A Bard's Tale

Bottom Line: Do They Still Suck?

Bards have been a decidedly sub-par class since their inception to D&D. The best they could hope for with an optimized build is to almost reach the upper end of mediocrity. In all the games of D&D I have ever run, I think I have maybe seen two people actually play a Bard, and both of them wanted to change characters before we hit level ten.

So the answer to this question is (surprisingly) no. Bards are both effective and interesting. They are no longer just musicians and storytellers who dabble in a bit of everything, though this jack-of-all-trades versatility is still reflected in the class. Bards take up the mantle of the arcane power source's leader, and can heal and buff their allies with the best of them. They channel the arcane power of age-old tales and traditions, using their voices and instruments to both bolster their friends and sabotage their enemies.

Mechanically Bards play similar to either Clerics or Warlords depending on your build, but there are enough differences to make them fun and unique. Probably more complicated to play than a ranged built Cleric or Tactical Warlord, Bards are nevertheless a fairly simple to learn class with a few tricks up their sleeves for experienced players.

Their first feature is Bardic Training and it gives you Ritual Caster as a bonus feat. You get to start with two first level rituals, one of which must have bard as a pre-requisite. There aren't a lot of Bard rituals currently, but with Arcane Power coming out in about a month, I'm sure we'll see that change (and for any of you wondering, yes I do plan to do guides for the new builds in Arcane Power). You can perform a bardic ritual once per day without expending any components as well, and this raises to two at 11th level and three at 21st level.

Majestic Word is what bards get as their main healing power. It is their counterpart to Healing Word or Inspiring Word, but it works just a little bit differently. At first level it heals a target for their surge value plus your charisma modifier, and you can slide them one square. It increases by gaining an additional 1d6 points of healing for every five levels you gain just as cleric's Healing Word does. Its range starts at close burst 5 though, so be careful not to let the front line melee characters wander outside of the burst.

Bards also have a feature called Multiclass Versatility which allows them to ignore the previous limit of only taking multiclass feats for a single class. As people explore the options more and more I'm sure this will work into some pretty crazy builds, but I'm most excited about it because it means all of the neat style feats and things like Spellscarred can still be taken on a standard multiclass character.

Skill Versatility gives you a +1 bonus on untrained skills, which is nice, and thins the gap between your trained and untrained skills down. Unfortunately, if you still have a low bonus in the key ability of a skill, this doesn't really help it all that much.

Song of Rest is one of my favorite features of the Bard because it allows them to make a party's healing surges stretch out over more encounters. When the party takes extended rests, the bard can sing or play an instrument and then all members of the party get to add his charisma modifier to their healing surge value until the rest ends. If you have two Bards in the party, these effects do not stack.

Words of Friendship is an encounter power which gives you a +5 to your next diplomacy check, which officially makes Bards the best at this skill I do believe. There's really not much analysis to be done here, but suffice it to say that Diplomacy is a pretty common skill in Skill Challenges, so this is nice if your DM uses a lot of those.

Bards use wands as implements and have pretty decent starting armor and weapon proficiencies. Exactly what combination of weapons/implements you plan on using though, is based on a single choice really. Which brings us to:

Bardic Virtue: Valor or Cunning?

As with most classes there is a single distinguishing choice to make right from level 1 and the Bard is no different. This choice is called your Bardic Virtue and it separates the Bards into two main builds. Your choice of virtue gives you a passive class feature and gives many powers an additional effect. In general Valor Bards are going to use more weapon and close attacks while Cunning Bards will use more ranged and area attacks. Valor Bards are more into inspiring their allies to great deeds, while the Cunning Bards are tricksters, and have a lot of very unique abilities to reflect this.

If you choose Virtue of Cunning, once per round, when an enemy attacks and misses one of your allies that is within Intelligence Modifier plus one squares of you, you can slide them one square as a free action. Which is great for setting up tactics and getting allies away from the attacks of enemies. This can even disrupt the plans of a monster who has multiple attacks. The problem is that the allies who you want to be in melee the least, probably have the lowest defenses and aren't going to be missed that often so I feel it is the less useful of the two passive abilities. However, I think most of the powers this build uses make up for that. Cunning Bards use Intelligence as a secondary ability score.

If you choose Virtue of Valor, once per round when an ally within 5 squares of you bloodies or kills an enemy, they gain temporary hit points equal to your Constitution modifier plus one. This increases by two at level 11, and again by two at level 21. This is fantastic, and in some battles will add up to a really surprising amount of temporary hit points. However, the bonuses that you get to your powers usually aren't quite as strong, and the powers aren't as unique as the Cunning Bard's. Valorous Bards use constitution as their secondary ability score.

Ability Scores

The Bard's ability score usefulness makes them a great class for actually making decent hybrid builds, which is rare. Obviously Charisma should be your highest score, and then either Intelligence or Constitution, but taking those equally works well, as does taking the other as your tertiary score.

If you took Intelligence as your secondary, you already have a bonus to your Will and Reflex defenses. And the natural third choice is now Constitution since Strength gives you little benefits unless you are thinking about multiclassing into a class which uses it heavily. This means that you can take a lot of the powers meant for the other build, as well as have better starting hit points and more healing surges.

If you took Constitution as your secondary, you are only lacking an ability score to give a bonus to Reflex, as you have Fortitude and Will covered. Intelligence would allow you to take some of the Cunning Bard powers, but it doesn't give you a bonus to initiative like Dexterity does, which is a small benefit to consider. I personally enjoy the freedom to take any power and have it useful, as well as having decent scores in all of your secondary defenses.

Despite how easy it is to make a hybrid build and still be effective, there is one other thing to think of. I almost never promote buying an 18 in your primary ability score (before racial modifiers), but there are a few classes where it is an effective choice and this is one of them. Charisma is of such value to Bards, and is used to make so many things effective that forgoing a tertiary score can be an effective choice. This really works mainly on races that get a bonus to whichever secondary score you were going to choose, but regardless, it's a powerful choice. With Charisma affecting all of your attacks, your Majestic Word heals, and your Song of Rest, starting with an extra point to your modifier may be something to look at.

Race Choices

Half-Elves are the only race that has the ideal ability score bonuses for Valor Bards, and both Gnomes and Tieflings have the ideal ability scores for Cunning Bards. In addition to these three there are a multitude of other races that make good Bards. These include Dragonborn, Dwarves, Halflings and Humans from Player's Handbook; Drow than the Forgotten Realms Player's Guide; and Devas and Goliaths from Player's Handbook 2. The other races are all work as Bards as well, but more for multiclass variant builds than the two main builds. I will go over each of the races I mentioned in further detail here.

Half-Elves are the quintessential Bard race, being masters of versatility themselves. Their ability score bonuses make them ideal for Virtue of Valor but they make good Cunning Bards as well. Their Dual Heritage gives them access to the awesome Human Perseverance and Action Surge feats, and and they even have good skills. If you want to play a multiclass-heavy build you can even take the Half-Elf feat from PHB 2, Versatile Master, and open up a plethora of builds I haven't even began to ponder. As for Dilettante Powers, a lot of options are available for useful powers depending on your build. Some of them include Dire Radiance and Eyebite from Warlocks; Cloud of Daggers or Thunderwave from Wizards; and Burning Spray, Dragonfrost or Chaos Bolt from Sorcerers.

While Gnomes have the ideal ability scores for Cunning Bards there is an unfortunate lack of synergy elsewhere. Their 5 square movement doesn't really detract, and Reactive Stealth is nice if you need to sneak around a fight a bit, but Fade Away is only moderately useful here. Cunning Bards are rarely on the front lines and are rarely the most appetizing target available to ranged enemies either, meaning that taking damage isn't something they have to worry about unless their team utterly fails turning the power from an excellent damage mitigation technique to a panic button. I will admit that the flavor connection is very nice and that if you want to play a real trickster type bard then their ability to use Ghost Sound is pretty neat, but overall I expected a little more synergy.

Tieflings also have the same issue. They have the ideal ability score combination but their other bonuses are all merely small bonuses to a Bard. Bloodhunt is nice in making you more accurate, but the debuffs a Bard applies to his enemies are often more useful before the foe has already been bloodied. Fire Resistance is always good, but this isn't a class that is going to be targeted that often, although if you're caught in an area of effect fire attack you're going to be thankful you have this. Infernal Wrath is a good racial power, especially with feats, but it requires you to be hit, and for a Cunning Bard this isn't going to be too common.

Dragonborn get a bonus to Charisma, which makes them decent Bards, and I would say that they lean towards Valor since Constitution already helps two of their racial features. If you want your Valorous Bard to be able to tank a monster or two and relieve some of the pressure from the fighter, than this is a good race choice. In addition, your Dragon Breath allows you some minion-killing capability. Having a higher healing surge value and a bonus to hit once bloodied are both useful, since Valorous Bards are actually at risk for getting beat up. If you do use this build, you can put your tertiary score into Strength and take Scale and Platemail Proficiency, as well as Heavy Shield Proficiency to increase your AC, though Chainmail and a Light Shield should be sufficient for the earlier levels. If I were to make a Valorous Bard, based on mechanics alone, this would probably be my pick for a race.

Dwarves make decent Valorous Bards, getting a bonus to Constitution. Their Wisdom bonus does go to waste unless you utilize it multiclassing but as usual the race offers so many bonuses to melee characters it can't be ignored as a choice here. If you want a small boost to the damage of your weapon based powers you can take Dwarven Weapon Training. You can second wind as a minor action, allowing you to save your Majestic Words for others and still not stop fighting when you need to regain some hit points. Your reduced movement is a bit of a pain, but its unlikely you'll be pushed outside of the action once you get there.

Halflings are great Bards, and their Dexterity bonus translates to at least a small initiative boost. They can work as either build since they don't favor Constitution or Intelligence, but I think their racial abilities being mainly defensive makes them slightly lean towards the Virtue of Valor build. Second Chance, and later Lost In The Crowd give them the ability to duke it out in melee for a round or two while the fighter holds down the more dangerous targets and their AC bonus against opportunity attacks allows them to maneuver around and lay their close blast attacks in the most efficient spots.

With Half-Elves as a viable option for a class Humans are often eliminated from possibility for it, but Humans have a number of advantages advantages for Bards. The extra feat is very helpful, especially if you are going to be multiclassing since so many feats will be required for that. The extra at-will is also beneficial because the Bard has some pretty excellent at-will powers, and the skill is useful with such a good skill list to pick from. The extra bonus to Reflex, Fortitude, and Will is nice as always. The only unfortunate downside is that if you choose to multiclass you're losing out on the extra ability scores that are nice when you need to spread out your points.

Drow have the same ability scores as halflings, but Fearie Fire and Cloud of Darkness means that their racial power can be useful from up front or in the back. They work especially well if you don't have another character in the party to sneak ahead and I can imagine a Drow Bard multiclassing Rogue who skulks about whispering dark secrets rather than singing boisterous epics, confusing his foes before he sticks his blade in their flank. I think I have another idea to add to my "Characters I really want to play" list.

I am not sure what kind of songs they would sing or instruments they would play but Devas make excellent Cunning Bards. Their Wisdom bonus is largely wasted, but everything else they get is really useful. If a creature does get through the melee characters to attack you, he may already be bloodied, at which point you get a bonus to your defenses. You get two good resistances right off the bat, and your racial power is useful for both landing a hit when you really need to or making a crucial saving throw. Even before you look at racial feats, Deva is a good choice for Bards.

Goliaths seem like another unlikely candidate for Bards, but they work as Valor bards almost as well as Dragonborn. Their Strength bonus helps them qualify for armor and shield feats, and their racial power lessens the hits that get through. If you add in racial feats, it gets better, allowing them to make crucial saving throws or attack rolls almost as well as a Deva does. It will be hard for them to buy up an excellent Charisma, but they will be some of the most durable Bards around.

Skills

Bards have an immense skill list and because of this are probably going to outshine other characters in Skill Challenges. The only downside I see is that they get a lot of Wisdom skills, but Wisdom is arguably the least useful ability score for them. Regardless, you can train whatever skills you need. As always I recommend at least two people in the party with a decent Perception, and to have two or three people with the Heal skill in the roster as well. Diplomacy also makes a pretty obvious choice since you have a racial power to boost it. And if you want a more underhanded Bard go ahead and take Intimidate or bluff as well. For a storyteller, History might be a good skill to have, and for a wandering minstrel Nature might make sense. It's really all up to you, and you have plenty of options.

Feats

Bards have a lot of controller-esque abilities and as such its pretty important to land that necessary status effect when they need it. This makes both Weapon Expertise and Implement Expertise useful depending on what type of powers you use. If you are a front line fighter then Melee Training also becomes useful so that you can take advantage of your opportunity attacks, otherwise monsters will be unafraid of merely walking right past you. In general it is better to think of offensive feats as helping you be more accurate than helping deal damage because you are a leader and it is unlikely that you are dealing that much damage anyway.

As for defensive feats, your options are fairly limited. Increasing your armor class is unlikely unless you have the Strength to take the feats. However, feats to help your secondary defenses may be helpful once they open up to you. As a Cunning Bard you won't be taking too many hits regardless, but as a Valorous Bard you may be able to upgrade your AC a bit with feats, but if not you can at least take Toughness.

If you plan on switching between implement and weapon powers than Quick Draw is probably a good feat to take, if not you could go for Improved Initiative. Skill Training or Skill Focus feats make sense on Bards, if you want to be really good at a particular skill, and Linguist makes sense for the traveling minstrel archetype as well.

Bards get some pretty excellent class feats in the Player's Handbook 2. Bardic Knowledge gives them a +2 bonus to six skill checks that are commonly used in skill challenges and as monster knowledge checks. Improved Majestic Word also gains temporary hit points equal to your Charisma Modifier, which turns Majestic Word into one of the best heals in the game. Advantage of Cunning improves Virtue of Cunning, allowing you to slide an enemy 1 square into the spot an ally vacates. If you want to set up combat advantage, this is a great way of doing it. Strength of Valor gives a +2 damage bonus on the next attack of anyone affected by your Virtue of Valor, which isn't as good of an upgrade as Advantage of Cunning but is definitely worth a feat slot if you can't think of anything else you want.

Power Selection

If you didn't read my other two write-ups, then I should tell you that I only go over the power options for levels 1 and 2. If there is demand for anything more, I will cover that stuff in a later article, but due to length and time issues, this is as much as I am writing right now.

Bards have excellent at-will powers and technically only one of them favors one build or the other. Two of them use implements and two of them use weapons though, so think about that in your build. My personal recommendation is to take a mix of implement and weapon powers for most builds and to use the Quick Draw feat to switch between the two just so you can have the right tool for the job ready as often as possible.

The first At-Will power is Guiding Strike. It's a weapon power and it gives the target a -2 penalty to any one defense until the end of your next turn. If teamwork is something your group does well, and your Bard fights up front than this ability is very very useful. If neither of those are the case, then you can either use it to set up your own attacks or skip it. One thing that is very nice about this is that it helps lower most monsters that have one very high defense into the reachable range, or can lower a monsters weak defense even further, giving those who can target it almost a surefire hit.

Misdirected Mark is an implement at-will power that marks the target, but unlike other marking powers, it marks them for someone else, and its range 10. Great for helping the defender pick up a monster who got past him, or marking someone he can't reach. The only reasons I could see for not taking this power is if your party doesn't have a defender, or you absolutely refuse to use implements and only want to use weapons. Otherwise I would say its a must-have, just be sure not to get more than 5 squares away from the defender..

Vicious Mockery is the second at-will power and in a way its almost redundant since it gives the target -2 to attack rolls and Misdirected Mark gives them -2 to attack rolls against anyone except the ally who you chose. I prefer Misdirected Mark generally but this power can be useful against artillery or controller type monsters who you don't want hitting anyone and who have area attacks that can hit the defender and others at the same time. This attack also targets Will which is the most common low defense. It's also the argument for taking both Vicious Mockery and Misdirected Mark so that you can attack both Will and Reflex.

The last At-Will is a weapon attack and its really only useful for Valorous Bards, but its really useful for them and makes them temporary hit point giving dynamos. The attacks effect means that anyone who hits the target before the end of your next turn gains temporary hit points equal to your Constitution modifier. You can even use its benefit on your next turn. As long as your group is focus firing, this can be a powerful ability, and is my personal favorite of the Bard At-Wills. The only downside is that the bonus doesn't scale up very well, but by the time it becomes obsolete you probably aren't using many at-will powers anyway.

Blunder is the first of the level 1 encounter powers, and its meant more for Cunning Bards. How good it is depends on the makeup of your party. It deals 1d6 plus Charisma modifier damage, and you get to slide the target two squares, during the slide you or one of your allies can make a melee basic attack against the target as a free action with a +2 bonus to the attack roll. The bonus is raised to your Intelligence modifier +1 if you are Virtue of Cunning. I like this power a lot if you have a big two-hand weapon wielding teammate, because their basic attack could hit fairly hard, and I like it if you have a Rogue because you can shift someone into flanking and the rogue might be able to get Sneak Attack damage on them, but even without either of those its still a decent power and can move an enemy into flanking to further make it more likely the attack will hit. The only downside is that two squares isn't very far so if your group is spread out over a large area, this power is much less useful, and its also only Range 5.

Fast Friends is a rarity as it deals no damage. Its an implement power that targets Will, but like Blunder its only Range 5. If you hit with it you get to make one of your allies off-limits for that turn, and the monster will be forced to attack someone else. This is a great Panic Button to save someone from something thats about to kill them, but the effect goes away the moment you or one of your allies attack the target, and even if that doesn't happen it only lasts one round. There are better powers that do something very similar on later levels, but if you need a power like this until you get one of them this could be an option that you retrain later. My personal opinion is that its the least useful of the bunch, but still not completely useless.

Inspiring Refrain is the only weapon power out of the level 1 encounters, but its a pretty good one. It deals 2[W] damage and gives all allies a +1 bonus to attack rolls until the end of your next turn. The reason I like this power is because unlike most bonuses like this, the recipients don't have to target the same creature as you, meaning they can go about fighting off whatever they were fighting.

The last power, Shout of Triumph is an implement power, but it is geared towards Valorous Bards. It's a close blast 3 that attacks Fortitude and only damages enemies. It deals 1d6 + Charisma modifier damage and you can push the target 1 square. You also get to slide each ally in the blast 1 square, and both of those numbers turn into your Constitution modifier if you're a Valorous Bard. This is a pretty decent tactical positioning ability, as you can move enemies into flanking, move them into the area of your controller's area or close attacks, or save your allies from being damaged by those same attacks. It also deals thunder damage which is pretty rare as a resistance on the enemies. As for whether to take this or Inspiring Refrain on your Valorous Bard, it's a tossup really. Both are useful in different situations, but its hard to say which of those situations are more likely to come up.

Moving onto the daily powers we get Echoes of the Guardian. It's a weapon power that deals 2[W] + Charisma modifier damage and lets you mark the creature for an ally just like Misdirected Mark. However, it also deals half damage on a miss, and has an effect that until the end of your encounter all of your attacks have the same effect. If you don't have Misdirected Mark this is a very good power, but if you already have it, this can be a little redundant.

Slayer's Song is another weapon power that deals the same damage but is more offensive otherwise. The enemy hit grants combat advantage to you and your allies until it makes a save and in addition whenever you hit an enemy until the end of the encounter, it also grants combat advantage, though just until the end of your next turn. Being able to provide this kind of attack buff is nice, and the effect makes it amazing, because even if the primary target saves against the combat advantage, you can restore it for another round by attacking him again. The power is versatile, and universally applicable. There's never going to be a time your allies don't want you to use this power or that this power will botch someone's carefully laid plans.

Stirring Shout is a ranged 10 implement power that targets Will and deals 2d6 + Charisma modifier psychic damage. As an effect until the end of the encounter whenever an ally hits the target they regain hit points equal to your charisma modifier. The fact that you don't even have to hit with this power makes it a great addition to a Cunning Bard powers, since they don't have as many abilities to grant hit points at low levels. Since its the only implement power, I think its a pretty obvious choice.

Verse of Triumph is another 2[W] + Charisma modifier damage ability. Until the end of the encounter you and all allies within 5 squares gain a +1 bonus to damage and saving throws, and when any ally kills an enemy, you and any ally within 5 squares of the downed enemy can shift one square as a free action. This ability is definitely good, but in the face of the other level 1 daily powers that are not only more specialized ins cope but also less generic in flavor, I'm guessing most Bards will pass on this.

You'd think Bards would have awesome utility powers, but at level two the options are kind of underwhelming or too situational. Hunter's Tune merely helps an ally be stealthy as a daily power, but if you have a stealthy ally in your party its unlikely he needs the help.

Inspire Competence gives you and each ally within 5 +2 on a certain skill check until the end of the encounter. This can be useful if climbing or jumping is required, so that you can boost the acrobatics or athletics of all until they can get past the obstacle. It's also an Encounter bonus so if your DM loves obstacles this can be a nice choice.

Song of Courage creates a zone in close burst 5 that gives all allies within a +1 power bonus to attack rolls. The zone moves with you and you can continue the effect by using your minor actions, but the fact that its a daily power is kind of a bummer. The buff is nice, especially on lower levels, but having to sacrifice your minor actions, which could be used for Majestic Words or other utility powers is a definite downside.

Song of Defense is essentially the same ability but the +1 bonus is to AC. I prefer it to Song of Courage, but either make a decent choice.

Multiclassing

Bards should be the kings of multiclassing, but in reality it doesn't seem to work out this way. There are classes that can be useful for certain builds but the problem with Bards is that Charisma, Constitution, and Intelligence aren't the most used ability scores for attacks, so that often times you will be forced to raise an ability score just for the purpose of your multiclass. This will be fine and dandy, but until you reach the level where you can start power swapping a decent amount, that raised ability score is largely a waste. I myself like Bards as straight Bards or maybe with a bit of Sorcerer or Paladin thrown in, but I'm not too big on taking multiple Multiclass feats with Multiclass Versatility yet. This may change as the game develops and more combinations come to light.

Combat Strategies

Regardless of which build you choose, you can be a competent healer, though probably never as good as a Cleric. The number of unique buffs you give, the tactical positioning and the fact that you get quite a few controller-type abilities make you useful to replace that role as well. If I already had a leader in my party but we were going to double up on that role, this would probably be best for that just because they can help with many different tasks.

Valorous Bards can off-tank fairly well. While they could be easily overwhelmed if not careful, standing shoulder to shoulder with the defenders is where they should be, if not helping to provide them flanking. A lot of their abilities can help the Defender do his job even better, so make sure he's within a decent range of you at all times.

In fact, even if you are an implement bard, try not to hang back too far. You're going to kick yourself every time somebody can't make use of your Virtue or can't be reached with a buff because you stepped back one square too far. You have plenty of hit points to take a few hits and aren't a likely target in most situations, so stay where you can effect the most allies. Who's the enemy going to attack the guy singing a song or the guy swinging a sword?

Bards don't have that many ways to give Saving Throws or Saving Throw bonuses to their allies, which is pretty unfortunate. This means that your group needs to bring down Controllers and other debilitating enemies first, so that they don't get locked up. This gets a little better as Bards level up, but it can still be a problem.

For some more strategy consider reading the article just before this one, which is all about Leaders and what they bring to a party.