Is it just me? - Bards

[GreyWolfVT]

So in the podcast the next topic we are going to talk about is bards and I gave DM Mike a bit of a shocker by informing him that I've never played a bard (that i can remember) and I've only ever been in 1-2 games in over 26 years of playing that ever had any other player running a bard. He was quite surprised at this anomaly considering bards to be a "common place" class. So I ask is it just me or am I right in saying most players don't really want to run a bard? Or at least with the track record I've had it's not nearly as common as most would consider/think just because it is a class in the PHB (generally true for most D&D editions) does not mean it is commonly used/played.

Thoughts/statements/factoids/comments/opinions/anything else?

[rredmond]

In 1E it's almost an impossible dream. My buddy Danny actually got the stats for it once. He was going to start with fighter, transfer to thief, and then wahlah, Bardom here he comes! We a couple levels in his fighter (Geros DeVaskos) lost a point of INT, and he was not so happy. His NG fighter quickly slid to CN and the quest was over. That slip to CN was going come sooner or later anyway knowing Dan.
But it was a very difficult class to go for in 1E for sure.

[dmw71]

In 1E it's almost an impossible dream. My buddy Danny actually got the stats for it once. He was going to start with fighter, transfer to thief, and then wahlah, Bardom here he comes!

This.

In 1e, bards are maybe more difficult to qualify for/become than paladins.

They're easier to qualify for in 2e:

• Dexterity: 12
  Intelligence: 13
  Charisma: 15

But, I think many players that transitioned from 1e to 2e may hold that impossible-to-qualify for mentality and not even consider them. I know I never did.

Like you, I never played one... until 5e, where I tried it once, and the 'social' component of that class is not for me and my playing style.

[GreyWolfVT]

In all honesty I never had much appeal to even try to play as a bard. Back when I started the guys i played with in elementary school we mostly all played Fighters, Thieves, Rangers, Clerics and Mages. Nothing "fancy" persay. The new group of friends in High School would have "picked on" anyone that played a bard as we all joked and warned you'll have to sing for real or play an instrument, or tell tales and stories, talk in riddle or rhyme (MonkeyWrench would love that). So really even in jesting with each other we still never would get the stats for playing one or the "balls" to really play one and risk having to sing or perform. Honestly the 2 times I've seen a Bard are most recently in one of Dave's 5e games and in a Roll20 game run by PyroArrow we I "believe" at one point did actually have a bard that either died off or the player left and the character was swapped out when we got a new player and made it back to town. Other than that even when i was in games on google hangouts i don't remember anyone ever opting to run a bard.

I agree with you Dave the social aspect of the Bard is unappealing to me and entirely not something I'm up to the challenge for. I don't generally want to be the spokesman for the party and be the charismatic one.

[MonkeyWrench]

I like bards...

I do understand the hesitance of bards from the point of view of having to act out the roles like sings or dancing (GW is right I would be perfectly fine that rhyming!) but in the same vein I find it equally awkward for the other classes. Who really wants to stand up and proclaim they are slashing their sword at a monster and pretend to go all Luke Skywalker on it? or waving a stick around screaming fireball like it's last call at the local college bar? We're table top gamers, not the most outgoing of people in most circumstances. So really unless the group does those things it would be unfair for them to make any bard character do them. As for the rules I've never been a strict rules-lawyer so I've never let the books define the type of Bard I want to be, just what I can get away with.

The role of the bard has always been the supporting role, never tanking the fights or casting the biggest spell but at the same time is always there to save the party when they need it, some support here, a bawdy tune as a distraction there, a few well placed words to the town mayor who is furious about the barn exploding, maybe even a speech or two so things don't escalate to violence... All are good tactics for a Bard.

I also never agreed with the slut-shaming of bards, all I ever hear from people about them is "sing song in tavern, score wench, get paid" What?!??

But in some lights I do understand how we got there, the ever misunderstood charisma stat... I hated that it was directly related to physical attractiveness but back then that was what you got... When using old rules I always try to homebrew that out a bit, make it more about personality and crowd/face reading.

The moral of the story is play more bards, they're fun.

[Zhym]

I do see bards pop up often in 1e in one very specific situation: the high-level adventure where everyone rolls up a PC with a specific high number of XP.

At 600,000 XP, for example, you could have a 12th level druid, a level 8/8/10 cleric/fighter/thief, or a 13th level bard with 7th-level fighter abilities (70,001 XP) and 8th-level thief abilities (70,001) who can also cast druid spells up to 5th level and identify the hell out of magic items. The roll-a-high-level-PC game is susceptible to this sort of optimizing of a PC's levels in a way that no player would ever have the patience for if the PC had to be grown from scratch. But if you can pretend all that tedium already happened, it's a heck of a class.

Sort of like Monks that way, really. You can skip past the whole part where they're probably going to die before they ever get powerful.

[dmw71]

You can skip past the whole part where they're probably going to die before they ever get powerful.

[GreyWolfVT]

I honestly am not surprised by your admittance to liking Bards MW. I would say the same of Monsieur Rose I imagine he likes bards seeing as he is a Dwarven Cleric in one of my games that sings randomly and his name is Dubb his steed is Stepp. Go figure right?

To admit about the Bard's seduction skills well we did kind of pick on the Bard in the Roll20 game of Pyro's but the Bard did have a tendency to "charm" both males and females from time to time. Then again he did have the highest charisma. So i guess it's all in the eye of the player running the character and their idea for the character's backstory and concept.

Now if i were ever to be a bard I think I'd be more like the guy from Knights Tale that would announce and talk up his knight. If I recall the correct term was a herald but i can see how that could also be portrayed as a Bard.

However the general basic out of the box bard to me is too much like the annoying minstrels in the Monty Python Holy Grail movie.

[Norjax]

I've never played a bard or recall playing with a bard in the group. I tried once to "Make them More Cool" by giving them a Heavy Metal style instead of the traditional Minstrel Type. I even bough the 2e Complete Bard's Handbook. Alas, I never implemented this but the lyrics of Iron Maiden would have figured heavily:

• You'll die as you lived
  In a flash of the blade,
  In a corner forgotten by no one.
  You lived for the touch
  For the feel of the steel
  One man, and his honor.

• Fight for the Pleasure
  OH... OH... Fight for the Honour
  Fight for the Splendour
  Fight for your Life!

• Axes grind and maces clash as wounded fighters fall to the ground
  Severed limbs and fatal woundings bloody corpses lay all around
  The smell of death and burning flesh the battle weary fight to the end
  The Saxons have been overpowered victims of the mighty Norsemen

• The killer's breed or the demon's seed
  The glamour, the fortune, the pain
  Go to war again, blood is freedom's stain
  Don't you pray for my soul anymore

However the general basic out of the box bard to me is too much like the annoying minstrels in the Monty Python Holy Grail movie.

^This!!

[dmw71]

A heavy metal bard would be pretty cool.

[MonkeyWrench]

A heavy metal bard would be pretty cool.

I totally agree!!

However the general basic out of the box bard to me is too much like the annoying minstrels in the Monty Python Holy Grail movie.

I find all of the "out of the box" classes are annoying or stale. Which is probably why I've never made a generic "out of the box" character before

[Zhym]

I wonder how well a party consisting of a bard, an assassin, a monk, an illusionist, and a druid would fare. Just the weird classes.

[GreyWolfVT]

I wonder how well a party consisting of a bard, an assassin, a monk, an illusionist, and a druid would fare. Just the weird classes.

Don't forget the Psionic. granted that's another Class I never have played nor do I have any interest in doing so.

Plus you had me thinking that was the starting line to a joke.

a bard, an assassin, a monk, an illusionist, and a druid walk into a tavern....

I tried once to "Make them More Cool" by giving them a Heavy Metal style instead of the traditional Minstrel Type.

I have implemented the Heavy Metal Bard or Minstrels as NPCs one time. It was in my A Village With No Name game on here and I had them perform Metallica songs.

[Norjax]

A heavy metal bard would be pretty cool.

A heavy metal bard would be pretty cool.

I totally agree!!

I'd still like to try it.

The subject of these lyrics should be familiar to most (second half of the song, "The Hobbit"):

https://youtu.be/FE8EyKpyodw?t=186

[Scott308]

Bards are actually pretty common in Adventurers League for 5e. I've played at a number of tables with one.

[GreyWolfVT]

Bards are actually pretty common in Adventurers League for 5e. I've played at a number of tables with one.

This is partly my point to my fellow podcasting DM's is that Bards at least in older editions were far less common than DM Mike is indicating. Just because a class is in the PHB doesn't mean it is played as often as one would think. This discussion here has proven that to be quite true. Until 5e I have almost never seen a bard run in a game and I still have not run one myself. I mean heck paladins and rangers are in the PHB but to get the right stats depending upon the roll method used is not easy to get and i bet those classes were less common as well I can count the number of paladins I've played on one hand and Rangers about the same.

I am definitely going to refer to this conversation/discussion on the podcast if i can manage to. I appreciate it guys lets keep this going.

[rredmond]

Also they were an “optional” class IIRC. So all DMs didn’t allow them in 1E. Besides the lethality of 1E which adds that level of difficulty as well, besides the Stats. I’ve played with DMs that didn’t allow Paladins and Assassins for alignment reasons. And Illusionists not being allowed because of the difficulty of adjudicating their spells. Really, for 1E (and I know your podcast is mainly 2E so my Groggity McGrognard tendencies might not apply) getting PCs up to those levels to reach Bard status (starting from L1) is very difficult.

[Zhym]

What were the DM objections to paladins? I know lots of DMs who wouldn't allow assassins, but that was because they're evil. This is the first I've heard of anyone having problems with Lawful Good as an alignment.

[rredmond]

Yeah. It was way more assassins than paladins. Heck I don’t allow assassins when I DM. But my guess is paladins, sorta like illusionists, are difficult to adjudicate? Plus on top of that, and not like illusionists, they are difficult to play. I’ve played in maybe two games that didn’t allow paladins and one that didn’t allow illusionists. So maybe I overspoke myself.
If overspoke is even a word.

[Norjax]

I have implemented the Heavy Metal Bard or Minstrels as NPCs one time. It was in my A Village With No Name game on here and I had them perform Metallica songs.

Nice!