Bards are pretty damn effective if you know how to use them. As has already been stated, they're very versatile; they have a wide range of spells: healing, offensive, and powerful enchantments; they tend to make reasonable to good ranged fighters; and their songs can do a lot for your other pary members in combat, especially the 'Tale of Curran Strongheart' (immunity to fear) and the 'War Chant of Sith' (+2 generic AC bonus, damage resistance, and regeneration); and they tend to make the best talkers and negotiators, with their high charisma and both diplomacy and bluff as class-skills. Use them as a backup-healer, spellcaster, archer and/or general support character and let them do the talking and they're worth every last penny you spend on them, IMHO. Just don't send them into melee. That's not good for anyone involved, except the enemy.

I've never used a Bard and probably would not enjoy using him in a reserve role. I much prefer a cleric or druid in reserve for healing power/spells plus they can throw down with the big boys in hand to hand. Also druids have got some cool powers in addition to their spells. Then you've always have got to have a good old thief. Boost his hit points and fighting skills by multi classing him with 1 or 2 levels of fighter.

Question regarding the thief: didn't they used to be able to climb walls? What happened to that skill. Did the 3rd ed. remove those skills?

You won't want a bard unless you're planning to stick it out until he gets the War Chant of the Sith. That song will let you win the game.

As far as I know, they're still in P&P 3rd E, they're just not in the game because they would be useless due to limitations of the engine. There are no walls you need to climb anyway.

As far as I know, they're still in P&P 3rd E, they're just not in the game because they would be useless due to limitations of the engine. There are no walls you need to climb anyway.</font>[/QUOTE]I don't know. If my thief could climb walls I would have used him to scale over the walls at the Goblin fortress to check that place out. I also would have liked to check out that old house on top of the cliffs on the way to destroy the dam. Also if you were getting your butt kicked in hand to hand and needed a safe place for your thief to sit, you could have him climb a wall and just wait until the fights over. I could think of quite a few uses of it.

Also would be nice if the thief could use more than one skill at a time.

Once your Bard reaches level 11 or level 12 ...do you still continue as a Bard or add a few levels of something else ?

Would the Sub-vocal Casting feat be any use against Silence or Deafness for the Bard's songs.

As far as I know, they're still in P&P 3rd E, they're just not in the game because they would be useless due to limitations of the engine. There are no walls you need to climb anyway.</font>[/QUOTE]I don't know. If my thief could climb walls I would have used him to scale over the walls at the Goblin fortress to check that place out. I also would have liked to check out that old house on top of the cliffs on the way to destroy the dam. Also if you were getting your butt kicked in hand to hand and needed a safe place for your thief to sit, you could have him climb a wall and just wait until the fights over. I could think of quite a few uses of it.</font>[/QUOTE]What I meant was that AFAIK it would've been extremely difficult to implement climbable walls into the game because the Infinity Engine just isn't cut out for that. So they just skipped that whole skill altogether rather than giving the player a completely useless thingy to assign skill points to. Of course you could think of uses for climbing in certain in-game situations, but as it is implemented, you don't need it because it isn't there. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[ 03-04-2003, 07:06 AM: Message edited by: J'aran ]

My sister sez:
Hell yeah! I have 2 bards in mine so I can have 2 bard songs going at the same time which makes stuff a whole lot easier...that and bards are fun fun fun!
I did have one, but then the CD drive burnt itself out, and I had to get a new one, and it erased itself, so I kind of can't get started again.... They had gone far, us and them

I had a bard... ...once, but he spent most of his time at Targos palisade (dead) and he was useless, so I could not be bothered to resurect him as it cost too much cash; so i erased him and created a drow ranger instead!

Once your Bard reaches level 11 or level 12 ...do you still continue as a Bard or add a few levels of something else ?

Would the Sub-vocal Casting feat be any use against Silence or Deafness for the Bard's songs.</font>[/QUOTE]Sub-Vocal casting only applies to spells. If that bard amulet from BGI was in IWDII, that would be very useful since it prevents silence and my bard is always getting silenced.