subplotkudzu | The Bard Debate: clues & limelight

I've just finished reading all of the Order of the Stick archives (insomnia, your friend and mine) and found them rife with the 'Bards are Useless' meme. This ended up kicking another couple thoughts into my head.

The primary one is that one of the Bard's big abilities - bardic lore - can be easily overlooked. If the GM needs you to make a Bardic Lore roll to find the dungeon for this week, you will. If he needs you to make it to be able to figure out the big puzzle on level 4 to get further, you will. Plus, the time honored dictate to GMs that you don't leave any critical clue or plot point accessible via a single die roll (or a single PC) means that there will almost always be another way to access the information from Bardic Lore. The Bard's special ability is the power to act as the GM mouthpiece for information that would otherwise come some other way, because if it doesn't turn up, there's no game. And no player respects that, because even if their players should be impressed, the player knows the Bard PC is just a walking clue dispenser.

The secondary one is that the bardic ability to give other people a +2 on skill rolls is on a certain level stealing the limelight: any player who needs to take 20 and get the +2 bard kicker on a task will suspect that the GM boosted the difficulty just to give the bard something to do. Rather than being an aid, the Bard is either a tool ("Hey, bard-boy, come make me Masterwork!") or someone horning into his scene.

Just some thoughts, but I suspect these, plus the lack of ability to swing around a big pe... sword has something to do with the class being reviled.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

So I guess that makes me a sceptic. Convince me.

Fair enough. Let's take the last plot arc from the Spelljammer game as an example, working in backwards order. (For those not in the know, the plot revolved around someone we rescued from a neogi ship being a thief and a spy who, upon realizing that we had a McGuffin, kidnapped some crew members in the hopes of obtaining it.)

As you know, Val is a Rogue/Sorcerer (I think he's 5/1 at this point). Given the similarities between the two, let us posit that instead Val was a Bard 6. Sneaky, modest fighting ability, arcane spellcasting - it's a close enough parallel to work from.

As a Bard, Val likely would have had a higher Bluff score, making it more likely he would have pulled off his bluff to Binte Hakim that he was the McGuffin and put us in a better position to deal with her in a physical confrontation.

Even without a higher Bluff, as Bard 6 he would almost certainly have a Perform skill of 9. This means he could have fascinated Binte Hakim (possibly defusing the situation then and there) followed by a Suggestion that she accept that we weren't going to give in to her demands, so she should release the prisoners. Again, the situation would have ended in a faster, less dangerous manner.

In the fight against Binte Hakim's thugs the PCs were having real problems connecting, and Bec admitted off list that often we were missing by just a point or two. Had Val been a Bard, his singing might have given the PCs some extra hits on the enemy. That might have turned the tide. Since Val spent a chunk of the fight using Aid Another to boost other people's chance to hit anyway it's not like he was making use of the Rogue flank attacks. (His being a bard would have cost us his familiar's assistance, but I don't know how critical that was.)

Of course, during that fight he was relying a lot on Burning Hands. As a Bard he wouldn't have that, but he would likely have had Sleep - the great offensive spell of the low level Bard. Since the thugs were likely 3-4th level fighters, he would have had a good chance to drop 1 of them at least with each casting of the spell - much more effective than the 1 or 2 d4 damage he was doing.

When sneaking in, Bard Val would probably still have had respectable ranks in Move Silent and Sneak, aided by his Silenced armor, and possibly even a Silence spell (though that last is questionable - far more so than Sleep). of course, since they didn't successfully sneak in anyway, this is just an indicator of how we wouldn't have been worse off.

Bard Val might also have had a higher Gather Information score, which would have let us find the house faster rather than having Ibn Hassan get knocked around on his first infiltration attempt. I'm not sure whether he actually would or not - skill points are not limitless - but it's more likely for a Bard 6 than a Rogue 5/Sorcerer 1

Of course, Bard Val would almost certainly (on the same certinaly level as Bluff, but not as certain as Perform) have had a higher Sense Motive. Binte Hakim got as fas as she did because we all have poor Sense Motive scores. We might not have been in that situation at all with a Bardic captain.

Yes, this was a plot that revolved around deception, conversation and stealth, but it's not the first time we've seen those (or the last, since we're about to sneak in to the enemy base). Having a Bard along rather than 2 rogue types (Ibn Hassan is actually a Fighter 2/Rogue 5) could have made a big difference then, and might again in the future. The class is well suited for what it does, does some things we need and might well be a lot more effective than a Rogue/Sorcerer, who we have accepted as being so useful we made him captain.

Convinced yet?

Val was always intended to be a rogue. I had not envisioned him to be a bard. He started of primarily as a swashbuckling type, but something, somewhere, went very astray... He's developed and changed quite a bit over the years and has taken on a lot of responsibilities that were never anticipated.

I will admit that he might be somewhat more useful as a bard, especially in the last encounter. I just never pictured him as the sort...

And this isn't meant to indicate that I think he should have been a bard - I'm just pointing out how useful he would have been as a bard in those circumstances. Bit late to do much about it now.

In haste:

The bluff failure is one that could have occured even without the bardic skills. The fascinate could have worked but so could a spell like Charm Person.

The near misses could have been avoided if I'd had Lynden hold off and cast Prayer or some other attack enhancing spell. So again the bard wouldn't have been a stand out aide.

The sleep option might be there (I don't know what spells he has available) without him being a bard.

The silenced armour could be argued both ways. It's a neutral thing in the pro/against bardic staus imo.

For sure his Sense Motive would have ben better but again that's not something specific to a bard only. It's just a matter of spending the points...

Sorry, I still don't see the bard doing anything that any of the rest of the PCs couldn't ultimately do.

Sorry, I still don't see the bard doing anything that any of the rest of the PCs couldn't ultimately do.

That's not a great metric, however, since the bard does them better. For example, why play a Cleric?

Their weapon choices are limited to Simple Weapons, meaning that they're as poor as Sorcerers and only better than Wizards.

Heavy Armor? Oh, yeah, the clanking mess is great to have around - and Fighters and Paladins get Heavy armor as well. Bad weapons and awkward armor? Joy.

High HP? Their HD are lower than a good third of the classes - better to have a Paladin or Fighter in the party.

Attacks: No better than a Bard, but with only Simple weapons.

Turn undead? We've run into those, what, once in the whole campaign. Besides, Paladins get it too, and they have more uses per day with their higher Cha scores.

Healing? Sure clerics, along with bards, rangers, paladins and druids. Is there anyone who *can't* cast cure wounds?

Combat spells? Right, like a wizard or sorcerer can't do a tone more damage, and their Prayer et all spells are no more effective than a Bard's singing. Any terrain altering spells or 'save or be hoseed' spells are mimicked by Bards or arcane spellsasters.

Skill Points? Suck. Skill choices are pretty damn bad as well.

Within this group, we have a ranger and a druid, so there are our healing points - and if we acknowledged cleric sucked Emmett would have leveled into Paladin - easier since bec doesn't like Alignment restrictions. We have several fighters who can fight better than any Cleric. Cleric looks good magically, but that's just because we don't have any arcane spellcasters for a while. We now have a sorcerer and a bard as PCs and a Bard NPC. We can, I suppose keep our cleric NPC, and he'll stay on the ship and heal us when a fight's over - that's all they're good for.

Now, you and I both know that the class is far from useless, but they are a mix of combat and spellcasting which means that any 2 other PCs will have better skills in those areas. The Cleric is better at Healing than anyone, but so many other people can heal that it isn't really important until high levels. The Bard likewise is a mix of things - fighting, magic and sneakiness, and like Clerics they are hands down best at on thing - they are social animals. A Bard would have a mix of skills that no one else does (a rouge could take them, but they're expected to take some of their class specific skills like open locks - which Val has points sunk into and he never gets to use, and iH has as well), would free up Lynden from having to memorize bless/prayer (or not, because the two classes combat modifying effects stack!), would have a broader array of spells than our Rogue 5/Sorcerer 2 and would fight as well if not better than a similar rogue.

The Bard Debate: clues & limelight

Convincing Corylus

Re: Convincing Corylus

Re: Convincing Corylus

Re: Convincing Corylus

Re: Convincing Corylus