I love bards.  They are that jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none that really complements a party AND glues the party into the soft-tether campaign's social lifeblood. That almost everyone smart enough to speak likes music, and especially praise music that makes them memorable to others, is a golden ticket to some eccentric encounters creating strange favors.

That armor allowance at the beginning, along with some Thieves' Skills, really helps them mix it up with party placement. A solid support regardless of composition, especially if your GM likes to tempt the party into cool party-splitting opportunities. (You DO tempt your parties with beneficial party-splitting opportunities, don't you?  All stick no carrot will lead to stale routine play.) And this is even moreso if you actively use that Reaction roll.

I think people need to diversify their play with different party compositions just to see how different classes and sub-classes can take on the same adventure challenges. Once you see the potential you realize there's a lot of depth of play to mine in what seems "not focused enough". 

Quote from: jhkim on December 29, 2022, 12:22:42 AM

Quote from: SHARK on December 28, 2022, 05:04:11 PM
Indeed, I also love the Bard archetype as a warrior/scholar. It's often forgotten, especially by modern audiences, that barbarian/primitive/Dark Ages/Tribal peoples, while not being as sophisticated or specialized as larger, urban civilizations, even they, too, recognized individuals that had special talents for wisdom, knowledge, music, and just *thinking* deeper, and differently than the normal tribal person.

I've mentioned this in a previous thread. The problem with the bard as scholar is that to the modern mind, the archetype for the scholar is the bookworm - someone who has digested thick tomes of knowledge. And in D&D and in most of modern fantasy fiction, that archetype is the wizard.

The bard comes from pre-literate cultures, when memorizing long poetic sagas to music was how knowledge was transmitted. If we're in a culture that has lots of books and literacy is common (which is the assumption in D&D), then the bard as scholar doesn't work as well. I think unfortunately, the bard archetype just isn't as strong when there's a literate culture. Still, individual bard characters can still be interesting as generalists and artists. I might post again with some weaker archetypes of bards that work.

The D&D mage may be educated, but they are not, typically, a communicator. They study the secrets of magic, but don't go around teaching them.

The bard, on the other hand, is primarily a communicator.

One role they have in an adventuring party is that they can tell the story of the other player characters. Helping to build the myth of someone else's character is every bit as much fun as coming up with your own concepts. And some players are bad at talking up their own characters. if a bard can create the story of Sir Doug the Fearless, because Doug made his saving throw that one time, then Sir Doug now has some of that larger than life sense of heroism that helps the game to come alive.

They can also do the talking for characters that used Charisma as their dump stat. And if that becomes burdensome, you can have them roll to do it, instead of acting it out and taking up too much of the game session.

They might also serve as the party detective, or as something of a Renaissance Man, or as a spy.

I have around 1 bard per 60,000 in the population. From their number a couple are world-class... Sting, McCartney, etc. most of our bards are vagabond sorts.

QuoteOne role they have in an adventuring party is that they can tell the story of the other player characters. Helping to build the myth of someone else's character is every bit as much fun as coming up with your own concepts. And some players are bad at talking up their own characters. if a bard can create the story of Sir Doug the Fearless, because Doug made his saving throw that one time, then Sir Doug now has some of that larger than life sense of heroism that helps the game to come alive.

Interesting option for older edition where certain social umph acquired with leveling like henchmen, or guild status was part of class leveling - the bard/skald could increase his team-mates options in this regard. Not getting followers himself maybe - but let's say - spending X time and some resources he can get his fighting-man buddy extra D6 followers compared to his usual FM limits.