Bards as New Class: Yay or Nay?

[huth]

That's like saying a car is similar to a bicycle since both have round tires and are used for transportation.

[Didactic]

It's yea, not "yay".

[Amonra]

It's yea, not "yay".

It's whatever I say it is.

But I was going for the rhyme, in case you must now. It seems it went totally over your head; such a simple little thing.

---------- Post added 2013-01-20 at 02:06 AM ----------

All right. Let's look at a particular ability of Grand Empress Shek'zeer's, shall we?







Oh, it's just elemental powers? So is fire. So is frost. Mages still use those. Biological skills? Let's examine the Mantid lore object, Amber.







And one of the "ghost powers" that Forresten uses is none other than Demoralizing Shout, a sound which applies a debuff and is usable by warriors which are not dead.

The only retcon is to deny that Sound in the Warcraft universe is a usable type of magic. More examples of songs of power follow.

A'dal's Song of Battle
K'iru's Song of Victory
A Cleansing Song
Song of Fecundity
Song of Wind and Water
Song of Reflection
Siren's Song
Reverberating Hymn
Inspiring Song
Hymn of Hope
Divine Hymn
Forest Song
Calming Song of the Singer
Healing Song of the Singer
Crane's Song
Song of Persuasion
Song of Sylvanas
Song of the Empress
The Blade's Song
Hellscream's Warsong
Lullaby
Lullaby
Enchanting Lullaby
Sweet Lullaby

I could go on, and I didn't even start on the abilities which are sound-based but not songs. Warrior shouts, Horn of Winter for death knights, the act of casting a spell, which is an incantation. One of the songs above is indeed sung by a bard, but that's not the point. The point is that music has power. Sound has power. It's more than that. Sound is the raw material for magic. There's a reason being silenced makes a spellcaster unable to do anything but flail around helplessly. It's not about yelling random gibberish so loud it hurts the enemy's ears. It's about making the right sounds in the right sequence at the right time. And that is what a musically inclined character should be good at, isn't it?

Great evidence.

So, this justifies the existence of sound magic, or at least how sound is an expression of arcane. Arcane is math, music is math as well. So it does make sense on that respect, but sound by itself is most likely not magical.

Nonetheless, if sound can be the expression of a magical source, it makes bards plausible; no matter how much it revolts me.