The Bards' Guild
Abilities
Bards specialize in songspells which influence every character in the same room as the bard when they are cast. They get a few offensive and debuffing spells, but focus on area buffs. Bards need high dexterity to cast their spells well. Like druid spells, bard songs are more powerful when studied to high percentages. Unlike druid spells, bard songs are usually still worth casting at lower percentages. The big challenge with being a bard is advancing in guild levels. Potential bards need to do a number of quests, some of which are very time consuming. Worse than the quests is KBHing, which is an awful enough ordeal to keep most players out of the bard guild.
First bard reinc
Do NOT reincarnate into bards for the first time without any secondary guilds! Doing all of the bard quests and KBHing takes a LONG time, and you will be profoundly miserable if you have no other abilities to call upon in the interim. Most will find it best to get started as a bard while in a merchant or shadow saber reinc. All of the other civilized guilds benefit a great deal from bard levels, but merchants and shadow sabres get the biggest advantage from bard levels. Merchants get access to venturers way, which more or less boosts their ability to recover endurance points ten to twenty fold. As for Shadow Sabres, Sabrebard is considered by many to be the ultimate hybrid tank.
Kbhing
Bards must know by heart (KBH) all of their songspells. In game terms, this means that they can't just study a songspell at the guild and then cast it, a bard must have the song's knowledge refreshed at one of the NPC songmasters or with a special notebook until they have cast the spell many times, after which they can cast it whenever they have enough spell points like any other spell. No matter how you slice it, the supposedly roleplaying based bards have one of the most boring and dull of advancement systems in the game, because most spells need hundreds of castings to be learned by heart.
There are a things you can do to make the process less painful. First, you can use the songscribing skill to write a song down in special notebooks when you visit the song's master. These notebooks are sold in Shadowkeep by Dwarkil and by Weldnut for 400 gold each. Kbhing in parties with notebooks is probably the most preferred method, but also the least viable for most newbie bards, since they don't bring enough advantages to parties for anyone but friends to be likely to take them along. Thus, most will spend their time KBHing alone and bored out of their minds. There are tricks one can use to speed the process up, but their legality is in a painful gray area, because the godawful boredom of KBHing is deliberate, and bypassing it is considered cheating. Out of a lack of respect for this mentality, I'll share any legal means of bypassing this which I discover.
Campfire tune -- Campfire tune requires a wounded player present to be cast. Of course, going into combat to get hurt will halve your next sp tick. Instead of this try using one of the items in the game that will cause you damage. This will wound you in a controllable fashion, without spoiling your ticks. Legality: Unknown.
Catchy singalong -- Some no combat areas will dispel the effects of singalong, allowing you to cast it again much more quickly. One example of this is the church. Legality: Definitely considered cheating.
Dancing blades -- A common method of kbhing this spell is to party with a friend at a crystal and cast it there with weak weapons such as daggers. One lesser known fact is that you reduce the damage to nearly 0 by using non-weapons, eliminating the need to heal periodically. Legality: Unknown.
Melody of the Misadventurer
This is the nightmare songspell, and deserves special mention. This song is truly horrible to have to KBH, far beyond the worst of all the others. This spell utterly ruins your luck, has absolutely no practical value, and pisses off unidle players who get hit by it. Since your luck will be dead while KBH this, you're essentially unable to solo or party well, and it is very hard to cast the spell successfully when your luck is zero to boot. All this adds up to your character being neutered for a very long time, and quite probably several pkillings.
List of the bardic masters
Master Songspell Taught Successes To KBH. -------------------------------------------------------------- Aline Sounds of Silence 195 successes Cyarus Musicians Alm 100 successes Derevan Kings Feast 100 successes Dria Clandestine Thoughts 280 successes Endek Catchy Singalong 95 successes Forsimnetu Melody of the Misadventurer 295 successes Fyanna Vigilant Melody 105 successes Gilian Campfire Tune 140 successes Holm Venturers Way 90 successes Jolm Arches Favour 1 success Malecketh Strength in Unity 200 successes Noitulove Noituloves Deathlore 202 successes Otharus Soothing Sounds 220 successes Patricia Uncontrollable Mosh 160 successes Razmatag Sweet Lullaby 65 successes Sineyole Jesters Trivia 85 successes Stringbreaker Noituloves Dischord 39 successes Talos War Ensemble 295 successes Tinebring Singing Shepherd 139 successes Vahearun Dancing Blades 400 successes Yomototh Con Fioco 230 successes Zantus Melodical Embracement 325 successes Zinbaf Achromatic Eyes 350 successes Zord Pathfinder 333 successes
The Bardic Quests
Prospective bards also have to do a number of quests to advance in bard levels. These can be quite time consuming, but some of them are actually fun, and most are less painful than KBH'ing. Except of course the ones that require KBH'ing.
The quest for level 4 is one of the hardest for newbies simply because it's so ambiguous. To clarify it slightly without giving much away, you'll need to attract the (positive) attention of a Loremaster or Masterbard. Those who pester and annoy for quest credit will get to stay at level 3. Being players, some Loremasters are more approachable than others, but I can guarantee none of them will react at all well to a freshly reinced bard whining for quest credit. Try using other methods, such as asking intelligent questions, being polite, and perhaps even posting a funny haiku. The quests for levels 9, 11, 18, and 22 also require player interaction, so you won't have much luck with those if you fail here.
level title requirements pass 1st .. Novel song-brother ... civilized background, dex 2nd .. Song scribbler ....... explore the guild [aye] 3rd .. Simple harpist ....... setting the message [aye] 4th .. Pied piper ........... itinerant errand of bards [aye] 5th .. Singing sword ........ win at the bardic casino [aye] 6th .. Explorer ............. explore 15% [aye] 7th .. Wandering loresman ... - [aye] 8th .. Sell-harp ............ meet the songmasters [aye] 9th .. Promising harpist .... have a costume approved [aye] 10th .. Songwriter ........... three songspells kbh'd [aye] 11th .. Known songwriter ..... onstage performance [aye] 12th .. Musician ............. 500 gold received alms [aye] 13th .. Legendteller ......... 10 quests solved [aye] 14th .. Grindstone champion .. instrument created [aye] 15th .. Grinning picker ...... - [aye] 16th .. Bard ................. - [aye] 17th .. Adventurous musician . explore 28% [aye] 18th .. Robust poemist ....... play (minimum 2 persons) [aye] 19th .. Respected musician ... - [aye] 20th .. Deadly singer ........ six songspells kbh'd [aye] 21st .. Reigning sell-harp ... three instruments [aye] 22nd .. Virtuous bard ........ tale [aye] 23rd .. Bladesinger .......... - [aye] 24th .. Songweaver ........... - [aye] 25th .. Songhurler ........... 20 quests solved [aye] 26th .. Bladesdancer ......... - [aye] 27th .. Divine composer ...... five instruments [aye] 28th .. Singing wayfarer ..... explore 35% [aye] 29th .. Expert wayfarer ...... explore 45% [aye] 30th .. Professional bard .... explore 50%, all spellsongs kbh'd [aye] LM .. Loremaster ........... masterbard's approval MB .. Masterbard ........... unimaginable pain and suffering Knowledge By Heart progression in bscore ---------------------------------------- not even started no hope little progress will take forever needs more practice 6000X = rememberance one fifth soon! far far, far away one fourth someday keep on trying.. this is sick, hehe won't tell you! ;) not even halfway someday, my friend seek the knowledge! on the better side courage, doing well dreams do come true 1,000,000X and you see it Gm's fax: +358 0 577795 PING! THE magic number! still far away good progress getting there warm already not so far anymore getting hot almost there! on the verge any play now SooO CLOSE!
Instrument Creation
Every three days a bard with the instrument creation skill can craft a new musical instrument at the guild. A bard may have one instrument of each type, and store spares at the guild. Properly made instruments can grant significant bonuses to stats without occupying a standard equipment slot. Their power is based on your bardic might at the time of creation, the material it's made from, and the quality of the instrument.
Making mistakes during the creation process permanently lowers the potential quality of the finished instrument. Instruments have a quality ranking which follows the same progression as bardic might and player attributes.
Instrument creation messages
From least to most damaging
You make a slightest mistake, not seriously lessening the quality of the Instrument. Awwww shit, you make a clear mistake, lowering the quality clearly.
Instrument types, material amount required, and materials unsuitable for instruments.
instrument material not allowed materials
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bagpipes 50 kilos air
banjo 20 kilos burlap
bongo 12 kilos chalk
cello 35 kilos charcoal
clarinet 8 kilos clay
contrabasso 70 kilos cloth
cymbals 9 kilos coal
didgeridoo 28 kilos cotton
flute 5 kilos earth
guitar 30 kilos emulsion
harmonica 2 kilos enchanted air
harp 40 kilos feathers
horn 30 kilos fire
lute 18 kilos flesh
mandoline 18 kilos food
maracas 2 kilos fur
oboe 12 kilos hemp
piccolo 2 kilos ice
saxophone 30 kilos leather
sitar 22 kilos paper
tambourine 7 kilos phosphorus
trumpet 25 kilos rubber
tuba 80 kilos silk
violin 25 kilos sulphur
xylophone 8 kilos vegetation
water
wax
wool