Spoony Bard: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

Ah, the much-maligned bard class... For some reason, bards are very frequently unable to ever become anything useful. They are the butt of jokes, they are often [[Final Fantasy IV (Video Game)|beaten by old men with canes]], and sometimes their friends [[The Gamers|use a mountain of bard corpses as convenient cover]].

 

 

But then, while the [["Stop Having Fun!" Guys|dedicated RPG gamers]] will always [[Just Here for Godzilla|beeline for the characters with the best damage-dealing potential or who do the best in their party role]], if only because they are so [[The Coconut Effect|ingrained into the minds of RPG players that they would reject anything else]], many game makers also want to cater to players who want to see something a little different, and which makes the game something more than just a matter of the same [[Fantasy Character Classes|four basic characters]]. Even when there are other classes, they really only fill the same roles that those major four pillars of RPG-dom dictate, but with an added gimmick.

It rarely works as intended. Bards usually become spoony when they run into one of two major problems:

 

 

* Alternately, bards can be built to specialize in status effect abilities. This ''can'' often be a wonderful way to add a new role to the game, it's in [[An Adventurer Is You]] as "Buffers" and "Mezzers" for a reason. In games where enemies can have powers that disable your own characters, having a character that can disable them first, or provide your teammates immunity to their tricks is a great boon. This often falls flat, however, because the status effects in many games are actually [[Useless Useful Spell|Useless Useful Spells]]. This problem is often exacerbated by having fairly short fights in many games where the standard [[Mook]] enemies you mow through are only meant to turn the game into an endurance match, anyway. A spell or song that gives a +30% attack bonus is only a useful bonus if you are actually going to attack at least four times with that status effect on - if not, congratulations, you just wasted a turn. Even if boss fights are fairly long, if the bard specializes in nothing but debuff spells, the enemy may be [[Contractual Boss Immunity|immune]], and the buff spells may simply not be useful enough to justify using a bard instead of another character.

Keep in mind that simply having a "Bard" class is not sufficient - they have to be ''spoony'' bards - that is, if bards are powerful and useful, and virtually all parties will want one, then they aren't really a spoony bard. If a bard is a generalist with magic, but is actually powerful at spellcasting, they may instead be [[The Red Mage]]. Also, the class doesn't have to have anything to do with music or bards to be a spoony bard, they simply have to try to perform the same function that most spoony bards do, which is messing with status effects in a game where [[Useless Useful Spell|status effects are useless]] or giving ability point bonuses or penalties that are too minor to make up for not simply making another fighter.

 

 

Not to be confused with [[The Spoony Experiment (Web Video)|a different Spoony]] (though he got his name from the [[Trope Namer]]), or the midwest-based music group, [http://www.spoonybards.com The Spoony Bards].

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** First edition bards were an odd class that required several levels in 3 different classes before you could begin taking levels in bard, and even then the abilities were of questionable use at best.

** Interestingly enough, the second edition bard was just the [[Jack of All Stats]]. However, at a certain range of experience (party average around 3 to 12) this trope was [[Inverted Trope|inverted]], making bards curiously but non-obviously overpowered during this common range of play. Due to their being on the Thief experience table, they gained levels much faster than their wizard buddies, which allowed them to outperform wizards in their area of expertise for a good portion of the game due to their nukes being stronger--not to mention the Thief skills, the weapon proficiencies, the improved [[THAC 0]] table, and bardic music. Unfortunately, [[Zig Zagging Trope|the straight use of this trope]] comes into play after the middle levels, as they hit a hard limit on their spells and wizard-classes's advancement scheme became less stingy.

*** The Factotum is divisive. Certain players love its "versatility" while others deride it for being too absurdly weak to actually contribute meaningfully no matter how "versatile" it professes to be. Likewise, the Chameleon prestige class.

** Mostly averted in [http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/dramp/20081103 fourth edition. Bards] are a "leader" class (healer/buffer/debuffer) like Clerics and Warlords, and are neither conspicuously better nor conspicuously worse at that role than those classes; they'll be solid contributors to any party that isn't overloaded with such characters. Bards tend to focus more on debuffs than the others, which have their own specialties too. In a nod to their "jack of all trades" style in previous editions, they are the only class that can take multiclass feats corresponding to more than one other class.

* 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 (Video Game)|Edward]], is a tendency to go last.

** His spiritual predecessor, Lucia in ''[[Shadow Hearts Covenant]]'' is the same, substituting songs for aromatherapy. However she also has a tarot card system as she's a fortune teller.

* The Bard-like class in ''[[Guild Wars]]'' is actually ''far'' from Spoony. They may not play music so much, but they shout and support allies (or debuff enemies) while putting pressure on enemies with their ranged weaponry. They have about as much armour as a ''warrior'' (And by default use shields) so they can certainly take several hits.

* ''[[Inazuma Eleven]]'' gives us Handa Shinichi, a [[Jack of All Stats|jack of all stats]]. In a [[Lazy Bum|really negative]] way.

* ''[[Fire Emblem]]'' has Dancers, Bards and, in the Gamecube and Wii games the Heron Tribe, whose main purpose is to refresh units that have already taken their turns and have no offensive capabilities. However, the SNES and DS games subvert this ''hard''; Dancers can use Swords in both of these subseries, and Bards are capable of using magic in the SNES games and are often among the best in their game, at the cost of being unable to refresh others (they don't even exist in the DS games).

[[Category:This Index Is Useless]]

[[Category:Spoony Bard]]