Randomly throwing some ideas out here.
One thing I noticed is that all bards use the exact same attack. Not any more! Variety, damn it.

#1. Tuning
Change the damage caused by minorsecond (in %), so that those with a certain resistance can still be killed by damage, since damage and a delayed kill(s) are the only ways a bard can actually kill anyone.

Tuning - Alter the sound your music creates.
Syntax: TUNE
By tuning your instrument, you can alter the type of damage caused by MinorSecond, and exploit your enemy's weaknesses.

#2. Blacknote, Whitenote, Dark/Wyrdchord, Greenchord.
The bardic equivalent to a staff, found fairly high up in each music specialization.
Ideas:
Does equal damage to Minorsecond.
Does work on deaf targets.
Possibly removes deafness?

Different damage types:
-Blacknote: 50% poison, 25% magic, 25% fire
-Whitenote: 50% cold, 25% magic, 25% asphyxiation
-Darkchord: 50% cutting, 25% asphyxiation, 25% magic
-Greenchord: 50% blunt, 25% cold, 25% magic

Different looks (* = death):
-Blacknote-
Bob thrashes his head wildly and looses a flurry of notes at incredible speed towards Bill, who starts sweating and retching, gangrenous blotches appearing upon his skin.
*Bill screams as he suddenly bursts into flame and his skin sloughs off in chunks, before collapsing into a heap of putrid and charred flesh.

-Whitenote-
Bill plays a resonant, beautiful melody towards Bob, who shudders in ecstasy as a pristine layer of frost settles upon him, turning his skin into a latticework of cracks.
*Bob clutches at his chest and gasps hoarsely as his eyes roll back into his head and he topples backwards, shattering upon impact with the floor.

-Greenchord-
Jim plays a lilting, enchanting harmony at Joe, causing several spectral animals and people to appear, who proceed to kick and punch the life out of him, leaving numerous bruises and frost burns in their wake.
*Joe howls in dismay as the angry ancestral spirits pull his soul from his body, dragging it, kicking and screaming, into the ether.

-Darkchord-
Joe looses a dark and melancholy series of notes towards Jim, shadows rise up like smoke and slither over his skin causing deep, bloody lacerations, before constricting tightly and strangling the life from him.
*Jim falls to his knees as the shadows force their way down his throat, forcing out every drop of life and leaving nothing but a freezing, lifeless corpse in a pool of dark mist.

Icky. But cool. I'd almost be bard just because of that.

Tuning: Yes please.

Chords: Sounds good to me, although I'm not sure why the cities have notes and the communes have chords, and I don't quite understand why you've made Celest's attack all frosty, onsidering that the cantors are far more Lighty than they are Watery.

Tuning would rule.

Greenchord's death message isn't very nice I like the feel behind all the suggestions though. Good job.

EDIT: Also, I think all the notes/chords should be 50% magic and 25% this and that.

Revenge of teh ebil ancestors.

And the damage types can be whatever, that was just kind of quickly made up.

Bardoon already has a message like that.

I like the ideas. Especially since they are not, as the title suggests, related to bashing!

Meh, change it so the target gets eaten by rabid faeries.



I dunno what else to call the damage-y attacks that can also be used on denizens.

A few suggestions for tuning. First of all, it should take a fair amount of time to change the damage type, so that it can't be switched on the fly during battle. Also, there should be a slightly different message for each damage type, just so the target knows why he's taking more damage.

Nice idea

I'd love to have a stronger attack with my instrument, and the White Note description looks cool. Snowflakes! =D

Bards don't need stronger attacks, 100% aptitude instrument is meant to be on par with symbol, not to mention aptitude lowers your equilibrium time when using it.

Let's keep in mind that symbols suck... and I believe they can also be used to afflict

I don't like it, for the reason that the rest of the music skill at least had something to do with real music... clusterchord, augmented triad, diminished triad, minormajor chords instead, perhaps?

We also get reduced equilibrium time with all of our music skills, and that's about it. If we got an extra attack, would it take into account the lower time, and extra damage?

The subject references bashing skills - yet how would changing the damagetype affect bashing?

As far as I'm aware, damage type doesn't matter for bashing.

The first part is for new skills so we aint just with pure magical damage, the second bard is the bashing skills which is basically the staff eq of Minorsecond.

Cut!

You missed your cue, Forren, that was a page ago.

Okay, take it from the top. Action!

Bumping this, because my Minorsecond does under 400 damage to Krellan.
And I have a tier 3 magic rune.
And a Maestro instrument.