After posting lesson 2: Arcane Casters, I began to wonder, which base class is the best buff class. For today's lesson, I will be doing a comparison of the Bard, Cleric, and Wizard classes, using only the PHB. For this comparison, I'll be looking at only the class's buff abilities (how well they improve the team). Also, this comparison will be made at levels 1, 5, and 10 to provide a look at the class as a starter, low-level, and mid-level.
The bard in D&D 3.5 is an interesting class, and one that I often overlook, or dismiss jokingly as a useless class. Upon closer analysis, my opinion hasn't changed much. The bard is an arcane class, but only goes up to spell level 6, and is the only arcane class in the PHB that doesn't get 1st level spells at 1st level. Among the bard's buff abilities are bardic music and a handful of spells.
Bardic music is an interesting class feature. The bard can perform up to once per day per class level and can start a performance as a standard action and maintain a performance as a standard action. At level 1, the bard can use this performance for Inspire Courage. Inspire Courage grants a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls, and saves against charm and fear. At level 5 the bard can use Inspire Competence. Inspire Competence grants a +2 bonus to any skill check (except for Hide and Move Silently, where a bard's performance would be counter-productive). At level 9, the bard gains Inspire Greatness, and this is where it gets interesting. Inspire Greatness grants a target temporary hit points equal to 2d10 + twice the target's constitution modifier, a +2 bonus to attack rolls and a +1 bonus to fortitude saves. The target also counts as being 2 levels higher for the purpose of determining how other spells affect them.
The downside of bardic music is that the benefits only last for as long as the bard maintains the performance, and in the case of Inspire Courage and Inspire Greatness, the benefit lasts for 5 rounds after the performance ends. So, if the bard wants to maintain an effect longer than 6 rounds, the bard has to give up the ability to take other actions.
The bard's spells are rather lackluster when it comes to buffing. The only buff spells on the list of 1st level bard spells are remove fear and summon monster. Remove fear is a situational spell, and summon monster I isn't going to do much more than provide you a weak combatant you can flank with for a couple of rounds. The bard does get a few decent buffs at higher levels, such as heroism, haste, and freedom of movement.
The 3.5 cleric has a decent selection of buff spells. At 1st level, bless tops the list as the best buff spell, granting a +1 attack bonus to the entire party, while protection pulls a close second, granting a single target a +2 bonus to AC and saves and preventing charm and domination effects. A level 5 cleric has the magic circle spell, granting the benefit of the protection spell, but to everyone within 10ft of him, but also has the spell prayer, which I have often overlooked, but as it turns out, it is a decent spell, hitting everything within 40ft of the cleric, granting a +1 bonus to attacks, weapon damage, skills, and saves to allies within range, and giving enemies in range a -1 penalty to those rolls. What makes this more awesome is that the spell allows spell resistance but no save, and it provides a luck bonus, a bonus type that isn't granted often so you won't have to worry about same type duplication. The only downside to this spell is that it lasts for 1 round per caster level, so it's short-term, but for what it does, it's not bad. In addition to these two 3rd level spells, the cleric has a good list of 2nd level spells to pick from such as aid, remove paralysis, resist energy, lesser restoration, shield other, and spiritual weapon, all of which are decent buffs. When a cleric gains access to 4th level spells, freedom of movement, restoration, and summon monster IV show up as effective buffs, and yes, I'm counting summon spells as buffs because they effectively give you another party member, although weaker than most of your current party, but a summoned creature can help set up flanking positions, granting +2 bonuses to your allies' attack rolls in addition to dishing out extra hits and possibly drawing fire. Unfortunately, the list of 5th level cleric spells include more debuff, utility, and offensive spells than buff spells, making true seeing the best buff from that list.
As for the wizard, the wizard is probably a better option for a debuffer or controller than a party buffer, but the wizard does have access to good buff spells, so let's see how it compares. 1st level buff spells include magic weapon and protection. Magic weapon is also available to the cleric, but was not included in the cleric's list, because it is trumped by bless, though it should be noted that magic weapon does grant +1 to damage, which bless doesn't, and does allow the weapon to bypass the DR of a monster with DR #/magic, which bless does not. However, most monsters with DR #/magic are of a CR that by the time the party fights them, there should already be at least one or two magic weapons in the party, so the spell is often redundant. A wizard's buff choices do get better at higher levels with blur and resist energy, then displacement, haste, heroism, and magic circle. Followed by greater invisibility and summon monster IV, and finally break enchantment.
So, which class is really the best buffer?
At level 1: The bard can grant a 6-round buff of +1 attack and damage to multiple allies, but only once per day. The cleric can bless, granting +1 to attack and saves against fear for 1 minute per level, twice per day, and can use their domain spell for a protection or magic weapon. The wizard could cast magic weapon or protection twice per day, both of which last for 1 minute per level. So, at level 1, the cleric wins with the most/longest buffs, followed by the wizard, then the bard, however the bard is the only class that can provide a damage bonus to multiple allies at 1st level, and the bard could extend the buff for additional rounds, but the bard would be unable to do anything during those rounds, while the cleric and wizard would still be free to act.
At level 5: The bard can grant a +2 bonus to a skill check, and can now use bardic music abilities up to 5 times per day, meaning 5 skill boosts or 5 instances of 6-round attack, damage, and fear buffs. Plus, at 5th level, the bard can now cast heroism twice per day. The cleric can now bless 4 times per day, plus use the domain spell for protection/magic weapon, as well as cast any of the awesome 2nd level buff spells 3 times per day, plus drop a domain for another aid or spiritual weapon, and could cast 2 magic circle or prayer spells per day and use the domain spell for magic circle. The wizard now has 4 magic weapon/protection spells, 3 blur/resist energy, and 1 displacement, haste, heroism, or magic circle. At 5th level, the cleric is still winning with more total buffs per day, plus a wider variety of buffs, while the wizard is the only class capable of casting haste at this level, and the bard is the only class that can provide a skill buff. In combat, the cleric wins again, with the wizard pulling a close second, while out of combat, the bard can provide a competence boost that nobody else can match.
At level 10: The bard now has 10 bardic music uses per day, and has access to inspire greatness, granting temporary hit points, +2 to attack rolls, and +1 to fortitude saves. The bard can also cast heroism 4 times, haste 3 times, and freedom of movement once. The cleric can cast freedom of movement, restoration, or summon monster IV 4 times, plus a domain spell, and true seeing twice, plus a domain spell. The wizard now has greater invisibility and summon monster IV 4 times, and break enchantment twice. It's a bit harder to pick a winner here, since the bard has 10 performances now, and the inspire courage bonus has improved to +2. At higher levels, the bard hedges out both the cleric and wizard in terms of providing more short-term bonuses per day. The wizard's greater invisibility makes the party rogue a non-stop sneak attacker, assuming enemies that rely on sight. However, the cleric still has access to the widest variety of buffs, and can cast more spells per day than the wizard. So in terms of total buffs per day, the bard now has 10 bardic music uses, plus 4 heroisms, 3 hastes, and one freedom of movement, for a total of 18 buffs, the cleric has a total of 25 spells per day (not counting 0-levels) any of which could be used for buffing, and the wizard has 20 spells per day. So, the cleric wins with most buffs per day. In terms of damage buffs, the bard wins with inspire courage. However, the wizard's redeeming factor is that he has access to a few buff spells that the cleric doesn't.
Summary
Bard: not a good low-level buffer, starts getting decent at levels 8 and 9 when inspire courage grants +2 bonus and inspire greatness becomes an option.
Cleric: a good buffer at any level, with the biggest variety of buff spells and most spells per day.
Wizard: a better buffer than the bard at lower levels, has access to some buff spells the cleric doesn't.
Notes: calculations of spells per day were made using an 18 attribute score for the character's primary casting attribute. Cleric domain spells assumed the good and war domains, most other domains were lacking in buff spells.
