Soooo any Bard lovers here?
Genryu
Member Posts: 372
It occurred to me today that in all my playthroughs, I have always overlooked Bards. As a player character they have never really appealed to me, and as such the Theatre stronghold is the only questline I have yet to experience.
As for Bard NPC's, in BG1 Garrick and Eldoth again never appealed to me, and whilst Haer'dalis is a pretty cool character, the only time I have ran him in a party (long, long ago), I never really made use of his bard song.
I'm about to start a new challenge playthrough (SCS, Ascension, Insane difficulty, no reload), using multiplayer to build a custom party of six. I'm tempted to throw a Skald into the mix (Or maybe a Jester, as I hear their song bypasses magic resistance and can affect those not normally affected by the negative status effects).
Just wondering what every ones thoughts were on Bard Songs, are the bonuses worth effectively disabling the character for? Do the song effects end the moment you stop singing, or do they linger for a while? Obviously it's going to be a tough playthrough, so I thought I'd just get a little advice on how to get the most out of a bard.
As for Bard NPC's, in BG1 Garrick and Eldoth again never appealed to me, and whilst Haer'dalis is a pretty cool character, the only time I have ran him in a party (long, long ago), I never really made use of his bard song.
I'm about to start a new challenge playthrough (SCS, Ascension, Insane difficulty, no reload), using multiplayer to build a custom party of six. I'm tempted to throw a Skald into the mix (Or maybe a Jester, as I hear their song bypasses magic resistance and can affect those not normally affected by the negative status effects).
Just wondering what every ones thoughts were on Bard Songs, are the bonuses worth effectively disabling the character for? Do the song effects end the moment you stop singing, or do they linger for a while? Obviously it's going to be a tough playthrough, so I thought I'd just get a little advice on how to get the most out of a bard.
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Comments
For the skald, you basically want to stand around and sing, throwing spells strategically as needed. You'll rarely want to actually attack. As the game goes on, and particularly into BG2, you'll want to start using defensive spells and running in front to tank what you can, although I'm not sure how effective this'll be with SCS.
For the blade, you'll probably want to act as an archer in BG1, switching into a dual-wield build in BG2. Don't bother singing in most situations. Again, start relying on buff spells as the game goes on to enhance your tanking ability. Use spells the same way you would as a fighter/mage.
Bard song does linger after you stop singing, but only for a few seconds. It's hard to benefit that much from it, although you can often fire off a single spell without losing the buff, especially if the spell has a short casting time. In a way, you can think of the casting/singing dynamic as similar to the casting/attacking dynamic, where short-casting-time spells won't have a measurable impact on your overall effectiveness, but long-casting-time spells can be tricky.
Singing does not break invisibility, and so if you use them to scout a map, each group of enemies you encounter will have to make a saving throw or start attacking one another in confusion (and/or become slowed or fall unconscious), allowing the rest of your party to rush in and mop up.
I've also read that the negative status effects will also affect enemies that are typically immune to the effects (So long as they fail a saving throw). I'm not sure just how effective the song is, in terms of sticking but it looks interesting.
Still I am leaning towards a Skald.
A skald can buff an allready impressive fighter army into win. Since you will play scs I guess you will have a power gamer party so skald can buff them up even further. A high lvl remove magic and dispel magic will be useful, and he can bait enemy mages by running spell immunities and other buffs. At low lvls, he can help with minute meteors too!
I definitely recommend to install the IWDification mod so that you could use IWD vanilla bard's songs in BG.
The thing I like about it is that you get new songs with new levels so that while in BG1 you constantly get something new. The Skald song is OP for the start of BG1.
@Blackraven has some experience of playing a Skald while @OlvynChuru made an amazing run with a Jester.
There're lots of bard lovers here, on the forum. I summon @jackjack and @booinyoureyes
Skald's biggest problem is that, as soon as you get HLA, their song, supposed to be their strength basically becomes a lesser version of improved bard song (Which also nullify the only significant blade disadvantage, making it even more powerful compared to other bard kits)
Jesters are very strong overall, because Grand Malison+ Mislead+ double bard song is very very strong (In ToB, most enemies have a 6 save vs spell, which means a post level 20 Jester who uses mislead + grand malison+ double bard song will hardCC (confuse or Knock unconscious) such an enemy nearly everytime (I have not made the calculation but it is something like 93% each round). And they will suffer from either hardCC or slow 99% of the time. And it also bypasses Magic resistance
Jesters are quite weak when enemies are immune to their status effects (confusion, slow and knocking unconscious, even if enemies immune to slow are very rare), but they may still prove to be very decent support mage (They will have a very good remove magic, skull traps etc..., as well as breach, improved haste or lower resistance).
I am no skald lover, but I really love Jester.
I did run a few tests in Irenicus's dungeon using Shadow Keeper. It seem's that most bard kits get screwed over with the HLA improved bard song, which is pretty much an upgraded version of the Skald Song, whats more it overwrites your current song, which in the case of the jester kills off what makes the class unique in the first place.
Also totally new to me, but I didn't realize that bard songs stacked for some crazy bonuses, I imported my Dwarven Defender from a previous playthrough and watched his combat scores go through the roof, with 5 bards in the party! Whilst I don't intend to play a such a party (Faerun's hottest new pop group, and their grumpy manager Kelgar Firebeard, it could make for an entertaining playthrough!), it was fun for a minute of two.
One thing I did notice however was that no matter where my Dwarven Defender was on the map, the Bard Song still affected him, is this a bug? I thought you had to be within a certain range? I'm quite literally on the opposite side of the map. I hadn't heard of that one, I'll be sure to look into it (Would I need IWD installed? Or will it function without? As I only have the vanilla game, and not the Enhanced Edition).
As for the bonuses stacking, it's indeed the case - imagine your bards using Project Images as well...
Yeah, it may be a bit downside for a Jester to lose her song if going for the Improved Song HLA, but it's a long way before you can get that and you're not forced to use this HLA anyway.
You can consider using the Rogue Rebalancing mod as well, especially http://readme.spellholdstudios.net/rr_core.html#Bard_kit_revisions. It will give you Enhanced Jester Song among other options.
Or maybe you refer to that event when a lot of the elminster's trademark ale resulted in you going and performing in the King's (of some country) Palace? You pulled a jester that time perfectly. The whole kingdom still remembers your gig: they even draw a picture of you playing the guitar.
Once she reached level 10, her spellcasting abilities were pretty formidable too. Normally bards are supposed to be jacks-of-all-trades, but they actually have one spellcasting advantage over mages in BG1: they can reach level 10 and mages can't. Thus, a max-level bard can launch 2 arrows using Flame Arrow and a max-level mage can't (unless that mage is a wild mage who gets a spell level increase). Also, like an avenger, a bard can turn enemies to stone with Chromatic Orb at level 10.