So what's up with bards? What's the point of the class?

Read a fucking poem. It won't bite you.

Bards belong in an adventuring party more than any other class.

Poetry is the worst form of literature.

Bards are skill-monkeys for people who don't wana play Rogues. Their concept as a class is "be really good at bullshitting your way to victory".

One of the worst classes in DnD and it's derivatives, on tier with fur-fag transformation-based druids.

>Bards belong in an adventuring party more than any other class.

Why?

Again, what do bards bring on the table that the other classes don't? What's so important that you absolutely have to bring a real bard along? Why can't the rogue pick a lute or learn poetry instead?

Your beliefs are the worst form of wrong.

Pretty much this, bards are the "do everything" class, except that "do everything" classes suck in a team-based game where everyone is supposed to bring their own unique strengths and skills to the game.

They also suck at it because DnD's Caster Supremacy means a wizard can do everything better anyway. Granted bards are casters too, and with enough bullshitting a 5e Lore Bard is on par with a Wizard anyway.

What if you play in a solo campaign though?

I was onboard with this cover at first, then I saw the turtle and was SUPER on board with it.
But then I noticed otter Robin Hood and pink pajama girl and went back to just onboard.

Honestly you'd have more fun picking a dedicated class and building a campaign around that. A paladin hunting vampires and other undead, a wizard trying to graduate wizard school, a Rogue doing thiefy things to work their way up a guild chain... all of those are going to be much better experiences than "I'm a bard who can do a bit of everything, so throw team-based adventures at me with nerfed combat encounters and let me solo them."

I'm sorry but "otter Robin Hood" sounds awesome.

It gets ̶f̶u̶r̶r̶i̶e̶r̶ better.

If in reality there were monsters and magics bards will surely know magic. So they can write unique songs of heroes cutting down monsters. Now they would need a way how to make the party worth it he is coming, so he learns how to heal and help without taking damage. Still convinced it is just a "meme useless shit" ?

their music plays songs fundamental to the universe, their spells can help your friends or hurt your foes

sounds like someone you might like to bring along

also, bards go where they please, and if a war zone or dungeon has adventure, treasure, or anything that he can possibly write a song about, then they are gonna go

"Pyromaniac" was basically what people became shortly before their houses burned down and all they had left was the fire that burned their houses down.

>If in reality there were monsters and magics bards will surely know magic.
So all musicians are suddenly magical? How high-level world is this? What worth do actual wizards have if every Kanye West suddenly knows how to cast spells anyway?
>So they can write unique songs of heroes cutting down monsters.
Don't need magic to do this. Hell, don't even need to go out there to see it. Or they could, again, be the fighter or the rogue sing about it once they get back.
>Now they would need a way how to make the party worth it he is coming, so he learns how to heal and help without taking damage.
Or he could be the fighter or the wizard, doing his thing in the adventure then singing about it afterwards.
>Still convinced it is just a "meme useless shit" ?
The only thing bards actually know that no one else does is sing songs, and there's no reason no one else couldn't learn to sing songs.

Bards are retarded.

Bards are basically cheerleaders, if cheerleaders actually made you better at what you were doing instead of just flashing their asses at you. Or in addition to, I won't tell you how to bard.

>How come they can fight and shit when all you really would need to be a bard is to know how to sing and play a lute? Was it a totally different thing back then, thematically, than the modern bards?
Because everybody "back then" can fight and shit. Being a fighter in the Ye Olde Times is the minimum basic requirement for survival. If you can't fight, you never get old enough to be anything else.

I'll admit, I don't really see the point of making the bard a mechanical class... but harping (ha) on the weaknesses of class-based systems is a subject for another thread.

My favorite recent implementation of the idea would probably be like that skald character from the Vikings tv show. Advising the leader, bringing up team morale before the fight, recording their epic deeds in song after... but still a consummate fighter in his own right.

Read some history. Scandinavian history specifically. MANY real-life Viking adventurers thought it worthwhile to bring a skald or bard with them on their adventures. Figure out why people in the real world took musicians and poets on adventures and you'll know why they do so in fictional settings.

>The only thing bards actually know that no one else does is sing songs, and there's no reason no one else couldn't learn to sing songs.

Fighters are pointless shit. The only thing they can do is use weapons and armor, and there's no reason no one else couldn't learn to use weapons or armor.

Magic users are pointless shit. The only thing they can do is cast spells, and there's no reason no one else couldn't learn to cast spells.

Clerics are pointless shit. The only thing they can do is pray, and there's no reason no one else couldn't learn to pray.

>So all musicians are suddenly magical? How high-level world is this? What worth do actual wizards have if every Kanye West suddenly knows how to cast spells anyway?
Is every urchin with a pointy shard of metal a fighter? Is literacy the only difference between wizards and hobos?
>Don't need magic to do this. Hell, don't even need to go out there to see it. Or they could, again, be the fighter or the rogue sing about it once they get back.
Considering how bard colleges work, seeing it is worth so much more than just hearing about it second hand. And, being magic, it'll improve the party's chances of success, as said.
>Or he could be the fighter or the wizard, doing his thing in the adventure then singing about it afterwards.
They are better than wizards, why would you gimp yourself and the party? Bardic sorcery is rare and valuable, make use of it.
>The only thing bards actually know that no one else does is sing songs, and there's no reason no one else couldn't learn to sing songs.
And magical secrets.
Your rarionale here is pretty much "everyone get 1 stat to 20, fuck the rest, someone else has it." Fuck MAD classes.

Yer dumb matey.

Why'd you care about your shout in a setting in which you are a demigod ubermensch commanding an army of warriors unquestioningly loyal to you unto death?

>So what's up with bards? What's the point of the class?
>
>What role do the bards play in a campaign? Why would a musician enter a dungeon, or some war situation perhaps, and how do they think they could help there? How come just singing and stuff has an equal billing to fighting, stealing, and magic using in an adventure?
>
>And why was it so much trouble to enter the class in the first place in the 1st edition AD&D? How come they can fight and shit when all you really would need to be a bard is to know how to sing and play a lute? Was it a totally different thing back then, thematically, than the modern bards?
>
>I don't get it.
Morale boostering rocket songs

There's two main ways I've seen a Bard written, aside from "D&D did it so we'll try and justify it in our setting" like Dragon Age.

>1. War Drums Bard
Whereas a typical fighter leads via displays of strength, you lead with displays of cunning. You always know the right epic tale to keep the party's spirits up, you know all the rumored weaknesses of the ancient beast you're hunting, and when it comes time to charge you're the one that sounds the horn.

>2. Diva Bard
You've visited every disreputable watering hole this side of the Evildeath Mountains, and slept with the daughters and/or sons of their owners. You don't pick pockets, because you can't get arrested for winning at dice. The party might grumble about your obsession with hygiene or your lack of skill at arms, but they're always grateful when you can bargain them out of a stay in the dungeons and into a prestigious private gathering.

Primadonna not diva

Its for people who want to be a cleric but dont eant to be with a god and like to do charisma checks.

Wizardry is understanding the magical laws of the universe and using that knowledge to manipulate them.
Clerical Magic is having so much faith in a divine entity that said divine entity allows you small shards of divine magic that you don't really know how it works but you trust your god.
Sorcery is taking the fundamental laws of magic and bending them through sheer force of your personality.
Bardic Sorcery is telling the universe a story so convincingly well that the universe believes your bullshit.
And then there was the 3.5 prestige class for Bards.
Lyric Thaumaturge is knowing how Wizardry works and applying Bardic Sorcery to it.
Sublime Chord is going above and beyond a cleric, determining the song sung in the Words of Creation, the song that can make and unmake planes of existence, and figuring out how to play it on your lute.

You see OP, music has power, in a setting where magic exists, music will be magical.
Can any dickhead pick up a lute and cast magic? No.
Think about this, music is sound, but not just a crash or a bang, or a word, it's harmonious with the sounds around it and with itself. For music to have magic it must have harmony and for that you must know how music has harmony.
Sound is vibrations in the air, simple, when magic is sometimes described as ether, this gets interesting since the old word aether is legit just a special word for air and gas. So, music in D&D and other magical settings is vibrating in the air.
"So what?" you might ask as you refuse to comprehend the glory I am attempting to impart upon you, well my foolish friend prepare to be enlightened because this is where the harmony comes in.
You see, when you vibrate the air, it moves air particles around, fancy that, and with magic who knows what kind of spells you could weave with song, and that's why music must have harmony, this harmony allows Bardic music to be more than mere sounds and noise, and allows him to perform magic.

It's for playing bardic heroes of myth like Finn macCuhall, Ossian, or Orpheus, who used enchanted music to do exploits. One might as well ask why the barbarian needs its own class, it was just a way to allow you to play as Conan, a fighter that didn't usually rely on armor.

That would be the novel, pleb

>
Novels are at least 800 times better than poetry.

>Going out of your way to obfuscate your writing
>Taking two-dozen words to say something can be done in less than ten
>MUH INTERPRETATION
>M U H CRE A T IVE
>F
>O
>R
>MAT
> ING

Yep, it checks out. Objectively the worst form of literature.

Ya'll motherfuckers don't appreciate anything.
I could give each of you free steak and you'd criticise the plate it was on.

You're dumb. Go away.

They're the guy who tells people in the tavern about the journey after.
In the dungeon they're a dabbler, pick up a scroll and maybe do something a wizard would do if he wasn't incapacitated, otherwise a bad warrior.

Nah, I'd just criticize the fact that you cooked it to death and slathered it with ketchup, then don't understand why I don't want to eat it.

>everyone forgot about Bardic Knowledge
I miss getting a class specific lore check.
Mate you'll get it medium rare with some salt & pepper this isn't a fucking circus.

...

A warlock is what happens who burned down

Warlock was basically what people became after their house had burnt down and all they were left with was burning down other people's houses.

Yes, class systems are a shit and really fail to represent anything but a silver of all fiction.

I really want to play a game where a party is every class who's house burnt down and they were left with X. All because some asshole warlock burned down the entire town.

That actually sounds pretty cool.

That's the US Airforce, user.

>paint them with all the colours of the poop

>a warlock is basically what people became when their house had burnt down and all they were left with was a box of matches which they had already used one of

>"ranger" was basically what people became after their houses had burnt down and all they were left with was "favored enemy: fire"

>The only thing bards actually know that no one else does is sing songs, and there's no reason no one else couldn't learn to sing songs.

Rogues steal and backstab people. There's no reason anyone else can't learn to do that shit.
Fighters don't do anything any other class is unable to do. Everyone can swing and sword and put some armor on.

>Year 12017 of the Human Era
>"I don't get bards."
Have you been living in a cave? They're the most versatile class, and can be built to fill almost any party role. There are a hundred ways to play a bard other than what you described. I've played a bard who was a smuggler and a scoundrel who got by on magic and wits, another who was an intensely curious intelectual who delivered lectures on the strengths and weaknesses of monsters mid-combat to aid her allies, another was a grizzled veteran sergeant who motivated his men with furious rants and spirited marching chants while throwing himself into the thick of battle alongside them.

Bard is the class of patricians.

Without poetry we wouldn't have lyrics. Songs aren't really literature in themselves, but the best opera writers hired poets for their lyrics. Music is also a form of formatting.

You wouldn't seriously say that music is a debased kind of literature, would you?

>What role do the bards play in a campaign? Why would a musician enter a dungeon, or some war situation perhaps, and how do they think they could help there? How come just singing and stuff has an equal billing to fighting, stealing, and magic using in an adventure?
>And why was it so much trouble to enter the class in the first place in the 1st edition AD&D? How come they can fight and shit when all you really would need to be a bard is to know how to sing and play a lute? Was it a totally different thing back then, thematically, than the modern bards?

Back in the good editions, bards were competent fighters, decent thieves, good-enough wizards, and also had some fun abilities like being able to figure out ancient riddles based on songs they had heard before.

I didn't bother to read the thread.

Do you know why it took so much trouble to enter the 1e bard class?

>Do you know why it took so much trouble to enter the 1e bard class?
Because you had to roll for stats and bards had high prerequisites?

This was back when people didn't expect to always get exactly what they wanted all the time. Video games didn't have an "Easy" setting; you were just expected to play the game even if it was difficult, despite having paid money for it. Your favorite TV show might have been interrupted and there was no way to view it after the fact unless someone else in another market taped it for you. RPGs assumed that players would roll characters and be satisfied with what they got; prestigious classes like paladins and bards were included as special treats that arose every so often, not standard choices that anyone could pick.

Someone will probably take offense at this post.

No no, I mean what was the point? Why DID the bard have such high prerequisites, and why DID you have to go through like three other classes? Why wasn't it just a base class like the others? What rationale was behind the decision of making it such a hard-to-reach class?

I'm asking in the narrative sense. Like paladins have high requirements because you're supposed to be this charismatic holy warrior. Monks have high requirements because they're badass martial artists that're stronger and tougher and more agile and wiser than everyone else. Why do bards need such requirements, and then on top of that also a bunch of levels in three other classes?

In 2nd edition and beyond, they were just charismatic dashing rogues who dabble in spellcasting and can sing really well. In 1e, they were clearly something more - something more than any other class in the game. What WERE they?

I don't think that sounds better or worse, just different. Probably not a style of play i'd like personally. I imagine it would result in a deeper connection with the characters you play that work out, but also a slew of dead characters who had shit stats and lasted one session.

>but also a slew of dead characters who had shit stats and lasted one session

Having played games like that (and in fact preferring them), I can say that the whole thing about lethality is greatly exaggerated. If you played smart, knew what you were doing, and didn't take undue risks, even a low-stat scrub could survive for a long time - while if you were dumb and charged blindly in, even your mighty hero would be killed.

Are you even aware of any poetry written before the 19th century?

>war
>drummer boy
Now add increased bullet dodge and accuracy and tell me you won't want a bard part of every fire team.

OP, several examples from literature can be found which inspired the original idea to include bards. people who were literally so good at performance that their music appeared to have magical effects - calming an unbeatable monster (or even a force of nature), raising the morale of an army that was ready to retreat until it fights to the last man, etc.

also there was a PC game called The Bard's Tale in which you were obligated to have a bard in your party. not sure how much that influenced later RPG culture.

the bard is a support class, skill monkey, sort of good at everything so they can fill a role missing in an unbalanced party. in a hack-and-slash, "D&D is just a combat simulator", "anyone who is not optimizing their character from day 1 to have max damage per round at level 20" kind of campaign mentality, there's no way anybody would play a bard. but guess what? not everybody plays those games.

some people play a game of court intrigue where they actually use skills like diplomacy, gather info, etc. or they play a more classic campaign with some of these elements. bards are great at infiltrating the high court or spreading rumors in dive bars and everything in-between. just because your campaign consists of nothing but beating the most toughest monsters the fastest doesn't mean bards are worthless for other players in other campaigns.

>Taking two-dozen words to say something can be done in less than ten

you have clearly never tried to write a poem and have absolutely zero idea what a poem is.

The only point of the class is so fags have something to play.

Only useful bard ever portrayed:

m.youtube.com/watch?v=1DcqnkzGEFQ

I was under the impression that it was less "musician as a legitimate career path" and more "suave, multitalented man of the world who is skilled in the arts and may be some sort of vagrant". They're useful for what they know instead of how well they can kill things.

But that's just how I play bards.

It's weird, I see a lot of letters in that post but all I can seem to read from it is "I'm literally retarded." I know there's more letters, but that's all it says.

Because the idea was someone who can do all 3, magic, guile, and combat, just not as well as the others.
5 levels of fighter meant that for the first five levels, you had a standard fighter with good stats.
5 levels of thief meant you stopped advancing your combat ability and started learning stealth and tricks. If the party already had another fighter he'd start to outpace you and if they already had a thief he was ahead of you by a lot. But you were still useful, you were still a knife in combat and now the thief had backup for stealth and intrigue.
And then we finally get to the druid.
Now by this point you probably already have a level 11 caster, if the party is advancing at roughly the same rate despite your egregious multiclassing, but they don't have the special bardic ability to charm anything. Druids can charm animals, Bards can charm anything, and anything they can't charm better be ready to deal with some low level magic and mid level combat.
As for what they were, that's simple, they were charming. Supernaturally charming, surpassing all barriers. A druid can charm a wolf, calming it down and making it decide these people are neither a threat nor food. A bard can charm a dragon.

Right, so they thought they wanted some kind of a super-class that can do all these things, then named it bard?

Still seems a bit silly if you ask me.

Did they base it on some other mythical class of super-people or did they make it up from the start? Because it actually is rather full of good fluff, something later bards don't have, purely because of how any bard you meet is automatically a badass - like a Grey Warden or Middle-Earth Ranger or whatever else they have.

It's based on old Skald's and heroes like Orpheus, warrior poets who could charm their way out of situations.
Personally I like how put the magic side of it, but they can fight too, not as well as someone who dedicates all their time to it like a fighter or a barbarian, but better than wizards or sorcerers who spend all their time with magic.
They were basically super talented individuals who never specialised in any tree and are just so charming they can make you like them so well it's almost magical.
Plus if you fight in rhythm with a good bard's music you fight better as his music magically guides your strikes.

Gary Gygax put them in the game, and what Gary said went.

Because the alternative was a dungeon made purely of Mimics. Mimic bricks, doors, candles...

>bards in dnd have always been able to cast magic
>huuur how do they contribute huuuur

I made a half-orc bard once. He could play a magical pipe organ that he carried around on his back. It was magic because it was indestructible. It needed to be indestructible because he had a length of chain attached and used it as an oversized flail.

Bards exist because they're fun.

That's the movie where Hercules isn't a demigod, just some very strong big guy, right?

Because you have no idea what to play otherwise.

when you have a warband 100 men strong a bard might be a good idea to bring along, but when you only have 3 other dudes you REALLY don't want 25% of your forces playing an epic airguitarsolo while your camp is being overrun with zombies.