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Let's face it OSI style barding is insane and aside from peacemaking really has no basis in anything.

*kerflush*

*waves bye bye to existing system*

I don't know how many people here would have played it, but long ago there was a game called "The Bards Tale", in it bards were cool, and while a group could get by without one they were incredibly handy to have around. Some of it doesn't really translate well into UO terms but I'm going to give it a shot and then tack on a few other ideas.

Skill #1: Musicianship - this is your ability to play and continue to carry a tune. When a song is playing (details follow) there is a musicianship skill check every 10 seconds if it fails and must be restarted this is subject to the 2 minute timer.

Skill #2: Harmonics - this is your ability to channel the song for increased effectiveness. Harmonics is to musicianship as invocation is to magery.

Once a song is started it continues and affects any of the target group in range (something along the lines of campfire ranges probably will work well) until it is stopped, there is a 2 minute delay between ending a song and being able to start the next one. A bard can only have one song active at a time. Two (or more) bards could have different songs going but not stack to double a given effect of a single song. This musicianship skill check and timer is not part of the original vision but is probably needed for play balance issues otherwise everyone would have access to the songs at 60 skill.

Ok, on to the songs: I am listing these with their original power and my attempt at UOifying them

1 Falkentyne's Fury This tune increases the damage your party will do in combat, by driving them into a berserker rage.

If the song is playing all friendlies(Note 1) gain an additional harmonics/5-10 to their total damage (added in last after all the assorted multipliers), so the bonus would be 2 at 60, 6 at 80 and 10 at 100. *thinks* Actually that looks like it might be a bit high, but it seems a decent starting point for discussion purposes..

2 The Seeker's Ballad This song will produce light when exploring, and during combat it will increase the party's chance of hitting a foe with a weapon.

The light effect would be fairly useless, I'm going to ignore that. As far as combat goes if the song is active all friendlies (Note 1) have an increased chance to hit of harmonics/5-10.

3 Wayland's Watch This song will soothe your savage foes, making them do less damage in combat.

All hostiles (Note 1) in range do reduced damage (after all assorted multipliers) at a rate of harmonics/5-10.

4 Badh'r Kilnfest This is an ancient melody, which will heal the Bard's wounds during traveling, and heal the party's wounds during combat

All friendlies (Note 1) in rage are healed at a rate of harmonics/10-5 hit points every 10 seconds.

5 The Traveller's Tune This melody makes the members of your party more dexterous and agile, and thus more difficult to hit.

All friendlies (Note 1) in range have thier AR increased by harmonics/10-5.

6 Lucklaran This song sets up a partial "anti-magic" field, which gives party members some increased protection against spell casting.

All friendlies in range gain an additional harmonics/10 to their magic resistance.

That is it for the original songs, I can easily see at least one more, basically being the opposite of song 2 to hostiles.

Having equipable instruments would be very handy for this, and limiting armour to ring mail (or chain mail) or less wouldn't hurt too, though I would give the music related skills high dex components at the expense of str so probably you wouldn't be able to hit 90 strength anyway.

All of that is useful and a bard would be something any group would want to have around but is probably going to be boring actually play as it doesn't have much in the way of active things to do, possibly we could have another skill called Dischordance, this is a sonic attack that can be used either at range or against those close at hand. Discordance could also be used as your defensive skill to avoid being hit by melee in combat There is a musicianship skill check to hit similar to melee combat hitting now and do damage a bit less than what an exceptional bow does now.

Another item the game had was firehorns which were magic instrument that basted off a stream of fire at a group of foes, while this probably wouldn't be difficult to make it might wind up being a bit over the top.

Actually on rereading this it may be a bit too powerful, but I think the concept is sound, assuming of course it's even something that is even theoretically scriptable.

Note 1: Not exactly sure how to implement this, karma blue and karma red status won't really work, nor does simply checking based on being a player or not as it would then possibly do bad things/ignore pets.

PS yes I am aware that it is at best odd for someone leading the campaign against buffing to be proposing a bunch of new ones ...

I've never been a fan of the barding system and my only attempt to describe it to my dnd group led to such hilarity we never did get the game going again that night.
Eldric's notion for how barding would work sounds to me at least like a great improvement over the existing system. Detail work and balancing notwithstanding the concept works for me.

To set up friendlies...hmmmm. How about double-click the musical instrumentL instead of playing a tune, it brings up a targeting cursor for you mark all your friends. Targeting the instrument a second time brings up a gump for you to select form the songs you've learned. If you're in war mode, and you're not on the list of friends, you can be affected by the negative songs.

It's looking like bardic training should require you to train Musicianship and Harmonics (surely we can replace taste ID with something useful) AND to learn individual songs from a master bard (npc vendor, new npc, or something). Maybe a book could contain the songs you've learned rather like a Codex Damnorum which begs the question: will there be bardic scrolls? If not,how will the bards of the world learn their new songs?

How about Deva's Voice as a new song. It's a handy one that heals Harmonics/10 damage every 30-60 seconds on all friendlies within about 4 tiles and at the same time, causes Harmonics/20 damage to hostiles within the same range. The fact that it does both harm and healing is unusual and possibly outbalancing, but a limited range and high difficulty
makes it more like a 2nd rate campfire that also burns the bad guys.

This is my idea of bardic skills too. Getting rid of provocation in favor of some kind of Song of Discord. It sounds similar to the new D&D bard whose sonic magic can affect large groups of friendlies or foes. The best thing about games like D&D is that you don't have technical emulator limitations. If your rules say, the spell affects all hostiles within 30', it just somehow skips affecting your friends and innocents.

I agree. The Bard proposed is much more like the D&D version, where a Bard gains different 'songs' that they can use. And while they can be very useful, the one important thing to remember is that D&D Bards can only sing a certain number of times per day.

This is why, I think OSI has given musical instruments 'charges' (or at least they had when I played) so that they ran out after a limited time. I believe that some sort of 'restrictiveness' should be placed on the Bard, whether it is the suggested 'timer' system, item charges, or a mana cost.

I don't disagree with the system above mentioned, especially since I'm considering playing a bard myself when I (eventually) return, but the concept of the Bards I have in my mind are that they're the jack of all trades/musician types, and they shouldn't be particularly effective in battle - but they should be able to fill any missing role.

I do not want to see Bards have scrolls, because scrolls for Magery ruined it. *Everyone* uses scrolls, and it takes away from the mystique and flare of being able to go "Behold! I, the Mage, shall gate us to our destination!" when you recieve the likes of "Uhh mage? Our *Tank* just gated us."

I think Eldric's idea fits the bill nicely. I would like to see the Bards have a unique set of powers that make them interesting to play, but not powerful. But since the game is centralised around combat, or more specifically, the killing of creatures, I imagine the Bard may ultimately be turned into a Jukebox o' Death type of thing.

I draw my conclusions from the above between the staggering difference between the 'peaceful' druid and the 'evil' Necromancer.

Thus, all I ask is that the Bard not become a combatant, but still remain a valuable asset to a party.

- Marius the Black
Trading Zombies for a Lute (soon)

First off, I read this idea and was very intrigued, but I do have a concern: if I'm reading this correctly, bards would be unable to solo hunt. Or did I miss something?

Atei wrote:First off, I read this idea and was very intrigued, but I do have a concern: if I'm reading this correctly, bards would be unable to solo hunt. Or did I miss something?

I wouldn't say unable, though they would definity be geared more toward group endevours. If we assume that a insturment is defined as castable or that it isnt actually wielded on the paper doll, one could elect to only use the 2 main baird skills and take a skill set along the lines of:

Music Harmonics Invocation
Magery Whatever Whatever

If the optional 3rd skill described was put in they would still have thier "sonic" attack, combined with any of the first 3 songs would be fairly strong I think.

Assuming this is all even scriptable it is likely to be a nightmare to playbalance.

*gets ready to change specs if this idea was to be ushered into the game*

Diedra wrote:*gets ready to change specs if this idea was to be ushered into the game*

I concur. Thomas Michaels would stop being a bard/mage all together. Probably become a Druid or maybe even a pure mage.

I'd change specs to join the bardic college right away. If I weren't first in line, I'd sure try to be second. These ideas may not shake the world apart, but making a bard a real bard would surely make them more attractive for me.

Eldric wrote:...possibly we could have another skill called Dischordance, this is a sonic attack that can be used either at range or against those close at hand.

Personally I always thought Disco dance produced a sonic and a visual damage effect.

Just bumping an old thread as a possible future change.