Bard is op and ruin the meaning of the game (discuss)

[ishinken]

First of all I'm a little confused as most my munchkin cards are all old versions without colors. Then I bought clerical errors and it has colors on them.

But the main thing that is confusing is that I keep finding different versions of several classes.
What does this mean first of all?
Are these supposed to be rebalanced newer versions?
Is it a better alternative to buy new versions for the "outdated" versions and combine them?

Bard, it's enthrall ability. Holy crist. Let me just say that the whole meat and bones of munchkin, is lost each time someone use that ability.
There are little to no measures to be used against it.

Compare to thief for example, you can steal any non-big item and there is a big drawback aswell.

Bard? Just one card, and the worst part is that you can even continue to use it on other players until you succeed.
Only a slight disfavor in odds as you need to BEAT the dice the opponent roll.
If there was a drawback, it would be more interesting and not an obvious "no brainer" of a thing to use.
It's just way dumb and overpowered.

The whole beauty and mechanics of trying to get a good deal with helping and giving sweet deals is lost... you just pick someone, and the favor that is gained often make combats that the remaining players just cannot stop anyway.

A player beat a monster gaining 2 levels and 5 loot, that, alone should be a huge deal! Not just "I discard one card and pick the biggest threat player and we automatically win".

Bard has easily ruined several sessions for me and my friends.
It's just not fun, at all.
Yes there are some methods to deal with it, if a player is a wizard and you pick him as your helper he can make the monsters vanish.
But that leaves the treasures still.

It's an easy thing to say "well just remove the bard class cards" but that is a pretty weak thing overall too. Because that leaves many items and other stuff left in the game referring to bards that just make players wonder where the bards are.

Remove the whole expansion?
Well, yet again, the expansions are balanced in chronological order and add cards in sequel that are taken into account previous installments.
So there will be noticable gaps if you would do so.

What I do would like tho is an expansion with new rebalanced bard cards.
I'd buy right away.

Oh, and on top of it all, even with all this, bards still seemed WEAK enough so that they needed another ability aswell, to dig through the loot deck faster with their "draw one more and discard" ability.

Wth were you guys thinking when you balanced this class? xD

PS:
To be clear I am talking about the bard that discard one card, pick an opponent, beat his die roll, then pick him as his helper.
If he fails, he discard another card, pick another opponent, and continue this until he run out of cards or opponents.

Also, basically stating "discard" let you discard any cards, from hand, items in play or even race cards etc. (not curses ofc)
So the accessability of this is so versatile too.

I know there are other bards from other times and so on that let you discard 3 cards, pick an opponent, beat his roll then pick him as your helper.
Discarding 3 cards this way at least feels like it is a bit more of a burden to even perform.

[Andrew Hackard]

The cards with full-color art were published starting in 2010 and have updated rules. The duotone "all brown" cards are mostly OK, but as you've seen, some of the rules were updated.

Sorry you don't like the Bard. My suggestion was going to be "pull it out of your deck," but you've already rejected that (and rather rudely, if I'm being honest), so I guess I don't have any other advice to offer except "make the Bard suffer."

[ishinken]

I don't know rude?
I kinda said why it would be weird to pull certain cards out.
It leave gaps that are noticable as cards no longer synnergize with eachother.

What did you mean?

[sain9510]

If you and your play group dislike the mechanic on bard so much, brainstorm ways to make it less "broken." Rather than discard 1 card make it 3 cards to activate the ability. Make it usable only once per combat. Stuff like that, change it to make it fit your group.

[Andrew Hackard]

Originally Posted by ishinken

What did you mean?

From your first post: "Wth were you guys thinking when you balanced this class?" That's rude.

Originally Posted by sain9510

If you and your play group dislike the mechanic on bard so much, brainstorm ways to make it less "broken." Rather than discard 1 card make it 3 cards to activate the ability. Make it usable only once per combat. Stuff like that, change it to make it fit your group.

I'll also point out that the Bard wins the Enthrall contest less than half the time, since it has to be strictly higher than the other player's roll. Assuming no other modifiers are in play and no one's tossing Loaded Dice around, the Bard wins 15/36 times, or about 42% of the contests. It's a nifty ability when it works, but it's by no means guaranteed.

[emigio]

you can contrast it becoming an elf (that is the most common race in the fantasy line), nobody want the help of an elf XD

[ishinken]

Originally Posted by Andrew Hackard

From your first post: "Wth were you guys thinking when you balanced this class?" That's rude.



I'll also point out that the Bard wins the Enthrall contest less than half the time, since it has to be strictly higher than the other player's roll. Assuming no other modifiers are in play and no one's tossing Loaded Dice around, the Bard wins 15/36 times, or about 42% of the contests. It's a nifty ability when it works, but it's by no means guaranteed.

You think it's rude. Ok. I think it's deeply game breaking.

You estimate the chance to make it work for once use, you have several uses of it. So with 3-4 players you have a quite nice margain to get it.

It's just for whatever reasons too good and cheap without any drawbacks.
To basically screw over the entire meaning of the game, to fight for something and win it by fighting off opponents. As you practically make one of them useless to be able to ruin your fight.

It's such a bomb compared to other abilities that indeed have higher costs, fewer useages and more drawbacks. This lack any. And just add more versability.

[Andrew Hackard]

Shrug. If you think it's that bad, nerf it or remove it. (I'm pretty sure the House Rules thread has some ideas for variant Bards somewhere in its length.) You've made the same assertion several times and I think this conversation has run its course.