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How good are unkitted Bards in BG2?

DJKajuruDJKajuru Member Posts: 3,300
Hello everyone o/

I was thinking of rolling an unkitted bard, since I have played with Blades for a very long time and I'm not really interested in the passive abilities of skalds and jesters.

Now, I do realise the great advantages of playing a bard at lower levels (high lore, ability to use wands and all weapons, limited but useful spellcasting...) , but most of these seem to fade at higher levels . For example, item identification isn't that much of a chore anymore, and wands aren't as useful as they used to be (you would rather cast your own higher level spells) .

So my question is, which tactics do you recommend for a bard in BG2, considering that I'll focus on ranged attack and 6th level spells will take quite a while to come by (No Tenser or Pfmw before, say, chapter 3 or 4.

Thank you for your help!

Comments

  • NuinNuin Member Posts: 451
    The pureclasses don't really have much of an advantage of the kit versions. It's really more of a universal theme (thieves, rangers, clerics, druids... arguably even mages).

    If you're intent on playing one though then you should just play the bard to its strengths. Tenser's might be situationally useful on a blade, for example, but it's just not worth it on a bard when you could be doing something more productive like pelting Melf's Minute Meteors at the big bad, casting Breach on mages, shutting down warriors with Greater Malison/enchantment spells, using Remove Magic on enemies/allies or just being in the line of fire because you have the defensive spells/HLAs to pull off being temporary high level spell bait.

    Basically you'll be playing the role of universal complement to everyone in the party. You'll get to use some of the more obscure bard HLAs like Magic Flute and wonder why you've never tried spamming Delayed Blast Fireballs on a whim before (btw the flutes last a day).
    It should be a very interesting run as long as you don't actually play your bard as a subpar blade.
  • SomeSortSomeSort Member Posts: 859
    Basically, the only difference between the Bard, Jester, and Skald is the song, so if you don't care about the song, it doesn't much matter which you pick. The only notable difference will be that Skalds get 1/4 the pickpocketing score, (not the end of the world if you either don't pickpocket or you don't mind stacking potions of master thievery), and Skalds also get a +1 THACO / +1 damage bonus with all weapons. It's not huge, but it's a nice bonus and there's no real reason not to take it, IMO.

    (Also, if you think there's even a remote chance that you might change your mind and give the bard song a go, even only on rare occasions, that's more reason to go Skald because their song is amaaaaaazeballs and can be a big help if you find yourself struggling on a section.)
  • ArctodusArctodus Member Posts: 992
    edited April 2017
    If you like mods, you can install IWDification. It has the option to give the unkitted bard songs of IWD to their BG counterpart. These songs give the unkitted bard a lot more situationnal options, even though you don't have the amazing buffs of the skalds or a strong crowd control song like the jesters. They can help on many different fronts and do many different things for your party, which absolutely fits the unkitted bard theme. I played around with one recently and it was real fun.

    I also tested how these songs would interact with the Improved Bard Song HLA, and it's all fine, because you can assign the HLA to your innate abilities with EEKeeper. Then, you can just decide which song you want to use. The HLA won't override your other songs.

    Here's the list of the songs you can get from IWDification :

    1st level: Can play "The Ballad of the Three Heroes." All allies within 30 ft. gain +1 to hit, +1 to damage, and +1 to all their Saving Throws.

    3rd level: Can play "The Tale of Curran Strongheart." All allies within 30 ft. gain immunity to spell effects for as long as the song lasts, and any fear effects currently on them are removed.

    5th level: Can play "Tymora's Melody." All allies within 30 ft. gain +1 to luck, +3 to Saving Throws, +10 to lore, and a +10% bonus to all of their thieving skills.

    7th level: Can play "The Song of Kaudies." All allies within 30 ft. have a 50% chance to shrug off the effects of spells such as Silence, Shout, Great Shout, Command, Greater Command, or any other sound-based attack.

    9th level: Can play "The Siren's Yearning." All enemies within 30 ft. must save vs. Spell or become enthralled, unable to take action until 1 round passes or they take damage.

    11th level: Can play "War Chant of the Sith." All allies within 30 ft. gain a +2 bonus to Armor Class, +10% resistance to slashing, piercing, crushing, and missile damage, and the ability to regenerate 2 Hit Point per round.
    ronaldololienFenghoang
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    OK, here's a thing I've been wondering about for some time reading posts about Bards and other tactics.

    Which fights last long enough to need all this singing and complications?
    The only one I can think of is the "open seal" level of WK.
    Apart from that, fights are over in a couple of minutes or your army of skellingtons/summons do most the work while you make the tea and/or pelt any troublemakers with missiles.
    Or your mage has thrown a ton of AOE spells from out of sight.

    I often take Haer Dalis, I like him, but he never gets a chance to sing to us. Wouldn't get past the intro most of the time.
  • SomeSortSomeSort Member Posts: 859

    OK, here's a thing I've been wondering about for some time reading posts about Bards and other tactics.

    Which fights last long enough to need all this singing and complications?
    The only one I can think of is the "open seal" level of WK.
    Apart from that, fights are over in a couple of minutes or your army of skellingtons/summons do most the work while you make the tea and/or pelt any troublemakers with missiles.
    Or your mage has thrown a ton of AOE spells from out of sight.

    I often take Haer Dalis, I like him, but he never gets a chance to sing to us. Wouldn't get past the intro most of the time.

    Well, Haer'Dalis is a blade, so unless and until you get the Improved Bard Song HLA there's not a whole lot of point to him singing.

    For a Skald, say, you're getting their +4/+4 song starting at 1.1m experience, so you'll have it potentially available for ~1/3 of chapter 2 content and everything after that. How good is it? Let's use a hypothetical physical-heavy but realistic party setup: Mazzy with Tuigan (5 APR after level 13), Korgan with an Axe and Shield (3 APR after level 13), Anomen with a mace (2 APR), Nalia with Boomerang Dagger (2 APR), and Yoshimo with the Crimson Dart (3 APR).

    That's 15 APR, though obviously they aren't all going to be hitting. If they did all hit, and everyone was within range of the Skald, that's 60 extra damage per round the Skald is contributing. Could he match that offensive output without singing? No, but he could get kind of close if he had Belm + Kundane (4 APR) and 19 strength (+7 damage). Add in the Skald kit bonus and that's 49 damage per round, though your THACO will be atrocious and you won't actually land all those hits.

    But even if a Skald could achieve offensive parity between singing and acting, this ignores the +4 AC and immunities his song grants. It's basically as if he managed to sing a Saving Grace (medium shield +3) onto all of his comrades in addition to their normal equipment loadout.

    Basically, fights will end faster, (resulting in less damage taken), and enemies will find it much harder to hit you, (resulting in less damage taken). It's not ever going to *feel* like the Skald is contributing much, but having one who is just hanging around singing will result in your party surviving a lot better.

    (Not to mention the fact that if you *do* use that "army of summons/skeletons do most of the work for you" tactic, Skalds really go nuts, power-wise.)

    Jesters' contributions while singing are much more noticeable, and also result in a solid survivability boost. And if you do go with IWDification, the vanilla Bard's contributions will also be super-obvious, as the "completely top up everyone's HP between every battle" of War Chant of Sith is kind of hard to miss. (Though, to be fair, it's a much bigger boost in IWD than in BG2, which is a lot less about general attrition.)

    TL;DR-- Skald song is cool.
    ThacoBell
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    @SomeSort

    I kind of get that, my question was more along the lines of when is the game so difficult to need it?
    I sometimes feel reading threads on tactics (especially those about Bards) my game isn't working properly, stuff is being missed.

    Currently playing SCS/insane, four man party.
    Charname sw10/fighter19
    Anomen18
    HD15
    Edwin15

    Halfway through Firkrag, (can't install improved vampires, game crashes and I'm aware of that), Fully charged wands, no ROV or Sling of everwhatsit, apart from that good equipment.
    Firkrag will go down easily and I will probably mess around a bit trying to ensure a particular NPC gets the kill shot so it shows on their record (keeps them happy, don't want no Dragon envy going on)

    Mind, there is the possibility that Firkrag is vastly improved because I installed SCS differently from usual and didn't go through the options, just kind of pressed "do everything" (which is why there's no ROV/SofE).

    Does that sound reasonable?
    Am I missing something?
  • NuinNuin Member Posts: 451
    edited April 2017
    You realize you don't actually NEED any particular class, do you? People have soloed some of the most difficult content in the game using a plain fighter.
    That's the bottomline, since we seem to be going there.
    Having different people/classes along is an exercise in beating stuff in the least stressful, and most enjoyable means possible.
    ThacoBellMerrepi
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    Nuin said:

    You realize you don't actually NEED any particular class, do you? People have soloed some of the most difficult content in the game using a plain fighter.
    That's the bottomline, since we seem to be going there.
    Having different people/classes along is an exercise in beating stuff in the least stressful, and most enjoyable means possible.

    If this was directed at me, I think you misunderstand.
    My query is more about finding out whether my game is working as it should with the SCS mod.

    I'm really (really) not very computer literate, I see the Weidu Log, it says the mod is installed (and having ROV removed proves that). But then I read a thread where there are all sorts of tactics explained, in this case Bard songs, and how to use them. But most fights are over very quickly.

    So I'm worried somethings broken at my end. Not that I think people shouldn't use Bards or any tactic because they aren't needed.
    Hope that explains.
  • DJKajuruDJKajuru Member Posts: 3,300
    edited April 2017
    Thank you for your answers so far, let me try to join the discussion , too:
    @Nuin I like your suggestion of using melf's meteors and disabling enemy mages, as I was also thinking of focusing on the smartest tactics for a bard without losing its flare. I realise that non-kitted classes might be weaker, but my intention is to take a defferent approach.

    @Arctodus , @SomeSort I absolutely love bard song bonuses , Voghlyn really helps the party and my IWD/IWD2 bards use it a lot. However, I feel uncomfortable having my bg protagonist sing instead of fight or cast spells, but I don't really mind if my bard npc's do it . Even without singing much I feel that bards are one of my favorite classes for both RP and pratical reasons.

    I was thinking of having a bard with decent dex, int and cha, and in BG2 focus on ranged atrack with a shortbow (which is way easier in BG1 with all those elemental arrows available) , so my original question was based on that kind of bard who might rely on the right spells and items to make good use of the class.

    @UnderstandMouseMagic I agree with you that most fights won't last long enough , however I usually avoid resting in dungeons so there is always an opportunity to use that one buff or ability before the end of a quest.
  • fatelessfateless Member Posts: 330
    Keep in mind. If they are using mods like Ascension and Tactics. That could be part of why they are talking about the best ways to use things. SCS's reasonability and fairness is not present in all these kinds of mods. Some of which can rewrite whole encounters. Add new encounters into very inopportune places or moments of the game to push the difficulty and a couple of them will even let the AI's cheat in ways that the players can't. I don't know how many such mods have survived into present day but I've seen signs of at least a few of them since I've come back to playing the BG series which hasn't been that long.
  • lunarlunar Member Posts: 3,460
    edited April 2017
    Plain bard is really plain compared to what kits offer. Although, arcane magic is very useful in bg2 and thus even a plain bard can be useful in combat, focus on spells that depend on caster levels, as bards will have a higher level compared to mages in any given xp value. So they will have a high level remove/dispel magic and extra powerful skull trap/flame arrow spells. Also, plain bard will have a high pickpocket value and can steal some valuable scrolls/items from various vendors in Athkathla with ease.

    With tweaks mods and pnp spell progression tables bards can learn up to lvl 8 spells and become somewhat more powerful. Although they will forever lack game-changing 9th level spells and mage hlas.
  • BorekBorek Member Posts: 513
    The biggest problem with Bards is they start to lose their advantage mid-late game, by this i mean that the game caps spells at level 20 even if you are higher, so once a bard goes past that the spells do not cast with anymore potency and any wizards you have will start closing the gap in power until they also hit 20, but of course they get access to higher level spells in the late game. The HLA options are not bad though and do help mitigate that issue.

    Early-Mid game the bard is fantastic though, casting spells that scale with caster level (MMM, Skull Trap, even Chromatic orb and magic missile) really makes them shine, and Edwin Jealous :#
  • fatelessfateless Member Posts: 330
    Edwin's not jealous. he'll just cast 5 more spells than you. he cheats remember.

    But yes. they definitely are strong and they can really shine up through SoA. And they are varied enough to still hold their own in ToB but it's a bit more with utility than outright power from being a bit ahead of the curve at that point. Overall they are good characters and they can be interesting to play however. the Kits really just take the core class and specialize it a little bit in it's utility side. Blade is a bit more combat. Skald is a bit more party buff, and Jester is a bit more crowd control.

    People often like to say that the Kits are better because there is no big downside to taking them. And that is true. But Bard is a class where kit's aren't about upside and downside over the base class. Bard Kits are all about what flavor of bard you want to focus on. If you want to lean a bit more of the Jack of all Trades then stick with the unkitted. Want to add a bit to the front lines then you take the Blade Kit. If you want to be a bit more of a buffer and backline Skald is the kit for you. And if you want to cause some havoc on the battlefield and limit your enemies then you have the Jester to do that.

    Bard's and Wizards are the only ones that kind of share this "flavor" trait to their kits in common. Every other class is all about Pro's and Con's to their specializing and are usually giving up whole tactics and support abilities for what they do get.
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