Meditate and Bards

[Alvirin]

Recently this skill has been opened to rangers, and I was wondering if Bards will get eventually this skill as well, since although they aren't primary spellcasters they rely more in spellcasting than a ranger.

[Hviti]

Meditate is, imo, the skill which separates primary (wizards, clerics) and secondary (paladins, rangers, bards) spellcasters in a mud environment, since spells/day isn't an option as it is in BG, NWN, or other single player platforms. It makes the difference between being able to cast very often or infrequently and thus makes a huge difference as to how useful a character's spells are in both solo and party environments.

I understand that waiting to renew spells without meditate can be a painfully slow process; however, I would like to raise the point that giving meditate to secondary casters such as rangers and bards to some degree dilutes the primary spellcasting classes. Yes, the primary classes have access to higher level spells with more capability to heal/hurt. However, adding meditate to rangers makes it less likely that a high level ranger will need to group with a cleric or a wizard.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing; groups can be hard to find and rangers are described as loners and self-sufficient in their helpfile.

Also, meditate has been suggested as an addition to the ranger skill list before but turned down. I believe this was because the addition of a skill which would greatly increase the spellcasting potential of a class which already had higher strength as a warrior (4 attacks, high con, high HD, high str, ability to wear medium armor) than either of the primary spellcasting classes was considered somewhat unbalancing. I am not sure when the policy on this was changed, or what effect that may/may not have on bards possibly gaining it as well.

I speculate that, given the former prevalence of poorly RPed rangers (skinning humanoids, consorting with orcs, etc.) it was deemed that giving another powerful skill to that class might not be the best. However, given the increase in quality of ranger RP after the introduction of the ranger council, imo rangers won't abuse such an increase in power (though I still hold that it detracts from the importance of primary spellcasters).

Also, rangers only have access to four levels of spells and limited numbers of spells at each of those levels. Bards have access to six levels of spells and more spells in each of those levels. Thus, I would be slightly less in favor of bards gaining meditate than rangers since bards' spellcasting ability (if increased by meditate) would detract more from clerics' and wizards' than that of rangers.

In brief, I am not completely against the idea of giving meditate to bards; however, I believe that giving meditate to any secondary spellcasting class blurs the distinction between primary and secondary casters and ultimately detracts from the primary casters' importance/niche in a party.

[Amalia]

I've never played a ranger, so I'm not sure my impression is correct, but I think bards also have access to more actively combative spells than rangers do? If that is indeed the case, it would probably add to the possibility of unbalancing the game by giving bards meditate. What I do know is that bards are the only class (so far) who don't have to prepare specific spells, just refresh spell slots-- and I think that flexibility alone makes slower "spell regeneration" a pretty important factor to help keep bards from being overpowered. When and if sorcerers are introduced, especially, I think the slower spell recovery will be an important factor in differentiating these two classes.

In playing the bard I do have, I've always felt like my spells refresh in plenty of time to be available when I need them, because I generally only pull them out for "special situations"-- a battle turns out to be tougher than I expected, I'm surprised by an enemy, I run into some other sort of emergency, etc. Though I'm still not high level, I also feel like my bard is pretty powerful in comparison to my other characters when they were around the same level, so I'd be in support of avoiding meditate for bards in the interest of game balance.

[Mele]

The discussion in which probed it to be open to rangers included the idea to open it for bards. :)

The skill will also be opened to bards in the future. :)

[Hviti]

The discussion in which probed it to be open to rangers included the idea to open it for bards.

The skill will also be opened to bards in the future.

That's the first I've heard of a discussion. Is there any way to see how these decisions were made or the reasons behind them?

[Alvirin]

Actually I think that Bards deserve getting meditate since they give up enough to consider it, having more hitpoints than a wizard, they are able to cast up to 6th level spells, but if you look their spell list from level four to level six, well...

What a bard can do at spellcasting levels 4-5-6 it is nothing compared to what can do a wizard or a cleric at those levels, those who think that bards have powerful spells should have a look at the spell lists and compare.

(It is really worth look what can do a wizard or a priest at spellcasting level 4 and compare it with a bard, the bard spell list is anything but powerful)

Rangers having more hp than clerics or bards, get meditation, but they can wear medium armor, are divine spellcasters and can dual wield in the top of that.

Clerics have more hp, are able to wear heavy armor, have domains, can cast up 9th level spells and can meditate.

Wizards having less hp than bards can cast up 9th spells and possiblely have the better offensive/protective/utilitary spells.

Bards having lightly more hp than wizards, are able to cast spells up to 6th level from a list that pales in comparation with either cleric's or wizard's, and are able to caste less spells for day that a cleric or wizard of the same level, and they aren't able to dual-wield.

A Bard is an excellent character to have in the second line, but anyone who has played a bard will agree with me in which if a bard acts as the healer of the party, he will be dried out of spells real fast, and his spell-list combined with the reduced numbers of spells, makes the idea of swapping a wizard for bard comical (Their only direct damage spell is sound burst).

Sincerally I don't think that Bard isn't one of the more played classes either on FK or D&D because secretly everybody agrees that they are overpowered, giving them meditation will make them more useful, but the day that people will prefer having a bard in his party rather a cleric or wizard lies far and distant.

[Ceara]

I'm not certain why rangers were given meditate, when I heard about it I can't say that I was pleased with it at all. It was one of very few things that stopped them from becoming uber powerful.
As for rangers not abusing the rp etc... since the council has come in well, humanoids are still being skinned, they still consort with enemies so I haven't seen much of a change there either.
Meditate being only for clerics and wizards was something that set them apart.
Just because rangers have few spells I fail to understand how that justifies them having meditate. If they have few spells then why do they need it?

[Dalvyn]

The main reason why meditate was open to secondary spellcasters is this:

In D&D, spellcasters can renew their spells once each day. This is true for primary spellcasters as well as for secondary spellcasters. The "regeneration rate" of spells is the same for all... therefore, it makes sense that all casters would gain access to meditate.

Now that we have switched to a slot-based system and extended the list of spells quite a lot, the differences between primary and secondary spellcasters have been reinforced:

• primary spellcasters have spells up to 9th level while secondary spellcasters are limited to 4th or 6th level;
• primary spellcasters also have many more slots than secondary spellcasters

The quality of the roleplay was not brought into the discussion. If quality of roleplay and IC consistency were taken into consideration, I guess we would first remove meditate from many priests before giving it to rangers.

[Lerytha]

Also... if I might offer my own opinions:

Firstly, meditate in a PK situation is not allowed.

PK is the only instance of classes coming into direct competition with each other.

Therefore, logic would state that giving meditate to rangers (and bards - and if they really want it, fighters ) has no relevance to class competition.

So, that means the only time meditate can affect a class in any significant way, is during group quests and the like. And I see no drawback at all (speaking as a long-term wizard, who should naturally feel jealous over these upstart ranger baboons getting meditate - purely IC reaction, of course ) to opening up meditate to as many people as possible.

That's just my two penneths worth.

~Ol

[Nysan]

As for rangers not abusing the rp etc... since the council has come in well, humanoids are still being skinned, they still consort with enemies so I haven't seen much of a change there either.

Reasons to look into ranger players and the RP restrictions of the class...not refrain the class from further development. *shrug*

[Kregor]

As for rangers not abusing the rp etc... since the council has come in well, humanoids are still being skinned, they still consort with enemies so I haven't seen much of a change there either.

Again, I'll reiterate my old maxim, you can't code obedience. Restricting rangers from meditate isn't going to change the behavior of young ranger recruits who basically go thru the motions and tell their teacher exactly what they want to hear in order to get guilded.

That said, the above is a roleplay issue, and has nothing to do with the mechanics issue of why secondary casters should or should not have meditate. If we want to open up a discussion on ranger RP, let's do it on the classes thread.

The mechanics of it is this....

In tabletop D&D, the basis for the new spell system, let's say a wizard, a cleric, a ranger and a bard are partying together through a quest. After few hard battles, all are exhausted, and the able bodied work to fight the party toward a safe (relatively) resting place...

The party rests, for 8 hours in game time. Now, in tabletop, this whole 8 hours is skipped over by the DM, who just rolls dice a few times to see if some random encounter pops up during the skipped time, otherwise, all's good.

At the end of the skipped time, it's not just the wizard and the cleric that have recovered their full allotment of spells, but the bard and the ranger too.

In FK, we can't just skip the time, that's why we have meditate in the first place, to somewhat imitate that effect. So it's only logical that secondary casters would have the skill as well, it's not an unfair advantage, it's putting everyone on the same standard.

[Isolrem]

PK is not the only instance where PCs compete, what if there comes a time when a party with a bard doesn't need a wizard, or a party with a ranger doesn't need a priest?

[Tobias]

See this is why I like to look at parties and make them based off of class but not biased. I love to have a group that is varied! It's fun to have a bard and a theif along side a wizard cleric fight/ranger cause then you got so much in group diversity mindsets and can have alot of witty rp or deep discussion and the light. Even group conflict which is uber fun at times. So if most kept to that mindset then the competeing for parties shouldn't be to bad ;;

[Alvirin]

The very-limited number of spells for day that can cast a ranger, makes them unable to work even as a backup healer. (rangers don't have even cure critical)

The limited number of spell that can cast a bard combined with his spell list that lacks of all the spells that make wizards as useful as they are (stoneskin, fly, offensive spells, protective spells) makes them impossible to take the role of a wizard.

And most important, you can have a ranger and a cleric in your party, or a bard and wizard, or all the characters that you want in you group without having to choose one and reject other.

Meditation is an useful skill in which reduces the time that you need to regain your spells, but when you are in the middle of the combat you will want those characters than can cast more spells in a row and the more powerful of them, Bards and Rangers aren't those characters, and that is the real reason why are called secondary spellcasters.

[Isolrem]

I think rangers really could replace priests as strictly healers, in case you haven't been on any big multi-PC quests, a lot of the time is spent talking and plotting, that's plenty of meditation to regain spells (which are not on a per/day basis, I might add). Cure serious heals amply.