A Thorough Look at the Bard

In this video, I take a good look at the bard class in all D&D editions, ACKS, and GURPS.

[yuri_art_]

Just had an idea for them, they could have a Muse divinity like the cleric, paladin and warlock have gods and demons.

[colonel__klink]

It's fascinating, my first experience playing an entire level 1 to 11 DND 3.5 campaign was with a pure bard. I really didn't know how to play it. The character itself didn't do much damage and I really slept on the Bard's incredible summoning ability potential. Most of the campaign the character was basically a singing healing cleric... Now in DND 5E it's better in a lot of ways but the most hilarious character I ever heard of was "Bardbarian, master of the wrestling ring." With how hilariously bad wrestling is in DND I immediately thought of how a bardbarian character would work in GURPS! How would you do barbarian rage? Or the cutting words attack?

I have this hilarious image in my head of a muscle bound minstrel who loses it in a absolute seizure of strength, foaming at the mouth, howling the most off putting, unbalancing obscenities in the heat of battle as he grabs enemies hurling them into each other. While he's screaming swords seem to just... bounce off him as he ignores wounds with surprising ease! I really love gurps because the grabbing an enemy? Throwing him at another enemy? There's a chart in the core main book to figure out how far you can throw someone and how much damage! It's all already figured out!

[colonel__klink]

I don't really like the idea of removing all the magic from the bard you did. There's all sorts of reasons for this.

1) Gameplay. Having inspirational words only work before battle is both unworkable gameplay wise and not logically sound. Players are not omniscent, most fights are encountered, not planned out. Therefore the inspiring words ability might as well not exist for all the benefit it would give. But further... Leaders DO inspire their men in combat and get them to hold the line. So even from a realism standpoint (and I loathe to use realism when discussing a class like a bard in a fantasy setting) it's a nonesense restriction. So the biggest class feature is moot with this change

Further removing their other magical abilities just means that this is just a rogue with high charisma. Nothing more. A rogue can swing a sword and focuses on light armor just like a bard. they both even have similar skillsets including lockpicking.

2) Lore. The bard's magic is his music. This is why it's said to "come from the heart." Music is this binding force in our world bridging gaps and connecting people. Suitably the bard is able to bridge the gap between the arcane and the divine. While sorcerers and wizards only focus on one type of power a bard is able to connect to divinity AND feel the subtle power flowing through the world. There's nothing logically inconsistent with a bard being able to channel divinity through music.... A lot of religious rights claim to do just that... In fact a lot of games use chimes as a religious talisman for holy powers.