Buff Bard: CL vs. Dispel & ASF Reduction

[Ork]

The plot thickens. There are a thousand reasons that a bard could also be a paladin, or a knight, or a fighter. Uncouple that rigid brain from limiting your potential.

Bards are aristocrats, negotiators, lorests, spys, swashbucklers, sycophants, philantropists, performers, singers, musicians, story tellers,...the list goes on. The only unifying piece of the bard kit is their ability to influence those around them with their "bard magic" that could be activated by presence, song, tale or battlecry.

Nik, in another thread, labels how the pure bard or main bard class is ridiculously powerful. If you need any evidence to why they are..seek no further than many posts in this thread.

Should they get ASF reduc? I don't know. But, claiming they're underwhelming is blatantly false. It all depends on your competence, skill or experience as a player in nwn.

[Peppermint]

Yes, three of those builds include paladin. And three of them don't. Three solid archetypes still is more than most classes get, so I really don't see that as an issue--and I doubt anyone else would either.

Purple Dragon Knight is not a "lawful fighter" class. For one, the class has been reworked into something new. For two, it does not require a lawful alignment. The class is what you make of it.

Bards have never, ever been swashbucklers, unless we're counting Blades from 2nd edition. (Which still isn't even a swashbuckler, but I guess that's the closest we'll ever get.) It's very difficult to build an effective DEX-based bard without a divine dip, yes, but that's not an Arelith problem. The class by default has no DEX synergy whatsoever, so of course it's going to be bad if you build it around that*. Adding ASF reduction wouldn't change that.

(* You could probably also do a dex-based bard with weapon master if you really wanted to. It'd likely be playable, if far from optimal.)

This really just sounds like a conceptual issue. Like, I could build a mage and focus on wisdom, because mages in literature tend to be really wise like Gandalf. But then if I complain that my wisdom-based wizard is super bad, is that really the game's fault or my own?

[R0GUE]

@Ork I agree there CAN be different types of bards, and if I saw a holy warrior paladin of Milil walking around I certainly would get the concept and wouldn't begrudge that player. But I still cannot think of two characters that when you look at the stereotypical versions of that class (and yes stereotypes exist for a reason) are further apart.

Bards have never, ever been swashbucklers, unless we're counting Blades from 2nd edition. (Which still isn't even a swashbuckler, but I guess that's the closest we'll ever get.) It's very difficult to build an effective DEX-based bard without a divine dip, yes, but that's not an Arelith problem. The class by default has no DEX synergy whatsoever, so of course it's going to be bad if you build it around that. Adding ASF reduction wouldn't change that.

This really just sounds like a conceptual issue. Like, I could build a mage and focus on wisdom, because mages in literature tend to be really wise like Gandalf. But then if I complain that my wisdom-based wizard is super bad, is that really the game's fault or my own

Allan a Dale. Tom Bombadill. El Mariachi from Desperado. Danillo Thann. Storm Silverhand. Calliope. Deekin. Scanlan Shorthalt.

These are the literal inspirations and incarnations of bards. The thing they all have in common is they are roguish, rakish swashbucklers. It's literally the most iconic version of the class. To say they've never been swashbucklers, well it's just not true. Perhaps it's come to be seen as an inferior build because of the video gamification of D&D that NWN has become, but to say bards have never been swashbucklers is like saying Druids have never been nature lovers.

[Peppermint]

You just quoted a ton of non-D&D characters. A sorcerer with bard levels (Silverhand). A wizard (Danillo Thann). And a STR-based bard (Deekin).

You're working from a faulty premise here. You might want to consider going rogue, though.

[R0GUE]

You just quoted a ton of non-D&D characters. A sorcerer with bard levels (Silverhand). A wizard (Danillo Thann). And a STR-based bard (Deekin).

You're working from a faulty premise here. You might want to consider going rogue, though.

Yes a ton of non D&D characters that were the inspirations for the class itself.

Storm was a level 22 bard in 2nd edition, and I believe with Deekin has stats would differ based on if you made him a RDD or not. In Idle Champions of the FR he has a Str of 8 and a Dex of 15 though. Danillo was probably a bad example, I always think of him as a bard but you are right he was really a wizard pretending to be a bard.

My point still stands that when you think of the "iconic concept" of a bard they are rakish jack of all trades who cast spells, not tanky paladin/knight types.

Lastly, I know it's not NWN, but:
- 3.5 got rid of ASF altogether for bards in light armor and using shields
- Pathfinder followed suit
- 4e and 5e got rid of ASF altogether in favor of simple proficiencies

And then lastly from the description of bards in the 3rd edition PHB:

Bards have the following game statistics.

Abilities: Charisma determines how powerful a spell a bard can cast, how many spells the bard can cast per day, and how hard those spells are to resist. To cast a spell, a bard must have a Charisma score of 10 + the spell's level. A bard gets bonus spells based on Charisma. The Difficulty Class of a saving throw against a bard's spell is 10 + the spell's level plus the bard's Charisma modifier. Charisma, Dexterity, and Intelligence are important for many of the bard's class skills (see below).

So if you have an issue with my concept of bards it's not because of my misunderstanding of 3rd edition rules. I can't help it if the iconic 3rd edition version of the class isn't the very most optimized version you can make on NWN.

[Sea Shanties]

I see where you are coming from and get the frustration, unfortunately the game just doesn't want you to be a dex-based bard. The way the game is designed you're pretty stuck with the "Skald" archetype instead of the freewheeling rogue (which I agree is a totally legit fantasy trope and hopefully some day there could be a variant of that available if more custom classes enter the picture.)

You can make a swashbuckling rapier-using strength based bard who wears medium armor and it'll be pretty close to what you describe plus perfectly competent if not downright powerful in-game. Or, you can make a rogue or spellsword who has all the dex-based goodness but lacks the song, though that doesn't mean you can't still be a performer of some sort. I know it's not exactly the character you want to play but there are some limits you just can't get around unless some dev wants to put in significant work.

[R0GUE]

I see where you are coming from and get the frustration, unfortunately the game just doesn't want you to be a dex-based bard. The way the game is designed you're pretty stuck with the "Skald" archetype instead of the freewheeling rogue (which I agree is a totally legit fantasy trope and hopefully some day there could be a variant of that available if more custom classes enter the picture.)

You can make a swashbuckling rapier-using strength based bard who wears medium armor and it'll be pretty close to what you describe plus perfectly competent if not downright powerful in-game. Or, you can make a rogue or spellsword who has all the dex-based goodness but lacks the song, though that doesn't mean you can't still be a performer of some sort. I know it's not exactly the character you want to play but there are some limits you just can't get around unless some dev wants to put in significant work.

Thanks Shanties. That's at least an honest answer and I appreciate it.

[Subutai]

Honestly, I'd love dex-based bards to be viable, but I don't think just saying, "Well, drop ASF an it'll work" is a solution. Sure, that would make dex-based bards more viable, since they'd be able to cast in armor, but it would also make str-based bards even stronger, since they'd be able to do the thing.

If we want to make dex-based bards a viable class, we need to approach the class or sub-class from an all-encompassing perspective with the specific goal of making dex bards good. It needs to be a careful and long conversation.

[R0GUE]

Honestly, I'd love dex-based bards to be viable, but I don't think just saying, "Well, drop ASF an it'll work" is a solution. Sure, that would make dex-based bards more viable, since they'd be able to cast in armor, but it would also make str-based bards even stronger, since they'd be able to do the thing.

If we want to make dex-based bards a viable class, we need to approach the class or sub-class from an all-encompassing perspective with the specific goal of making dex bards good. It needs to be a careful and long conversation.

That's fair. It's just I've been struggling a while and this felt like it was going to be a huge QoL upgrade. Especially just the ability to cast a spell in combat without putting my shield away.

[Aodh Lazuli]

The problem you are experiencing is a problem with dex based stuff in general.

If you're running dex without getting epic dodge, evasion, or being ranged, you are more or less just trashing your damage output for next to no benefit.

It's not that "bard can only be built in certain ways" that is the issue, but rather that dex characters can only be built in certain ways to take advantage of the benefits of all that dexterity.

[Sockss]

You will gain ~5 ac going dex, over strength, provided you're using a shield. Though generally speaking you are right, if you're not taking advantage of dex for dex oriented things (like ac, stealth, feat requirements) then it has limited appeal. Though honestly that's how it should be, pumping wisdom on your wm isn't a good idea either!

Dex non-ranged bards can definitely be viable. You'll want to use a shield, that you can always switch out to cast (or you can take still spell), but that's really just the bard class being very good and carrying the concept.

Bard as a majority class enables the most viable builds, because it is that strong.

Anyway, I don't think it's a good to confuse this issue. This is not bards are bad, or even dex bards are not viable, this is a specific build is bad.

[monkeywithstick]

Would a workable fix be to enable/grant the epic-dodge pre-reqs somewhere in the epic bard levels? There would be cheaper dips into rogue to acquire it for most builds.

If the current working bard builds are all str based they won't hit the dex pre-reqs anyway, so all it would do, would be allow dexer bards (though incredibly hard to kill bard song buffbots is potentially it's own problem)

[Sockss]

There's nothing to fix, dex bards are still viable and perform better than many other classes.

Edit: When I get ten minutes on lunch I'll whip up something quick and post it.

[Sockss]

Please note there may be some mistakes and it is probably not an optimal gear setup but should be mostly accurate!

Dex based viable (not optimal) swashbuckler bard. Huge parry score because, hell, you gotta have a gimmick.

26/4 (Bard/Fighter)

Human start Stats (Gifts) [Level Points]:

STR - 12
DEX - 15 (17) [24]
CON - 14
WIS - 8
INT - 14
CHA - 14 (16)

Skills:

Per/Disc/SC/Parry/Listen/Tumble/Taunt (1 in Open Lock / Disable trap)

(NOTABLY OMITTING HEAL)

7 Pre Epic (8 Human):

Weapon Finesse, Curse Song, Expertise, Improved Expertise, Knockdown, Toughness, Improved Critical, (Human)IKD.

3 Fighter Bonus (Take all 4 Fighter Pre-Epic):

Weapon Focus, Weapon Specialisation, Blind Fight

Epic Feats 4:

Epic Weapon Focus, ESF - Parry, ESF - Disc.

Epic Bonus Bard Feats 2:

ESF - Perform, Lasting Inspiration

Note:
You can drop toughness / weapon spec, or weapon spec / IKD for brew pot / craft wand if you want to do dweomering.

You can also take 3 ranger (archer) level dip epic if you want to be better at ranged, you lose out some small power of your songs and CL for dispels, but it won't hurt you too much. If you do this your favoured enemy will become an ESF.

Gear:

Yellow denotes 5% (maybe) or a rune needed.



Quick Stats:

HP: 466 (With toughness and endurance buff running) +36 -> 502 (With song temp hp)

AC:

10 (Base)
6 (Tumble)
2 (Armour skin)
1 (Small Shield)
4 (Fencing Buckler)
4 (Protection - Shield Spell)
3 (Cloth Armour)
3 (Natural - Bark skin
1 (Dodge - Boots)
4 (Dodge - Haste)
1 (Dodge - Mage Armour)
5 (Dodge - Song)
13 (Dexterity)
= 57

+Imp Expertise
= 67

+2 if you've curse songed, so 59/69

AB:
16 (BAB)
5 (Epic AB)
13 (Dex)
3 (WF, EWF)
3 (MDAM)
2 (Bard Song)

= 42

After curse song = 48
After Taunt = 54
After War Cry = 56

+5 GMW weapon = 58

Notable Skills - Brackets denote bard song running:

Perform-70 (Effectively 83 for curse song and party-bard song)
Taunt- 44(57)
Parry- 74 (87)
Disc- 49 (62)
Spellcraft- 32 (45)
Listen- 37 (50) [+Amplify = 70] [+C/C = 85]


Decent AC
Huge parry
Okay HP
Decent saves (I'm not bothering to calculate saves, it's been 15 minutes already, but between +9 spellcraft and +9 uni gear you should be fine)

Only 5% spell failure (From your shield) to boot, so pretty much uninterrupted casting. You can swap that in and out for 0%.

Decent ranged ab (Just -3 from the total above) and an optional ranger (archer) dip.

Huge party support.
Huge debuffs (toss people around with IKD after you curse song them!)

Note: Don't taunt anyone that is targeting you unless they're a caster, you don't have uncanny dodge and will explode.

Note: You can equip perform gear in, such as perform bracers, in order to sing better and increase your skills by a few more points across the board

[Adam Antium]

you could just not cast spells as a bard and use wands to have the same 30 cl everyone else has,while still having bard song aka the strongest buff in the game

I'm not sure if this has been pointed out, but that's not how that works.

I have tested this on PGCC before.

If you have a casting class, wands and potions are set to your CL as far as dispelling goes.

20 bards using wands will still get roflstomped by a mord's.


However, yes, bard song is pretty good. But, could a bard who can't rely on his buffs NOT being dispelled (unlike cookie cutter WM's who have CL 30 on potions/wands), without bard song, actually do anything effective? Bard song is what makes bards even playable unless you're going so deep into them that you actually don't get dispelled from a mage casting mord's. You still get breached as well, but at least stat buffs and maybe haste would last.

Not that you can cast those in your armor anyway, of course.


The only reason bard song is "broken" also is because we have curse song. So, a level 20 bard is capable of swinging, equivalently, +7 AB to himself, and -7 AB to his opponents, along with a difference of +-16 skills between them, and some saves too. That makes a class that can't really do ANYTHING well, able to melee well and utilize skills like taunt or intimidate, at least.

But there comes with problems.

While I'm curse song'ing, you can mass haste your party, or truestrike and run up to eat me for breakfast, or timestop, or mord's me, etc. etc. etc....



Bards might be strong due to bard song/curse song (and make no mistake, that's the only thing that makes them playable), but I don't think it's as depressingly one-sided as people make it out to be. Not in a world full of wild mages, monks, druids, and Word of Faith/Blasphemy, anyway.

[Cortex]

Don't cast spells., casting an innate spell will set wands and potions to your caster level instead of character level.

[Adam Antium]

So we've established that bards aren't allowed to cast any spells, is what you're saying.

This isn't a point in favor of "bards are OP." This is a point in favor of "bards suck at everything except because of bard song/curse song."

[Peppermint]

What.

You can make a bard and cast. Or make a bard and not cast. There are trade offs. The more bard levels, the less the trade off it is.

In PvE, bard buffs are nuts. Bards are a strong solo class with multiplicative group strengths.

Are we talking PvP?

Monks and Wild Mages have been nerfed. Bards have an answer to WoF in UMD (i.e. Spell Mantles)--or just Remove Blindness potions. Bards also deal better with Monoliths than arguably any other class, owing to consistent damage and the ability to dip for divine damage. (Though really, comparing anything to a Monolith isn't fair.)

Bards do have bad matchups. They have low hit points, so they tend to struggle against evokers. Which, bizarrely, was not even listed here.

[Adam Antium]

I wasn't saying that bards LITERALLY are disallowed from casting, but a bard only using wands and never casting because they're going to get dispelled (unless you get 25+ bard levels) and also not being able to cast in combat with any consistency because unlike clerics and druids, you actually have ASF, effectively makes bards not able to cast. It's just an element to the character that doesn't exist for almost any builds in most situations. Any build can use wands. That's not a feature of "playing a Bard."

I'm not advocating for bards to get an ASF reduction, btw. I'm just saying that I don't think bards need to be nerfed, which is something mentioned a few times elsewhere in this thread. They, like most classes, can be made into strongass monstrosities with meticulous building and care. However, the only thing that makes them do well, which is actually a feature of "being a Bard" and not just something everybody can do (like using wands or potions), is Bard Song and Curse Song.

So if people are unhappy that curse song/bard song are good, that's a REALLY BIG DEAL if you wanna nerf that, because that's the thing that makes Bards, both thematically and mechanically. If we want to nerf bard song and/or curse song by extension, there needs to be something given to make Bards not suck due to the loss of their main ability and the main reason for investing into the class beyond a dip of 3.


100% of the reason I'm posting is because I'm not in favor of nerfing Bards and saw that mentioned in this thread. That's all.

[Peppermint]

You don't need meticulous building and care to turn a bard into a monster.

You can click the recommended button all the way up to 30 and still be one of the strongest characters on Arelith by virtue of bard song alone. Even if bard song were toned down (e.g. 1 to 2 AC off of the song) that would still be the case.

Everything else is just gravy.

[Tarkus the dog]

Bard song should be cut in half.

[Adam Antium]

That's one of the most hilariously hyperbolic things I've heard in a long time, Peppermint.

Have fun against literally every build that isn't a cookie cutter WM or a dwarven defender, because you will get bent over by almost everything. Have EXTRA fun against any full caster class. Or a Druid. Or a paladin. Or one of a dozen other possible things that will obliterate you.


Tarkus: No.

[Peppermint]

What build are you playing? That doesn't mirror my experience at all. I'm sorry to hear your experience has been so poor, though!

At any rate, your best bets for a bard are probably the following:

1. Bard 20/Fighter 6/Paladin 4 (DPS/Tank/Support)
2. Bard 30 (Pure Support)
3. Bard 20/PDK 10 (Pure Support)

I'd be happy to help you optimize your bard if you'd like to post your build. Alternatively, you can hit up buildsnmechanics in Arelith's discord if you're a member there*. There are plenty of players that would be delighted to offer their knowledge. Scurvy's probably your best bet; he's a routine bard player that's around pretty regularly.

(* Invite link here: https://discord.gg/s5wJYFP)

[Adam Antium]

... You said a "recommended-build pure bard would be one of the strongest characters on Arelith."

That is not even remotely similar to the 20/10 that I am currently playing, actually.

Play a pure bard with one of the default NwN recommended builds and go rule the server if that's actually true.

[Peppermint]

Oh, I beg pardon. I misinterpreted you!

At any rate, it sounds like we agree in principle. Of course a support bard isn't a 1v1 monster. However, a bard build for support (e.g. the 'recommended' bard which still has full song bonuses or a 20/10 with PDK) is certainly worth playing and will have a huge impact in group play.