Hello,
I am thinking of having a bard in the party - does anyone have any particular feelings about their usefulness. O.K., O.K., I'm thinking of turning Imoen into one, but, anyway, I have the ID glasses, the equivalent of 3 clerics, 2 mages, 3 fighter, and a thief. I was just curious what people thought of the bard without context - turns into a better character later on in general, or simply too little of everything?

- Twilight

<font color="gold">The Bard is fun and good class to play with, especially if the Bard is the protagonist. ;)
The best Bard, IMO, is the Blade. Simply because they are also good Fighters, and can use Offensive and Defensice spin, which both is really good abilities. [img]smile.gif[/img]

But I must say that I dont exactly picture Imoen singing a battlesong... [img]tongue.gif[/img] </font>

like sir exxon said, blades are good but i dont like skalds. I think they should have more songs.. instead of just one crappy one that doesnt eve damage. they should have a resist song (where everyone allied to him gets higher resists), a speed song (kinda like haste but just move faster), a damaging song (speaks for itself [img]smile.gif[/img] ), and may like a fear song (all enemys who dont save vs fear or whatever run away). something like that would make them MUCH cooler. well, atleast some of those songs lol

I second what has been said about the blade and I add that the true bard is fun as well!

Don't overlook our good friend the Jester, from a roll playing point of view I loved playing a Jester, plus it's actually quite the challenge early on !

The jester is also the best for soloing. The fact that he doesn't aid his party members with his song is moot, since they don't exist! And, in ToB, (with the patch) they can stun and slow people, in addition to confusing them.

<font color="gold">Yes, and one thing that is good about the Jester is that he has it's own chain mail armour! :D
But really, yes, the Jester is a good kit too. Second best IMO. But as Xero said, stay away from Skalds. They are baaaaaaaaaad Bards. ;) </font></font>

Sadly, Bards are cool but in BG2 they arn't very good.