Dungeons & Delvers: Red Book Bard Preview

The current iteration of the Red Book bard has been added to Dungeons & Delvers: Black Book (check the red book class previews zip file).

It's a 1-20 spread, with nearly 60 talents to choose from (up from less than 20).

Major changes are the addition of Countersong, removal of Attack Bonuses (a single talent choice gives you a similar benefit, plus damage bonuses), Multiattack is now something you have to choose, and we've given it a spell point currency that operates in a similar fashion to monk Ki, recharging whenever you take a short rest.

The reason for the last bit is that with our original take we wanted to experiment with giving a class effectively infinite magic, but having it take longer to use. In-game this represented the bard starting to sing or play a song, and then after some build up--which would take several rounds--there would be an effect.

To make up for it, we tried making it so that attack spells would give you more oomph than if you attacked for however many rounds it would take to cast the spell, but it proved to be very impractical in actual play.

Take Thunderwave, for example: takes two rounds, and when it goes off you deal 2d8+Charisma thunder damage to either a 15-foot radius or 30-foot cone, plus it does half damage if targets succeed on their saves.

Doesn't sound like a bad deal, but what would often happen is that by the time Melissa finished revving up a Thunderwave allies might get in the way, or the monster(s) would move too far away or even just be dead. So in most cases, especially if there was just one monster (or she figured that there'd only be one left by the time she was done), she'd resort to weapon attacks, anyway.

Now you can just spent Rhythm to do something right away, and spend more to change what it does, expand/move the area of effect, and/or ramp up the damage. You know, like all the other classes. The big differences are that Rhythm comes back with every short rest (so you don't gotta be as careful with it), and that a lot of Songs can be used kind of like rituals: if you have the time, you can activate them without spending any Rhythm.

Going to have to playtest it more, see if the prolonged casting times are too generous (or restrictive), or if we need to adjust Rhythm costs, but let us know how it works out for you, as well as if you have any suggestions or criticisms!

Announcements

You can now get a physical copy of Dungeons & Delvers: Black Book in whatever format you want (the PDF is also on sale on DriveThru)! We've also released the first big supplement for it, Appendix D, so pick that up if you want more of everything.

The first issue of The Delver, a magazine featuring fungal-themed content for both players and GMs (including an adventure in which myconids find religion), is available!

Our latest Dungeon World class, The Ranger, is now available.

Dwarven Vault is our sixth 10+ Treasures volume. If you're interested in thirty dwarven magic items (including an eye that lets you shoot lasers) and nearly a dozen new bits of dungeon gear, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).