Skald (Bard) Armor? And battle AI question

Loox

Hello everyone,

I'm new to BG (the interface had scared me away).

I rolled a nice Bard and enjoy playing him But I have 2 questions:

1. He's not a dual or multi class.. So he can't wear leather if he wants to cast spells in battle and he's not a mage so he can't wear robes. What can he wear? Surely there must be some armor in the game somewhere that I can find, no?

2. Next: he always defaults to melee or ranged during combAt. If I ask him to play song he stopped and joins in all the time. Any way to make him play his song and not stop unless I tell him to? Without taking the AI off for everyone else too?

These two things really affect the enjoyment of the class for me.

Thanks and happy to be here!

Lord_Tansheron

Loox said:

1. He's not a dual or multi class.. So he can't wear leather if he wants to cast spells in battle and he's not a mage so he can't wear robes. What can he wear? Surely there must be some armor in the game somewhere that I can find, no?

There are elven chainmails (various) that you can wear and still cast spells. But generally, Bards tend to work best when kept out of harm's way, using their Song and other support abilities (Blade is an obvious exception to this).
Of course you also get UAI later, which will let you use any mage robe etc. you like.

Loox said:

2. Next: he always defaults to melee or ranged during combAt. If I ask him to play song he stopped and joins in all the time. Any way to make him play his song and not stop unless I tell him to? Without taking the AI off for everyone else too?

In your bard's character screen, go to "Customize" -> "Script". You can assign various automatic AI scripts there, or turn them off entirely. This will only change script choices for THAT character and won't affect anyone else.

Queegon

To sing bard song indefinitely even in battles you need to turn off Attack Enemies script. Possibly prefer ranged/melee weapons too. Not sure now.

Ballad

Are playing BG2:EE? In that case, there are several elven chainmails you can get your hands on in Chapters 2-3. In fact, the second best elven chainmail in the whole trilogy is exclusively for bards to wear.

The locations of these chainmails are as follows:
[Spoiler]
1. Lord Alibakkar(sp?) in Trademeet has an unenchanted elven chainmail. You can get to him after completing the main Trademeet quest (Druid grove). You'll be asked to fetch a mantle from a nearby crypt. To get the chainmail, be sure to side against Alibakkar at the end of the quest. Since this chainmail is unenchanted, you can pair it with rings/cloaks/amulets of protection.

2. Aran Linvail of the Shadow Thieves has an Elven Chainmail+1. You can only get it if you side against the Shadow Thieves in Chapter 3.

3. One of the bounty hunters in the Planar Prison has the Melodic Chain +3 which only bards can wear. Just follow the quest that starts in the playhouse under the Five Flagons tavern in the Bridge district.
[/spoiler]

Arunsun

@Ballad said most of it. There is another elven chainmail you may get during late SoA:

In the elven city of Suldanessalar you'll get to fight a dragon (north-west area), which loots bladesinger mail+4.
As soon as you get past the first ToB fight, you can improve that armor, if you have a protection from normal weapons scroll and 20,000 gold. It will become +5 and give permanent protection from normal weapon

lostdragon05

You can turn your party's AI off with a button in the bottom right portion of the interface (I think it is right above the select all button). I always leave it off. You have to micromanage everything but you won't wind up with party members wasting spells or doing dumb stuff in general.

Aewyrven

You can get your first piece of elven chain mail in trademeet (chapter 2) and your second in chapter 3 if you chose to side with Bohdi.

I would not sweat the lack of armor however since you can cast mage spells. The magic armor ghost armor and spirit armor spells (easily gotten) all put your Ac in the range of chain/splint mail anyways. Toss them on along with a stoneskin and you will be fine.

Turn his ai off if you want him to sing constantly (though you can't attack with him or it cancels song unless you mod the game) by turning his ai off have it set to script -> none. This way your other members will still use their scripts.

Use ranged scripts if you don't want to micromanage him and want him to still attack. (Will cancel his song though, so if you want that always on just set his script to none)

Nuin

As Aewyrven pointed out, the armor line of spells allows you to enjoy the benefits of using body armor without turning off arcane spellcasting. Note that this is basically how mages improve their AC (mages generally do not rely on robes to boost their armor class - they use bracers or spells for that).

In any case, you can't miss the bard-only armor unless you forget to loot it. You need to complete the quest associated with it to get your stronghold.