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OK, my point was, that in order to use the whole point of a bard, you HAVE to use an instrument. Well, if making a bard hold an instrument does get used. The one class that will not really be affected will be Liches because they will just hold an instrument, and a shield. I am just trying to make a point, that I doubt people will like bard any more if that happens. Which is why I suggested the blind/ silence options. To try them out at least.
Emtae
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~~@Emtae:~~
> The one class that will not really be affected will be Liches because they will just hold an instrument, and a shield.
I just want you to know how illogical that statement sounds. If a lich holds an instrument and a shield, what are they going to be able to hit with? NOTHING! Both of their hands will be full. It will amount to the same thing every other race will have if they have to hold something and a shield.
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~~@Xevira:~~
> ~~@Emtae:~~
>
> > The one class that will not really be affected will be Liches because they will just hold an instrument, and a shield.
>
> I just want you to know how illogical that statement sounds. If a lich holds an instrument and a shield, what are they going to be able to hit with? NOTHING! Both of their hands will be full. It will amount to the same thing every other race will have if they have to hold something and a shield.
You could smack the shit out of someone with a shield, if you really wanted to 8)
I added the ability to play withou holding an instrument basically, because a lot of people complained that bards were a bit weak… if you play during combat, its kind of assumed that you sheath your sword or what have you while playing, thus the loss of attacks.
I'm not sure if bards are a bad class anymore. Sorry I havent read through this entire post, but I wanted to get that out so people know why it was originally done... shit, I hope I haven't gone completely off topic. Sorry if i have.
I htink maybe, we should go a different direction with them than juts h aving the pre-set songs? I think having a few songs of lore, and stuff, is great but maybe you shuld be able to make/play your own songs with different affects. Basically expanding the bard's musical capabilities, maybe let them sing or something of the sort. can anyone suggest a reason/way to or not to do this?
Perhaps we could give them a somewhat limited sort of lore-master ability (like Karnak. ) limited meaning, that if a bard has been somewheer before, they can track certain items somehow. Could we substitute this for having to hold the instrument you play?
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Here's my suggestions on changing bards. Allow them to sing to cast their magic songs, with the bards' % in music allowing them to sing up to medium powered songs. For more powerful songs, they would have to wear an instrument to play along with some of the sung parts. Specific instruments(my guess would be mostly wind instruments) like trumpets, flutes, tubas, etc that require breath to play would cast specific songs, but couldn't be used to acompany a bard's voice. An acompany or instrument skill would determine the power or maybe the availability of medium to high powered songs, or maybe different instrument qualities could enhance sung magic. Instruments could have volume, musical range, and key(average tonality) values, and perhaps combinations of range/key combined with different sung parts could alter the effect of songs or invoke unique songs. Volume could affect the power of some songs, or maybe even allow the song's effects to cary over room borders. It would be really cool, in my opinion at least, to collect special/quest musical instruments to make a bard very versatile… And a magical expanding baby grand piano of madness would be cool to whip out and start jamming on to destroy your foes... not to mention it would be soooooo cool if a formation of bards could play together for tremendous magical effect... ~whew~
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I personally only see a few things needed to make bards fair. Tone curse of the abyss drastically down for one.
If player is holding instrument then increase speed and affect level by 10%
If player is not holding then sing with decreased speed and affect level by 10%
If player is blind check for holding instrument, if no instrument sing with 30% failure rate.
If player silenced check for holding instrument, no instrument, no play.
Some other checks could be to gather how many targets there are, and for every target past 1 add a 5% failure rate, represented by.. stage fright or what not.
Another idea is to give racial charisma to every class and have that affect the affect level slightly. i.e. elves would be the highest on a scale of 1-3 having a 3 so theyd get a +2 to the affect level where as a lich would be 1 and have a -1 to affect level.
Just some ideas.
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Pravus's idea does pose some interesting possibilities, though substanial work for the imms to revamp the instruments.
Some simple suggestions if that route was taken:
Brass Instruments-Would have high AC
Wind Instruments (flutes i.e.)-Perhaps a speed increase of some sort
Percussion Instruments- Increased damage
Stringed Instruments-Reduction of music cost
No real theme going on but if bards are going to have to hold the instruments to play, making instruments that play more of a role might be cool. You could also make it so you can play only certain songs on an instrument, which would be a balancing nightmare of course, but you could hardcode the spell into the instrument so it behaves sort of like a wand or what not.
I.E.
Llauf bangs a drum solo on his War Drum!
The earth trembles beneath your feet!
The earth trembles beneath your feet!
The earth trembles beneath your feet!
or
Llauf plucks an epic ballad on his Lute!
You feel slower!
You feel weaker!
Alot of possibilities.
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Here is what music needs to do:
Drop all offensive affects. No fireball. No lightning. No energy drain. I can't even find a reason why faerie fire should work.
Music should affect mood and mentality.
Music should put people to sleep while playing continuously. You stop playing to attack, person wakes up. It should affect things like inducing a frenzy. It should slow and hasten a person. Given a stretch, music can make people fly ie. Peter Pan in giving good feelings makes you fly.
Sung cords.
These are sung, if you couldn't guess. Pure and simple, they do damage. I know I made a post about bards somewhere and put this into it. These are special attacks, and subject to silence spell. Some could be focused to a single person. The others would hit the entire room, making it risky.
I am too lazy to go searching for the thread, so suffice it to say, not many had objections to it and should be revived to continue this discussion.
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~~@Syn:~~
> ~~@Xevira:~~
>
> > ~~@Emtae:~~
> >
> > > The one class that will not really be affected will be Liches because they will just hold an instrument, and a shield.
> >
> > I just want you to know how illogical that statement sounds. If a lich holds an instrument and a shield, what are they going to be able to hit with? NOTHING! Both of their hands will be full. It will amount to the same thing every other race will have if they have to hold something and a shield.
> You could smack the shit out of someone with a shield, if you really wanted to 8)
>
> I added the ability to play withou holding an instrument basically, because a lot of people complained that bards were a bit weak… if you play during combat, its kind of assumed that you sheath your sword or what have you while playing, thus the loss of attacks.
>
> I'm not sure if bards are a bad class anymore. Sorry I havent read through this entire post, but I wanted to get that out so people know why it was originally done... shit, I hope I haven't gone completely off topic. Sorry if i have.
>
> I htink maybe, we should go a different direction with them than juts h aving the pre-set songs? I think having a few songs of lore, and stuff, is great but maybe you shuld be able to make/play your own songs with different affects. Basically expanding the bard's musical capabilities, maybe let them sing or something of the sort. can anyone suggest a reason/way to or not to do this?
>
> Perhaps we could give them a somewhat limited sort of lore-master ability (like Karnak. ) limited meaning, that if a bard has been somewheer before, they can track certain items somehow. Could we substitute this for having to hold the instrument you play?
Ok, my reasons for requiring bards to hold instruments for the most part are 1) 95+% of all instruments require you to hold it to play them very well, for most people. 2) another is my issues with how holding things in MERCs are … so illogical...
A fully armed person dualing or weapon+shield, or even wielding+holding can still use a light (which the game says we HOLD it, regardless what anyone restrings the item into) which would mean they have three hands. Add in the bard's instrument usage, that's using four hands! As I said, that's an issue I have with MERCs in general.
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Okay here's something. Granted it's not very realistic to be able to hold a light a weapon and a shield all at once, but if you make it too realistic, it'll get really restrictive, and rather annoying.
So I'm really not sure "Could we really hold all that crap at once?" is an issue.
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Having a light source and two other held items does seem unrealistic. This is only because of the "You light the whatever and hold it."
Maybe that line should be changed to read something a little more believable, or just changed to take out the hold part.
You light the black heart of Gazar.
Then you're down to only two items held (three if you're a bard). Holding an instrument, problem solved.
ANd in the past bards did suck, then CoA became popular, Rigor became heavily useful, and Illusionists found a liking to the songs not being blocked by spell deflection.
And even if bard music will always be unblockable by spell deflection, in no_magic rooms, a bard shouldn't be able to play at all. No_Magic rooms should be more like Silence rooms.
