In the economy of tight bard edge points, specializing in no instrument even with both Dancer AND Proficient Vocalist maxes at about 88% of vest instruments. So that’s a 10% penalty on all songs which in a lvl vs lvl world for saves and all the anti mental gear can make a huge difference.

Then I was thinking, you can’t tune your voice, so you lose out on an ADDITIONAL +5 levels.

My Santa request is to allow tuning of one’s voice as well with a vocal warmup echo instead. If required, maybe tie it in to the proficient vocalist edge.

I think this would be a relative small change since such a bard would still get better openers tuning an instrument for the initial song, then switching out instrument. And you can’t tune while fighting.

Of course, any bonus or alternate bard gifts for dancer bards (who I think can already be weakened further with maledictions) or the bard class in general with VETS abundant access to mental save gear is hugely appreciated.

We have an odd bards vs newbies / bards vs vets dichotomy… where vets can a little too easily prep and negate the bards. People point to giant changes and loss of edges as why bards became weak in 2010+, but immortals have said on discord the availability of anti mental plays a huge role

We have no interest in making a non-instrument bard as good as an instrument bard. There is a trade off for not using an instrument. You get a shield or whatever else, but lose the benefits of an instrument. But... We agree with your final statement. It's too easy to prep against bards.

So to that end, we did some digging and have some relatively substantial changes.

First, there was an error in the logic that got done 10 years ago with the damage revamp that was making it easier to save against bard songs. That has been fixed.

Second, we have reduced the effectiveness of resist mental in relation to saves. This is the more major aspect, which will touch a few things. It won't change any damage resist you get from it, but will mean reduced benefit to mental saves.

This will also benefit the Breaker path, making its skills apply more regularly.