Ok, I am used to playing with the "purer" classes, like Fighters, Mages, and Clerics. BG2 opened up a can of worms with kits which I'm starting to explore.

Anyways, I've been playing around with Bards lately, and the Blade kit just absolutely rocks! I have him set with 3 stars in Two-Weapon Style, 1 star each in Katana and Scimitar, with Celestial Fury in the off-hand and Dakkon's Zerth Blade in the main hand at the moment. I belive he's level 14 at the moment, which means 4 14d6 Skull traps...hehe.

Anyways, with a 19 Dex, his Pick Pockets is around 130-140, and he has no trouble lifting loot.

His Spins are very useful, Offensive Spin TOTALLY rocks the house, especially with Celestial Fury whacking everybody.

Obviously, the Bard will not be as powerful as a Hasted fighter of the same level, or a Sorcerer blasting away, or even a Thief, but that's not the point. The Bard is the penultimate sidekick and backup character, able to fill in wherever he's needed, especially as a fighter-type once the Melodic Chain is acquired. He may have trouble soloing, since he has limited spell selection later on, but with the right items and spells, I think he should be able to.

Come on, sing the praise of the Blade!

hmmi agree ,..........to an extent i do prefer the jester however

What was that some Garrick sang in BG1?

I am brave Sir Garrick, Sir Garrick brave am I...
I am brave Sir Garrick, watch me run away....
I am brave Sir Garrick, I gladly ran away..

You must be confused, I think that you may have your forms of entertainment mixed up. There were lines such as that in a movie, but the person in question was Sir Robin of Camelot...

lol bards are in no way weak i solo them all the time on insane diffucity some time it can be little tough in spot but other than that it rock! if youre in BG II SOA and don't have TOB i would recommend u get TDD it is a lots of fun and much much tougher but more fun [img]smile.gif[/img] in the orginal game i had everything down so good i could almost run though the whole game in a single 8 hour in real life, geez and that includes all the extra quests and so on, but the TDD rock i'm barely started in amn and already has been at it about a day or so

Iolo from Ultima is the best bard of all.

I think that was Garrick's "click-till-you-get-the-guy-to-say-something-new" phrases. And no, he's not confused, they put all kindsa easter eggs like that in BG. Like Xzar says "I ate his liver with a nice chiate, and some fava beans".

You think Blade's are good? Wait'll you try a Kensai with the same Equipment!

I had a Kensai with 3 slots on Two-Weapon style, 5 on Katana and 2 on Long Sword. Celestial Fury was in the main hand, would've had Dak'kons Zerth Blade in the off but I didn't have the bonus Merchants so I settled for Daystar. My main hand THAC0 was -15 by lvl. 19 and the offhand was -11. At level 14 I had most of this with THAC0 on the main hand and offhand a bit lower and without the longsword proficiencies. However, they only have mondo fighting power... no pickpockets or mage spells, unless you dualed of course. I am using Haer' Dalis in my new game and he definitely rocks! I've got to see how he does with the Melodic Chain now (I just got him back after my visit to another plane) and once he gets to higher levels (only lvl. 11 now)

-Jafin

Praise the bard!
I think the bard is a great kit, lots of fun. Not being the most powerful in any area can be a bit annoying, but I liked it.

And I think it was something like:

Brave, brave Sir Garrick, Sir Garrick led the way
Brave, brave Sir Garrick, Sir Garrick ran away

when he was panicing [img]smile.gif[/img]

Oh, and while we're at it, the Archer kit is fun too [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Yeah - legolas - that's the chant I was referring to. I have my Monty Python screwed up with Garrick because that 'ran away' was an obvious takeoff of Python.

Every time I heard that, I laughed soooo hard - until i realized he's one of my characters and was leaving my main character... so I promptly dumped him.