Is the Bard too strong?

[PossibleCabbage]

I feel like the remaster structurally cannot nerf anything, since the whole premise of the remaster is "all the existing rules are still valid, so if you want to use alignment and red dragons and flumphs you can keep doing so" and this extends to "previous versions of classes from the CRB, etc."

So if you changed Dirge of Doom or Lingering Composition to be worse, people are just going to choose to use the old versions when and where they can. Whereas if you made something else better, people are going to choose to use the new version of that when and where they can.

[Hilary Moon Murphy]

^This.

[Castilliano]

Aristophanes wrote:

Thematically, the only thing that Bards get that I think doesn't fit, is Expert in perception. It feels kind of "meta". "We want the Bard to support the party with IC, so let's help them get a better chance to go early in initiative".

Citation needed re: that was Paizo's reasoning.

Seems more likely either a legacy effect from Bards being offshoots of DnD Thieves or that in genre, Bard-like heroes often rely on being perceptive or able to read people well (which also ties into the arts/acting).
It could also be to keep their Perception similar to their main rivals, Clerics & Druids, the other core d8 casters who are Wisdom-based so have a leg up (and this also explains why Bards have superior Will saves).

---
And I think PF2 has given huge boosts to support classes, hence the amazing Healing Font too. It's a less appealing role to many players, so PF2 pays off in dividends (much like teamwork pays off too). It's hard for those PCs to operate alone, so it's not like they can be too OP as how many are any given party going to want?

Also note that Inspiring Courage works better when attacking from range and stacks with status penalties allowing for a greater potential difference when others contribute, i.e via Demoralize (which the Bard should also be pretty good at). And as noted before, it's free. To overcome that, other Compositions better be darn good.

[Unicore]

A minor change to an existing spell or focus spell could pretty easily just be errata though and not a structural remaster change.

[PossibleCabbage]

Unicore wrote:

A minor change to an existing spell or focus spell could pretty easily just be errata though and not a structural remaster change.

I think that would have to be published as "errata to the CRB(or whichever book the spell was in initially)" at the same time as the core book is released in order to work. Which you could do, but it's kind of against the spirit of the remaster which is, again, "all your existing books are still valid." If they were inclined to errata the bard or Synesthesia or whatever, they could have already done it- the CRB has had 4 rounds of errata by now.

Since however the Bard or Occult spells are changed in the Player Core does not immediately affect how the Bard or Occult Spells are in the pre-existing material, there's just going to be two versions of each thing.

[Themetricsystem]

So wait, buffing things like focus spells is acceptable but nerfing is not?

A few downward tweaks or nerfs are LESS disruptive than broad sections of the rules being completely overhauled and buffed... they're updating Weapon profs (supposedly based on twitch stream comments/questions) and explicitly mention on the blog that they're "upgrading" some feats that they aren't happy with. Beyond that, the board is CHOCK FULL of suggestions and discussion of big changes to just about everything from spell slot allotment, focus spell functionality/refocusing/buffing specific spells, and a dozen other things. The argument that one or two minor nerfs to bring an outlier back into line with everything else is unacceptable makes no sense whatsoever.

[PossibleCabbage]

The point is that there's going to be two versions of a lot of stuff, and people are going to want to use the better version of whatever it is.

So if you make the new one worse than the old one, people aren't going to want to use it. If you make the new one better than the old one, people are going to want to use it.

[SuperBidi]

If I remember well, Paizo is supposed to review some spells with PF2R. So it can completely be done.

[Themetricsystem]

Okay, now, THAT is one thing I didn't consider and is a GREAT point PC. You're absolutely right about that and that is a great sticky issue, players are absolutely going to want to always use the best of two options when one is less desirable and if they aim lower with the remaster version (without at least first issuing an errata to the current line of books) then that would very much create that dilemma... hmmmm.

[Unicore]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

The point is that there's going to be two versions of a lot of stuff, and people are going to want to use the better version of whatever it is.

So if you make the new one worse than the old one, people aren't going to want to use it. If you make the new one better than the old one, people are going to want to use it.

But when are they officially going to stop Errata'ing existing material? There are definitely problems with existing spells and feats that need minor tweaks, and the end result of those tweaks are going to feel like buffs or nerfs to many players. I imagine they will streamline quite a bit of that Errata into the same change as the remaster, but I bet some of it will still work like errata.

[The Raven Black]

Why do so many people claim Occult is the best list ?

I would really like people to give me tips on the awesome spells I could get for my Bard. Because right now, I do not find that many.

[Unicore]

The Raven Black wrote:

Why do so many people claim Occult is the best list ?

I would really like people to give me tips on the awesome spells I could get for my Bard. Because right now, I do not find that many.

I strongly agree. It poaches a number of good spells from Arcane and Divine, but you are in big trouble when you run into to something immune to mental effects that is not undead. Magic Missile is a spell likely to get some changes anyway to be less D&D like, but as it is pretty much an essential spell for occult casters to have to fit in their list at multiple levels, which is awkward since it doesn't heighten at every level. Truestrike is a great spell, but not that great for the occult list because you really lack spell attack roll blasting. The vampiric spells come up a lot on occult casters I see, but it really is just synesthesia that people love so much because it is unique to the list, and is such a good boss debuffer. There is no next spell waiting to step in and take its place for that role. The nearest thing is probably slow which is not at all unique to occultists. Even Primal casters get it.

[gesalt]

The Raven Black wrote:

Why do so many people claim Occult is the best list ?

I would really like people to give me tips on the awesome spells I could get for my Bard. Because right now, I do not find that many.

Here are some in no particular order: illusory object, soothe, calm emotions, hideous laughter/roaring applause, haste, slow, fly, synesthesia, wall of flesh/force, true seeing, true target, maze, disappearance, prismatic wall, overwhelming presence, shadow siphon, invisibility, silence, resilient sphere, magic missile, phantasmal calamity, vampiric exsanguination, more situational or non-combat spells like clairvoyance/audience, faerie fire, dimensional anchor, ghostly weapon, prying eye, various complex illusions, sending, shadow spy, glyph of warding and plenty of juicy uncommon and rare spells like teleport for the more permissive tables.

Bards can pretty easily spec into a spellbook too for the more situational stuff if the campaign suits it or if you don't want to rely on a couple scrolls or wands.

[Xenocrat]

Well, at least they're getting full martial weapon proficiency for all muses.

[Unicore]

3 action spells though are a bit of trap for Bards until you get your lingering composition going.

[Deriven Firelion]

The Raven Black wrote:

Why do so many people claim Occult is the best list ?

I would really like people to give me tips on the awesome spells I could get for my Bard. Because right now, I do not find that many.

Because it has all the following all on one list:

Heroism
Synesthesia
Magic Missile
True Strike
Wall of Force
Calm Emotions
Phantasmal Calamity
True Target
Invisibility
See Invisibility
Faerie Fire
Teleport
Phantasmal Killer
Weird
Haste
Slow
Soothe
Fly

All of these spells on the same list, no need for feats to pick them up.

Healing

Buffing

Debuffing

Flight

Teleporting

Dealing with invisibility

Turning invisible

Some blasting.

All on the same spell list with some negative and force blasting and illusions. If I were a wizard, I'd rather have the Occult list. It can do more than the Arcane List

[Unicore]

It really sounds like the spells and spell lists are getting a pretty hefty rework. Spells are getting combined and changed and I think it will be difficult to assess all of this until we see some of the larger structural changes.

[gesalt]

Unicore wrote:

3 action spells though are a bit of trap for Bards until you get your lingering composition going.

The real trap is thinking you need to open with lingering composition if wall of forcing someone is the better tactical play.

[Chromantic Durgon <3]

I think its a case of the Occult list being the best at what is perceived as the "optimal" way to play a caster on these boards.

I.E providing large flat numerical advantages to your martials and debuffing/crippling enemies ability to hit or take actions.

There are other ways to play the caster which the Occult list isn't best at, but those ways to play are perceived as less efficient. Although in reality a lot of that comes down to the types of encounter/none combat related challenges you're expecting to face in a day.

[YuriP]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

Why do so many people claim Occult is the best list ?

I would really like people to give me tips on the awesome spells I could get for my Bard. Because right now, I do not find that many.

Because it has all the following all on one list:

Heroism
Synesthesia
Magic Missile
True Strike
Wall of Force
Calm Emotions
Phantasmal Calamity
True Target
Invisibility
See Invisibility
Faerie Fire
Teleport
Phantasmal Killer
Weird
Haste
Slow
Soothe
Fly

All of these spells on the same list, no need for feats to pick them up.

Healing

Buffing

Debuffing

Flight

Teleporting

Dealing with invisibility

Turning invisible

Some blasting.

All on the same spell list with some negative and force blasting and illusions. If I were a wizard, I'd rather have the Occult list. It can do more than the Arcane List

You forgot Magic Missiles and basically all Mental, Force, Sound and Negative spells are also part of the occult. Also classes with occult tradition usually can use evil spells without being penalized by a deity.

This makes this tradition very versatile. More than divine usually was (but in remaster we will get Spiritual damage so at last the damage limitations from divine tradition may be gone).

Also the Occult is the tradition opposed to Primal this usually makes a party with a primal and an occult casters to have access to 99% of the spells like happen when you have divine+arcane casters in a party but without the extremisms of not having healing in arcane tradition or little option damage in divine making them more versatile.

[Gortle]

Just revisiting this to note that in PF2R the bard is getting all martial weapons. Which I suppose they did for consistancy. The class weapon list wasn't adding enough to be worth the space.

Importantly the warrior muse is getting something extra. Which is fair because it was the least popular.

Paizo have adopted the approach of not lowering the ceiling, but buffing the parts which aren't being used. Which is very much as predicted. Even if it would have been a smaller over all change.
So far I'm pretty happy.

[lemeres]

One odd advantage of the occult list- it has a "not" summoning spell- animate dead.

Animate dead is a summoning spell in all but name. It doesn't even have the evil take, like create undead.

Undead present a wide range between simple brutes, casters, and various weirdo effects (incorporeal is one of the ones that immediately come to mind). So they will likely find SOMETHING that might help against enemies immune to mind affect spells.

On top of that, they are THE buffer class. So they can also help to make summons that little bit more effective. They can spend a turn effectively with no extra resources just by keeping up their summon, keeping up a song, and maybe some intimidation for extra numbers.

[Unicore]

It really sounds like the solution to "Bards are strong" was, "great! We're going to boost everyone!" Even fighters are losing a negative trait, and spells are getting boosted a secretly small enough amount that I strongly doubt we will have many people clamoring to play non-remastered Clerics, Wizards, Witches, Oracles, or even Druids.

[Kyle_TheBuilder]

Gortle wrote:

Maybe.

A Bards best ability perhaps the best ability in the mid game, is Dirge of Doom.

Area effect 30ft emanation, no save, no timing out, frightened 1 on all enemies.

Why is it so good?
* Frightened 1 is -1 to all enemies attacks and -1 to all their defences. It is basically like giving everyone +2 to everything --- and people complain about fighters?
* In PF2 very few things are immune to fear. It is typically only Oozes and Mindless creatures. This is nice BTW as I am tired of large common categories of monsters being immune to illusions, or fire or fear like previous editions.
* It works with Lingering Composition so on a moderate roll plus a focus point it only cost 1 action and will last for 3 or 4 rounds.

Other Bard focus cantrips give a benefit of 1 not 2. You can Harmonise them to get a second cantrip for a net plus 2 but then you are spending 2 actions per turn. You can't do this and Linger them because of the metamagic and action restrictions. Yeah I think I'll just spend one action once thanks.

Likewise Inspire Heroics costs a focus point to get a larger bonus, but you can't also linger that.

Net result the Action Economy wins and Dirge of Doom is the best Bard cantrip in most common situations.

Then there is the knock on effect. Dread Striker which becomes worth multiclassing to get, not just for the Rogue.

Paizo should have a look at this situation and see if this is what they intended. but Dirge of Doom is so strong it is crowding out other Bard options.

They are fine, they have action economy to maintain and juggle, they feel good about debuffing and buffing etc. If anything Bards and Sorcerers should be benchmarks of good casters. Bards don't complain about "my attack spells are bad vs martials" becasue they have tons of effective tools to use and feel awesome. Dirge of Doom is fine too, same as Inspires. Dirge won't work on mindless enemies or enemies immune to fear/mental so they still need to have other compositions in sleeve and 30ft emanation vs 60ft is really big limitation in open encounters where it's better to use Inspire Courage/Defense. Becasue otherwise they have to stride around battlefield to affect enemies with Dirge, which means losing action that they could use for spells while Inspire usually allow you to just stand in once place and affect all allies. They also have tons of great feats, unlike most of other casters. If Dirge offered save there would be no point in using it over Inspire Courage becasue sometimes it would do something, sometimes it would do nothing. Bard compositions are designed to always get value when you use them, that's why Bard players feel rewarded with their class features. They get tons of tools apart from casting to have fun and contribute to combat. Besides Bard already requires support-mind role from player so we should always make support stuff strong and reliable as any player that can play for party instead for himself is gold to have in party.

So definitely not too strong, just strong in positive sense, meaning very well designed class. Sorcerer and Bard feel great to play becasue they have a lot of stuff to use and combine. Imo it's other casters that lack anything special going for them.

[Martialmasters]

imo yes bards are too strong, but its mainly because their focus cantrips are brain dead easy and powerful from 1-20 and ALSO stifle third action options on the turns you cast a spell, making maestro almost always a better power play for the smart player.

they are powerful, and boring, and ive seen them played largely the same at every table because of this. save for the one time, where people just wanted the bard to play like other bards...because it was clearly more effective.

[YuriP]

I have an different vision. The Bard situation to me is similar to Fighter. They are easy and simple to understand and play to a point that any player knows how to play with the very well. This make the sensation too many players that these classes are boring. But It's the glass half empty view due these classes are too much efficient by chassis for those who are used to the much more complex classes that require a lot more planning and tactical attention. While players that want something simple and powerful to play saw these 2 classes as solution to them without need to create too many complex tactics.

[Martialmasters]

YuriP wrote:

I have an different vision. The Bard situation to me is similar to Fighter. They are easy and simple to understand and play to a point that any player knows how to play with the very well. This make the sensation too many players that these classes are boring. But It's the glass half empty view due these classes are too much efficient by chassis for those who are used to the much more complex classes that require a lot more planning and tactical attention. While players that want something simple and powerful to play saw these 2 classes as solution to them without need to create too many complex tactics.

meanwhile all my most complex builds involved a fighter base chassis >.>

i was unable to find that depth with bard unfortunately.

[Golurkcanfly]

One thing that would be nice for Bard would be for Lingering Composition to not be tied to any subclass, and for each subclass to get a unique Inspire Courage + Something Else 1-Action activity that couldn't be poached by Multifarious Muse.

That way, each subclass feels a bit different and whichever subclass you "pick first" actually matters.

So, Warrior Bard could get Athletics maneuver/Weapon Strike + Inspire Courage, Enigma could get RK + Inspire Courage, Polymath could get Demoralize/Bon Mot/Feint + Inspire Courage, but I'm not sure what Maestro would get.

[andreww]

Dirge of Doom is decent but frightened is generally a very easy conditions for lots of classes to place with little impact on their overall effectiveness that I find Inspire Courage more generally useful. Party wide status bonuses are virtually non existent.

[Rhapsodic College Dropout]

As a Bard player from 3e, 3.5, 4e, PF1e, and now PF2e, I'd just like to say: we deserve it.

[The Raven Black]

Rhapsodic College Dropout wrote:

As a Bard player from 3e, 3.5, 4e, PF1e, and now PF2e, I'd just like to say: we deserve it.

This reminds me fondly of OoTS' twins Elan and Nale comparing their classes / multiclasses.

[Terevalis Unctio of House Mysti]

I have a PFS2E bard that I have played in 2 bounties and she is pretty fun.

[Hilary Moon Murphy]

Huh. I've had 5 bard characters in PF2, all very different in feel but I've never used Dirge of Doom. Maybe my Goblin Goddess (Courtesy Title, as Teki Stronggut hopes to take the test of the Starstone) should take that feat sometime.

I think that a lot of the theory-crafting in this thread is aimed at a "one true build of bards" and some of the commentary suggests that no player who knows the system would build anything else. I consider myself a very knowledgeable player, but I like leaning into different options.

While I too would love to see Lingering Composition become a universal option rather than just the Maestro schtick, I have several non-Maestro bards because I wanted to try out different things. Is Maestro by far the strongest option because of Lingering Composition? Yep, it is. That action economy is hard to beat. Instead, I'd love to see Maestros get access to Inspire Defense from level one, and every bard get the option to pay a feat for lingering.

But for my bards who do not have it... Well, they still pull their weight. Maybe they're awesome at skills or they're good with a bow or a short sword. Whatever they do, that inspire courage is always welcome, but they will drop it from time to time to get off a three-action spell that is needed and none of my fellow players have ever complained.

[Captain Morgan]

andreww wrote:

Dirge of Doom is decent but frightened is generally a very easy conditions for lots of classes to place with little impact on their overall effectiveness that I find Inspire Courage more generally useful. Party wide status bonuses are virtually non existent.

The correct answer to Dirge vs Inspire is: Por que no los dos? If you're too far from the action or enemies already have status penalities, use Inspire. Otherwise, use Dirge. The two are only mutually exclusive turn to turn.

[YuriP]

Inspire Courage + Lingering Composition then Dirge of Doom and then a Fighter Striking a Flat-footed opponent.

That's why Bards are loved by all parties.

[MadScientistWorking]

YuriP wrote:

Inspire Courage + Lingering Composition then Dirge of Doom and then a Fighter Striking a Flat-footed opponent.

That's why Bards are loved by all parties.

And that's something you can't do.

[andreww]

YuriP wrote:

Inspire Courage + Lingering Composition then Dirge of Doom and then a Fighter Striking a Flat-footed opponent.

That's why Bards are loved by all parties.

This doesn't work, you need harmonize which will eat up your actions.

Personally I find lingering inspire plus level 3 fear highly effective.