Postby Silver Snow » Tue May 31, 2016 8:12 pm
I’d like to resurrect an old discussion and put some new life into it. The last we heard of the subject of bard songs undergoing changes was just under two months ago, and since then I’ve had the opportunity to play and understand my bard more and have some new ideas on the subject.
To keep text at an ordered amount, I won’t directly copy from the old thread but you can find the contents of it here (viewtopic.php?f=9&t=581).
The main issues with bard songs, as I summarize them, were as follows:
1) The modifier requirements for bard song bonuses were considered very high, to the point that barring significant feat investment, it would be until level 7 or so that a bard could organically get a +2 bonus on some of the more standard songs.
2) Many bard songs were either redundant, very situational, or entirely inadequate. (Copper’s summary on these was best)
3) Songs existing as set durations and not allowed overlap further invalidated situational songs and disallowed for flexibility.
I’ll try to do what I can regarding some specific suggestions in this thread, and while I appreciate a good discussion, I would like to encourage posts to be constructive and if some ideas are unfavorable, offer alternatives to reach the same commonly perceived goals. This isn’t meant to be a discussion of whether or not bard songs need to be changed, that has all but been agreed upon, but rather this is a thread on how to do it best while keeping the class interesting and balanced. I would also like to discourage taking extreme cases and builds as justifications for some class decisions that affect the mean.
1) Bard Song Modifiers
The issue is twofold the way I see it. If a bard with a reasonable CHA of 16 invests no feats into Perform, his Perform will reach 14 at level 8, just enough to provide 2 bonus sonic damage to the group’s weapons. Most of us are in agreement that this is too little and too late, and while there are solutions existing I don’t see them as too adequate. Yes, a bard can cast Eagle’s Splendor and hope to get that particular bonus as early as level 6, but this requires a bard to learn one of very few allowed spells and use one of very few spell slots. A bard can also come into possession of a + performance item, which I am told exist but have never seen one. Other songs such as those that boost AC and AB have a per/rank requirement of 6, which means that while the +2 bonus can be come into sooner, getting it past that still requires a feat investment.
The logical solution of simply lowering requirements is challenged by the fact that some can focus and invest heavily into the Perform skill, and thus get large bonuses. In example, for the bonus on-hit sonic damage song, a bard that invests in the Perform skill heavily can get 26 Perform with several feats and a buff, allowing for just short of a +4 on the damage. Lowering the requirement to a +5 would allow a +5 to the damage. With other songs having lower requirements, that is an easy +4 or more as well, if they are similarly lowered in requirement. I believe that heavy feat investment does entitle one to be rather good at that particular thing, but at present those who do not invest are less than mediocre for most of their careers.
I don’t think it would be too productive to go into every single song and tweak the requirements individually, especially as I have suggestions coming up as to what some songs should be amended to, but my suggested solution as a whole is this:
For those most popular AB and AC boosting songs, make their skill requirements 7/Perform rather than 6 AND add in one bonus feat at level 5 or 6. This bonus feat can be expanded to include Skill Focuses in Perform and some chosen social skills as well as still include the various songs. This way, those who have already committed to an enormous feat investment get to reap the rewards (as 21 Perform is very achievable for them) and those that have allotted their 3-4 feats to other causes can loan one of them to Perform with less repercussion and thus attain the +2 bonus at an earlier point. Additionally, as per LW’s mention in the other thread, certain social or knowledge skills can also grant bonuses to particular songs with some investment into them, either by rank or point value. Some ideas for what these could be:
Knowledge: Arcana/Spellcraft- Bonus to Spell Resistance
Knowledge: Nature, Geography, Local- Bonus to the Movement Speed song
Bluff- Bonus to AB
Balance- Bonus to AC
Heal- Bonus to healing song
Diplomacy- ?
Perception- ?
Sense Motive- ?
Stealth- ?
I would try to position these such that a moderate investment in the skill (Perhaps 9 points) yields a bonus of 1 AC to the song (or whatever the equivalent is for other songs), while a very heavy investment involving max ranks and feats (18 end result) yields as much as a +2. I believe that at the cost of all of one’s feats, a bard could potentially be fantastically adept at a single song very late into his career, but lose versatility in doing so. This also encourages dipping into skills for bards as a form of both specializing and generalizing. Better approaches to what skills translate to what are welcome.
Lastly, a potential addendum to all the ideas is that the bard songs can indeed just be capped at a certain maximum number the team feels is reasonable, perhaps 4 at heavy investment or even 3. After all, I do not think that there is a great difference in a character’s rp between 21 and 24 perform, and any bigger numbers used for mechanics can just go to other endeavors such as social and knowledge skills.
2) Bard Song Redundancy and Inefficacy
At present, a Bard gets to choose one song to play for a full turn, and so there should be either good competition to the song options that can be played or a good variety of them to fit situations. While I believe these were the intent, there are only a very few songs that are worth having. Namely, Inspire Courage and War Dance are useful, while the others tend to suffer. As stated before, these give stable ever-useful bonuses in dungeons. Their counterpoints, Disorientation and Mesmerize, do the same thing but with a higher cost and a less likelihood to hit all the enemies. Songs that boost Saves like Sharpen Focus and those that bring them down for enemies all have their uses, but still situational ones. Songs that appear decent at first glance like Furious Vibrations and Relentless Pace have little reason to be chosen in favor of others because of lower requirements and the higher return on higher AB for a full group. Relentless Pace suffers heavily from not being able to choose the target of it, thus just as likely giving the background mage another attack as much as the raging barbarian. Copper’s and mine analyses on most of the songs stands in the other thread to punctuate these points. In short, as only one song gets to be up at a time, that one will be largely preferred for most non-exotic situations.
What I have noticed is a tendency to lean on the vanilla NWN concept of positive and negative songs. Some boost allies, others debuff or harm enemies. My proposal is this:
Make an even split between Buff and Curse songs that have opposite and stacking effects. More than one Buff song cannot be active at the same time, but one Buff AND one Curse song can be present at the same time and play off each other. An AB Buff song and one that debuffs enemy AB, a song that both increases party SR and decreases an enemy’s, a song that gives the party speed and slows the enemy’s movement. A song that boosts saves for the party and a curse that lowers them for enemies. A song for sonic resistant for allies and the curse for vulnerability. Healing to allies, temporary or not, and sonic damage as a curse. I think there is a lot of room for creativity here especially if we stipulate that the Buff and Curse songs to be active at the same time do not have to be the same pairing, as in a song that buffs AB can be up at the same time as one that debuffs enemy saves.
This allows songs to overlap, allows for creative combinations and situational merges, puts a limit on songs up at the same time that can be very controlled and reigned in, and allows bards the ability to spread out their talents as they can now, or focus them for a few select occasions. If two songs are cast, each with a short duration, the effect for a brief while could be very dramatic, but also halve the bard’s uses of their main ability and mandate more time spent casting. This would allow two bards to work together in tandem better, and allow for more strategic play than spamming the same AB buff every large encounter. Whether or not this would mean bards get more songs per day or more to acquire, I don’t know. Perhaps the bard’s charisma modifier can be added to casts per day of the songs, and one of the default feats (note, not bonus feats) can allow for two songs to be learned at once, as a matching pair. These are all ideas, but I’m fond of keeping DnD’s original Bard/Curse song notation while allowing more versatility and utility with TER’s existing great ideas into it.
Songs that suffer just because their bonuses are useless can be gone into more detail at a later time.
3) Lowered Bard Song Flexibility
This echoes mostly back to the point that while many of the songs are very situational, even heat of the moment (Temp HP to save a downed ally, raised saves because a ghost is flying at you, etc), the songs cannot be changed while the previous one is at play. I know the combat mode idea was proposed, and it is a very good one, but may not work with the Buff/Curse song paradigm and may also conflict with other combat modes that a bard may reasonably want to pursue that also entail feat investment such as Expertise, Power Attack, Rapid Shot.
I think that allowing a Buff and Curse song to be present at the same time already relieves the issue slightly, but my other suggestion is this:
Rather than have bard songs last 1 turn, and 1.5 turns extended, have them last 4-6 rounds, 1.5x that extended, and provide twice as many songs to the Bard per day. Perhaps the song duration can be directly tied to CHA+1 or somesuch. This allows for a little more reflex and adaptation, similar to what a sorcerer or wizard must go through, and lets the Bard be more reactive and engaged. It somewhat autobalances with on average shorter durations and more rounds spent casting the songs needed rather than contributing to combat. I believe this would encourage more careful play on the bard’s part rather than casting the song once, rushing into an encounter, and repeating perhaps once more within the encounter as needed.
I fully recognize that none of these suggestions are perfected nor detailed out, but I believe that they can lend the class a needed boost while staying within the bounds of balance.
Toros's Ideas: Have all song power scale with level (and bonus synergy skill modifiers helping), and have Perform be the judge of how many songs a day, or how long-lasting they get to be. So bards with heavier investment get to drop the same power but more reliably and regularly. He can likely elaborate on those thoughts better himself in this thread.