I'm interested in playing a Bard, but I have always been turned off by the archetypal fluff surrounding the adventuring minstrel or songbird. I suspect it's a lack of imagination on my part, but it has always seemed to me that the Bard class can accomodate only a very narrow range of different character concepts. The only ones that spring to mind are the aforementioned minstrel, the jester, and perhaps an orator of some sort. I would love to hear from other people on these boards about any interesting and off-the-wall bard concepts that they have encountered which don't involve playing an instrument or singing. Thanks in advance!
--Leugren
drizzt_zylo wrote:
One of the preffered grapple builds around here involves Bard as an important part of the equation. Flavor it as El Luchador, the Masked Bandito. A showman is a showman. An entertainer an entertainer. Give Inspiration through flexing muscles! wrestle those wimpy mages to the ground through your Athletics Expertise. Sling trademarked catchphrases at your opponents with Cutting Words!!!
your instrument is your sword! think dread pirate roberts or robin hood as a human sailor valor bard. take the less gaudy spells and use a rapier or bow.
I play a Nurse/Party Enabler/Songbird Lore Bard but... from the Mage Slayer discussion I see how this could be easily reflavored to Witchhunter. Use the massive amount of skills to for things like steath, intimidation, investigation, insight, etc. Cutting words could be making people make mistakes out of fear. Bards have alot of disables and prevention spells, but Lore Bards can take any 2 spells they want at lvl 6, 10, 14 and 18, so you could tailor this to suit your needs. Song of Rest could just be added resolve. Basically the bard can also play the role of scoudrel very well, also remember that the bard is a full caster class, so utilizing the spells is the way to get the most of the class.
The bard's spell list has heal spells, faerie fire (great enabler), and some very powerful charms (Tasha's, Hold Person, Hypnotic Pattern), and all the good illusions and fear. Basically great control and also heals. Making the most out of the spell list is probably where I would start.
Thanks for the great suggestions, everyone! A wrestler, a pirate, and a witch hunter are exactly the types of schticks I was looking for.
He's still a musician, but if you want to look at a homebrew archetype to get some new ideas, here's my take on a death metal bard.
I think that there are plenty of options with bards. I’ve done Viking-style skalds, eager to be the first into battle, roaring out an epic battle poem, a tortured artist bard (admittedly, that was a bit of a stretch), and I've certainly done the archetypal swashbuckling minstrel. Heck, who says the bard has to be musical, even. I could totally imagine a scholarly college of lore bard that uses stories and parables to inspire.
Card tricks, that’s a great idea. I also forgot about one a player of mine came up with – Claggro, the cheese bard. All his effects and powers came from artisanal cheeses he crafted. Completely ridiculous and completely awesome.
These are all cool bards. I will plug the pro wrestler bard (like the Rock, Y2J, or the Hulkster....errr, maybe not him anymore) or El Santo, the paladin/bard. Bards would make a good Discworld style witches (primarily a psychological demotivators), especially when you can magic secret hex. Bard as a summoner works pretty well at high levels as you can magic secrets planar ally (doesn't require concentration) and most of the conjure spells. I don't recall if inspiration requires concentration, so potentially you could boost your pets that way.
You can make a Bard out to be any sort of artist/artisan you can think of. They adventure for the love of their craft. It's a wide world out there and they need to find (and give) inspiration however they can.
Getting around the musical bent of the average Bard isn't so hard. Sure you can use a musical instrument as an arcane focus, but it's not mandatory. You can just be a particularly inspiring "Wizard" if you like. An overzelous "Fighter" who doesn't even know the true power of their words, even. Perhaps they're the enterprising chef on the lookout for the rarest ingredients for delectable dishes.
I think the anime Hunter x Hunter has tons of great inspiration for Bards. Even the crazy clown in my profile pic.
Thanks to everyone who contributed their ideas! The inspiration you've provided has helped me to think outside the box, which is exactly what I was hoping for.
Cheers,
Leugren
Looks like you might've gotten your inspiration, but some alternative bard fluffs I've used are:
A dwarf bard who specializes in uttering words of power (in Skyrim fashion, I guess) as part of an entire Runemasters' guild that includes abjurer wizards and eldritch knights, and whatever other class can be all fluffed up to use runes and runewords as a source of magic.
A wood elf bard who is heavily flavored as a witch doctor. Cutting words, inspiration and magic are all some sort of mumbo jumbo hexes.
And also a human mercantile prince who's heavily fashioned after hedonism-bot from Futurama, but he's actually more of a classic bard so far as playing instruments goes, I guess.
UnlimitedPowers wrote:
I can easily see using a Bard to create a Warlord feel. Instead of "casting a spell", give an inspiring speech to the troops - or snark off at your foes. Shakespeare has some good speeches and one-liners, if you want to recite something for at-table fun.
I have a Monk/Rogue who carries a rapier and claims to be a swashbuckler (this is a disguise). A Bard can do likewise, if you'd rather play down the spells entirely. The Three Musketeers' d'Artangion could be fun and flavorful.
A Truenamer Bard. Speaks words from the language of Creation. Needs the oratorial training to get the sounds just right.
I too am currently playing a voodoo-woman bard (with a pinch of warlock for added flavour)
I have also played a bard as a short-tempered French chef (mon dieu!)
Refluffing is great
A grizzled middle-aged half-orc bard of valor who carries a huge war drum around. He (or she) performes through drumbeats and battle chants. Somebody getting too close? Pick Shelaleigh as your "cantrip from another class" and cast it on your drumstick. Which, if your drum is big enough, should be more like a club. Also you can flavor things like the Shatter spell as you hitting the drum so hard that it causes a shockwave effect.
I had an idea recently for a Bard character re-flavored as a battlefield tactician. The character himself isn't very good at combat (Lore bard with support spells plus Cleric dip for bless) but enhances the party with tactical maneuvers (Inspiration), boosting player morale (Bless/heals) and hindering enemy tactics/morale (Vicious Mockery, Dissonant Whispers, etc).
In Eberron, the iconic bard is a journalist. He's drawn with a lute, but you get the distinct impression that's a hobby device - his performance is writing, delivered via the spoken word. (A friend of mine played a similar bard at one point, with his Inspire Courage barks being similar to attention-grabbing tabloid headlines.) Other iconic Eberron bards fit the role of astronomers or propheseers, and there's a strong hint of the dragon about them - both because actual dragons prefer dealing with bards on the rare chances they work with humans, and because bardic musical magic is said to be channelling the music of creation, evoked by the progenitor wyrms in the world's creation myth.
My own experience with bards was in 3.5, but was basically similar to the "warlord" fluff described upthread - at low levels, before the combat badassery kicked in, he was a herald or communications officer, and at higher levels a four-star badass. Most of the spells had a sound bit to them as well, including Amplify (intended as a way to covertly listen in on conversations at a distance, but it could also be used as a magical megaphone for issuing orders to legions of troops at once.) As a nod to the mystical component, I even wrote iambic pentameter rhyming couplets for most of the spells (and toyed around with the idea of using longer or shorter poems depending on the spell's level, but the couplets worked well enough), which would set apart actual "spells" from more mundane "battle orders" because of the speech rhythm I'd use in delivering them.
Also, if you want some interesting, out of the norm fluff for a bard the player's handbook itself gives an interesting possible origin story for a bard. It cites a deal with a hag being a possible way to gain bardic magic, which essentially means that, by actual PHB fluff bardic magic, like warlock magic, can come from deals with nasty things. However, what separates these bards from warlocks, then?
Likely the kinds of creatures that you make pacts with for each, I'd think. Warlock patrons are called "otherworldly" for a reason.. Most of them are extra planar beings and in the case of the arcfey a being that while of the prime has a status beyond that of a simple mortal. Hags, meanwhile, are very mortal. Hags, likewise, are spelcasters, which leads me to believe that such creatures are not powerful enough to grant magic themselves as a warlock patron but instead are using some kind of magic ritual to give the voice of the bard- to-be magical power(which is an idea is reinforced by the PHB passage in question.).. Which means theoretically any powerful spellcaster could perform that same ritual
So you could easily have, say a bard who got their magic from a deal with an ancient red dragon, who uses magical secrects to pick up spells like fireball, and fluffs their bardic powers as skyrim-esc draconic chants, and it would not contradict the default fluff for bards from the PHB. This opens up a TON of unusual and downright cool concepts from the aforementioned draconic bard to a mad wizard's escaped lab rat to a spoiled noble who used family wealth to hire out spellcasters to make his/her voice a tool to bend reality to god knows what else.
Also, orator bards are epic, and deserve more love. I had one bard that had the noble background and was a pompous, selfish, hot-blooded brat that always acted in an exaurated, over the top manner that mirrored shonen anime and JRPG protagonists. He had useless goggles worn as a fashion accessory, yelled out the name of his spells in shonen-anime fashion, complete with saying a bunch of long-winded but cool stuff before finally shouting out the spell name and inspired his companions by telling them how awesome and powerful he was an that with a "great hero" like him supporting them they would surely triumph.
Despite thinking he was good and a hero his actual alignment was neutral evil, as his only true concerns where his reputation, stroking his ego and self-preservation, in that order. He actually did far, far more good acts than evil, but maintained his NE alignment because every single good thing he did came from selfishness. Fun, silly times indeed.
So yeah, bards need not be minsterals or even musicians.. Remember, you don't have to take the perform skill as a bard anymore and you can cast all your spells with a component pouch instead of an instrument if you wish. No need to be involved with music as a bard unless you want to be.
Ask and ye shall receive! These are all great suggestions, folks. I find myself especially drawn to the idea of a Skyrimesque bard who is not really an artist at all, but rather shouts out "Words of Power".
