Bardic Versatility | EN World Tabletop RPG News & Reviews
The Bard is supposedly the most versatile class in the game-- and they do have a number of useful abilities. They have moderate combat ability and proficiency in a number of weapons. They have the second-highest number of skills points of any class and the broadest list of class skills. They have access to spontaneous spellcasting-- technically arcane, but they get spells that no other arcane spellcaster is allowed to have. They also have multiple options for making their teammates even more effective.Problem is, according to a lot of people, Bards suck. They're just not powerful enough.
What I'm thinking of doing is making Bardic magic both arcane and divine, at the character's option. Basically, they pick up a little bit of everything, and they're as good at channeling the gods as they are at using the neutral, uncaring energies of Wizards. This wouldn't have much effect, since divine magic is subject to spell failure from armor in my games-- but there are some creatures that are resistant to one type of magic or the other, and a number of PrCs that require the usage of one kind of magic or the other. This gives Bards several more options.
The other thing I am thinking of doing is giving the Bard the unique ability to acquire spells from other classes' spell lists. The argument over whether or not the Extra Spell feat allows this got me to thinking; obviously, Wizards shouldn't be allowed to pick Cleric spells and vice versa, but Bards used to get their spell list from the Mage list (back in 2e), and they're already allowed to learn a number of spells that used to be exclusive to divine casters.
The way I want to handle it is to give them a recurring class feature, similar to the Advanced Learning feature of the Warmage, that allows the Bard to pick a single spell, either off of any spell list (but not psionics or infusions) or off the spell list of a specific list of casting classes that includes Wizard/Sorceror, Cleric, and Druid at the very least. I'd also allow them to use Extra Spell in conjunction with this to pick up other "foreign" spells.
Is this unbalancing, or awkward? Is there any problem with doing this?
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