The Gaming Den

So, I was thinking last night. The primary utilities of the Perform skill are picking up a bit of spare change, and paying your skill tax to play a bard.

So, what if Perform just gave you Bardic Music abilities, rather than Bard unlocking those abilities? It would give other classes more of a reason to take ranks in what is otherwise a flavour skill, and it would take away one of the harder to justify classes, by making it's main shtick something everyone can do.

Good idea? Terrible idea? Prak stop being a dumbass idea?

Perform as written really isn't a very good skill. If it were broadened into "Showmanship" or something similar and made usable in more social situations (perhaps as an alternative to Diplomacy or Bluff), it might be a good skill. This is what happens in our system (although it is termed "Impress").

echo

I have recommended your suggestion to the relevant parties, Prak Anima. That is, TarkisFlux with the Tome of Prowess, since most normal D&D skills are more straightforward and wimpy than that.

Perform should just be a profession skill, like 'Profession: pianist'. If D&D was a game about godlike rockers, it would make sense to measure playing a flute on the same scale as sneaking past immortal guardians. But it isn't.

CatharzGodfoot wrote:But it isn't.

...it isn't? Shit, I must be doing it wrong.

I've consistently maintained that skills shouldn't give you superpowers, so I would be against it.

I've gotta second hogarth's sentiment.
Skills are just supposed to be something that everybody can do ... and I mean everybody. Just because you can pluck some nice sounding tunes on a guitar doesn't mean you can necessarily do the shit that Bardic Music lets you do.
Also, doing this now makes the bard completely superfluous useless.
The whole point of having a class system is for niche protection -- taking a class-specific ability and making it available to everybody is counter-productive to this goal.

wotmaniac wrote:I've gotta second hogarth's sentiment.
Skills are just supposed to be something that everybody can do ... and I mean everybody. Just because you can pluck some nice sounding tunes on a guitar doesn't mean you can necessarily do the shit that Bardic Music lets you do.

Fair enough.

Also, doing this now makes the bard completely superfluous useless.
The whole point of having a class system is for niche protection -- taking a class-specific ability and making it available to everybody is counter-productive to this goal.

That was the point, or did you not read the Thread Title?

We don't really need bards. Let people be the class they want to be and invest the skillpoints/feats/money in becoming extraordinary artists. For the little stuff like Inspire Courage or Competence I'd be all for that being given to anyone with a lot of Perform ranks (and thus letting it be in-class for anyone). For the very magical stuff like Song of Freedom or whatever, perhaps that can come bundled into a feat for magical music?

wotmaniac wrote:I've gotta second hogarth's sentiment.
Skills are just supposed to be something that everybody can do ... and I mean everybody. Just because you can pluck some nice sounding tunes on a guitar doesn't mean you can necessarily do the shit that Bardic Music lets you do.

Sorry wotmaniac, but that's bullshit. You can want power to not come from skills, that's a totally legitimate stand to hold and design decision to make. But saying that "skills should be something everybody can do" is fucking meaningless. The design of the skill system is such that everybody can do any of them already anyway according to their own investment decisions and subject to class / cross-class nonsense rectified with magic item boosters. What you are actually saying is that "skills should be (mostly) mundane things that people stop caring about in favor of their class abilities", with the corollary that "skill access is not a class feature in most cases, because they don't matter very long" as a result. Which, again, is a reasonable position to hold. But don't try to hide it in any "not everyone has the training for this" bullshit. If your level 8 skill point matters more than your level 1 skill point, because you're fucking level 8 and your level 8 skill options could be actually different from your level 1 skill options, then that skill point could easily represent the training that you would need to make magic jump from strings.

Foxwarrior wrote:most normal D&D skills are more straightforward and wimpy than that.

This. It's not a bad idea in a different skill system, but it's substantially more awesome than most of the the default skills. If you did such a change without other support, I'd expect to see it on diplomancers. Who would then fascinate people while they talked them into being their friends or whatever.

And no, we don't need bards. Some other half wizard class, probably, but there's a few of those floating around.

I'm going to try it out in my game with a feat letting you use Bardic Music as a bard of your level

That's probably better than a lot of the Tome combat/skill feats. Still, have fun seeing if it works out.

Honestly, I don't expect anyone to take it, but we'll see how it goes.

Prak_Anima wrote:Good idea? Terrible idea? Prak stop being a dumbass idea?

you are just a little over a month late for this topic....

bard, thief, and MANY more "classes" dont even really exist, they are just prenamed multiclass shticks. many serve little purpose except to bloat the list of classes, to make it look like you have more choices.

narrowing down classes to their base purpose then seeing if the class is even needed, is what the designers should have done all along. i still see little point int he thief class as, like assassin, it is already what ever adventurer does...steals shit.

bard, dont like, but if you have a skill system that has playing music, then anyone should be able to do those things, and a specific class for it isnt needed.

Prak_Anima wrote:

Also, doing this now makes the bard completely superfluous useless.
The whole point of having a class system is for niche protection -- taking a class-specific ability and making it available to everybody is counter-productive to this goal.

That was the point, or did you not read the Thread Title?

Oh -- I guess I misinterpreted what your actual goal was.
I was thinking that you were saying something along the lines of "if this option is moved to being non class-specific, is the bard still a viable class?" ... the obvious answer is "no"; but I guess that wasn't your question.

Prak_Anima wrote:Honestly, I don't expect anyone to take it, but we'll see how it goes.

Seriously, if my character's schtick is to be party buffer or the diplomancer, and I don't have to spend any class levels getting Bardic Music, you're damn right I'll take this.

TarkisFlux wrote:Sorry wotmaniac, but that's bullshit. You can want power to not come from skills, that's a totally legitimate stand to hold and design decision to make. But saying that "skills should be something everybody can do" is fucking meaningless. The design of the skill system is such that everybody can do any of them already anyway according to their own investment decisions and subject to class / cross-class nonsense rectified with magic item boosters. What you are actually saying is that "skills should be (mostly) mundane things that people stop caring about in favor of their class abilities", with the corollary that "skill access is not a class feature in most cases, because they don't matter very long" as a result. Which, again, is a reasonable position to hold. But don't try to hide it in any "not everyone has the training for this" bullshit. If your level 8 skill point matters more than your level 1 skill point, because you're fucking level 8 and your level 8 skill options could be actually different from your level 1 skill options, then that skill point could easily represent the training that you would need to make magic jump from strings.

Whoa, slow down there a little bit -- you're gonna hurt yourself.
I wasn't trying to write a dissertation on the roll of skills -- I was just expanding a little bit on what hogarth had said. The only point that I was trying to make was that skills should be just mundane things (for the most part, that is ..... once you're able to hit DCs of over 100, then sure, go ahead and walk on clouds and slip through walls of force -- but that's on such a ridiculous scale, that I don't think it warrants discussion when speaking of the "normal" scale).
Okay, back on topic here -- the point here was that skills aren't analogous to class features, and thus shouldn't get the same kinds of benefits. In short, I don't think that I'm that far off from where you're at.

Some of the abilities that bardic performance gives you are too powerful to be in a list of skill options (suggestion, etc). If the Perform skill were given some bard options, these should be shielded by a feat or two (depending on Tome or not).

But others are pretty minor and totally fit the rest of skills (the inspire options, etc). I don't see a reason why these aren't already options for the skill. Before you poop on what I just said, ask yourself if you disagree because it's unrealistic, and if the answer is yes you should really just ignore D&D. It's as stupid as a class ability as it is as a skill option available for every player.

Used to be bards were unique because they were the arcane class that could use armor, and bardic knowledge is kind of cool. Now they aren't unique and bardic knowledge is obtainable on other classes. Even if you simply got rid of the Perform skill, no one would miss the bard being gone.

If you wanted to eliminate the bard by making Magical Music more universally available, I'd probably go in a different direction. Some options ....
1) you could just play "generic" classes, and turn all class features in to feats (of course, then everyone would get a lot more feats)
2) replace it with a low-level spell and/or magic item (or flavor some fancy fey-oriented something-or-other)
3) feat -plus- skill trick or some sort of prerequisite ability

:twocents:

I literally just turned it into a feat, where X ranks of Perform allows Y ability, with uses per day equal to level + cha mod.

shadzar wrote:but if you have a skill system that has playing music, then anyone should be able to do those things, and a specific class for it isnt needed.

The skill system also has spellcraft, but that doesn't mean taking ranks in it should turn my fighter into a duskblade

We tried this once by eliminating bards and allowing to replace concentration with perform when hit during spellcasting, if announced beforehand.
The downside was that perform adds a verbal or somatic component to the spell (if not already existent) and makes it very obvious and un-stealthy.
On the upside you could use masterwork and magical instruments and benefit from aid another.
One feat gave you a class level bonus when using mind-affecting spells this way.
A second feat allowed you to counterspell any mind-affecting spell with another mind-affecting spell the same level or higher when using this method (only higher level if the other side uses 'bardic magic' too).

And yes, this bites non-magical characters into the behind once again, but those guys didn't exist in our campaign anyway.

Wasn't completely horrible in play, though, and added flavour without gimping a perfectly fine spellcaster.

That sounds good to me. But I don't like the bard class myself and would like it to simply not exist.

I think it's just combining bard and skill monkey into the same class. Which possibly gives the skill monkey a buffing role, along with the "out of combat/ indirect puzzle solving". It might be putting too many roles in one character.

Is there a reason adding a bard or skill monkey role to your character being a bad thing? A bard can't necessarily be a wizard due to somatic/verbal components. Adding skill monkey roles as an out of combat role isn't that bad either. I mean the real skill monkeys will already be the rogue/wizard/similar. So is there really a reason to deny this?

I am truly curious about this.

Cynic wrote:Is there a reason adding a bard or skill monkey role to your character being a bad thing? A bard can't necessarily be a wizard due to somatic/verbal components. Adding skill monkey roles as an out of combat role isn't that bad either. I mean the real skill monkeys will already be the rogue/wizard/similar. So is there really a reason to deny this?

I am truly curious about this.

you hit a nail on the head as to why Bard and Psionicist arent even needed. they are wizards, trying to violate the system of being a wizard. why would you create a class just to break the rules of the class mechanic?

likewise what is a rogue? those "skills" should have went away as well the class when 3.0 came out with a develop skill system that went beyond NWPs. FUCK even NWPs invalidated the need for a rogue/skill monkey, because it proved that all those "skills" could easily be applied to everyone else.

rather than is there a reason to deny a class based on these ideas, what is the reason to ahve it as a class? if your answer is "because it sounds cool", or you "like the name", then you are looking at it the wrong way.

if your answer to wanting a bard or psionicist is because you dont like the magic system of a game system, then why not find a game system that offers the magic system you like?

remember "knight" was a title granted at a certain level, not a class. it really is as silly as making a class called "barbarian" when this is trying to assert a social class onto a class system based on classes of study.

I'm just wondering where the 3ed version of the bard even came from.

I don't claim to have read every fantasy novel or watched every fantasy movie or played every fantasy video game (and in fact have not read a single thing since college English destroyed my love of reading novels), so I may be missing out on something, but all of the bard-like characters I can think of could be either rogues or some sort of specialist wizard...