Why do Bards suck?

Recently had someone ask me why I hate bards... I don't hate bards, I'm just disappointed in them. - Stephen

Ah, another attention-grabbing title, another week of me grumbling. This time, I've had some coffee, but that won't save the bard from my wrath! 

So, why does the Bard suck? Despite what you might be thinking, it isn't because I find their lack of ability to deal much damage a bad thing. That's one of their strengths, they can be an effective combatant in combat and not deal that much damage? That's awesome and opens up a new way of playing this game!

No, I find that bards suck because they aren't actually that amazing at combat. Here's the thing, a bard is focused on buffing allies and debuffing enemies. What Buff/Debuff means is that our bard gives small bonuses to their allies to make them better at combat, and they give small penalties to their enemies to make them worse at combat. A bard does this either with his spells or by using their Bardic Inspiration.

First, let's talk about their spells. The only spell they get that no one else in the game gets access to is vicious mockery. Everything else, a variety of other classes can also gain access too and use. Now, I'm not saying a bard sucks because they only have a single spell no one else gets, but I am saying they suck because they are so restricted in the spells they know.

A bard only knows a certain number of spells per level, and if all your spells are things that a wizard or cleric can learn... well, that sucks for the bard. A cleric and wizard have the ability to know ALL the buff/debuff spells that the bard does, and they aren't having to make bad choices like should I get this one situation-specific buff spell? or this other situation-specific debuff spell? Those classes don't have to choose which situation-specific spell they should get, and can just get everything they want. A bard is incredibly limited by the number of spells they know.

Another problem that bards face is that the one spell no one else gets, vicious mockery, is just not that great of a spell. Its 1d4 psychic damage, which is really bad damage though the damage type is good, and the target has disadvantage on its next attack roll until the end of its next turn. A single monster, a single attack, and the bad effect only lasts until the end of their next turn? That's not much of a debuff as I could have the monster just use a spell or, if they have multiple attacks, just make a second attack. Having a single disadvantage attack is not that big of a deal at higher levels, especially when monsters start getting more options than just slamming into you.

I won't lie, it feels good to give a monster disadvantage on their attack roll, but unless you are fighting very weak opponents... it's just not going to do much. Also, it takes your entire action and its a wisdom saving throw. Wisdom is the most common saving throw type, and a lot of creatures have wisdom saves as a proficiency, meaning it's not going to be as effective if the spell was targeting charisma or intelligence. Very weak monsters have lower to hits, while stronger monsters have higher to hits. You aren't targeting their to hit, which actually lowers their chances of hitting you, you are just forcing them to reroll a d20 which is completely random. It could be the monster rolls a 1... or rolls and still hits because their to hit is high enough.

The second part of that is that it is an action, meaning you can't be doing something else with that main part of your turn. Sure, you can spout a one-liner and make the table laugh, but that doesn't help you be effective in combat and keep your allies alive. Laughs quickly die out when the life of a character is on the line.

The effectiveness of vicious mockery is also greatly reduced when you come across a lot of enemies and you can only target a single creature with it. In which case, you aren't really being that helpful. Fighting a single target makes the cantrip more effective, but even then if the creature has legendary actions or a lot of attacks, it's not really that big of a deal. Its one attack roll, and I could always use something to hurt your allies that doesn't require an attack roll for a turn.... like a spell.... or a dragon breath.... or anything where I only roll damage and you have to roll a saving throw.

So, now I've just been shitting on a single spell, but this post is about the bard at large. Why does the bard suck? Well, frankly I find its core ability, Bardic Inspiration, to be boring. They help out the party by giving them a d6/d8/d10/d12 to an attack roll, ability check or saving throw. At least it is a bonus action so you can do other things with your turn. Which, you know is pretty good.... except you only get 5 of them a day!? At least at higher levels they reset on a short rest but again... you are so limited and a variety of class features use that inspiration for other things, making it even harder for you to buff your allies!

Now, a class feature using bardic inspiration for something other than buffing your allies does make that mechanic more interesting and versatile, but the issue you run into is... they typically are just used for dealing more damage or for attacking.... which means that as a buff/debuff supporter, you are no longer doing the main thing that your class is designed to do. Sure, you could put all those buffs that you would normally put on a fighter or barbarian on to yourself... but you aren't that good at combat so it isn't as effective. AND! if you are on the front lines where you are getting hit in the face, and your buffs/debuffs require concentration, you are going to lose that spell more often because you have to keep making more concentration checks.

Being a bard anywhere on the front line means you are going to be burning through more spell slots, and because only two of your spells, featherfall and healing word don't require an action, you aren't going to be dealing damage to your enemies while trying to bring back up your support spells. It's a pain in the ass to get into the fight if you are a bard, and it just means you are going to burn through spells faster and have no bardic inspiration to actually help out your allies later.

The other issue I have with the bard comes from the system itself. Because 5e is so designed to be simple that anyone can pick it up, all classes suffer from this very basic design choice. Every class is simple, meaning every class does very specific things with one or two resource pools and that's it. Your one feature does this single thing, and maybe if you are a warlock, you can switch out that one single thing for something else that does one single thing. 

At least with Clerics/Druids/Wizards you get a massive spell list that actually helps you have more options than just "You can only do X". 

I don't look at a class and get excited by its complexity. I like complexity in my classes, and that's a frustration I have with all of D&D. There are no 'advanced classes' that have more crunch for those who have played a lot of the game and its classes. Where are the exotic classes that have strange mechanics that you can get excited by? Every class suffers from the railroad class structure of 5e D&D, though I'm not saying earlier editions were better with this type of stuff. For some reason in OD&D, they thought every fighter should get a castle at a certain level with an army of some sort. Or if you are a barbarian, you become in charge of a barbarian horde for some reason. If you are a druid, you gotta go find the druid of a higher level and beat them and steal their funny hat. It goes on and on. 

I suppose this is just a rant about how every class is designed to be simple and you get no real choices, and, dammit, I want more out of my class. Thankfully, I'm always a DM and when I get bored with just having a bunch of fighter monsters, I can bring in some wizard monsters... and maybe later, I'll finally dust off that Tarrasque on my shelf and get that statblock functional.

If you are also annoyed with the railroad nature of classes designed in 5e, I'd suggest checking out my Psion class or my Witch class. Both still follow the same design guidelines of you get X at this level, but they have a similar modularity that the Warlock gets in that you can choose additional powers and try to make it your very own. I will warn you though, the Psion class has a lot of complexity in regards to tracking its resource pool which goes against the simplicity of 5e's classes.