A little backstory for this idea (skip this paragraph if you don't care) is that I was leaving my house this morning and musing over the fact that my Bard has died a few times in the last week, due to moving into a new hunting area and a spotty internet connection, and after having some difficulty finding a Cleric to raise me yesterday (since I didn't want to forfeit my 60 plat worth of scrolls) I was wondering if maybe I should roll up a raising Cleric of my very own. I'm more than likely not going to do that, but it got me to realize that if I'd made this Bard a Cleric instead, I would have been resurrecting people some time ago. And that got me thinking about...

What do Bards do that helps other people in this game? In most game settings, the Bard is a supporting class that makes the rest of the party's job easier. I noticed this morning however that several guilds are way, way better at this than Bards are. Empaths (and Traders to a degree) are obviously utility-geared from day one, but if I were a Cleric (or Paladin), I'd be raising (or warding) the dead, and if I were a Moon Mage, I would be gating people around Elanthia. Meanwhile, Bard abilities seem centered around helping the user.

Now, I want to clear up a few possible misconceptions about what I'm saying here, since the internet is real good at arguing with things we aren't saying rather than things we are saying. I'm not suggesting that Bards should get access to any ability, or proxy ability, that another guild has; in other words, I'm not suggesting that Bards get the ability to sing people back to life or open Naga-gates or anything like that. I don't want Bards to have any ability someone else has, however I do think our arsenal of skills is lacking in the aiding-others utility department. Second, I'm well aware that Bards do have spells that aid others, but that isn't unique in the same way as resurrection or moongate; it's rare for someone to gweth for a Bard to come sing Hodierna, in other words. Lastly (for now), I'm also not saying that Bard spells and abilities are lackluster; I firmly believe that they're among the best, most capable guilds in the game today, and I'm not trying to disparage any past or present Bard GMs or claim that the guild is somehow neglected. I further recognize that thematically Bards are pretty good with utility (what with spells like AoT and Sanctuary and such), but these spells are most useful as role-playing tools or in extremely limited scenarios. Again, people don't often call for Bards to come help translate.

On to what I'm here to say... I would like to come up with some new group-assisting spell or ability that the game lacks, and Bards could provide, fitting within their established thematic place in DragonRealms. Unfortunately, at present, I have no ideas. I'm wondering if anyone else has thought about this, and has any suggestion for what Bards should be able to do but currently can't, or ideas for things the game currently lacks and could use. I also want to stress that I'm focused right now on things that will help other people more than the Bard performing the task.

I

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"I don't know if this is the right folder because the forums are a quagmire of hate and sadness." - Thayet

Addendum: I would propose that only the most recent Echo should apply, or maybe one Echo per bard, so you can't just stack up all of the possible Echoes and keep them running forever. Or maybe that's okay?

~Kashik

>So maybe a system that leaves an "echo" of the last bardic buff

Heh, kind of like a magical earworm? Interesting idea.

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The Echo idea is interesting, and I wouldn't mind seeing it put into action.

About the thought of doing something for others in general, this has been a BIG piece missing from the Bard guild for a while. At the last Bard meeting (or maybe the one before?), several people brought up how much they want Bards to fill a niche for others. I too want Bards to be more of a support guild.

A few ideas I've had for roles we could fill:

- Using performance to enhance the experience gain of others. For example, doing a specific Bardic focus, plus playing song type X, boosts skill Y learning.

- Better group control abilities (though honestly we might just need these for everybody). I posted some warhorn-based suggestions a while ago, such as "teleporting" group members back to the group leader (when people get lost), "teleporting" everyone to missile range for easy retreating, etc.

- More potent group enhancers, possibly with greater costs to the Bard. For example, maybe the Bard can no longer fight but everyone else in the group is much more effective.

- More potent teaching abilities. For example, maybe finding a specific location for teaching X skill, plus a Bard, is a powerful combination. Or maybe we can get an (even more) enhanced ability to teach in combat.

- Restoral of some memories post-depart. Clerics can already preserve the memories of the dead, the idea would be a Bard could be used to stimulate a random set of memories if one has departed without Clerical protection. Bards are pretty memory focused after all.

- Enhancing others' fame and prestige, especially if systems for that ever come out for anything other than crafting.


- Navesi

Fwiw, this 'echo' used to exist previous to 3.0. Most enchantes had a lingering effect once the stopped being played. Some lasted only until the next time the enchante would have pulsed, others lasted several minutes based on how long the enchante had been played.

I can certainly see this being re-implemented in some fashion.

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>> Mostly I agree, but do you know how hard wow-factor is to achieve?!

Oh, believe me, I know. I wasn't intending to disparage you; my hope is that if we all brain-storm, someone will come up with something that triggers a thought from someone else, and we'll stumble upon a great idea. These are some ideas I've come up with, after reading the ideas of others. Not sure any of them are good, but they are ideas, so let's see where this takes us.

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Walking Wounded (Spell, cyclic / utility, area of effect; I know the name sucks.)
Prerequisites: Sanctuary, Abandoned Heart
Effect: Provides a protective balm for the bodies and spirits of adventurers in the area. When an adventurer under the effects of this spell would normally fall in combat, he or she instead is pushed out of engagement and protected temporarily by a swirling mist. The adventurer then has ~20 seconds before the spell releases, at which time he or she will die, regardless of current health or conditions. This is intended to be a method of allowing fallen combatants to get free of the battle field and make it to triage before dying, such as during invasions.

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Song Scrolls (Ability Update; This idea definitely needs work.)
Effect: Change/adjust the way song scrolls currently work (which might require a song wipe) so that singing a song has a Moon-Mage-prediction-style effect on those who hear it. Each song has a corresponding Skill, which listeners receive a bonus to after hearing the song in its entirety. (Maybe give a partial bonus for hearing only part of the song.) Obviously this needs work, since it would be entirely too potent if it gave the same bonus as a prediction but to multiple people. Also, it would clearly drain the Bard's mojo (or whatever we're calling it) pool, and the more people it affects, the more drain occurs. As I said already, this idea is far from fleshed out and would need a good deal of work to make functional, but I think making song scrolls do something practical would be nice. Other ideas I have in this vein that differ from what is written above would be: make the skill bonus random; make the song affect one person only with the command SERENADE <player> <song>; have some rare song scrolls in treasure or fests that do something other than bonus a skill, such as bonus mana regen or something like that. Suggestions for improvement more than welcome here.

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Countersong (New Ability)
Prerequisites: 30th Circle
Effect: The bard weaves a magical melody that seeps into spell patterns and dissolves them, positive and negative alike. Song lasts for several minutes, and pulses about every ~20-25 seconds. Each pulse triggers a skill contest, which (if successful) dissipates a magical/supernatural effect; first the song looks for effects on the Bard, then looks for effects in the room (like shadowlings, banners, cursed items, etc.), then looks for AOE spells/effects, and then finally begins dispelling individual people. Obviously also not a fully formed idea; suggestions needed.

I

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"I don't know if this is the right folder because the forums are a quagmire of hate and sadness." - Thayet

>>- Using performance to enhance the experience gain of others. For example, doing a specific Bardic focus, plus playing song type X, boosts skill Y learning.

>>- More potent teaching abilities. For example, maybe finding a specific location for teaching X skill, plus a Bard, is a powerful combination. Or maybe we can get an (even more) enhanced ability to teach in combat.

Faenella's Grace, sort of?

No song scrolls, then, just call the ability Bardic Inspiration. It would have to be less potent than our spell buffs, but it could potentially affect everyone that heard the whole performance. One possible approach would be for the performance to be similar to an APP FOCUS effect, but based on the bard's Bardic Lore/Performance skill instead of the users' appraisal skill. Alternatively, the inspiration could provide a decent strength buff that tapers off in power over time, with the limitation that an audience member can't benefit from another inspiration for a certain amount of time after the first inspiration begins/ends. Tie in instruments to the system, too, where maybe certain instruments or certain types of instruments have an affinity for certain inspirations.

>>They might, but it's about the thematic scheme of the guild. Traditionally Bards, Clerics, and Paladins tend to be party-supporters, whereas the others have different roles, such as damage-dealers or battleground-controllers. Now, I'm perfectly willing to accept than in DR the Bard is not a party-supporter, but existing lore and abilities don't seem to line up with that. We already have a good deal of area-of-effect aiding abilities, and that's great, I'm just hoping to get us something that is more relevant to the day-to-day activity of an adventurer.

Yeah, I understand what your'e saying. Traditionally Bards are party-supporters, but the challenge in DR is that a party-supporter isn't enough. Both Paladins and Bards have this problem, while Clerics get around it by being raisers.

But I'm interested in maybe looking at other areas where Bards have existing lore and abilities, but maybe not as much as we could.

Long, long ago Zeyurn noted: "One of the problems in developing the Holistic vision mentioned above is that the biggest traditional strengths for a Bard (Performance and group buffing) are things that tend to not convert to a great play experience in our little land."

What I get from this, although obviously a 2010 comment is not binding, is that more attention has been given to giving Bards abilities outside of Performance and group buffing. The abilities related to Tactics and Bardic Lore make sense from this perspective.

The transition away from enchantes probably changes a lot of the ways in which Bardic magic works, but there's still a niche for cyclic spells and I wonder if there is more area for development of cyclic spells.

And again, although it's not Bard specific, as a Lore primary Guild the more crafting and performance is fleshed out, the better off Bards are.

I'd like to se Heritages worked on and released before asking for more/new abilities.

Pulling out another aged quote, from Raesh:

"The first part is that a Bard is a protector of society. This can manifest in many ways."
"But without society and culture, a Bard is nothing."
"You can't have a hermit Bard. You could be a hermit writer or something, but not a Bard."
"Essentially to every Bard there is something that they feel needs to be protected, or shared, or created for the betterment of people."
"Who those people are depends from Bard to Bard, depending on their society."
"It could be art, or history, or a message."
"It could be more direct, protecting them from the dark forces out there wanting to squish your town like a bug."
"So there's that, and I don't believe I phrased that particullarly well since it was on the fly, but hopefully it made sense."

Recall History and Evoke are well fleshed out, but more areas would always be nice, and more areas that flesh out Bardic history and lore. So the other side of "protect of society" that I see missing is combat buffs based on Bardic Lore for the Bard, not group support.

>> That was more or less the plan for lionize. It would be a lot more restrictive than prediction because it would be less of the focal point.

Excellent. We can put a pin in that one then, and see how it pans out.

I'm still trying to come up with something that fits the bill for a solid Bardic utility though. I think the central criteria that matters to me is that it's an ability that provides a desirable convenience for players. Just how resurrection is convenient in that it prevents you from losing favors (among other things), glyphing is convenient in that it prevents you from having to re-equip, moongating is convenient in that it bypasses lengthy travel (and costs), and traders selling pouches is convenient in that it prevents the need to manually sell individual gems or travel to a distant shop. This was the idea that led me to the Walking Wounded suggestion; it would alleviate the need to drag bodies away from invasions and such. Granted that this is exceptionally niche, which is why I'm still looking for a better suggestion. What is an inconvenient aspect of the game that currently has no methods to mitigate? I'm not sure yet.

I

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"I don't know if this is the right folder because the forums are a quagmire of hate and sadness." - Thayet

Gs bards can loresing which informs people of the magical properties of gear they find. While our treasure is currently far less magical, one can always hope that one day magical wonders will fin their way into the system. Beyond that, I would like a way for bards to utilize lore and history in a meaningful way for others. Maybe a lore recall about a critter could give a hunting edge against said creature for a while. I've never found a treasure map, but maybe their lore and history knowledge could help people recover hidden wealth quicker? Just a few different ideas