Enchanters/illusionists should just be bards.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sat Sep 03, 2011 11:37 pm

Like, keep the bard class the same but give them ninth-level spells for enchantment/illusion. Let them use their instrument as a focus for their spells. Thoughts?

RadiantPhoenix · Post by **RadiantPhoenix** » Sat Sep 03, 2011 11:50 pm

So, the bard and the beguiler do the fusion dance?

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sun Sep 04, 2011 12:07 am

The title of your thread is backwards. The content of your post is, as usual after clicking through the ignore, under-whelming.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sun Sep 04, 2011 1:22 am

The bard should be an evoker. Musical instruments are a dumb focus for invisibility and silent image, but using a guitar to make a lightning bolt and a wall of flame, or a trumpet to shout is fucking awesome.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sun Sep 04, 2011 1:26 am

My brother played trumpet in high school. We made an endless number of jokes along the lines of his playing the trumpet and something awesome coming out the other end, a power which he would use to fight crime and/or save the world from aliens. I think that counts as the power being supported by the genre.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sun Sep 04, 2011 1:49 am

CatharzGodfoot wrote:The bard should be an evoker. Musical instruments are a dumb focus for invisibility and silent image, but using a guitar to make a lightning bolt and a wall of flame, or a trumpet to shout is fucking awesome.

No, not a guitar, an Axe, wielded by a stereotypical dwarf with gratutious umlats.

And there is probably sufficient thematic space for Metal Bards to have necromancy and outsider summoning.

Whatever · Post by **Whatever** » Sun Sep 04, 2011 2:48 am

Music magic should just be a feat that gives Perform as a class skill and some scaling bonus, plus the flavor of casting your spells with music. Or make it a character background, it doesn't need to be a whole separate class. You can have Musical Clerics too, if someone wants to play one.

Gx1080 · Post by **Gx1080** » Sun Sep 04, 2011 3:13 am

Bards are ghey so I rather have them eliminated and give Illusionists all the schticks.

Swordslinger · Post by **Swordslinger** » Sun Sep 04, 2011 3:24 am

Gx1080 wrote:Bards are ghey so I rather have them eliminated and give Illusionists all the schticks.

+1

There's a reason you don't see bards in any kind of cinematic fantasy. Watching that happen would be ridiculously stupid.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Sun Sep 04, 2011 4:03 am

Chamomile wrote:My brother played trumpet in high school. We made an endless number of jokes along the lines of his playing the trumpet and something awesome coming out the other end, a power which he would use to fight crime and/or save the world from aliens. I think that counts as the power being supported by the genre.

I think I've seen something like that

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Sun Sep 04, 2011 10:46 pm

I'd prefer to remove spell casting from bards and make them a lot closer to the religious operatives that they were historically.

Emphasis on the extreme nature of bardic training. Such as the final test before a bard was allowed to be called such: being placed in a stone coffin full of water up till your mouth was covered, but your nose wasn't, for three days, and having to create and recite a new and original work upon being let out from under the stone lid. Alternately the fact that Bards were some of the few trusted parties to broker deals between tribes in conflict, or the fact that Bards were used as agents of Druids.

Making tourbadours an npc class is something that's fine as well. Most of what is commonly shown in medieval fantasy are not bards, but rather wandering tourbadours who haven't actually gone through and learned the wide range of crazy crap that a Bard was expected to learn.

However a Bard was meant to be a teacher and instructor to children, historian for their people, and an agent and operative for their rulers and religious leaders.