Bardic Music Feats!

[Thaminor]

These appeared in Complete Scoundrel:
All expend one use of bardic music for effect.

Chord of the Long Road: moves party faster overland (ignore forced march fatigue, etc...)
-adaption: mass longstrider/expeditious retreat (stacks with other buffs)
Chord of distraction: makes a target flat footed against an ally.
-adaption: insta bluff target against your party for a short time. Or intimidates the target.
Epic of the Lost King: removes fatigue, exhaustion
-adaption: mass restoration
Sound of Silence: deafens target
-adpation: the same, would be good for the % failure against spellcasting bosses
Warning shout: grants evasion, +5 morale to reflex on next save.
-same, except make it last for 30 seconds. Would be nice for ferrying people across traps, etc...

I think feats similar to these would be a nice addition to the bards repretoire, allowing a wider arrange of buffs/attacks then the current selection. The feats require a number of ranks in preform to use. They could be balanced by requiring other feats to have, possibly only openning them up to multiclassed bards. They could also possibly give more uses of bardic music per day, if neccesary.

thoughts?

[dunklezhan]

My thoughts would be:

1. I have no problem with any of the adapatations you suggest (though I'm not sure of the use of the deafness one and would suggest Distraction maybe just was a -2 attacks and saves for (duration)).
2. make them enhancements, not feats.
3. And split them so that they're enhancements made available to minimum bard level, or aligned to prestige classes.

Suggestions for point 3:

(warchanter I) Chord of the Long Road
(Virtuoso I) Chord of distraction
(spellsinger I) Epic of the Lost King:
(Bard 6) Sound of Silence
(Bard 12) Warning shout

Edit: and, of course, new tunes for each song.

[Thaminor]

Enhancements sound good, and maybe they could be a bit more tailored to each prestige if they were to be unique to those lines.

Something else that would be interesting would to have the effects last as long as the bard sings (and a little afterwards). The bard would keep up a stream of music, and the effects would stay active, to a maximum limit based on level. The bard could be given a feat to interrupt the music, or simply attack to get rid of it. If damaged during performance, the bard would have to make a performance check to continue

[EricZanzibar]

not bad but i don't like the last one giving evasion.
Classes that have evasion and improved evasion have to sacrifice other things to GET those feats. This cheapens that fact.
In addition I enjoy playing a rogue mostly. If we come across killer trap number 62 and everyone has evasion and +5 to their saves then they all zerg through saying "see you" to the rogue who now feels useless.
:-(

The other ones I like but any effect that stacks should be a small bonus. i.e. exp retreat is +20% so long stride should be maybe 10% max

[AyumiAmakusa]

Or make some of them granted feats.

[Irinis]

I think we have enough specialization of the PrEs, I would love to see more songs for all Bards.

[Aashrym]

not bad but i don't like the last one giving evasion.
Classes that have evasion and improved evasion have to sacrifice other things to GET those feats. This cheapens that fact.
In addition I enjoy playing a rogue mostly. If we come across killer trap number 62 and everyone has evasion and +5 to their saves then they all zerg through saying "see you" to the rogue who now feels useless.
:-(

The other ones I like but any effect that stacks should be a small bonus. i.e. exp retreat is +20% so long stride should be maybe 10% max

Rogues, rangers, and monks don't really give up anything for evasion. It's a class feature. Bards are the only class with high reflex saves and stealth skills as a class feature that does not provide evasion naturally.

Giving the ability to provide evasion at the expense of a song does fit in with the general trend for class features and does meet PnP rules.

I had suggested warning shout before. Since it won't benefit characters in medium or heavy armor, it only takes a small splash to get it anyway, the reflex save still needs to be high enough to be useful, it's a situational ability, and it will consume a song I don't think it would hurt to add the benefit.

I would implement it similar to an action boost that uses up a song. Single target and 20 second duration. That seems reasonably balanced and close to the PnP version.

I also would like to see Song of the Heart implemented. It's an Eberron specific feat. But it adds enough benefit that I would prefer to see it added as an alternative capstone. As a feat or general enhancement I couldn't see any bards not taking it.

[Thaminor]

not bad but i don't like the last one giving evasion.
Classes that have evasion and improved evasion have to sacrifice other things to GET those feats. This cheapens that fact.
In addition I enjoy playing a rogue mostly. If we come across killer trap number 62 and everyone has evasion and +5 to their saves then they all zerg through saying "see you" to the rogue who now feels useless.
:-(

The other ones I like but any effect that stacks should be a small bonus. i.e. exp retreat is +20% so long stride should be maybe 10% max

My idea was for warning shout to effect only one person. Negating the effectiveness of a rouge would require an extremely generous bard. They don't get unlimited spells per day.

At above post: What is song of the heart? Im not familiar with that one

[Aashrym]

My idea was for warning shout to effect only one person. Negating the effectiveness of a rouge would require an extremely generous bard. They don't get unlimited spells per day.

At above post: What is song of the heart? Im not familiar with that one

Inspire Courage, Inspire Competence, Inspire Greatness, & Inspire Heroics have their bonuses increased
by 1.
Fascinate, Suggestion, & Mass Suggestion have their DC increased by 1.

Generally any bard song ability gets a bonus. There are more bonuses for songs listed in the description, but they are not used in DDO either.

[GeneralDiomedes]

Since it appears the evasion song only works on your next save .. I see no problem with that.

[Faelyndel]

I really like some of these ideas, and agree that as enhancements they could be pretty great. Not sure where I fall on the 'open to all bards' / 'tied to PrE lines' debate but either way, we're not losing anything, just gaining more or less depending on which route it would be taken.

Oh, an +1 for making such an awesome suggestion. Bard love FTW

[dunklezhan]

I really like some of these ideas, and agree that as enhancements they could be pretty great. Not sure where I fall on the 'open to all bards' / 'tied to PrE lines' debate but either way, we're not losing anything, just gaining more or less depending on which route it would be taken.

Oh, an +1 for making such an awesome suggestion. Bard love FTW

Want to lay my cards on the table here: I would prefer that new songs were available to all bards as they reach a very basic set of pre-requs, such as requiring only a certain level in Bard. I would expect if they were introduced however, that they would be aligned to PrEs as a minimum as well as having another set of pre-reqs in terms of feats, bard level, other enhancements, and all that silliness.

My suggestion was really just to try to suggest a halfway house should a dev/ game strategy monkey be reading and think 'I like those new songs, I wonder how we could introduce them'.

And either way, I'd want to see them as enhancements not feats. I do like the idea of possibly treating them like action boosts, especially if they are to be single targets and have names like 'chord' (which implies one strum).

And either way: NEW TUNES!!! make with the sound effects, sound department!

[Thaminor]

Audio ideas:
Speed bost: Highway to hell/born to run
Distraction: "Stop, everyone whats that sound, everyone look whats going down..."
Evasion: Cant touch this

Joking aside, I think a good alternative for the deafen one (if this doesn't exist, im not sure myself) would be to stun the target. Depending on the level, it could either be like soundburst, to simply hold the monster in place, or stunning blow, to open up the monster for retaliation. This is a bit like the soundburst spell, though, and would be innefective compared to a fascinate. Still, it would be nice to have to get a raging ogre off your wizard, etc...