| Question number the first: Do any of you think that the bard class has been nerfed? It seems like it's a might underpowered to me, but I can't put my finger on exactly why. It jsut seems that, when compared to other classes, the abilities are lacking. Opinions?
Question number the second: Synergies and feats that give you bonuses to things... Mostly the feats... Are they as pointelss as they seem to me? A plus two bonus to a skill or two, or even a saving throw, doesn't seem very worthwhile, especially in the face of things like Improved Initiative, NEcropolis-Born, and Spell hand are out there and up for grabs. Why would you settle for a paltry plus + to ride and handle animal with Animal Affinity when you can just buy a Military Saddle and spend the feat on ride-by attack, which is, you know, useful. I think that the bonuses should be increasted to at least +4 to make these feats worth taking. Opinions? |
My other elven ranger had a +21 to ride by level 7, which was VERY handy in the wild where ride checks were common. It even got to the point that my checks were waived because if it wasn't something EXTREME, my character could get past it.
Of course, if you are going hog wild, go for it and don't worry about the synergies. There are feats and magic items that are out there that blow synergies out of the water, but you will be suprised that a little +2 could make the difference between stealing a priceless gem and getting a dagger between the eyes.
And I wholeheartedly agree about the party diplomat thing. My bard Gwen (
They do work fine as face-men or scouts, though.
As for the skill bonus feats, it does a lot to pull feats out of the "feats are for fighting" rut they had in 3.5. They're also great for maxing out a skill if you want to focus in a certain area.
In my experience the spell-like feats such as Necropolis Born and Soul of the North aren't as great as they seem, especially if you're playing a caster. The catch is that they never increase in caster level, so you're stuck with a shoddy 1st-level spell with only 1st-level effects for the rest of your career. Admittedly surprising a guy with a chill touch from your heavily armored fighter might be interesting, but getting stuck with a Tenser's Floating Disc that only holds 100lbs is kind of a bummer. Some of these spells lose a lot of practicality when they don't scale with level.
Synergy bonuses are a great way to boost an important skill up higher than the maximum normally allowed, especially when the skill in question is a cross-class skill. Sure, it's min-maxing to take 5 ranks in something you'll never use just to get a +2 to something you will use, but there you go.
So far as feats that give skill bonuses are concerned...there are many feats in general which are a waste, and would never be taken if they weren't the first in a particular tree (such as Dodge). The skill feats aren't the only culprits of this. I hope 4th edition addresses this problem and either (a) makes all feats equal in power or (b) gives more feats per level, as in Green Ronin's True20.
I've found synergies and a couple of skill feats have made a huge difference to my rogue who's working as a sailor-about 3 levels worth of skill points difference (int 16 too so that's a fair bit); and means that some of the skills are actually achievable at lowish levels.
Bards are quite good in 3.5 (the DID suck in 3, I feel), the only problem is without a real area of expertise it's difficult to have them shine in the same way as most other characters. I agree that that does leave a feeling of being less good, but from experience of seeing them played they're quite nice; and a good way into some prestige classes earlier than a sorcerer of wizard/fighter.
Oh, it is nerfed. But the Bard's also the most veristile class in the game.
Question number the second: Synergies and feats that give you bonuses to things... Mostly the feats... Are they as pointelss as they seem to me?
Nope. They might be sub-optimal, but they're useful in many ways.
Since Synergies are FREE, they're not really that pointless.
The Feats, such as Alertness and its bretheren, are useful either (1) when you've got a feat-heavy charcter that wants to gain some cross-class skills (Think a fighter picking up Alerntess) or (2) when you've got a skill-heavy charctert that really wants to push up those skills (think of a Rouge with max ranks in Hide, plus Skill Focus Hide, plus Stealthy. That could be as much as a +13 to Hide, at 1st level!)
Answer number the second: +2 to two skills, or +2 to a single saving throw can be the difference between passing and failing. For the skill feats, such as Animal Affinity, Alertness, etc.- you're getting the bonus to two skills, which is why the bonus is only a +2. Increasing the bonus to +4 (even if you decided to split that, and make only one of them +4, and the other +2) unbalances things. A +4 to one skill makes the "skill feats" more potent than Skill Focus ( X ) which grants a glorious +3.
Not only that, but by increasing the bonus to 4, you make the feats seem almost too good to be true.
Be that as it may, there's always, always, always a better feat out there to take than Stealthy, or Animal Affinity. There's nothing that makes these feats worth taking, unless they're a requirement for a PrC. Hmmm... I could -get + to handle animal, or I could crit on a 17-20... The crit's going to win every time, for me. While the plus two might come in handy once in a while, having my character alive to reach the next level involves the killings of monsters who would kill me, and means there are better feat chpoices.