doing all that much.


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Calybos1 wrote:


Good tactics? The frontliners block for the others; the skirmisher grabs and trips; the bard Inspires Courage; the dedicated healer heals; the arcane caster blasts. And it doesn't do a blessed bit of good, the PCs get steamrolled time and time again.

Something is seriously off if your GM is running encounters as is for six PC band (e.g. no adjustment for group size) and your party is consistently getting steamrolled. Your group should be routing those encounters.

The tactics you described at high level sound reasonable, so I really have to think there are core aspects of the game rules that are being missed.


Calybos1 wrote:

The issue is that our group (currently level 7) gets wiped a LOT. Despite having 6 PCs going up against encounters set up for four players, we can never bring down enemies.

The bard never deals any damage; the healer never deals any damage. The skirmisher only uses trip maneuvers; the arcane caster throws out attack spells that always fail. And that leaves two melee warriors hoping for lots of crits. End result is we can't deal enough damage to bring anybody down, and the GM just offers free "reset" mass resurrections and moves on to the next stage of the story to keep the game going. Sometimes he cuts the next encounter in half to make sure we survive it.

I have to ask what the rest of you are doing that you cannot seem to wipe anything or succeed. Honestly sounds at this point like the bard is the only one actually being successful.

Dark Archive

Calybos1 wrote:
Alchemic_Genius wrote:

From a tactics standpoint; your bard is helping, but not nearly as powerfully as they could. That said, you don't need to play 2e optimally to have a good time or beat encounters.

From all of my experience in quality control and troubleshooting, I would advise against speculation about a problem before getting all the info. It is tempting to wonder if the person dropping buff then hiding isn't pulling their weight, but there's a lot to consider if you keep getting wiped:

-Are the encounters level appropriate?
-Is the terrain providing extra challenge that the DM did not factor in?
-Is the party as a whole using good tactics?
-Do you have an abnormal party composition? If so, are you playing to your strengths? Is your DM designing encouters with your abilities in mind, or trying to fit a square peg in a round hole?

It's an Adventure Path, the Gm is using the standard 4-party encounters against a 6-person party most times when he doesn't take extra steps to scale it down further.

Good tactics? The frontliners block for the others; the skirmisher grabs and trips; the bard Inspires Courage; the dedicated healer heals; the arcane caster blasts. And it doesn't do a blessed bit of good, the PCs get steamrolled time and time again.

It also sounds like maybe too much of the party is playing in support roles, and not enough main damage dealers? If all you do is heal, trip enemies, buff attacks... but don't actually make many attacks, then those buffs aren't really doing all that much.

I'd say the Bard isn't the issue here. While they could be doing more with their spell slots and/or demoralizing, however what they are doing is providing a +10% chance to hit and crit as well as providing a consistent damage boost on hits (keep in mind for the blaster, this bonus applies to their attack trait spells like TK Projectile).

The tactics you mentioned in theory should work, however the devil is in the details. Are your characters being mobile? Forcing bad guys to waist an action moving to you in order to hit is a big deal. Often standing toe-to-toe with enemies is a fast way to get yourself killed.

Is your caster using spells with an effect on a successful save? PF2e is balanced such that enemies will succeed on saves quite often. Choosing spells are are effective in these scenarios is important for a successful spellcaster. At level 7 there are plenty of these in each of the traditions (Divine not so much, but that is more about buffing). Additionally, as others have stated, Electric Arc should also be doing a good job of whittling down enemies even if they are making their save often. To add to that, either the caster or a friend using Intimidate (or some other way to induce Frightened) or using Bon Mot before a will save spell can make a real difference in success rate as well.

The "Healer" should be darting in and out of spell/demoralize range and doing things beyond just healing. Buffing defensive characteristics should help survival more than in combat healing and things like Haste can make all the difference.

The skirmisher tripping and grabbing can be really good as long as they and others are capitalizing on the effects. If the skirmisher trips somebody, they can still then attack (may be at a -5, but with inspire it is effectively a -4 and then with the creature now prone that is down to only a -2) and still have a 3rd action to either move or to apply a debuff of their own (Bon Mot to help the caster's perhaps?).

Bottom line, I don't think the Bard is the biggest issue. While they could be doing more (use their shortbow or toss out some debuffs), they aren't being detrimental. In fact, they are providing some real benefits to the group. If you're party is already doing the things mentioned above, either the dice hate your party or the GM may be playing the encounters much more difficult than they should. My very experienced group wiped quite often early on to our adjustment to PF2e and it was largely the lack of mobility or skill usage (intimidate, bon mot, recall knowledge to find weak points, etc.)

Grand Lodge

Calybos1 wrote:
is that really making good use of a bard's abilities? Are there other things he could be doing that would be more beneficial than a consistent +2 hit/damage and occasional backup heal?

It really doesn't matter what message board monkeys thing. What matters is, do YOU and your fellow players feel the bard is contributing adequately? If the character is always over [there] is the player really playing with you or just tagging along like a sidekick? Is the player invested in the game or is he distracted with playing with his iPhone? We really don't have enough information and even if we did, at the end of the day, the only opinions that matter are those of your group and to be honest it sounds like you have a lot more issues than just the bard. Good Luck!


Calybos1 wrote:

Our 6-person party includes 2 melee, an arcane caster, a healer, a skills/skirmisher type... and the Bard in the Next Room.

This is his only tactic, and he uses it in every combat. He follows 30' behind the party everywhere they go and never enters the room that the rest of them enter, under any circumstances. He's always at least 40-60 feet away. When combat occurs, he spends each round doing Inspire Courage, sometimes mixing it up with a doubled-up performance for an added perk (such as an AC boost) or slowly moving in a bit for a ranged heal via Soothe, then moving back out. But that's his only action each turn; look up for a moment to say "Same thing; I make sure I'm out of line-of-sight, repeat Inspire Courage, done." He has never made an attack roll. He has never taken a point of damage.

Now, obviously, this tactic works great for him. He doesn't have to do much, and his character is completely safe. And to be fair, a reliable to-hit and damage bonus in combat is wonderful, especially in 2nd edition where every +1 counts. But is that really making good use of a bard's abilities? Are there other things he could be doing that would be more beneficial than a consistent +2 hit/damage and occasional backup heal?

He can't be in the previous room and hit affect the people in line of effect to him, which would be anyone that can see him through the door basically. Emanations, like all area effects, do not go through solid barriers.


It is not the most effective method of playing, no. He has plenty of additional actions to provide effects and spells that would be helpful, and that only scratches the surface.

However, I do question the full need to bring it up.

These actions seem deliberate. While I don't know the reasoning behind them, I'd wager that you do not either as you are questioning us about the efficiency. Is this person a problem player at the table? Spending his time not paying attention, deep in his phone, etc? Does he participate out of combat? It's definitely important to note that a 6 person party does also make it hard to involve every single player in a roleplay.

If he's not causing a disturbance in the group, then I say let it be. He might have a concept in mind and while it may not seem the most exciting, fun or interactive to you, he could be enjoying it. If in character, you guys are frustrated over his antics, nudge him a bit

"hey buddy, I notice you tend to stay in the other room when danger is afoot. I'm a little worried about you. Are you feeling comfortable as an adventurer? Is there something I can do to help? It'd be nice to have you a little farther forward so we can keep an eye on you and so you can provide useful combat insight or provide a little firepower or something. Just a thought, though."

This turns what may be a frustrating situation for you into an opportunity for roleplay, character building and dynamic personality shifts in the group. It could also give you a clearer picture into his reasoning and mindset behind his actions.


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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Sean Cannon 565 wrote:


If he's not causing a disturbance in the group, then I say let it be.

This is definitely good advice normally, but worth noting for here that while it's really hard to follow because the OP made a separate thread for every character and then another separate thread about the encounters themselves, this is part of a larger discussion about their party basically failing at every single encounter they come across.


Suggest for him to pick up animate dead. It is an undead version of summoning magic, and it isn't...explicitly evil.

Anyway, buffing and some summoned beat stick/meat shield would probably suffice for him to contribute.

Of course, if I was him, I would be worried about ambushes. I mean... the party is busy in another room, and they can't exactly take time out to help him if 2-3 monsters come up behind him in the previous room. The backline is nice, but he is hanging out on a completely unprotected front. That is just asking for trouble.

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