Skald party
Tysonm1
Member Posts: 40
During a multiplayer game with a couple of guys on the forums, seeing one guy tank on ahead as we just sucked up all the experience, snagged all the loot and tore apart all of the Sword Coast! I kind of got an idea stuck in my head, rather randomly when playing as a gnome Swashbuckler wielding two short-swords (which was a bloody terrible idea but he made do with good everything else that thieves were good for, minus the backstabbing).
One (tank) fighter kind of build or fighter/caster, or any sort of person who'll be fighting backed up by a group of five Skalds. Of course this would be better in Black Pits but in story mode it'd be like your main character was going on a grand quest accompanied by his favourite minstrels looking for the holy grail--... I mean, stuff.
I used this in Black Pits and my first choice was just chuck out one main tank, my choice being probably an Inquisitor since he could cast the necessary spells and he wasn't going to be stuck at range since every enemy comes to the group. So all five of my Skalds each had random stats so there was no point in powerbuild them up, even with... a +1 attack and damage roll? Who even uses a bard for fighting. Srsly. For those that would question this like, "What's the point? Why would you even think of some weird idea like this? Where's the roleplay-ish-ness-thing in all of that? But there's this many problems...!" I would simply say it's purely for a laugh especially if I was going to lead the way like some weird Monty Python lover.
So I began on Black Pits with all five Skalds backing up my Inquisitor, took a while to kill the three tasloi that appeared but that was to be expected with no weaponry on-hand to use aside from the garbage laying around. After this I equipped him with a two-handed sword, full plate and a few weak heal pots just in case. Since I already knew the first few rounds it was no problem so the Skalds needed no defending, and if they did all you'd have to do was make them drink an invisibility potion and stay close to the steamrolling doom with a two-handed weapon. With 18 dexterity as he was human, and fullplate, that makes it go down to -13 AC (-1AC originally) at just level 3 and with just two slots in two-handed swords the damage rose to 19-28.
Obviously some of the weaknesses of this are rather major like Area of Effect spells like fireballs and things that poor creatures like stick-figured humans are terrible against. This also goes for, well... other things, I'll let other people list these off the charts.
But what I'm also curious though is should this be able to happen? Multiple Skald bonuses stacking on top of the other. The idea of it is stupid already but the outcome is rather deadly so it might be up to common sense more than anything and the playing type.
This somehow makes me want to make a full 6 group of jesters now...
One (tank) fighter kind of build or fighter/caster, or any sort of person who'll be fighting backed up by a group of five Skalds. Of course this would be better in Black Pits but in story mode it'd be like your main character was going on a grand quest accompanied by his favourite minstrels looking for the holy grail--... I mean, stuff.
I used this in Black Pits and my first choice was just chuck out one main tank, my choice being probably an Inquisitor since he could cast the necessary spells and he wasn't going to be stuck at range since every enemy comes to the group. So all five of my Skalds each had random stats so there was no point in powerbuild them up, even with... a +1 attack and damage roll? Who even uses a bard for fighting. Srsly. For those that would question this like, "What's the point? Why would you even think of some weird idea like this? Where's the roleplay-ish-ness-thing in all of that? But there's this many problems...!" I would simply say it's purely for a laugh especially if I was going to lead the way like some weird Monty Python lover.
So I began on Black Pits with all five Skalds backing up my Inquisitor, took a while to kill the three tasloi that appeared but that was to be expected with no weaponry on-hand to use aside from the garbage laying around. After this I equipped him with a two-handed sword, full plate and a few weak heal pots just in case. Since I already knew the first few rounds it was no problem so the Skalds needed no defending, and if they did all you'd have to do was make them drink an invisibility potion and stay close to the steamrolling doom with a two-handed weapon. With 18 dexterity as he was human, and fullplate, that makes it go down to -13 AC (-1AC originally) at just level 3 and with just two slots in two-handed swords the damage rose to 19-28.
Obviously some of the weaknesses of this are rather major like Area of Effect spells like fireballs and things that poor creatures like stick-figured humans are terrible against. This also goes for, well... other things, I'll let other people list these off the charts.
But what I'm also curious though is should this be able to happen? Multiple Skald bonuses stacking on top of the other. The idea of it is stupid already but the outcome is rather deadly so it might be up to common sense more than anything and the playing type.
This somehow makes me want to make a full 6 group of jesters now...
1
Comments
And technically, if it was implemented properly, being invisible would negate the effects. Bards and especially Skald, inspire by putting up a brave front and inspiring the men to fight harder (sitting around invisible isn't exactly going to inspire confidence in ANYONE since you obviously don't have enough faith in them to defeat the enemy). And the jester needs to be both seen and heard for it's song to do anything.
Technically bard songs can stack, but not for the same benefits. In PnP each time you sing, you can bestowe a +1 hit, +1 save, or +2 morale on those hearing the song. IF you have 3 bards, you can get all 3 effects. The key difference being, the song lasts 1 round per level after they stop singing and cannot be used in the middle of battle. The forces have to pull back to the outskirts of the fighting so the bard can attempt to sing again. (at higher levels though it does free them up to do other things while still providing the buffs)
The Skald on the other hand gets to choose from +1 ac, +1 hit, +1 saves/6 levels, +2 morale, +1 hp/level, and for every 3 levels can apply an additional effect per song. So by 20 their song has all possible effects. And they get to freely choose which effects to apply for each song. As for the song itself, the other difference is, they can sing while fighting and it lasts for as long as they're engaging in melee combat but ends if damaged (unlike BG, PnP Skald can wear anything a fighter can except full-plate (regular plate is allowed) so it's not as big an issue as it seems). If they hang back like a coward it only lasts 1 round per level. And like the bard can't be started in the middle of a battle.
The Jester's song is supposed to function as a taunt, attracting enemies who fail at save to attempt to the kill jester to exclusion of anything else. And even the current in-game description implies the enemy needs to be able to see and hear the jester for it to have any effect. Of course obviously, unlike other bards, a jester can use their "song" in the middle of battle, but enemies too dumb (4 or less int) or too smart (16+ int) aren't supposed to be affected at all by it.
And the blade shouldn't be able to sing at all, period, ever (Blades are circus performers instead of minstrels and show off their skill at blade handling or juggling things like daggers to inspire or intimidate). Their weapon display ability (not implemented currently in BG, but added in RRB) serves a similar purpose (+1 hit allies, -1 hit enemies) but requires them to do nothing but twirl their weapon/s intimidatingly and can't be used if they've taken damage that battle, since it's just not as impressive from a wounded enemy or if it's attempted a 2nd time per battle.
No i do not like the BG implementation of the songs at all. They could've easily implemented it properly by giving it the same restrictions as the stealth or trap-setting, not be able to sing if there's an enemy in LOS. and cap the radius equal to their LoS as a compromise for quicker cast-time.
Awesome.
Anyway...imagine real life warrior, being backed up by 4 singing morons, each one screaming a different song than the other, screaming at the top of their lungs, because each one wants to be the lead singer...
Me, being the warrior - I'd kill everything in sight, STARTING with the bards.
We'll have to wait and see from the looks of things! It might just work because it works with other songs as well, since I saw that a Blade could cast one up and start fighting while his image sang for him; the probability of having this spell for BG:EE main story will be just about impossible unless you CLUAConsole it in.
So five skalds giving off the bonus at:
LOWER than 15th level: +10 to hit and damage, including -10 AC.
15th level: +20 to hit and damage, including -20AC. Fear resist.
20th level: Same as ever just a few more things added on like immunity to stun, fear and confusion.
Now if we were to find scrolls that made an image of each of those five Skalds who also sang...
LOWER than 15th level: +20 to hit and damage, including -20AC.
15th level: +40 to hit and damage, including -40AC.
Etc.
Just for an absolute kick out of this I would love to see everything happening. It would be like an orchestra of doom if you manage to make the right tank to steam train ahead of everything. Though the annoying part will be, as another person pointed out, you have to be in close proximity so imagine 10 Skalds all at once screaming ten different songs then a fireball comes out of nowhere!
Then of course there's the time limit on the spell, it would have to be well cast at an appropriate moment. I don't know for certain on how long the spell lasts but I'm guessing it's something like a round/level or turn/3 levels? I would have to look this up now...
Ah, here we are: http://gamebanshee.com/showshot.php?/baldursgateii/spells/images/projectimage.jpg
Iirc, lvl 7 spells are random drops even in bg2, ie you will maybe ind enough for the big bosses. I don't know which spells get dopped though, some seemed rare, while I was always tripping over summon hakeashar scrolls, and djinni I think.
Modding the spell progression is actually a correction, 2nd Ed bards really do get casting up to 8th level in PnP and are getting cheated out of 1 spells per spell level per day for levels 1-6, 3 7th and 2 8th by lvl 30 (which is where the PnP table stops).
Yet another thing Bioware nerfed without compensation.
Seriously...why do they hate bards so much? It's the only class in the game that is actually worse in every way then it's PnP incarnation, and not just a little, they nerfed the crap out of it both directly and indirectly. (would almost include druids, but eliminating the need to mess with the heirarchy was a pretty huge buff, and most of the Hierophant Druid (any druid of lvl 16 or higher) abilities would be useless or less effective in BG anyway).
That's base bard, the kits a slightly different bag but even in that case only the blade really came out sightly better (traded roles with the Skald, and went from party support to melee specialist). The jester is about the same (traded some nice passives for less restrictive equipment rules, though I personally would've rather had PnP version of the jester song). Skald got burned though and are a little less effective then they would've been (massively nerfed equipment choices, slightly buffed the song but requires them to do nothing but sing, didn't ding their casting but it was an almost negligible penalty anyway (spell progression 1 level behind a normal bards, didn't implement Counter-song which is also another nerf to the base bard as well).