Tag Archives: bard

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Barding it up around town

I’ve always thought Bards made cool characters in books, but implemented horribly in roleplaying (and most computer) games. The 4e PHB2 introduce a Bard class that doesn’t suck. We’ve had a Bard in my regular game, and he’s been essential to our party’s success. Our bard’s a true hero; he drops a Majestic Word when needed, stores critical hits for use later, and literally dominates the bad guys. The new bard is much better than sword-swinging lute-players of old. Now that Bards have come back in style, I’ve thought about playing one myself sometime. The question that still remains…would it be cool if brought my banjo, mandolin, or guitar to the table and strummed out some spells, or would it be hella annoying?

Beyond my regular group, can I do this at a con game, or should I grow a goatee first? Assuming it’s social acceptable to bring an instrument to a game, is it okay to freestyle or should the reptoire stick to applicable popular music (like Allen Dean Foster’s excellent Spellsinger series)?

All jokes aside, I know some groups have experimented with background or battle music, but has anyone been in a situation where a player is the one making music. Assuming he/she had passable talent, was it a good idea or just distracting?

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Combat Tactics: Gorilla’s Paw

I discovered a great tactic in our game this past week. It’s overcoming an enemy’s strong efense using another enemy’s offense through a weak defense. Confused? Let me explain…

Here’s the set-up: There are at least two adversaries: a powerful, high-hit point enemy with a strong Will defense and bad AC and a big, dumb brute with strong arms and weak mind. Amongst the party members there needs to be a character with an ability like the Psion’s Betrayal [DDI] or the Bard’s Song of Discord [DDI] or the Rogue’s Strong-Armed Loyalty [DDI], that is, a power that has the ability to make one create attack his ally.

What you need to do is have your character gets around the smart enemy’s strong Will defense by having the brute smash on him. Generally characters are either Brainy or Brawny, and so if you have a strong gorilla, you can get him to attack his trainer through a Will attack, rather than attack the trainer’s Will outright. This is your fabled Cat’s Paw scenario, and it works like a Charm (pun intended).

Try it out in your game and let me know if it works. Also, are there parallel situations with other defenses? Can you push a character with a low Fort into one with a high one and explode him for some damage?