Bards=amazing?

[Shoyliguad]

So me and my friend where playing gestalt and he made a bard... and it kicks ass... I mean the concept is amazing. He was level 20 and was a Grig/bard/siren/dirgesinger/ranger... He could throw out 10 times a day a song of stone and everything in the area has to make a DC 37 will save or die. Annoyed? Power word kill. Uhoh big bad balor died and so did the tank? And theres another balor? Song of awakening on the balor, oooh look balor fight. ohh yeah he has 50 skill mod in perform, song of horror anyone? DC 60 save or 1d6 str dmg and 1d6 dex dmg... I can go on. He is amazing. I learned that bards are the most under appreciated class ever. They aren't these little guys who can convince anyone, no they are killing machines...

[Shas aia Toriia]

Edit that so there is grammar, please.

[OneWinged4ngel]

To quote from the CharOp boards: "The old-fashioned notion that the bard is underpowered has long since fallen out of style here."

In fact, in the "top 10 most powerful classes" polls on CharOp, the bard was often clocking in right after the Big Four (before things like the Beguiler, Warblade, and so forth). The fact that he did so much worse in the general polls seems rather indicative that he's still underestimated.

Anyways, if you know what you're doing and have the right supplements, Bards can be pretty monstrous, because supplements have given them a lot of love. And Fascinate/Suggestion was uber ever since core.

Edit that so there is grammar, please.

Agreed, please write so that we have some idea what you're saying.

[continuumc]

hmm, I don't know about you'r friend's bard or his abilities. But bard's are certainly underappreciated. It is infact, one of my favorite classes. Just last night my level 8 fighter, level 4 bard character killed the DM's main boss: A level 14 Sorceror (assisted by two Erinyes) using the lowest level Bardic music effects: Fascinate.

The boss was being the usual "arrogant" villain, even being so gracious as to allow me to approach him when I quick drew my masterwork mandolin and fascinated him. The rest of the party dealt with the erinyes while I approached him, stopped playing and grappled him. Then while I held him, they tied and gagged him. A sorcerer isn't hard to kill once bound and gagged. A level 14 sorcerer, brought down by a level 1 Bardic ability. That had to hurt his pride.

[Stormcrow]

I'll second that.

[OneWinged4ngel]

weakest of Bardic music effects: Fascinate.

...You're calling Fascinate WEAKEST?

Are you nuts? That thing will bring wyrms to their knees at low level! It's much closer to broken than weak, having a DC based on your *perform check* (i.e. the enemy generally just fails horribly) and allowing just about as many free suggestions as you want.

On the contrary, many will tell you it's easily the *strongest* bardic music effect, probably followed by Inspire Courage.

Talk about hurting pride... a bard with fascinate can make it entirely possible to trounce *every* encounter susceptible to fascinate/suggestion or diplomacy without the rest of the party ever having to raise a finger. It can get pretty ridiculous (and heck, I've heard of it banned in organized D&D tourneys that allow just about any level of powergaming, but I've never participated in those and that's just hearsay on my part)

[ocato]

I was going to chime in but... you already know how I feel.

[OneWinged4ngel]

I was going to chime in but... you already know how I feel.

No I don't.

But I can guess

[continuumc]

*coughs* let me reiterate that (and i'll do it in my post above) I mistyped; I meant to say "one of the lowest level bardic abilities", not weakest.

[ocato]

I like bards.

[Fax Celestis]

I like bards.

As evidenced by your avatar.

Now, what does my avatar say I like?

[Fenix_of_Doom]

Grig/bard/siren/dirgesinger/ranger

I don't know what a Grig/siren/dirgesinger is but a character with so many classes hardly qualifies as a bard in my book, regardless of how good the bard is, this does not serve as a argument why a bard would be powerfull.
Also if the build involved a ranger I have a hard time imagining it was optimised.

[OneWinged4ngel]

As evidenced by your avatar.

Now, what does my avatar say I like?

*thinks REALLY hard.* Uhhh... Uhhhhhhhmmmmmm... Bicentennial anniversaries?

[continuumc]

Well, is a fighter with fighter prestige classes not still a fighter?

[Fax Celestis]

*thinks REALLY* hard. Uhhh... Uhhhhhhhmmmmmm... Bicentennial anniversaries?

In-correct. You are the weakest link. Goodbye.

[continuumc]

As evidenced by your avatar.

Now, what does my avatar say I like?

Sadism? err..I meant, drow. yeah, that's what I meant to say.

[Shas aia Toriia]

Fax, as evidenced by your sig, it is "Frostwind Virago". However, I have no idea what that means. Could you tell me what it is?

My avatar is my level 16 elven favoured soul, Shas'aia Toriia.

[OneWinged4ngel]

In-correct. You are the weakest link. Goodbye.

But... but I was going to use the prize money to support the Money For Children Orphaned By Peloran Clerical Errors fund!

[Rowanomicon]

I still prefer to play a Fighter/Rogue/Sorcerer (specializing in enchantment).

[Fax Celestis]

Fax, as evidenced by your sig, it is "Frostwind Virago". However, I have no idea what that means. Could you tell me what it is?

My avatar is my level 16 elven favoured soul, Shas'aia Toriia.

Frostwind Virago is a monster in MM-V. See?

[Zherog]

I don't know what a Grig/siren/dirgesinger is but a character with so many classes hardly qualifies as a bard in my book, regardless of how good the bard is, this does not serve as a argument why a bard would be powerfull.
Also if the build involved a ranger I have a hard time imagining it was optimised.

He mentioned in the first post that it was a gestalt build. Which, frankly, probably had a lot to do with the uberness of the character.

[OneWinged4ngel]

How To Put The Fear Of Singing Things Into People:

Let's take a party with three bards. "Oh snap, now won't that suck?" say the people who couldn't optimize a club out of a gatling gun. "No, it won't," says I.

So. Bard 1 kills people with two weapons. Bard 2 kills people with killer spells. Bard 3 sings more than Bards 1 and 2 and has more skills and stuff.

Bard 1 takes Song of the White Raven to progress her bardic abilities while taking either Warblade or Crusader levels. She also takes Dragonfire Inspiration, because she thinks dragons are cool. End result is a lady with 9th level maneuvers who gives +12d6 energy damage to *all* her allies' attacks for the entire duration of the fight, while still allowing her to do 600 damage on a full attack with her two weapons.

Bard 2 takes War Weaver and a 2 level Sublime Chord dip, and ends up with 9th level spells and the ability to cast spells of up to fifth level to affect *the entire party*. In round one, she unloads at least 2 powerful buffs into the whole party, or can unload 1 or 2 and then make a powerful 9th level spell offense, or can just cast time stop and give like 10 uberbuffs to the whole party. Whatever.

Bard 3 sings for +12 attack and damage with Inspire Courage, to all of her allies' attacks. She also has mad skillz (including the ability to handle traps and stuff), and some extra special songs, and can set up two of these a round. Bard 3 can actually totally just be a straight Bard 20 (with the variant that gives trapfinding)

Now then... these sisters three can also fascinate you with an arbitrarily high save DC. They also all have great skills, especially social skills, and basically can make anyone play into the palm of their hands. And of course, they've got huge stacking buffs they're all giving each other *while dishing out pain.* They're a pretty formidable team all on their own.

However, if even ONE of them takes Leadership (if you want to break out the game's most broken feat)... well, we're talking about *all* of those level 1 commoners and warriors getting +12 attack and damage, +12d6 energy damage, war weaver buffs, and hey, if we give Bard 3 the War Chanter PrC... they get full BAB and all the iterative attacks too. You're looking at an army of *level 1 characters* with about +34/+29/+24/+19 to hit, 14d6+14 damage, and then *war weaver spells on top of that.* Now imagine them ALL taking Leadership. And their cohorts, instead of just their level 1 expendables... (average damage is going to be around 56 *per follower* *per attack* before they even try to use something like power attack or a buff spell or a full attack with +34/+29/+24/+19. So with Leadership, every Bard will have 163 followers with around +36 to attack on a charge. Meaning 3 bards with 489 followers, each of which can be expected to do 56 damage in their own right. Now use White Raven maneuvers from Bard 1 and laugh hysterically as the world's nations fall before your onslaught of mightily inspired peasants)

Oh, and yes, this team functions at lower levels too. ^^
The point is, bards own. And not only can they own, but they can own at *every party role.*

"Who said bards suck?" The sisters challenge.
*Deathly Silence is their only answer.*

[continuumc]

Bards are still amazing, gestalt or otherwise. I think the real reason why people don't appreciate their power as much is that most people do not like to play supportive roles: I.E. Clerics and bards. They prefer to be the fighters, rogues, or wizards that deal all the damage and get all the glory. I enjoy playing clerics and rogues because, 1. you still get to occasionally claim some glory if you know how to play them and 2. when all the glory-claiming is said and done: A. either the bard had a strong hand in helping everyone achieve far more than they otherwise could have or B. everyone turns to the Cleric and says "That hurt, how about some of those delicious cure spells"


Bards are still awesome, but not normally in such a potent killing manner. But I don't think anyone can deny the awesomeness that is properly used bardic music. :-p

[Solo]

I still prefer to play a Fighter/Rogue/Sorcerer (specializing in enchantment).

[continuumc]

Points up at onewinged: err...what you said. heh.

[ocato]

Well, Dirgesinger is bardy and siren sounds bardy, so I'll allow it.

[Rowanomicon]

Haha, Solo, I was joking.
I've always loved Bards (and Clerics for that matter).
Needless to say that got me more popularity around the table then my dark Wizard and my uber-archer combined.
"Supporting" for the win!

[Mojo_Rat]

I love bards. I decided when we did our next game I was going to make a social oriented character and after some deliberation between a Bard and a modified aristocrat I settled on a bard.

I really love the character I found when we were in the cities basically i was the person to come to for everything. If you want it found sold seduced or discovered my bard was the person.

But Right now in our game were somewhere that only 1 pc speaks the language of those were encountering and i noticed a huge shift in my iinvolvement with these scenes.

I think this is why some people foolishly think bards are weak. Because the focus of the campaign if it never involves socialization or interacting with stuff outside o combat. Or very little out of combat then You can feel weak..

But the character is only level 5 so it may change for me later on. I have a whip and im not afraid to use it!

[OneWinged4ngel]

Points up at onewinged: err...what you said. heh.

[ocato]

I love bards. I decided when we did our next game I was going to make a social oriented character and after some deliberation between a Bard and a modified aristocrat I settled on a bard.

I really love the character I found when we were in the cities basically i was the person to come to for everything. If you want it found sold seduced or discovered my bard was the person.

But Right now in our game were somewhere that only 1 pc speaks the language of those were encountering and i noticed a huge shift in my iinvolvement with these scenes.

I think this is why some people foolishly think bards are weak. Because the focus of the campaign if it never involves socialization or interacting with stuff outside o combat. Or very little out of combat then You can feel weak..

But the character is only level 5 so it may change for me later on. I have a whip and im not afraid to use it!

Yes, Bards are very good at social scenarios, but they are not pidgeonholed into that one task. They are capable of fighting (not rogue fighting or Barbarian fighting per se, because those guys also get PrCs and have tricks, so the uber bard set ups that we all love to cook up are not the same as saying who needs a leap barb, its a team game... wow this is a long parenthetical apositive.) and contrary to popular belief, are useful in a fight. Even if it's just setting up flanks and buffing better melele characters/ back line defending casters.