First time bard PC
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Member Posts: 294
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?
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?
3
Comments
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.
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"
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.
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.
Why not go with something completely different from the class you typically choose for charname?
He should go with a Cleric/Mage or Ranger/Cleric.. something a bit different from a F/M/T
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.
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.
And bonuses for BG2 songs still don't provide regeneration.
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.