Bard Song Ideas

Share an idea or post some constructive criticism for the server.
Mentfrost
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Re: Bard Song Ideas

Postby Mentfrost » Fri Jun 02, 2017 3:20 am

I'll be honest, those penalties would make me never use Bard Song ever.

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Dawnbreak
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Re: Bard Song Ideas

Postby Dawnbreak » Fri Jun 02, 2017 3:24 am

Mentfrost wrote:
Fri Jun 02, 2017 3:20 am
I'll be honest, those penalties would make me never use Bard Song ever.
+1
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Loreweaver
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Re: Bard Song Ideas

Postby Loreweaver » Fri Jun 02, 2017 4:50 am

While I appreciate the feedback of general dislike, it does not much help us move forward. I would therefore like to invite those who voiced their concerns to follow Silver Snow's example and help search for a balanced alternative.

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Dawnbreak
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Re: Bard Song Ideas

Postby Dawnbreak » Fri Jun 02, 2017 5:45 am

To be frank, I have been dissuaded before by people on this forum to ever broach such topics by the backlash and cynicism usually presented.

However, I will say this - I see nothing personally wrong with the Bard class as it is currently implemented. While I see that the general intention is to balance the class, this seems like an outright purposeless nerf that would make most of the class' functionality null.

This class is one of the few that I can genuinely and earnestly say, on this module, can remain as is.
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Mentfrost
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Re: Bard Song Ideas

Postby Mentfrost » Fri Jun 02, 2017 6:16 am

Loreweaver wrote:
Fri Jun 02, 2017 4:50 am
While I appreciate the feedback of general dislike, it does not much help us move forward. I would therefore like to invite those who voiced their concerns to follow Silver Snow's example and help search for a balanced alternative.
Bare with me here, I tend to not be very good at getting points and criticism across, so I usually don't even weigh in on threads like these.
My issues with the proposed changes have been stated already, they make having the class in a party a liability. One poor roll when trying to buff AB for flanking rouges to hit harder with and suddenly the guy tanking all the hits goes down. As pointed out as well, it makes War Dance rather worthless except for running away, since it only benefits one or two front liners while everyone at the back or flanking has to deal with reduced AB and AC that isn't helping them. Even in small parties where the roll can safely be passed, the Bard can't escape the penalties, meaning they not much help at all and when you're stuck with a small party every bit of help is needed.
Meanwhile at low levels the bard is even more of a liability, when the penalty for trying to squeeze out on or two more points of AC is to likely split a party members AB near in half. There's also the players on off peak times, who are likely playing alone or with one party member. Using War Dance then means they're not going to be able to hit anything, leaving all the work to their friend who might not be able to handle the situation alone.
And really, I can't see the point of this nerf anyway, Bard Song has already been nerfed by splitting it up into multiple songs that only do one thing, which I think is a great alternative to Bard Song being the super buff. By making the ability so situational and potentially harmful it kind of takes away the point of playing a Bard in the first place, why bring a bard when you could bring a wizard and not have to deal with the penalties of their buffs? Are we going to add debuffs to Bulls Strength and Cats Grace as well?

Silver Snow
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Re: Bard Song Ideas

Postby Silver Snow » Fri Jun 02, 2017 1:27 pm

I think a good rule of thumb I am seeing crop up is that an ability that should be a boon, shouldn't have a significant risk of actually being almost a pure detriment, especially at lower levels when bards are trying to eke out all they can to justify themselves mechanically. I do not think it is in itself powerful enough to warrant the risk, and I cannot quite think of any other abilities on the server that have a chance to backfire so.

Maybe the concept of the negative penalty can be removed from most of the core songs, but still kept as a static sensible thing for a few niche others. In exchange maybe the total bonuses of the bard song would not have such a high ceiling, as one of the benefits of this proposal is a combination of bard and curse song which, while limited in use, should be powerful. In example, Abigail will not have access to +3 AB or AC bonuses with her songs until level 6, which would still include a heavy investment in Charisma from the start, a feat, and a buff to reliably achieve. That progression is fine to me..but only if it is consistent and/or paired with a debuff curse song.
Or maybe the penalties are a property that would only affect curse songs, and as such not worry the nearby players quite as much, and other things are kept as is. That way a more advanced bard can have more uses of their bard song and be more confident in dabbling with curse song, while lower level bards can focus primarily on no-frills buffing.

Edit: In addition, the conversation is revolving around the AB and AC songs because in my experience those are the only ones that are used, especially at the levels of bards we have here. Every other at present feels too situational, with maybe the exception of the sonic damage one, and even that I think I have seen used only once, ever. I personally mourn the loss of relentless pace, because I really enjoyed its utility in small groups, even if it did sometimes give the sorcerer an extra attack.

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Feronius
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Re: Bard Song Ideas

Postby Feronius » Sun Jun 11, 2017 10:46 am

I have not played my bard alt too much, but the above post sums up my view on the matter quite well.

Neverwinter Nights' game mechanics are not the smoothest and there are also a ton of randomly generated outcomes. So as a rule of thumb I tend to stay away from spells that significantly increase my chances of dying when used. In most cases I would rather rely on the more reliable spells with smaller benefits, at least where the most regularly used spells are concerned.
I do have to add that I like to play bards as melee characters, which does leave less room for error.


Not sure if it is possible, but one solution could be to have the more niche or offense/ active use bard songs no longer share the same spell slots or spell uses with the more standard and defensive/ passive bard songs that provide long(er) duration buffs. That way you could utilize the niche bard songs more often, without having to worry about compromising your more reliable and expected contribution to the party. Probably not possible or very difficult to do within the game though.
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