A bard to party with...

[Quidix]

It's been a while since I lay my hand on good old NWN2, but now the itch is back!

I've always liked bards, and I have a strength-based version around level 10 (never gotten higher on this server), but I'd like to give a charisma bard a proper go. As far as I can see the impending update will bring us Epic Inspiration to the table, which to me sounds like great way to go all-out on party boosts.

Any and all comments welcome, but are a few specific questions:

• How do charisma bards fare on AB? Seems a tad low to my inexperienced eyes
• Is it worth getting practised spell caster now when the dispel bug is being fixed? I hate the thought of getting dispelled, but my fears may be exaggerated!
• Is max UMD really needed or how many points do I really need?

Thanks for the help.

Charisma Bard Link

[chad878262]

How do charisma bards fare on AB? Seems a tad low to my inexperienced eyes

AB will be lower than str bard but fully buffed should still do ok. Realize that you're making a conscious choice to have lower STR/ab to go full CHA in order to be more party friendly (totally viable!) Think about going 15 bard 10 storm singer and 5 dissonant chord for all sorts of extra things to do with your songs. Of course this makes AB even lower, but you'll be a decent caster and have spells from your songs. Seems a fun idea.

Is it worth getting practised spell caster now when the dispel bug is being fixed? I hate the thought of getting dispelled, but my fears may be exaggerated!

You want 30 caster levels if at all possible so if you take any classes that don't progress bard then you should have psc. If you take all bard progression levels you can and should skip it.

Is max UMD really needed or how many points do I really need?

Is it really needed? No, and with the dispel fix spells from scrolls and wands will be dispelled pretty easy. You'll have plenty of protections without umd (see MrM3ntalists naked bard post) so if you don't care for it you can skip it...it will however still make certain things so much easier (hello teleport). 11 points after charisma bonus is needed to use wands. If you want to use 9th level scrolls the more the better.

Good luck and have fun! I've always found this concept intriguing so I hope you're successful with it.

[Boddynock]

Liam was until recently, a CHA bard. I can speak from experience and say that a CHA bard is much much better than people give them credit for. And he was pure bard 27. Just ask people who partied with/pvped with me. He was no slouch, despite the fact that he was largely an RP build. AB was decent, but what he could bring to a party was tremendously beneficial and versatile. Not too mention outright destructive in epic lvls.

New Liam is still lvling, so no clue how good that will turn out to be.

[Quidix]

Thank you both for the comments!

Chad - wouldn't taking stormsinger and dissonant chord result in a much worse inspirations though? (I'm genuinely not sure if that's the case, so feel free to correct me)

[chad878262]

Storm singer and dissonant chord both improve bard inspirations as well as songs. Technically SS is supposed to only improve songs/inspirations if bard spell casting progression is selected, but currently it improves regardless of what caster progression is used.

[Deathgrowl]

I always liked the idea of bard27/dread pirate3 as a party boosting bard. It gets +7 inspire courage, compared to the standard bard30 +6.

[Quidix]

Chad - Fascinating, well then, I'll have to consider the PRCs then!

Deathgrowl - Good thought, and with epic inspiration it ends up at +9, which is rather nice

[Deathgrowl]

Deathgrowl - Good thought, and with epic inspiration it ends up at +9, which is rather nice

We don't currently have that, I'm afraid.

[chad878262]

It was part of the January release that had to be rolled back...So we will have it soon, once the release goes back in to the live server.