Bards
DreamingViks
Member Posts: 87
I am thinking to start a new game with my PC as a bard, I have not played BG for years and I was never very good at it. I am wondering, are bards really that bad? I did try to use Garrick but I found him rather worthless.
Will this hold true even if I make my PC a bard?
Will this hold true even if I make my PC a bard?
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Garrick has 13 int and 16 dex... with a PC just pick your stats better and wham, a pretty fun char.
The greatest advantage comes in BG2... you get mage spells and thief HLA(UAI and Spike Traps ftw) with none of the xp division of being a multiclass thief/mage.
A vanilla bard in BG1 is perfectly viable, but he's going to be like a F/M only worse. He will have pickpocketing and his song (neither very useful) but also a lower thac0, lower HP, slightly fewer spells per level and fewer attacks.
Compare it to a single class mage: faster leveling means more powerful spells early on; fewer spell slots but better thac0 and more HP and more varied weapon choices.
Bards being more generalist make a great fifth or sixth character and let your other characters focus even more strongly on their own strengths. Like, identifying items so mages don't need to use identify all the time. Or being the Pick Pockets guy so the thief can dump all his points into Locks and Traps without missing anything. Bards can step up and help in melee and still use bows to help bring down stuff with volleys of fire. Their magic grows rather rapidly because they level so fast, and they can use it to buff their own combat ability. Plus, if I recall, there are a number of bard only items in the game.
Bards aren't specialized so there is some weakness there. But they're far from being Spoony Bards.
On a roleplaying point of view: You start basically as an artist who eventually learns how to fight and cast spells - cool enough! Bard song is a nice skill, but doing nothing for the sake of playing a song doesn't sound that fun to me.
It works in BGT and Tutu, but I have no idea whether it will work off the bat in BG:EE. My guess is it won't.
But even at level 1, +2 hit/damage and AC bonus for the ENTIRE party? Absolutely amazing. I would argue that ability is probably 3rd on the totem of "will totally unbalance the game" with Totemic Druid spirit animals and Shapeshifter werewolf form being the others.
Skalds are amazing and probably the best to utilize as a "caster" out of the 3 kits. Jester might not always want to be signing, and a Blade is certainly more comfortable hitting things with sticks, but a Skald will want his song on whenever he's not actively casting spells. Just something to think about.
I played a Skald once, with a melee heavy party (purposefully) in both BG1 and BG2, got pretty boring, nothing was really that challenging!
Tip: use the mod Level 1 NPCs to make Safana a Bard, and lo and behold she is the best Bard in the game! (the same could be said for many NPCs to be honest ... such as *rolls eyes* ... Imoen)
I gave Garrick roughly the same stats as Imoen (but -1 on each attribute save STR) and I gave Eldoth the same stats as Haer'Daelis from BG2. It worked out well, but I think I might nerf them both a little bit. (Garrick especially is a little bit too useful now, especially if the PC is a thief.)
I'm definitely doing this now!
That's true that they suffer late game, but you also have to get to late game. I don't feel Blade's start coming into their own until Late Ch. 2 in SoA (level 13ish), while a Skald is useful from level 1. Moreover a Blade can't get Enhanced Bard Song until at LEAST level 22, which is late SOA unless you're soloing.
For a pacifist protagonist maybe.
Oh god, someone's going to do a Pacifist PC run now. I can feel it "My PC will never cast a harmful spell or use a weapon throughout the entire saga."