DM Post: History of the Bard Class

Historically the Bard class was based on a social caste in Ancient Celtic society. The Celts didn’t develop a written language and most of the history and stories of the people were passed down orally by the bards, or warrior poets. They were unique in that they were supposed to be trained warriors, and knowledgeable of the Druidic tradition. The stories and songs were passed down over centuries by the bards and remained unaltered damn near word for word because they used a precise lyrical structure and rhyme sequence which also aided in memorization.

The other historical foundation for the D&D class was the Norse Skalds. The Skalds were warriors who rode at the forefront of battle and sang their heads off. Supposedly their songs caused fellow warriors to go berserk, ignore pain, and fight fanatically. The songs were also supposed to cause enemies to cower in fear, but this may have more to do with the effect on the Skalds’ allies than a direct effect on the opponents. It’d be like if someone invaded the continental U.S. and the National Guard started all singing America the Beautiful at once as they went into battle.

The most famous historical bard was named Taliesin. Folklore has him being the chief bard for King Arthur, but Taliesin lived around the end of the 6th century whereas Arthur (or at least the actual counterpart to the mythological one) died/disappeared at the Battle of Camlann in 532 A.D. (current best historical guess). He’s also famous for the Book of Taliesin, a book of songs and poetry he supposedly created.

As Europe became more civilized, the role of Skalds and Bards became that of court poet, and their main function was to write poems and songs about how great the king is.

D&D: The original Dungeons and Dragons game (1974) had only 7 classes: Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, Thief, Hobbit (which was changed to Halfling after a dispute with the Tolkien estate), Elf, and Dwarf (there was no difference between race and class- an Elf was like a fighter-mage, a hobbit was like a fighter-thief focused on sneaking, and a Dwarf was like a fighter-thief focused on traps).

The Bard class made its first appearance in 1st Ed AD&D (1977). It was a special appendix in the back of the player’s handbook. Becoming a bard was insanely hard. First you had to be either human or half-elven. Second you had to have the following stats: STR 15, DEX 15, CON 10, INT 12, WIS 15, CHA 15. Now remember, stats didn’t go up in previous editions, so you had to roll those at creation. Then you had to start as a Fighter and make it to 5th lvl, then dual class into Thief for five levels, then dual class into Druid. And then you could become a bard. The bard was like an underpowered Druid with the Bardic Knowledge ability and the ability to charm with its music. Needless to say, claims that your character was a Bard were always met with skepticism. “Sure you’re a Bard. I bet he’s got a +10 vorpal sword too.” Nobody in any of my groups ever played a bard waaay back when I was playing 1st Ed.

The Bard became one of the main classes in 2nd Ed. It was basically a really lame version of the Thief (no backstab but can cast a very small number of weak wizard spells). This class saw almost no play, at least in my groups, because you could do the same thing better by being a mage-thief.

When 3rd Ed rolled around, they scrapped the old Bard Class and started over from scratch, trying to make a jack-of-all trades character. Basically the theory is if you’ve got at least 1 warrior, 1 healer, 1 mage, and 1 rogue you’ve got all the bases covered and can handle anything the DM throws at you (level appropriate). In fact all of the challenge ratings assume that you have these four slots filled in your party. If you’ve ever wondered why the challenge ratings seem too low for those powerful undead or outsider types, it’s because it is assumed that your party can heal/turn/banish. Anyway, the Bard class was designed to fill any of those spots if needed.

By the time they cleaned up 3rd Ed and issued version 3.5 (or the thank-you-for-paying-to-play-test-this-is-the-REAL-game edition) they realized that the Bard still wasn’t being played because it was considered a weak class. So they revised the spell list, let the Bard cast in light armor with no Spell Failure (which he couldn’t do in 3.0) and beefed up the skills selection.