New Bard Training

[Moist Happenings]

***** (at level 1), your current skill bonuses and ranks (including all modifiers) are:
Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Two Weapon Combat..................| 20 4
Armor Use..........................| 10 2
Shield Use.........................| 10 2
Combat Maneuvers...................| 10 2
Brawling...........................| 20 4
Multi Opponent Combat..............| 10 2
Physical Fitness...................| 10 2
Dodging............................| 10 2
Harness Power......................| 10 2

Spell Lists
Minor Elemental....................| 1

Spell Lists
Bard...............................| 1

Your thoughts? I know i'm missing something. I haven't played a bard since 1996.

[Ebondale]

TWC and Shield use? O_o

Personally I wouldn't 2x MOC, by the way. Might put those extra TPs toward applicable Mental Lores?

EDIT: MIU wouldn't hurt, too. Just giving ideas. :)

[mgoddess]

Lores, perception, climbing & swimming...all things you might want to consider. Is the bard going to be a Volner? If not, I'd suggest dropping the MoC or Shield Use and getting OHE (for katar usage)... Oh, and Harness Power doesn't need to be Level+1 with training...you're only getting 1 extra mana for the +1 train...keeping it on level should work just fine (so when your level 1, you have 1 rank of Harness Power...level 10, 10 ranks of Harness power, etc).

Otherwise, looks pretty good to me. :)

[Artha]

Air lore ftw.

[Sidrik]

If not, I'd suggest dropping the MoC or Shield Use and getting OHE (for katar usage)...

I cringe whenever someone suggests using a katar, and here's why:

Katar .325 | .250 | .225 | .200 | .175 | 3 | SP | 70/175
Short Sword .300 | .225 | .200 | .150 | .125 | 3 | SPC | 70/185
Fist-scythe .325 | .225 | .200 | .200 | .100 | 3 | SPC | 70/185

The katar barely outperforms the short sword or fist-scythe with no time benefit and at double the training costs. This is especially true for bards, who are going to be seeing far more damage from sonic flares than from the actual weapon damage at higher levels. With a TWC bard, dump the shield, lower the MoC to 1x, and get that air lore up as fast as possible, use tonis and start shredding stuff with two short swords or fist-scythes (or faster weapons).

[Ebondale]

Would that strategy work with a pair of daggers? I haven't tried a bard out myself but those sonic flares sound pretty nice. :)

EDIT: The reason I ask is simply because: If your main source of damage is going to be sonic flares anyway, wouldn't you want to use a quick weapon (like a dagger) to attack as fast as possible?

[Sidrik]

Would that strategy work with a pair of daggers?

It would, but for one weapon at least, it doesn't make any sense. A bard with 75 air lore ranks would swing a dagger or short sword in one second, so the short sword is the obvious choice. I'm not all that up on TWC or mstriking RTs, so twin daggers might make more sense than twin short swords, not really sure. What I do know is plenty of bards go ohe/shield with a sonic short sword, if I were to make a twc combat bard i'd go with a sonic short sword in the right and a main gauche or something else for defense in the left.

[Moist Happenings]

Actually I think you guys caught me at a screwed up point in my training when I pasted that. woops. Here's what I'm aiming for.

Voln

2x brawl, 2x TWC, 1x MoC, 1x PF, 1x CM, 1x spell, 1x HP, 1x Armor Use, 20 ranks of climb by 50, 10 of swim, and the rest in lores. Sound about right?

Thank you all for all your input, by the way.