Static nature of Bardic music

[weckar]

After a player complaint, I decided to re-read the rules for bardic music. It seems they were right: Other than Countersong (perhaps the most situational one), none of them require a roll on the part of the Bard. He just 'does' it, for a static effect, no matter how good he really is. Of course to unlock them he still needs to max out ranks in a skill he will likely never roll. Is there something I am misreading, or is this how it is intended to work? Maybe a variant rule somewhere I could look at?

[Marlowe]

How is this a problem?

[sleepyphoenixx]

No one rolls for their buffs, so why should bards?

[Gwendol]

Why should they, and how would that not be abusable?
Also, some performances do require a performance roll: countersong and fascinate are two examples from Core.

[Mr Adventurer]

There's at least one PrC which ties its abilities to Perform checks. Seeker of the Song?

[Telonius]

It is a minor problem, in that it's a stealth skill tax. If a Bard didn't have to put that rank in Perform in order to get all the Bardic Musics, that's 21 more skill points for a skillmonkey to put anywhere else. You might as well make Perform a class feature and change the Skill Points to 5+Int per level. (But odd numbers are evil, so that's crazy talk).

On the other hand, it's kind of tricky to make a scaling benefit that's both useful and doesn't encourage players to optimize a single skill check. (Iajutsu Focus, for example, is one that gets the optimization treatment regularly when it's used).

[hymer]

With Melodic Casting, you can substitute Concentration for Perform, making the stealth tax work for you.

[Glimbur]

Fascinate's DC is set by your perform check, which makes it pretty hard to resist. There are other feats and PrCs that use perform. And you could always use it to make money, which is kind of a waste of time but an option nonetheless.

[Optimator]

Song of Arcane Power works this way too.