Bardic Abilities, Skills and Lore

I realize with my playing of Veldeenna Ravenclaw, a bard. That in general most bards are seen as music players without much else to go on, which is entirely untrue as I've been showing ingame and I was wondering if players might have suggestions for helping to fan it out, let me grant some suggestions that are quite canon.

Dancing, miming, acting, wind instruments, string instruments, sleight of hand tricks, balancing acts, firethrowers and fire eating, acrobatic acts and even hypnotism. In general the idea of a bard is not just the idea of a "Loremaster" or a "Musician" they are dabblers by nature where as a rogue is a cutthroat a sly theif, a treasure hunter or even a swashbuckler. Bards are akin to the idea of a professional in trades and abilities. But they do so not in a hard working and studious manner as the "Dungeonscape" Factotum class does, which expresses this in the core of "Know a little of everything, do a little of everything" this is merely one side of the bard as a "Dabbler".

The bard is by nature a Dabbler, Performer and Collector. The performer part was explained. But the dabbler part falls under the lines of the 3 core disputes of what seperates classes in terms of abilities of Might, Magic and Skill. Bards are nearly the sole class that achieves a perfect balance of the 3, and in epic levels express this to unbelievable preportions. Whilst I do agree they shouldn't be inclinded to do "Epic Spells" since in epic levels they are able to delve into epic amount of skill and might.. yet their magic seriously takes a drop behind as it does not progress past the lvl 20 stage.. unlike a full on mage. I would like to suggest Epic Performances also the potential to dabble in other class spellbooks as an arcane counterpart.

Lastly, the Collector. They gather all manner of lore, artifacts, songs & tales, wealth, travels and reputation they can hope to achieve in their lifetime by whatever means often leading to a very open and social lifestyle traveling admist different races and places to gather such compared to a wizard merely satisfied with the lore of his library, or the rogue who merely loots whatever he can find. The bard takes any and all means to get it for whatever purposes. The rest I leave to debate, I hope to hear positive feedback

Crescent_Black wrote:compared to a wizard merely satisfied with the lore of his library

Dugmaren Brightmantle has Dwarven wizards as worshippers that like to go outdoors to learn!

Well to be fair I haven't seen Vel do a dance and the only interaction my wizard has had with her
is to simply discuss swallowing swords and that Vel does very little reading...

Bards already have access to some spells in other lists (an arcane version of cure light wounds!).
Since bardic spells are really arcane ones, what other spells could they take from the other classes?
(I'm thinking of the divine caster spell lists here mainly)

Also, Bard's are limited to spells from the sixth echelon(/spell level/circle/etc...), are you suggesting
that the spells from a higher echelon below the 10th (Epic spells) should be available to Bards with
the appropriate level?

If so, then consider that whilst the Bard is a dabbler, a Sorcerer or a Wizard takes time to develop
the power/knowledge to manipulate/learn the spells of the higher echelons!

No, no. When I typed "Epic Performances" I never ment to that of spells. "Epic Performances" as in something along the lines of "Ritual Dances" and "Epics" <-- legendary tales/stories. Or even Ancient Songs. In a sense, something of large impact but does not function in the influence a spell would through the means of spellcraft so much as a Performance which is the bards forte. Their magic stops at a point, but mechanically their skills and combat prowess continue well beyond their magical one. Which I found very disappointing.. so I figured to resolve this mechanical flaw they would be able to perform these.. "epic performances"

In essence an "Epic Performance" is like a regular one but it goes well beyond the norm of a regular bard.. it has reached the zenith and has obtained a magical or supernatural nature about it, such perfection and talent that it weaves magic and fascinates the masses to an almost thrall-like presence. Something along that line, Also!

Ritual Dancing. It is similar to a "Communal Spell" where several mages gather and sit in a circle and chant the same spell for days for an epic spell, think High Elven Magic. In 'this' case Ritual Dancing is where several bards perform a dance in synchronized form to perform something amazing. Just some ideas.

An addendum to my above post which I forgot to make comment on. When I spoke about the dabbling into other spells, I ment for more variety due to the fact that bards have been apparently issued an arcane spellbook but are unable to be taught anything in it.. which doesn't make any sense, either that was needing to be fixed or that is something to be researched, OR it was something bards can pass along to each other by whatever means.

However what doesn't make sense is their current ability to write new songs.. with the presence of said spellbook. Something either isn't adding up or there was a flook in the system. Regardless a bards lore does not come from 'just' casual talk. They do in fact study as indepth as wizards and in fact often have magical bloodlines akin to sorcerers. An example of their scholarly pursuits? Oghma from Faerunian lore. Speaks for itself about bards.

Something About bards Horay! :d
as you may have seen Aira who has been known on occasion is sing in tivook inn( limited booking's only i'm afraid! )She has been intersted in try to learn as much as she can lore wise EG learn a dwarven bard's song but she many want's to learn as much as she can about what ever she can
Absol 13

Crescent_Black wrote:When I spoke about the dabbling into other spells, I meant for more variety due to the fact that bards have been apparently issued an arcane spellbook but are unable to be taught anything in it.. which doesn't make any sense, either that was needing to be fixed or that is something to be researched, OR it was something bards can pass along to each other by whatever means.

However what doesn't make sense is their current ability to write new songs.. with the presence of said spellbook. Something either isn't adding up or there was a flook in the system. Regardless a bards lore does not come from 'just' casual talk. They do in fact study as indepth as wizards and in fact often have magical bloodlines akin to sorcerers... .

The spellbook in all caster inventories is a work around - it allows us to include new spells in a way that does not require a HAK on the PLAYER side. Ultimately we will offer an OPTIONAL HAK which will enable some amazing NWN enhancements including the inclusion of our added spells in the standard NWN style (ICONS and all). SOME of the added spells (arcane) are available to BARD PCs, learned in the same manner as other PCs.

Hope this helps clear some of the confusion.

The feature we added allowing BARDs to recite songs, poems and stories from their "Bardic College Lore" is meant as a RP enhancement, permitting your BARD to ICly perform - ultimately this bardic lore will include songs, stories and poems that may include clues vital to some adventures. The full range of this database is not yet in place, merely some 'test texts' such as the Jabberwock.

WE ARE SEEKING HELP IN CREATING THIS BARDIC COLLEGE LORE - anyone interested in helping, please PM me and volunteer. We need both original works, and adaptations of medieval tracts too.

Be well. Game on.
GM_ODA