(2) I would rather the gods took a long time to re-do bards extensively than to have something less well done come in soon.
Read that previous sentence again. Believe it. And to answer your question, many more months, a year, I dunno how I'd feel about years plural. Talk to me then, if it's still a question.
(3) The bard class, as it has existed on all versions of Sojourn (and you can trace it back a good deal further than that, I believe, something inherited from...somewhere), is basically flawed.
What the heck are bards doing in the rogue class? What the heck are bards doing as a fighter class at all? Bards are defined by songs, and their songs have magical effects. Magic = caster class.
(4) Does it matter? Yes! Yes! If you start out with a different basic definition, you probably don't end up in the same place. You could, sure, but you probably don't.
Rogue-bard has weapons skills. Rogue-bard may have escape, steal, pick lock, and sneaky skills. Rogue-bard gets into the thick of things in battle. Rogue-bard has fewer or worse song skills to compensate for these advantages.
Caster-bard has few weapons skills. Caster-bard doesn't have escape, steal, pick, or sneaky. Caster-bard stays out of the thick of things like a good support class. Caster-bard has song skills worthy of the name: they are the heart of the class.
(5) All right, if we go with caster-bard, where does that lead us?
Under Sojourn, bards as a caster-type must be clerics or mages. In terms of hps, not having to scribe, and wearing a greater variety of equip, bards of the past have been more like clerics. Some of our songs have cleric-type effects (healing, protection). In terms of where the song skills fall (Int), bards are more like mages. Some of our songs have mage-type effects (hero/haste, revelation). Some songs have both cleric and mage effects (fly/vig).
I could make an argument for bards as an entirely separate class. I could make an argument for a mixed cleric-mage class. I could make an argument for mage class. But the way Sojourn is set up, it's probably most consistent if bards get taken out of rogue and put into the cleric class.
Immediately, what happens? Bards get moderate hps, as they do now: more than mages but less than warriors. Bards get to wear most but not all equip, as they used to. Not quite the same set of equip as before or now, different weapons especially, but that's fine.
Do our songs move over to Wis rather than Int? If we want to be consistent about this, probably. Do we have to re-roll? Maybe. Too bad for us, and besides, how many folks does that seriously affect? Two, Jaeli and Thrankton. They could get a god-fix. Three, if you count me, and I'm willing to re-roll. I don't know of another bard or battlechanter past 25.
Cleric class, need a god, right? Yup, all bards worship what's-his-name. Deneir? Oghma? Maybe both. I forget. Forgive me, oh mighty one(s).
Do we automatically learn our songs when we hit the right level? Possibly, but I could see not. I mean, these are the gods of knowledge and literacy, after all. Gotta go to the guild to open the book and be able to read the music, before the god gives you the power in the song. "No royal road to learning", if learning is your thang.
So far, not much difference. But thinking about bards as casters means we get some song right at level 1. As it is, all other casters can learn a few basic spells/prayers right from the beginning. If you're defined as a mage, you cast spells from the start. If you're defined as a cleric, you pray from the start. If you're a bard, you should be able to learn at least one song and one instrument at level 1. (If bards had been defined as casters way back when, I don't see how it would ever have happened that we didn't get any songs until level 10. Difference in persepctive, see?)
Thinking about bards as casters, if I'm caster class, then like all other casters, I get to the point where I don't fail my magics (except the most powerful). So I only stutter while I'm still learning the songs. Now, even after I know them, I may have to stop singing after a while. Magical singing is hard work! It may take me a moment or two to refresh myself after I've stopped. But I'll learn how to sing longer and longer as my skills increase.
If a bard is a caster, then like other casters, if I'm in battle and doing my casting/singing, then if I get attacked, I won't stop singing. What, take my instrument and hit the opponent with it? Maybe break it, maybe injure my fingers? Damn it, Jim, I'm a bard, not a fighter! OK, if I get knocked down or something I'll stop, just like any caster would. But not if I get switched to, or breathed on, or hit by a spell, or anything like that.
What else? Well, I can't sing in silence or !magic rooms, obviously. I note this because there is currently at least one room now where I can sing, but no one can cast (Cleona in Trollbark, so some flags are set oddly, the way I see it).
I believe casters can cast area spells while blind, so I can sing while blind, too. Or while I'm invis and my instruments are invis. You think I need to see my fingers and instrument to play? No way, not even in RL.
(6) Gurns, that sounds a lot like the old Soj2 or something like the Soj3 bards, with most of your handicaps removed.
Thinking about bards as caster class, we can see there are some other things that should be changed. Bards should have fewer fighting skills than they do now. That is, they're cleric class, they get cleric class fighting skills. And they get no rogue skills: pick, sneak, hide, escape, etc.
Putting bards in the cleric class means they get switched to more often.
And if we're thinking about bards as casters, they should be singing in battle and never fighting. So let's get rid of that very clever (whoever invented it) but just mind-bogglingly odd (from a realism view) practice of sing a verse, assist, then disengage in time to sing the next verse. Singing should be continuous.
How do we do that? By changing two things: First, shorten the time it takes to sing a verse. Now, as I recall, the "it takes a while to get a song effect" was implemented to prevent twinking (so no more typing n;play song of sleep, hitting Enter, and sleeping BigAggroMob). The length of the delay was set, I assume, so that it would be difficult to time the delay accurately (any little lag, and you get dead bard rather than sleeping mob, and within a span of 20 seconds, there's a good chance of a little lag). However, would not the delay work equally well if it were shorter but with a random component? So if verses hit every 9 +/- 3 seconds, I think that would prevent twinking (song effects timed to last the same length, of course). But that also brings the waiting for a verse down to approximately 2 rounds of battle rather than 4. With disengage lag, that will almost preclude the "sing a verse, assist, and disengage" tactic. (Obviously, if you cut the time in half, things like the effects of each verse of healing and harming would be cut in half.)
But the second thing to do to preclude this: Invoking "realism", whatever that means in this context, almost all musical instruments are two-handed. Modern trumpets can be played one hand (but such trumpets didn't exist in medieval times). There are one handed drums and one handed flutes/fifes and horns and stuff, but those don't have the range, power, or flexibility of two handed instruments, so presumably are less suited for magical singing, where you need the most musical of instruments. So all instruments, as a rule, should be held in both hands. Maybe some rare special magical instruments are 1h, but the vast majority would be 2h.
Which means no wielding a weapon while singing. And to pull the bard trick, you'd have to sing a verse, rem instrument, wie weapon, assi, disengage, rem weapon, hold instrument. No time for that, with the shorter verse cycle. But from a "future bard class – I'm a caster" point of view, so what? If you're in a group, do you care if your invoker, enchanter, or cleric is wielding? As a rule, no. Hitting better not be anywhere on the priority list of those classes. Nor should it be anywhere on the priority list of (caster) bards.
This also helps with the question of balance. If bards are to be useful casters, they need some kickass songs. If they have kickass songs, how do you keep them from being a solo class? Give 'em cleric fighting skills. Make 'em hold 2h instruments to sing. And while singing (casting), they aren't hitting.
Now that's beginning to look like a bard. As I see a bard, anyway. What's the problem with it? Well, same problem as with some of the earlier bard class constructions: with half a dozen triggers, a PC like this doesn't need someone at the keyboard to go along with a group through a zone. The gods don't much like that sorta thing.
(7) How to prevent robo-bard is straightforward (not easy, but straightforward). Why don't other classes robot much? A warrior sets up a few triggers for rescue and shieldpunch, let's do Jot, eh? Not. There are too many different situations, different mobs, different strategies for fights, different things a warrior must do, to make it easy to set up that much roboting. (I don't say it can't be done, but the opinions expressed on the BBS indicate that folks don't care to rely on robo-warrior – it can be dangerous.) The same is true for all the other classes. Each class has different things to do, and has to be ready to handle the unexpected. No, it's only the old-fashioned bard where the leader gsays "sing heal", I gsay "singing heal", and some hours later the leader gsays "Good group, guys". (OK, that never quite happened. With me. But there are stories about....)
So, give bards more things to do during every fight. Things that require us to do one thing, then another, then another, and not always in the same order. Since we're bards, that means more songs that are useful. To work, this would also mean bard songs have to hit a verse much quicker, so we can adapt to changing battle situations. But we've already taked about that -- song now comes in after about 2 rounds of battle.
So now that bards can actually switch songs effectively during battle (rather than waiting 4 rounds for a verse, or worse, a stutter), there is a great way to give bards more to do. IMNSHO, of course. Consistent with things currently going into the mud, so it is also "future looking" rather than going back to old bard ideas. Unfortunately, it also seems like it would require a good deal of coding. Sorry. But here it is:
Make most bard songs have some little effect of their own, but act to increase the effect of similar spells. (Spell combinations, anyone?) So song of healing does maybe 10 hps a verse with 100 skill (ignoring virtuoso, which may disappear – too bad, it's purty). But while I'm singing heal, any healing spell cast by someone in my group will have a noticeably increased effect. Maybe (1.5*my_skill)/100. Similarly, singing "song of protection" gives maybe –10 AC at 100 skill, but increases armor and barkskin and such AC effects by 1.5, and increases the duration of stoneskin and dragonscales and such by 1.5 (a check for "Is he singing" when the spell is cast, to increase the "thickness" of stone). Alternatively, it could increase the size of the hits that stone and scales will block – we'd all like that one!
Add a "song of bad luck", which adds +1 to mob saves, but if/when someone lands a curse or similar spell, instead of adding +5 (or whatever), the spell effect becomes +8. So I sing, mob is at +1, spell finally hits, mob is at +9, I start singing something else, mob is at +8. Give some lucky mage or cleric class the spells to improve PC saves (got some class that's not used much?), and change song of luck to help players in a similar way: a little improvement in player saves from the song, but a decent bump to the effect of a group members spell, if/when it lands.
More? Some lucky mage or cleric class gets spells to increase hit/dam roll, bard song of hero boosts hit and dam a little, and boosts the spell effect more. Song of hero doesn't give haste, but increases duration of haste. Have "song of harm" do a little damage (like now, actually), but increase the effects of all offensive spells (probably not by a factor of 1.5, too overpowering), or if not all offensive spells, then increase the effects of a select bunch of offensive spells.
A few bard songs can stay as they are now. Song of revelation, song of flight, etc. The non-fighting ones don't need to modify other spells effects.
So what have we got now? Bard will be called on to sing different songs, as group fights different mobs, and as casters land or fail to land certain spells. Bard has to stay awake, to see what's going on. (Damn.) Tough to robo-bard. Verse hits soon enough to actually do something at battle speeds, and soon enough so that a bard may be called on to sing two, three, even four different songs during one battle. But hits irregularly enough that you can't time the effects to twink stuff. Bard has also become a true grouping class, since the bard absolutely sucks at soloing (and as someone who likes going off alone sometimes, want me to tell you how much I hate that?), but works and plays well with others. (You did notice I set bard's own song effect small, and the multiplier effect large, didn't you?) And the more others in the group, the better the effects of having a bard in the group, encouraging grouping.
A group won't need a bard – load up with enough of the right other classes, and you're fine. But a bard will be quite useful, in almost any situation. And the bard will have plenty of different things to do. Different things to do plus helpful in a group = rockin' class.
Too useful? Too unbalancing? Nah, you dial the modifiers up or down. Maybe 1.5*Heal is too much, so you bring it to 1.2. Maybe 1.5*Stone is too little.
And since some folks seem to think that the mud might be a little too tough, overall, well, if that's the case, then just adding this kind of bard could bring it all into line.
I had a few different concepts for bards (probably all stolen from other folks, quite possibly including this one), but this one looks best to me. I think it fits with the "world view" the gods have of the future of Sojourn. It encourages bards to group and groups to have bards. It takes a class which has never had much to do, and gives it different things to do. And it does all this without taking anything away from any other class, as far as I can tell.
Comments from other wanna-be bards? Or maybe the gods want to say "Fine, this is almost exactly what we're already coding, now go away".....
Or maybe "Our concept is better, go away." Or even "Dang, your idea is better and incompatible with what we've been working on. After Gargy kills you down to lvl 1, and then cages you in the arena for all the other bards to beat on, we'll hammer out the details and he'll start on it." (8) Just one more thing: It makes perfect sense from a "realism" standpoint, that one bard song (affecting the weave of the whole room) would interfere with a different bard song (trying to affect the weave of the whole room in a different way). It also means there's no sense in taking more than one bard in a group. No other class has that built-in restriction, as far as I'm aware, and the thought of it applied to most classes is ludicrous ("Sorry, Rylan, we already have Ebgar in our group, can't use ya."). I'd like to see that go away, realism or not.
Does that become unbalancing? Er, quite probably. Take my above ideas, and put a couple bards in your group. Nepenthia sings healing, bumping up the effects of all healing spells. Betandor sings heroism, bumping up the effects of hit/damroll spells and lengthening hastes. Wurhana sings harming, bumping up the effects of all damage spells. Tough fight becomes a piece o' cake.
The solution? More coding, damn, is the only thing I can think of. For every other class, adding another of that class to a group is a help, but not as big a help as adding the previous member of that class. So a third warrior helps, but not as much as adding that second warrior did. A second cleric is a big help, a first cleric is required. And so on. So if bard songs increase the effectiveness of the spells of others, then the second bard singing should increase the effectiveness less. Fortunately, that can be true whether or not they're singing the same song. And to make it a little easier, you don't need to know 1st bard, 2nd bard. So something could be implemented where, if there's one bard singing a song, there's the room effect, say a 1.5 multiplier. If two bards are singing, the effect of each is lessened, say a 1.4 multiplier. If 3 bards, maybe a 1.3 multiplier. So as you add bards singing heal, it's 1.5, 1.8, 1.9 total multiplier. If Nep, Bet, and Wuri are singing as above, it's 1.3*Heal, 1.3*Hit/damroll, and 1.3*Dam_Spells. Again, dial up, dial down for balance. This works "realistically" with the concept of affecting the weave, too: each additional bard singing means each bard can affect it less, but still has some effect on it.
This "multiple bards" part can be implemented separately, though I imagine it's the same parts of the code that are affected. But the "songs affecting spells combinations" for one bard could go in, be tested out, debugged, and implemented, while still leaving in the "song interfering with each other" code. I imagine. Then start implementing the "multiple bards in a room" singing code. Might make things a little easier to put everything in place. The gods would know better than I, of course!
Thanks for listening!
[This message has been edited by Gurns (edited 01-30-2002).]
If battlechanters and bards are to be different in nature that's fine but have them balanced with respect to each other.