TOPIC: Clarifying Lute of Free Fury / Widseth's 'other actions'

Matthew Hayward wrote:

jedibcg wrote: In one round you could do any/all of the following:

Perform bardsong with Lute of FF or Legendary Lute
ONE Standard Action Use Lenses to a scroll
ONE Free Action Use to second scroll.

Makes sense to me....

So on this interpretation:

1. How many standard actions occurred?

2. How many standard actions did the bard perform?

I'm guessing 2 standard actions and the bard performed both of them?

I would say 2 for both.

No bard instrument gives anyone two Standard Actions.

With a super-duper instrument, the bardsong just happens. It's probably best to not overthink it.

Druegar wrote: No bard instrument gives anyone two Standard Actions.

With a super-duper instrument, the bardsong just happens. It's probably best to not overthink it.

Sorry Matthew and I are going to overthink it, I am pretty sure it is our nature. Bardsong is a Standard Action. LoFF and the Legendary Lute give you a Standard Action while performing Bardsong. It is fine if you want to say it is not 2 but functionally it is 2.

Strange question. Based on the Player's guide and the instrument descriptions, normally playing a bardic instrument counts as a standard action - the transmuted ones are just an exception to that. Is there anything currently stating that you can't play more than one bardic instrument at the same time? Use the new legendary, break out a orcanna and play it as a standard action, then nose pick with the free action?

Fred

Druegar wrote: No bard instrument gives anyone two Standard Actions.

With a super-duper instrument, the bardsong just happens. It's probably best to not overthink it.

That's fine - I'm just trying to be clear on how the rules work as a few other tokens care about what actions you performed (Cloak of Blending, Invisibility granting effects, Lenses of Sage Speed).

So, if I'm reading you right, while using LoFF:

1. Bardsong just occurs. The bard is not performing the action of badrsong.

2. The Bard can use their standard action to do anything you could do with a standard action.

Tokens, rules, spells, etc. that care about what action the Bard performed, will consider the Bard to have performed whatever the standard action they did with #2 was. They will not consider the Bard to have performed Bardsong (other than for the purposes of the Bardsong bonuses).

Is that right?

Fred K wrote: Strange question. Based on the Player's guide and the instrument descriptions, normally playing a bardic instrument counts as a standard action - the transmuted ones are just an exception to that. Is there anything currently stating that you can't play more than one bardic instrument at the same time? Use the new legendary, break out a orcanna and play it as a standard action, then nose pick with the free action?

Fred

Yes

Instruments have the “two hand” symbols. Swapping instruments requires a free action.

The TokenDB gives a list of example Standard Actions. It doesn’t specifically say that one of them can’t be Bard song, but I’m sure it will soon. Otherwise, you could generate a song of +infinity/+infinity by recursively singing with the same instrument.

Matthew Hayward wrote:

Druegar wrote: No bard instrument gives anyone two Standard Actions.

With a super-duper instrument, the bardsong just happens. It's probably best to not overthink it.

That's fine - I'm just trying to be clear on how the rules work as a few other tokens care about what actions you performed (Cloak of Blending, Invisibility granting effects, Lenses of Sage Speed).

So, if I'm reading you right, while using LoFF:

1. Bardsong just occurs. The bard is not performing the action of badrsong.

2. The Bard can use their standard action to do anything you could do with a standard action.

Tokens, rules, spells, etc. that care about what action the Bard performed, will consider the Bard to have performed whatever the standard action they did with #2 was. They will not consider the Bard to have performed Bardsong (other than for the purposes of the Bardsong bonuses).

Is that right?

If you’re tripping over the sentence “It does not allow wearers to cast a scroll as a Free Action if their Standard Action was used for any purpose other than casting a scroll“ then maybe it would help it you interpreted it slightly differently.

Try something like “”You may only cast a scroll as a free action if you already cast a scroll with your standard action.”

Then the details of how the legendary lute works don’t really matter.

Just use the Lute's free action to use widseths

Lordoftherealm wrote: Just use the Lute's free action to use widseths

No, because using a magic item requires a standard action (PHB p40)

But that’s what kind of what I’m saying: if Bardsong is a permitted SA, then Singing triggers the lute so you have another SA, so you sing, triggering the lute to let you have another SA, so you sing ad infinitum.

As written, that appears possible. Keep in mind, even though the token shows two hands - it explicitly says the player may attack. There is a built-in assumption there that you are able to use hands to attack with (no other melee attack form is possible without hands based on the player's guide).

If the new instrument gives you the ability to bardsong plus a standard action that includes actions involving hands (reading a scroll, drinking a potion, swinging a weapon) - it could allow you to play a different instrument. The only limitation I see, per the rules, is that you can't benefit from the same item more than once so it would have to be a different instrument.

Of course, this hypothetical problem is solved by adding a sentence to the Player's Guide:
"At no time may a player or party benefit from the functions of more than one bardsong at a given time." - so, you could play a second instrument - it will sound pretty (ok - for some of the singing I've heard that might be a stretch ) but won't have a mechanical effect.

Fred

Fred

Fred K wrote: As written, that appears possible. Keep in mind, even though the token shows two hands - it explicitly says the player may attack. There is a built-in assumption there that you are able to use hands to attack with (no other melee attack form is possible without hands based on the player's guide).

If the new instrument gives you the ability to bardsong plus a standard action that includes actions involving hands (reading a scroll, drinking a potion, swinging a weapon) - it could allow you to play a different instrument. The only limitation I see, per the rules, is that you can't benefit from the same item more than once so it would have to be a different instrument.

Of course, this hypothetical problem is solved by adding a sentence to the Player's Guide:
"At no time may a player or party benefit from the functions of more than one bardsong at a given time." - so, you could play a second instrument - it will sound pretty (ok - for some of the singing I've heard that might be a stretch ) but won't have a mechanical effect.

Fred

Fred

Almost. The old Widseth’s description says that the weapon is animated by the magic of the Lute, which never leaves the Bard’s hands.

tokendb.com/token/widseths-mystical-lute/

And I agree with you about a rule clarification. “One song at a time” fixes a few issues.

Fred K wrote:
Of course, this hypothetical problem is solved by adding a sentence to the Player's Guide:
"At no time may a player or party benefit from the functions of more than one bardsong at a given time." - so, you could play a second instrument - it will sound pretty (ok - for some of the singing I've heard that might be a stretch ) but won't have a mechanical effect.

Fred

Fred

I think this comes under the rule of "just because you can doesn't mean you should". I don't think any DM is going to agree to a bard playing two instruments at once. To have to explicitly state this in the PHB is just an eye roll.