Bard goes to level 10 & loses profincies!?

[The Ozzman]

this is dirt, my bard has made it to level 10, and when i click on the level up his pick pocketing goes from %90 to %25, i plan to carry my 5 MP characters + Imoen to BG2. What should i do?

[Morgan_Corbesant]

no clue, it sounds kinda funny to me. i hope that you get it all figured out.

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Morgan Corbesant, Elven BladeSinger, Captain of the army of the Seldarine

[SixOfSpades]

You've got a BARD??? Ah HAHAHAHAAAA!!!!!

A Thief who cannot Stealth ain't worth jack. Build a Thief/Mage, or be really versatile and do an Elven Fighter/Mage/Thief. Takes forever to level up, but talk about versatility.

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"How do you define 'fool?'"
"I don't attempt to. I wait for examples. They inevitably surpass my imagination."

[Jafin]

It sounds like a glitch to me. Try exitting the game, restarting the computer and then open up BG and reload your game and see if that fixed it. That happened with a thief of mine before. I opened up my game and went his character record and saw that none of his thief skills were above 25% (and they were above that, believe me). If this doesn't fix it, try patching if you haven't already, that might help. If none of this works, ask someone more knowledgeable .

Jafin

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Proud Citizen of the United States of America
The Original Arch-Mage of the HADB
Destroyer of the evil Bunnies
Proprietor of the Boogre Bar

[The Ozzman]

you laugh at my bard? @ Level 10, he has 80 hp, he can cast 4th level spells, he wields the light crossbow of speed, his pick pocket skills should be 100%, and his lore is a whopping 110 virtually eliminating the need to memorize identify.

[Nazgûl]

bards are really good. weak at the beggining but good in the end.

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and the sky will rain fire...

[SixOfSpades]

Should have put your points into Bow instead of Missile, and given him the Long Bow of Marksmanship. Saying you wield the Light Crossbow of Speed is just another way of saying you can't use any of those kickass specialty arrows. I don't like Bards because the ONLY good armor they can wear is Drizzt's mail, and they only have 1 Quick Weapon slot. Also, during a fight because you have babysit them so much.....You can kinda have them up front with your fighters, but if you want to cast, you've gotta pull them back, or they'll get their spell disrupted. But you're right about one thing: Having 100% Pick Pockets is certainly a blessing, especially if you know who's got what.

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"How do you define 'fool?'"
"I don't attempt to. I wait for examples. They inevitably surpass my imagination."

[The Ozzman]

I always gave the long bow of marksmanship to my fighter that wields the Spider's Bane, that way he can get off some arrows in certain fights, Imoen already has the eagle bow, so i think the light crossbow is the best choice, an extra attack per round & Bolts of Lightning kick ass.

[Jafin]

There are a LOT of bolts you can find that are really good (bolt of polymorphing being my favorite) and with the light crossbow of speed you get 2 attacks per round, the same as a bow. Personally, I prefer the Heavy Crossbow of Accuracy however (+5 THACO, +2 Damage).

Bards also get 2 quick weapon slots if you have TOTSC. 100% Pickpockets is VERY fun and with the Lore that Bards have, you don't really need Identify. Especially if you have 18 or higher Wisdom and Intelligence (+10 Lore bonus at 18) This means that a bard with 18 wisdom and intelligence at level 10 has a lore level of 120. Now, if you used the intelligence Tome and the many wisdom ones you can end up with a lore of 142!!! Not bad I would say!

I still don't like bards though... They can do most everything (almost every weapon, cast mage spells, pickpockets) but when they don't do any of them particularly well. You can't specialize in weapons even though you can use 'em all. Spell progression is slow. They can only pickpockets, they don't have the more useful Stealth or the ever essential Find Traps. Each to his own I guess...

-Jafin

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Proud Citizen of the United States of America
The Original Arch-Mage of the HADB
Destroyer of the evil Bunnies
Proprietor of the Boogre Bar

[SixOfSpades]

The Crossbow of Accuracy has +5 THAC0? Hot Damn! Too bad it's got a slow shooting rate....maybe a cood tactic would be to use the Crossbow of Speed against roadkill and average enemies, then whip out the Heavy for the tough dudes. But I still don't like crossbows in general. The only specialty arrows I like are Piercing and Detonation, neither of which come in Bolt form (I'm pretty sure.) Bolts of Lightning are okay, I guess, but Polymorphing (can you buy those at Sundries?) just aren't worth carrying around, as anyone tough enough to use them on is just going to Save vs. Spell anyway.
I've got 4 archers in my party, and there are 4 great bows (Longbow of Marksmanship, Composite Long+1, Long+1, Eagle Bow) in the game, so they all kick ass with plain ol' normal arrows.
As for Bardhood in general, 80 HP is certainly good, but think what you'd have if you'd built a Fighter/Thief instead. Sure, you can't cast any spells that way, but Imoen's already the best mage in the the game. The party I'm playing now has me (Tank Fighter, dual to Thief at Lev. 7), Imoen, Canderous, Kivan, Minsc, and Coran. I do Traps, Imoen does Pockets, Coran does Locks, and we ALL do Stealth, and we've each got 100% or more in what we've studied. As for your Bard casting 4th Level Spells, Imoen can do that from Stealth, and with the Eagle Bow, Gauntlets of Weapon Skill and 19 DEX, she's equal to the Light Crossbow of Speed any day.
Sorry to bag on Bards like this. I thought carefully about building a great Bard (God knows the NPC ones suck big-time), and decided they are indeed good, but they've got too many weak points. Sure, they've got great Lore, but when designers give such a paltry ability to a class, it tends to be because they're trying to make up for that class's weaknesses.
Having Lore over 100% is indeed amazing, but I think you don't need to go any higher than 80 or so. For fun, I once hacked a guy to have 25s in everything, just to see what he could do. His Lore at Level 1 was 84: This guy could ID the Tomes! I think the only things that WON'T ID, no matter your Lore, is the Cursed stuff. Besides, if you've been through the game once or twice, you already know what and where everything is.