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[Narr]

Bards are actually rather overpowered!  It's like having a multi-classed sorcerer/rogue/cleric all in one guy, without having to actually multi-class.  Some of the best characters I've ever had were bards (ie: baldur's gate, i had some sort of bard other than default or blade and she kicked ass, and in NWN2, bards are just fucking ridiculous once you get into epic levels).  Also, being a charisma-reliant class that doesn't completely suck once spells are removed is simply a plus, because being able to talk yourself out of situations is much better than having to fight your way through everything.  They make better party leaders than Paladins, I think, especially since you don't have to be forced to play some silly boring alignment.  How great is it to not ever have to actually fight?  You can just buff the ever-living shit out of your team-mates to the point they become godlike.  There's a song they can do (although I believe you have to have some exceptionally high number of perform skill to take the feat) that gives all your party mates the base attack bonus of any fighter class and some other such bonuses I can't bring to mind off the top of my head.

tl;dr bards are really good with extended rules pertaining to them.

[Alex C]

Bards are quite good in PnP, much better than warlocks in my opinion. It's a flexibility thing; when you have as few hps as bards, warlocks or wizards, the party expects more from you than just some killing power. It's crazy how much more useful low level spells like Animate Rope, Feather Fall and Grease are in PnP than they are in PC games (hell, Feather Fall and Animate Rope never even make it in as far as I'm aware of), and bards get great utility spells like that on top of charisma, a ton of class skills and bread 'n' butter spells like various Cure spells and of course, the almighty Dispel Magic. After all, somebody in the group has to have some form of Dispel magic available at all times after a certain point. If you don't your group may as well just paint bullseyes on their asses and present themselves to the tarrasque now and at least make their deaths quick.

[Catfish_Man]

I quickly browsed through this and my I caught on bard/sorcerer combo.


A better class ( and I don't get why the FUCK my DM didn't recommend this class to me) is the Beguiler. It has all these neat bardesque spells (and I think more thrown in) AND trapfinding.

So its like, "MOVE OVER BARD! The REAL silver-tongue is here."

You're going for power, I was going for a particular character. A street magician/storyteller, specifically, although he did a bit of music as well (particularly later on when he figured out how to spiff up his instruments with illusion).

[Narr]

I think my favorite bard character was one that introduced static shocks into his lute while playing, in essence being the first real rock star with his electric guitar.

[Papersatan]

A better class ( and I don't get why the FUCK my DM didn't recommend this class to me) is the Beguiler. It has all these neat bardesque spells (and I think more thrown in) AND trapfinding.

So its like, "MOVE OVER BARD! The REAL silver-tongue is here."

I played a beguiler in one of our games, that was the most fun I'd ever had.  Really because the other players didn't know I was a beguiler, they thought I was a bard.  One player in particular kept glancing at my character sheet and trying to correct things for me because I am still newish at D&D he though I must be adding things wrong so I would just play the dumb girl with a confused stare and pretend to correct it.  He didn't figure it out until I told him. 
I also played a factotum in our last game, that was fun, a little complex at first, but a good time.  (I was actually a factotom Kender, which made things interesting...)

As someone who enjoys the role-playing/story/figuring it out portion of D&D, hence my predilection for face characters, I find that battle can become tedious.  I like having maps/figures if the battle is complex in anyway.  It's good to have an idea of where people are and where obstacles are, but when players start over analyzing things, as some of them inevitably do, flipping through the books to see if the bad guy is really in range or not, and can I use my grapple that way and so on, it kind of ruins it for me.  I don't think it is the figures or the mapping that ruin the mood, but those players whose style of play is just so different than mine. 

[bryanthelion]

Yeah, my DM doesn't allow miniatures.

[MusicScribbles]

Are there any Eberron people out there? If so, do you DM? If so, how the hell do you incorporate--uhm, I think they're called Hero Points?--into the game? This confuses me.

[ackblom12]

Well, assuming you already understand the concept of them, as in how they work, Just give them a small number of them (say, 2 or 3. Maybe 1 if you don't want them abusing them too much) and they only get them back at the end of an entire campaign.

If they do something that you think deserves it, you can also reward them with getting a Hero Point back. Though never ever let them go over their max.

[bryanthelion]

Do you guys use hunger and rest rules?

I'm debating or not on weather I should use them.

[Narr]

Depends.  Hunger is only something to really incorporate on wilderness campaigns, if you ask me.  If your characters are regularly in urban settings and have money, it's just a hassle to deal with, whereas forcing your rangers to make wilderness lore checks to track prey because your entire party hasn't eaten for days can add a level of fun to outdoors settings.

I'm guessing if you're going with a Steampunk setting, your guys will mostly be in civilization.  Ignore hunger rules.  Your players will probably just complain about having to make sure their character ate when you're toting around a howitzer.

[ackblom12]

Agreed. There's no reason to unless you feel it's needed, otherwise it just bogs things down. It's like having the players declare they are taking a shit in the campaign.

Not that my players won't require it at some point (food and rest, not taking a shit), but it's something that really should just be ignored unless the circumstances call for it.

[Alex C]

Yeah, what Narr and ackblom said; the hunger rules are a joke unless you plan on putting your players in situations where they may have to turn back to try and find supplies or deciding whether it's really worth getting in a fight with the dire bear that wandered into the camp and is eating the rations.

 My GMing improved immensely once I discovered the All-Important Question You Always Need To Ask Yourself: Will this lead to meaningful decisions being made? I know it sounds ridiculously self-evident, but if you really keep asking yourself that question over and over again as you GM or do anything else related to game design, you might end up being alarmed when you find out just how much you can pare out of a game without hurting anything, and things like the hunger rules are a great example.

[bryanthelion]

I know, I agree with all your opinions.

But the thing is. One of my PC's (her name is Bethany) is a Ranger. I also have Hilary, who is a barbarian. And I dont want them to feel like they've thrown away points on the survival skill. Also, the feat "endurance".

[Narr]

If you know you won't really be utilizing those skills, then tell the players they are better off putting those points elsewhere.  It's perfectly acceptable with PNP D&D for the DM to do such things.

If they are adamant about it, then try to think of a few situations where Wilderness Survival could be used in some strange way that would benefit the campaign rather than make it seem like you're putting those characters in the spotlight.

There are so many useless feats in D&D, it's okay to let your players know about them.  Some of them were basically written specifically for special campaign situations, such as Endurance.  Besides, your ranger gets that feat for free anyway.  It's not like you NEED to make use of it in order for that person to feel like they are taking full advantage of their class as most people go ranger for it's BAB, light spellcasting, and free ranged or two-weapon fighting feats.

[KvP]

For Wilderness Survival (is Tracking still in 3.5, or did they get rid of it?) IWD2's system is quite good. You use it to sort of "investigate" what's been through the area you're in.

[Narr]

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Track

Track is alive and well.

I agree with IWD's system.  That's pretty much how it works in Pen and Paper, too, to be honest.

[ackblom12]

Yeah, telling them that their isn't much use for certain feats and skills is perfectly acceptable, but I would also kinda feel like I'm partially punishing them for roleplaying feat and skill picks.

I would put situations in occasionally that make use of it, but otherwise, forcing situations in is just going to make things feel awkward for the game.

Also, you might be surprised how many creative ways your players can find uses for it. Things like using Survival in a Urban setting certainly isn't unheard of, and makes perfect sense.

Endurance... well, there isn't much you can do for that except in very specific areas. In a desert land, that character is going to be very very happy to have taken the feat assuming they never had the oppurtunity to get a magical item that does the equivalent. Otherwise, it's a pure RP feat.

[KvP]

It's something like 1,200 gold for a ring that allows you to survive on no food and water and 1 hour of sleep a day. In PnP terms, that's a good price for the sheer convenience, but if you're in a monty haul campaign you can accrue that amount of gold in a few hours time, if less.

[ackblom12]

Of course, that's why I'm mostly lumping it into RP/Prestige choice only. Though you do have to consider that a good chunk of players don't bother with items such as that until a DM has taught them a lesson concerning the importance of such things.

[Alex C]

2,500 gold and 2 hours of sleep, last I checked, actually. Still, I love that damn Ring of Sustenance. It's on my list of stupidly useful things along with Rope Trick and a Wand of Cure Light Wounds.

[KvP]

It's broken if you don't remember that spellcasters still need 8 straight hours of rest to replenish spells.

[Alex C]

Depends slightly on how you interpret it, although I believe requiring the 8 hours is the official Wizard's stance. I myself let people get it done in 3 hours (2 to rest, 1 to study) since it says you gain the benefits of 8 hours rest, but even then it's still not really broken because it's important to remember that it's a daily spell limit, not a "per rest period" limit. On top of that there's still the rule that says that even if you're transitioning from one day to the next, any spells cast within the last 8 hours still impacts your new daily preparation limit. So you can't just unload all your spells 23 hours and 59 minutes into your day and immediately take a 3 hour break and be ready to take on the world even by my generous interpretation. It reduces downtime a bit occasionally but by and large there's really no way by the RAW for the thing to really end up impacting the total amount of firepower available by any interpretation.

God, I am such a nerd.