A thought about bards (lol) in PF/3.5E/etc.
I was examining the mechanics for Octavia in Warframe. One of the odder quirks is that she buffs her teammates when they attack, etc in time with her music.
And my thought was: fuck me, why doesn't the bard do that?
Keep to the Beat (Ex): A bard using Inspiring Performance can augment his teammates and impede his enemies further through the beat of his song. At 1st level, the bard affects initiative counts of 1, 5, and every multiple of 5 after (10, 15, etc). A friendly PC who acts on this initiative count adds an additional +1 to melee or ranged hit and damage, or may increase the numeric result of a spell by 2, or increase the DC by 1.
An enemy who finds themselves acting on an initiative count suffers a -1 to hit and damage, and a -1 to spell DCs.
Both players and opponents may hold actions to sync (or desync) to the beat.
At 7th level, the bard may affect initiative count multiples of 5 or 4 (he can only affect one at a time, but he can change the beat as a standard action).
At 10th level the initiative count bonus doubles (to +2 to hit/damage, +4 to variable die results, +2 DC for friendlies, etc).
At 13th level, he may affect multiples of 3, 4, or 5.
Thoughts?