Bards: a little rant, and I'm looking for some opinions here.

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What's the deal with Bards?

They have proficiency in Light and Medium armors, but their spells are Arcane (and subject to spell failure penalties).

I look at their spell list, and I'm unimpressed.

If I'm going to be a spellcaster, should I not worry about a really high CHA and just concentrate on good buff spells (so I won't have to worry about Saving Throws)?

But I also look at the Role-Playing side of things, and having a diplomat/skilled character is a great asset.

Having a character to accept quest rewards who is not a Paladin but has a high CHA is cool too!

Their songs are awesome, but on the other hand, having a character sit around singing in combat kind of stinks (I suppose the Lingering Song Feat helps bypass this one).

How do you use a Bard, or do you not use one at all? Is he a spellslinger? Is he a singer who shoots a crossbow bolt every once-in-a-while? I know they're pegged as a "Jack-of-all-trades, but Master-of-None," but how does that fit into a balanced party?

I'm looking forward to all of your comments, feelings, ect. on the Bard. If you have any Bard tactics, please let me hear them.

TIA

 

The Bard is of more use in IWD2 than, say, NWN, because this is a party based game and the benefits of the Bard are multiplied by the number of people in the party who can be enhanced by his song.

I would usually not bother putting any armour on him and I would have him act in a support role. Because Rogues are not really needed that much in this game, the Bard can multiclass to Rogue as well to provide the allround support man.

 

The bard thrives when doing stuff that lasts while he sings, namely buffs and summoning. Enchantment spells can be handy too, especially if you cast Eagle's Splendour to increase DC and take both focus feats.

I havent tried it myself yet, but I hear a bard 11/druid x can be nice (especially if you can get him to higher levels) as the druid's call lightning/static charge carry on while he starts singing, as do all the fun spike growth type spells and summons.

 

I think this is a super-neat idea too, but I challenge someone to come up with good stats for this guy, without incurring an XP penalty (IOW, you're using a Human or Half-Elf). It's really tough!

I would definitely play this combo if I could figure even halfway decent stats, but I loathe taking a STR lower than 8, the DEX needs to be decent, as does CON, you need INT for skills (I guess you could skimp here, and play an "Elan" type (OotS), and you need a 14 CHA for the 4th level spell you get as an 11th level Bard and after all that, the best WIS you can get!

ON EDIT:

Okay, I gave it a go, beware, these stats are very powergamey. Here's my first level version of a Bard 11/Druid X:

Human
S: 12
D: 14
C: 16
I: 4
W: 16
C: 14

I chose the 12 STR to be able to carry all the equipment later on. The 14 DEX can be improved with Cat's Grace if need be, but I think most of his spells will be long-lasting buffs (so I can take off my armor, cast them, and re-equip), the 16 CON is to counteract the worst Saving Throw of this character (for his first 11 levels anyway), as well as make him a bit tougher, because I don't want to have to ressurrect his butt! The 4 INT isn't something I really like to do, but something has to go with him, and I can rely on my Rogue 1/Wizard as my Loremaster. The 16 WIS is pretty good, and will be improved every 4th level, and should be enough by the time he converts to a Druid and really needs it. The 14 CHA is so he can cast his highest level Bard spell, and since I will be focusing on buffer-type spells, I won't really need to worry about the DC of these spells.

Will, thank you very much. I am going to give this guy a shot! (Time to go edit my "party" thread!)

[ November 10, 2005, 02:59: Message edited by: Klorox ]

 

Bah, a Bard / Druid in a 6 person party does not really need much CON as they will be hiding behind the tanks most of the time. All they need is WIS and CHA. They can buff up for any other deficiencies (Barkskin etc)

 

Okay, HB, how would you assign stats? I guess I could drop the CON to 10 and increase the INT to 10, meaning a lot more skills...

 

You could also drop STR to 10 if you really wanted to as this character doesn't really need a lot of strength unless you're planning to have him melee, which probably isn't the point.

 

Ummmm ... maybe more INT (but only if you want skills, and a bard has plenty of good ones especially if you make him party-"talker"), little more DEX, less STR, less CON ... well, imho. That might not entirely fit with how you really want/intend to use the character though, so feel free to ignore that.

P.S. In the revised 3rd Edition rules (v.3.5) a Bard suffers from no arcane spell failure when in light armour. In IWD2 terms, you could simply give a bard the Armored Arcana feat three times (using Dalekeeper) to reflect this. (I don't regard this as cheating, because it's pretty obvious how the dev team borked a lot of stuff regarding the implementation of the Bard class, but purists will of course cry foul to character-editing, as they always do.)

P.P.S. IMHO the final bard songs suck(*), so if you are multiclassing the character anyway, and regard the character as _primarily_ a druid with a little bard added in for buffs, songs, and dialogue & item specialities, then you can easily get away with only taking 5 or so levels of Bard.

(*) because ...
- The level 7 song is really only useful against very few enemies (such as harpies) who you can kill easily enough anyway. Last timed I checked, it didn't protect against Blasphemy, which might otherwise make it useful. I may be wrong about that though because it was ages ago I tested it.
- The level 9 song is utterly useless, in my experience.
- The level 11 song gives _enemies_ an AC bonus, and (unless you mod it) can't be used outside of combat, which I think would be it's primary use anyway. It's too slow (unless you exploit stacking) to use IN combat, and slow group regeneration while moving around outside combat saves an awful lot of tedious healing micromanagement, as there's more than enough tedious micromanagement required in the game anyway.

 

One of my original ideas was to let Str, Dex & Con remain as is and spread the available 16 points in Int, Wis & Cha. This build would only get into combat when shapescanged otherwise would concentrate on singing or throwing darts. Since it still does not make for decent combat abilities while only Bard, the idea was changed a bit.
The work around stats for a Human are 10-14-10-12-16-14 or even 10-18-10-6-18-14. This guy never[/b[ gets into melee combat or in a situation when he may be targeted. Using xbows from a safe distance or just singing to grant buffs to your tanks is his job.

An idea to use races other than Human and Halfelf is to progress both levels simultaneously. Since the 2 classes are within range of each other, you will not get any XP penalties. In a normal game it will be impossible for a full 6 member party to get everyone to L20. So you will not have to worry about XP penalties.
This obviously makes for a weaker combo however. To use this this method just so you can take Drow might not be worth it.

Level squatting (not leveling up even if you could) is not something to be done till you finish the game atleast once. However by level squatting I make the second idea work.
First the charecter takes 11 Bard levels. Then he squats till he can take 10 Druid levels. You can now alternate till you get to Bard[12]/Druid[13]. After that either levelsquat or take the penalty.

 

Yes, a nod to Shrikant for this as he was the first person, to my memory, to suggest this build.

Personally, I would have stats of 8-10-10-16-18-14 with a human. If the character is not casting he is singing or talking, so the stats are much better spent on intelligence for lots of skill points. There are plenty of spare bard spell slots to spend on stuff like mirror image, spirit armour, invisibility and the like to keep him alive without worrying about strength, dexterity or constitution. Likewise, Im not concerned about him hitting anything either as he should always be singing, casting or chatting, so he'll have a crossbow for helping with demolition and cleaning up weaklings and a melee weapon with some sort of non offensive benefit, such as the deflection dagger.

My version of this build is a Chaotic Evil female drow Bard 11/Stormlord of Talos x to be used in my next 4 person party. No multiclass penalty, all the best timed damage spells of the druid and a few reciprocal melee damage spells too. Bardic healing spells effectively allow spontaneous casting of both cure and cause wounds spells. She should be a delay spellcasting/buffing monster.

Overall, I love bards, and with some tweaking they can become invaluable support characters.

 

I think I might go with:

10/18/12/4/18/14

This gives me an archer type character (with a crossbow... there must be a good enough one out there), who never melees. He will take Lingering Song as one of his first feats. This is a good character for accepting quest rewards too!

He will have the lowest HP of my party, but since he'll never enter melss combat, hopefully it won't matter too much.

Can anybody suggest some good feats for a Bard/Druid? I'm thinking of Weapon Focus: Crossbow to keep him competetive in the early game, but I'm not really good with spellcasting feats. Any help is appreciated.

 

Spell Focus : Evocation once you're a Druid. Greater Spell Focus if you feel like burning another one.

Spell Focus Transmutation also is good for Druid types.

 

I would give him feats that improve spellcasting, preferably in schools that boost both his druid spells and his comparitively weak bard spells. Spell Focus: Transmutation would be a good one as it would improve the DC of many of the druid's handy area spells and of slow, one of the few offensive bard spells I would recommend. Enchantment would be handy too, boosting the very vast majority of the offensive spells that a bard would use. Evocation is another possibility, although I would place its priority lower as your druid's spell DC is going to be decent by the time you get the good blasting spells and they usually have at least some effect even if saved against, unlike enchantment or transmutation spells.

Also consider Spirit of Flame, Scion of Storms and possibly Aegis of Rime (remember to pump spellcraft, though) to add damage to the druid's offensive spells.

 

I generally believe major spellcaster classes in parties of six shouldn't be multiclassed with other major spellcasting classes. Perhaps in HoF, but I'm not sure.

 

STR CON and DEX can be tanked majorly because you can just shift to replace...

the character can be used to buff and summon in advance then shift and sing and combat and end up having 18or20 in cha/and wisdom

with REALLY REALLY low str dex con(however low you need them to be to max out your other three stats might seem insane and dangerous but i think it would be interesting to try) you could prolly manage to have high int as well and if your just buffing summoning in weak form and singing and fighting as an animal it wont matter in a full party of 6having a character that honestly prolly wont be that amazingly alone isn't a big deal as it can provide the skills the druid lvls and the bard lvls all in one slot freeing up the other slots entirely from those jobs

also you dont need to be human half elf just keep the levels 1apart... so like 11bard/12druid after that if you want to leave the bard at 11 and up the druid you can squat to do so without much penalty or add a 3rd class that is favored by whatever race you pick and brings something new to the abilities the 12th druid has the best barkskin and the bard has the best song already...like level 1paladin and level 1monk would add cha to saves and wis to ac and give evasion... adding 4lvls of fighter would be nice if there was a specalization that applied to animal hands but i dont think there is...either way after 11/12 theres only 7lvls left to use


also...
the weapon focus crossbow will not be very useful +1attack isn't a lot ... also if you got the martial weapon bow by picking the race drow you could use bows and perhaps take rapid shot instead being way way more powerful than focus crossbow at low lvls and being still useful a little longer... also spell resistance...

 

Umm bards cant be lawful and thus cant take paladin or monk levels im pretty sure. Even if im wrong there its IMPOSSIBLE for a Druid to be a paladin since the need to be neutral something and thus cant be lawfully good.

 

I second the lack of the crossbow feat. You cant sing while fighting, lingering song only lasts a round and and the bonus is minimal anyway. Sure, you can still give the character a crossbow (and there are some decent ones) for the rare occasions that he'll run out of spells, but I wouldnt bother with the feat.

Oh dear, I tried thinking of a RP background for this character, and the only thing that sprung to mind was the only part of Lord Of The Rings that truly disturbed me as a child. I will never be able to activate the bard song with this character without thinking of:

Hey-dol a merry-dol a derry-dol my darling ...

Hey Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadil-o, Green his jacket is and his boots are yellow ...

Ugh, all we need now are some halfings to frolick naked atop the barrow downs and we have the stuff of my childhood neuroses. Thanks a bunch, Professor Tolkein.

 

I kinda thought an archer-bard might be a cool build, though.

Ftr 4/Bard X, specializing in the longbow. This guy can be my party diplomat. A 12 or 14 INT should be enough to specialize in all of the "talking" skills, and maybe some concentration on the side too!

 

That'll be fine. He'll be a decent archer and have plenty of spells and skills for when he's not shooting, along with a lovely singing voice of course. Its entirely up to you what you do in the game Its just that I prefer to have a character that can pull out all the stops when necessary, and a warrior bard cannot sing while fighting, unlike in NWN/TOEE. Since you're playing a 6 man team, however, your fighter/bard build would probably be more viable in the long run, especially if you're not going to HOF mode.

 

Shields obstruct spellcasting, so you'd better have either ranger levels or Two-Weapon Fighting along with Ambidexterity in order to be able to make use of your other hand. Perhaps two short swords with Specialisation. Of course, you may as well dual-wield two bastard swords, it's just penalties are heavier with heavier weapons.