Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 korremar May 05, 2008 13:08:45	A while ago, I did a re-write of the bard class. In many people's opinions, the bard was frightfully underpowered compared to most classes, and without heavy COing, it lagged behind a lot of other classes. I aimed to fix this, and make bard worthwhile to play under its own power. I submitted it for PEACHing and got a good bit of input for a while, and made a handful of changes. What I'm looking for now is, can it potentially be unbalanced? Just about anything can be COed into something scary, certainly. However, some classes are much more open to optimize-y exploits then others. As I'm not the best COer, by far, I bring it to you, for your consideration. The flavor of the rewrite is similar to the original, but with less emphasis on the jack-of-all-trades, party-face style of play, and a completely redesigned song system. While admittedly it negates the use of many bard-based PrCs/feats because of the redesign of the song system, I believe it adds enough to bard to make it a worthwhile class on its own, without relying on heavy multiclassing, and the same pool of feats and builds that seem to plague bards so often. Bard
#2 korremar May 06, 2008 10:29:57	No responses? Nothing at all?
#3 zendu May 06, 2008 11:51:04	You are trying to improve the class, but made UMD harder to use? Mambo and Berserker Strength barbarian is fairly broken. Add sublime chord (thats the one that lets you play 2 songs at once right?) for even more cheese. ballad needs to scale much worse. Frankly, I don't see why you changed bard, its fine (playing one right now)
#4 sirlavandino May 06, 2008 12:46:30	In many people's opinions, the bard was frightfully underpowered compared to most classes, and without heavy COing, it lagged behind a lot of other classes. rotfl :D :D :D :D bard is just great both in flavor and mechanics terms...
#5 korremar May 06, 2008 19:18:39	You are trying to improve the class, but made UMD harder to use? Mambo and Berserker Strength barbarian is fairly broken. Add sublime chord (thats the one that lets you play 2 songs at once right?) for even more cheese. ballad needs to scale much worse. Mambo adds up to a total of DR5/- at level 20. At 20, it's a drop in the bucket. The class can already play 2 songs at once, once it gets higher leveled. UMD use for bards, in my opinion, was relied on far too heavily to bring the class into balance with other classes. If I allowed full UMD usage with the hefty power boost it's recieved, it'd give it a little too much of an advantage, IMO. At the same time, however, removing UMD makes it take a heavy hit to utility. I feel the ability is a nice compromise. And I don't understand what you mean; removing DR10 is nice, but it's far from game-breaking. Very few common creatures rely on DR to survive, and there's a lot more a bard 20 can do then drop 10 DR on a creature. Maybe it shouldn't drop epic DR, sure. But I don't think it's that bad, unless someone gives me some hard numbers on it. bard is just great both in flavor and mechanics terms... I never said it had a flavor problem, though the flavor's changed a bit here. Mechanically though, it requires much more work then other classes to keep up, especially if the players you're playing with are reasonable at optimization.
#6 neptunehero May 06, 2008 19:45:50	I call shenanigans, sir. The bard I'm playing in one of my campaigns is the shining star of our party, routinely outdamaging the crusader while dropping status effects to boot, healing in tight spots, buffing up the wazoo, and I haven't even made it into Sublime Chord yet! The bard doesn't need a rebuild, it just needs to be played cleverly and strategically.
#7 sirlavandino May 06, 2008 23:24:05	I never said it had a flavor problem, though the flavor's changed a bit here. Mechanically though, it requires much more work then other classes to keep up, especially if the players you're playing with are reasonable at optimization. Mechanically is just great....much work u say? i just say 2 lvls of SC if u wanna go mage or Cru/Warblade + ravensong if u wanna do the JanusJones song of death bardic badass....but there're a lot of options for a bard...even a straight 20 bard shine enough if u pump well his inspire courage....oh and in the topic where classes were rated for their raw power bard took a 7.0 if i remind well placing behind the most broken classes but ahead of all the others (well i don't remind correctly but if the big5 were tier1 the bard was among tier2 or 3)