Help me make the perfect Bard

[Bishop]

Tell me everything you think I should know about making a bard. What should his stats look like? What profeciencies will benefit him most? Ranged weapons? Which kits are cool? Ect. I have already beet the game as a pure fighter, but I want to spice it up a bit, and don't know much about D&D rules and such (kinda a rookie in all those numbers and accronyms....hehe). Thanks for the input.

-Russell

The bard is as difficult to roll as a great fighter class.
I rolled the following blade:
18 str
18 dex
16 con
15 int
8 wis
15 char

Try to do at least that well. You always want to play half-elf (no disadvantages, only advantages) want 15+ int to be able to mem spels, you probably want 10+ wis to avoid a lore penalty. Strength is good because even if you are not a fighting class bard (the blade) you want strength for later when you get Tenser's Transformation and the bard becomes a powerful fighting machine. The blade is tough to form parties for in this game because you will want to give him a strength item for power that one of the weak fighters (Valygar, Jaheria, Keldorn) could use, and it also makes it harder to balance your group with pure class casters. I settled with Minsc, Jaheria, Valygar, Imoen, myself and Aerie.
I've heard good things about Jesters, but the horn you can buy from Deidre is almost as good as the Jester song, if not more powerful--just toot it and the monsters get pushed away confused.
The blade is useful because it can really fill in any role with use of its defensive and offensive spin, including the famed role of exploding bard.