Bard

Bard

Alignment: Any
HP/Level: 6 + CON
Armor (Light, Medium), Shields, Weapons (Simple)
Skill Points: 6 + INT
Saves: Fort Low, Will High, Reflex High
BAB: +3/4
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Feat Changes
Death in EFU

Background

The Bard in EFU: Sands of Intrigue is many things. A tale spinner, a singer, a master of lore, an inspiring presence to allies and filling enemies with dread. Bards can be adept at a surprising number of roles that their namesake would not suggest. Some bards choose to focus on a more martial role - using their songs, magic and ability to use a wide array of trinkets, scrolls or wands to make up for the lack of might that a Fighter or Barbarian might have. Other bards choose to focus on politics, subterfuge, adventuring or even darker paths. There is little a Bard can't do with at least a bit of skill.

Arcane Armor Training

At level 3, Bards get Arcane Armor Training as a bonus feat, which reduces the arcane spell failure chance due to the armor you are wearing by up to 15%.

Mechanics

Alignment: Any

Hit Points: 6 + CON per level

Proficiencies: Armor (Light, Medium), Shields, Weapon (Simple)

Skill Points: 6 + INT modifier per level (5+int modifier)*4 at 1st level

Class Skills: Appraise, Bluff, Concentration, Craft Trap, Discipline, Heal, Hide, Listen, Lore, Move Silent, Parry, Perform, Persuade, Pick Pocket, Spellcraft, Taunt, Tumble, Use Magic Device

Save Progression: Fort Low, Will High, Ref High

Attack Bonus: +3/4 levels

Spellcasting: Arcane, Charisma-based (a base charisma score of 10 + the spell's level is required to cast a spell, bonus spells are based on modified charisma, and the charisma modifier affects spell DCs), and spontaneous cast (no spell preparation required). Bards begin the game knowing four cantrips.

Changes

Change	Description
Bard Song	In addition to the default Bard Song & Curse Song, bards on EFU can learn server-specific Custom Songs. These songs will be discovered in-game during the course of your character's adventures! The more common songs can be purchased in Ephia's Well, but there also exists rarer, more prestigious music, hidden deep among the secrets and treasures buried in the ash desert. A good starting location for aspiring bards is Elossi's, located in Ephia's Well main plaza. There is always a minstrel or two performing at such a frequented location, and many willing to sell song sheets from their collection. The prices, effects, and rarity of such songs will vary. Players are able to freely compose and share songs with one another, using their songbooks as well.
Songsheets and Songbooks	Bards may use the command "/c songbook activate <#>" to rapidly switch between custom songs and/or create hotbar text macros which do so for them. For the below songs and everyone's convenience, their values are listed in addition to their name. In order to access the custom Bard songs available in EFU: Sands of Intrigue, a Songbook item is required - you will receive one when you activate a perk or buy one from a store. You can add a song to your songbook either by using a songsheet on your songbook or absorbing another songbook into yours (either by being gifted a songbook or stealing one from another Bard). To absorb a songbook into yours use it like you would a songsheet and target the songbook you want to absorbs the songs into. There are two varieties of custom Bard songs in EFU. The variety that are beneficial to your allies and the cursed variety which affect enemies via damage, negative effects or even damage. You can scribe cursed songs to your songbook without the Cursed Song feat but you will not be able to use them. There are two types of songs you can have active at any given moment in EFU. First, the Cursed Song feat (which requires you to take the feat to use) and only affects hostile targets. Second, any other custom bard song of which there are two types of - inspiring which typically affects allies positively or cursed which typically affects hostile targets negatively (and requires the Cursed Song feat to use but not to scribe into your songbook). For every 3 points of the Bard's total Perform skill Bard songs will last 1 extra round. Additionally, every character level over 5 grants another round of duration.
Cut Purse	Rogues and Bards receive a Cut Purse player tool accessible through the Crafting Menu which allows you to cut another player's purse to steal a small amount of gold from them - often without them getting any IC or OOC indication of who did it depending on how you perform the theft, how well your skill checks are and various other factors. Please remember that PVP rules apply to this tool! You can use Cut Purse more often than Pick Pocket (the 30-minute delay only applies to the target you robbed previously). Size of the purse matters – for someone with five gold coins, losing even one is a major setback and very easy to discern. Get up in the thousands and you may not notice the few gold coins slipping away. Even if you are successful - the target will (after a certain delay) receive a message saying that their purse is missing. If you fail your PC will be dropped out of stealth and an emote forced on your PC indicating that he attempted so. Pickpocket skill will help ensure the target does not actually see the attempted theft. Bluff skill will allow you to act casually so that they do not know it was you. Stealth and or invisibility will increase your chances of success by making it harder to spot the attempt.
Multiclassing	Bards can multiclass freely but if they do the effects of their perk are disabled. Whatever song you gained remains in your songbook, however. They may still take levels in prestige classes without losing their perk.
Perks	Bards are a colorful and strongly characterized class on EFU, but are frequently used for multiclass characters because of their versatility. These perks provide a small boost for characters fully dedicated to bard levels and are disabled if levels are taken in any other core class. Prestige Classes do not disable class perks, but may come with other restrictions. You can access the complete list of perks here.

Bard Spell List

Cantrips	1st Circle	2nd Circle	3rd Circle	4th Circle
Cure minor wounds	Amplify	Alarm	Bestow curse	Cacophonic Burst
Daze	Balagarn's iron horn	Alter Self	Charm monster	Cure critical wounds
Flare	Charm person	Blindness/deafness	Clairaudience/clairvoyance	Dismissal
Light	Cure light wounds	-	Confusion	Dominate person
Resistance	Expeditious retreat	-	Cure serious wounds	Greater Heroism
Vicious Mockery	Grease	Clarity	Dispel magic	Hold monster
-	Hearthfire	Cloud of bewilderment	Displacement	Horizikaul's Shout
-	Identify	Crushing Despair	Fear	Improved invisibility
-	Lesser dispel	Cure moderate wounds	Find traps	Legend lore
-	Mage armor	Curse of Impending Blades	Greater magic weapon	Mass Ultravision
-	Magic weapon	Darkness	Gust of wind	Neutralize poison
-	Mislead	Enhance Ability	Haste	Summon creature IV
-	Protection from alignment	-	Heroism	War cry
-	Scare	Ghostly visage	Invisibility sphere	-
-	Sleep	Hold person	Keen edge	-
-	Summon creature I	Invisibility	Magic circle against alignment	-
-	-	-	Phantoms of Deception	-
-	-	See invisibility	Remove curse	-
-	-	Silence	Remove disease	-
-	-	Sound burst	Slow	-
-	-	Summon creature II	Summon creature III	-
-	-	Tasha's hideous laughter	Wounding whispers	-
-	-	Ultravision	Animate Dead	-
-	-	Whispering Wind	-	-

Use Magic Device

Use Magic Device is a skill which allows Bards to use a wide variety of trinkets, wands, rods and equipment not normally usable by Rogues. In the low level setting of EFU this can be quite potent indeed once the Bard gets their UMD skill to a sufficient level.

Basic Guidelines

Some five years ago a DM called Thrawn modified the UMD so that each point of UMD would give a boost to your ability to use magical devices of higher total cost instead of giving a boost on every instance of five points. This means in practice that in EFU, every point into UMD will progressively increase your chance to use items that might otherwise be inaccessible to you.

The highest amount is used if there are two or more restricting factors in the item, for instance an item only usable by Halfling and only usable by Evil will use the Alignment UMD value. Your UMD value will allow you to use items which have total cost below your UMD value and the appropriate restriction table.

Item Cost

Total cost refers to the cost that is calculated for the item by the game, depending on the abilities it is capable of doing. For instance, a normal longsword has a total cost of 30 gold coins. Adding +1 cold damage to it will raise its total cost by the NWN standards to a total cost of 580 gold coins. The total cost is not the selling price you receive in shops or even the price you buy them from shops. You cannot determine the true cost of the items you hold in game through any method but you can verify it by creating an exact duplicate of the weapon/item in the toolset and then viewing its total cost.

Note that the additional cost can be set by DM to any for any item they create, thus raising the total cost. That means you cannot know for certain if the items total cost is the same it would be if you created a duplicate of that. The DMs likely only bother to change items cost for exceptional items and for a good reason. If you encounter an item which does not have the normal total cost, it is not allowed to spread the knowledge of its modified total cost or value of UMD needed to use it.

Restrictions

In the gameworld, many items are restricted in some ways. You are usually allowed to use any item you find with your UMD skill, however few exceptions exist to that rule. First, if an item has "//OOC: Do not use this item if you are not a Halfling and of Good alignment" then it means you are not allowed to use it under any circumstances when you don't meet all the requirements. This is of course unless a DM has directly told you that you can use it.

Second, use your common sense. Although most of these items are marked with the earlier //OOC mark in its description, there might exist items like Only usable by halfling -suits, which might not be magical but simply too small for larger type of creatures to use. No magical proficiency will make you able to fit into pants which are five size smaller than your own. If you are not sure whether you can use a certain item with UMD, you should always consult a DM first.