Up bard hp to 5/level
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The heroic Lvl 8 bard with 14 con and toughness walks into a bar, sees the level 4 fighter who happens to have a greataxe. They argue, the level 4 fighter happens to raise his greataxe and rolls high, a natural 20! The level 8 bard is now dead. He cannot buff his con on his own, the unbuffed level 4 fighter oneshotted him.
I love it
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How many of those bards were subraces @Echo ? Just curious- because I'm pretty sure they did just fine due to having the extra ability scores- with how spread out bard is, and how squishy they are, it requires some very finnicky placements in their stats.
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It's also begs the question, what role did they have, they "did fine" at what exactly, and compared to who.
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Toby is pure human. Spent most of his life span front line with a knife and small shield whilst wearing cloth. Recent upgrade to lightweight armour. He's died far less than my average character. Helps having other magic users who back him up and heal, but he's still capable solo.
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I got Tina to level 10 with 1 fighter level. Bard hp is a weakness, but they have strong suits in other areas.
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@sharkinajar said in Up bard hp to 5/level:
How many of those bards were subraces @Echo ?
Two of the ones I had in mind were basic races: 1 half-elf, 1 halfling.
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Mm. Yeah, I guess that you just can't really do a frontline/melee bard anymore. Which is a shame, since that was one of their more fun builds, unless you multiclass. But then you lose a lot of the fun bard features.
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It's simple though, you can't eat an x3 crit from a two hander wielded by a mob with 16 str. Not without spells and/or outside help. A frontliner who can't eat a single crit is a dead man walking.
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Some bards like toby can survive... but a bard getting buffs from a high level wizard allowing them to act as a tank shouldn't be the reason to not up their hp.
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Having done more testing of this today- I really, really feel they're too squishy, at least at the start. I was having immense troubles. The big issue is that their HP is just too low- however, this can be mitigated with ghostly visage- which they can cast, but they only get 1 cast a day at level 4 if they have 14 cha. They really don't get many spellcasts.
I think if they're gonna be still super squishy with 4 hp / lvl, bards should get more casts/day. Doesn't have to be much, maybe just +1 to each slot, which I think would be fair. (We're talking squishier than wizards or sorcerers here. Bards cannot cast endurance, nor things like stoneskin. Being able to cast endurance puts sorcerers and wizards on the same level, and they get way more casts of spells that make them more durable like elemental wards and stoneskin). Another cast of spells would make them a bit more durable, especially on the lower end of things. A single cast of blur doesn't last through an entire lower level quest- and, given their low hp, low ac, and very spread out ability scores, I think just having another use or two of their spells would go a long way.
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The main issue, I reckon, is that there is only 1 HP of difference between "mages" and bards. Wizards and Sorcs' get far more spells, and BETTER spells. Therefore, IMO, we should not be comparing the two, but compare bard to Cleric.
Clerics get better spells in general, far more spells and better spell progression. But clerics have 2 HP more than the bard. Yet a bard needs to divide its stats far more.
Id say 1 HP more per level would not break the balance of the server, but allow for more interesting concepts than a pure support character.
And I agree with Jolly, on our server atm, you cannot compare a bard without, vs. a bard with wizard buffs.
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Exactly as Olouth says, yeah. Even if you compare bard to cleric, which is a bit closer in construction- bards have way less casts, way less known spells, and lack the flexibility of clerics- and just less hp than them.
Unless you guys want to shoehorn bards into one or two builds and concepts or keep it exclusive to being a subrace, I really, really think bard either needs some more spellcasts or more hp to make up for their overall squishiness.
I would like to say there were plans to have bards regenerate songs and spells kind of like sorcerer, but that never went through.
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Bards (pure) have special songs, custom spells, and other bonuses. They are not getting more HP for the foreseeable future.
For more information: https://nodebb.cityofarabel.com/topic/47459/bard
