Songs [House]

[Abardam]

Warning: Long and Complicated

So, uh. Variant rules for songs.
The 'Song' here can be used interchangebly with a dance, or a play, or a poem, or whatever Perform skill you have ranks in.

{table]Song DifficultySong DCSongwriting 'Cost'Basic1020 gpIntermediate1545 gpAdvanced2080 gpExpert25125 gpMaster30180 gpLegendary35280 gpGodlike40400 gp[/table]

{table]
Song QualityPerform modChance
Poor-51-6
Bad-27-11
Average+012-15
Good+216-18
Great+519-20[/table]

Composing Songs
The DC to compose a song is the song's DC.
The Songwriting skill, which is used to compose songs, follows the rules of Craft, except as noted:
It is tied to Charisma.
There is no expenditure of gold.
5 ranks in the appropriate Perform skill will net you a +5 synergy bonus to composing a song with that Perform method.
After you finish composing the song, roll 1d20 and add your Cha modifier. Refer to the Song Quality table, above, to find out its Quality. When you decide to compose a song, you may subtract -5 to all checks made to add +1 to this roll, up to -20 to add +4.

Performing Songs
For every hour spent performing, you recieve your check result * the DC of the song you performed in copper pieces, to a maximum of 1/100 of the community's ready cash (see p137, DMG).
With Accompaniment
The primary performer adds the check results + individual DCs - 20 of each supporting member who beat their checks to his own (to a maximum of up to 4 times his own result). He subtracts 10 from his check for each supporting member who failed their checks.
Orchestra
For multiple characters performing the same song, treat it as a single check. Use the lowest check result and add +2 for every member who suceeded on their check.
Multi-Talented
For characters playing 2 or more songs at the same time, treat any other songs beyond the first as supporting members, but subtract 5 (for each instrument beyond the first) from all checks made.
Playing Your Composition
Performers recieve a +2 bonus to their checks if they perform a song they composed.
Impromptu Performances
For playing songs made up on the spot, add 10 to the DC, and roll the d20 after the performance.

Learning Songs
Learning a song requires a Perform (appropriate) check against the Song's DC +5. It functions like composing a song, but each check takes a day (instead of a week). Also, you may not improve the quality of the song (duh).

Comments? Suggestions?

Added Impromptu Performances.

[Abardam]

Variant: Bardic Songs as Magic

Composing Magical Songs
As the composing rules, except including an experience cost equal to the song's cost.

Learning Magical Songs
As the song learning rules, except including an experience cost equal to the song's original DC. If the song's composer is helping, you automatically succeed on the checks.

Preparing Magical Songs
A bard may commit songs to memory whenever he wants to. He must be in a quiet place with no distractions. He must also not be shaken, fatigued, frightened, exhausted, or panicked. He must spend spend 3 minutes per song difficulty level of the song he is memorizing. He may only have 1 song per 3 bard levels, with an extra one at first level, committed to memory.

Playing Magical Songs
Playing magical songs requires expending uses of your bardic music (1 for basic, 2 for intermediate and so on). To play a magical song, you must first succeed on a Perform check (DC is Song's DC) as a standard action. If you fail by 5 or less, the song does not expend any uses of your bardic music. If you fail by more than that, it does.
Songs typically last until the performer stops playing, though some have limits. While the performer is playing, he must continually succeed on checks every round, or stop, ruining the song.
The Save DC of the song is typically the performer's check result (to a maximum of the Song's DC + 10).

Some Magical Songs

Act the Part
Bardsong 1
Duration: 1 minute per level
Casting Time: 1 round
Target: Self
Perform: Acting
You convince yourself to act out a role, transforming minor details of yourself. This spell grants a +10 bonus to Disguise.

Tasha's Hideously Bad Joke [Mind-Affecting]
Bardsong 1
Duration: Instantaneous
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Target: 1 creature
Range: Close
Save: Will partial
Perform: Comedy
Spell Resistance: Yes
You tell a bad joke to the target creature, causing it to groan in horror. It cannot take actions for 1 round. If it succeeds on the save, it instead receives a -1 penalty on attack rolls and skill and ability checks for the round.
A creature with an Intelligence score of 2 or lower is not affected. A creature whose type is different from the caster’s receives a +4 bonus on its saving throw, because humor doesn’t “translate” well.

Pump It [Mind-Affecting]
Bardsong 2
Duration: 1 minute per level or until performer stops
Casting Time: 1 round
Target: Self
Area: 30-foot emanation centered on you
To maintain: Swift action
Perform: Breakdancing
While you play this song, you and all allies within 30 feet gain a +1 morale bonus per level on attack and damage with unarmed strikes (max +10). You stop maintaining this song unless you successfully strike an enemy with an unarmed strike at least once every round.

Punchline [Mind-Affecting]
Bardsong 2
Duration: 1 round
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Target: 1 creature
Range: Close
Save: Will partial
Spell Resistance: Yes
You start to tell a joke to a creature, lowering their defenses in preparation for your attack. If the creature fails its Will save, it loses its Dexterity bonus to AC and takes a -2 penalty to AC against your next attack, which must be made in the next round.
A creature with an Intelligence score of 2 or lower is not affected. A creature whose type is different from the caster’s receives a +4 bonus on its saving throw, because humor doesn’t “translate” well. Creatures who fail their saves receive a +2 bonus on their saving throw against any subsequent performances for the day.

Shut Up [Mind-Affecting]
Bardsong 2
Duration: 1 round per caster level
Casting Time: 1 round
Area: 30-foot cone-shaped burst
Perform: Oratory
Save: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes
You shout words of power, silencing creatures in the area. All creatures in the area who can hear you must make Will saves or lose the power of speech for 1 round per bard level.


Glorious Chorus [Mind-Affecting]
Bardsong 2
Casting Time: 1 round
Area: 120-foot emanation centered on you
To Maintain: 1 full-round action
Perform: Oratory
Multiple bards must sing at the same time for this song to be performed. Every bard beyond the first grants an additional +1 morale bonus to attack and damage to all allies within 60 feet, to a maximum of the lowest-leveled singer's bard level or +5, whichever is less. The Perform check to beat the Song's DC every round follows the Rules in Multiple Performers.

Power Chord [Force]
Bardsong 2
Duration: Instantaneous
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Target: 1 creature
Range: Medium
Save: Fortitude half/ negates
Perform: Strings
Spell Resistance: Yes
As a standard action, you may release a powerful blast from your string instrument. Make a ranged touch attack against a creature within range (bonuses to Armor Class granted by force effects apply). This spell deals 1d4 damage per bard level (maximum 10d4) and the creature must make a Fortitude save or be knocked back 5 feet per bard level (maximum 50 feet) and land prone. Succeeding on the save also halves the damage.

The High Part
Bardsong 3
Duration: 1 round per level or until performer stops
Casting Time: 1 round
Area: 60-foot emanation centered on you
To maintain: Full-round action
Save: Fortitude negates
Perform: Oratory
Spell Resistance: Yes
You sing at the top of your voice, damaging eardrums and shattering glass. All creatures in the area must make a Fortitude save or double over on the ground in pain. Listen checks are made at a -20 penalty. You deal 1d4 sonic damage every round to all glass or crystalline objects in the area. At the end of your song, all creatures who failed their saves are deafened for 1d4 days.

Melody of Recovery
Bardsong 3
Duration: 1 round per level or until performer stops
Casting Time: 1 round
Area: 20-foot emanation centered on you
To maintain: Full-round action
Save: Fortitude negates (harmless)
Perform: Any audible
Spell Resistance: Yes
Allies within 20 feet of you gain fast healing 1 as long as they are not doing anything strenuous.

Role-playing [Mind-Affecting]
Bardsong 3
Duration: 10 minutes per level
Casting Time: 1 minute
Target: Self
Perform: Acting
You get “in character.” You gain a +30 bonus to Bluff checks to lie.
If a magical effect is used against you that would detect your lies or force you to speak the truth the user of the effect must succeed on a caster level check (1d20 + caster level) against a DC of 15 + your bard level to succeed. Failure means the effect does not detect your lies or force you to speak only the truth.

Invisible Wall [Mind-Affecting]
Bardsong 4
Duration: 1 round per level or until performer stops
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Close
To Maintain: Standard action
Perform: Mime
Save: Will negates
Spell Resistance: Yes
You mime out a wall, shaping it out with your hands. This action causes all who view you to believe that there really is a wall there. You may pass through it freely by designating a 'door.' You may not move more than 10 feet from the 'wall' or the song ends.

Knock Knock
Bardsong 4
Duration: Instantaneous
Casting Time: 2 rounds
Target: 1 portal touched
Save: Will negates
Perform: Comedy
Spell Resistance: Yes
On your first round of casting, you touch the portal and say, “Knock knock?” A creature on the other side of the portal that hears you must make a Will save or reply. You then, on the second round of casting, make another Perform check that must beat the DC, and the creature must make another Will save (against that DC) or be compelled to open the door, lower the drawbridge, or whatever. He is then treated as flatfooted for the next round.
Using Knock Knock on a portal enchanted with arcane lock gives the creature a +5 bonus on both Will saves if he is the caster; otherwise, the song fails. Using Knock Knock on a Magnificent Mansion gives the creature a +10 bonus on both Will saves. You must still locate the invisible entrance.

Life Story
Bardsong 5
Duration: Permanent
Casting Time: 1 minute
Target: 1 creature touched
Save: Will negates (harmless)
Perform: Any
After a performance, you instill in a creature who experienced the performance the story behind it. That creature gains a +2 bonus to Perform (method you used), Perform (method you used) as a class skill, and the ability to use Life Story as a spell-like ability once per year. If that creature is, or will become a bard, he instead learns Life Story and automatically succeeds on it once per year. Life Story may not be learned any other way.
XP component: 500 XP

Flight of the Bumblebee
Bardsong 6
Duration: 1 hour per level or until performer stops
Casting Time: 1 round
Target: 1 willing creature touched
To Maintain: Standard action
Save: Will negates
Perform: Strings or Keyboard
Spell Resistance: Yes
This spell may do one or both of the following: grant touched creature wings allowing for 120-foot good flight, or shrink it down to Fine.
If the shrinking option is taken, it receives a +2 size bonus to Dexterity, a -2 size penalty to Strength, and a +1 bonus to AC and attack rolls per size category shrunk.
You maintain this song over the duration, making checks per hour. If the creature goes farther than 1 mile per caster level, the song ends.

Anthem of Vengeance
Bardsong 6
Duration: 1 round per level or until performer stops
Casting Time: 3 rounds
Area: 100-foot emanation centered on you
To maintain: Standard action
Save: Will negates
Perform: Any audible
Spell Resistance: No
You may raise a great number of your fallen allies in battle for a short while. Up to 10 times your bard level in HD are healed to full hit points and commanded to attack the enemy, as long as they have been dead for up to or less than 1 round per bard level, or they are between 0 and -10 hitpoints. Dead creatures may attempt a Will save at a +20 bonus to avoid being raised, though most do not. At the end of the song, all creatures drop to their original health levels.

These haven't been playtested yet, so please give balancing suggestions.

[Peregrine]

You're stealing my ideas! :o Well, no, not really... but seriously, I have some horribly incomplete rules lying around for composing all sorts of works of art (beyond the visual arts already covered by the Craft skills), including performance art, and how these compositions then interact with the Perform skill.

I think I like yours though. :) They're nice and straightforward. I do disagree on some points, like songwriting being based on Cha, not Int, and so-called Godlike songs costing a meagre 400gp.

The magical songs look kinda cool. :)

[SilveryCord]

I think you need to have another tag to what kind of Perform skill the magical songs use. Some are jokes, which bards who are focused in Perform (Dance) won't be trained in doing well, etc.

[I_Got_This_Name]

I think I like yours though. :) They're nice and straightforward. I do disagree on some points, like songwriting being based on Cha, not Int, and so-called Godlike songs costing a meagre 400gp.

As I understand it, the GP cost is just there for craft time; when composing, you get check result x DC silver pieces of progress, out of the total cost. The 'cost' then is the required progress; it takes a total check result of 100, with no single check being less than 40, at a rate of one week per check.

[knightsaline]

can you get the bonus described for playing your own composition if you didn't compose the song, yet made a "remix" of it?

[Peregrine]

As I understand it, the GP cost is just there for craft time; when composing, you get check result x DC silver pieces of progress, out of the total cost. The 'cost' then is the required progress; it takes a total check result of 100, with no single check being less than 40, at a rate of one week per check.
Oh yes, I see now. Thanks. I think I thought it was the cost to buy, since we're also told it doesn't cost anything for the composer.

[Abardam]

I think you need to have another tag to what kind of Perform skill the magical songs use. Some are jokes, which bards who are focused in Perform (Dance) won't be trained in doing well, etc.

I... do. Look closer. It's under Perform.

Thanks for the comments, everyone.