Bards

Bards are wandering minstrels and poets. They make their living singing songs, performing plays, and reciting poetry. During their travels, bards learn skills of stealth from thieves and assassins. Bards are usually keepers of lore, well-versed in singing, acting, and writing. Bards also learn minor magics from magic-users, and although they still memorize them, they invariably convert these into some sort of song form, requiring nothing more than their raised voices to activate.
Characteristics: Bards are well-liked by most other classes, as they are talented and witty entertainers. Although they tend to be nimble, like most rogues, they often neglect the rest of their bodies in their wanderings.

Bards, being entertainers and story tellers who lift the spirits of their companions, don't do very well alone. For bards, there is always strength in numbers, where the subtle effects of songs can benefit many companions. Bards are one of the more challenging classes to play.

Role Playing Suggestions:

• A lover of music or stories, from a gruff pirate to a chattering gnome, would liven up a group of people.
• Bards could be gypsies that are trying to live off entertaining in the streets.
• A performer who is held in high esteem by nobles could be a more stuck up bard than what lowly 'adventurers' are used to seeing.

Several of the skills that are available are:
Traveling Tune
Angelic Melody
Verse of Warding
Cure Light Wounds

The rankings of a bard are:
Muse
Poet
Troubador
Minstrel
Gleeman
Bard
Master Bard
Lorewhisperer
Lorespeaker
Loremaster