Post/Author/DateTime	Post
LGMoses 01-01-07, 12:26 PM	Sign up now!:D
Britt 01-01-07, 12:31 PM	I like bards.
Mommy was an Orc 01-01-07, 12:33 PM	I think Bards are probably about the 3rd-4th most powerful core class if played well. Which is the problem.
ARlife 01-01-07, 12:38 PM	*Officially signs his name. Bards are so underrated. No one gives them any credit
Japangirl 01-01-07, 01:13 PM	<3 bards.
JohnduBois 01-01-07, 01:19 PM	I hearts the bards, especially the warchanter.
Genghis Cohen 01-01-07, 01:25 PM	I hearts the bards, especially the warchanter.<voice_of_homer_simpson_talking_about_dou ghnuts> WARCHANTER... </voice_of_homer_simpson_talking_about_dou ghnuts>
Japangirl 01-01-07, 01:29 PM	Dude, it's all about the telepathic marshall/bards!
Genghis Cohen 01-01-07, 01:44 PM	Dude, it's all about the telepathic marshall/bards!Those are nice too. I played in a Geoff mod with a borderline sociopathic Mindbender that seemed to make the PCs an untiered encounter for the NPCs.
jstorrie 01-01-07, 02:26 PM	I'm with Mommy Was an Orc, on this one; bards are exceptionally powerful but also notoriously poorly-played. There are a dozen ways to take a bard and end up with a character effectively two levels up in terms of power on the optimized, but people rarely do. Instead people muck around with whips or Whirling Blades and come off as poorly-designed cohorts.
ARlife 01-01-07, 03:03 PM	I agree with the poorly played part, which is why they are underrated. Most bards Ive seen are Bard/marshall mutts...hate them..But I have also seen Bards break a mod with fascinate..BTW, warchanter is nice and all, but Sublime Chord FTW, baby!
Mattastrophic 01-01-07, 04:12 PM	I'm a bit of a Virtuoso fan myself. So underrated, yet so successful when they work. I see a lot of Bard players fall into the "I'm a diplomacy MACHINE!" trap. I admit, I used to be that way, and so I'll bet that it happens to quite a few of them. -Matt
draxynnic 01-01-07, 06:19 PM	Even diplomacy machines need to be able to do something when a fight inevitably breaks out. And it's not so hard to get a Diplomacy score that occasionally makes a DM's jaw drop without sacrificing combat ability just off maxing out your Diplomacy, grabbing synergies, and maybe a magic item or two (generally ones that also boost your UMD). Myself? I don't break combats*. I help my friends break combats, and then join in on the mopping up. *Roleplaying encounters, on the other hand... and the time I sang a bunch of thugs into surrendering with a fight was quite amusing - the DM had them throw a few choice epithets back once they arrived in the prison cells, the suggestions wore off, and they realised what had been done to them...
UMiskatonic 01-01-07, 07:16 PM	I'm a fan of the class, but the great majority of bards are played poorly indeed. I'd love to see that turned around.
frupton 01-01-07, 10:23 PM	I'm fairly new to LG -- somehow I got convinced to start a Bard as my first char. I have no idea if I'm playing him "right" or not, (or even if the people who posted above re: the "right" way to play a bard agree on what that is.) But he's certainly pulling his weight. "Right" to me is to focus on supporting the party in combat with buffs and battlefield control. Like draxynnic said -- help your friends break combats. (Marshal: Motivate Dex, anyone?) It's not hard to have "mad bustin' face skillz" as well. A key Knowledge roll can also turn the tide of an otherwise dire combat encounter.
kenobi65 01-01-07, 10:29 PM	"Right" to me is to focus on supporting the party in combat with buffs and battlefield control. Like draxynnic said -- help your friends break combats. That's how I'd define "right". When you choose to play a bard, you have to recognize that you're choosing a class that does its best when it's supporting the other PCs. If you're the kind of player who wants the limelight yourself (i.e., you want to be the one who drops the BBEG), you probably shouldn't be playing a bard. And, put me in the camp of bard-lovers. My Living City character was a bard, and he was a blast. I just started an LG bard, with plans to build her towards Fochlucan Lyrist, just because one of my 1E AD&D characters, 20+ years ago, was a bard (back when a bard was really a fighter/thief/druid), and Fochlucan is reminiscent of that class.
ARlife 01-02-07, 12:21 AM	kenobi has a point in that as a bard, you wont always be in the spotlight. But there is satisfaction in knowing that when the BBEG is dropped by 1 point(meaning had taken 15 points when it only had 13 or 14), it was all because of the bard. Especially, if the fighter barely hit right on the money..
Haro 01-02-07, 01:42 AM	kenobi has a point in that as a bard, you wont always be in the spotlight. But there is satisfaction in knowing that when the BBEG is dropped by 1 point(meaning had taken 15 points when it only had 13 or 14), it was all because of the bard. Especially, if the fighter barely hit right on the money.. I ran a catchup module a few days ago that featured a final battle that by party stupidity, had 13 foes, one of which was a bard. At APL 8, (with an inspirational boost resulting in +3 hit & damage for all of them) I had one of the players swearing his next pc would be a bard... Bards are cool. Joe
Lupo 01-02-07, 03:34 AM	bard seem to be "multipliers" instead of "additions" to a party :cool:. the problematic part is sometimes that the base that is multiplied is to low, for the one or other reason - bad tactics, bad party composition, bad party cooperation, poorly written or dmed module - to give a bard something to actually multiply. ciao martin m. ps: i don't play a bard, but occasionally sit at tables with one. so far i have encountered two very well and effective ones and three not so impressive ones.
frupton 01-02-07, 05:00 AM	Bards definitely increase in effectiveness the more people in the party benefit from their inspire courage. One mod I played at APL 6 had you accompanied by a few 2nd level-ish NPCs when the party met a EL 8 encounter. The NPCs help fight, but are supposed to be fairly ineffective. They actually dished out an impressive amount of damage with the +2/+2. Contrary to popular opinion, I find bards among the most interesting to play in combat. Yes, you always start with bardsong, unless it's Haste or maybe Glitterdust. But after the first couple of rounds, you have several choices. Ready an action (Silence? :D) against the enemy spellcasters? Archery? Alter Self (Trog) and/or Blink, and join (tumble into) melee to aid / give flanking bonuses? Heal the tank? Creative use of an illusion? Bards actually have an incredible richness of tactical flexibility.
gomeztoo 01-02-07, 06:01 AM	I have thusfar played three bards. That is - two PCs with a bard level (a Johydee cleric, who really needed a bit of bardic background, and Nesalia, who used it qualify for Dragon Dicisple but converted to Sorcerer during conversion), and one actual bard (Clover). I find it hard to play a bard effectively. Clover contributes mostly with bard songs, gadgets, and Tasha's. She uses Diplomacy is it makes sense, and I actually did end one figth that way. She'll enter melee to aid other/flank. She is mostly suited as an investigator. She is a bit snobby and can get rather *****y when it comes to fashion (ridiculling the poor taste of low-Cha PCs is a favorite), but she can be extremely charming and is actually a real softy. I did max out her Diplomacy, because she is the type of bard that can win bad guys over with her smile alone. Still, it is not easy to be fully effective. I don't want to take Marshall levels, but will take more buffing magic as she rises in level. Note that high Diplomacy can sometimes be utterly ineffective. The most funny encounter with this was a week ago, when we played the now retired Dark Deceit on Bright Sands. I played my waste druid (also pretty ok with Diplomacy), and we also had a bard/marshall in the party. We enter the final room, and there pop up four dragons! The two fighters in front both panic and run off (they called it a 'tactical retreat'). So the people NOW in front are the bard and the not-a-melee-type druides... We both shrug and figure, with melee now in the back, we should try to talk our way out of it (my druid aiding the bard just in case). Diplomacy: 45+. The dragons totally ignore it and charge.... because they turn out to be mindless undead :P We figured that was pretty funny, despite it putting the wrong people in the melee line (we made short stuff of the critters, btw).
Lupo 01-02-07, 07:51 AM	<snip>We enter the final room, and there pop up four dragons! The two fighters in front both panic and run off (they called it a 'tactical retreat'). :D the correct name of the maneauver is "tactically optimised regrouping" :P ciao martin m.
danhenneke 01-02-07, 07:08 PM	Instead people muck around with whips or Whirling Blades and come off as poorly-designed cohorts. Whats wrong with whips? Take the components away from spell casters, take the weapons away from fighters. Trip, ranged aid others, all it takes is a melee weapon, which is what a whip is. So again, what is wrong with a whip?
Mommy was an Orc 01-02-07, 08:42 PM	Whats wrong with whips? Take the components away from spell casters, take the weapons away from fighters. Trip, ranged aid others, all it takes is a melee weapon, which is what a whip is. So again, what is wrong with a whip? With some bards, it is their first action...
magebeast 01-02-07, 08:42 PM	After I played a short lived sorcerer who died many times (although is technically still around. I have the ARs somewhere, he's just in debt and essentially naked), my friends pointed out that the sort of character I was trying to play was more bard-like than sorcerer-like. That is to say, I love the sound of my own voice. Thus, Leo the now mildly-renowned bard was born. I have yet to meet a table that didn't like my inspirational boosted inspire courage. I'm often the only "talky" character around because I live in a region that tends to be combat oriented. I'm still learning though, and some of my spell choices I wish I could change (remove fear, never used it once!), and sometimes my actual playing leaves something to be desired (saying "we won't kill you if you cooperate" after a 30+ diplomacy check when I really should've let the roll speak for itself). One of the less well known features of a Bard is that short of a TPK you don't die. In the course of my 5th level, almost 6th level bard's career I've taken roughly 80 points of damage, and almost half of those were from a single AOE playing up in my last mod of 2006, thank goodness for 14 con and temporary hitpoints. Also, after reading these boards, I'm going to spend a lot more time readying to silence spellcasters.
gomeztoo 01-03-07, 09:54 AM	Cha does tend to be a dump stat. Nine times out of ten, none of the non-sorcerer/bard/marshal PCs on the table have positive cha modifiers (or even +0).
CrystalBlue 01-03-07, 10:23 AM	I've got a friend that's trying to be a skill rogue, which I fully endorse. But then he gives me this stuff about his rogue going to be so much better then a bard at talking his way out of stuff. Silly man... *shakes head* He's not even going to utilize a bard for singing or anything. I had to slap stupid out of him. Yay for bards! I <3 bards!
LGMoses 01-03-07, 12:54 PM	Cha does tend to be a dump stat. Nine times out of ten, none of the non-sorcerer/bard/marshal PCs on the table have positive cha modifiers (or even +0). there is a lot of ugly pcs running around.
kenobi65 01-03-07, 01:18 PM	there is a lot of ugly pcs running around. Not as bad as the old Living City was. Living City was using a different type of point buy in the 2E days (basically a 1-for-1 buy, with an 18 costing 18 points, a 10 costing 10 points, and something like 72 points to spend across your 6 scores), and the result was that you could dump a stat to something well below 8. I'd heard Ravens Bluff referred to as "the ugliest city in the Realms" as a result. :D Living Death still uses a similar point buy system to that; I've seen a LD character with a 3 Charisma. :eek:
solbergb 01-03-07, 02:18 PM	I think Bards are probably about the 3rd-4th most powerful core class if played well. Which is the problem. Yeah. If the bard keeps inspire courage up and after L7 hastes when the party needs it and after level 9 tosses temp hitpoints around, that's about all he needs to contribute strongly in combat. Anything else he manages to do is gravy. It's not very interesting or dramatic though. This is less true if you don't take inspirational boost and/or fool around with the instruments. Those things really help make inspire courage by itself a significant contribution. Proved by experiment. My weak, fragile cohort quite often plays up 4 levels and is a strong contributor AND very rarely gets into trouble because by the time she's done her contribution, it's too late to stop her by killing her and the bad guys are having to deal with supercharged at-APL party members ripping them into pieces.
LGMoses 01-04-07, 01:32 AM	Yeah. If the bard keeps inspire courage up and after L7 hastes when the party needs it and after level 9 tosses temp hitpoints around, that's about all he needs to contribute strongly in combat. Anything else he manages to do is gravy. It's not very interesting or dramatic though. This is less true if you don't take inspirational boost and/or fool around with the instruments. Those things really help make inspire courage by itself a significant contribution. Proved by experiment. My weak, fragile cohort quite often plays up 4 levels and is a strong contributor AND very rarely gets into trouble because by the time she's done her contribution, it's too late to stop her by killing her and the bad guys are having to deal with supercharged at-APL party members ripping them into pieces. not interesing! U just have to picture it in yo' mind! have the bard toss a few one liners and battle directions around and u've got a good thing going.
kenobi65 01-04-07, 10:30 AM	not interesing! U just have to picture it in yo' mind! have the bard toss a few one liners and battle directions around and u've got a good thing going. I think the "not interesting" comment comes from the fact that you're doing the exact same thing in every combat.
solbergb 01-04-07, 02:13 PM	Yeh...which is why they make fantastic cohorts because you aren't hogging twice the time in combat working out actions. Bard character's turn usually only takes a few seconds :) But it's also true that you could use that extra bandwith to roleplay more in combat.
_m_ 01-08-07, 12:04 AM	/love bards 4 rp
Lomiat 01-08-07, 05:38 PM	My bard is great fun to play, and it's fun to play with people who are astonished to find that bards can prove effective. Besides serving as a vessel to let me roleplay my poor Sean Connery voice, Finch typically does the following things in combat: 1) Fascinate the bad guy before combat if it allows the party to turn an even-handed encounter into a PC ambush vs. NPC. 2) Inspire Courage (most often with Inspirational Boost) 3) Send Inspired Riding Dogs into combat (hey! Finch is only 4th level) 4) Move to flank with a longspear, aiding attacks when possible 5) UMD to cast from wands (so far, he's picked up Color Spray, Lesser Vigor, CLW, and Resurgence; Color Spray has proven insanely effective given that it's DC is so low. Finch has probably used something like 30 of the wand's charges, and most likey met with success 20 times.) 6) Grease where appropriate If he actually has to attack, something's gone badly, but he's not all that bad with his shortbow.
LGMoses 01-08-07, 11:31 PM	I want to see a Flan bard with lots of woad. I like that word now.... Woad...woad woady woad
kenobi65 01-08-07, 11:50 PM	I want to see a Flan bard with lots of woad. I like that word now.... Woad...woad woady woad On the soundtrack to the "King Arthur" movie, there's a track called "Woad to Ruin." (There's also tracks called "Do You Think I'm Saxon" and "Another Brick in Hadrian's Wall".)
_m_ 01-08-07, 11:56 PM	On the soundtrack to the "King Arthur" movie, there's a track called "Woad to Ruin." (There's also tracks called "Do You Think I'm Saxon" and "Another Brick in Hadrian's Wall".) thats actually pretty funny.
kegdrainer 01-09-07, 01:38 PM	I want to see a Flan bard with lots of woad. I like that word now.... Woad...woad woady woad Just be a Woad Warrior :D
kenobi65 01-09-07, 01:57 PM	Just be a Woad Warrior :D Groan. You know what I say to the next guy who makes a pun? Woad be unto ye! :D
Japangirl 01-09-07, 02:50 PM	Groan. You know what I say to the next guy who makes a pun? Woad be unto ye! :D I think my brain is bleeding now . . .
kenobi65 01-09-07, 03:48 PM	I think my brain is bleeding now . . . My work is done here. :D
_m_ 01-09-07, 05:23 PM	I think my brain is bleeding now . . . /bandaid