Vanilla bard song

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There are threads here about the Jester and Skald's songs, and their effects - but what about the song of the plain vanilla bard? What does it do specifically, and does it improve with levels? You'd think they'd put some form of description in the manual.

 

The plain bard's song is supposed to increase luck (similar to the 2nd level mage spell Luck) and raise moral. However, it has been ages since I played a vanilla bard so I dont remember if there were any real benefits from him strumming chords. There are people who say his singing does nothing at all.

One thing I can state, though. I noticed that while Haer'Dalis sang, my party was immune to fear. Spells like Symbol of Fear, Horror etc would always be countered by a successful saving throw from everyone in the party. And the song of Blades is the same as that of the normal bard, with the difference that it doesnt increase in power.

Still, the bard's song is still a rather obscure phenomenon. No one really seems knows how or if it works at all. If there is a effect I would guess it benefits saving throws and attack rolls. Perhaps.

 

Speaking of the odd properties of the bard song, I recently ran into an interesting form of it. Against Improved TorGal in D'Arnise stronghold, there was a dramatic difference between Haer'Dalis singing and not singing. Dramatic as in, I could not hit him without the song going, and he could not hit me. It was pretty cool--until Haer'Dalis interjected one of his whining "you're too evil" comments, which ended the song, and suddenly TorGal was turning me into hamburger. That's a pretty steep change if the song is just a modifier of 1 on to hit and armor class.

 

I think it's written somewhere in the in-game class description (+1 to hit and saving throws?), and it doesn't increase with levels (unless you have TOB).

 

The in-game description is as vague as the manual, and doesn't say. Maybe Scythesong would know, he tends to know a lot about this class.

 

The song is as buggy as the manual is vague, and I have yet to learn all of its secrets.

What I have learned is based more on observation (of repeated trials), and the party *is* able to make a save against fear/panic much more often when the song is being played. (raises morale)

In theory the Blade's vanilla song is also able to add a +1 bonus to rolls, but I found that to to be able to find out whether or not this bonus is in effect the only resort is observation. -_-''
(Until, at least, I find out how to view the specifics of the song from the game itself)

The Blade's song, however, seems to be bugged in that it seems to improve with levels, contrary to the description. Since the Blade's own pickpocket is not at one-quarter normal, like the description says, I'm assuming that the song does improve unless I prove myself wrong later.

The bonus to rolls increases with higher levels, but since the changes due to the bonus are not shown on the character status screen, little else can be said about how it works this way.

Eric's post in intriguing, and I'll try to simulate a similar situation later. I'm sure the song isn't able to provide that much of a bonus (Improved Torgal?!?), but I'm thinking there's more to luck than a slight boost to AC and THAC0.

 

I don't have BG2 currently, but the IWD1 version of this song only add 1 to Thac0, damage and saving throws rolls (according to Near Infinity), so I guess the same bonus applies to BG2 Bard's song as well.

 

Yeah, I know what you're saying Scythesong. I couldn't believe it myself. But there's no doubt in my mind that the song made a huge difference in that battle. Night and day.