Tuesday, January 19, 2010

I Hate the AD&D Bard!

Greetings!

Yes, I hate the AD&D Bard. The class is an utter mess, and it has always appalled me that Gygax and company--with their esteemed knowledge, education, and brilliance--could not compose a Bard class that was more effective, fun, and enjoyable--as well as somewhat more faithful to the historical Celtic Bards and Norse Skalds. From this long-standing frustration on my part--I've been seriously considering creating my own damned Bard--that's elegant and playable from level 1. Of course, such a Bard must be more reflective of it's noble, historical roots, than a weird, much-watered down medieval quasi-rogue and minstrel. I suppose some aspects of a rogue/minstrel are fine--but Bards were more like herald/druid/scholars in the Celtic traditions, and musical/warrior-poets in the Norse and Finnish traditions.

Any good suggestions and ideas on how I should proceed with this project my friends?

Your commentary is much appreciated!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

6 comments:

  1. I to hate the bard class. From reading your blog the past month or so you have strong historical background. I'd just take what you already know and make a real bard class with the game system you use. Not much help, but when I saw the title I knew I had to scribble my agreement with you. Hate them bards.

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  2. The AD&D 1e Bard is basically the first official prestige class. There are other alternatives to use as a starting point. For example: (1) the D&D 3x version, which is essentially the rogue with arcane spell-casting and lore knowledge or (2) Castles & Crusades has the Bard as a fighter variant with lore and inspiration abilities, but no spellcasting.

    If you want to go full Celt, why not have four classes? (1) Fighters; (2) Druids; (3) Bards, able to use magic spells; and (4) Rogues. That's just off the top of my head.

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  3. The 2nd edition Bard seemed like a pretty good fix to me. Before that came out my group used the variant bard from Dragon #56 (iirc) to good effect.

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  4. Greetings!

    Hello everyone! Hmmm--Rusty Battleaxe--multiple classes of bards? That's kinda neat! Very interesting.

    I hope to post a Bard later on this week.

    We'll see how it goes, and what you all think.

    Semper Fidelis,

    SHARK

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  5. Personally, I've taken the elements of the bard that are its strength, the elements that allow the bard to buff his comrades, and used them to create a Warlord-like option in my retro-variant. As a class, I think the Bard concept is too restrictive, but that's just me.

    With Regards,
    Flynn

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