bard songs

[Caracas]

This may be an old topic, but I never found anything about it:

when bards level up, do the effect of their songs increase?
It looks like a low level bard that plays that song that lowers AC has a -1 bonus in the beginning and now I seem to be at -3 AC bonus (lvl 23 bard)

[drifting]

This may be an old topic, but I never found anything about it:

when bards level up, do the effect of their songs increase?
It looks like a low level bard that plays that song that lowers AC has a -1 bonus in the beginning and now I seem to be at -3 AC bonus (lvl 23 bard)

In the DOS version, the strength of the Bard song depends on the difficulty level of the dungeon you are on. In the city a level 5 Bard gives a -1 bonus. The same bard in the first level of the Catacombs gets -2.

[danp68]

On a related note, is there a known bug with the C64 version (or any of the emulator hacks) which prevents hit points from regenerating when Bard Song #4 is played while Traveling? I've yet to successfully regenerate hit points when walking around in Skara Brae during the day, and end up relying too heavily on the Temple.

[Maven]

I don't know the exact specifics on how the bard songs scale, but I do know there is something. I know that Drifting is right--playing the Travelers Tune in the Catacombs gives -2 Armor Class Bonus. This stacks. Playing it twice gives -4. I also know that at some point in the castle or tower, it starts giving -3 armor class bonus. I don't remember exactly which level, though.

Seekers Ballad doesn't give double results in the Catacombs. Nor does it stack. I found this while testing the effects of AC on to-hit against the Samurai Statue.

Badhr Kilnfest doesn't give double results in the Catacombs, or stack, either. It's trivial to test this by watching how many hit points you gain each round while playing this song.

Falkans Fury definitely stacks. I don't know if it scales. When testing the Bard Skelly strategy, sometimes that fight would last many rounds. I repeatedly played the Falkans Fury, and I saw level one Bards doing over a hundred damage in each whack.

I have not tested Weylands Watch very much. It would be interesting to know exactly how much of an effect it has, if any. My initial research leads me to believe it might decrease damage by about a quarter of a hit point per attack, and doesn't stack. However, I'm getting inconsistent results, so I don't trust it yet.

The question I have is what effect Lucklaran has, and if it doubles in the Cats, and if it stacks. This could significantly affect how I play the early game, if it really has an effect. But I seem to remember Drifting saying it didn't do anything. I can't find that post. Maybe I'll run some tests.

[Maven]

So I ran a simple test to see if playing the Lucklaran song would help me escape from Wolves or Half-Orcs.

It doesn't.

[drifting]

This is specific to the DOS version.

Seekers Ballad doesn't give double results in the Catacombs. Nor does it stack. I found this while testing the effects of AC on to-hit against the Samurai Statue.

Looking at the disassembly, it looks like it stacks and scales when played in battle. It would take a lot of songs to make a difference in the city since it only subtracts one from the characters effective AC.

I have not tested Weylands Watch very much. It would be interesting to know exactly how much of an effect it has, if any. My initial research leads me to believe it might decrease damage by about a quarter of a hit point per attack, and doesn't stack. However, I'm getting inconsistent results, so I don't trust it yet.

From what I can tell, this song does nothing in battle. It updates a value for each of the four monster groups that is never used.

The question I have is what effect Lucklaran has, and if it doubles in the Cats, and if it stacks. This could significantly affect how I play the early game, if it really has an effect. But I seem to remember Drifting saying it didn't do anything. I can't find that post. Maybe I'll run some tests.

This and the anti-magic spell have no effect for characters in battle. It does effect the saving throw value of the monster in slot zero. But that has no effect on running away. I'm pretty sure this is a bug since BT2 uses the anti-magic value for character saving throws as well.

[Darendor]

From what I remember, on the C64 version of Bard's Tale II, the Sanctuary Score effect depends on what dungeon level the party is on when it is played.