Is the entire benefit of bard songs the ability to multply them with Mislead clones? Because that's pretty crappy game design. Wouldn't it be better to just give them a spell with simikar effects, that doesn't act and feel like an exploit?
i appreciate the way you make in your mod the songs linger more than 1 round. because the song is, or should be, an important side of being a bard. and in the original game it was not the only side of them but was an important one, beyond the exploit of having multiple clones singing, that i would prefer left in EE as is completely optional and i had great fun in using it, even if it was certainly not my main way of using a bard.
now the songs no more stacking is not the only change. the way song and autopause interact makes a nightmare to sing and attack, in original it was quite simple to do it. and as my F/M can cast and attack (so use in the same round the 2 main perks of his class, why my bard should not be able to do it? also now the bard or clone can not sing while invisible and the aoe of the song, that in original was the entire area for the enhanced song, now is small, too small, so is impossible to have the full party benefit if is not packed in one small place, thing that kills the tactical aspect of fights.
so now the bard himself can not sing and attack, having him singing only is far less beneficial than having an other fighter, as many PG players have pointed out in many threads. and his clone can also not be so useful as it lacks of spells to protect himself but has to be near the fighters cause of the too small aoe. the result is that in most of the situations i don't find useful to have the bard or his clone singing. in original the bard song can be abused, and it is a player choice, you don't have to do it, in the present EE implementation the song is very situational. to answer to the OP question haer dalis is still good, but is better to not having him singing. and a F/M or FMT would have been far better. more spells, more powerful spells, up to lev 9 for the F/M, better thac0 and apr and in case of the FMT better traps, as he has the regular ones as well as the HLA ones he shares with the bard. in most of the parties even a plain fighter more is better than him as now his song can not even include mlee and ranged attackers at the same time or help the party thief when he back stabs.
last thing about mislead: it continues to be really OP both in the hands of a thief (and M/T, FMT) that can backstab at will without retaliation and in the hands of a mage, that using RoV +AoP can cast many spells instantaneously and the others very fast and then goes invisible over and over. mislead is a OP spell, really underrated in his intended use, make a caster invisible, and as super OP as before when a thief use it. only the pour bard now has been nerfed in using it. sometimes i memorize only misleads in the level with haer dalis and don't make the clones sing, i make the original bard go invisible to kill whole groups of enemies. fun=0 as there is no challenge at all, they don't even try to defend themselves, is only my way to protest against how bards have been nerfed in EE. then i reload or more often i load a game in my original version so i can play a bard whose song is functional and not only situational.
I see now that Bard song still works with mislead, but the range nerf makes it almost useless, 16 yard radius, that's like 20% of the screen. You have to chase your party members with it or it will fall off all the time. So bad. Never gonna bring a Bard again.
I like using HD and great for support to the team on SOA but find he falls down a peg in TOB and best as a back up mage at that point...would probably sub him for sarevok
I see now that Bard song still works with mislead, but the range nerf makes it almost useless, 16 yard radius, that's like 20% of the screen. You have to chase your party members with it or it will fall off all the time. So bad. Never gonna bring a Bard again.
In 2.5 the bard song range was extended to your visible radius, and even when it was only 30 feet I don't think it was as bad as you're describing.
If I recall correctly, the Bard song radius wasn't a nerf, so much as a bug. When it was first reported, enough people hadn't experienced it that people thought it was a false flag.
Haer'Dalis is one of the best front-liners, and has a bag of tricks to deploy besides that. Level 6 arcane spells means access to Protection from Magic Weapons as well as the standard array of Stoneskin and Mirror Images, and if you keep some sort of spell turning/reflection up to stop Breach attempts... You can sit in front of any number of non-spellcasters (and non-dragons) and simply not care. Even resistance stackers can't do the same.
As a Bard subclass, he also gets access to all the broken trap variants, only one of four non-mod characters that does (Jan Jansen, Hexxat, and Sarevok dualing to Thief). Of those, only Jan can even claim to eclipse Haer'Dalis in every way... Jan gets the same spells and gets up to 9ths, similar HLAs, but doesn't have access to the Enhanced Bard Song, or the offensive or defensive spins unique to Haer'dalis among NPCs. The bard song is actually huge, even with the smaller range: undispellable immunity to Stun is hard to get, and otherwise requires Chaotic Commands on every party member. The only issue is that it runs out during Time stops, where those pesky PW:Stuns and Symbols start flying around...
He's excellent if you know how to build him well. Make him a tank with the right spells such as stoneskin and mirror image (and his spins) , and increase his thac0/damage with a strength belt .
He is a good additional spellcaster and can hit pretty hard too. - He can get 2 pips in short sword and long sword and despite his class restriction as blade - has access to use any item HLA - Has resistance bonus from his race
Comments
because the song is, or should be, an important side of being a bard. and in the original game it was not the only side of them but was an important one, beyond the exploit of having multiple clones singing, that i would prefer left in EE as is completely optional and i had great fun in using it, even if it was certainly not my main way of using a bard.
now the songs no more stacking is not the only change. the way song and autopause interact makes a nightmare to sing and attack, in original it was quite simple to do it. and as my F/M can cast and attack (so use in the same round the 2 main perks of his class, why my bard should not be able to do it?
also now the bard or clone can not sing while invisible and the aoe of the song, that in original was the entire area for the enhanced song, now is small, too small, so is impossible to have the full party benefit if is not packed in one small place, thing that kills the tactical aspect of fights.
so now the bard himself can not sing and attack, having him singing only is far less beneficial than having an other fighter, as many PG players have pointed out in many threads. and his clone can also not be so useful as it lacks of spells to protect himself but has to be near the fighters cause of the too small aoe.
the result is that in most of the situations i don't find useful to have the bard or his clone singing.
in original the bard song can be abused, and it is a player choice, you don't have to do it, in the present EE implementation the song is very situational.
to answer to the OP question haer dalis is still good, but is better to not having him singing. and a F/M or FMT would have been far better. more spells, more powerful spells, up to lev 9 for the F/M, better thac0 and apr and in case of the FMT better traps, as he has the regular ones as well as the HLA ones he shares with the bard. in most of the parties even a plain fighter more is better than him as now his song can not even include mlee and ranged attackers at the same time or help the party thief when he back stabs.
last thing about mislead: it continues to be really OP both in the hands of a thief (and M/T, FMT) that can backstab at will without retaliation and in the hands of a mage, that using RoV +AoP can cast many spells instantaneously and the others very fast and then goes invisible over and over. mislead is a OP spell, really underrated in his intended use, make a caster invisible, and as super OP as before when a thief use it. only the pour bard now has been nerfed in using it.
sometimes i memorize only misleads in the level with haer dalis and don't make the clones sing, i make the original bard go invisible to kill whole groups of enemies. fun=0 as there is no challenge at all, they don't even try to defend themselves, is only my way to protest against how bards have been nerfed in EE. then i reload or more often i load a game in my original version so i can play a bard whose song is functional and not only situational.
Either way, just update and you should be fine.
As a Bard subclass, he also gets access to all the broken trap variants, only one of four non-mod characters that does (Jan Jansen, Hexxat, and Sarevok dualing to Thief). Of those, only Jan can even claim to eclipse Haer'Dalis in every way... Jan gets the same spells and gets up to 9ths, similar HLAs, but doesn't have access to the Enhanced Bard Song, or the offensive or defensive spins unique to Haer'dalis among NPCs. The bard song is actually huge, even with the smaller range: undispellable immunity to Stun is hard to get, and otherwise requires Chaotic Commands on every party member. The only issue is that it runs out during Time stops, where those pesky PW:Stuns and Symbols start flying around...
- He can get 2 pips in short sword and long
sword and despite his class restriction as
blade
- has access to use any item HLA
- Has resistance bonus from his race