Evil Bard

You mean the kids?

elm street - Heavy Metal Power
metallica - for whom te bell tolls
motörhead - king of kings
slayer - raining blood

those are the songs I am able to pull off when I play with my party. fortunately our GM has a guitar so I can play these songs for real while playing.
but most powermetal-bands have very fitting songs. not quite my genre, though.

As a populist anarchist demagogue. He wanted to see the nation burn.

In 3.5 I was told that bards were the weakest class and made fun of by the party of relative newbs who were all "full caster uberpowerful", "massive damage=win" and "unholy might of antipaladin crush enemy".

Harbinger bard with haunting melody, subsonic song, and maxed diplomacy and intimidate.

I got the wizard accused of heresy (actual heresy, not the WH40kid version) and he was suddenly reminded that clerics have spells too and that many of theirs are anti-caster specced. I got the antipaladin hunted down by a good church and branded an outlaw, and the barbarian hung for murder that he didn't commit.

Because social skills and inflicting penalties on your allies instead of their enemies in secret can cause other people to do your dirty work for you. I am no longer allowed to play evil characters.

Nice revenge there, I chuckled.
I was thinking of having my character be conceited about his apperance and if someone teased him about it then he would eventually do something to hurt that person, for example maybe switch their poision and health potion by using color dye and changing the labels. How does that sound?

You're a bard. You can do something more poetic than that.
How about using illusion magic to make him fuck his own mother?

Anything instrumental

Also, slight of hand skills. Take some ranks in alchemy and literally change what potions look like after you have been given them to hold onto. Learn to craft magic items and give them to your allies - because bards can cast scrying and divination spells, and those make very handy targets to focus on if you don't happen to have pieces of your enemy (or allies) hanging around.

>evil bard is TMZ
I like it

This is how you play bards.

DO NOT SPEAK TO ME OF EVIL ILLUSION BARDS.

In the first roleplay we were ever in together as players, my fiance played a chaotic neutral halfling bard, who got so fed up of our paladin and ranger disrespecting and abusing him that he took a running leap over the cliff of chaotic evil.

Several levels and three terrifying prestige class combos later, the ranger had been tricked into killing and eating a sacred horse in the presence of the tribesmen who worshipped them, who promptly had him drawn and quartered, and the paladin had been put through an almost comically comprehensive series of illusory frame-ups that even the demi-god he worshipped couldn't make heads or tales of them of them and ordered him to fight a duel to the death to prove his innocence in trial by combat. AND THE DAFT NUMPTY SAID YES , CHALLENGED US AND GOT BUTCHERED.

None of us were that sad to see him go. And the best part is, the Bard was so damn subtle about it, even the stuff we knew about OOC we had no reason to call him on in character. He always appeared, no matter how much evil shit he was getting up to, to be the least troublesome and divisive member of the party, and half the time, even OOC, we had no idea what he was up to. Case in point, during a conversation about that games GM and his penchant for forcing players t suffer for no apparent reason, a full FOUR YEARS after the game ended...
Me ''I always wondered what the point of ''all those dwarves you were protecting died'' was. He threw us through time against our will, and then made a big show like we'd abandoned them on purpose''
Him ''What? No, that was for my benefit, I killed all the dwarves''
Me ''What?''
Him, bursting into laughter ''Yeah, before we went out to scout that morning I influenced the leaders mind to make him lead the whole clan into a deathtrap because that one dwarven child insulted me. Did I really never tell you that?''

The moral of the story is NEVER FUCK WITH THE BARD.

I want to leave Mr. Bones' wild mosh pit!

How does one get that sneaky? Planning with the GM offscreen?
I actually want a player in my campaign to try that.

Not the user your asking, but yes essentially. He probably accomplished it with texts depending on what medium they were playing over. If you can communicate with the dm without others knowing you can get away with all kinds of stuff. For instance in a shadow run game i once spent half a session trailing the party with a sniper rifle waiting for the opportunity to blow the faces head off and no one was the wiser. I had also rigged our appartment, and the vehicles of each of the other members of the party to explode, and again, no one ever figured it out. Killed off an npc the other players had liked on the side as well, but that was just looking out for my interests.

If you're playing in person then just pass notes to each other, if it's through online, roll20 for example, then just do it through message.

Chaotic Neutral rather: Does things on a whim and nobody can tell what he does next, but has his own internal logic he follows.

My bard was a conman. He had no combat spells, everything was related to trickery and illusion (still managed to contribute to fights with a bit of creativity). This was one of my favourite moments

>Background: Our party are a bunch of mercenaries of varying morality. My character had previously "died" but made a deal with the devil to come back to life but had to perform three jobs that he would find out later and wasn't able to tell anyone.
>Our current mission was to infiltrate a train and thwart an assassination on our client
>However my bard got one of his devil jobs and had to go assassinate another passenger on the train
>That passenger happens to be a famous author who wrote a lot of books our young naive wizard was a fan of (and wanted to meet)
>Assassination attempt on party's client begins. my bard slips away to use the confusion to kill his own target
>Disguises himself as a train guard, sneaks onto author's carriage and bluffs the other guards into leaving to go take his place in the battle he just ran away from
>Guards leave my bard alone with his target. He quickly stabs him in the stomach
>Wizard shows up right after having noticed that my bard left. All he sees is the author bleeding out on the ground (with my guy discreetly kneeling on his chest so he cant speak). Bard convinces wizard of an elaborate lie about the author being the true main target of the assassins with our mission just being a distraction
>IRL, whole party is chuckling as DM makes wizard and my bard roll dice fairly. I get away with it

cont

>Wizard starts freaking out. Pulls out a potion to feed to the author
>I come up with a plan quickly. "Oh, good, you have a healing potion, toss it to me quickly"
>I succeed on the persuasion check
>Wizard tosses me potion. I sleight of hand it for another potion I have in my inventory
>I have no idea what this potion does, when I found it, the DM only said it was green and kinda fizzy, but I figure I have nothing to lose
>Pour potion into author's mouth.
>Author starts to fucking dissolve
>Whole table has completely forgotten about the battle theyre meant to be a part of right now, everyone's just laughing at this mounting series of stupidity
>Wizard freaks out again. Wonders why his healing potion is dissolving his favourite author
>Bard concocts another elaborate lie that the potion maker we bought it from is also in on the conspiracy and was trying to kill us
>Succeed on deception
>Bard assures the wizard he will help get justice for the author by helping him kill the (innocent) potion maker later on

And so we ended up spending the next session tracking and hunting an innocent man. Of course killing the potion maker led to even more questions and more elaborate lies. The whole thing escalated until we ended up wiping out the police force of the whole city. And all because my bard needed to save his own ass.

Here's some tips:
>Bards are NOT solo fighters. They always come with allies
>They are NOT head on fighters either. They are tricksters who let others do the heavy lifting
>Persuade people, intimidate people, cheat people into helping you and otherwise
>You are not a rogue or a sorcerer or a combination of thereof; act accordingly
>Running away is always THE option to take in a fight, you are a bard after all
>Ranged is the way to go unless you have stats and weapons out the wazoo to compensate for the lack of health

Vaporwave

How do you figure that?
Evil people can't be for hire?

Because in the end he didn't do it out of malice, the key element of being evil.

He didn't?

>IT GOES IT GOES IT GOES IT GOES IT GOES IT GOES IT GOES IT GOES IT GOES IT GOES IT GOES IT GOES IT GOES IT GOES IT GOES

That implies that he would've done it whether or not the residents had paid him or had always loomed the threat above them rather than being a random passerby there to aid the town for money.

Well, if they asked him to get rid of the pests without further specification...

>That implies that he would've done it whether or not the residents had paid him
No, it means they provoked his ill will. But his response was disproportionate and targeted innocent people.

But it's responses like this that make a man evil. That's the thing. Evil people can work for hire, and not set fire to the house of their employer.

Masterwork magical instrument that works like an electric guitar, ultimate evil bard instrument.

Or just use a war-drum

>walk into tavern
>take up lute
>Cast: Enthrall

"I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves..."

> Slaps you up when you fall down in combat, screaming "I'M SORRY, IS THIS NOT YOUR TEMPO?!"
> "GET UP, MAGGOT! THIS IS MY STORY, AND I WILL NOT LET YOU RUIN IT!"
> "Focus fire on the phylactery -- gods above, have you never heard stories about liches?"
> "Are you upset? Do you think crying is going to solve anything? Pick up your sword and fight!"
> "Either you're deliberately fumbling your footwork and sabotaging my team, or you don't know you're a terrible swordsman, and that's even worse."
> Stories are at least 60% lies and hyperbole
> Won't let you rest until you've accomplished your missions
> Openly mocks you for weakness

If I ever play an evil bard, it'll be a thinly veiled version of JK Simmons in Whiplash.

>yfw the drill instructor's at imperial legion basic are all bards

forgot image

I need more songs for when my group is in battle!

I will be incorporating such an entity into my campaign. Thank you, user.

if you are looking for inspiration on how to play an evil bard that turns people against each other its not a very good film but rainbow rocks should give you some ideas

especially the battle of the bands song that song is a masterpiece of manipulation

Wow, that's actually helpful.

He would pass notes and text, and we always got spot and listen checks for anything he tried to do that was noticeable. As far as I'm aware, he refused to plan anything with the GM between sessions while he was still a member of the party, saying it seemed unfair that he get that kind of advantage and that he'd prefer to put the effort into keeping us in the dark. He's a swell roleplayer like that.

Once we finally discovered his deceptions and he made a run for it and became a villainous NPC however... Then he happily fed the GM evil plans in private, and the quality of the GMs evil schemes shot up multiple notches. Some of those sessions were simultaneously the most stressful and most fun experiences I've ever had in roleplay games.

Npc in my campaign was a neutral evil bard.
He was pretty much an assassin for hire. He always went with the highest bidder, and only took interesting jobs.
Back in the day he was your typical hit it and quit it kind of guy. He fucked with the wrong lady one day though. She cursed him horrible features, making him completely unfuckable. He traveled forever to find her, always one day too late, always finding a note that would ask him how it feels to long for someone this much (i.e, basically here's what it's like stealing bitches hearts and leaving them without a word).
Once he found her, she gave him the cure. His youthful Visage returned, his body lithe and able to play his music again. But with one last laugh, the cure was a vampirism disease. "Now, you will truly know what it is to be sought after. Not by women or husbands anymore. By hunters, by angry villagers, by the king and his men, all because your voracious apatite. Good luck.".

He pretty much just roams around looking for fun stuff to do, helps the party or hinders them, depending on how things go.

the only right way:
youtube.com/watch?v=V_q1SdaWLlw
youtube.com/watch?v=_-MG4ejYe94
youtube.com/watch?v=wwYjGDIWlNw
>when there's also a bard in the party
youtube.com/watch?v=sc1YTC3NYMs

I recently played a LE bard inspired by Phantom of the Opera. Erich was a star tenor in the big city, who fell in love with a repeat opera-goer, always sitting in the front row. He became convinced that her wide smile and longing look meant his feelings were reciprocated (when in reality, she was imagining herself on the stage). They eventually met, and he convinced her to join the opera company.

Her voice was beautiful. Beyond compare. But the manager of the theater put her merely in the chorus, which would just not do. Erich first threatened to quit if she was not made the prima donna. After this was laughed off, he tried to blackmail the manager about cooking the books, and Erich found himself murdered. An "accident" with a sandbag smashed his head in.

He rose from the grave as a revenant (we used an intelligent undead homebrew), driven by his obsession with her, and was promptly chased away by the local clergy. Erich quickly learned to hide behind a mask, concealing the ruin of his face that marked him as a hated undead. That was where the PCs came in.

As far as play-style goes, he was a fairly focused mind-control bard. Lots of charm and dominate, fear effects, and various theatrically-flavored illusions. Most of the PCs thought in-character he was fairly nice. He saved his true depravity for truly heinous mind-control shit that went on without the other characters' knowledge. Covertly making an antagonist noble stab their child to death. Bringing masonry materials to a prison and Suggesting that an imprisoned baddie seal themselves into the wall. An unhealthy fascination with prostitutes that happened to remind him of his beloved, in lieu of standard bard womanizing. That sort of thing.

Eventually, after saving the land from your standard sinister cult, the PCs (who were all exiles of one form or another) were forgiven of their crimes and invited to the capital city to be rewarded. Erich, however, merely wanted to attend an opera. There she was, risen to lead soprano, and more beautiful than ever before.

That night, after the performance, Erich revealed himself to her. She was astonished by his appearance, but had known in her heart he was still alive. Even when he removed his mask, her eyes looked past the ruined face. And Erich asked her, please, to sing for him once more.

She apologized. The night's opera had strained her voice, and she must rest before she could--

That would not do at all. Erich cast Suggestion, and forced her to sing for him, to make the evening as perfect as he had envisioned it.

At this point the DM put on the title song from Phantom of the Opera. If you haven't heard it, it opens with a haunting bit about how "the Phantom of the Opera is there, inside your mind...." It ends with the soprano repeatedly singing a gorgeous musical phrase. The soprano repeats the tune, higher and louder every time, as the phantom cries in exultation, "Sing, my angel! Sing for me!"

The DM told me her voice was as wonderful as I remembered. He described her voice beginning to quiver. A tinge of fear entered the note. I cast Dominate Person, and told her to keep singing. The DM described the magnificence of the melody, the emotion unmatched by anything on the stage. And he told me how her eyes had begun to tear up, and that I could see her throat begin to constrict.

You see, Dominate Person says that the target doesn't do anything you don't allow it to do. And Erich had told her to keep singing, to not stop for anything.

Lawful Neutral. You have no concept of justice.

The DM told me that her face was beginning to turn blue. Erich didn't care. He was lost in the music, weeping in ecstasy. And as she finally reached the crescendo, pouring her every breath into a note higher and more triumphant than any she had reached before, she finally gave out. The DM described her face's rictus, eyes gaping, her pale skin turned violet from suffocation.

Erich doubled over her corpse, still weeping, though he knew not whether in rapture or anguish. The party never saw him again. All they found was his mask, left at her side.

Honestly, I'm glad he 'died' when he did. I was getting into a pretty weird headspace playing him.

Killing innocent people is justice?

>Children are people

That's retarded in more ways than one.

Go away virt

Not sure if this is evil per se, but I did play a multiclass Bard/Barbarian once. The DM and I worked some things out, and well... let's just say that my Bard-barian's "axe" was quite literally an axe.

IT'S JUST A JUMP TO THE LEFT.

4edgy6me, m'm8

AND A STEP TO THE RIGHT

You would fall unconscious before you could suffocate to death. This is retarded.