oh wow that is sweet :)

"tsk tsk..." 1d6 radiant damage!

Honestly, this is the best inspiration for a bard ive seen ever.

omg love it! 😂

you are a genius

You're definitely doing D&D right. That's what it's all about.

Bardo Baggins

I would love to play alongside that character

I made a very similar character. I think people underestimate how much charisma can come from a shy but sweet old bard character. I remember one player in my group was an incredibly bubbly person, and she was trying to play a hardened badass character and kept having to break character to say how bad she felt giving my character the cold shoulder. It's super fun to have a character that everyone loves so much.

DnD as intended

Silence effects? HA! My Bard has Catapult! And my other Bard has Hypnotic Pattern! Both of these are silent spells (no verbal components)!

@@theuncalledfor I mean that's great lmao, my bard tho was (pathfinder 1e) very much reliant on verbal performances, I dont recall any somatic only spells she had that weren't reactions to being hit and most importantly she was a soundbreaker bard, meaning she could attack with sonic-based attacks (think like high-pitched singers breaking glass etc) so every time she got hit with silence it was time to bust out the old reliable rapier and hope that she could atleast help the paladin flank lmao.

@@Zakiel97 Aren't Pathfinder Bards COMPLETELY different from DnD Bards? I thought Pathfinder Bards were based more on the DnD 3.5 Bard, which wasn't a full caster. This video IIRC is specifically about DnD 5e Bards (though the lessons are applicable to stereotyped classes in general).

@@theuncalledfor well in high level 3.5/pathfinder bards (though not full casters) were still reliant on their spells and performances, you do not ever want to enter melee combat ever unless you are a d10+ hit die martial class or a striker like the rogue or monk. Bards were skill monkeys, face characters and support casters for the most part - silence shuts down most if not all of their combat utilty. And yeah the video was about stereotypes in general, so it's pretty system agnostic :D

that is such a heartwarming idea. Really creative.

So basically a commisar? ;)

Haha I love that, amazing.

Gunnery Sargeant baRd Lee Ermey? :-)

:,(

@@Vektordeformacio Except with less field executions, I presume.

this is AMAZING

That's the spirit!

my idea has been a William Shatner style Spoken Word bard. But have not found the right campaign for them yet.

Im writing one up in a little project im working on, they use a magical microphone to project their voices over the battlefield and can help or hinder characters theyre actively commentating on, really awesome support flavour! I always inagine a 1920s radio voice like in Korra

@@FluffieXStarshine She packed her bag Last night Preflight.

A few of those are already covered by the rogue, Fighter/Bard Pirate is covered by a Rogue Swashbuckler Con Artist is the rogues shtick in general and so on.

I had one bard with Chef feat, proficiency with cooking utensils, and expertise on said tools. His chosen art was cake decorating!

@@ColonelBragg I think a point you're missing is that no class should be so pigeonholed that there's only way to play them (as the video shows) - and if you have an idea for an archetype (pirate), you shouldn't feel constrained to only one class. To you, a swashbuckler should be Rogue because ... well ... it's already in the rules book. But a fighter or bard being a pirate makes complete sense to me as well. The first D&D campaign I was ever in was a seafaring, island-hopping adventure. Only two of us were technically "pirates" at the start of the campaign, but by the end, we basically all were. And we had a Rogue (Inquisitive subclass Sea-Elf) - but also a Druid (a Water Genasi who was good at swimming and talking to fish), a Fighter (good for sword fighting), a Warlock (who was tied to a deep sea deity), and a Cleric (of the moon ... and tides). We all made our characters knowing we were going into a "Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker" style campaign and planned accordingly. It would have been rather boring if we were all just Swashbuckler Rogues.

Bardtoven!! Love it.

very hilarious xD

That's right where my mind went too. Sam was _so_ awful in Campaign 1! His first character was an over-the-top caricature of every bad bard stereotype ever, and when Matt finally tried to force some character development on him, he decided to take his ball and go home, replacing obnoxious troll character Scanlan with even more obnoxious troll character Taryon. Thankfully he's gotten a lot better in the later campaigns, but _wow_ was he ever painful in Vox Machina!

@@masonwheeler6536 you understand that your opinion is really unpopular and most people do not agree with that take, specifically finding Scanlan to be one of the more enjoyable characters. Scanlan had a fuck ton of character development and Tarry was not a troll character.

@masonwheeler6536 I'm sorry but you need to watch more than one episode before talking character development. Scanlan had some of the earliest development, from believing that nobody truly cared for him, to realizing how much his absence actually hurt his friends (especially Grog) to realizing that the love he seeked should've been the love of his daughter whom he had forgotten about, there was a lot going on with that character.

@@underthependulum3484 I went through the entire series. And what I saw was that when Matt got sick enough of Sam's antics that he tried to finally push some character development on Scanlan, Sam chose instead to take his ball and go home. And then he replaced Scanlan with someone even more obnoxious purely out of spite. He did _eventually_ come around, but the whole thing left a very, very bad taste in the mouths of a lot of fans.

@@masonwheeler6536 Yeah, I highly doubt it left as bad a taste in fans' mouth as you're making it out to be. The amount of fans I've seen who disliked Taryon are in the single digits. And Scanlan leaving the party, while many were sad for him to go, nobody from what I've seen disliked the decision. Along with that, saying that Sam left out of spite due to character development being pushed on him is absurd. Sam had Scanlan stick around with the party even after finding out about Kaylie for nearly 50 more sessions. And he was more than willing to roleplay serious moments for Scanlan

That's an amazing character idea

*Kills enemy with vicious mockery* Bard: F Party: To pay respects? Bard: No, that's his grade

I played a PE teacher Bard for a one shot once, a lot of "way to keep your heart rate up!" "gold star!" type of encouragement. It was so fun!

My asexual college of swords bard appreciates this kind of bard media! ⚔️

Ow! I made a bard teacher too! She's more of a field reasearcher, but she's actually a history teacher and her goal is to compile tomes to further enrich her academy's library. Very austere though, not the encouraging type at all. More of the intimidating into compliance sort. XD

This sounds wholesome and heartbreaking at the same time

College of Tragedy!!!

Holy smoke, someone else use opheus myth (although I play orpheus as a cleric). Currently on a quest to get my love back to me from the dead.

I love it. I would take the opportunity whenever possible to re-flavor his spells as song/poems so mournful they make the very ground heave with sobs (Earth Tremor). Most Enchantment-school spells could easily be mechanically the same but described as inducing intense melancholy instead of Hideous Laughter or Dissonant Whispers.

One of my favorite characters was a bard/warlock who would steal people’s souls, for their patron then use soul energy to put on magical plays about how their battle skills were

Bardic Richard Simmons would be hilarious, omg.

LOL I hope you have the right group for this, cause it would drive me up the wall -- but go forth and inspire!

my bard is exactly like this, he's a yoga instructor and guides meditations with the party to help them grow hahahaha it's actually pretty helpful! he helped the druid reconnect with his druid circle for instance. and with his noble background, he gives hot yoga classes to the kings we meet on the way!

On the surface Leiliana is the most stereotypical bard, who plays the lute and has a fair bit of horniness in what you see from the beginning. Then there is te cool subplot of *spoiler* being trained as an assasin thats unfurls ass you get to know her. Sounds like a great inspiration to play a bard or an assasin rouge with expertise in deception.

I love Leliana! Dragon Age: Origins is one of the few video games i played as a teen and i think really set up the framework for my love of DND as an adult :)

On a similar note, I think Varic is a great example too. A storyteller by heart who everyone loves, but is actually unromancable as his heart belongs to someone else.

College of Whispers, @@Tvillingklippan; no questions asked!

@@Tvillingklippan Not just an assassin but a spy as well.

I dropped Paul Bettany's Chaucer into my campaign as a random person you could meet while traveling. They did help him to a town but after one insulted him he's vowed to 'eviscerate him in fiction'. I'm just waiting for the perfect opportunity for it to happen, likely when they only half remember meeting him.

As they get levels and become more socially important, have him spread rumors about them.

His intro hype speeches for "Sir William" were works of genius.

I multiclassed a Pally with 1 level of Bard. The idea was he'd be like that annoying youth pastor, spreading the good word of his deity. I don't think I've pulled off the execution very well, he's more of a Pally that can give bardic inspiration but I don't think I've given up on the concept yet.

Should probably throw in some quip about childhood trauma and blame it on their parents. That's what my psychologist tried to do. I rolled a successful save and told her she was wrong. She tried it again but I'm already buffed against that attack.

Have her look up "Lords Of Iron" by Antti Martikainen (the super gorgeous video is right here on KZfaq, and the song is like 9 minutes long but well worth the time). Might be good mood music for your campaign, or at least inspiration for her character.

"Look at that gorgeous elf taking the stage! I wonder what she'll play?" *Whirling up bagpipe drone*

I ALWAYS take the worst instruments as a running gag - Bagpipes are a good regular, the saw is quite fun, the nose flute is another classic and of course the didgeridoo.

Wasn't a bard... But I played an Artificer who was proficient with the cowbells. The little different sized ones you put on a table and ring. 🔔

@@iggysdinners7092 Following that same line of thought, I once had a bard character in a joke campaign, whose adventuring instrument was a Hardart (IRL, a musical instrument invented in the early 1960s by Peter Schickele and Philip Glass, which was made out of one entire wall of a 50s-era diner). DM agreed to let me have him be able to carry it around easily as though it weighed nothing and were small enough to actually fit through dungeon corridors, and he was endlessly confused at why other people seemed to think he had some sort of magical secret that let him do so, because he wasn't smart enough to understand why they'd expect it to be hard to lift or maneuver, when he'd never found it to be such.

That's the way to have fun in D&D, good for you!

This sounds dope. The College of Spirits Bard in Van Richten's Guide To Ravenloft sounds perfect for it too.

Make this character as soon as possible. It's too awesome an idea not to actually do.

Now that has to be my next character.

don't mind me taking some of these for use at some point

@@muhammedtahir786 Use them in good health, friend!

that's amazing, I love when people really get into character

I was just thinking how a bard in a pike-square would be incredibly useful. Drummers to communicate orders long distance and weave spells to protect and boost the square.

I miss the Warlord class.

I had a Valor Bard who was a Commissar. He was a blast. (Literally, when he was dropping Shatter on people.)

>Larger-than-life >halfling I love this character

That's metal as hell

I am now picturing your character as Tom Ellis from the show "Lucifer", complete with a posh British accent.

When my regular DM gets to play in a game one of the rest of us runs, he usually plays a tiefling bard named Prince who is such a consummate manipulator that it makes me genuinely afraid of the man in real life

So your character is an attractive lawyer? Okay.

I'm making a warlock that has a pact with your Bard

Originally, poetry was recited to a background tune. Thus, Homer "sang" the Iliad, not recited without music.

I'm gonna have to unashamedly steal this character idea, I'm sorry 😅

Me too, I just stole this!

Please tell me your DM let you use the dummy as your spellcasting focus, that would been a lot of fun to describe.

@@asheronwindspear552 They did and I did and it was. Most of my spells were shitty one liners that I would look up long lists of. My warlock patron made me rip out an eye and add it to the doll also the hand controling it began to get black and shrivled. If I ever DM my #BirdBard is going to be the big bad.

that actually fits to the D&D v1.0 barbarian shaman that had a dance that would influence the party and encounters.

I'm likely showing my age, but as I started reading your last sentence "Maniac" from Flashdance started playing in my head. :-)

@@warrenmadden2586 She's a maniac, maaannniiiaaac in her rage / While she's dancing she will throw you 'cross the stage

He has a slightly bigger role in the books and is way cooler.

I totally want Ginny to actually write it. I'd read it and love it, I'm pretty sure of __that__.

Temper is the literal best name for a blacksmith

@@majorzipf8947 Especially for blacksmith Bard.

@@Alche_mist Seconded. If Ginny actually wrote this book I'd definitely read it. And considering how many different talents she has I wouldn't be surprised if that's in her skillset.

Oh my goodness, I have a character who is very similar! She's an air genasi Bladesinger born to famous elven adventurer parents. Her focus is more on academia and swordplay than dance and music, but she does those too, and is super ambitious. She has a similar goal, going down in history to make up for her shortened lifespan. She's not a bundle of sunshine though: cunning, sassy, somewhat arrogant, and true neutral.

Objection!

I love this so much

In our RNG game, I play a hobgoblin bard that was a soldier. Very different style of play than the common trope.

Yeah it's pretty easy to make a Bard into a military leader because of the whole buffing other characters thing, it makes it easy to flavor them as a "squad leader".

Oh that is both funny and cute!

Makes me think of a carnival that showcases the "Shortest Giant".😁

whoa, my son has a bard named Lotus, who is a warforged in the shape of a skeleton! He uses a conductor's wand as his focus, instead of an instrument, and plans to open a casino when he retires.

I definitely thought you were going to say he plays his ribs like a xylophone.

Please forgive me, but I cant resist making that stupid joke He is literally a... Boner bard

Havent seen that movie in a while, one of the more creative movies i must say

He is the 13th warrior not the 13th bard, but whatevs...

damn I haven't seen this in forever, I got it on VHS around here somewhere

ROGUE, not powder you put on your face.

My first Bard was a multi-class that didn't pick up Bard until level 3. So... I had him never touch a musical instrument before! And he was on a quest to learn formal music skills once he figured out he had magic based around music.

@@kin2naruto Our current bard uses a wooden whistle as his "musical instrument" spell focus. A traveling druid carved it, and we bought it for the price of a lunch for the druid. What's cool is that the whistle can leave both of his hands free if he doesn't need to talk.

I'm currently playing a fairy bard from the college of eloquence. She grew up in the Seelie court and learned the power that lies in diplomacy and speech from Titania herself. Her true passion however lies in drawing and at some point she discovered, that she could bring some aspects of her paintings to life by using the fairy dust from her wings as pigment. So, her spell focus is a brush made from her own hair and she casts by drawing pictures into the air. I really love that character and no one has had any complaints about her.

@@XMaster340 That's awesome~

@@XMaster340 My Bard idea wasn't even an artist. He's more similar to a wizard, but he's learned all his magic through Oral Practice. His spells are being cast by speaking words and verses from a magical language (Much like when Gandalf was speaking the Dark Tongue of Mordor).

My Bard is an entertainer. Sure he can play instruments and carries lute, as that is the easy thing to do, but he is also master of card tricks (to a point where many of my spell effects are just reskins of him using his "enchanted" card deck to do magic). He's a war veteran who had innate magic and good skillset and was part of few spec ops operations, but after the war decided that he had seen enough suffering of the common folk and decided to just wander, see the world and people and try to leave every person a better, or at least happier than he found them. Of course he had to run into this bunch of muppets trying to save the world. Or something. Not sure.

@@CutePoisonEU That's freaking great😂

Did you grow up in a castle in a swamp (the FOURTH castle, that is)?

This makes me SO happy to hear!! Thank you for listening!

The desire to know more intensifies

@@firestorm165 Katernin Brightwood grew up in a happy home in Sigsbee, where her love of music was encouraged and allowed to flourish. She went to bard school to study the college of valor, where she and her five friends formed a music group called the Sigsbee Six. They enjoyed moderate fame performing all over the province. They were invited to perform at the birthday party of their beloved countess, Esvele Softwood. But rebels infiltrated the party guests and poisoned the drinks, and not long after their performance, the rebels attacked the poison-weakened partygoers. Katernin, who didn't drink any poison, survived by hiding. Her friends weren't so lucky. Investigators determined the massacre was the work of a cult. But as the sole survivor, Katernin saw the truth: the killing was orchestrated by Softwood's advisor Corvin Tallstag and his wife, who quickly filled the power vacuum and now rule under increasingly martial law. Everyone believed there were no survivors. Katernin went on the run, fearing for her life, and struggles with PTSD, survivor's guilt, and a fear of trusting people, especially people in authority. But she longs to exact revenge for the innocent lives lost, and she will gladly sully her hands with the Tallstags' blood.

@@sarahb.7175 Turn that story into a book and I will read the shit out of it

My dm did try and put her in sexual scenarios but she just picked at it.

What's the name of the series? That sounds interesting.

Felix Castor. The first book is The Devilyou Know

@@christopherkrulewicz1635 Thank you! I looked into it and it isn't a genre I have read recently, but definitely something I want to check out.

@@christopherkrulewicz1635 Okay, not check out...yet. But put on hold at my local library. 😏It is popular enough I need to wait to listen to it.😄

@Teresa Ellis I will warn you if you listen to audio book I think the third book in the series dropped the original guy for someone very dry and bland. I had to read them normally because I couldn't stand it XD

He is not a bard, he is but a humble gleeman.

Though Thom did pull some notable lovers.

@@Maybonics lol, I was thinking about saying this as well.

I’m actually playing a gleeman/bard (College of Eloquence) in a Fourth Age Wheel of Time campaign. He’s a noble who grew up on the stories of the Third Age and wants to be like Thom Merrilin, at least the version he knows from centuries old stories. So much fun to be a gleeman in the wheel of time world!

There is so much to say on this topic and much of it will depend on the campaign world the characters inhabit. What I’m saying here applies to looking at the bard through a more traditional ancient and medieval fantasy lens and how D&D has sought to incorporate this class in the past. For instance, historically, Homer of the Iliad and Odyssey was a bard, a person who was trained from a very young age to preform epic length poetry and tales from memory. Anglo Saxon scops and Norse skalds were bards, and in societies which kept their histories through oral tradition, they were highly respected and essential members of the community. These were the people who would go with kings and princes on expeditions raids to both entertain and compose new ones about the exploits of the royal or noble they are serving. They are among the gatekeepers of tradition in pre-literate societies. There is a documentary, In Search of the Trojan War, I recently re-watched where they went to a remote area of Turkey where there are still preforming Bards. I think that is episode three of the series. First Ed. AD&D tried to reflect this by making a character who wanted to be a bard first be a fighter for at least 5th-8th level, then drop back to first to become a thief 5th-9th level, and then drop to being a first level bard with druid spells not mage spells, so in many ways bards were attached the priesthood and the established order, and would be consulted when it came to issues like the lineage of kings. To be a bard in 1st ed. AD&D, you really had to have a clear character concept in mind before you went through all of those levels to be a bard. In literate societies, many bards lose a good deal of its social influence and standing, and this is where many of the more common schools of thought about bards come into being as the performance aspects of the class come to the foreground. The bard becomes a more specialized performer, who if they are successful, will still be dependent on noble or royal patronage, whether it's a courtly 12th century troubadour, or a member of a circus or an acting troupe in a late medieval context. Actors for instance were seen as an unclean profession, one step away from prostitutes. The notion of the “sexy/horny bard,” might actually be a condition of the power dynamics a bard might find him or herself in. The Borgias with Jeremy Irons showed how performers in acting troupes were at the whim of the courts that employed them. In second ed., the bard goes from being a priest to being a magician, and from a social gate keeper to a performer. The 2nd Ed. Complete Book of Bards has some really interesting character concepts I still use, from the stately Herald and learned member of a Royal Court, to a knife throwing blade, to the romantic troubadour poet, to a circus juggler, or tight rope walking acrobat, to the thespian commanding center stage in the theater of the round, to an opera diva, etc. The possibilities and concepts for a bard are very broad, and lots will depend on the world setting for the kind of bards that would make sense. All of this said, in my experience, most bards I've seen played wind up being back up mages in an adventuring context

I love drow

💜 Thats amazing! Bard is my first class and the only class I enjoy playing.

Same...Honestly, I know Sam played a horny bard on Critical Role, but I didn't realize that it was apparently something that extended beyond that. Would never have thought of my Bard being Horny...and I started in 3rd edition.

My bard is asexual, too! (though not aromantic)