Bard solo questions

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I'm planning on soloing a bard. What weapons and armour should I use?

 

Off the top of my head, there is the bard specific armor in the planar prison. There is also the elven chain you can get early in Trademeet and then late in SOA.

Since you can't do more than become proficient you have plenty of proficiencies but I'll just say that shortswords are greatly underappreciated -- Kundane gives you an extra attack that's not listed. If you feel like you can reconcile it, steal Haer D'Aleis (sp) sword that drains wisdom. Awesome weapon. The wisdom drain works through stone skins and any stat reduced to below 0 equals death. Plus, if you have TOB installed, you can quickly get a +4 weapon. And, shortswords just make roleplaying sense to me.

I found a solo bard to be pretty easy, I went with a blade but in retrospect a skald might be a bit stronger early on. Once you reach level 15 you can summon skeleton warriors and with the benefits of a skalds song a group of 5 skeleton warriors will decimate most everything.

Another nice but cheesy tactic is to use mislead. Park the misled image elsewhere and have it sing the bard song, now you get the benefits of your bard song, along with your summons, and can fight unseen. This isn't a TOB forum but you can see the implications of this with the improved TOB song.

The obly problem I had is that because of his limited spell selection I found my strategy to be rather limited. The strategies I found were very effective but it became a tad monotonous: blur, blur, summon a bunch of skeleton warriors, improved haste, mislead, tensers, hack and slash etc. Still was fun though.

 

Laches, Haer'Dalis swords are named Chaos and Entropy - only usable by tieflings (humans with a demonic tint in them, and no, you can't play as one). One sword deals 3 points of poison damage (if not Entropy, then Chaos ) on each hit (save vs. death for none). The other sword drains two points of Dexterity on each hit.

The weapon you are most likely thinking of is Kachiko's Wazikashi (scimitar proficiency), a weapon you can get with from Joluv (special collector's CD). That weapon isn't as good as it sounds - 2 points of Wisdom damage, yes (meaning you could, theoretically, kill Firkraag with two sucessful hits), but keep in mind that it requires a failed save vs. spell to drain the Wisdom, and then it only lasts 2 rounds. Not likely to kill anything via ability drain, especially with a Bard's THAC0.

Anyways, the armor Laches referred to is the Melodic Mail; you get it after the first battle in the Planar Prison. The Planar Prison isn't easy - without it, just settle for Bracers of Armor (Ribald's). For weapons, I always like the good ol' fashioned swords - but keep in mind that means trouble with Clay Golems (or pretty much any Golem, given a Bard's not-so-adequate fighting skills, even with Tenser's and Blur). As for a ranged weapon, I like Crossbows better - they usually provide a good plus to damage and hit when you're using heavy ones - and there are plenty of Bolts of Lightning and Biting in the game.

For misc. items, I like the Cloak of the Sewers; Regeneration, +1 to AC, and being a rat is a bit handy. A Ring of Regeneration (or Ioun Stone) is very necessary - you'll be taking plenty of naps to heal without one. Likewise, a Ring of Wizardry is nice to have (although it be hard to choose between the many rings in the game, when you can only choose for one on each hand).

Gauntlets of Ogre Strength are as always, good - but Girdles of Giant Strength are better. (of 19 - you can get at Ribald's; of 22, you'll have to fight a trio of Rakshasa in Suldanesellar; of 23 you'll have to defeat the Demon Knights in the Underdark- no small task for a lone Bard.)

For boots - the Boots of Speed (Planar Prison) are quite useful, but while they make your character run fast, don't be deluded into thinking they'll increase the number of attacks. If you want a higher number of attacks, choose Belm (scimitar, Druid Grove) or Kudane (short sword, Planar Prison). But keep in mind that those are both +2, and you'll need something of better enchantment later in the game.

I hope this rant helps.

 

Yep, and I know I'll likely be chastised here, but if you plan on going through TOB you'll get HLA's for the rogue and soloing these come early. That means UAI. So, you can use Haer'Dalis' sword and I believe there is no save for its wisdom drain.

 

Laches - it's a dexterity drain.

 

Duh! I stand corrected, dex drain then. Same principal though, underappreciated ability.

 

Also not useable by your PC.

 

read my other posts again Rastor, you should be criticizing me for this being the SOA forum : )

 

heya. what about if i use SK to change my race to tiefling? would that allow me to use Haer'Dalis' swords?

 

Try it.. ?

[How about checking the date of the last post before your resurrect it from the dead? ] -Tal

[ February 04, 2003, 20:17: Message edited by: Taluntain ]