Would it be possible for some of the anti-evil flags to be looked at on some of the instruments out there please? It seems like most evil bards are swayed to either go tragic/epic for reasons that they cant use most of the decent comedic/romantic instruments. Thanks.

Pretty much every top PK bard of the last year or so has been evil romantic.

Weird. I would have expected tragic.

And not as pitiful healing as tragic. Romantic is a pretty nice repertoire, I liked it myself.

Okay. Echoes is a great song. But according to the helpfile it favors Comedic and disfavors Epic. Tragic and Romantic should be approximately equal.

While we're on this topic, though, a question for Nep. Regarding instruments, does a bard want to match his instrument to the repertoire he's using or to the preferred repertoire of the song he's singing (assuming it's different from his current repertoire)?

For example, suppose you're a tragic bard using tragic repertoire and you're going to sing symphonic echos, which favors comedic and disfavors epic.

You have one instrument that's "very good" in tragic but "very bad" in comedic. You have another instrument that's the opposite: "very good" in comedic but "very bad" in tragic. Which one would give the best results?

Assuming I know what I'm talking about:

>Okay. Echoes is a great song. But according to the helpfile
>it favors Comedic and disfavors Epic. Tragic and Romantic
>should be approximately equal.

This is all consistent with the way I think it works.

>While we're on this topic, though, a question for Nep.
>Regarding instruments, does a bard want to match his
>instrument to the repertoire he's using or to the preferred
>repertoire of the song he's singing (assuming it's different
>from his current repertoire)?

Match to your current repertoire.

>For example, suppose you're a tragic bard using tragic
>repertoire and you're going to sing symphonic echos, which
>favors comedic and disfavors epic.
>
>You have one instrument that's "very good" in tragic but "very
>bad" in comedic. You have another instrument that's the
>opposite: "very good" in comedic but "very bad" in tragic.
>Which one would give the best results?

The instrument that's good for tragic.

Equally, the anti-bard edges help reduce the potency of songs (both beneficial and harmful) sung in the repertoire they go with, not songs which work best for that repertoire.

So if your archenemies are all romantic-preferred bards who usually use romantic, you can counter that by picking Stonehearted, reducing the effectiveness of all songs sung in romantic against you. They, in turn, could choose to try to counter that against you by switching repetoire to epic, tragic, preferred, etc., which wouldn't be their preferred but probably would still be a better choice against specifically you.

Make sense?

Makes sense.

On the other hand, those bards would have no way of knowing you took the anti-Romantic edge unless they get an echo. They might just chalk it up to the RNG that their songs fail to work as often on you as they do on other people.

Additional question:

Could one be simultaneously anti-Romantic, anti-Tragic, anti-Comedic and anti-Epic, or do those four make up a set from which a given character can only choose one?

>On the other hand, those bards would have no way of knowing
>you took the anti-Romantic edge unless they get an echo. They
>might just chalk it up to the RNG that their songs fail to
>work as often on you as they do on other people.

It's true!

And, really, if they're going after three people in a raid and only one of you has the edge... is switching really the better option? Even if you knew everything, maybe, maybe not.

>Additional question:
>
>Could one be simultaneously anti-Romantic, anti-Tragic,
>anti-Comedic and anti-Epic, or do those four make up a set
>from which a given character can only choose one?

You only get to pick one right now.

Note that you can be given edges that you can't pick, so I could conceivably see getting more than one as some kind of special award.

>It's true!

Uh. So does the bard get an echo? That's fine if so, it just makes this set of edges slightly less useful.

>You only get to pick one right now.

I just realized that's in the helpfile. Duh.

One tricky thing about these four (and some of the other ones, like "Courageous") is that they have a definite role-play component. Some characters' roles just won't allow them to be "Cheerful" or "Stonehearted". Is that by design?

What's more, will a character's choice of edges be taken into account when assessing his or her role-play? Say a character takes "Courageous", then runs from all fights and never attacks anyone. Is he going to get dinged for not acting "Courageous"?

What's more, will a character's choice of edges be taken into account when assessing his or her role-play? Say a character takes "Courageous", then runs from all fights and never attacks anyone. Is he going to get dinged for not acting "Courageous"?

I don't see it as any different than picking "Paladin" as a class or "Courage" as a sphere.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

>component. Some characters' roles just won't allow them to be
>"Cheerful" or "Stonehearted". Is that by design?

I would almost say these are rp edges anyway. It's not often going to be a particularly pk-effective choice to pick an edge against one type of bard (though the apparent glut of romantic bards makes it a better choice if you yourself aren't romantic). Bards are a relatively rare class, so unless your just happen to have that one bitter bard enemy it's hard to see the advantage. If they're really that bitter an enemy eventually they'll figure out you have it, so all you've done is force them to sing off-repertoire, which isn't really all that big of a deal. And when your bitter enemy deletes, you'll feel like you wasted your edge.

That said, I think they're great picks from an RP standpoint, and would eagerly choose one if got the chance to pick one with an appropriately-tempered bard. It would just make me feel good to know that my bard is especially cheerful or what have you, even if it rarely comes into play.

It seems like most evil bards are swayed to either go tragic/epic for reasons that they cant use most of the decent comedic/romantic instruments.

There's a bit of bias in the system, yes. It's something we talked about during the design process, and we're comfortable with it.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

is that from my perspective (I might be wrong though, I admit!) most of those top PK bards were ROMANTIC repertoire. And in general, MOST of PK bards ARE romantic.

Makes you think that romantic repertoire is a way much better for PK purposes then any other, no?

And I guess it is not only my opinion. I've heard the same thing from a number of players.

Did you talk about THIS problem during the design process ;)?

I think this is basically because Skiltore was tough and he was romantic, and people assume that these things are correlated in some way.

There are a couple different angles you can take in PK with bards. For one of those angles, romantic really is the best repertoire; or, at least, is one of the repertoires to use. Unfortunately, this also isn't the angle that the vast majority of bard PKs (including by romantic bards) that I've seen are taking.

>Skiltore was tough and he was romantic

And accordingly was a hit with the ladies.

Was it your intent that Evil bards generally get the shaft on all instruments but tragic which largly neuts and goods can also use said tragic instruments.
Or where you more going for goodies get more romantic/comedic
Neuts get generally the best of both worlds
and Evils are largely tragic
If the latter is the case then the system is alright just seems kinda lumpy to me that there is only one really good romantic instrument rocking for all aligns and being hidden in neps super quest area of doom, that a evil could use.
Unless theres a instrument hidden in the infero that I completly missed thats ubber pimp for romantic...

There's a good number of excellent romantic instruments for all alignments that don't require going to any area explore, I'd say.

Of course, I might pick mine on different criteria than yours, although mine are correct. :)

Well I'm curious what your other critieria are. As I'm basing this on level and compare...

Compare shows you the main one.

And whats the other? some weird command with the arguement -nepizl33t to show you its basis for chosing?

Other stats that show on identify, progs, weight, all your usual stuff.

But I'd probably give the compare stuff priority for the same reason I'd generally give even an average 12 noremove weapon priority over a lot of stuff on my non-melee-ish characters -- it's good for the specific thing I want that item for.

So it's by design that evils have an extremely limited instrument source for comedic(and romantic to a slightly lesser degree), while goodies have loads of instrument for any repertoire? Not to mention elves have a bonus in romantic repertoire while no evil races get a bonus in anything.. I'm really not trying to instigate, just wondering if this is how it is meant to be, or perhaps this is something that has not really been re-evauluated in a good while. I'm just bothered by the fact that it limits the class for evils in a pretty big way, both in role and playing style.

And yes, there are two or three decent romantic instruments, but in comparison to what goodies can use, it's hardly worth mentioning.

I don't agree with your assessment of what is or isn't out there, especially with respect to romantic.

I'm mostly upset about not being able to chose comedic as an evil bard, knowing it'll be extremely difficult to find a decent instrument that I'm able to use, to be honest. Romantic, I know of a few yes.. But Valg's post about there being a 'slight bias' I feel is a pretty big understatement.. Unless I'm completely wrong and there are plenty of comedic instruments out there for evils, in which case you could slap that in my face and get me to shut up. Again, I'm not trying to be rude or anything, just trying to evaluate my choices for future characters and have come to this disturbing discovery.

The problem, such as it is, is more that comedy doesn't have as many "medium-good-ish"* quality options period as other repertoires.

But maybe that isn't a problem, because in terms of total number of instruments out there (with item limits considered), I think Comedy has more "great" quality instruments than any other repertoire, and those aren't alignment restricted.


*My terminology is arbitrary.

How I'd go about actually finding that stuff:

1) As you level up, pay attention to what kinds of instruments tend to be good for comedy.

2) Make an ally who can cast locate object and get them to find out where those kinds of instruments are for you.

Of course, if you want to be evil comedy Battle bard, I can't help you. Because killing mages just isn't funny. ;)

Thanks for the advice. I'll definitely keep your advice in mind and keep my eyes peeled.