Bards can choose four spells at level 1 from their spell list, but they cannot change them until they level up. As they gain new spells in their repertoire, they may want to replace some of the spells they previously learned. Each time they gain a level and learn new spells, they can swap out one of their old spells for a different spell of the same level, which can be a cantrip.
Bards can select any spell from the occult tradition (of the right level) when they level up. The Learn a Spell activity allows them to add or swap a spell of their choice. They can also play their chosen instrument to replace certain spell components. To skip somatic components, they must create music using at least one hand while verbal.
Bards can gain basic spellcasting benefits by adding a common occult spell or another spell they learned or swapping one spell at any given level. Tasha’s has an optional feature that allows for cantrip replacement at levels where you also get an ability score increase. According to pathfinder rules, bards can swap one spell at level 5 and then again every three levels thereafter.
Bards are Arcane casters but have access to cure spells, as well as other “divine” spells like neutralize poison and other pseudo-healing spells. They can usually play an instrument for spells and can also retrain specifically to change a signature spell to a different spell. A bard may swap only a single spell at any given level and must choose whether or not to swap the spell at the same time that they gain new spells known for the level.
📹 REMASTERED BARD, Phantasmal Killer, NEW problem with bard spells in Pathfinder 2e
0:00 Intro 1:24 Bard basics 7:09 Changes to class features 11:10 Feats 19:00 Composition spells 19:28 Occult Spells 31:28 …
📹 All Changes to Bard in Pathfinder 2e’s Remaster
Thank you to Paizo for providing to me the Player Core and GM Core so that I could review the material and get it out to my …
Good article, the bard changes seem minor for the most part (save for Warrior muse getting some MUCH needed love, and dropping Inspire Defense from a Maestro exclusive is honestly pretty big, encourages people to not feel toooo heavily inclined to only ever pick Maestro, which is nice.) Also, as for the name changes. Although a lot of the names that have recieved changes weren’t ‘specifically’ names that looped back to 5E D&D (pretty much only Inspire Courage), these names of skills and performances for bard (Inspire Courage, Inspire Competence, Inspire Heroics, Well Versed, etc…) were carry-overs from PF1E, which in turn were carry-overs from D&D 3.5, which they were continuing to use it because it was all content that was allowed via the OGL. So tl;dr, yes these names were changing because they were OGL related content, even though most of them weren’t strictly things that applied to D&D 5E, they were still floating around in the OGL sphere of content. That and like other people have already pointed out, it was also a matter of them wanting to change the vibe of some classes a bit to fit a different flavourful thematic.
The Witch time-gated immunity was actually for the very likely instances where the enemy made their saves. You can now retry in the next round, which is pretty great. Also, lowkey major buff was Evil Eye, now you don’t need to sustain the spell most of the time, because enemies need to spend at least 1 action to remove sickened. That’s HUGE. You fire it and the enemy has chance to spend at least one action removing the penalty. You will only sustain it on enemies that were very likely to save in the first place (Bosses and High Fortitude Creatures).
Dear God that new Martial Performance is so good. Imagine coupling that with an Inspire Heroics (or whatever that metamagic is called now). The one that allows you to make a performance check and, depending on your result, up to a +3, this allows you to, for two rounds, be Fighter accurate as a bard. And put your whole team up to Fighter +1 accuracy. For one Focus point.
I think Warrior bard should have medium armor prof from the start. So that you can also spec in STR from the start and actually make use of the martial weapons. Having a chance to extend inspire courage by attacking may not be that great, considering the minimal damage output, and the chance to fail. You would be better off just casting every turn.