I’ve been playing Pathfinder 2 recently, and bards are a lot more exciting there. In PF2, you get 3 actions per turn (there’s no “standard action” and “move action”, everything just costs a number of actions, so you can, for example, move 3 times, or attack 3 times, or any other combination of things), and Inspire Courage affects every ally in a 30’ radius and costs only 1 action, and is functionally unlimited aside from the action cost (you don’t have a limited number of uses per day or whatever). It’s effectively an action tax but at least it doesn’t take your whole turn to do it, and you can still e.g. cast a spell (typically 2 actions, varies by spell), or move and attack after inspiring everyone.
Bards in PF2 are also ‘full’ spontaneous casters; they feel absolutely great to play.
I’ve been playing Pathfinder 2 recently, and bards are a lot more exciting there. In PF2, you get 3 actions per turn (there’s no “standard action” and “move action”, everything just costs a number of actions, so you can, for example, move 3 times, or attack 3 times, or any other combination of things), and Inspire Courage affects every ally in a 30’ radius and costs only 1 action, and is functionally unlimited aside from the action cost (you don’t have a limited number of uses per day or whatever). It’s effectively an action tax but at least it doesn’t take your whole turn to do it, and you can still e.g. cast a spell (typically 2 actions, varies by spell), or move and attack after inspiring everyone.
Bards in PF2 are also ‘full’ spontaneous casters; they feel absolutely great to play.