Attempt to design a Bard Mage

[Borg]

All Mages released so far have been "specialists", being Trained all the way up to sixth level in a certain school.

However, all those who have ever played D&D in any form know that “jack-of-all-trades”, the Bard, not the best and most specialized in any school but good to decent in more schools than others. Not a “specialist” thus, but an “all-rounder”.

I'd love to see a Bard released and started thinking what he would look like in the Mage Wars universe, meaning, what Training would he have and what would be his Abilities ?

I envision him like this :
Similar to the Wizard, the Bard has to make some choices regarding his Training :

Trained in lvl 3 Nature or War Spells.
Trained in lvl 2 Holy or Dark Spells
Trained in lvl 1 Arcane or Mind Spells
Trained in lvl 1 Fire or Water or Earth or Wind Spells

As such a Bard would have 7 levels of Training which is 1 lvl more than most Mages ( but less than the Wizard and Warlock which have 12 lvls of Training ) but at the cost of not being Trained beyond lvl 3 in any school.

It would be a real Jack-of-all-Trades kinda Mage as he gives you a lot of design possibilities.
You could go for a "classic" good kind of Bard with Nature-Holy-Arcane-Earth
or a more "evil" oriented like War-Dark-Mind-Fire and a lot more variations.

Notice the Bard doesn't have any spells costing triple spellpoints during spellbook design, which of course also represents his jack-of-all-trades characteristic.

As for his abilities :

Bodyguard ( Counter )
When a friendly - non-Legendary, non-Unique - creature comes into play, you may make it your Bodyguard.
Pay mana equal to the creature's level, then place your Bodyguard marker on it.
Your Bodyguard gains the Vigilant and Intercept Traits.
If your Bodyguard is destroyed, you may assign the marker again in the same manner when a new non-Legendary, non-unique creature is summoned.

Leadership ( Ability )
All other friendly creatures in the Bard's zone gain Armor +1.

Singing ( Ability )
Once per round, as a Quick Spell, the Bard may use his Singing ability to gain the Aegis 1 trait until the end of the round.

Starting stats :
Life : 34
Channeling : 9
Basic Melee attack : 3 dice

And finally … his ring

Charisma Ring
Cost : 3
Once per round, this Mage may pay 1 less mana when he casts a creature spell from a school and a level that he is trained in.

Any suggestions whether he would be equally powered, underpowered or overpowered in this state are welcome.

[ACG]

This should probably be in the Creative section or in the Feedback and Suggestions section.

That said, regarding the bard:

I like that he is very focused on creatures. The Bodyguard ability is very strong, since Vigilant is a fantastic trait for creatures with quick attacks because they can attack and then counterattack on the other player's turn (currently only Togorah, with a full attack, has intercept). You might want to make Singing cost at least 1 mana.

The problem, of course, is that he has no spawnpoints, which means he has to summon all of his creatures himself. Therefore he wants to go for a few big strategy (particularly given his excellent bodyguard ability). The Charisma ring will not pay for itself until he has summoned at least 3 creatures which, given his channeling and aforementioned lack of spawnpoints, seems unlikely.

As far as balance goes, level 1 arcane and (should he choose it) level 1 water gives him cheap access to all of the basic toolbox spells. Coupled with his lack of antitraining, he is even more versatile than the wizard, since he also has access to cheap curses (from dark) or healing/protection (from holy), to buffs (from nature) or strong defensive creatures (from war). With these savings, he can afford many higher level spells in any school in which is is not trained, especially since he only pays double cost. Furthermore, he has access to a variety of school specific spells in both holy/dark and nature/war schools. The unrestricted nature of bodyguard also has the potential for some disturbing combos - imagine a vigilant Iron Golem, or a vigilant Darkfenne Hydra. I suspect a bard would be stronger than the average mage. He certainly succeeds at being an all-rounder, though.

I tried my hand at making an all rounder, with a slightly different emphasis:

He solves the problem of diverse training by being antitrained in all medium or higher level spells (partially mitigated by his ability to reuse spells) and being hobbled in his movements.

[Sailor Vulcan]

The archivist looks good. His strength lies in being unpredictable. I like it!

As for the bard, If he fights by singing, he really needs to be holy or dark. I can't imagine songs hurting anyone unless they are prayers/rituals with particular effects.


The word Bard just doesn't sound impressive. I just don't see a bard fighting in the arena.

While training versatility is great, you want something that defines a mage, something that makes them unique. For the archivist it was his spell cycling abilities and great utility.

I think another good idea would be a 9 channeling 33 life body switching mind/arcane mage whose number of planned cards gradually increases over the course of the game. By body switching I mean temporarily switching ability cards (not mages) with your opponent. When this happens you'd switch training with your opponent as well, as well as all other innate stats and abilities, except for damage and life. Stat modifiers, spells, spellbooks and objects do not change control. So if you body switch with a wizard and he controls a mana crystal, you would go from 9 channeling to 10. Your opponent would go from 11 to 10.

Not sure what id call it though. The archivist has perfect semantic and episodic memory, but this mage's strength would be procedural memory and mental multitasking.

Solver?
Code breaker?

[Moonglow]

Cantrip to me always sounded more Bardy than anything.  I'd like to see a Bard have a special version of cantrip, perhaps reflecting their specialisation in learning a particular song/spell.  A cantrip token that they can place on one spell which changes that specific spell to a cantrip for the game.  Would clearly need some limitations, but basically its the song that never ends.... mechanically, I guess they'd need two copies of the spell in their book, one to be marked with the token, the other to be active in the game.