Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Starting spells for bards

I've made some determinations on Zargon's starting spells. First, a review of the relevant passage from the bard class description (2e PH, p. 42):

Since bards are dabblers rather than full-time wizards, their spells tend to be gained by serendipity and happenstance. In no case can a bard choose to specialize in a school of magic. Beginning bards do not have a selection of spells. A 2nd-level bard begins with one to four spells, chosen either randomly or by the DM. (An Intelligence check must still be made to see if the bard can learn a given spell.) The bard is not guaranteed to know read magic, as this is not needed to read the writings in a spell book. The bard can add new spells to his spell book as he finds them, but he does not automatically gain additional spells as he advances in level. All spells beyond those he starts with must be found during the course of adventuring. The bard's casting level is equal to his current level.

This is fairly clear. I'm going to honor the by-the-book rules, for a few reasons: first, there's no compelling incentive to deviate with a house rule; second, the above limitations reinforce that the bard is merely a “dabbler,” as opposed to a specialist wizard or mage; and third, the party is at a safe point with time on their hands such that new spells can be acquired from other characters.

In the interest of moving things forward, I rolled that the following two spells are in Zargon's starting spellbook:

  • Grease
  • Mending

Of note, I rolled a 2 on 1d4 for the number of spells. Both “chance to learn spell” rolls succeeded, and the specific spells were rolled randomly from the 1st-level wizard spell list. While it can be argued that a 4th-level bard could or should have additional spells beyond what a 2nd-level bard would know (i.e., acquired through adventuring), we haven't set that precedent with anything else (magic items, gold, etc.) in the campaign, so I'd prefer not to start now. (And again, the party is at a point that Zargon can easily expand his repertoire before his first real adventure.)

Hopefully this seems reasonable enough to everyone?

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