The Bard's Tale

[Variol (Farseer) Elmwood]

..is pretty darn sad. I started a new party of 2 bards and a priest. The instruments are pretty much junk and they can't hit for (the word that rhymes with hit).
I thought I'd try them to use the bard only stuff, but they're just useless.

[Eagle eye]

No I'm not to fond of bards myself. I think I prefer characters like dwarves or elves that have a high hit count and a solitary priest of bishop. I find having to recharge a bards stamina mid-battle quite a nuisance. Though I read that their is a powerful weapon that bards could use..? Not sure of the details, but I haven't used a bard yet and still don't plan to make one as part of my party

[CerebroDragon]

Just thought I'd jump to the defense of the bard in the face of a fairly weak and short critique.

Personally, I found my mook bard, Naddy to be a very instrumental party member (if you'll pardon the pun). But I guess it is a question of tastes and styles.
I actually think that alot of the early instruments you can find have the capacity to make battles end alot of faster by disabling a group of weaker or one stronger creature for instance. I made Naddy specialise in crossbows I think and she became one of the higher damage dealers in the early-mid game, which can also be handy for certain party builds. Again, it will depend on your build and playing style but the generalisation 'jack of all trades master of none', holds fairly true for bards in many games. I think they can balance out some parties quite nicely!

[Horpner Sneed]

Bard's are a powerful support unit. They can become good melee fighters, good ranged fighters, powerful spell casters. They can pick pockets (practically worthless with current patches), and work with Locks and Traps (a mere convenience).

Your problem might be that a Bard's talents don't really multiply with other Bards until the mid-levels, when there are enough instruments to go around.

But I'm surprised that two Poet's Lutes aren't paying big dividends from the very beginning. Are you playing Expert level? Monster magic resistance is much stronger on Expert level, making the Bard's usual mainstay magic item in lower difficulty games very situational.

[Variol (Farseer) Elmwood]

I usually only ever play on normal and the odd time easy difficulty because I never have more than 3 in my party.

To me, the 2 best classes are Lord and Valkerie. They're both good fighters and priest spells like guardian, make them hard to beat!

[Elif Godson]

I havent tried the new Bards Tale yet, last one I played was on my commodore 128 and I enjoyed it a lot, granted changing disks sucked!

[Horpner Sneed]

Originally Posted by Variol (Farseer) Elmwood I usually only ever play on normal and the odd time easy difficulty because I never have more than 3 in my party.

I just tried my first Expert game (strange, since I've been playing since 2002 ), and it really didn't seem more fun to me. 5th level fighters with 40+ skill level are still missing all the time. It does make it more challenging, skills raise faster, ammo really gets used up, I use a lot more of the magic junk that drops.

I find it more frustrating than fun, but I can see why other players like it.

Perhaps I'm just a tosser, but I didn't like my first small party attempt very much, either. :| It was fun until my first really large group of Dusk Bats on Arnika-Trynton Road.

[William]

you do understand that we're not talking about the (new)ish Bard's Tale, a futile game BTW, but about the Bard in Wizardry 8, do you, William