Ideas for funny Bard character!

[Gold Digger]

Hello guys!Me and my pals are about to start a new campaign and I want to play a bard.I would like however to be a non-stereotypical one, using some funny concept and backstory.Any good ideas?

[jaydubs]

Well, the thing is the stereotypical bard is already a funny, light-hearted character. So just go full in the other direction.

An over-the-top, comically serious character. Dresses all in black. Only does dramatic, spoken word songs, a la William Shatner. Incapable of using or detecting sarcasm. Responds to all jokes as if they're serious. Randomly spews grimdark, nihilistic quotes.

So, kind of like Dwight Schrute meets a 40k Inquisitor.

[Gold Digger]

Well, the thing is the stereotypical bard is already a funny, light-hearted character. So just go full in the other direction.

An over-the-top, comically serious character. Dresses all in black. Only does dramatic, spoken word songs, a la William Shatner. Incapable of using or detecting sarcasm. Responds to all jokes as if they're serious. Randomly spews grimdark, nihilistic quotes.

So, kind of like Dwight Schrute meets a 40k Inquisitor.
Perfect!I was thinking about playing a Goliath Bard, so it makes sense since they live alone in cold mountains and don't have much time for humor and jokes. :smalltongue:

[Ardantis]

Bards come from colleges, and I'm assuming your Goliath is College of Valor, so I'd make a bard who obviously went to college- in your case a letter-wearing Greek frat boy who loves to chug and whoop it up. Keeps inviting girls to the next formal.

[Shining Wrath]

For the pun factor, be a half elf. Named Presley - Elvish Presley.

Another alternative is to take the fluff of College of Lore bards about mocking the powerful to the Nth degree - someone who rejects all forms of authority. The truly sophomoric chaotic neutral type, always challenging everyone, always ranting about how the system is corrupt. In our world, this is a person who would quote from Ayn Rand AND Karl Marx as it suited them without the slightest awareness that there's some differences in world view. Of course there must be serious issues with parental authority as well, so your bard rejects the culture he grew up in. If he's a Goliath, he's adopted Gnome style of dress - something like that. Again, totally serious about everything, always looking for signs of repression, can't tell the difference between a NG government and a LE one.

To make him somewhat likable, he's also always ready for a party, and if he does come across legitimate oppression he'll move heaven and earth to end it. Oh, and a master of sarcasm, too.

[Gold Digger]

Another alternative is to take the fluff of College of Lore bards about mocking the powerful to the Nth degree - someone who rejects all forms of authority. The truly sophomoric chaotic neutral type, always challenging everyone, always ranting about how the system is corrupt. In our world, this is a person who would quote from Ayn Rand AND Karl Marx as it suited them without the slightest awareness that there's some differences in world view.

He could be just CE and try to start revolutions for battle's sake.Make others fight and grab popcorn and watch.In our world, this is the person who starts a D&D edition war in a group in facebook and for the rest of the conversation sits out and watches! :smallcool:
The promise of a Goliath army assisting the one side or the other could help things escalate quickly.

[Connington]

Bards from the College of Lore make surprisingly good grapplers (http://community.wizards.com/forum/player-help/threads/4142801). Basically Expertise + Cutting Words + Spellcasting has a lot of potential.

So grab a Goliath, Half-Orc, or Mountain Dwarf, give them the gladiator background, and fluff them up as a professional wrestler. Get a flamboyant costume, give all of your standard moves an assortment of flashy names ("Let me introduce you to THE TRIPLE SUPLEX!"), and come up with some appropriate patter for your cunning words. It's about as far as you can get from a standard bard mechanically and thematically, and it's definitely funny.

[Ceder]

A horrid idea came to me: a stand-up commedian bard a la Fozzie Bear. They are a horrid commedian and their cutting words are bad jokes so awful rhey cause pain.

[Brendanicus]

A friend of mine made a memorable bard character whose whole shtick was being a coward. He was trapped in a dungeon long before the party showed up, but his only skill was talking his way out of problems, which doesn't come in handy much when you're dealing with face-hugging monsters every day.

For backstory, such a character could be in deep debt with a adventuring guild or powerful noble, and their only hope to get their money is to go adventuring.

-------------------

Bards with the Gladiator background could also be funny. Their high Charisma could make them a popular underdog, and their bardliness could make them awful at being a gladiator. Perhaps your bard's speciality is manipulation through talking **** if you are College of Lore, or being able to talk themselves into doing anything if they are College of Valor. Basically, recklessness (and Bardicly Inspiring party mates into recklessness) is your greatest strength and weakness.

EDIT: Pirate/sailor bards. Become magic Julio Scoundrel.

[DivisibleByZero]

If you want a memorable character, don't follow the order listed in the PHB for character creation.
Don't choose a class and build from there.

Choose a background first, then toss a race onto it. Then build the rest of the background and personality, including goals and flaws and traits, etc. Give him a personality. Give him a life.
Make him a person, first and foremost.

After all of that is completely done, then and only then do you tack a class and build onto him.
Doing it the way that the book tells you to is reverse engineering a character. Reverse engineering a character will make him feel forced or cliche.
Build him from the ground up, in the order that his life would have happened (wherein choosing a profession would be one of the last things that happened to him) and you'll have a fully fleshed out and completely fun character with personality.

Who is he or she?
They aren't a Bard. Being a Bard is what they do, not who they are.
Figure out who they are before you figure out what they do, and you'll be much more attached to them as a character.

[Ardantis]

Shining Wrath, I went to college with a guy like that, always in trouble with campus security and the like. That's real stuff.

[Shining Wrath]

Shining Wrath, I went to college with a guy like that, always in trouble with campus security and the like. That's real stuff.

I've got 8 kids counting step children. I've seen that as a phase ...

[HockeyPokeyBard]

I've seen the picture floating around on the interwebs. Minotaur Bard, he's got an itch and the only cure is more cowbell.

Alternately, follow my name. A bard where their entire basis is the hockey pockey song. It works in almost every scenario imaginable.

[Shining Wrath]

I've seen the picture floating around on the interwebs. Minotaur Bard, he's got an itch and the only cure is more cowbell.

Alternately, follow my name. A bard where their entire basis is the hockey pockey song. It works in almost every scenario imaginable.

Including, of course, assembling flesh ghola.

[langal]

I had fun with my heavy metal bard once. Go with a 2-handed sword or greataxe. Sold my soul for rock and roll too (ie. multiclass Warlock).

Probably Valor with Pact of Tome or Blade lock with Lore. With multiattack and some feats, you can deal decent damage melee-wise actually. Not optimal but fun.

[HockeyPokeyBard]

Including, of course, assembling flesh ghola.

The more people you bring to a Hockey Pockey Party, the better. Duh.

[RogueishScholar]

In a one-off adventure I played a dwarf bard of valor: Borin Songtooth. He had a war hammer in one hand and a light hammer in the other, which he used to play the drum on his hip. He was oblivious to humor and had a severe disliking of chickens. :smallbiggrin: