Song and Silence: A Guidebook to Bards and Rogues

by David Noonan and John D. Rateliff

Finesse and Versatility Make Powerful Allies Bards and rogues rely on a stunning array of skills and abilities to give them an edge over any adversary. Packed with new ways to customize even the most... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786918578
• ISBN13: 9780786918577
• Release Date: December 2001
• Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
• Length: 96 Pages
• Weight: 0.44 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 8.5" x 10.8"

Customer Reviews

Plenty of "RP" to add to your RPG

This is a excellent suppliment for any gaming group, even those not prone to having strong social based parties. While most of the material on prestige classes may be found elsewhere and several of the feats do not translate to 3.5 the real beauty of this book are the sections on weapons, traps, organizations and instuments. Everyone knows how to run a hack and slash but having the opportunity to form an alternate persona and make a developed character to take on adventures most of us can only dream, isn't that why we all started playing this game? On this note I find the sections on weapons to be simple, but the few new choices offer benifits in such a select group of situations I find players will be inspired to try new and inventive tactic to utilize these new items. The section on traps has over 90 different idead with rules for making you own, thusly making every dungeon fresh, new and more deady than ever. It also inspires players to set their own ambushes, making combat more interesting thought provoking than the usual "I stab it" or "I use magic missle". Providing benifits for taking different instruments will also add more flavor than your standard lute weilding bard, and having the multitude of organizations adds plot ideas a plenty and great jumping off points for anyone wanting to stand out from the generic crop of rouges and bards that seem to plague most games.

It's not that bad!

Coming from the perspective of an only occasional D & D player, I find the information in this guide to be useful and fun. I don't immerse myself in this game the way some of my friends do, and so this gives me lots of good insights and ideas about how to play my rogue. I look forward to convincing my DM to allow me to choose some of the new feats and acquire the new equipment listed in this book.

Awesome

All the prestige classes are great, The new feats are pretty good and the traps section is just awesome. Its for sure the best class guide till the moment.

Technique, but no panache

Flavor-wise Rogues and Bards are definitely the most 'with it' classes, street smart and savvy. Rules-wise, they do okay single-classed; Rogues get some decent scratch at higher levels with thier special abilities and ever-increasing Sneak Attacks while Bards flesh out into reasonable spellcasting capability, plenty of Bardic Music to go the distance, and near omniscience from Bardic Knowledge. Bards are also very friendly to Multi-classing since thier Bardic Music is skill based rather than level based. Thus, perhaps it isnt that big of a deal that there are only 10 prestige classes presented herein.Of the 10, none seem like loosers outright, but none of them are particularly gripping either. Dread Pirate is interesting but seems much more useful as an NPC pClass outside of very specific pirate-oriented campaign settings (in which most everyone would want to take it). The Dungeon Delver gets some pretty cheesy supernatural abilities with no apparant source (IMO spell-like and supernatural abilities should have some source of origin and not just be handed out to dial in the cool factor); further it doesnt compare well to some of the 3rd party material out there in supplements like Traps & Treachery. The Fang of Lolth is (Im sorry) asinine from the top down. Outlaw of the Crimson Path is quasi-interesting and helps a player that wants to be a Robin Hood highwayman sort of character but seems ill-suited to an adventuring PC; again another NPC-centric pClass. The Royal Explorer is somewhat interesting and one of the few classes semi-friendly to the Bard, but mostly focuses on lots of bonus languages and a very weakly justified skill boost with a list of applicable skills expanding every 2 class levels; the class does give a free Exotic Weapon proficiency at 1st level and the supremely useful Track feat at 2nd which helps fill the class out. The Spymaster is a super-sweet class with very useful abilities that essentially serve to allow a character concept that the rules would otherwise hamper or make impractical; unfortunately it also seems most well suited to an NPC (but PCs in a city campaign with heavy political overtones could get some benefit from it as well). The Temple Raider of Olidammara is a decent class, but thier connection with Olidammara doesnt sit well with my mental image thru the years of Olidammara as a Dionysius-like deity that is also a patron of the arts; a Thespian of Olidammara friendly to Bards in thier role as actors would have been more fitting (particularly if slanted to the aspect of spy-actors that use acting troupes as thier cover); however the actual pClass is solid and would better fit the demi-god Rudd or one of the other more straight-rogue gods IMO. The Thief-Acrobat returns once again and are sure to be a popular choice for pure-rogues as they get a plethora of good abilities; a Rogue 10/T-A 10 would be formidable; however the class as a rather pointless requirement of membership in a thieve's Guild. The Vigilant

Sneak Attack

The Core-Class Guidebooks are more than half finished (with only the Rangers, Druids and Barbarians left) and it looks as if WOTC has finally figured out what the readers want.This 96 page handbook is less of a Guidebook and more of an appendix to the Dungeon Masters Guide... but that's a GOOD thing.Song and Silence cuts through the effluvia and gets down to business on page one. First presented are the Prestige classes (including the much missed Thief-Acrobat) and moves straight to the Feats and Skills. As you can see below, the book is laid out in a economical and no-nonsense manner.Chapter 1 - Prestige Classes-Dread Pirate-Dungeon Delver-Fang of Lloth-Outlaw of the Crimson Road-Royal Explorer-Spymaster-Temple Raider of Olidammara-Thief-acrobat-Vigilante-VirtuosoChapter 2 - Skills and Feats-Primer on Poison-Do-it-yourself Traps-New ways to use skills-FeatsChapter 3 - Bard and Rogue Equipment-Bards and their instruments-Undead Bards-New Weapons-Thief Gear-Magic ItemsChapter 4 - Organizations for Bards and Rogues-Ten Thieves Guilds-Bardic CollegesChapter 5 - You and the world around you-The Rogue-The BardRole in the Campaign-Role in the Game-Motivations-Relationship with Others -Special Combat OptionsChapter 6 - Spells-New Assassin Spells-New Bard Spells-New SpellsFinally, Song and Silence is of equal value to players and DM's alike, the artwork is first rate and the prose is entertaining as well as enlightening.Another win for WOTC.