Bards, kits and mods
Gel87
Member Posts: 318
Yo, i have never tried a bard, and I always play solo. Might try bard as next.
Orginal kits:
Which one is the funniest of the kits? For me blade looks most fun?
Mods:
Since bard has the pickpocket button, can i just add open locks and disarm trap skills and this will be availeble?
My plan was to make this kit:
I guess i could make this in 1 evening if open locks and disarm traps are working with the bards pickpocket button.
Orginal kits:
Which one is the funniest of the kits? For me blade looks most fun?
Mods:
Since bard has the pickpocket button, can i just add open locks and disarm trap skills and this will be availeble?
My plan was to make this kit:
Bard kit: Glassmaster: The glassmaster is a bard with a vocals equialent to broken glass. When he starts pushing his «musical talent» upon others they are forced to look away and close their ears. He has learned to abuse his wretched voice to turn invisible, and the sound is so devasting high pitch that it will make small vibrations to his surroundings, which helps him in spotting traps. Beeing unwanted and ignored true the realms has given him some unicue features not typical of the bard trades. This kit has so mistakingly overwhelming high belives in his music abilities that he do not even feel the need to train the arts of music. This has ovbious given him more time to train his combat, spellcasting and thieving abilities instead. Features: - Glassbreak Bard Song: This song is pretty much unbearable for any creatures, the sound is horrific and high pitched. Which leads him to be unseen by enemies and the small vibration of theese high pitched sound waves helps him spot traps layed by enemies. The abuse of his instruments to accomplish his «masterpiece» only strenghtens the effect. His singing technic is so bad for his troath that he graduatly increases the successfullness of theese effects. - Effects: * 24% chance of turning invisible * 24% chance of spotting traps * Chances increases by 4% per level until 100% is reached. - May open locks, disarm traps. - Gain 15% skillpoints to distrubute into them per level. - May backstab: * 1x multiplier level 0-3 * 2x multiplier level 4-7 * 3x multiplier level 8-11 * 4x multiplier level from level 12 - 1 extra spell per earned spell level. - Gain fighter attack per round bonuses at level 3-7-12. - May put 3 stars into two wepon style - May not put more than 7 stats into charisma upon creation. - Abilities: * Offensive spin gained at level 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 * Defensive spin gained at level 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 * Poison wepon gained at level 1, 8, 16 - Additional HLAs: * Wirlwind (1 pick) * Shadow clone(1 pick) * Shadow maze(1 pick) * Extra level 1-6 spells slot(1 pick) * Glass Spikes(1 pick) * Wail of Banshee(1 pick) - Removed HLA’s: * Magic flute * Enhanced bard song Glass Spikes: Once chosen this spell will be written into level 1 spellbook. It will deal piercing damage and blind vs a failed saving throw. Further explanation in spellbook description. Song of death: Custom innate Wail of Banshee. Crushing damage to enemies, chance to instant kill upon failed saving throw. Else this bard acts upon the regular bards rules. Haer’dalis wepon will be availeble for use for any bard upon installing this mod.
I guess i could make this in 1 evening if open locks and disarm traps are working with the bards pickpocket button.
0
Comments
No. Availability of thieving actions is hardcoded and inaccessible to ordinary modding. You can't do anything about it unless you modify the executable.
Okay, so thats why the ferret cannot open locks, even when i tried to give it skills, meanwhile the cat can. And the rabbit as well i think.
I will have a look as anyway just to test a little.
Will still be a fun kit without disarm trap or open locks.
I could in worst case summon a invisible creatur with thief class, and then run a script to disarm traps and open locks. Maby im able to get that to work. Then give experience, and each level of the skill used would have different creature with different experiene values given.
.....Bards also have access to some profession specific items. I am in Chapter 5 of SoA right now, and my Bard has +3 Melodic Chain (heavy armor that also permits spellcasting), the Harp of Discord (casts confusion on enemies 3X a day), and Methild's Harp, which can remove Hold and similar efffects from allies, also usable 3X per day. Not terribly useful for a solo run, of course.
.....While in general Bards are considered thieves, they can also use some Wizard/Sorceror items. Currently I am wearing the Metaspell Amulet, giving me an extra spell per day. There are some things I can't use right now, like the Ring of Acuity. However, I will eventually have access to it. Remember, among the Thief HLAs is the ever popular Use Any Item. Want to wear the Robe of the Evil Archmagi? You can do it once you get UAI.
.....Different Bardic subclasses have different skills. I like the Blade because it lets me be both an accessory spell caster, and also a secondary weapon user when needed. Offensive Spin + Melf's Meteors is nasty enough, but I can also use it with melee weapons. I have 3 pips in dual wielding skill, which significantly reduces the off-hand weapon THACO penalty. Offensive spin also increases your movement rate, although this is less of a consideration once you score some Boots of the Cheetah. Early on in SoA, however, this extra speed is quite useful.
.....I also have some nice melee weapons. These include Adjatha the Drinker and Arbane's Sword, which combined give me a crapton of spell immunities. Also note that Defensive Spin turns you into a fair imitation of a tank, while still permitting spell casting and the use of Melf's Meteors. It does root you in place, however.
.....Note that once you cast Melf's Meteors, you can't attack with or switch to any other weapon until the Meteors are used up. You can, however, terminate the Meteors early by casting a spell that acts like a weapon. Spells like Shocking Grasp or Vampiric Touch should work.
With mods you can turn yourself into a close approximation of a Demigod, but what's the point? Ego gratification? The game is easy enough as it is. I never use mods, I play the game as the Designers created it. Sometimes there is a glitch or bug, but you can usually find a workaround to deal with it.
FMT is stronger at nearly everything, the main difference being that Bard has a higher Caster Level by considerable amounts until late ToB, and the FMT has Thief abilities.. and even then the FMT can't actually get CL20, then there's the odd spell that keeps going up in power beyond CL20 - so advantage Bard on that point, but also the only advantage.
FMT can get 8th level spells, Blade maxes at 6th level
FMT is a much stronger fighter unbuffed. Blade is stronger early in the saga, then right around the time you get good access to Haste FMT surpasses the Blade and just dominates more and more as time goes on.
Other then that they pretty much go tit for tat on the rest.
Now.. if you remove the XP cap, wowzah..
What really makes the FMT a better choice in solo, is that the Blade is gonna peak pretty early for you.. with such low xp requirements to gain levels, you're gonna get to a point where each new level really doesn't give you anything special.
FMT has to spread that xp through 3 different classes, so every "ding" is gonna give you something of value all the time, something to look forward to.
Thief skill availability is hardcoded to class. That's really it; the easiest way to make a "bard" that can do additional thieving actions is to make them actually a mage/thief kit.
Well i have ran fmt and ft etc so many times.
Currently running shadow dancer which going to dual to mage once i have 5-6 hla’s, he is now lvl 16 or 17 in bgee.
Kinda wanted something new. I might try blade then, or see how my mod turns out.
The issue i see with solo bard is that i will be like max level instantly in bg2ee. And i know what happens then
Ideally i want to play thief/shaman/mage. But thats nearly impossible. Well i did make a monk/shaman and a fighter/shaman/thief, then i utulized custom familiar which i could party up with to steal from stores/pickpocket/open locks/disarm traps. That one was built out of a shaman, so i nerfed xp by 60% to simulate multiclass.
But yes, it make sence that bards button is hardcoded to not work with open locks/disarm trap. Else we could just drink pots and pew were a thief.
I do not need to difuse traps to make it trought, there are scrolls for such, there are minor globe of invulvernity, protection from acid, protection from fire and 2 items which together gives 90%, there are boots for 50% light res and spell and scrolls to cover that. Stone skin covers arrows traps and mirror immage is a nice one as well. There are amulet and potions to survive charm traps, there are scrolls of magic immunity as well as potions.
The idea with the kit was that it would use its bard song which both turns invisible and find traps.
Anyway, i am pretty sure i can just make spells and script and handle it that way.
Thief summon/invisible thief summob/self scripted character with spell button to activate etc.
Change class works as well, but is really hard to reset back to ur current build if custom kit.
Well, my familiar was not able to select found traps, and he was not allowed to select locked chests with the F5 button. He was however able to select people for pickpocket.
I fixed that with a party familiar dialog, had 3 choices(get back in inventory, party up, give stolen items). And since i was so bad with dialogs, i had to make a call back familar spell button as well. I could talk to him before i partied him, but not after. So i made a spell with a wistle sound and string.
.....Now, Bards can use scrolls with spells higher than level 6, they just can't actually scribe them into their spell book. Theoretically, you could buy a couple of scroll cases and fill them to the brim with high level scrolls, but this would be rather costly. Also, the spell stores would (eventually) run out of specific scrolls, although this would take quite a while. All in all, F/M or F/M/T would probably be the better choice for a solo run.
I know pretty much 90% of the traps in the game. So i can protect myself and just run trought them.
I have done fmt so many times it will be a bard next.
But i have so many runs going on:
2-3 monks
Cleric mage
Shadowmaster which going to dual late
Shaper/kensai
Fighter/druid
Siren archer
1 original and 2 kitted shamans
Ninja assassin kit thief
+++
Bard looks fun early.
And as I have stated before, I don't use mods. IMO, mods are for people who have played the game100 times, are bored with the normal game play, and want to try something different. I'm on my second playthrough, and have not reached anything like that epic level of ennui.
I will have a look
Well im on my playthrought nr 50 or so. Maby more. Not all are towards the end. I just eluded bard for so long, because of whats mentioned above:
- F/M & F/M/T is better for solo.
And i made like 20 kits, and i enjoy making them. So for me its 50/50 about making theese kits and playing the game..
Last kit i made was pretty standard Kensai/Shapeshifter. With progressing shifting and some extra hlas. Ofc its OP AF. But still fun to test.
Quivering Paw, Kensai bonuses on another class who cannot wear armor, need i say more? :P
But i have also played the game at maximum difficulty. Importing level 1 character from BG1EE into BG2EE and struggle myself true that from 0 experience and out in legacy of bhaal mode. No reload, and max reload. Its fun to mix it up, both with mods and without.
So a bard will really shine in bg1ee, but quickly degrade towards endgame as a solo char.
My current run here on work i played inzane instead of legacy of bhaal to speed it up. Its ofc easy peasy, but once i get my wanted shadow dancer level i will dual to mage, and i will play bg2ee as legacy of bhaal. So that will be some struggle, or well, since shadowdancer has sacked the whole city and stolen all scrolls it may turn out easy. Dno.
Blade is litteral epic in bgee.
I went shortbow since early +1 and epic arrows all around.
Then scimitar and 1 into dual.
Im now 1 more into dual and and longbow as well.
First i did the regular. Quests candlekeep, ring+1, sonner, priestess and voila level up. I then went to high hedge. Bought: sleep, invisible, blind, magic missle, skulltrap. Then i went bergeost and marv dialog another level up. Now i had sleep + blind. Went and killed letter orgillians and the zurlag boots one easy with blind/sleep. And then ammu.
Went naskel, ankegg armor and talked to noober for another 400xp and level up if i remember correct.
Invisibility ofc. Went to map west of mines and did doggy quest for another 1,5k xp + got chromatic orb and cloudkill.
Went one map east and killed the guys with the dryad and the tree, then killed wolf and looted cave and then gave cat to girl and then easy killed that gnoll with unciue halbard. Then i went next map and then next map again and brought brage to temple for coinz and xp. I then talked and said i was not greyjoy for +1 rep.
Now i went mine map and picked up ice wand. Killed greyjoy and helped sir charles. Easy with blind/bow etc.
Then i went east and got myself scroll of magic protection, ring of fire res and gems before i brought samuel to temple for money and xp. Then i killed wizard guarding friendly arm inn.
Now i killed jaheira and khalid for invi pot.
Got myself some fancy golden pants and did flamedance ring quest. Then i cleared out all ankeggs. Then i went to ulgoth’s beard to buy 4 nice level 4 spells, harp and amulet.
Back in bergeost i got myself short bow +1, delivered letter, boots and amulet. Ofc i did firebead dialog trick twice as early as possible and his quests(except identify one).
With harp i was ready for ezmode. Charmed algernon and led bounty hunter to him. Bounty hunter killed algernon and i got myself a cloak.
Then i leaded bounty hunter outside and charmed him with cloak and used him as help in neera quest for gembag and bounty got struck by neera so he got killed as well.
Then i went and put spiders to sleep.
Now i agreed to help silke, and then instantly charmed here. Then she casted improved invisibilitu on me. Then i let silke cast lightning bolt to clear all 3 for 3 x pots of defense, before i hit here with a stealhy arrow to hostile here before here lightning killed like 4-5 villagers. Rep loss is a bit delayed, so this went fine with zero rep loss.
Since silke had put improved invisibility on me she had no idea on what to do with me as i shot here down without here even thinking of attacking me.
And since i dont talk to other bard with name starting with e i get zero rep loss for choosing evil path.
Now i went and slayed ogre with sleep.
Delivered spider quest.
Then i went and charmed gnoll slasher and he helped me get perdue’s sword. And then i killed a skeleton for skull and ofc bought wand of sleep and some more spells.
Now i went and charmed the chicken wolf, then another wolf on my way down to bassilus. They were nice help to kill bassilus and i did not have to sort to animal injustice just to help a chicken as bassilus killed wolf for me. I ofc deliver chicken for another 1k xp.
So i figured shoal gives a lot of exp, and i cannot wear helmet so there was no need to bring a ogre mage into this 1v1 which was easy.
Then i went and halped archon the mad, and ofc charmed him after. He got 2 skeleton warrios, flamestrike, 4 hold persons and call upon powah spell. So we put down all the ogres and then he helped me kill sirens.
Then i went to temple, here i ofc bought all the scrolls of flesh. And delivered cleric symbol for quest. Bassilus. And then ofc i charmed him. Summoned his skeleton and they killed the 4 sirens for 8k xp. They did charm him, so i recharmed him to not let him fight skellies if i need later.
Then i cleared out mutamins garden, super chill and super easy with protection for once. Me and gorlax did all. Even the mercenaries.
Then i traveled to durlags tower, killed 4 x doom guards and a ghoul and a basilisk + bought myself another wand and some pots of thievery.
Now i went to guillikin, bought all scrolls and killed the adventures easy. With skulltraps and wands.
Then i went bridge and got myself some nice gloves, and killed ogre mage(i did not have enought pickpocket yet without pot use to steal scroll).
Next stop was ofc to find dagger + 2, getting experience, another potion of invisibility and ofc wand of summons.
I then went circuis and bough myself 2 nice ammus, and some more. Potection of petri and stuff. Got another scroll of flesh and had already bought all from friendly arms inn. Then i went and bought all scrolls from naskel temple.
So here i stand as lvl 9, 118k experience.
Wand of summons
2 x ice wands
2 x fire wands
Wand of summons
Wand of sleep
3 x offensive stance
Pots, dual swords, spells, and scrolls worth 73 * 7000 experience with the road cleared to that location.
Bard is OP in bgee ^^
Obviously, I disagree. Sue me.
Well i love mods.
Currently i play a mage/cleric with all the druid spells(not the hlas)
Xp cap removed.
Only missing werewolf island, and then its off to save duke and do the last part of iron/sarevork.
Really fun in legacy of bhaal. I wanted to play an ultimate spellcaster, so i made one.