[BUG] Bard Song Broken

devicem

Expected behavior: +1 to THACO and saving throws
Current behavior: does nothing!

Tested this with my own char, then with Garick in Beregost.

[EDIT]: Only the Skald bard song works as intended giving +2 bonus to THACO

Aristillius

Um, I thought the vanilla bard song is supposed to give resistance to fear? That's how it worked when my party was feared and Garrick made his save and started singing in my party now.

Crawley

Yes, default bard song does not improve trak0 (as per description).
This does not change the fact, that bard songs should be largely improved and possibly caster level reduced /2 (currently bard will always be a stronger caster than mage).

devicem

Aristillius said:

Um, I thought the vanilla bard song is supposed to give resistance to fear? That's how it worked when my party was feared and Garrick made his save and started singing in my party now.

I thought that in BG2 engine, bard song gave bonus to THACO and saving throws...
I mean, I could be wrong, as I found the effects of the bard song through use instead of reading the description.

Schneidend

Crawley said:

Yes, default bard song does not improve trak0 (as per description).
This does not change the fact, that bard songs should be largely improved and possibly caster level reduced /2 (currently bard will always be a stronger caster than mage).

Bard is SUPPOSED to have a higher caster level, as I recall. It's one of the class' few advantages.

As for the song, I think the normal Bard Song is supposed to provide a +1 luck bonus, but it never actually did in vanilla?

ljbo

Iirc the song of a vanilla bard does +1 luck from level 15 onward and then +2 luck from a level in the 20's I don't exactly remember. At level 1, the song just boosts morale: each turn of singing increases morale. This explains why BG2 players have expectations not met in BG1. Note that the Rogue Rebalancing mod does "+1 to hit and all saving throws" explicitly at level 1. Highly recommended to whomever wishes to play a bard, and even better in BG2 because of new HLA more fitting to the class.

devicem

OK, since we have that cleared up, the question now is whether the BG:EE follows the vanilla BG1 or BG2 rules? I figured, changing the engine and adding the kits was exactly the reason why bards should also behave as their BG2 counterparts, and not vice versa...

@ljbo And, w/o the RR mod, should they stay the same way as in vanilla? I'm curious, because I have now absolutely no incentive to carry a bard in my group, whereas previously it was essential to me, at least.

ljbo

@devicem The key problem is that, as it stands, bard song is not very useful in BG1 (including EE) because one cannot reach level 15. Only in BG2 does it eventually become useful, after that level. The higher level giving +2 is 21 I think actually. As for many such issues, I do not think the devs are even allowed to fix the vanilla bard kit as RR does.

It would be awesome if Beamdog could provide a GUI to easily install mods, a list with tick-boxes basically. Even more awesome if they made that work on the iPad, where it is impossible to install mods without jail breaking. That said, installing mods on Windows is not too difficult... Never tried on Mac though.

Aranthys

Vanilla song has always only been a "Remove / Immunity to fear" effect and that's it, at whatever level, from what I've read on G3.

ljbo

@Aranthys You made me doubt, a good thing, and after checking, I think that what I described above is what one of the component of BG2 FixPack installs actually. The problem is that it's not so easy to check as a +x luck is not displayed anywhere: one has to gather stats of toHit and damage with and without bard song and compare. It would be nice if one of the dev came with a definite answer about that.

devicem

@Aranthys In that case, the song plain and simple sucks. At the cost of no actions, you can mimic the entire bard song ability with just protection from fear which is level 1! wizard spell and level 2! priest spell and lasts for a decent amount of time. Oh well, call me melancholic, but I guess I have to, if possible, install mods to FIX this. And, there was me hoping I could avoid all that shit with BG:EE, guess I was wrong...

Aranthys

devicem said:

@Aranthys In that case, the song plain and simple sucks. At the cost of no actions, you can mimic the entire bard song ability with just protection from fear which is level 1! wizard spell and level 2! priest spell and lasts for a decent amount of time. Oh well, call me melancholic, but I guess I have to, if possible, install mods to FIX this. And, there was me hoping I could avoid all that shit with BG:EE, guess I was wrong...

Never said the song was useful, or that I thought it should remain as it is.
All i said is that, currently, the song is working according to what it does in the vanilla game.

Now, you can of course propose a change in the suggestions forum about it