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I'm not really sure if this is a rule or lore discussion but something that's low-key bugged me since 2e's inception has been the reclassification of the Bard class to the new Occult spellcasting (though if we want to get TECHNICAL only Primal is OFFICIALLY new, Occult occupying a weird middle-ground as a pseudo-official third type of spellcasting in 1e).
On some level I get it, as a way to differentiate Pathfinder more strongly from its predecessors (in a way though it's just recycling the distinctions one of those predecessors made that was walked back).
And I kinda like the way Occult magic is described in Secrets of Magic, tapping into sympathetic connections between the symbolic and real, allowing you to use the former to affect the latter, and to be fair, that makes a certain amount of sense in the case of the Bard, using music to influence the mental states of people around them and sort of playing off various mythical figures for whom music and spellcasting were one and the same (Odin, Vainamoinen, etc.)
But I struggle a bit with how Occult lumps bards in with psychics, and soon necromancers will follow suit. I just really feel like "the bardic arts" and "parapsychology" are very different thematically, and Occult spellcasting as a whole lacks a coherent identity as a result. Maybe I've just been too steeped in the hack roleplaying stereotype of a Bard as an Elizabethan-looking fop with a lute, but I've always felt that with Occult seeming to be more "the spooky magic" that Bards feel almost TOO whimsical for it. Muses are also kind of hard for me to grok as well, mainly because I can't figure out how to roleplay it different from how a Cleric or Champion would treat their god. It feels like it attempts to give bards a "spiritual" dimension that isn't religious (which ironically brings the Bard closer to its mythic roots), that seems interesting but feels like it kind of clashes with the notion I'd become used to that bards were inherently unserious and vain (whether that vanity made them charming or insufferable depended on their alignment), except for maybe the Filidh bard that switched you to divine spellcasting as a Druid (which'd be Primal now), appropriating some of the Druid's gravitas.
To a lesser extent this also applies to Witches and Sorcerers, who can now be of any spellcasting tradition depending on their "subclass," where it feels weird to play a Witch or Sorcerer with Divine spellcasting because you expect them to feel like Clerics or Oracles (and indeed one major complaint about Oracle before and after its Remaster has been that it's much more efficient to play a Sorcerer with a Divine bloodline). Kineticists are technically in this boat too since they were initially envisioned as psychokonetics a la Carrie or Matilda, but people more readily compared it to Avatar the Last Airbender, leading it to become the Primal class it is today. But Kineticist feels like it's MORE at home in Primal because that association had been there for so long that the original intention was no longer the default, and it had increasingly felt "out of place" in the category of "Occult Classes" in 1e.
I fully acknowledge that this is a "me" problem and it's far too late to change things now, but it makes it hard for me to 1) imagine bard character concepts that take this new paradigm into account, and 2) play "psychic" kinds of characters where the way to meaningfully represent those kinds of abilities is through the Bard class.
If I want to try and recreate the "Ardent" class of old where you're an empathic warrior using psychic powers to feel emotions so strongly that your party feels them too...that's just a Warrior Muse Bard with maybe a Silent Whisper/Emotional Acceptance Psychic Archetype. But "Warrior Muse Bard" brings to mind something more like a Norse skald singing about Valhalla.
So...what do? How do I wrap my head around bards as they are now, and the Occult spellcaster group as a whole? Those of you who've played Bards in 2e, how did you adapt to the shift in roleplaying paradigm, or how did it allow you to play different kinds of. bards than were possible before? How do you make your Bard's Muse meaningful? At the very least, thank you for listening to me try to articulate this and try to exorcise this particular cognitive dissonance from my brain.
Bard was my most played class in previous editions. I won't touch it with a 10ft. pole in 2e.
It's not the Bard I used to know, for so many reasons...
But lots of players like it. To each their own.
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One of the things that might help you divorce the idea of Occult magic as "the spooky magic" is by remembering what the traditions represent.
It's theorized by magical scholars in the Pathfinder universe that all of existence is made up of four base "essences". Combining and manipulating these essences together is what gives you the different properties of the traditions.
Spells that affect certain physical or metaphysical forces tend to be grouped into particular magical areas. Scholars of magic widely agree that all of existence is composed of some combination of four essences, though they disagree on the names and particular qualities of each essence.
Matter: Also called body, material essence, or physical essence, matter is the fundamental building block that makes up all physical things in the universe. The arcane and primal traditions are especially attuned toward manipulating and shaping matter.
Spirit: Also called soul, ethereal essence, or spiritual essence, spirit is an otherworldly building block that makes up a being's immaterial and immortal self. The spirit travels through the Ethereal Plane and into the Great Beyond after the death of the physical body. The spirit is most easily affected by divine and occult spells.
Mind: Also called thought, mental, or astral essence, mind is what allows thinking creatures to have rational thoughts, ideas, plans, logic, and memories. Mind touches even non-sapient creatures like animals, though in a more limited capacity. Arcane and occult casters usually excel at mind spells.
Life: Also called heart, faith, instinct, or vital essence, life represents the animating universal force within all things. Whereas matter provides the base materials for a body, life keeps it alive and well. This essence is responsible for unconscious responses and belief, such as ancestral instincts and divine guidance. The divine and primal traditions hold power over life.
Occult casting and bards are described as such in a different sidebar: "The practitioners of occult traditions seek to understand the unexplainable, categorize the bizarre, and otherwise access the ephemeral in a systematic way. Bards are a fundamental occult spellcaster, collecting strange esoterica and using their performances to influence the mind or elevate the soul."
Effectively, Bards are using their intense connection to whatever inspires them (their Muse) to manipulate the essences of Spirit and Mind. Looking at it from another way, they use their performances to affect the minds and spirits of the world around them.
This tracks fairly well to how people in the real world sometimes describe experiencing art as a way of expression - it can move your very soul, and it can be extremely thought-provoking, sometimes to the point of being able to shake one's very worldview.
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If they'd made a tradition and called in the "Fey" tradition, that would have been a shoe-in for those more whimsical bards.
But I can also see the "looks whimsical on the outside, but harbors dark truths on the inside" occult bard.
Arguably, the occult list has a bit of a dual identity because it's sort of meant for both of those. As in, some list was supposed to do the whimsical fey magic and it's not primal (too ephemeral, mental, unreal to be in primal), arcane (arcane is more studious) and also not divine. But overall occult is more draped in spooky/nasty aesthetics.
Maybe there was design space that wasn't claimed for this; maybe different muses could lean into different perspectives here and also tweak your spell list a bit for that, similar to sorcerers adding off-list spells based on bloodline. (I'm a big fan of your main class-path choice giving you off-list spells. It's a choice you generally get only one of.)
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I actually had the opposite problem in PF1. You're telling me that the Wizard, spending their life studying the secrets of arcane magic, and the Bard, honing their craft with music, are doing the same thing? That never made much sense to me. To me, occult is a much more natural fit and long-needed proper explanation.
A Bard's casting is magic that takes the metaphor of music and makes it real. What does music do? Music stirs people's emotions, music evokes imagery, music makes people dance. Bards take that and they make people feel things, they make people see things that aren't there, and they make people move. We have things like the Pied Piper controlling rats and children and the Danse Macabre showing the dead dancing together.
If you're only playing Bard as a silly stereotype, I think you're missing out. We tend to take music for granted with its prevalence and easy availability these days, but music has likely been around longer than language. Bone flutes have been recovered dating back forty and even fifty thousand years old. It's not difficult to lend it a little mysticism. Bard is also a good fit for characters who are driven by the inspiration of something otherworldly, desperately trying to recreate the music of the heavens, or spurred on by visions of something eldritch.
Even if you're playing a foppish or whimsical Bard, there's a lot of benefit to making that be an act or a ruse. When you think about it, a lot of what a Bard does would actually be scary- the music they play can twist minds and create illusions, possibly weaving it into a performance so that nobody is the wiser. A Bard who wants to put people at ease could do worse than seeming to be a silly layabout with no serious goals or interests. It's a lot easier to get at people's secrets that way. That's also a useful way to justify the stereotype's tendency to bleed over into character attitudes- they've just fallen for a common act. Which is more likely: the wealthy noble's third son who has taken up a carefree life of music and pleasure really is as vacuous as he seems, or his family has invested a lot of time and effort into having somebody people will let their guard down around?
Occult is the magic of mind and soul, and music is something that touches on those. In PF1, it was very notable that Bards had very little magic that affected things. Bards, Psychics, Spiritualists, and Mesmerists all had that in common, magic that focused more on people rather than objects. From a game and narrative perspective, it makes sense to group those classes together as different expressions of the same thing.
If it helps, you also don't need to focus exclusively on musical Bards. Ritual chanting can fit the occult vibe better, and Maestro isn't the only subclass. You're also free to take mechanics and re-contextualize them- I've played a ratfolk Thaumaturge who could talk with rats, and so all their Esoteric Lore knowledge came from an information network of rats that they paid in cheap grain. That's not what the Thaumaturge class is about, but I never needed to call them a Thaumaturge in the game. Why are the words "Warrior Muse Bard" stopping you from playing the character you want to play?
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I like that the Occult spell list offers possibilities for a wide range of play. A purely whimsical list would maybe fit a certain character, but would not leave much room for change.
You have a limited arsenal of spells anyway, there are lots of options but only a few relevant to your character, choosing only ones matching a certain theme should be entirely possible.
Spell schools is kind of a wizard thing mechanically, but you can just use it as a theming element for every kind of caster.
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As a proud member of the PF2e Bards Need To Get Spookier Club, I really like Occult casting for them, honestly? As other folks upthread have mentioned, the Occult list is really broad, thematically (and each individual bard only gets a relatively small portion of it), so your Bard can be a very conventional, uplifting sort, with maybe Shelyn as a muse, running stuff like soothe, charming spells, and a couple of sonic spells... or you can play one of a much wider range of concepts - a spirit-speaker binding ghosts and stirring the lower souls of the living, or a Lovecraftian cultist of the squamous pipers (Summon Aberration is the unique Occult summon for a reason), or any of the many many ways to do a "warrior muse" bard that aren't "PF1e Skald Again" (some ideas: drunkard with a good right hook and a head full of drinking songs, warrior-poet in the Ancient Chinese model, a bagpipe-tooting battlefield coordinator, or any sort of person who finds a unique emotional release in the middle of a good fight).
All a "warrior muse" means, mechanically, is that you can stretch a magic a little further when you're in a scrap, and there's a lot of concepts that that can support.
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I'll go ahead and chime in on some of the other things, too.
You mentioned not really getting what the point of a Bard's muse is, or how it's meaningfully distinct from a Cleric's deity. It's a source of inspiration, rather than something directly empowering. A Cleric with Shelyn as a deity is following Shelyn, adhering to her edicts and anathema, and receiving magic from Shelyn. A Bard with Shelyn as muse, meanwhile, doesn't need Shelyn's approval, nor do they receive anything from her- a Kuthite Bard could have Shelyn as muse, for example, if that's what inspires them. But a muse could just as easily be a perfectly ordinary mortal that the Bard admires, a piece of art they strive to achieve the level of, or a philosophical question that motivates them. It's a prompt to consider what fuels the Bard's creativity. It's not relevant for a jokey Bard just playing fantasy Wonderwall, but something like an occultist plagued by dreams of "angels" that don't line up with any known celestials, speaking in an untranslatable language that leaves them waking in fits of inspiration... that's a character that really leans into the muse concept. (At the same time, if somebody's focusing less on the artistic side of the class, it's not difficult to simply focus on the mechanical options provided by the different categories of muse.)
I definitely wouldn't call it a spiritual element being added to the Bard. If anything, it's a mental element, the source of inspiration.
You also mentioned both struggling with Bard concepts under the new paradigm, and having trouble coming up with "psychic" Bards. It's worth noting that Psychics aren't somehow more representative of the occult list than Bard is- if they were, it wouldn't have its artistic and musical spells. And the Occult list definitely more than just psionics with a coat of paint. But here are some suggestions...
- "Cult leader" or "cult investigator" combines the new bardic elements and the more psychic/occult feel. If the cult is the real deal (cults in fantasy can actually be onto something) or the character is pursuing the truth after leaving one, then Enigma fits for the muse- delving deeper into the secrets. If the cult is more like real-world cults, then a Polymath muse gives the Bard a broader skillset for recruitment or infiltration. The muse is probably whatever the cult is centered on. Courageous Anthem works to boost other members, and can be performed as ritual chanting. Summon spells of the appropriate flavor are a natural fit, as well as Charm and various illusions to either maintain followers or help cover from getting blown.
- A spy. One of the most prominent training institutions for Bards is really training some of them to be spies on behalf of Taldor. Musicians frequently travel, and skilled ones often have access to members of high society as favored entertainment. Maestro muse really sells the act with masterful music, while Polymath again gives a versatile skillset. The muse in question is likely actually part of a cover- pining after some unobtainable noble in a show of courtly love helps sell a cover story and maybe even excuse strange behavior. Invisibility, magical disguises, and occult's wealth of scrying options all fit well here, as well as enough performance-oriented spells to put on a show when needed.
- The tormented genius. Inspiration is a famously fickle thing, and too much of it can be vexing in its own right. The muse can be something that torments the Bard with inspiration beyond what they can grasp with their skills. Whether that's somebody who received a glimpse of Shelyn's true beauty, heard the whispers at the edges of reality, or simply longs to complete some magnum opus worthy of being remembered by, something drives them. A good fit for Maestro or Enigma depending on what the source of the inspiration is. Spells that focus on giving bonuses work nicely with this, as they can be used to push the Bard's own work to its limits on non-combat days.
- Your "Ardent" example works just fine, I think, if you just allow it to breathe on its own terms instead of forcing the old psionic flavor. This is somebody who can magically project their emotions onto allies, and who can use the blood of their enemies to fuel their power- or, if you prefer, the psychic power of their pain. Courageous Anthem handles the first part, and Warrior muse makes it so striking an enemy extends it. It's just a matter of finding an explanation that suits your needs. Occult has forty-four spells with the emotion tag, so you're well-supplied! You can lean into the concept some more with Cathartic Mage. If you still want to pick a specific muse for the concept, then the particular emotion focused on is a good choice.
- Pied Piper. Hey, we've got a Zoophonic muse- good for asking animals to do things. It's definitely the most niche of the bunch, but it's something of an obligatory inclusion for Bard, seeing as the Pied Piper is such a prominent musical fairy tale.
- This is leaving out a lot of more basic ideas, like a storyteller, a rabble-rouser, or a musician, all taken to the extreme where what they do is augmented by magic. You can have a more psychic character or backstory, and they simply find that music or oratory or whatever is an excellent medium for their magic to reach people.
As for occult magic... occult is the magic of secrets, of symbols, of people, and of connections. In arcane magic, a book is powerful because it contains knowledge. In occult magic, a book is powerful because it represents knowledge.
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A "muse" for a bard is more of an ideology rather than a tangible entity imo.
It's where the bard draws his inspiration from, the way a "whimsical" bard as you call could be the person who goes "ohhh! that *thing* i saw inspired me to do *this*! (because i'm inspired by x/y/z, where x/y/z is the muse).
there doesn't need to be any spiritual identity to this.
As you said in the beginning, bard magic is tapping the sympathetic connections between symbolic and real, but HOW you make those connections, is basically your "muse", YOUR inspiration.
I'll go ahead and chime in on some of the other things, too.
You mentioned not really getting what the point of a Bard's muse is, or how it's meaningfully distinct from a Cleric's deity. It's a source of inspiration, rather than something directly empowering. A Cleric with Shelyn as a deity is following Shelyn, adhering to her edicts and anathema, and receiving magic from Shelyn. A Bard with Shelyn as muse, meanwhile, doesn't need Shelyn's approval, nor do they receive anything from her- a Kuthite Bard could have Shelyn as muse, for example, if that's what inspires them. But a muse could just as easily be a perfectly ordinary mortal that the Bard admires, a piece of art they strive to achieve the level of, or a philosophical question that motivates them. It's a prompt to consider what fuels the Bard's creativity. It's not relevant for a jokey Bard just playing fantasy Wonderwall, but something like an occultist plagued by dreams of "angels" that don't line up with any known celestials, speaking in an untranslatable language that leaves them waking in fits of inspiration... that's a character that really leans into the muse concept. (At the same time, if somebody's focusing less on the artistic side of the class, it's not difficult to simply focus on the mechanical options provided by the different categories of muse.)
- The tormented genius. Inspiration is a famously fickle thing, and too much of it can be vexing in its own right. The muse can be something that torments the Bard with inspiration beyond what they can grasp with their skills. Whether that's somebody who received a glimpse of Shelyn's true beauty, heard the whispers at the edges of reality, or simply longs to complete some magnum opus worthy of being remembered by, something drives them. A good fit for Maestro or Enigma depending on what the source of the inspiration is. Spells that focus on giving bonuses work nicely with this, as they can be used to push the Bard's own work to its limits on non-combat days.
I like this angle! The idea that the muse isn't necessarily something you're praising but something that torments you like this Oglaf comic (NSFW, obviously) or more seriously something powerful that you fear but respect holds a lot of appeal. There's a lot of songs about monsters that are warnings about how dangerous they are and stuff after all. Heck, the famous dwarf song from The Hobbit is as much about Smaug and the horrific destruction he wrought on Dale and the Lonely Mountain as it is the wonder of the dwarven treasure. By that metric, a dragon is a terrifying Muse indeed...
I should clarify also that I've never really played a "whimsical" bard myself in any edition of the game, nor felt pressured to do so, so much as been disappointed that that's the immediate mental image when someone talks about Bards in a game. Same as druids and barbarians being depicted wearing crude, hand-stiched furs or loincloths or rogues with permanent five-o'clock shadows wearing form-fitting black leather getups with hoods, a rapier or too many knives and maybe a hand-crossbow. <_<
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Since I have a film composition background, I often think of a bard as a film composer for the campaign. An Occult bard did the soundtrack for Crimes of the Future, but he also did Lord of the Rings because yes, Howard Shore composed soundtracks for both David Cronenberg's Crimes of the Future and Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy despite how different they may be, and me as a viewer of both sides of the spectrum had a visceral reaction (my emotions were influenced by music) to both.