Bard alterations/rebalance

[mad=dog]

Hello all,

Back at BG after a good long half year break. I'm already solo'ing away with a new neat Blade. My issues are mostly minted on high levels and have not come to light yet.
I remember the agony of the Bards having their spell progression slaugthered at higher levels. For some reason the Bards have a 6th level cap on making them stand almost still for several millions of XP. Thus I had to rely on even more cheese and traps to get by and I found that a little.. out of character for lack of better terms.
In core AD&D rules Bards have an 8th spell level cap. I know the basic rulebooks only cover spell progression till level 6, but there is a supplement that covers level 21-30 for all classes where you can get this information. This supplement cannot be completely unknown to Black Isle as it also covers elements such as HLAs and the Priest/Wizard "10th" level dweomer spells. So I am a bit baffled as to why they opt'ed to offer traps to bards instead of having them get more spells.
I am not saying I am being short handed per se. Jeez, Time Stop trap and offensive spin will get rid of more or less everything. I am just feeling a bit out of character.
I am also thinking that I cannot possibly be the only one with this feeling and knowlegde. Unless TSR's high level material was a really bad seller. Based on that I believe there must be a Bard rebalance out there somewhere I haven't found yet. Is there such a thing and if so where can it be found? If not I presume it would be possible to tamper a bit myself. Would there be any frowning at this? As I see it the trade-off between spells and traps is entirely fair in terms of magnitude. After all this is how Bard where meant to be at high levels according to TSR.

[ 04-10-2005, 03:37 AM: Message edited by: mad=dog ]

[SixOfSpades]

aVENGER's Rogue Rebalancing mod and Weimer's Ease-of-Use both work along the lines you suggest, but in different ways.

Rogue Rebalancing makes Thieves more Thiefy, Bards more Bardy, and Rogues in general more useful to the party, where before they tended to be eclipsed by the Warriors and Wizards. It makes several changes to the Bard kits, most notably making the standard Bard Song actually do something (it was apparently never implemented properly before), removing all of their Trap HLAs and replacing them with spell-like abilities that fit well with the Bard's Ethos, each Bard kit has a different version of Enhanced Bard Song except the Blade, who gets a Weapons Display ability instead.

Ease-of-Use contains a component that "corrects" the way that the arcane spellcasting tables were "nerfed" by BioWare. Install it and Haer'Dalis will cast spells like Nalia, Nalia will cast spells like Edwin, and Edwin....don't ask. This happens because (I believe) the charts you mention are meant for 3rd Edition D&D. The game itself is based on 2nd Edition rules, with a few exceptions that didn't come along until 3rd Ed, such as Monks and Sorcerers. Weimer ascribes to the belief that bigger is better, which is probably why your party of 2nd Ed Warriors can't kill a 3rd Ed Improved Pit Fiend.

[mad=dog]

Thanks for the response there 6oSpades (o omnipotent master of BG lore ). Somehow knew there would be something like this.
The rules I am talking about is from 2nd Ed AD&D. It was published seperately from the base sets which I presume is why it is so seldom heard of. I have not seen the 3rd Ed. rules yet, but if there is anything similar to HLAs and dweomers you'll now know where that originated.
Black Isles nerfed all spell tables regarding the number of spells pr. spell level. The base max in core rules is 9 pr. level (10 for specialists) which would indeed make Edwin a walking demi-god. I am not looking for that per se. I think the cut to 5 Sp/SpLvl is in order as sleeping is far easier and spell exchanges are generally faster than in PnP. However bards is the only class to have the spell levels themselves slashed, namely from 8 to 6. Throughout basic SoA it's okay as you don't hit the levels where you should have 7th level spells, at least not until the very end (it's either lvl 21 or 23). Your Misleads and melee buffs makes you able to cope with many things (anything, really). However in ToB you can really see they need those 7th and 8th level spells.
I made some regressions of spell casting in XL when I played six months ago and bards are really shorthanded in this department compared to other classes.
I think it's a shame as to me the bard is the ICON of solo playing. The lone troubadur. The jack-o-trades.

I may be looking for something between the two you suggest. I'll check them out soonish, but may wind up attempting to make something myself. In case of the later I hope I can return for/with input.

[White Lancer]

Bards with 7/8 level spells would be nasty. Think fighter/mage, but with higher levels and pick-pocketing.

[mad=dog]

Thats exactly what I am thinking and that is also what believe the Bards role is at these extreme XP ranges. Surely you would expect bards who accumulate 4 million XP to at least explore some of the potentials of their magics.
They will never actually be figther/mages and nor should they be. The extreme powers of Wish, Imp. alacrity, Time Stop, Planetars and similar should not be at their whim. Nor will they ever be able to specialize in any weaponry except what their kit/class dictates. It is the fusion between the fighting, magical and rogueish elements that gives them their egde.
Nasty is the word, but you would expect that from a multimillion XP bard. They won't be a C/R, C/M or K->M juggernaut, but they will certainly hold their own.

[Andyr]

In the next release of the Song and Silence mod from G3 we are thinking about implementing the extended bard spell progression up to level 40. That gives them level 7 spells, and some more of the lower levels.

It'll also probably be packaged, along with extended tables for Mages and Priests, in the G3 Tweak Pack.

[mad=dog]

Definately sounds promising. Quite thrilled someone is working at it. It presume the traps are being phased out too? Please consider a very substantial increase in spells between level 39 and 40. It's a long haul in XP and you get practically nothing for it as it is.
I had allready started looking into it. I'd have to modify mxsplbrd.2da and I had no problem there. Except that leads to another problem being too powerful with the traps and such so I need to modify lubaX.2da as well, where X denote plain/kit classes. Not really a problem either, but only allows me to remove/insert existing HLAs. Thus and finally I'd have to modify spcl91X.spl, where X denotes the HLA in question, and frankly I haven't got the faitest clue on how to do that. I suppose I could use a hex editor, but I think there must be a tool out there for the purpose. I'd like a friendly finger pointing in the right direction in that case.

In any event it might not be needed. However I would like to see it in a patch form (it IS a patch that fixes a serious oversight and lack of thorough research).

The supplement to 2ed AD&D rules that deals with 21-30 level character is called "Dungeon Masters Options - High-level Campaigns". I don't think it is in print anymore, but it should be possible to find it in PDF form on RPGNow.com or similar sites. One look in there and you can quickly see just how much bards are shorthanded in this department compared to others. Form clarity I must admit I have never had high-level bard players in PnP. However being one of the geeky types that wasted my youth on RPG'ing three times a week I have of course had players above level 20, which is the reason why I know all this.

[mad=dog]

My subconsciousness is working at this. Here's some ideas for replacement HLAs.
Battle Chant - "By repeating this mantra chant in his mind the bard can focus completely on the enemies weakness' giving him a -6 on THAC0 for the next 4 rounds"
Hymn of the Spirit - "While reciting this envigorating hymn the bard will regain his strength by regenerating 8 hitpoint per round for the next 4 rounds"
The Elusive Ballad - "This confusing short ballad will make it impossible for anyone but the keenest foe to discern the bard amongst the fog of battle. The bard will recieve Improved Invisibility and Immunity to Divination for 10 rounds allowing him to retreat from battle"

Definately not uber, but that is not the intention. The idea is to replace the traps with something more bard-like and restore the spell progression in the process.

I repeat my request - any help with making .spl files will be greatly appreciated.

[SixOfSpades]

Personally, what I'd like to see is the Bard be able to change the effects of his Song (right-clicking the Bard Song button lets you choose which songs to sing, with effects like area-of-effect healing, combat bonuses, resistance to spells, etc) whenever he wants to. Each Song would improve with respect to the Bard's level, and the different kits would have their skills in certain Songs capped at a certain amount, or restricted entirely.

[SimDing0]

Right-clicking the button isn't supported by the engine as far as I'm aware. It'd probably have to be done by innates, which is kinda pants. (Although it's also possible that a Spell Immunity-type menu could be brought up when you click the button normally, but it'd be awkward to stop it reappearing each round-- not to mention the annoyance of having to navigate through sub-menus each time you activate the song.)

[ 04-16-2005, 05:49 AM: Message edited by: SimDing0 ]