Spoony Bard: Difference between revisions

*** In 4th Edition, the ''Cleric'' class [[Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards|of all people]] very easily led to this trope—especially before the lion's share of the [[Splatbooks]] came out. The class was (and is) the most eclectic in the game, with a lot of powers bordering on useless and/or counterproductive to the role. Fortunately, due to the lowered ability density of 4th Edition they still retain(ed) their [[Game Breaker]] status (as least [[Obvious Rule Patch|before the errata onslaught anyway]]) to a player who knows what they're doing. To one that doesn't, they're this trope.

* And then there was [http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/classes/bard.html#bard Pathfinder. The Bard] now supplies large bonuses to his party without it taking up his actions and has class features which grant him "virtual" skills by allowing Perform to double up for two more skills. In addition, the Bard is able to use all Knowledges without training, and half his level is added as a bonus. You have a class which buffs his whole team, is a skill monkey, and without spending a single skill point is likely to know more about everything than the rest of the party combined, plus serves as a natural face for the group. Sure, the Bard is still not a powerhouse in combat, but in any but the most hack-n-slash campaigns, it's a solid, non-spoony choice.

* The [[Returners Final Fantasy Roleplaying Game]] practically inverts this trope, especially in relation to the [[Trope Namer]]. They can endlessly throw around group affecting buffs and debuffs for free while still doing decent magical damage and they can use Hide to avoid predictable attacks making them very valuable against both tough mobs and bosses. Their main weakness, just to further separate them from [[Final Fantasy IV|Edward]], is a tendency to go last.

* [[Warhammer 40,000]] has the iconic Tactical Squad, which can be given a Missile Launcher (with two types of ammo, one for anti-tank and one for anti-horde), a flame thrower for close ranged combat, the sergeant being tooled up for actual close combat, and can be split into two squads so that the close combat half can move and cap objectives while the heavy weapon guy can sit back and shoot. They can also take a Razorback Transport, which can bring the Close combat half up to the enemy while providing another heavy weapon, which is mobile. To top it off, they're pretty cheap for what you pay for. This all ''looks'' good on paper, as they can theoretically take on any threat they see, it's actually horrifying bad, as they cannot put enough shots/attacks to ''kill'' whatever threat they see. Especially glaring is the Missile launcher, whose anti-horde firing mode in theory can hit multiple targets, but because of coherency rules, it'll likely hit no more than 2, and that's if it's ''lucky'' (and on top of that, there's roughly a 75% chance of the target in question surviving anyways). The only reason they are still widely used is because the only alternative to fill the standard marine's troop choice is the badly-priced Scouts, which are roughly the same cost as marines, but lack their stats and survivability in lieu of other rules. In armies that gives the player another choice for troops, Tactical Marines are almost universally passed up in favor of those.

* ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]'' gave us kobolds, a tribe as weak as physically possible without going straight to the graveyard, but cost nothing to play. They [[Magikarp Power|can be upgraded with other kobolds]], but these tend to come out on turn three or later, and the bonus isn't that much. And they're all in red, a color known for [[Leeroy Jenkins|winning fast, or not at all]].

 

== Video Games ==