First time bard PC

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So far, I've always used an FMT PC, and so far, he's done well enough to make me reconsider and look for weaker alternatives. Bringing along two Cleric-Ranger multiclasses or Jaheira and a custom Fighter-Cleric multiclass helped too. Basically, nearing endgame, PC would just tell his opponents where to lie down and die.

So, I decided to make things a bit more challenging. Not overly difficult of course, still playing on Normal mode and still cheating here and there, but at least I'm coming up with restrictions. PC is now a Bard. Common Bard, no kits. And the rest of te party consists of two Stalkers and Imoen. Can't leave Imoen behind. I plan on doing a full BG-SOD-SOA-TOB run with this party, hopefully with Alora for thieving in SOD and Hexxat early SOA, and Nalia and Imoen after that.

This party composition has taken me well out of my comfort zone. I'm quite impressed with the power a Bard brings to his party, and I'm quite worried about not having all that arcane and divine and thieving and fighting power I got so used to. I know the games should be do-able with this party of course, but I don't know how. It's all new to me.

So, how am I going to do this? I'm now at lvl 3 with PC and Imoen, both Stalkers are lvl 2. We're standing at the Nashkel Mine entrance and I *think* we could pull it off. PC has *mace *SWS, Imoen *shortbow *shortsword, Stalkers **longbow *staff *THS.

Should we do Ulcaster first? Does The Dead Shot appear twice in version 2.0? What proficiencies should I choose for the rest of the games? What tricks do I use having so little spellcasting power? Any hints on how to proceed?

ThacoBell

For spellcasting, I get the most use out of summons and key buffs/debuffs. Haste + Slow is great throughout the saga. Spells that scale with level are amazing. When spells aren't necessary the Bard song alone is a great buff.

Southpaw

You'll be good in BG1. Don't forget that the bard can use any wand you chance upon. Yes - especially wand of summoning and wand of paralysation (tip - use that one on Sarevok).

However, late in BG1/SOD and BG2, you might find the Stalkers are getting hurt a lot as their ACs are not enough and you do not possess a tank. Heavy buffing should ensue + a lot of scouting with the Stalkers and backstabbing of Wizards should be your first priority in BG2.

severhert

I enjoy playing Bard PC most of the time (must be because I'm a musician ), Having the exp table of a Thief, and scaling magic of a Mage makes spells kinda useful.

For Baldurs 1 you're gold. Remember the tactics of easy-mode spells, like:

Blind, which let you fight ranged from afar while melee enemies keep still, and against casters, they do the same, since they can't targed anyone if they don't see them.

Power Word - Sleep, anything with less than 20 hitpoints get into a coma (most assassinations with mages on the team have this hp)

Invisibility - scouting in map with no problems

Prot. from Petrification - Early basilisk level up cheese.

And rather than damage spells, buffs/debuff spells for lvl 2 and onwards.

And I believe that the only thing that will great change, is import for baldurs gate II, where the class change itself... but totally doable.

Bards imo might not be the strongest of all classes in a single aspect but " a jack of all trades is a master of none but oftentimes better than a master of one"

Skatan

You can do the mines quite easily with some meta-knowledge of traps etc. If you are unsure about the prowess in battle, bring a wand of fire for your bard and you can insta-win most fights. OUtside of the mines, at the very top left corner is a wand of frost that does a very high damage cold attack that can be used on the baddie at the end of the nashkel mines. Be careful that you don't do too much damage though so you loose the loot. A speed potion or two and/or some invisibility can get you the wand of fire in the ankheg nest north of FAI. Rush in and rush out.

Cleaning out the mines with two stalkers and Imoen won't be an issue since 6 APR from bows per round is enough to take out all kobolds, even the commandos, if you step ahead lightly and don't trigger all their aggro at once.

Btw, I love bards but going with melee on a vanilla bard isn't the best option. If you ever will attack with the bard it should be weaved in between songs to keep the boon and that's most easily done with ranged attacks so you don't have to move around. Xbow of speed is a good weapon for a bard, can be used with bolts of biting or lightning to start the round with and then switching to song.

malachi151

Why do you have 2 Stalkers? really, you should not make custom parties. Just make a main PC and pickup the rest of your characters, that's most of the fun of the game IMO. FMTs aren't even good in parties anyway, and unless you remove the level cap they will be really weak especially in BG1.

Bards are okay, but there are basically two ways to play them. Also note that a plain Bard is not very good, as all of the kits are much better than the plain Bard.

But for Bards basically you will play them either as a Buff bot / Mage, where you mostly are standing back and singing and casting the occasional spell, mostly buffs like Resist Fear and Haste prior to battles, and using a wand from time to time in battle. Skalds are REALLY good for this, or you be more like Blade and use the typical Fighter/Mage spells like Mirror Image and Blurr and tanking in battles. Your THAC0 will still be horrible in BG1 so unless you are a Blade don't plan on hitting much, but you can draw attention, etc.

Honestly, with a plain Bard being a buff bot is a better idea IMO.

Also, with 2 Stalkers you should be able to easily win most fights before they even start. Just have them backstab to start off all major fights. When I play a Stalker I setup his script to Hide in Shadows all the time.

For my main Stalker I started him off with 2 points in Longswords (Elf of course) and 2 in Longbows. Then on level 3 I put a pip into two weapon style. Basically he can do it all. Mostly he walks around shooting arrows. But for harder fights he starts off with a backstab. Also he's stealthed almost all the time, even during the day, so even on fights that just happen and you aren't planning for I can usually move him into position for a backstab to lead off because he's always stealthed.

But IMO you are doing yourself a disservice by using custom parties. Just get a single PC and play through the game. IMO a party of 4 is the best size. If your PC is a Bard then you often need a party of 5 to really make it worth while, but for most others I think a party of 4 is best.

Another way is to start with a party of 3 or 4 and pick up chars like Coran or Yeslick as you go. You can easily do the first part of the game until you get Coran with no thief at all anyway if you want.

Also: *spoiler* The best weapon by far for a straight Bard is the Chesley Crusher. This weapon is so good for Bards that nothing else even comes close. If you get that weapon and 2 handed fighting style you'll be hitting crits 10% of the time for 40ish points of damage.

This is easily the best setup if you plan to melee because it's +2 THAC0 but you're THAC0 will still be low so the extra chance to crit from the style is even more useful.

Elendar

Why play a bard? Its pretty similar to a F/M/T, though inferior with things like THACO and thief skills but better with being able to cast spells at a high level and using bard song (which for a vanilla bard, at least in BG, is pretty useless).

Why not go with something completely different from the class you typically choose for charname?

ThacoBell

Elendar said:

Why play a bard? Its pretty similar to a F/M/T, though inferior with things like THACO and thief skills but better with being able to cast spells at a high level and using bard song (which for a vanilla bard, at least in BG, is pretty useless).

Why not go with something completely different from the class you typically choose for charname?

Because Bards are the most powerful class in the game. The bard song has been buffed to be very good as well.

Southpaw

ThacoBell said:

Elendar said:

Why play a bard? Its pretty similar to a F/M/T, though inferior with things like THACO and thief skills but better with being able to cast spells at a high level and using bard song (which for a vanilla bard, at least in BG, is pretty useless).

Because Bards are the most powerful class in the game. The bard song has been buffed to be very good as well.

Arguably...not really. Nevermind that, bards are fun and viable. But for someone who liked FMT, I'd go for Blade bard kit. Decent fighting abilities (that will get better), self-buffing and one thing bards are REALLY good at - is spells that scale well with your level. (the exploding skull trap spell instead of Fireball as it isn't capped like Fireball is, Spook instead of Sleep etc)

Elendar

I'm not saying bards are bad. Did their bard song get upgraded with EE? Hadn't noticed. But its so similar to the character that the OP is already playing, why even bother changing it up?

He should go with a Cleric/Mage or Ranger/Cleric.. something a bit different from a F/M/T

ThacoBell

@Southpaw You will learn...

Redrake

Compared to IWD 1 Bard, the songs in BG1&2 are almost useless. In IWD1 it is recommended all parties should contain a bard. In BG1, best spells to use are Skull Trap (no cap on damage/level), Chromatic Orb (because of the bard high casting level this can be an insta-kill spell at mid levels), Blind (if you really want to you can Blind Drizzt and kill him from a distance with this spell) and also the otherwise neglected Shocking Grasp (for enemies who get too close to you, as it is a touch spell which always hits and is once again with no cap on damage/level).

malachi151

In BG1 the best spells for Bards to use are Haste and Resist Fear, as these are pre-battle buffs that won't interrupt singing. The best battle spell is probably Magic Missile since the Bard gets more Missiles than a Mage due to level. Skull Trap is okay, but in BG1 it's no better than Fireball and you're better off just using the Fireball wands. Spook is good too if you want to Fear someone, but usually I'd rather not have enemies running around randomly being hard to hit.

ThacoBell

@Redrake Not as good yeah, but not almost useless. The kitless bard song adds luck and improves with leveling. Getting +3 luck to your entire party is nothing to sneeze at.

Arctodus

I'm playing a bard in BG2EE with IWD songs through IWDification. I'm not sure I got the strongest version of the bard song, to be honest. BG bard song has a lot to offer too.

From IWD, you get either :
- +1 to hit, +1 to damage, +1 to saving throws ;
- protection from fear ;
- +1 luck, +3 to all saves (!!) and +10 to lore and thieving skills ;
- 50% protection from sound attack ;
- enthralls your foes, preventing action for five rounds on a failed save vs. spell ;
- +2 AC, regeneration of 2 HP/round, and 10% resistance to all crushing, missile, piercing, and slashing damage.

At level 20, the BG version give to your team, from a single song :
- protection from fear ;
- +3 to thac0 ;
- +3 to saving throws (!!) ;
- +3 to minimum damage ;
- +15 to thief abilities ;
- -3 hit dice from damage spells (!!).

At lower level, the IWD bard gain a lot more flexibility and power, it's true. At higher levels, the BG bard starts to become more powerful, because you gain more bonuses at the same time from a single song. When you get in HLA range, well, there's no contest anymore : the BG bard stands head and shoulders above the IWD bard.

Redrake

ThacoBell said:

@Redrake Not as good yeah, but not almost useless. The kitless bard song adds luck and improves with leveling. Getting +3 luck to your entire party is nothing to sneeze at.

Compared to, I said. You get far better songs in IWD1. Before HoW the bard in IWD was no different from Bard in BG1. After they added the Tymora's Luck and the Sith songs, bards became and awesome display of power.

ThacoBell

Redrake said:

ThacoBell said:

@Redrake Not as good yeah, but not almost useless. The kitless bard song adds luck and improves with leveling. Getting +3 luck to your entire party is nothing to sneeze at.

Compared to, I said. You get far better songs in IWD1. Before HoW the bard in IWD was no different from Bard in BG1. After they added the Tymora's Luck and the Sith songs, bards became and awesome display of power.

Maybe early game. The BG Bard song, gets BEASTLY at high levels.

Zaghoul

For my bards I focus on protective spells(and summons to keep enemy off me as well) of all sorts as he spends most offensive time singing or using a half dozen or so different instruments (extra from BGNPCproject, RR, S&S, Stone of Askavar).
Shoot, I just killed Saervok with using the gyspy song to charm him and Tazok into fighting each other (Taz won, surprisingly enough), I never laid a finger on him. Well, a couple just to soften him up with summons. In SRevisions, summons begin at lvl 1 spells, and add another each level. Gibberlings-slimes-hobgoblin archers& their shaman, spiders(4th).
@Tresset got a nice tweak for bards as well with adjusting the radius a bit.

Just some info to consider with mods that really make the bard shine even more, RR gets some really nice HLA adjustments that bypass MR (as I think music/songs/sounds (vibrations) should.

Redrake

ThacoBell said:

Redrake said:

ThacoBell said:

@Redrake Not as good yeah, but not almost useless. The kitless bard song adds luck and improves with leveling. Getting +3 luck to your entire party is nothing to sneeze at.

Compared to, I said. You get far better songs in IWD1. Before HoW the bard in IWD was no different from Bard in BG1. After they added the Tymora's Luck and the Sith songs, bards became and awesome display of power.

Maybe early game. The BG Bard song, gets BEASTLY at high levels.

Yes, in BG2. This is BG1 sub-forum.

And bonuses for BG2 songs still don't provide regeneration.

ThacoBell

Redrake said:

ThacoBell said:

Redrake said:

ThacoBell said:

@Redrake Not as good yeah, but not almost useless. The kitless bard song adds luck and improves with leveling. Getting +3 luck to your entire party is nothing to sneeze at.

Compared to, I said. You get far better songs in IWD1. Before HoW the bard in IWD was no different from Bard in BG1. After they added the Tymora's Luck and the Sith songs, bards became and awesome display of power.

Maybe early game. The BG Bard song, gets BEASTLY at high levels.

Yes, in BG2. This is BG1 sub-forum.

And bonuses for BG2 songs still don't provide regeneration.

Regen isn't that huge. Which of the different songs will the IWD bard get by the BG1 level cap?

Arctodus

@ThacoBell Every songs except the last one, which a bard gets at level 11. You'll get it in SoD if you play it.

To be honest, that last song is good, but not game breaking. The enthraling song has much more potential to break the game, specially if you use it in a living creature heavy game like the BG saga. Your enemies have to save against spell every round or they're going to sleep for 5 whole rounds. It's so powerful, that I refused to use it in my BG1 run. It works in IWD, where there's a lot of undeads immune to it, but it is really powerful in other context.