Originally Posted by
Wikipedia
The bard is a standard playable character class in many editions of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game.[1] The bard class is versatile, capable of combat and of magic (Divine magic in earlier editions, arcane magic in later editions). Bards use their artistic talents to induce magical effects. The class is loosely based on the special magic that music holds in stories such as The Pied Piper of Hamelin, and in earlier versions was much more akin to being a Celtic priest or a Norse Skald, although these elements have largely been removed in later editions. Listed inspirations for bards include Taliesin, Homer, Will Scarlet and Alan-a-Dale.
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition (1989-1999)
The bard, as part of the "rogue" group, was one of the standard character classes available in the second edition Player's Handbook; in this edition, the bard was regularized.
Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition (2000-2007)
In Third Edition Dungeons and Dragons, the bard class continued its change from a druidic loremaster in first edition into a jack-of-all-trades (retaining mainly the original Bardic Knowledge ability, an almost universal chance to know anything based on character level and Intelligence).
In Third Edition D&D, bards now could be any non-lawful alignment, meaning Bards could no longer be Lawful Neutral, but now could be Chaotic Good and Chaotic Evil. This was explained on the grounds that a bard wanders freely and is guided by intuition and whim. The rules also state that a bard's powers are incompatible with law and tradition, although authentic historical bards were in fact keepers of traditions and knowledge; this portrayal of the bard might be a misinterpretation, creative or unintended, of the laws which put a bard above a common free man due to their erudition and place as sacred speakers of rote and history.
The D&D bard, despite the roots of the word itself, is inspired more by wandering minstrels who were indeed considered "rogues" of a sort (for instance, attempting to earn free food and rooms at inns through doing odd jobs like killing rats, singing, or just wooing the bartender). D&D bards are described as not necessarily opposed to tradition, but to the staleness and risk of corruption that comes with a settled life.
3.5 Edition Revisions
In 2003, the Revised "3.5" edition of Dungeons and Dragons was released, including several minor but significant changes to the Bard class. Bards gained increased access to skills and the ability to cast bard spells while in light armor. The bard is the only Core class able to freely cast arcane spells in armor, as well as the only Core class with Speak Language as a class skill (supplementary 3.5 books later introduced new base classes with these abilities).
Perhaps more significantly, one of the bard's trademark abilities—that of bardic music—was both strengthened and tied more closely to the bard class. In the previous 3.0 edition, the bardic music abilities available to a character depended only on the amount of Perform skill that character possessed, not advancement in the bard class. These abilities largely did not improve, once acquired, and no new abilities became available at high levels; only the number of daily uses of the music increased with bard class level. In the 3.5 version, not only was the availability of bardic music abilities tied to bard class level as well as Perform skill, but also most of these abilities now significantly improved in potency with progression in the bard class. New high-level bardic music effects were introduced as well as progressive improvements of existing ones.
Finally, in this edition, bard became the favored class for the gnome race, replacing the traditional illusionist. The dvati (an obscure race, composed entirely of sets of twins, that first appeared in Dragon magazine #271), also have bard as their favored class, and the satyr also shares this class as a favorite. The star elf race from the Forgotten Realms setting's Unapproachable East sourcebook also has bard as its favorite class.