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Serf posted:six-string samurai would make a badass campaign setting actually Dibs on the little kid that speaks only in weird screams.
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Jan 4, 2018 18:00
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Fans posted:The only real big issue is I can’t even think of a fighter Bard in fiction. It’s a uniquely DnD bit of weirdness If you're into bad fantasy novels, Patrick Rothfuss desperately clings to his protagonist as a bard in The Name of the Wind. But like I said, it's bad. So maybe there's a reason nobody makes their protagonists bard.
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Jan 4, 2018 18:10
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Fans posted:The only real big issue is I can’t even think of a fighter Bard in fiction. It’s a uniquely DnD bit of weirdness I can’t think of any fictional examples of a cleric. Van Helsing certainly isn’t one, and all the Arthurian examples are closer to Paladin.
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Jan 4, 2018 18:14
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Fans posted:The only real big issue is I can’t even think of a fighter Bard in fiction. It’s a uniquely DnD bit of weirdness But yeah, the bard is useless not because of what powers he has in the book, but because at the recruiting meeting, when one guy has a big axe, another a bow, another a big beard and a staff, everyone laughs and calls this guy useless because he has a keytar or whatever instead(he charms his way into being recruited anyway). It sounds to me like this originated in dnd but that's totally the narrative place that the archetypal bard joining the adventuring party starts from. Jeffrey of YOSPOS fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Jan 4, 2018 |
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Jan 4, 2018 18:17
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DalaranJ posted:I can’t think of any fictional examples of a cleric. I mean there is our lord and saviour Jesus Christ. Cure disease, Create Food it’s all there.
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Jan 4, 2018 18:20
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Conspiratiorist posted:But it *is* ridiculous. Bards are Wizards except somehow "using music!" leading to a big thematic disconnect from the rest of the classes.
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Jan 4, 2018 18:42
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Fans posted:The only real big issue is I can’t even think of a fighter Bard in fiction. It’s a uniquely DnD bit of weirdness https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsI5B6QQqIk
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Jan 4, 2018 19:11
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Just a point of clarification, Sam went gnome bard because that was the answer to least played class and least played race, rather than most useless of each.
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Jan 4, 2018 19:13
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Every adventurer group needs a bard. How else are people going to find out about your great deeds and compose mocking poems about your rivals and enemies?
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Jan 4, 2018 19:32
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gently caress all of you if you don't know and love Fflewddur, who is both comedy relief and a badass warrior. http://prydain.wikia.com/wiki/Fflewddur_Fflam FF is loosely based on a dude from the Mabinogion, and everyone who loves fantasy poo poo should read the Pyrdain books. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Prydain quote:Fflewddur Fflam, son of Godo, is a cantrev lord of Prydain. He is referred to as a King, but it is made clear that he is a very minor king of a tiny kingdom at best, much less important than the High King who rules Prydain. His kingdom is described as being dreary and dull. As a result, he often leaves it to go wandering as an unofficial bard. Though he returns from time to time to rule, he once mentions that he gets the feeling that the people of his country get along just fine even if he's not there.
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Jan 4, 2018 19:34
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Malpais Legate posted:So everyone here thinks fighters suck because they're just jealous of jocks?   
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Jan 4, 2018 19:38
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Wow I did indeed totally forget about him. I used to love those books and that's genuinely pre-d&d.
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Jan 4, 2018 19:41
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All y'all gonna be hosed when you gotta get your Sampo back and Väinämöinen hears all the poo poo you've been talking about bards.
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Jan 4, 2018 20:25
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Conspiratiorist posted:But it *is* ridiculous. Bards are Wizards except somehow "using music!" leading to a big thematic disconnect from the rest of the classes. I'm honestly not seeing this. The idea of supernatural musicians are a common cultural trope even outside Tolkienesque fantasy. The Pied Piper is pretty much a "town hires you to take care of its rat problem" level 1 quest. Pretty much every Disney Princess has a metaphorically magical singing voice. And then there's the whole "playing a lullaby to make someone sleep" which is common enough to be a cliche. And that's not getting into non-European influences, like the Arabic sha'ir (poets who could converse with genies and gain access to esoteric knowledge and powers). Libertad! fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Jan 4, 2018 |
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Jan 4, 2018 20:52
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:Wow I did indeed totally forget about him. I used to love those books and that's genuinely pre-d&d. High five jeff
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Jan 4, 2018 21:04
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Honestly shai'ir has been implemented as a wizard subclass and most of the song magic is just pulling off the wizard spell list. 3e bards are in a weird place where they don't do anything as well as the other classes and their buffs aren't super hot without massive investment. You can totally make a dope bard if you specialize in something, but the bard was always the "5th party member" which was usually code for "not good". Required a ton of dumpster diving to be brought up to par.
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Jan 4, 2018 21:17
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Oh my god you guys are nerds.Muhammad Ali posted:I done wrestled with an alligator, I done tussled with a whale; handcuffed lightning, thrown thunder in jail; only last week, I murdered a rock, injured a stone, hospitalised a brick; I'm so mean I make medicine sick. There. Guy that says "I am the moon" poo poo before punching you so hard you're not famous no more. Bards are for playing Muhammad Ali.
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Jan 4, 2018 21:45
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Razorwired posted:Oh my god you guys are nerds. I mean the bard is the best wrestler and grappler and boxer so I guess this completely checks out.
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Jan 4, 2018 23:19
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Does anyone know of a good generator or other easy way to make old looking scrolls and parchments? I like to print out important bits of flavor text for my players and am looking to make it look more "authentic". In this case the starting point for my next campaign is all the players being conscripted into the royal army because the orcs are invading and wanted to write out the summons.
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Jan 5, 2018 00:50
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Soylent Pudding posted:Does anyone know of a good generator or other easy way to make old looking scrolls and parchments? I like to print out important bits of flavor text for my players and am looking to make it look more "authentic". In this case the starting point for my next campaign is all the players being conscripted into the royal army because the orcs are invading and wanted to write out the summons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIAYd8Qj7IU is a pretty good example. Quick summary: Coffee
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Jan 5, 2018 01:23
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I'm supposed to play in a game of 5th edition. How's the class balance? hosed? I was thinking Paladin, Ranger or Rogue but I am wary to play a martial class in DnD ever again.
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Jan 5, 2018 01:25
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Ignite Memories posted:I'm supposed to play in a game of 5th edition. How's the class balance? hosed? The overall goon consensus is that 5e is significantly unbalanced in favor of casters. The paladin seems to be considered the strongest martial because of the spell slots it can use for spike damage on smites. e: iirc the college of swords bard is considered very strong because it's a full caster that can also use a sword and shred sick guitar riffs.
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Jan 5, 2018 01:29
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Ignite Memories posted:I'm supposed to play in a game of 5th edition. How's the class balance? hosed? Paladin is considered to be one of the strongest classes in the game. Balance is much better then 3 not as good as 4. Nothing you pick is going to be useless and it's pretty hard to make a bad character.
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Jan 5, 2018 01:41
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Ignite Memories posted:I'm supposed to play in a game of 5th edition. How's the class balance? hosed? It's a lot better. No save or die effects levels the playing field considerably and Martial Classes are generally able to pump out Single Target damage in excess of Casters, who do better at AoE. Not only that but Concentration encourages you to avoid gettign hit, making buffing the Melee a lot more useful than yourself now and getting casters to share some of the high level buff love. Casters in the end do come out ahead, but that's inevitable when they have a toolbox so much bigger than the Martial classes and those crazy end level spells. It's not perfect but it's not the massive yawning gulf between Martial and Casters that 3.5 was once you got even a little way into the level curve. Another important change is they've basically got rid of stacking bonuses and replaced it with Advantage and Disadvantage as well as capping Ability Scores. That's cut back on a lot of the ability to break the game over your knee by stacking buffs or getting the right set of items/class combo and also just kept the whole game more sane as monster AC never really goes above 20, so it's not all about stacking Accuracy/AC for melee anymore. That and healing is more readily available from hit dice out of combat, really cutting down on the need for casters with Heal Spells. If you're playing in a group that isn't powergaming then you probably won't notice the balance differences. Martial Classes make up for their lack of Spells with a small but useful set of unique abilities that can be fairly impressive, from how health tanky Barbarians are to the Fighters ability to pull off some real beautiful melee bullshit.
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Jan 5, 2018 01:51
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Paladin is strong in this edition. Ranger and rogue much less so. Paladin, by default, doesn't actually have a ton of spells to spend on smites, but multiclassing into a full caster gets you a lot of spell slots. I would recommend, as quick picks for that, Paladin 2 into College of Swords Bard, or Paladin 6 into either College of Lore Bard or Sorcerer. PS: it also depends on what your objection to playing martial classes is. Mine is generally not that they are ineffectual (fighters are perfectly capable of dealing damage in 5e, and action surge makes for a good spike), but that they are unengaging to play. Battle Master offers maneuvers, but the other fighter subclasses don't have equivalents. Paladin, on the other hand, has spells (some from their normal list, some granted by oaths), their oath abilities, and smites. They do have passive abilities also, such as the excellent Aura of Protection, and those aren't as fun to use. I like to combine that with another casting class for a varied and effective combat toolkit. Emy fucked around with this message at 02:03 on Jan 5, 2018 |
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Jan 5, 2018 01:53
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Ignite Memories posted:I'm supposed to play in a game of 5th edition. How's the class balance? hosed? Ranger and Rogues are junk. Paladins are great and dont give a gently caress about you're dumb wizard poo poo later on so I would recommend that 100%.
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Jan 5, 2018 01:58
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You should specifically stay away from PHB rangers (look around online for the UA ranger instead), berserker barbarians, and probably champion fighters. They're the absolute dregs.
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Jan 5, 2018 01:59
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Wait since when are rogues pit together with rangers as bad classes? I mean besides assassin or mastermind
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Jan 5, 2018 02:05
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Ignite Memories posted:I'm supposed to play in a game of 5th edition. How's the class balance? hosed? Paladin is the most well-rounded martial with a good mix of offensive and defensive abilities plus spellcasting. PHB Ranger is subpar - Hunter is functional but Beastmaster is garbage. There's an UA called Ranger Revised that makes the class overall okay. Rogue's good unless the DM tries to dick you over with houseruled Sneak Attack rules, or is an rear end about stealth (for ranged rogues). Arcane Trickster is best because spellcasting but Thief is alright. Avoid Assassin. Martials in 5e are quite adept at doing their job, as long as you don't expect their job to be much more than dealing (and taking) HP damage. Mind that there is little in the way of mechanics to really be a 'frontliner' for the party and that most encounters are one well-applied spell away from being trivialized, but dealing buttloads of single target damage is a very useful tool that full casters have limited access to for most of their careers. Soylent Pudding posted:e: iirc the college of swords bard is considered very strong because it's a full caster that can also use a sword and shred sick guitar riffs. Sword Bard is okay but needs a Hexblade (1) or Paladin (2) dip to really shine.
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Jan 5, 2018 02:06
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Any self-respecting bard should take that 2nd Warlock level for Disguise Self and Silent Image at will.
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Jan 5, 2018 02:23
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Another option for that second level is Devil's Sight so you can use Darkness and sword people up, grab Elven Accuracy later on and you can get super advantage.
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Jan 5, 2018 02:27
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Raar_Im_A_Dinosaur posted:Wait since when are rogues pit together with rangers as bad classes? I mean besides assassin or mastermind Rogue (specifically melee Rogue) has some real issues that are easily solvable but not quite obvious to do so. They are good at skills but relying on skill checks is inherently worse than using spells (plus there's a full casting class that is just as good at skill checks as Rogues are) with matters not helped by the hosed example DC math. And if being good at skills isn't that good a perk, then are they worth having around? What else have they got? They're the most fragile martials and their damage is at-a-glance subpar. So, out of the box, yeah no, not worth. So you fix them. One way is to go ranged combat, which lets you ignore their inherent low AC (only light armor, no shield proficiency) and works well with their defensive abilities. This route goes the crossbow expert + sharpshooter combo, giving you good range and two attacks to facilitate Sneak Attacking, the Wood Elf that can easily hide or Arcane Trickster that can give themselves advantage through familiar. For melee positioning is key, so you need the Mobility feat or the Swashbuckler archetype. Another way to deal with fragility is a Barbarian or Fighter dip for shield access and other useful abilities. Damage dealing is a concern as I said so you need Booming Blade or dual-wielding to bring that up. So your routes are essentially Arcane Trickster with Mobility, Swashbuckler with Magic Initiate, or some multiclassing. And in general for Rogues, they benefit greatly from getting easy advantage sources from their party, or chances to apply their Sneak Attack twice per round. TBH I'd never play a Rogue in a party without Haste.
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Jan 5, 2018 02:37
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Fans posted:The only real big issue is I can’t even think of a fighter Bard in fiction. It’s a uniquely DnD bit of weirdness Theres a massive saga that isnt quite done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_Light_and_Shadow edit: counterpoint to that long rear end serious saga there is the other end of the spectrum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spellsinger FRINGE fucked around with this message at 08:31 on Jan 5, 2018 |
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Jan 5, 2018 08:23
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Fans posted:The only real big issue is I can’t even think of a fighter Bard in fiction. It’s a uniquely DnD bit of weirdness quote:Lieutenant-Colonel John Malcolm Thorpe Fleming Churchill, DSO & Bar, MC & Bar (16 September 1906 – 8 March 1996), was a British Army officer who fought throughout the Second World War armed with a longbow, bagpipes, and a basket-hilted Scottish broadsword. Carry on.
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Jan 5, 2018 09:46
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TheGreatEvilKing posted:Honestly shai'ir has been implemented as a wizard subclass and most of the song magic is just pulling off the wizard spell list.
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Jan 5, 2018 11:34
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Raar_Im_A_Dinosaur posted:Wait since when are rogues pit together with rangers as bad classes? I mean besides assassin or mastermind Rogues are the skillmonkey class, and they're considered bad because of the problems with the skill system: most importantly that the reliability and utility of skills is heavily contingent on how the GM runs the game (relative to spells, which tend to be of inarguable power). They're not as bad as a Beastmaster Ranger, but that's a rather low bar to clear.
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Jan 5, 2018 11:45
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Rogues aren't bad by default, they're just mediocre, but they have some noxious archtypes or whatever they're called. Everything it can do can be done better by someone else, and also the bard. If you play as a rogue you will be fine, and if nobody plays a bard you will shine in moments where you get to use your skills and maybe one or two impressive sneak attacks where you rolled hot as gently caress, but that's also about it.
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Jan 5, 2018 12:57
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Gurney Halleck from Dune qualifies as a Bard, right? Also I don't think Bards are necessarily warrior poets, they could legitimately just be poets (or singers or storytellers or actors). It's just that anyone who embarks on a D&D adventure eventually needs to figure out how to kill something with a sling or crossbow, and Bards got the rapier in 3e because they're not as deep in the magic rabbit hole as wizards. Edit: Think of it like this. Wizards in D&D are kinda like "what if Isaac Newton were magical?" Bards in D&D are more like "What if Homer or Valmiki were magical?" Nickoten fucked around with this message at 14:24 on Jan 5, 2018 |
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Jan 5, 2018 14:20
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Nickoten posted:Also I don't think Bards are necessarily warrior poets, they could legitimately just be poets (or singers or storytellers or actors). It's just that anyone who embarks on a D&D adventure eventually needs to figure out how to kill something with a sling or crossbow, and Bards got the rapier in 3e because they're not as deep in the magic rabbit hole as wizards. I think part of the disconnect is that in fiction, you can always play-off a set-piece in a way that the Bard doesn't need to be able to contribute meaningfully to combat (think Mati in the Planeteers), but it's difficult-if-not-impossible to do the same in an RPG that tries to emulate such a story. So you can have stories where the Bard is largely combat-incapable and not have it shoot them in the foot because the story still works out, and that feeds into the mentality that Bards aren't great at combat, even if the game version then makes a bunch of allowances to allow the Bard to contribute meaningfully in combat anyway.
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Jan 5, 2018 14:32
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gradenko_2000 posted:I think part of the disconnect is that in fiction, you can always play-off a set-piece in a way that the Bard doesn't need to be able to contribute meaningfully to combat (think Mati in the Planeteers), but it's difficult-if-not-impossible to do the same in an RPG that tries to emulate such a story. Yeah and if you look at it in relative terms I think it still holds up, because D&D is a universe where "traditional" combat skill is not necessarily going to be what determines success in combat, but the setting still pretends it is. So the D&D Bard can still honestly say "I suck at martial combat" and bumble his way through a scene like that (while still getting to roll 1d8 +3 or something to contribute at least a little), but when it really matters in-fiction he can cast a spell to simulate Bards making a difference in important moments. You just have to look at class mechanics in D&D as a translation to D&D's wargame-inspired setting.
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Jan 5, 2018 14:43
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