Bard/SlashTHEM
In SlashTHEM, the Bard is a role available to the hero that is incorporated from the original Bard patch by André Bertelli Araújo.
Bards can start as neutral or chaotic in alignment, and can be played as humans, gnomes, elves, drow, incantifiers, hobbits, orcs, or clockwork automata.
Starting inventory
Each Bard starts with the following equipment before racial adjustments:
- a +1 silver dagger
- +1 cloak
- 3–6 uncursed apples
- 3–6 uncursed oranges
- 5–6 potions of booze
- two musical instruments:
- a wooden harp or a wooden flute with equal probability as their default main instrument
- a bell (3⁄20 chance) or a pea whistle (17⁄20 chance) as their secondary instrument
Orcish Bards have a roughly equal probability of starting with either a bugle or a tooled horn as their main instrument rather than the default, and are given two additional stacks of 1-2 random comestibles.
Bards start with knowledge of all musical instruments and will have knowledge of the spellbooks for the sleep, confuse monster, slow monster, cause fear, and charm monster spells. They are also given knowledge of 5–15 random non-tool magical items.
The Bard's default starting pet is a little dog or kitten with equal probability.
Intrinsics
Bards gain the following abilities upon reaching the following experience levels:
- XL 5: Sleep resistance
- XL 10: Stealth
Attributes
The Bard's starting attributes are distributed as follows:
| Attributes | Strength | Dexterity | Constitution | Intelligence | Wisdom | Charisma | Remaining |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minimum attributes | 7 | 10 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 10 | 28 |
| Distribution percentages | 10% | 25% | 10% | 10% | 15% | 30% |
Skills
Bards have the following skills available to them before racial adjustments:
| Bard skills | |
|---|---|
| Max | Skills |
| Basic |
|
| Skilled |
|
| Expert |
|
Bards start with Basic skill in bare-handed combat and the musicalize spell skill. They use the use the charisma attribute when calculating the success rate of casting enchantment spells outside of using the musicalize spell skill, and use intelligence when casting other spells. Their special spell is sleep.
Bard songs
Bards also start the game with knowledge of all songs that can be played on tonal instruments via the musicalize spell skill:
| Song | Description | Spell | Preferred Instrument | Alternative Instrument | Duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lullaby | Puts enemies to sleep | sleep | wooden harp | wooden flute | 4 turns |
| Cacophony | Confuses enemies | confuse monster | leather drum | tooled horn | 5 turns |
| Drowsiness | Slows enemies | slow monster | wooden flute | wooden harp | 5 turns |
| Despair | Causes enemies to flee | cause fear | tooled horn | leather drum | 6 turns |
| Friendship | Temporarily tames monsters | charm monster | wooden harp | wooden flute | 6 turns |
| Inspire Courage | Increases the damage done by pets | cause fear | bugle | leather drum | 6 turns |
Knowledge of the spell is not required to play a corresponding song. The chance of a song successfully taking effect is dependent on the hero's experience level, their relevant attributes (strength for drums, dexterity for other instruments, charisma for song strength level), and their skill level:
ATTRIBUTE x 2 x MUSICALITY_SKILL + experience level
The musicalize spell skill gives a value of 1 if the hero is at Unskilled, 2 if they are at Basic, and so on. Bonuses are applied in the following order:
- If the instrument is an artifact or the instrument is the song's preferred type, increase the chance by 50%.
- If your health is lower than 30% of your maximum, increase the chance by 100%.
- If the instrument is a drum or a harp, and you are wearing a shield, decrease the chance by 50%.
- If you are blind, increase the chance by your experience level.
- If you are using the Lyre of Orpheus (Bard's quest artifact) and you are not playing one of: Rally, Meditative Healing, Lullaby, or Friendship, decrease the chance by 50%.
A user has suggested improving this page or section as follows:
"Ensure this matches SlashTHEM mechanics, and detail some more precise effects of the songs (e.g. pets helping with singing, enemies counter-singing)."
Techniques
Bards can learn the disarm technique by reaching Skilled in any weapon, and also gain the following techniques at the listed experience levels:
| Level | Technique |
| 1 | Primal roar |
| 10 | Booze |
| 20 | Rage eruption |
Rank titles
The status line displays one of the following ranks for the corresponding experience levels:
- XL 1-2: Bard
- XL 3-5: Lyrist
- XL 6-9: Sonneteer
- XL 10-13: Jongleur
- XL 14-17: Troubadour
- XL 18-21: Minstrel
- XL 22-25: Lorist
- XL 26-29: Well-known Bard
- XL 30: Master Bard
Quest
The Bard's quest sees a Bard hero traveling to the island of Anthemoessa to fight the siren Aglaope for the Lyre of Orpheus, an artifact magic harp. While carried, The Lyre of Orpheus grants magic resistance. Applying The Lyre of Orpheus can play music or improvise as with a normal wooden harp, and it can be used to play any song for the musicalize spell skill. Invoking The Lyre of Orpheus behaves the same as reading an uncursed scroll of taming, with a chance of taming monsters adjacent to the hero.
Applying or invoking The Lyre also gives a random rumor dependent on its beatitude: the rumor will be true if The Lyre is blessed, false if cursed, and can be either if uncursed.
Gods
In contrast to the original patch, the Bard pantheon in SlashTHEM is based on various classical-era gods of music. Their first sacrifice gift is Shimmerstaff.
- Lawful: Minerva
- Neutral: Apollo
- Chaotic: Linus
Strategy
A user has suggested improving this page or section as follows:
"Structure and fill out similar to other SLASH'EM and SlashTHEM role strategy sections, and differentiate accordingly."
