Bard strategies?

[Silfir]

Never pick up random ingots to sell. (At least that's the most notorious crash bug related to item dropping I've heard of.)

[Snock]

Never pick up random ingots to sell. (At least that's the most notorious crash bug related to item dropping I've heard of.)

Aye, I knew of that one. The game actually crashed when I picked up an item. I don't remember what it was though... Definitely not an ingot.

[nathrakh]

For quite some long time I've considered bards as my favourite class. Especially dark elf ones (automatically alertness & find weakness -> better chance of an amazing skill set).

I've won with a bard twice IIRC, and I didn't use pets neither time. Once I got an ancient karmic dragon from a SoFS in ToEF4.. it one or two-shotted ACW.. left it there. ( http://www.adom.de/forums/showthread.php?t=10265 ) Had I been a bard I would have considered using it. Too bad.

Bards are fun to play, they are powerful (at later levels), they have the best heir gift, easy time getting RotMC, no 'uber jackal' effect with animal summoners, they can become good casters.. etc etc.

[Dudley]

From what i remember with bards :
-Get the Heir thingie
-Roll and roll for an ok skill set
-Survive

[JellySlayer]

For bards, I normally play quite similarly to the "Gimpy" character in Duel to the Death, although I prefer hurthlings to gnomes (3 talents guaranteed for each, 4 for candles).
-Start with 7lbs.
-Find some rocks (ants in PC:2 work well, since they're tameable).
-Use 7lbs + rocks to kill things until you're decently strong.
-Play as normal

If you want to play a pet game, I recommend immediately running to the bug-infested temple. With 7lbs and a bit of luck, you should be able to tame yourself a greater claw bug, which is a great starter pet. If you're feeling gutsy, you can use a few greater claw bugs to get yourself close enough to tame a killer bug, who are fabulous early-game pets (they're even almost fast enough to keep up with you in 7lbs).

[Pumpernickel]

For bards, I normally play quite similarly to the "Gimpy" character in Duel to the Death, although I prefer hurthlings to gnomes (3 talents guaranteed for each, 4 for candles).
-Start with 7lbs.
-Find some rocks (ants in PC:2 work well, since they're tameable).
-Use 7lbs + rocks to kill things until you're decently strong.
-Play as normal

If you want to play a pet game, I recommend immediately running to the bug-infested temple. With 7lbs and a bit of luck, you should be able to tame yourself a greater claw bug, which is a great starter pet. If you're feeling gutsy, you can use a few greater claw bugs to get yourself close enough to tame a killer bug, who are fabulous early-game pets (they're even almost fast enough to keep up with you in 7lbs).

Killer bugs are endgame-capable pets. You just need a Plan B for D:50, but most of the rest, they can handle - undead greater vaults, earth temple, chaos archmage. I played a pet-centred bard once and finished with two *killer* bugs:

You examine Marukka, the killer bug. Diagnosis: Level: 52, DV: 84, PV: 34,
Hits: 418, Attacks: 13, Damage: 30-33. Speed: 152.

You examine Dakashnit, the killer bug. Diagnosis: Level: 54, DV: 85, PV: 34,
Hits: 356, Attacks: 13, Damage: 30-33. Speed: 136.

The damage display doesn't come close to what they're dishing out - killer bugs ignore PV, and at such high levels, about half of their hits will be criticals, with perhaps a triple damage multiplier on average. I think some vault Emperor Liches took a whopping two rounds to chew apart, practically everything else dropped in just one.

Other fun pets are giant boars (200 speed normally, can keep up with SLB characters) and giant dragon turtles (heavily armoured, lots of damage, but slow).

Just remember to never, never, ever climb into the Great Rift with pets in tow. I only once tried and they all got crushed to death.

If you have only one pet, the speed difference is largely irrelevant when long-walking:

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..@i->..
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'Displacing' is a misnomer, you just keep pushing the pet ahead of you, regardless of your respective speeds. Matters are much different if you want to move several pets along ...