Can you maintain simultaneous bardic music using different skills?

[Vindicus]

Is it possible to maintain 2 bardic songs at the same time if they use different skills? For instance if I was maintaining a Dragonfire Inspiration (for bonus damage) Inspire Courage effect through stringed instruments, could I on a subsequent round use another Inspire Courage that gives the standard bonus to attack, dmg and saves if I activate it with ranks of singing?

What got me thinking about this was the masterwork instrument section of Complete Adventurer (p.127), which has the following blurb after all the stringed instruments:

"A bard who uses a mandolin for bardic music can cast spells while performing, but only if those spells have no somatic, material, or focus components."

If I can cast a verbal spell can I also begin a new version of Inspire Courage using singing?

[Rebel7284]

This doesn't work. Even if an instrument allows you to cast certain spells while maintaining music, this does not automatically extend to other bardic music. With that said, since combat in D&D 3.5 is very often short, some folks will start multiple different types of music on subsequent rounds and just hope the effect lasts long enough.
Normally, inspire courage and similar abilities say

The effect lasts for as long as the ally hears the bard sing and for 5 rounds thereafter.
However effects like Lingering Song can increase this.

[Draz0000]

Song and Silence also has some masterwork instruments listed and among them are a few that do allow you to have 2 simultaneous bardic musics going. The fiddle, lute, and lap-harp all have this property.

Note that Song and Silence is a 3.0 book, not a 3.5 book so I would assume that the for a masterwork lute and fiddle that you would use the newer Complete Adventurer rules for their masterwork properties. Complete Adventurer does have rules for a masterwork harp, but in Song and Silence a harp and a lap-harp are different instruments so barring an update to masterwork lap-harps being printed in some other book, the Song and Silence lap-harp should still be useable.

[Gruftzwerg]

Since I made a War Chanter recently I can say that their level 5 gives you Combined Songs as ability. This allows to have 2 bardic music effects up at the same time.

[Doctor Despair]

Since I made a War Chanter recently I can say that their level 5 gives you Combined Songs as ability. This allows to have 2 bardic music effects up at the same time.

Seeker of the Song offers the same ability

[Blue Jay]

Is it possible to maintain 2 bardic songs at the same time if they use different skills? For instance if I was maintaining a Dragonfire Inspiration (for bonus damage) Inspire Courage effect through stringed instruments, could I on a subsequent round use another Inspire Courage that gives the standard bonus to attack, dmg and saves if I activate it with ranks of singing?

What got me thinking about this was the masterwork instrument section of Complete Adventurer (p.127), which has the following blurb after all the stringed instruments:

"A bard who uses a mandolin for bardic music can cast spells while performing, but only if those spells have no somatic, material, or focus components."

If I can cast a verbal spell can I also begin a new version of Inspire Courage using singing?

I think you could argue that, by the rules as written, there's nothing technically preventing you from maintaining two types of non-concentration bardic music (even two variants of Inspire Courage) at once, but I don't think it's the rule as intended, and I also think it flies in the face of common sense enough that most players and DMs will probably lean towards disallowing it.

To me, Dragonfire Inspiration explicitly says your allies lose some of the standard benefits of your Inspire Courage ability while you're using DFI. So, I would use that to argue that, even if you can sing both songs at once, a character can't gain both benefits at once (unless they come from two different bards). I don't think that's necessarily an iron-clad argument, but I think it's a reasonable argument, and one that's likely to appeal to a lot of DMs.

[Vindicus]

I think you could argue that, by the rules as written, there's nothing technically preventing you from maintaining two types of non-concentration bardic music (even two variants of Inspire Courage) at once, but I don't think it's the rule as intended, and I also think it flies in the face of common sense enough that most players and DMs will probably lean towards disallowing it.

To me, Dragonfire Inspiration explicitly says your allies lose some of the standard benefits of your Inspire Courage ability while you're using DFI. So, I would use that to argue that, even if you can sing both songs at once, a character can't gain both benefits at once (unless they come from two different bards). I don't think that's necessarily an iron-clad argument, but I think it's a reasonable argument, and one that's likely to appeal to a lot of DMs.

I would argue that I am losing something, a second use of my bardic music. I am burning through my resources faster. Obviously this isn't a big deal since you can just stop play one song and start another and have the effects of both for 4 rounds.


In regards to the War Chanter and the Seeker of the Song abilities. Those allow you to start 2 songs with the same standard action. What I am talking about requires multiple actions. I am not seeing anything so far that would prohibit it.

[FactualArcher]

Most bard songs require either concentration or last "as long as the ally hears the bard sing and for 5 rounds thereafter". This means that you cannot stack Inspire Courage, Inspire Competence, Inspire Greatness, Song of Freedom, or Inspire Heroics due to standard action conflicts and the fact that you can't sing multiple songs at once.

[Blue Jay]

I would argue that I am losing something, a second use of my bardic music. I am burning through my resources faster. Obviously this isn't a big deal since you can just stop play one song and start another and have the effects of both for 4 rounds.

I'm not sure what your argument is here. Not all resource expenditures are necessarily rewarded in this game, so the mere fact that you're spending an extra resource is irrelevant to the question of whether the rules allow the thing.

Dragonfire Inspiration has this language in it:


"When you use your bardic music to inspire courage, you can choose to imbue your allies with dragonfire. This choice is made when first activating the ability, and the choice applies to all allies affected.
Each ally so inspired loses the standard morale bonus on weapon attack rolls and damage rolls. Instead, he deals an extra 1d6 fire damage with his weapons for every point of morale bonus that your inspire courage ability would normally add to the attack roll."

In my mind, a DM could reasonably interpret this text to mean that your ally cannot gain the standard benefits of Inspire Courage while he is being inspired by Dragonfire Inspiration. With this interpretation, even if your bard can maintain two songs at once using different skills, your allies cannot benefit from both songs at once.

Certainly, that's not the only possible way to interpret that text. Your proposed idea might be correct. But, in reality, I don't think there's a clear, definitive answer to your question, so it will have to come down to, "Which argument does your DM find more compelling?"

[Vindicus]

Most bard songs require either concentration or last "as long as the ally hears the bard sing and for 5 rounds thereafter". This means that you cannot stack Inspire Courage, Inspire Competence, Inspire Greatness, Song of Freedom, or Inspire Heroics due to standard action conflicts and the fact that you can't sing multiple songs at once.

Inspire courage does not require concentration. If it did it would say so in the Inspire Courage ability.

In regards to needing to sing per the general rules for bardic music from the Players Handbook:

"Bardic Music: Once per day per bard level, a bard can use his song or poetics to produce magical effects on those around him (usually including himself, if desired). While these abilities fall under the category of bardic music and the descriptions discuss singing or playing instruments, they can all be activated by reciting poetry, chanting, singing lyrical songs, singing melodies (fa-la-la, and so forth), whistling, playing an instrument, or playing an instrument in combination with some spoken performance."

Singing isn't required.

[Vindicus]

I'm not sure what your argument is here. Not all resource expenditures are necessarily rewarded in this game, so the mere fact that you're spending an extra resource is irrelevant to the question of whether the rules allow the thing.

Dragonfire Inspiration has this language in it:



In my mind, a DM could reasonably interpret this text to mean that your ally cannot gain the standard benefits of Inspire Courage while he is being inspired by Dragonfire Inspiration. With this interpretation, even if your bard can maintain two songs at once using different skills, your allies cannot benefit from both songs at once.

Certainly, that's not the only possible way to interpret that text. Your proposed idea might be correct. But, in reality, I don't think there's a clear, definitive answer to your question, so it will have to come down to, "Which argument does your DM find more compelling?"

I'm not asking if it is possible to be affected by 2 separate versions Inspire Courage doing different things. I believe that you can and I haven't seen anything to contradict that.

My only question was can you start a new song with singing while maintaining a song with stringed intruments. I guess I should have framed my question more like, I think this is possible but was curious if there was errata or a ruling prohibiting it that I was unaware of.

[Darg]

I'm not asking if it is possible to be affected by 2 separate versions Inspire Courage doing different things. I believe that you can and I haven't seen anything to contradict that.

Dragonfire Inspiration modifies Inspire Courage. If it didn't you wouldn't be able to benefit from the bonus to saving throws. As such it starts to run afoul of the "Same Effect with Differing Results" rule for combining magical effects. You can rule it differently of course, but the rules aren't on your side for this one.


My only question was can you start a new song with singing while maintaining a song with stringed intruments. I guess I should have framed my question more like, I think this is possible but was curious if there was errata or a ruling prohibiting it that I was unaware of.

If you invest in the skill and are capable of performing in a plausible way without interfering with either method, nothing says you can't. It is how the rules work mechanically after all. Though if it requires concentration, I require a concentration check because you are being distracted by yourself.

[Blue Jay]

I'm not asking if it is possible to be affected by 2 separate versions Inspire Courage doing different things. I believe that you can and I haven't seen anything to contradict that.

Okay, I believe that I've offered a pretty good counter-argument to this. If you don't intend to engage with my counter-argument, that's your prerogative. But, if you insist on not engaging my counter-argument while also repeatedly asserting that you haven't seen a good counter-argument, you're just being rude.

Please stop doing that!


My only question was can you start a new song with singing while maintaining a song with stringed intruments. I guess I should have framed my question more like, I think this is possible but was curious if there was errata or a ruling prohibiting it that I was unaware of.

I really don't think you'll get a clear answer on this, largely because the rules for Bardic Music are pretty poorly defined and unclear in general. I agree with your basic assessment that there don't seem to be any specific rules forbidding this.

However, my advice to you would be to default to an assumption that you can't, because (1) it seems to defy a common-sense understanding of how music works, (2) the game's designers don't seem to have considered this mechanical possibility very closely, (3) several rules seem to have been written on the assumption that you can't do this without special abilities, (4) multiple people on this thread have said they don't think you can or that they would want to place extra restrictions on it if they were your DM, and (5) there doesn't seem to be a lot of benefits to doing it in the first place.

[FactualArcher]

The problem with Inspire Courage isn’t that it’s concentration based, it’s that “The effect lasts for as long as the ally hears the bard sing and for 5 rounds thereafter.” Therefore the bard needs to sing to keep the effect going. You still could start a different song, but you cannot maintain two that require singing at the same time.

[JNAProductions]

The problem with Inspire Courage isn’t that it’s concentration based, it’s that “The effect lasts for as long as the ally hears the bard sing and for 5 rounds thereafter.” Therefore the bard needs to sing to keep the effect going. You still could start a different song, but you cannot maintain two that require singing at the same time.

Would you not allow a Bard with Perform (Percussion) to use Inspire Courage with drums?

[Blue Jay]

The problem with Inspire Courage isn’t that it’s concentration based, it’s that “The effect lasts for as long as the ally hears the bard sing and for 5 rounds thereafter.” Therefore the bard needs to sing to keep the effect going. You still could start a different song, but you cannot maintain two that require singing at the same time.

This is true, but Vindicus is specifically asking about a case where one song uses singing, and another song uses a musical instrument instead of singing.

Vindicus also provided a quote from the general rules for Bardic Music that says, in effect, "These rules describe the bard as 'singing', but you can choose to use any other form of musical performance in place of singing."

[Darg]

"While these abilities fall under the category of bardic music and the descriptions discuss singing or playing instruments, they can all be activated by reciting poetry, chanting, singing lyrical songs, singing melodies, whistling, playing an instrument, or playing an instrument in combination with some spoken performance." (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/bard.htm#bardicMusic)

[Vindicus]

Okay, I believe that I've offered a pretty good counter-argument to this. If you don't intend to engage with my counter-argument, that's your prerogative. But, if you insist on not engaging my counter-argument while also repeatedly asserting that you haven't seen a good counter-argument, you're just being rude.

Please stop doing that!



I really don't think you'll get a clear answer on this, largely because the rules for Bardic Music are pretty poorly defined and unclear in general. I agree with your basic assessment that there don't seem to be any specific rules forbidding this.

However, my advice to you would be to default to an assumption that you can't, because (1) it seems to defy a common-sense understanding of how music works, (2) the game's designers don't seem to have considered this mechanical possibility very closely, (3) several rules seem to have been written on the assumption that you can't do this without special abilities, (4) multiple people on this thread have said they don't think you can or that they would want to place extra restrictions on it if they were your DM, and (5) there doesn't seem to be a lot of benefits to doing it in the first place.

I'm sorry if I was coming across as rude. That wasn't my intention.

I have always interpreted the "Same Effect with Differing Results" clause to only come into effect when the previous effects are incompatible. For instance the example used in the players handbook uses a series of polymorphs (mouse > lion > snail) that have diffent forms. You can't be all different forms at the same time so the latest polymorph takes precedent. I understand that my interpretation is not iron clad but niether is the opposite side of the viewpoint (thanks for the clarity WotC)!

[FactualArcher]

Sorry, I didn’t explain myself properly in my last post. Inspire Courage, Greatness and Heroics all specifically state they last while the bard sings, but since most of the others don’t, I guess you could play say Inspire Courage and Fascinate at the same time.

[Chronos]

Yes, Inspire Courage, Inspire Greatness, and Inspire Heroics all refer to the bard singing. That's irrelevant, because the rules for Bardic Music in general specifically say that it's irrelevant. You can inspire courage using an instrument, or dancing, or whatever, if you want.

Personally, I would rule that any given bard can only use one version of Inspire Courage at once, but that (actions permitting) you could combine either one of those with some other use of Bardic Music. Of course, a whole party of bards could all use different versions (regular and different energy versions of Dragonfire), for a quite formidable fighting team.

[Darg]

I'm sorry if I was coming across as rude. That wasn't my intention.

I have always interpreted the "Same Effect with Differing Results" clause to only come into effect when the previous effects are incompatible. For instance the example used in the players handbook uses a series of polymorphs (mouse > lion > snail) that have diffent forms. You can't be all different forms at the same time so the latest polymorph takes precedent. I understand that my interpretation is not iron clad but niether is the opposite side of the viewpoint (thanks for the clarity WotC)!

"Same effect" is pretty straightforward. "With differing results" is also straightforward. Therefore logically, as a general rule, it would apply to ANY "same effect with differing results" instead of just only those that are strictly limited to the polymorph subschool. Strict adherence to just examples is just as bad as ignoring them.

[Vindicus]

"Same effect" is pretty straightforward. "With differing results" is also straightforward. Therefore logically, as a general rule, it would apply to ANY "same effect with differing results" instead of just only those that are strictly limited to the polymorph subschool. Strict adherence to just examples is just as bad as ignoring them.

Oh I wasn't saying it only counts for polymorph. I was saying that the intent seems (to me) that same effect differing results is applying to any effects that when combined are inherently incompatible, in this case the polymorph line but not limited to it.

It is quite possible my group and I have been interpreting this wrong for many years. For instance we always assumed you could stack resist energy as long as it protected from different energy types. Heh, how in the world was this not clarified in the 10 years that that WotC supported the game?

[Darg]

It wasn't clarified because no one actually cares. Similar to how there isn't a rule for abilities like a soulknife's mind blade technically being RAW legal to have more than one at a time without the shape mind blade feature. (Even holding multiple at the start of a fight charged with psychic strike is technically RAW legal as well as enhancing it like a normal magic weapon.) We're all human and make base assumptions.

The groups that want resist energy to stack will have it stack regardless of what the rules say because it is convenient to do so.

[Mnemius]

If you allow PF material, there's a shadowbard spell. If I remember right, it uses a spellslot to get a 2nd bard performance going, that doesn't use bardic performance rounds...

[ShurikVch]

Multivoice feat (Savage Species) allow to do it (presuming you have more than one head)
But, unfortunately, by the RAW it works only for spells and SLA
Bardic Music effects which are (Sp):
Fascinate
Suggestion
Song of Freedom
Mass Suggestion
Command (Half-Elf sub. level)
Dirge of Binding (Harbinger variant class)
Lull Aberration/Sicken Aberration/Vitalize Aberration (Music of the Outer Spheres feat)

[Mordante]

Would you not allow a Bard with Perform (Percussion) to use Inspire Courage with drums?

When I DM I would not allow this.


Yes, Inspire Courage, Inspire Greatness, and Inspire Heroics all refer to the bard singing. That's irrelevant, because the rules for Bardic Music in general specifically say that it's irrelevant. You can inspire courage using an instrument, or dancing, or whatever, if you want.

Personally, I would rule that any given bard can only use one version of Inspire Courage at once, but that (actions permitting) you could combine either one of those with some other use of Bardic Music. Of course, a whole party of bards could all use different versions (regular and different energy versions of Dragonfire), for a quite formidable fighting team.

I don't agree, I think you need perform sing to do Inspire Courage

To be affected, an ally must be able to hear the bard sing.

[Blue Jay]

When I DM I would not allow this.

I don't agree, I think you need perform sing to do Inspire Courage

To be affected, an ally must be able to hear the bard sing.

Did you see the quote that's been provided, like, 3 times now?


"While these abilities fall under the category of bardic music and the descriptions discuss singing or playing instruments, they can all be activated by reciting poetry, chanting, singing lyrical songs, singing melodies, whistling, playing an instrument, or playing an instrument in combination with some spoken performance."

https://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/bard.htm#bardicMusic

This is from the general "Bardic Music" heading, just before it provides descriptions of the different bardic music abilities. It literally, specifically tells you that, just because it says "singing", doesn't mean that singing is the only skill you can use. It's understandable that this could get overlooked while skimming the rules text, but it ought to be very clear by this point, since several different people have provided this quote in this very thread.

When reading rules text, you really should not skim: be thorough and check the general headings instead of just reading the one line.