Continuing my series on D&D classes, my personal history with them, and using them to analyze my playbooks for Heroes by Hearthlight to see what needs updating.
Bards are fucking freaks, okay? Just weird little guys that people love to play because it gives them full access to be chaotic and weird. For those who don't know I want to share the original pre-requisites for becoming a bard back in AD&D, which was before my time, but it so wild I have to share it. Bard was originally something like a prestige class, you'd need
- An alignment somewhere on the neutral axis
- Incredibly good stats, it had pre-reqs for every single stat: CON 10+, INT 12+, and every other stat needed to be 15+. Which is insane to contemplate with rolling- you had to get lucky as shit to unlock this path.
- Then you need to start the game as a fighter for 5 levels, swap to thief for another 5 levels, at which point you can go into druid... which was the base for the bard(?!)
Truly deranged shit. But it also goes to show that Bards have always been a strange alloy of other playbooks. They, alongside Cleric, remain one of those classes no one is going to complain about having in the party. Bards are skillful, can do alright in combat, can heal and throw out some spells, and provide support to the whole party. Jack of all trades, master of none has always been the phrase applied to them and it still works. I would usually see them replace rogues in a party because they can fill any of the skill monkey tasks while losing out on the damage potential of sneak attack.
Pretty much all my personal experience with Bard is from Pathfinder which, maybe more than any other class, was changed wildly by archetypes. You could gain different forms of performance that would buff different things, you could become a bard who gained sneak attack and suddenly made Rogues completely superfluous(something Paizo would need to course correct later on), or even a spellblade able to go into Eldritch Knight or Arcane Trickster without having to multiclass. My old table used to talk about how one campaign we would just play all bards as a literal band of adventurers because through archetypes we would be able to differentiate enough to not step on anyone's toes.
Today however, the best way to describe Bards is probably as the party slut. They have always been the party face as they have a high Charisma and the skills to back it up- but people love making them horny bitches. Which is fine with me, but its also amusing to me how the default impression of the first two classes I'm discussing are Cop and Thot. Which oddly enough now that I think of it, were both subverted by the recent D&D movie... I really should rewatch that.
Oh yeah there's also this guy
He was both heavily informed by the current idea of a bard and will probably keep it shaped for the next decade he dissolves into the public consciousness for the next decade. I don't think this is bad at all- but I do think the more interesting take is Wheel of Time's adaptation of Thom as a haunted musician with a blues vibes.
Okay so lets switch over to design mode. So far we have learned that Bards are malleable, capable of being musicians, spies, and swashbucklers. They are roleplay-heavy and tend to be the party face. And they are horny bitches.
The bard's power is INSPIRE which lets you spend a charge to reroll a die. You have to be present in a scene and able to be perceived, which I seems a fair drawback for how strong this power is. FitD games use pools of d6s and getting even one extra die can swing the odds in your favor- this is stronger than that because you are rerolling after the fact. If someone failed, you can let them reroll a die and have a 50/50 shot of getting them to a success. This also works with Immunity/Protection in an interesting way. Lets say you are trying to hit a ghost with a mundane weapon, its got Protection. You roll 2d6 for strike and get a 2 and a 5. Protection removes the highest result- so you got a 2 and failed the roll. Inspire could be used here to reroll the 2 and maybe turn this around. However, if you only had 1d or the foe had Immunity and removed 2 dice at the end, there would be no dice left for the bard to reroll.
I think this still sings, it does what people would expect of a bard- it gives support and instead of just improving odds by adding +1d it lets them try and squirm out of failure. On top of that it gives a shot at surviving foes with Immunity in a way that's completely different from a paladin's smite.
The alternate use for Inspire is gained with Destructive Interference. For those who are unfamiliar that's the term for when two waves cancel each out, and inspired the move. This lets you spend an Inspire charge to break someone from mystic control or temporarily disrupt an ongoing magic effect. I'm still really happy with this because while snapping someone out of mind control is circumstantial, disrupting magic is a great multi-tool. I've seen players get really creative with this in playtesting and the word "temporarily" should really be enforced to cause problems here. The bard disrupts a magic forcefield so the party can delve into the ancient ruin? I hope they've got a way out because it's gonna close after they enter and now they are trapped in there. A move both the player and GM can use to cause problems.
Charm Person is also doing everything I need from it. Whenever you push you can either look someone in the eyes to know their heart's desire or plant a suggestion to be obeyed later. There's a caveat in the rulebook that you can't suggest someone into serious self-harm because you can't hypnotize someone into suicide. But even with that the potential use removed, this gives a method of gathering useful intel and forcing an action on someone else. A swashbuckler style bard could roll for strike, push themselves, and plant a suggestion that allows them to disarm their opponent. Push effects just happen without a roll, so a fun consequence on a failure is their sword is dropped but they turn out to be a proficient brawler and they dropped their blade so they could grab the bard by the neck and lift them off the ground
Flawless Composition might need some work. Right now it's just a crafting boost that fills an extra segment whenever they are creating an item or composition. Compositions were my idea for "bard spells" and are essentially one-shot items, what if a bardic performance was a grenade. Bards have the composition, Elegy for Yesterday, as a basic piece of gear to introduce them to the idea but I need to write up more on the item type for the game. I might also buff this ability by having it also give the bard a free loadout slot that can be used for compositions. I was also worried this might be too similar to the Wizard's The Midnight Oil ability but I think its different enough- it just might need that buff.
Not the Face! is one of the moves I've gotten the most compliments on since I wrote it, so it's definitely staying in. It lets you spend Advantage(a party-wide resource like Inspiration or Hero points) to force the GM to change harm to a different consequence. This is the only defensive move the Bard gets and I love the flavor, but it also means bad stuff still happens. It's also a big uno reverse card to the GM who now has to think on their feet and figure out a different narrative beat. However, advantage spent is given to the GM as Doom to be spent, so the GM still gets something so they won't be too put out by being told no you can't hit me actually!
Jack of All Trades and Bardic Knowledge add expected abilities to the Bard and are originally from other FitD games. Jack lets you roll an action's resistance instead of its score 1/session. This is a modified version of a move you see a lot where you can roll your best action for any other roll 1/session but I wanted to constrain things a little. This lets you roll Fortitude for a Strike roll or Reflex for Stealth, it's a good way of giving you some dice on an action you aren't skilled in. Also if they have been going for broad mastery instead of depth as a Jack of all Trades they can potentially add +3d to a roll without having to spend stress or advantage. Bardic Knowledge gives you potency on gathering information and lets you always ask a follow up question. Potency increases your tier for a roll and you usually only get a follow up question on a full success. So this one ability makes Bards one of the best intel players at the table and lets someone go full spymaster with their Bard.
Life of the Party is another stolen move but a favorite- you can adjust a dice roll by 1 or 2 while indulging vice. The bard being the one who knows how the party just makes too much sense and they can also bring a friend along to benefit. One of better FitD support moves and gives the Bard a way to help out during downtime and outside of combat.
Well-Strung Instrument was a move I knew I needed but I also knew I could mess up with. It gives you +1d to social rolls if a target is attracted to you. Seduction moves can be really scummy and something that makes players uncomfortable. I think they definitely have their place in crime and spy fiction games with the knowledge that yes, you are being a bastard. Here I went for a more innocent bonus where you are better at talking to people who are into you- which seems easy enough. The caveat to keep the bard from saying everyone finds me sexy is that you need to roll 1d as a fortune roll if its in doubt. This can lead to maybe my favorite chain of events where a bard keep trying to use this and never rolls above a 3- just watch their ego shatter. I also had to add the note that the GM can simply say no they aren't interested, you can't use this to force someone's sexuality to shift. And if they are truly disparate, like trying to seduce a dragon or giant ape-snake chimera you make the attraction roll with 0d.
Yes the snake-ape thing happened in game. No, we have never let the player live it down.
Okay, that wraps up design and beyond needing to flesh out compositions I think Bard is pretty solid but I'm always open to feedback on here. Again, feel free to shout out requests for the next one. I also decided to add one last section to these to be extra but also add some flavor that suits me which is some comic suggestions for each class.
The Wicked +The Divine is a darling from a few years back and not traditional fantasy. It's a modern day book about the gods being reborn in the modern era and becoming popstars. Specifically, its about dumb kids getting godlike power and attention in exchange for only getting to live for a few years. I don't think its gonna transfer 1 to 1 at your table but there's a lot of great inspiration for bards in this book.
CODA is a post apocalyptic fantasy about an ex-bard adventuring to find a way to save his wife from a curse in mutated wasteland where magic is dying out. A sequel series is coming out to this soon, and I'm stoked- but I think the really interesting thing is we often see media about fallen paladins and the like but instead we have a fallen bard continuing with their quest. It also has a very good unicorn.
