Brian Rogers (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
subplotkudzu) wrote2006-09-19 05:37 pm
subplotkudzu) wrote2006-09-19 05:37 pm
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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.
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.
Bards aren't useless...Elan is.
Bards can certainly kick ass, when used judiciously, like the incubus/bard combo that freakin' finished off a town before we found out what it was. Stupid "undetectable alignment" as a first-level bard spell...
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The Order of the Stick have a lot of good examples of Elan -misusing- his good abilities, or using them despite himself -- like when he inspired competence on a Bluff check, or attempted to use his only Silent Image idea to distract a chimera. Or attempting to improve his Move Silently check. But it's not the abilities that are at fault there -- just Elan.
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Elan is a truly dreadful bard which I'm sure is entirely deliberate on the Giant's part.
As for the bard debate you already know that I've never seen a bard played effectively in the manner you have described to me and plenty of debates basically ending with the 'bards are crap assertion'.
So I guess that makes me a sceptic. Convince me.
Convincing Corylus
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Re: Convincing Corylus