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Other than using a few choice items i.e. Bardic horn of Valhalla what are the advantages of bards in Icewind Dale.

1) They can identify anything with their high lore skill. I say that if you take a little bit of extra time rolling you can give your mage a decent wisdom for lore or even just avoid the penalty. This will allow your mage to identify most stuff and that which he cannot identify he can cast the spell for.

2) They get pretty good pick pocket abilities. Then the question comes up: who are you going to pickpocket? I know you can take some stuff from Arundel I think but really is that worth it. Eventually your thief will have decent pickpocket skills anyway.

3) They can cast spells. Maybe a little bit but they can't wear mage robes or anything else they can cast in so ac suffers. Also at best they have 4 level one spells. My fighter conjurer (did not cheat to make this character you can dual into a specialist mage school in Icewind Dale) has some item to double the number of level one and level two spells. He has tons of which about 4 are identify and most are magic missile.

4) They can fight about as well as a thief minus backstab but they can use all weapon types.

Am I missing something here or are bards kind of the class that drew the short straw in Icewind Dale?

No, you're right. Bards are the typical jack-of-all-trades, that counts for jack in IWD.

But when you hit HoW, they come into their own. You'll regret not dragging one through IWD. (if you play the whole game as 1 of course, youget the benefits a lot earlier).

It depends...

It depends on how you play (doesn't it always?). I am melee oriented and anyone who can't contribute to it always just stands around when the battle starts. I took a bard instead of a mage not because of his melee skills (he stood around when the battle started) or for his magic skills (since I rarely use magic) but because of his identify ability.

My party P, F, F, R/C, T, B

Have a problem.

Sorry for that i whrote here.I have a problem with the finding of the badges.One misses me.CAN YOU TELL ME THE NAME OF THE BADGES AND WHERE I CAN FIND THEM.BYE

Check the spoiler thread for answers to this RaZor.

I recall being able to cast spells with a certain special chainmail with a bard. Maybe I'm just not remembering correctly. Personally I used the bard as a back-up for everything. Back-up spells, back-up fighting, etc. Pickpocketing helped me once when I stole a ring of protection +2, and that was good enough for me.

I beleave there was one elven chain mail in the game. Also the lore let my mage free up spells. Gave the bard a speer and he attacked from behind the fighter types in my party to help. Used crossbows quite well and was just in general a good rounder for the party.

There was elven chain in without the expansion? where? I still don't think a bard is worth it. The chain will have to go to thief/fighter it it has a good enough ac maybe a fighter mage <-- just remembered I have a F/Conjurer in my current game. Not too shabby. Now I need to remember if it was the robe that doubled level 1 and 2 spells or a ring. Anyone know. I think it's the robe of enfusing that just adds one extra to 1 and 2 then there is a ring with doubling. That makes the chain of use.

Kaylessa sometimes dropped elven chain. Also, The Green Dragon scale found on Ilmadia works too.

My thief always got the shadowed leather (+5 or whatever ).

You can cast mage spells through those chains? If so my fighter mage just got decked out.

Off topic: Icewind Dale just went gold which means it dosen't matter if it's an elven chain because if your wizard takes whatever feats to cast in armor he dosen't need it. Just an excuse to tell everyone about IWD II.

Bards can fight pretty good, give them that +3 crossbow the daisy I think and some +1 or 2 bolts and there ya go (they get tenser's too). Plus, in IWD they cast spells as if the were a mage of that level in terms of damage/duration, this is very helpful. My bard acutally does about 15-20% of the kills in my party-
P R/C M B F/T R

I checked it out and you can cast arcane spells wearing armor which isn't bad.

I like bards.

-High lore, free up mage spells for more MM
-PIckpocket is good, as me and my brother pickpocket EVERY named character we can and have got lots of good stuff (try pickpocketing the mage merchant in the tower in kuldahar, LOADS of stuff, and if you want, kill him for more stuff, pickpockets include amulet of metaspell influence and ring of ffree action. try the potion merchant in kuldahar too)
-put all their proficiencies in bows/crossbows and they are great.
-when you run out of bolts/arrows/magic missiles, bring out bard song and give everyone some extra Ac and saves, from anywhere in the zone (it has infinite area of effect).
-fill it with fire and acid and cold spells to assist, cos mages always run out of them quickly when fighting trolls.
-give them the really good daggers/short swords that you have replaced on your thief, but dont want to sell.

And thats why I like bards.