Editing Bard (section)

===1st & 2nd Edition===
In [[Advanced Dungeons & Dragons]], the Bard started out as a ''complete and utter mess'' of a class. You started the game as a [[Fighter]] and then, at any point between levels 5 and 8, you had to [[multiclassing|dual-class]] over to the [[Thief]]. Then, after reaching a minimum of 5th level as a Thief, and before they reached level 9, they had to dual-class again, this time to [[Druid]] - except this time, they didn't gain Druid abilities but gained Bard abilities, which was a kind of subclass of Druid. While a Fighter/Thief makes sense for a bard, the Druid class is close to the [[FAIL|exact opposite]] of the Bard class.<br>
The reason for this almost certainly relates that to the fact that among the ancient Celts of Gaul and the British Isles, the priestly caste, the Druids, refused to write anything down, instead relying on memorization. One subset of these Druids were the Bards, who functioned in a similar manner to a norse [[Skald]]. These bards would continue to exist even after the rest of the Druids died out, and even survived the coming of Christianity, although they lost their religious status.

Needless to say, this was ridiculously complicated and was quickly changed; 2nd edition introduced the now-iconic definition of the Bard. This version of the Bard was considered a [[Rogue]]-school class (what later editions call the Rogue was, at the time, called the [[Thief]]), and gained most of the same abilities as a Thief, like picking pockets and finding/removing traps, though naturally they weren't as good at it. What made it unique was its party-buffing Bardic Music ability, its slightly better combat skills, its inferior thieving skills, and its ability to cast a number of [[Mage]] spells (as long as they weren't wearing armor).

Notably, the [[Dark Sun]] incarnation of the class focused more on intrigue and being masters of poison use than just throwing buffs around.