The Adventurers' Guild

In Bard's Tale 2:

My bard weilding a Bard Sword seems to be able to play an unlimited number of bard songs while not in combat. This is just like Bard's Tale 1.

HOWEVER: in combat, he eventually runs into a limit where he has "lost his voice". I suspect this is the one-per-level limit from the manual and without the bard sword.

Having lost his voice in combat does not affect the ability to play out of combat.

I wonder if this is a bug in bt2 or if the Bardsword was never meant to be as powerful as it is in BT1.
-------
Also unlike Bard's Tale 1 - songs cancel each other (I suspect this is well known), so if I play a healing song, the armor classes get worse. But more surprisingly a combat song will cancel a non-combat song so that the non-combat song must be re-played when combat is over.

jrodman wrote:Also unlike Bard's Tale 1 - songs cancel each other (I suspect this is well known), so if I play a healing song, the armor classes get worse. But more surprisingly a combat song will cancel a non-combat song so that the non-combat song must be re-played when combat is over.

Combat songs interrupt the non-combat song playing. When combat ends, the combat song ends along with its effect, and the noncombat song resumes.

It could be that your non-combat song just happens to end right after combat.

That's how it worked in bard's tale 1 on c64 + amiga.

In bard's tale 2 on 64 it doesn't seem to. I just tested:

On tombs level 3, played a new Sanctuary Score. AC went down by 3.
Got into combat, music stopped but AC stayed down.
During combat, played Zanduvar Carack, attacks doubled and HP went up, but AC went back up (worse).
Combat ended, Sanctuary Score did not return. AC did not go back down.

jrodman wrote:That's how it worked in bard's tale 1 on c64 + amiga.

In bard's tale 2 on 64 it doesn't seem to. I just tested:

On tombs level 3, played a new Sanctuary Score. AC went down by 3.
Got into combat, music stopped but AC stayed down.
During combat, played Zanduvar Carack, attacks doubled and HP went up, but AC went back up (worse).
Combat ended, Sanctuary Score did not return. AC did not go back down.

I just loaded BTII on WinVICE to confirm this, and it appears to be true.

Is it just with Zanduvar Carack, or with any other songs during combat.

I was trying to scum up some hitpoints with zanduvar carack and a wall when I noticed, but I believe it's also true with the spellsong. Betweeen this and the 'bugged' bardsword it's kind of soured me on using songs in combat much.

I may try the other combations to see.

-------------
I think this is a general behavior.

I tried a bunch of easy-to-test switches,

noncombat carack -> cancelled by combat spellsong
noncombat carack -> cancelled by combat duotime

noncombat duotime -> cancelled by sanctuary score


noncombat watchwood -> cancelled by combat duotime
noncombat watchwood -> cancelled by sanctuary score


Archer's Tune is tricky to validate, and I'm not convinced Melee March works at all (the hit point totals don't change, and combat damage doesn't seem different in the few samplings).