The OD&D Bard

[crimhthanthegreat]

In the early 80's we read about

Felimid Mac Fal, vagabond, roustabout, poet, and magician. Felimid is a poet of the Old Irish Blood a fully trained bard of Erin. A man who saw the bard's pretty face and the harp on his back might think him a simple minstrel. That mistake could cost him his life.

This character is also an excellent swordsman and carries a magic sword that has a curse. It doesn't hurt him, but it would kick in for anyone else who tried to use the sword.

We thought that he was a pretty good representation of the OD&D Bard who was described in The Strategic Review as

A Bard is a jack-of-all-trades in Dungeons and Dragons, he is both an amateur thief and magic user as well as a good fighter. He is supposedly able to extract himself from delicate situations through the use of diplomacy, but since this does not always work he is given the innate ability to charm creatures. A Bard has the thieving abilities of a thief one half his level rounded off to the lower level, thus a Bard 11th level would have the abilities of a 5th level thief. Elves, Dwarves, and *Hobbits may be Bards but cannot progress beyond the 8th level. Elves receive an extra 5% on their charm and lore scores and receive all the extra benefits of an elven thief. Dwarves and *Hobbits receive only their additional thieving benefits. A Bard may use any weapon and for purposes of hit probability he advances in steps based on four levels like clerics. For purposes of saving throws they are treated like clerics as well.

They also could wear leather or chainmail armour.

We always like the bard as a character class and found that they worked very well in the campaign.







*I never use the term Halfling, it is always Hobbit.


What do you think of bards? Do you use them in your campaign? How do you use them in your campaign?

[Finarvyn]

Bards are a bit strange because I have found that many of my players have very different concepts of what a bard should be like.
* Magic-user variant with songs for spells.
* Jack-of-all-trades adventurer.
* A wandering MU-thief character.
* and so on.

If I pull out a rulebook and read the entry for bards, half the group will shake their heads and say "well, that's not what a bard is supposed to be like at all!" I assume that this somehow comes down to what books a person reads. If you imagine a barbarian character, you probably have the same mental image as most anyone else because a barbarian is generally a generic stereotype. However, if you imagine a magic-user you might get some thinking of Gandalf, others of Merlin, still others the wicked witch of the west.

Bards seem to be like that. Getting a group to agree on what makes an "official" bard seems like a challenge, at least for our gaming group.

[stonetoflesh]

I recently read the Keith Taylor "Bard" books you described, what a blast! Once my computer is healed I'll have to check out that SR article (in my trusty Dragon archive); the OD&D Bard sounds much cooler than the AD&D one, where becoming a bard always seemed like such a remote, daunting task for a first-level fighter or thief...

[tgamemaster1975]

I only use the SR bard, even when we play 1st ED AD&D we still use the SR bard in preference to the AD&D bard.

[foster1941]

The problem with the OD&D bard class is that it's badly overpowered, both generally and especially given its ultra-shallow XP curve (1000 XP to 2nd level and only 100K XP/level at name level). Before I'd ever consider allowing this class in the game I would want to do a lot of modification.

(Aside: the introduction of both this class and the 2-axis alignment system in the same issue (#6) of TSR are enough to mark that issue as my personal cut-off point for "D&D canon" -- the new material (monsters, classes, and magic items) in TSR1-5 are all more-or-less copacetic to me, but both the bard class and the 2-axis alignment system are, at least to me, beyond the pale of what I want in "my D&D")

[crimhthanthegreat]

I love the SR description of the Bard, I think it suits D&D to a T; I do have modifications, I will try to get those posted. I agree with Foster1941 that the experience chart is badly out of line and I did make that considerably steeper.

[jrients]

I am working on including the OD&D bard in my next campaign (which will be my first OD&D campaign). I'm actually dropping much of the college info and connections to traditional minstrels and skalds. Instead, they'll be more like sound-based psionicists, inspired a bit by Dune.

[Deleted]

Neat idea, jrients; I've always found the Bard needed some campaign-to-campaign tailoring.

[tgamemaster1975]

I never did use the bard colleges and that type of stuff.