Talk:Bard/@comment-81.104.204.181-20180307004220

I always wanted to play as a bard, as the game mechanics always seemed to favour specialists, and they were the forgotten all-rounder. I played through BGIEE with a group of five bards and one thief. I was very disappointed.

They are poor as melee fighters as they lack all the requirements. They have no access to fighter strength and although they can use almost any weapon, they cannot place any more than a single skill point in them. The total fighter bonuses from all of that can be huge, but they miss out entirely, therefore doing very poor damage.

On the defensive side it is worse, as they cannot wear high armour, helmets or large shields. Again only a single point of skill means it's the same problem. The massive cumulative fighter bonuses are not there. The biggest problem with armour is vulnerability to missiles. A fighte with a large shield +1 and two points in sword and shield has a whopping -6 to missile armour, You may not realise how high that can get, a bard will be shot to ribbons trying to charge down archers.

Finally, they only have D6 health with a maximum bonus of +2, which combined with the above means they don't last long in a fight.

Having now begun a game with a much more traditional party, I am shocked how much easier fights are. With the bards, it was constantly having to use hit and run tactics to get enemies on their own and try and ambush them. Every single fight had to be thought out, low level groups of archers and all the 2000xp or higher opponents were absolute nightmares, sometimes taking absolutely ages to try and whittle down or pick off. With a 'normal' group I just charge in and clobber everyone.

Their thieving skill is restricted to pickpockets, which I personally never even use. This actually really makes the rogue part of their all-rounder one of the worst.

Their magic casting abilities are BY FAR the best of their skills, and in BGI they are not really all that far behind the mages. They have at least a spell less in each spell level, but that can look worse on paper than in game, they also level up quicker, so for much of the game, they should be a level ahead than a mage too, which also mitigates the issue. But the problem is that as they are not mages, they cannot use mage specific equipment to boost their skills. As noted below, they need to wear no armour to cast spells, but can at least wear bracers.

I never used any bard song, I didn't want to reduce my party number by one during a fight, I felt the pay-off was worse. I may well be wrong here.

Bards have no clerical skills at all, so they are not really an ALL-rounder too

So overall, my much anticipated all bard group (with one theif because the game is playable without someone to remove traps) was not a success, and that made me sad. They may well do better as a fighter hiding behind a tank, but why not just have a second specialist fighter? they make for decent archers, but why not just have a specialist fighter? they are simply not thieves, you need a specialist thief, same for cleric. They are much better mages than anyone gives them credit for but really, why not just have a specialist mage?

Having deemed by experiment a failure, I am unsure if I should continue the party into BGIIEE. I really am tired of every single scrap being a long drawn out tactical fight. Would "use any item" help? would their spell cap at level 6 spells mean they turn from almost as good as a mage to just rubbish mages? I don't know.