So, what exactly is a Bard?
Philhelm
Member Posts: 473
I'll elaborate. I thought of this subject after reading the "Bards still suck" thread and watching a video someone had posted showing a comedic take of the Bard as a useless fop looking like Peter Pan. It seems that the Bard gets easily stereotyped.
One thing I liked about Neverwinter Nights and 3rd edition D&D is that the Thief was renamed to Rogue. This simple renaming helped expand the role of the Thief since not every character with the skillset would be a, well, thief. A thief could be a spy, a treasure hunter, or a scout.
But what is a Bard at its core? It's not quite a Fighter/Mage/Thief, but clearly draws elements from all of them. Taking out the musical element, the concept seems like the Bard could be the ultimate adventurer, capable of combat and magic. What archetypes could the Bard fulfill without being the overly flamboyent stereotype? Would, or should, every Bard be musically talented?
One thing I liked about Neverwinter Nights and 3rd edition D&D is that the Thief was renamed to Rogue. This simple renaming helped expand the role of the Thief since not every character with the skillset would be a, well, thief. A thief could be a spy, a treasure hunter, or a scout.
But what is a Bard at its core? It's not quite a Fighter/Mage/Thief, but clearly draws elements from all of them. Taking out the musical element, the concept seems like the Bard could be the ultimate adventurer, capable of combat and magic. What archetypes could the Bard fulfill without being the overly flamboyent stereotype? Would, or should, every Bard be musically talented?
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The class archetype was originally based on the story of the Pied Piper, and Alan-a-Dale from the Robin Hood stories, who is often depicted as the narrator of Robin's adventures. As Pied Piper, the evil bard is seen as having a similar story role to the "wicked witch" who hurts storybook children, heroes, and heroines. He makes an appearance as one of the main villains in "Shrek the Third", where his magic flute has the power to force victims to dance uncotrollably.
The good bard is usually the storyteller. See this history:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bard_(Dungeons_&_Dragons)
EDIT: The forum is doing something weird with the link - you have to manually type in (Dungeons_%26_Dragons), or else you get a general history of bards. Or just google "D&D bard history"
In Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series, we have a bard archetype named "Thom Merrilin". He is a flamboyant performer, juggler, and entertainer, plays the harp and the flute, and supports the heroes with spied-out information. He is a competent swordsman and dagger-thrower when needed, although he prefers to fool his enemies with clever lies and avoid direct combat if he possibly can. He basically corresponds the the D&D "jester" kit.
http://wot.wikia.com/wiki/File:Thom_Merrilin.JPG
Some people have suggested that Tyrion Lannister from "Game of Thrones" fits the bard archetype, because he both "charms" and "confuses" his enemies with his rapier sharp wit and his constant stream of sarcastic jokes. He is also shown to be a competent axe-and-shield man, which unfortunately is not enough skill to avoid being dreadfully wounded in battle.
Those are the only ones I can think of right now. Interestingly, the cleric/priest class is also curiously underrepresented in film and literature. I've read that Gygax basically made up the class out of thin air, loosely basing "the cleric" on various medieval fighting religious orders, because he needed a way to quickly heal lost hit points in his games.
His Evil Twin Brother Nale is equal in every way aprat from the fact he is a Fighter / Mage / Thief and is thus highly dangerous... Plus he has a fetching goatee.
Read more at http://www.giantitp.com/Comics.html
I think most of us who enjoy playing bards do it partly because it's traditionally an underdog character class, and we want to prove the naysayers wrong.
They are pretty useless in the game, since they are a so called "masters of nothing". Mages can use more spells, Thiefs can do more... thief stuff and fighters can better fight.
But when it comes to pure roleplay, Bards can be very interesting and useful characters. They are tricksters. Actors. Entertainers. There are only very few people, who don't like Bards, when you compare it to other classes. They are ideal to get information and work around combat.
Even in vanilla, the +2 bonus is significant, if you can keep it active - which is a challenging mini-game unto itself in vanilla, since its range is very, very short.
Also, you're forgetting the fast-leveling bonuses to scalable spells.
The whole singing thing I've never really understood about D&D bards - bards are storytellers, lorekeepers and performers. They are also master manipulators and flashy fighters.
In game terms I've always seen the bard as a mage/swashbuckler. The bard magic should be heavily focused on illusion, enchantment and divination.
Basically, the Cleric was designed as more of an undead hunter than a healbot, but eventually developed into something else. I thought it was interesting.
But seriously, bards are a lot of fun and the only reason that some people don't like them, is because they are made to look like they are backup fighters. The only bard kit that (imo) should be fighting in melee is the blade. The jester, bard, and skald are all perfect as archers (ranged weapons) masters, backup utility spell casters.
When this patch comes through, I am going with the Skald. Ill use a crossbow and with the battle songs, use them to make my guy a powerful 1 shot 1 kill ranged weapons expert!
The Bard lore says a lot, especially since it's much higher than even a Mage's, which seems counterintuitive. Perhaps the Bard could be a scholar in his own right, that has taken to a life of adventure and picked up a versatile skillset, delving into magic in order to overcome obstacles. Similarly, Indiana Jones would likely be a Thief/Rogue of some sort.
I like the idea of a finesse fighter running around in elven chain casting spells, but not so much the musical aspect. The idea of singing a song in combat seems a bit silly to me (As an aside, Monks seem silly to me too; oooh, don't make me mad or I'll punch you in your fully helmed face!).
It wasn't created in a vacuum - there were fictional and historical characters that inspired it, and sometimes still inspire it. I believe we were trying to find examples of those, or possibly even write some of our own short stories with a bard as the hero.
Here's a historical example: William Shakespeare. To this day, still referred to as "The Bard".
The entire AD&D world might have never existed if nordic bards had not kept alive all those legends, to start with.
In ancient Greece, think of Homerus and all the legends, and the profound impact they had and still have on European culture today. The kings, politicans, philosophers and clerics would have never been able to transmit that heritage on their own.
In ancient India, the brahmanes although very differently, had organized themselves as the keepers of a sacred language - sanskrit - which was the basis of the Veda, THE vehicle of cultural transmission from very old ages. The Veda tells us about a world that has disappeared, all religious rituals mentioned are gone forever, yet the Veda still stands, because of those who have verbally transmitted it.
That's why the lore score of the bard being higher than that of a mage, is not counter-intuitive at all to me. Their fields of knowledge are simply not the same.
Cleric still aren't healbots...DnD healing spells are almost useless in combat till you get full heals...they just take too long and don't heal nearly enough., the mass versions are kind of decent, since you can heal every one at once, but they still don't really do that much. And even a single class cleric is still a pass-able fighter despite their wonky thac0 progress rate and lack of extra attacks.
The no-bladed piercing stuff is from the inquisition. They could do anything they wanted to a person to drag out confessions as long as it didn't draw blood.
And yes, while they cast fewer spells then mages, bards level MUCH faster, and actually can achieve 1 level higher then a mage in BG1, making their spells hit harder or last longer then a mage. And in BG2 it gets down right ridiculous, since the bard leaves them in the dust level-wise. A bard will be pushing 16 while a mage is barely working toward 12.
I preferred 3.5 edition Bards myself...I think they did them the best. Singing was fairly optional, though a nice bonus if used properly, and only slightly worse skill gain then a rogue making them a MUCH better Jack of all trades then 2nd or 3.0 did.
And because of their rapidly increasing pickpocket, they can steal relatively freely, getting several wands of fire early on...yeah....there's a reason solo bards are one of the easiest classes in the game.
They should have the air guitar ability. This makes the bard invisible as everyone desperately avoids eye contact with the idiot
They also should have the ability to create a monster mosh pit. When the bard activates this ability, all monsters congregate into a circle to mosh, or wait for the special light effects fireball...
A fighter will kill the guard, smash the door down and take the item.
A thief will sneak around the guard, pick the lock and steal the item.
A mage has many approaches, they can distract or kill the guard, or go invisible. He could blast the door open, melt the lock off or just magic the door open and take the item. Or he could just teleport in and back out - this reflects the batman-esque toolkit of the D&D mage.
A bard would simply persuade/charm the guard to open the door and bring the item to him.
These all represent different solutions to a problem. Notice that it's more difficult to detail different scenarios for other classes - barbarians and rangers, for example, would take the same approach as a fighter but with different weapons/technique. This is why I think bards are so important - they represent a one of a few unique solutions to a problem.
It was also partially based on tales of Skalds and such from northern societies such as the Vikings. They kept alive the tales of Gods and heroes and also of the tribe and/or family groups.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=WChcIrQz8-E&feature=fvwp
There are many, many more of these from every military culture on Earth that make my point for me - I may post more of them later as I find them.
They also promised immortality for heroes heading towards glory or death. To be remembered in song for all time.
They are powerful. BG had to nerf them for playability reasons
Oh bards I love them, both in D&D and out. @belgarathmth gave many good examples of non D&D Bards, but another one I have thought of actually fits very closely with the D&D version Mercedes Lackey has a series of books about a world called Velgarth One of the countries in the world is called Valdamar, and they train bards, as well as a few other well known...positions. Anyway, the bards in these novels are very different from say a minstrel. A Bard has to have what are known as the bardic gifts, being Talent, Creativity and the Bardic Gift, also known as projective Empathy The ability to make the audience feel your emotions.
Now the bards in these novels are used as spies, lore masters, historians and sometimes even peacekeepers, though usually by happenstance more than order. Because they travel all over both Valdamar and abroad, they learn weapon skills. More than a few are skilled in sleight-of-hand, and those with Projective empathy in large amounts can use that power like a weapon, albeit quite differently from traditional magic.
Now this form of bard melds perfectly with the idea of bard-as-adventurer. And I feel it is probably one of the closest literary "classes" to fit with the D&D bard.
As for why people don't like bards, I think a lot of it has to do with the general portrayal of bards in most forms of media. as inept, dreamy eyed songsters more interest in women and music than doing a job. But falling back on my example, a well written bard is closer to a true adventurer than any other D&D class save ranger. Basic classes of course. Think about it Fighters should be in the military as soldiers. Same for Paladins, as generals or Heavy Cav. Clerics should be healing the sick, not dungeon crawling. Druids should be praying to leaves or whatever those nut bags do. They shouldn't leave the forest in general. Mages belong in towers researching spells, and hiring adventurers to find the artifacts, not looking for them themselves. Same for sorcerers. Barbarians..well, come on, they dumb as a rock. They shouldn't be alive in general, except their tough as rocks to boot. Thieves come close, but more often than not, they should be in cities, plying their trade.
Also, D&D bards get a bad rap especially in games like BG and others like it because some of their most useful skills, charm and persuasion aren't really utilized. a PnP game is a whole other story. Say what you want, but a bard in a PnP game is both versatile, and if played right, a MASTER of persuasion. I don't know. I've always had a love affair with bards.
I just thought of another example from TV - "Morale Officer" Neelix, from the Voyager TV series. Without his undying optimism and support, Captain Janeway and Starfleet's finest officers on Voyager would have succumbed to depression and despair long before they ever found their way home from the Delta Quadrant. Even "Mr. Vulcan".
Whether or not you believe any of that is immaterial when talking about characters based on the real life skillsets that enable the properly trained to punch through solid cinder blocks.
Plus for the most part many fights in BG your a spectator since your fighters can handle most of the battles with out your direct input mages just need you to tell them wen to cast bard how ever if you actively play the bard balancing its weapon use, bard song, and spell casting become much more effective and can help players feel more involved in the game play. You don't want to wast one of your sorcerers spell slots a buff or utility spell let the bard learn it. want to summon fodder for your enemy let the bard do it.
The trouble is there just not needed to do any thing. and there hard to build.
in fact both the bards in game are poorly built. This creates a bad impression on the whole class.
They tend to be intelligent, if not always the most wise, but they're charismatic. And while they might not be a good fit for a leader with their wisdom (i.e. a king or such), their intellect and charm allow them to naturally be able to make capable arguments in a way that helps them sway the other side.
A bard knows that talking things out is sometimes the best course of action.
While flashy and loud, they are also capable of blending in almost anywhere. Many cultures have musicians and good musicians can meet almost anyone. But they're also an ear for the little folk. They hear the stirrings as they move from place to place, town to town and are good for being able to give an accurate idea of where the local populace sits, as well as local lore.
Its kinda sad, as I was reading this I suddenly realized that as a former musician growing up, with some military training before getting a degree in history and always tyring to crack jokes. Bard is likely my actual class irl if I had to pick one.