What is the best tyoe of bard?

i say skald, or blade. jester is OKAY, but i dont like him that much.
thats just me though.

Do you have ToB installed?

At high levels with ToB, the best Bard is the Blade. By far.

If you do not have ToB, the best Bard is the Skald.

The Jester starts out as an interesting, powerful and fun Bard, but at high levels has the option of becoming just like every other Bard (in terms of what his song does).

-- Nifft

<font color="gold">The Blade is best IMO, ToB or not. That is simply caused by the fact that he is a decent Fighter, as well as a good Bard. ;) </font>

I'm using a Jester right now b/c 'jester' sounds cool. The confusion ability can keep you out of a lot of fights, ie your enemies end up killing themselves, and that is nice, but it cheats you out of experience points which may concern some people. I confused a skeleton warrior into killing a bone golem once. Saves you a difficult battle in the early going, but costs you 18000 experience. One thing that I wish he had was the ability to put 3 stars in dual wield. And that is what makes a blade nice. Bards get proficient with a lot of weapons, and it would be nice to use 2 at once.

A question for everyone...is 6th level the highest spell usable by a bard? If so, what sorts of improvements can we look for once they get that far? Do I have to wait for TOB?

Yep, Bards are stuck with only the first 6 levels of Wizard spells. It's handy for things like Dispel Magic and Lower Magic Resistance, because your Bard is always going to have a higher level than your Mage, but when it comes to the truly kickass spells like Abi-Dalzim's, Bards are left out in the cold.

What I'd like to see are 2 new Bard kits to replace the Jester and Skald. The Blade is pretty much a Fighter-Bard; so why not a Mage-Bard and a Thief-Bard?

<font color="lawngreen" face="trebuchet MS"> I agree... with ToB a blade is by far the best.... because his WORST dissadvantage is removed with ease once you get the bard pool..... and I think that the Skald was made MUCH more useless with ToB... as the new song removes the cool advantages that Skald's get :( </font>