Stunt/Power for Bardic style magic - What do you think?

[CMEast]

Hey all!

So I was playing with the concept of a character that used rhyme and song to control/power his magic and there are numerous ways to do it in the DFRPG. For instance I could create a version of channelling/evocation that uses perform to control the magic, either with a stunt or just changing the power itself slightly (allowing the character to use perform instead of discipline to control seems relatively fair considering how relatively rare the perform skill is and how important mental defense could be). This could be a useful way to do it, possibly the best way to do it for a pure bard, but not what I was looking for.

Alternatively, I could use perform as a skill to gain a bonus to spell casting but again, that's really not what I'm looking for and will be expensive spell wise.

So how about this. A stunt/power that allows you to gain a +2 bonus to your attack roll if you actually make up a rhyme or song that matches the spell you want to cast. The +2 is justified by saying that if you can't come up with a good rhyme then you can't cast the spell. It's not skill based but role-play based (doggerel, limericks and cheesy lines from popular songs all count) and you can't ever repeat a rhyme. If you come up with a rhyme or song that isn't very good then you can cast but you don't get a bonus. It's done as a free action.

Of course, you could make it even more bardic and have this as a stunt.
'Once per exchange as a supplemental action you can give yourself a +2 bonus to a roll, or someone else either +1 or -1 to a single roll if you can come up with a relevant song or rhyme.

Of course you can create a variant of these with the perform skill, but I think actually saying rhymes or singing songs when gaming is a lot more fun

So what do you think? Is it balanced? Would you play a character that could do this?

[luminos]

I'm in favor of the version where performance is used for controlling the spell.  That sounds cool and balanced.  Also, I'm not thrilled with the idea of the player's rhyming ability determining something about the spell.  The characters is the one that is good at rhyming, as evidenced by the perform skill.  The player doesn't have to display how his sword thrust works in order to hit the opponent, and it certainly would be... awkward to give bonuses to combat for the characters of players that are good at combat.  Of course, its totally awesome if the player comes up with a good rhyme anyways, just as a demonstrated thrust from a player is cool when the character is in combat.

[Ophidimancer]

I absolutely adore the idea of a wizard using a musical praxis for magic and would definitely allow it.  the only thing is that this falls into a category of Stunts that isn't included in the book: Supernatural Stunts.  Although I guess Refinement basically does that.

Hmm ... how about an alternate version of Refinement, which allows you to use music as your Focus instead of an item?  It's an easy way to represent it mechanically, it can't be taken away from you as easily as an item, but you have to be singing/playing (you decide which when you take the Refinement) which means you can't be stealthy and you tie up your vocal cords or hands while you're doing it.

[WillH]

Really all you need here is a simple skill substitution stunt to use perform instead of discipline to control magic.

[Stormraven]

I like that one, Ophidimancer.

So we could have 'Erik the Bard', who has a Focus Performance (Spirit, Off, Con, +1) defined as playing his mandolin, and another (Fire, Def, Pow +1) defined as playing his flute, for instance.

[CMEast]

Both ideas work (and I hadn't thought of that one Ophidimancer, very cool!) but my original intent was to encourage players to roleplay for the benefit rather than simply saying 'my Performance is Superb (+5)' or 'I have spent two focus slots on dirty limericks'.

I like the idea of people coming up with rhymes on the spot to gain a bonus to their spell-casting.

Still, I know that people don't like roleplaying much so the other options work fine too.

[luminos]

Consider that your definition of roleplaying may not equate with others concept of it.  I don't have to make the swinging actions with my arms while holding some sharp stick to roleplay a fight scene, so maybe I can find a way to roleplay good poetry without being a master of verse.

[Ophidimancer]

So we could have 'Erik the Bard', who has a Focus Performance (Spirit, Off, Con, +1) defined as playing his mandolin, and another (Fire, Def, Pow +1) defined as playing his flute, for instance.

If we tie it to particular instruments we might as well just make those instruments Focus Items.  To differentiate Focus Song from Focus Item I think you'd have to allow it to be used with any instrument, but it would have to be audible to work, meaning that silence spells or deafening the wizard would remove the ability to use the Focus Song.

Yes, I do think a Stunt to allow Discipline instead of Performance would be the way to go, but I'd add in the option then of using Focus Song instead of Focus Item.

[Ophidimancer]

I don't think I would actually make the players have to come up with a rhyme.  It's very difficult to do that on the fly and gets tedious after awhile.  In our Changeling: The Lost game, my character made a Pledge to only speak in song and my Storyteller said that I had to either sing everything for real or risk a roll.  I sang all my conversations for 4 sessions and, while it was sometimes awesomely cool to say everything in song, it also got on people's nerves when I couldn't really come up with original music and had to recycle tunes over and over again.  I eventually had to resort to entire sessions of Disney music since that's what I could come up with quickly on the fly.

It got a little annoying, especially for my husband who says he has to hear me sing all the time anyway.

[Doc Nova]

I dig the idea of song and rhyme controlling a type of magic.  Very cool...and I might have to nab the idea for a beatnick in my game.  Forcing the player to come up with a rhyme is not such a good idea...although I could see offering a bonus if they did.

[CMEast]

Oh well sure it's not for everyone, but I thought the idea might be fun. I can see how it might be tiring for other players though and I would certainly never force anyone to take one variant over the other, I just wanted to see if it was equal.

As I said in my original post, using performance instead of discipline is definitely the easiest way to go for bardic magic. How about the stunt below for capturing the bardic ability of improving an allies performance or inhibiting their enemies.

Once per exchange as a supplemental action you can give yourself a +2 bonus to a roll, or someone else either +1 or -1 to a roll, using the rules for combining skills, comparing it to the value of your Performance skill.

It's worded a bit clunkily but I think it works. Of course the 'bard' could always just perform a manoeuvre to give someone else a full tag worth a +2 or re-roll, but then they end up standing behind everyone else like a cheerleader.

[Stormraven]

If we tie it to particular instruments we might as well just make those instruments Focus Items.  To differentiate Focus Song from Focus Item I think you'd have to allow it to be used with any instrument, but it would have to be audible to work, meaning that silence spells or deafening the wizard would remove the ability to use the Focus Song.

Yes, I do think a Stunt to allow Discipline instead of Performance would be the way to go, but I'd add in the option then of using Focus Song instead of Focus Item.

Well, I think I might have gotten the sense that that was the point.  My bad.