If the poll doesn’t let you express your opinions about the Bard please feel free to speak about it in the thread.
bard opinions? don't mind if i do... first, bards are just another wizard-light with only tenuous connection to their musical lore and no song book. what a crime! get a spellbook for your songs and go on quests for more so it doesn't feel like bards are just filtering 'secrets' out of the air by osmosis. you're not bards, you bards, you're just wizarding college dropouts that landed a wedding dj gig as a cover for their alcoholism while telling their parents they're between marketing jobs. oh, and warlocks got a Misty Step subclass which i only mention because it shows devs could work with a theme if they wanted to and UA bards took that power off to polish their dancing rather than some interplay with Countercharm (the one aforementioned connection to music)?? or, whoops, maybe the opinions were supposed to be around casting stat. that's fine, because i'm also harboring ire at the idea that charisma seems like it would be more about convincing listeners you're good at musical instruments rather than utilizing dexterity to demonstrate it. which seems rather par for the course for a class built on just being naturally really good at everything without effort. ugh. bring us some lore about hard practicing bards and some art that doesn't look like they're advertising their services as expensive escorts.
To be fair, the bard's superhypermegaultraoverfocus on MUSICAL DANDYMAN is a primary reason it's not a popular class. Having to be an actual real-life improv comedy expert and singer in order to play bards "properly" bloody ******* sucks, and anything they can do to lessen that ridiculous requirement is appreciated. It's one of the reasons I'm so fond of the Dance subclass, even if everyone says it's not very well done. Anything that breaks people of the relentless need to force every single bard in Creation to be Yet Another Scanlan Shorthalt is a good thing. I despise that the class is so centered on music, because the mechanical framework of "Magical Expert" is exactly what I want in a D&D character, but it comes with all these lute-shaped boat anchors that make it almost impossible to actually play in anything resembling a serious manner. The sooner they excise the musical requirement from the class completely and name it something other than 'bard', the better.
But yeah. Flexible casting, all three stats. Bards are tinkerers and jacks of all trades anyways, why not?
If the poll doesn’t let you express your opinions about the Bard please feel free to speak about it in the thread.
bard opinions? don't mind if i do... first, bards are just another wizard-light with only tenuous connection to their musical lore and no song book. what a crime! get a spellbook for your songs and go on quests for more so it doesn't feel like bards are just filtering 'secrets' out of the air by osmosis. you're not bards, you bards, you're just wizarding college dropouts that landed a wedding dj gig as a cover for their alcoholism while telling their parents they're between marketing jobs. oh, and warlocks got a Misty Step subclass which i only mention because it shows devs could work with a theme if they wanted to and UA bards took that power off to polish their dancing rather than some interplay with Countercharm (the one aforementioned connection to music)?? or, whoops, maybe the opinions were supposed to be around casting stat. that's fine, because i'm also harboring ire at the idea that charisma seems like it would be more about convincing listeners you're good at musical instruments rather than utilizing dexterity to demonstrate it. which seems rather par for the course for a class built on just being naturally really good at everything without effort. ugh. bring us some lore about hard practicing bards and some art that doesn't look like they're advertising their services as expensive escorts.
bards shouldnt need a book to do songing.
Dexterity isnt the most important thing for a musician or artist. you can write songs, or program music that moves people with no dexterity. you can choose types of music that have nothing at all to do with dexterity. Music/art is about expression most of all. Dexterity is just one tool in that box to achieve that goal.
To be fair, the bard's superhypermegaultraoverfocus on MUSICAL DANDYMAN is a primary reason it's not a popular class. Having to be an actual real-life improv comedy expert and singer in order to play bards "properly" bloody ******* sucks, and anything they can do to lessen that ridiculous requirement is appreciated. It's one of the reasons I'm so fond of the Dance subclass, even if everyone says it's not very well done. Anything that breaks people of the relentless need to force every single bard in Creation to be Yet Another Scanlan Shorthalt is a good thing. I despise that the class is so centered on music, because the mechanical framework of "Magical Expert" is exactly what I want in a D&D character, but it comes with all these lute-shaped boat anchors that make it almost impossible to actually play in anything resembling a serious manner. The sooner they excise the musical requirement from the class completely and name it something other than 'bard', the better.
But yeah. Flexible casting, all three stats. Bards are tinkerers and jacks of all trades anyways, why not?
ranger and artificer are both magical experts. You can also get expertise from feats. Bards are about being performing artists. You also never have to sing a song if you dont want to, mechanically. Can't really be mad the flavor of the bard class is bard like.
To be fair, the bard's superhypermegaultraoverfocus on MUSICAL DANDYMAN is a primary reason it's not a popular class. Having to be an actual real-life improv comedy expert and singer in order to play bards "properly" bloody ******* sucks, and anything they can do to lessen that ridiculous requirement is appreciated. It's one of the reasons I'm so fond of the Dance subclass, even if everyone says it's not very well done. Anything that breaks people of the relentless need to force every single bard in Creation to be Yet Another Scanlan Shorthalt is a good thing. I despise that the class is so centered on music, because the mechanical framework of "Magical Expert" is exactly what I want in a D&D character, but it comes with all these lute-shaped boat anchors that make it almost impossible to actually play in anything resembling a serious manner. The sooner they excise the musical requirement from the class completely and name it something other than 'bard', the better.
But yeah. Flexible casting, all three stats. Bards are tinkerers and jacks of all trades anyways, why not?
I can’t carry a tune in a bucket and I love playing bards. You’ve seen my play Toots on PbP, I play them pretty much the same IRL. I describe them singing and playing, but I don’t sing myself. Or play them as actors instead of musicians. Stuff like that.
I can’t carry a tune in a bucket and I love playing bards. You’ve seen my play Toots on PbP, I play them pretty much the same IRL. I describe them singing and playing, but I don’t sing myself. Or play them as actors instead of musicians. Stuff like that.
This.
I've always liked the idea of playing Bard characters, but it wasn't until 5th edition I actually tried one after there was a mixup about what characters already existed in the group which caused me to shelve my original dragonborn sorcerer idea. So I ended up playing as Habard Ashery the tiefling con artisté who mostly talks his way out of everything or employs magical trickery; he only very occasionally plays an instrument, mostly as a distraction or to amuse and delight (or in victory after the one time the DM foolishly let me roll to turn a surviving cart wheel into a unicycle and I rolled a natural 20 both to do so, and then to play my flute atop it).
I started out just describing what Habard said or did, but over time I got more confident speaking as him more, but I still wouldn't sing or anything. I've since then played several different Bards, including a Swords Bard who fights like he's got a death wish and very occasionally plays bagpipes (and apparently can't roll less than 19 to do so), I've got a bunch of Bard NPCs for a campaign I'm running (so I can basically play as more Bards while DMing) and I've got another whisper Bard character on the back-burner.
I don't know where the idea you need to sing or be a comedic genius to play a Bard comes from; you don't need to do that to play a Bard anymore than you need to be a steroidal rage monster who yells all the time to play as a Barbarian. It's a roleplaying game, half the fun is playing as things you're not, and it's always fine just to describe something.
But back on topic, for Bard I think Charisma is the correct spellcasting stat; I didn't answer the second question as I'm not hard against Bards having a choice of score, but it's not my preference, i.e- it wouldn't bother me if they got one, but nor do I think they need one. If they were to get a choice, I'd favour Charisma and Intelligence for the options.
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While I've allowed fiddling around the margins of the bard for features such as oratory (for the inspiring military or political leader), the class design just doesn't suit flexible casting. Honestly, the worst mismatch is the sorcerer -- their spell list is all about blowing stuff up, and blowing stuff up is not traditionally associated with charisma.
To be fair, the bard's superhypermegaultraoverfocus on MUSICAL DANDYMAN is a primary reason it's not a popular class. Having to be an actual real-life improv comedy expert and singer in order to play bards "properly" bloody ******* sucks, and anything they can do to lessen that ridiculous requirement is appreciated. It's one of the reasons I'm so fond of the Dance subclass, even if everyone says it's not very well done. Anything that breaks people of the relentless need to force every single bard in Creation to be Yet Another Scanlan Shorthalt is a good thing. I despise that the class is so centered on music, because the mechanical framework of "Magical Expert" is exactly what I want in a D&D character, but it comes with all these lute-shaped boat anchors that make it almost impossible to actually play in anything resembling a serious manner. The sooner they excise the musical requirement from the class completely and name it something other than 'bard', the better.
But yeah. Flexible casting, all three stats. Bards are tinkerers and jacks of all trades anyways, why not?
Matches my vision and my thoughts. I always thought that the whole music thing is rudimentary legacy that weighs upon the real niche of the class - the jack of all trades. IMO bards are supposed to be the "adventurer" kind of catch-all class that has decent enough martial ability, some skills, and half-casting any spell list. Total versatility, the actual jack of all trades. Because the current bard is enchantment wizard with charisma.
Matches my vision and my thoughts. I always thought that the whole music thing is rudimentary legacy that weighs upon the real niche of the class - the jack of all trades.
The core feature of the class isn't jack of all trades, it's bardic inspiration.
Dexterity isnt the most important thing for a musician or artist. you can write songs, or program music that moves people with no dexterity. you can choose types of music that have nothing at all to do with dexterity. Music/art is about expression most of all. Dexterity is just one tool in that box to achieve that goal.
require a book to make music? no. require a book to play complicated magical songs that relate to mid to high level spells? maybe. require a book to track magical research and secrets, of which not all might be musical in nature? goodness no, I'm sure they'll just remember it if it's important.
as for dexterity, you can beep boop a macbook without dex, sure. and you can also play piano dexterously but without charisma. however, without dex seems a stretch in the land of lutes and flutes. is cha required to keep a beat, hit a note, or improvise a solo? maybe that last one, but only just maybe. that's giving up creativity to charisma alone. and i guess some of my confusion/concern comes down to whether the bard is improvising every time all the time non stop. because if they are, if that's true, then case closed: charisma is supposedly just the right casting stat for (mislabeled) sorcerers.
Dexterity isnt the most important thing for a musician or artist. you can write songs, or program music that moves people with no dexterity. you can choose types of music that have nothing at all to do with dexterity. Music/art is about expression most of all. Dexterity is just one tool in that box to achieve that goal.
require a book to make music? no. require a book to play complicated magical songs that relate to mid to high level spells? maybe. require a book to track magical research and secrets, of which not all might be musical in nature? goodness no, I'm sure they'll just remember it if it's important.
as for dexterity, you can beep boop a macbook without dex, sure. and you can also play piano dexterously but without charisma. however, without dex seems a stretch in the land of lutes and flutes. is cha required to keep a beat, hit a note, or improvise a solo? maybe that last one, but only just maybe. that's giving up creativity to charisma alone. and i guess some of my confusion/concern comes down to whether the bard is improvising every time all the time non stop. because if they are, if that's true, then case closed: charisma is supposedly just the right casting stat for (mislabeled) sorcerers.
The biggest and most famous musicians, in the last 50 years, its not because they are technically the most skilled ones. Its just a tool. And the magic that bard are channeling isnt like the wizards magic, where its about memorization and formulas, artists can feel the music. When you are in the zone, it flows. Its not like you put charisma into one note, it permeates the whole performance. Every note you play, and every note you sing, it resonates. Cha is confidence, its impressing yourself into others. its reaching people.
To be fair, the bard's superhypermegaultraoverfocus on MUSICAL DANDYMAN is a primary reason it's not a popular class. Having to be an actual real-life improv comedy expert and singer in order to play bards "properly" bloody ******* sucks, and anything they can do to lessen that ridiculous requirement is appreciated. It's one of the reasons I'm so fond of the Dance subclass, even if everyone says it's not very well done. Anything that breaks people of the relentless need to force every single bard in Creation to be Yet Another Scanlan Shorthalt is a good thing. I despise that the class is so centered on music, because the mechanical framework of "Magical Expert" is exactly what I want in a D&D character, but it comes with all these lute-shaped boat anchors that make it almost impossible to actually play in anything resembling a serious manner. The sooner they excise the musical requirement from the class completely and name it something other than 'bard', the better.
But yeah. Flexible casting, all three stats. Bards are tinkerers and jacks of all trades anyways, why not?
ranger and artificer are both magical experts. You can also get expertise from feats. Bards are about being performing artists. You also never have to sing a song if you dont want to, mechanically. Can't really be mad the flavor of the bard class is bard like.
Bard flavour is way to restrictive in the books. Why it is assumed every bard plays an instrument??? That's not even the only way to be a performer, never mind the general concept of a bard. A king's jester is clearly a bard but would not work as a Bard b/c they don't necessarily play instruments or sing songs, they may tell jokes, juggle, do acrobatics, or be satirists. It's really dumb and honestly, I have only once played a game where the bard actually adhered to the flavour in the book. I've played with painter/tattooist bards, rhetoric / speech-writing bards, Fey-magic bards, and a con-artist bard. The only time I played a bard they were an undercover spy. As NPCs I've had several criminals who are at least partly bards who specialize in Intimidation & Deception rather than Persuasion and Performance.
The biggest and most famous musicians, in the last 50 years, its not because they are technically the most skilled ones. Its just a tool. And the magic that bard are channeling isnt like the wizards magic, where its about memorization and formulas, artists can feel the music. When you are in the zone, it flows. Its not like you put charisma into one note, it permeates the whole performance. Every note you play, and every note you sing, it resonates. Cha is confidence, its impressing yourself into others. its reaching people.
music isn't all math, but it's also not not formulas and numbers. resonance and harmony can be equally researched and repeatable and choreographed. many pop songs are infamous for using reusing the same four chords. and when an individual song is popular it is repeated. maybe not note for note, but the bones are there.
i don't really like the interpretation that accessing the words of creation as a bard is like reaching a trance state and getting the cosmos to groove with you. or at least, i can't imagine reaching that in 6 seconds every time. that's barely a ringtone. again, imagining an effect and having it manifest because you tried hard sounds more like a sorcerer with a noise maker than skillful fey twistings of fate and magic through clever placement of notes.
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Bard flavour is way to restrictive in the books. Why it is assumed every bard plays an instrument???
That is something I don't like about current Bard actually; I'd rather see the three instrument proficiencies be expanded to allow choices from (artisan?) tools and languages as well, and Bards allowed to use generic focuses. By all means allow instruments as an option for focuses, but Bard is far too versatile for it to be required, especially when we're told oration is meant to be an option.
Oration is still very much Charisma driven given where the social skills currently lie, and fits in with spies, performative card sharks and the like without them having to awkwardly carry around a lute they only whip out for spells. Plus regular focuses better suit things like a lucky "coin", an amulet of Tymora or whatever.
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ranger and artificer are both magical experts. You can also get expertise from feats. Bards are about being performing artists. You also never have to sing a song if you dont want to, mechanically. Can't really be mad the flavor of the bard class is bard like.
No, the ranger and the artificer are not "Magical Experts'. Nor is Expertise the only thing that sets aside an Expert-style class. The ranger is an Expert-style class that has magic, but its magic is not really significant nor a key part of its identity as evinced by the decade-long calls for the Spell-less Ranger quasi-homebrew to be made official. The artificer's expertise lies in a completely different area; while its spellcasting is more important to it than the ranger's is, it's still not a Magical Expert.
Also: why the Sam Shatner banana manhell are we taking a "performing artist" into the depths of the howling wilderness, the bottom of a haunted dungeon, into the thieves' sewers beneath a corrupt city, and any of the other hundred and one places an Adventurer goes? How often do you see modern rockstars accompany SWAT teams or special forces on strike operations? There's no goddamned reason for "Performing Artist" to be the sole thing a bard does, especially since the class's existence largely invalidates the Entertainer background and automatically scuppers cool ideas like the traveling minstrel who's secretly a trained assassin, or the wandering player who was once a deadly swordsman who hung up his sword for a lute after a fight gone sour. Or any of a dozen other ways someone might use music to obscure their true skillset, rather than pretending music is an Adventuring skill all by itself.
I can absolutely be mad that Wizards is cramming the MUSICAL DANDYMAN trope of stereotypical bards down our throats. You have demonstrated a fierce desire to stick strictly to the Classical Style of D&D in this and other threads, you like when characters hew closely to their basic fluff without deviating at all from the crappy fifty year old fantasy tropes that birthed them. Cool. You can play those characters. Why keep forcing the rest of us to play those characters, too?
I think I'm missing something here. What makes it so impossible for a Bard to not use music?
Let's take a look at the Bard features that mention music:
You gain proficiency in three musical instruments, but nobody's going to force you to use them.
You can use a musical instrument to cast spells, but using components is an equal, if not superior, option.
Bardic Inspiration: "You can inspire others through stirring words or music."
Song of Rest: "Beginning at 2nd level, you can use soothing music or oration to help revitalize your wounded allies during a short rest."
Coutercharm: "At 6th level, you gain the ability to use musical notes or words of power to disrupt mind-influencing effects."
Looks like that's all of the mentions of music in the base class. Now, let's go onto the subclasses.
Enthralling Performance (Glamour): "If you perform for at least 1 minute, you can attempt to inspire wonder in your audience by singing, reciting a poem, or dancing."
Huh, that's the only feature throughout every single Bard subclass that mentions playing music. Interesting.
Also worth noting that Eloquence is 100% about oration, Spirits is 100% about storytelling (and even lets you use random non-musical items as spellcasting foci), Swords describes circus-y performance stuff and never once mentions music (and also lets you use a weapon as a spellcasting focus), and Valor is 100% about storytelling.
It's clear that the class is designed around allowing for a musician, but it's also clear that it was designed around allowing for other things.
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Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny. Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
To me, a bard revolves around charisma for their stories, tales, performances, and music. Sure, they may have an ability called Jack of All Trades. However, that revolves around them being versatile in terms of being good at various skills, not having higher ability scores or anything to do with intelligence and wisdom.
Not only does this not make sense flavorwise, but the more classes you give Flexible Casting, the less unique and epic it becomes. That doesn't mean giving it to multiple classes would be an abominable decision, but I do think we need to at least consider how a feature is less exciting the more it's doled out.
Lastly. IIRC, many of those that want flexible casting for bard also want it for warlock, and I doubt wotzy would give bard flexible casting without giving warlock flexible casting merely because there seems to be more support for the former (at least here, maybe I'm reading too much into the thoughts of this tiny community lol). However, were both classes to have Flexible Casting, the three intellectual based abilities would be even more imbalanced as I outline below.
Wisdom is the sole main ability score for 2 PHB classes and one of multiple "primary" ability scores for 2 more. Meanwhile, intelligence is the main stat for class (the lonely Wizard) and charisma is the sole main ability for 3 classes and 1 of 2 main scores for another. With Flexible Casting, intelligence would theoretically be more relevant, yet wisdom would be even more useful than it is now and that would absolutely suck in my eyes.
Cya! Hoped ya'll liked my rambling TedTalk. :)
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BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
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A significant limitation to Bards (and Sorcerors and Warlocks) and how they are designed and played in the game is tied to their spells known: on leveling, choose a new spell according to their table progression and replace one spell previously known. When your character becomes locked between levels and can never adapt, Bards become homogeneous.
I do not have a game balance, technical, or fun solution for an alternative. Clerics and Wizards can modify spells prepared every long rest while requiring time to set their spells. Finding a method to allow the Bards to change their prepared list more frequently and not every long-rest opens up some design options. Perhaps some solutions might be tied to their casting stat?
If the poll doesn’t let you express your opinions about the Bard please feel free to speak about it in the thread.
bard opinions? don't mind if i do... first, bards are just another wizard-light with only tenuous connection to their musical lore and no song book. what a crime! get a spellbook for your songs and go on quests for more so it doesn't feel like bards are just filtering 'secrets' out of the air by osmosis. you're not bards, you bards, you're just wizarding college dropouts that landed a wedding dj gig as a cover for their alcoholism while telling their parents they're between marketing jobs. oh, and warlocks got a Misty Step subclass which i only mention because it shows devs could work with a theme if they wanted to and UA bards took that power off to polish their dancing rather than some interplay with Countercharm (the one aforementioned connection to music)?? or, whoops, maybe the opinions were supposed to be around casting stat. that's fine, because i'm also harboring ire at the idea that charisma seems like it would be more about convincing listeners you're good at musical instruments rather than utilizing dexterity to demonstrate it. which seems rather par for the course for a class built on just being naturally really good at everything without effort. ugh. bring us some lore about hard practicing bards and some art that doesn't look like they're advertising their services as expensive escorts.
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To be fair, the bard's superhypermegaultraoverfocus on MUSICAL DANDYMAN is a primary reason it's not a popular class. Having to be an actual real-life improv comedy expert and singer in order to play bards "properly" bloody ******* sucks, and anything they can do to lessen that ridiculous requirement is appreciated. It's one of the reasons I'm so fond of the Dance subclass, even if everyone says it's not very well done. Anything that breaks people of the relentless need to force every single bard in Creation to be Yet Another Scanlan Shorthalt is a good thing. I despise that the class is so centered on music, because the mechanical framework of "Magical Expert" is exactly what I want in a D&D character, but it comes with all these lute-shaped boat anchors that make it almost impossible to actually play in anything resembling a serious manner. The sooner they excise the musical requirement from the class completely and name it something other than 'bard', the better.
But yeah. Flexible casting, all three stats. Bards are tinkerers and jacks of all trades anyways, why not?
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bards shouldnt need a book to do songing.
Dexterity isnt the most important thing for a musician or artist. you can write songs, or program music that moves people with no dexterity. you can choose types of music that have nothing at all to do with dexterity. Music/art is about expression most of all. Dexterity is just one tool in that box to achieve that goal.
ranger and artificer are both magical experts. You can also get expertise from feats. Bards are about being performing artists. You also never have to sing a song if you dont want to, mechanically. Can't really be mad the flavor of the bard class is bard like.
I can’t carry a tune in a bucket and I love playing bards. You’ve seen my play Toots on PbP, I play them pretty much the same IRL. I describe them singing and playing, but I don’t sing myself. Or play them as actors instead of musicians. Stuff like that.
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This.
I've always liked the idea of playing Bard characters, but it wasn't until 5th edition I actually tried one after there was a mixup about what characters already existed in the group which caused me to shelve my original dragonborn sorcerer idea. So I ended up playing as Habard Ashery the tiefling con artisté who mostly talks his way out of everything or employs magical trickery; he only very occasionally plays an instrument, mostly as a distraction or to amuse and delight (or in victory after the one time the DM foolishly let me roll to turn a surviving cart wheel into a unicycle and I rolled a natural 20 both to do so, and then to play my flute atop it).
I started out just describing what Habard said or did, but over time I got more confident speaking as him more, but I still wouldn't sing or anything. I've since then played several different Bards, including a Swords Bard who fights like he's got a death wish and very occasionally plays bagpipes (and apparently can't roll less than 19 to do so), I've got a bunch of Bard NPCs for a campaign I'm running (so I can basically play as more Bards while DMing) and I've got another whisper Bard character on the back-burner.
I don't know where the idea you need to sing or be a comedic genius to play a Bard comes from; you don't need to do that to play a Bard anymore than you need to be a steroidal rage monster who yells all the time to play as a Barbarian. It's a roleplaying game, half the fun is playing as things you're not, and it's always fine just to describe something.
But back on topic, for Bard I think Charisma is the correct spellcasting stat; I didn't answer the second question as I'm not hard against Bards having a choice of score, but it's not my preference, i.e- it wouldn't bother me if they got one, but nor do I think they need one. If they were to get a choice, I'd favour Charisma and Intelligence for the options.
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While I've allowed fiddling around the margins of the bard for features such as oratory (for the inspiring military or political leader), the class design just doesn't suit flexible casting. Honestly, the worst mismatch is the sorcerer -- their spell list is all about blowing stuff up, and blowing stuff up is not traditionally associated with charisma.
Matches my vision and my thoughts. I always thought that the whole music thing is rudimentary legacy that weighs upon the real niche of the class - the jack of all trades. IMO bards are supposed to be the "adventurer" kind of catch-all class that has decent enough martial ability, some skills, and half-casting any spell list. Total versatility, the actual jack of all trades. Because the current bard is enchantment wizard with charisma.
The core feature of the class isn't jack of all trades, it's bardic inspiration.
require a book to make music? no. require a book to play complicated magical songs that relate to mid to high level spells? maybe. require a book to track magical research and secrets, of which not all might be musical in nature? goodness no, I'm sure they'll just remember it if it's important.
as for dexterity, you can beep boop a macbook without dex, sure. and you can also play piano dexterously but without charisma. however, without dex seems a stretch in the land of lutes and flutes. is cha required to keep a beat, hit a note, or improvise a solo? maybe that last one, but only just maybe. that's giving up creativity to charisma alone. and i guess some of my confusion/concern comes down to whether the bard is improvising every time all the time non stop. because if they are, if that's true, then case closed: charisma is supposedly just the right casting stat for (mislabeled) sorcerers.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
The biggest and most famous musicians, in the last 50 years, its not because they are technically the most skilled ones. Its just a tool. And the magic that bard are channeling isnt like the wizards magic, where its about memorization and formulas, artists can feel the music. When you are in the zone, it flows. Its not like you put charisma into one note, it permeates the whole performance. Every note you play, and every note you sing, it resonates. Cha is confidence, its impressing yourself into others. its reaching people.
Bard flavour is way to restrictive in the books. Why it is assumed every bard plays an instrument??? That's not even the only way to be a performer, never mind the general concept of a bard. A king's jester is clearly a bard but would not work as a Bard b/c they don't necessarily play instruments or sing songs, they may tell jokes, juggle, do acrobatics, or be satirists. It's really dumb and honestly, I have only once played a game where the bard actually adhered to the flavour in the book. I've played with painter/tattooist bards, rhetoric / speech-writing bards, Fey-magic bards, and a con-artist bard. The only time I played a bard they were an undercover spy. As NPCs I've had several criminals who are at least partly bards who specialize in Intimidation & Deception rather than Persuasion and Performance.
music isn't all math, but it's also not not formulas and numbers. resonance and harmony can be equally researched and repeatable and choreographed. many pop songs are infamous for using reusing the same four chords. and when an individual song is popular it is repeated. maybe not note for note, but the bones are there.
i don't really like the interpretation that accessing the words of creation as a bard is like reaching a trance state and getting the cosmos to groove with you. or at least, i can't imagine reaching that in 6 seconds every time. that's barely a ringtone. again, imagining an effect and having it manifest because you tried hard sounds more like a sorcerer with a noise maker than skillful fey twistings of fate and magic through clever placement of notes.
unhappy at the way in which we lost individual purchases for one-off subclasses, magic items, and monsters?
tell them you don't like features disappeared quietly in the night: provide feedback!
That is something I don't like about current Bard actually; I'd rather see the three instrument proficiencies be expanded to allow choices from (artisan?) tools and languages as well, and Bards allowed to use generic focuses. By all means allow instruments as an option for focuses, but Bard is far too versatile for it to be required, especially when we're told oration is meant to be an option.
Oration is still very much Charisma driven given where the social skills currently lie, and fits in with spies, performative card sharks and the like without them having to awkwardly carry around a lute they only whip out for spells. Plus regular focuses better suit things like a lucky "coin", an amulet of Tymora or whatever.
Former D&D Beyond Customer of six years: With the axing of piecemeal purchasing, lack of meaningful development, and toxic moderation the site isn't worth paying for anymore. I remain a free user only until my groups are done migrating from DDB, and if necessary D&D, after which I'm done. There are better systems owned by better companies out there.
I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
No, the ranger and the artificer are not "Magical Experts'. Nor is Expertise the only thing that sets aside an Expert-style class. The ranger is an Expert-style class that has magic, but its magic is not really significant nor a key part of its identity as evinced by the decade-long calls for the Spell-less Ranger quasi-homebrew to be made official. The artificer's expertise lies in a completely different area; while its spellcasting is more important to it than the ranger's is, it's still not a Magical Expert.
Also: why the Sam Shatner banana manhell are we taking a "performing artist" into the depths of the howling wilderness, the bottom of a haunted dungeon, into the thieves' sewers beneath a corrupt city, and any of the other hundred and one places an Adventurer goes? How often do you see modern rockstars accompany SWAT teams or special forces on strike operations? There's no goddamned reason for "Performing Artist" to be the sole thing a bard does, especially since the class's existence largely invalidates the Entertainer background and automatically scuppers cool ideas like the traveling minstrel who's secretly a trained assassin, or the wandering player who was once a deadly swordsman who hung up his sword for a lute after a fight gone sour. Or any of a dozen other ways someone might use music to obscure their true skillset, rather than pretending music is an Adventuring skill all by itself.
I can absolutely be mad that Wizards is cramming the MUSICAL DANDYMAN trope of stereotypical bards down our throats. You have demonstrated a fierce desire to stick strictly to the Classical Style of D&D in this and other threads, you like when characters hew closely to their basic fluff without deviating at all from the crappy fifty year old fantasy tropes that birthed them. Cool. You can play those characters. Why keep forcing the rest of us to play those characters, too?
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I think I'm missing something here. What makes it so impossible for a Bard to not use music?
Let's take a look at the Bard features that mention music:
Looks like that's all of the mentions of music in the base class. Now, let's go onto the subclasses.
Huh, that's the only feature throughout every single Bard subclass that mentions playing music. Interesting.
Also worth noting that Eloquence is 100% about oration, Spirits is 100% about storytelling (and even lets you use random non-musical items as spellcasting foci), Swords describes circus-y performance stuff and never once mentions music (and also lets you use a weapon as a spellcasting focus), and Valor is 100% about storytelling.
It's clear that the class is designed around allowing for a musician, but it's also clear that it was designed around allowing for other things.
Look at what you've done. You spoiled it. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Go sit and think about your actions.
Don't be mean. Rudeness is a vicious cycle, and it has to stop somewhere. Exceptions for things that are funny.
Go to the current Competition of the Finest 'Brews! It's a cool place where cool people make cool things.
How I'm posting based on text formatting: Mod Hat Off - Mod Hat Also Off (I'm not a mod)
To me, a bard revolves around charisma for their stories, tales, performances, and music. Sure, they may have an ability called Jack of All Trades. However, that revolves around them being versatile in terms of being good at various skills, not having higher ability scores or anything to do with intelligence and wisdom.
Not only does this not make sense flavorwise, but the more classes you give Flexible Casting, the less unique and epic it becomes. That doesn't mean giving it to multiple classes would be an abominable decision, but I do think we need to at least consider how a feature is less exciting the more it's doled out.
Lastly. IIRC, many of those that want flexible casting for bard also want it for warlock, and I doubt wotzy would give bard flexible casting without giving warlock flexible casting merely because there seems to be more support for the former (at least here, maybe I'm reading too much into the thoughts of this tiny community lol). However, were both classes to have Flexible Casting, the three intellectual based abilities would be even more imbalanced as I outline below.
Wisdom is the sole main ability score for 2 PHB classes and one of multiple "primary" ability scores for 2 more. Meanwhile, intelligence is the main stat for class (the lonely Wizard) and charisma is the sole main ability for 3 classes and 1 of 2 main scores for another. With Flexible Casting, intelligence would theoretically be more relevant, yet wisdom would be even more useful than it is now and that would absolutely suck in my eyes.
Cya! Hoped ya'll liked my rambling TedTalk. :)
BoringBard's long and tedious posts somehow manage to enrapture audiences. How? Because he used Charm Person, the #1 bard spell!
He/him pronouns. Call me Bard. PROUD NERD!
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HERE.A significant limitation to Bards (and Sorcerors and Warlocks) and how they are designed and played in the game is tied to their spells known: on leveling, choose a new spell according to their table progression and replace one spell previously known. When your character becomes locked between levels and can never adapt, Bards become homogeneous.
I do not have a game balance, technical, or fun solution for an alternative. Clerics and Wizards can modify spells prepared every long rest while requiring time to set their spells. Finding a method to allow the Bards to change their prepared list more frequently and not every long-rest opens up some design options. Perhaps some solutions might be tied to their casting stat?
Who said those were mutually exclusive? I'm talking a broad vision of the class, its mechanical niche.