I think people are getting the idea that they aren't supposed to be powerful 1v1 due to the sheer number of group-oriented abilities, and the (relative) lack of 1v1 abilities.

The influence boosts would make bards ridiculous in influencing. Not happening.

The rest of it...nice concept, OP.

Nonsense.

There is a max limit on the number of buffs you can get to your charisma, more skills is not going to change that number.

I believe currently a bard can get +7 with this skill it would be +8 (unweighted)

As an Ebonguard I can currently get +8 (unweighted)

This is a bit too powerful but has serious potential if balanced a bit. I like it.

Also you're definitely going to need some way of raising mood if you're going to have an instakill based on it, otherwise that'd be like dreamweavers having an instakill at the falling asleep level or geomancers having an instakill at starving to death - it'd just be stupid.

Charismatic smile (forcing yourself to smile, does actually make you happier) boosts mood, as does applying Bromide I think would be the best way to go about doing it. Sort of like an inverse soulless rub. (i.e. seven levels of mood)

Narsrim's asked me to post this, no idea why he can't do it himself.

This is a skillset that depends on shattering someone to use other attacking skills on them.

I don't understand why more people don't see how bad this would be for unbalancing village influencings.

You mean, it would make bards important, just like mages and demenses are important.


Narsrim's post left out Fortuna.

If you were depressed, why would you smile, or actually want to do something to get better?

Doesn't Morale sound better than Mood?

My objection was based more on the idea that giving bards specifically a boost to a broad, xp-gaining category: influencing. However, as has been pointed out to me, mages and knights of certain builds have like advantages in bashing. So it's up in the air. Who wants to catch?

Its a skill, its called a forced smile. Its used on depressed children everywhere to get them talking about whats bothering them, though this one guy I know likes to do the opposite, and tell depressed children that they aren't allowed to smile, but sometimes that backfires and they believe him, plus Charismatic smile is currently a mostly useless skill.

This is what I picture when I think of the ramifications this would have to Village Influencing.


Hrm, expand that.

I guess that would keep shattered people at their nexus

In the interests of putting this myth to rest - As early as the Harbingers' first week, we asked Estarra if bards were meant to be on par one-on-one, and she said yes, they were supposed to be balanced for solo combat just like any other class. If anything, she seemed concerned that some of our abilities would be OP.

I don't see anything wrong with the shattered ego instakill. Not an issue in peaced revolts, and it would just add another risk/strategy element in violent ones. Or maybe add one more requirement to it like mood at half or below?

The whole 1v1 vs group thing comes down to this: Mages are better than us in groups, so why the hell should we get the shaft 1v1 when they don't?

The basic argument being that since mages are OP, bards should get to be OP too? I'm sorry, but that doesn't quite seem to work. I agree, mages should be nerfed in group combat, and possibly buffed a little outside of their demesnes (druids even more so, they rely almost wholly on demesne). People tend to say that mages are still fine outside of their demesnes, but I've yet to see even Forren stand and fight unless he has a demesne in place - he usually doesn't even stand and fight me (and I'm not that good), mostly because he knows it's hard to kill anybody without being horribly cheap or having a demesne. Mages are still much better than bards in 1-vs-1. I would like to see phantasms come in to make mages a slightly better outside of their demesnes, and then see demesnes nerfed and bard songs buffed so that bards become more important to groups than mages. That seems like it would be more fun, more balanced, and close to what the admin seemed to intend for the classes.

How can you possibly imagine demesnes will be nerfed for groups and still be worth a damn to mages/druids, without a ground-up rewrite of the classes?

I can imagine ways, though they may or may not actually work. For example, change effects to only hit half as often, or allow protection scroll to defend against most effects (with the obvious exceptions of things like rubble/deluge/etc) then allow the mage a way to strip protection from any individual in his demesne (an illusion?), etc.. It seems possible simply because a new skillset is being designed for mages anyway, so if demesnes are weakened, phantasms can be used to fill in the gaps.

Relying on Phantasms would royally screw druids. And nerfing them that much would change the emphasis of the class a ton.