Shattered Kingdoms

Is it worth making a bard these days?

In my opinion, having one bard per adventuring group greatly improves the efficacy of the group. Having multiple bards (even though they can sing duets etc.) likely does not scale that well as you are giving up either damage output, tanking ability or caster support.

They are also in my opinion, one of the most interesting classes to play (biased opinion as Mitro is a bard) and I find myself able to explore a decent amount of the SK world with the potential reward of previously unknown lore. Their effectiveness in single combat is limited, and so likely will be unable to PK 1v1. But their utility is pretty amazing. At GM, unless you recently walked through a no-magic room, you should have master level or higher armor, bless, shield, magical vestments, lighten load casted on you at all times. This does mean that it takes some prep time each time you login to become fully effective (takes Mitro 10 or so min). They are also potentially one of the few soft counters to ethereal mages and MR barbarians.

But they are still decently squishy and work best in a group. Also, they are quite starved of attributes as (like hellions), they require high attributes across the board to be effective. In my experience trying to make alternative bard builds, they are greatly wanting for magical energy. Even with maximum mana trains, the ME regeneration is pretty low (due to lack of meditation skill) and so require regular sleeping if you are using higher tier songs. Fortunately, if/when you mentor lyrics, there is the possibility of gaining the bonus attribute points quicker (though being an evil bard, most good bards don't want your mentorship due to RP purposes).

All in all, I've enjoyed my time playing a bard. But it is definitely a support class. And a consumer rather than a creator (cannot brew/scribe/enchant).

My two cents.

I agree with Mitro on all points.

Good for support, squishy in 1vs1.

Good utility, even out of battle.

Never thought to put Mag.Vest, but yes to all the others Mitro mentioned. On mine prep is anywhere from 10 minutes to almost an hour (if i get unlucky) (hurrah for merc firends during prep, 10 minutes defiinitely)

Lore is fun. In fact recently saw a character bring in a ring, ask someone to ID, decide it was worthless based on enchantments, threw in the bin (Inn). Later I was bored, took a look at it, sanctuary spell (crappy short duration, but still). Lore is fun.

Wish I was more...creative...with words. Writing some songs (and publishing) for her would be really neat. Alas, I am not much of a poet IRL. Still and all, it's been fun.

Same story as always. Incredible to play as part of a team. Difficult to stick with if you're a prima donna who's gotta be the guy front and center doing the damage (like me) or a solo artist. Though a fist bard probably could do all sorts of damage since the implementation of a certain weapon class.