Spoony Bard: Difference between revisions
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* Brutally averted in the ''[[Wizardry]]'' series, as bards are decent characters with good lockpicking skills, but more importantly, the ability to play a wide variety of instruments that replicate various magical spells, up to and including the most powerful damage dealing spell in the game, all for no MP and a bit of energy.
* These types of characters have appeared in various ''[[Dragon Quest]]'' games.
** ''[[Dragon Quest III]]'' featured the Gadabout/Goof-off/Jester, who is either a clown (male) or a bunnygirl (female). An NPC will outright ''tell'' you that they're useless. Their stats are below average all across the board (except luck), and they will often waste a turn doing something silly rather than attacking. On the other hand, [[Magikarp Power|Gadabouts are the only class that could become a Sage without the use of a special item]].
** ''[[Dragon Quest IV]]'' had Torneko. Once you got him in Chapter 5, he started goofing off just like the Gadabouts in III. He's something of a subversion, though, because while he's an underwhelming fighter, he isn't useless, and unlike the Gadabouts of III, his goofing off will almost always result in something useful. He's still more useful for what he can do outside your party rather than in, though.
** Gadabouts made a return in ''[[Dragon Quest VI]]'', and are given a few more abilities to make them more useful, but remain below average. There are also Dancers, who can use a variety of dances to do bad things to the enemy for no MP, up to and including instant death, although you don't get the good abilities until you've mastered the class. Both of these classes, however, must be mastered in order to get the much more useful Luminary class which does ''not'' follow this trope, as it gains very useful abilities, including Hustle Dance which can heal the entire party for ''no MP''!
** In addition to Gadabouts and Dancers, ''[[Dragon Quest VII]]'' includes an actual Minstrel/Bard class that, while not totally useless, deals mostly in status and curing songs, and is an underwhelming fighter. As before, you need to master this class (as well as the Gadabout and Dancer classes) in order to get the Luminary/TeenIdol class.
** Averted in ''[[Dragon Quest IX]]'', as the Minstrel plays more along the lines of the [[Jack of All Stats]] and is a decent fighter and spellcaster all around, which is a good thing, because you start out as one!
* The MMO ''[[Eden Eternal]]'' has an interesting take on Bards. They are a support class with powerful but short lived multi-target buffs and heals, as well as an [[Ao E]] damage-over-time debuff. Bards hunt by using their speed buff on themselves, splashing a group of enemies with the DoT and running until everything drops. Thematically this fits the stereotype of Bards as untalented hacks that no one wants to hear and who have to flee when their impromptu audience starts throwing produce but ''functionally'' the trope is fully averted, at least for most of the game.
* Averted in [[Heroes of Might and Magic]] 4, more notably, the Gathering Storm expansion pack. The bard has maximum positive morale and top speed, that allows her to act before everyone else in battle, and possesses the mass fervor spell that provides maximum positive morale to every allied hero and creature. This becomes vital towards the end of the game when all the player has at their disposal are five heroes, each of a different alignment, meaning that they have maximum negative morale by default - a critical disadvantage.
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