>>97847877
Honestly i never got the big bad evil guy thing. It was always a series of smaller adventures with different adversaries for me.
My dm for the longest time though was all for it with a rotating cast of 3-4 bbegs fucking everything up left and right

>>97847877
>Do you prefer campaigns to have one BBEG that's the main goal start to finish, or a tapestry of miscreants with their own goals and areas of influence?
Both.
Makes for more complex scenarios when a bunch of villains that may be or not working under the BBGG step on each other toes due to conflicting interests and such.
It's also enables scenarios where one of them raises above the rest and the BBEG comes down to erase the guy from existence. Helps put the fear of god on the players.
That said, my favorite is a sandbox scenarios with movers and shakers and all that shebang.
No actual end in sight, just a world with things happening in it and people and entities with their own plots and machinations.

Can someone tell me what makes psionic warriors bad? They seem to be able to do a lot of things. Are they just not focused enough?

>>97848237
Who says that? Psi warriors are perfectly competent martials with a lot of neat little tricks

>>97848237
At lot of people just find psionics boring and gay in general.

>>97848237
First you have to determine if the person means "bad" in that the class fails to cohere and isn't fun to play or mechanically interesting, or if it's "bad" in that it's worse than a minmaxed caster. It's certainly the latter but that's most classes and most builds, and that doesn't come up often in actual play. As for the former, it's a fighter that trades d10 HD and full BAB for d8, 3/4ths, and a spattering of powers that require your martial to not dump wisdom. That's nothing to write home about but it's also not unplayable, just something you need to like intrinsically as a concept in order to be drawn to the class.

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>>97848237
Psychic warriors are a tier 3 base class,same tier as a Warblade or a Beguiler or Bard. Plenty powerful enough. The person who told you they're bad is just wrong.

>>97848237
They make for fantastic tanks, Damp Power and Empathic Transfer, Hostile alone make it worth it

>>97848237
To my understanding, it's not that they're not focused enough, it's that you need to look over the awkwardly-fragmented options and carefully consider the marginal benefits to not choke on action economy or the PP:ML ratio. Absolutely HORRIBLE floor if you fuck up your expenses.

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Is there a way to makes Bard summoning viable in 3.5? I know they get Summon Monsters I - VI but it feels like it just doesn't keep up even with Augment Summoning.

>>97848532
that's a druid with a guitar.
Well compared to a full caster then obviously they cant really compete but it's sill viable.
I wouldn't call it optimal though.
if you want optimised bard summoning then tough lack because the best and biggest buffs to summoning are gated behind alternative class features so besides your lagging behind in spell progression they will never be akin to wizard summons

>hate my character
>About halfway through the campaign (14 sessions so far)
What do? I think the dm made some stuff specifically for this character later down the road that hes looking forward to running but i just dont enjoy playing this personality/backstory anymore

>>97848563
so it wouldbe fertile ground for homebrew?

>>97848584
Have you talked to the DM about it one on one? Ask if there's a way to swap characters or a way to fix the issues you're having. Also, the personality of the character is something completely in your control, if you need that to change over time you can do so.

>>97848850
NTA, but most definitely for how neatly the Concentration hangup on Bards fits with the extra action economy aspect of summons being a problem. Figure out how much of a gap there is with existing summoning-specialists first, then break that down between Bardic Music bonuses, granting "extra" Summon Monster levels, and just arbitrarily juicing the summons. Possibly further split between ACF-stack and PRC.

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>>97847877
who win 3e versions

>>97848887
Ive talked a little bit and I think he prefers just changing this characters personality. Its also the backstory I have an issue with since I feel like ive played out all I can with it. Id welcome him to kill off my character honestly

>>97849084
I'd suggest talking more. Having a character run headfirst into a brick wall until the player can reroll isn't fun for anyone, and if you're not having fun it's worth solving the problem. Just make sure you find out what the problem actually is. Could be the backstory, could be you're out of ideas, could be other players getting their turn in the spotlight, could be wholly unrelated.

>>97849049
Do you think feats that let a bard specifically summon 1 or 2 extra creatures with his summons if theyre from bard spellcasting would be overpowered? I know better > more when it comes to summoned creatures, but possibly also something that lets him double his inspire courage effects for creatures summoned by him, to buff their stats further?

>>97848887
>>97849084
On our table, if you are sick of a character, you just make a new one after figuring out a way to have the old one not be actively engaging in the party's shenanigans, then this old character becomes an NPC, still doing their things in the background.
Since this game has been going on for so damn long, there are a ton of PCs turned NPCs, some even still traveling with the party.
Then when something big happens, and some of these ex-PCs that are still around get involved, some players get to control them in addition to their own PCs.
Right now we are storming some sacred place that's being corrupted by a black dragon and we have quite a few NPCs in tow, most being ex-PCs, and each player gets to control one, using a simplified version of the character sheet.
It's pretty dope.

>>97848532

Go Sublime Chord

>>97848850
with homebrew you can do anything you want honestly.
>>97849147
I don't find that a bad idea at all. Restrict the summoning lists of bard to getting more critters out there and remove the larger stronger summons and in exchange do something like allowing the use of bardic music to enhance your summon spell by making it 1 spell level higher.
If you want for inspire to work better on your summons just make it a feat that calculates the bonuses as if the bard was 4 levels higher or something the like that

>>97849066
Raistlin but then he'd ruin the world in some way & have to choose not to be evil gor the benefit of everyone, because Raistlin's schtick is being competent & ruthless enough to achieve whatever powerlevel he wants, but cursed to give a shit

>>97849147
Just take dragonfire inspiration or whatever its called

>>97849084
>>97848584
I find this an odd problem so many people have. They think that their characters work backwards. That your backstory is relevant & must remain relevant, or that they cant attain new goals or change their outlook. Its the opposite. Your character is moving forward. Create new goals & become focused on something novel instead of what came before.

People need to learn more from Conan (books) he just shows up, does shit, & moves on. His goal is usually killing a dude, saving someone, or stealing something. Sometimes he's just trying to outrun his own bad choices. His backstory isnt relevant. His personality ranges from angry barbarian upstart who will gut anyone who threatens or insults him on the barest of pretexts, to boastful mercenary getting drunk & fucking women, just looking for more gold so he can get more drunk & fuck more women, to contemplative aging king who regretfully spares the life of traitor because theyre a poet & he doesnt want to see their music die.

Theres a place for backstories that pay off & long stories with a begining middle & end, but sometimes its better to just go with the flow, focus on really caring about short term goals & base materialistic things.

A character avenging their dead master's story ends when his master is avenged. Sure he might pick up new adventures but then they usually have to relate back to that first adventure, a new rival, or a person he slighted now wants their revenge or the person they thought was the villain was just a catspaw, etc. After a while it becomes reductive. You loose the plot. You wonder why this dude just doesnt retire. Meanwhile Conan's story ends when he dies. He can be anywhere doing anything for just about any reason & no one is gonna question it.

>>97849416
>with homebrew you can do anything you want honestly.
True. I was more asking because I didn't want to make redundant homebrew, I should have clarified that intially my bad.
> in exchange do something like allowing the use of bardic music to enhance your summon spell by making it 1 spell level higher.
Do you think that'd be required to make it viable or would simply being able to summon 1 or 2 additional creatures and add +100% to the buffing from inspire courage be enough? Genuine question. I would be open to both options as they both sound really cool. But the important thing is to make the bard be able to use bardic music to make their summoning a viable option.

>>97849722
>>97849247
Both good options. Although a doubled inspire courage bonus might make Dragonfire Inspiration a bit OP (I've already witnessed it become very strong even without such) so perhaps any ability that does so should be phrased as "this ability provides the second half of the bonus and does not count as part of the bonus from Inspire Courage [but somehow stacks with it, so it might have to be a circumstance bonus or something like that that represents interplanar synergistic energy]"

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Bumping with an example of what I'm talking about. Would it be better to replace one of, or both of, these abilities that let you summon an extra creature, with one that lets you summon one from a level higher on the summon monster table, by spending a bardic music use? I feel like one of them letting you do that and the other letting you spend them to summon an additional creature, is cool. I like the downside that they go away if your performance ends, but that might be too much of a downside.

>>97852062
I'm a little leery about that mostly because same as a Divine Metamagic cleric, turning a defining class feature into ammunition tends to have unintended interactions with other items/mechanics and also causes the class to lose identity. The allure of the summoning bard is the army in a can with the bard buffing all the summons, not a worse sorcerer.

>>97849914
i think it would make it more thematically fitting. In lower to mid levels it would be viable.
You spend your first turn summoning a pack of critters and then drop some inspire onto them and the rest of your party.
Both options can work mechanically. Well having better options for creatures to summon is definitely better than the small increase that you would get from the doubling of inspire courage buff at the early levels and at high levels the opposite would be true.