Bardic Lore: What Is It Good For? (Absolutely Nothing)

[Adam Antium]

As the title says, bardic lore is pretty much useless.

Language understanding is capped at 25% now, and almost useless, with lore (and I'm not even 100% certain that bardic lore worked for that previously, either, since I'm not a particularly lore-focused build).

Lore from Bardic Lore doesn't even count for scrolls, for which it actually would've been both useful and thematically consistent (Bards are EXACTLY the kind of class meant for people who use magical doodads and items and have obscure knowledge).



What, exactly, is it good for? Pretty much nothing except identifying items, so you save a little bit of pocket change and skillpoints, though any bard-heavy build with 14 INT can identify most items with their own bard song even without Bardic Lore, and many characters have modest lore anyway, so this is hardly a worthwhile class feature at this point. "Do the thing 3/4 of the server can do and which you can have done at every NPC merchant!"


How can we make this feat actually useful?

[Opustus]

*patpat*

Understanding each other 25% is like us, baby, and we still find the words to love each other.

[Kshatriya]

This is pretty much where I think tongue of sun and moon has ended up thanks to the update. Though that is an added feature as opposed to a core feat of a class like bardic knowledge. I'm hoping maybe the language changes can have a look taken at them to accommodate for both of these being changed as frankly I see nothing that can be done for either of them presently to be useful.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

Bardic knoweldge doesnt contribute to scrolls? That is a major bummer.

[Adam Antium]

Honestly if they could just make bards learn languages faster as replacement I'd be super happy, my bard is trying to learn multiple languages.

Maybe give bards specifically the equivalent of (modified lore)% increase in language learning speed? A pure bard with 10 INT, no ranks, and no gear/spells/song gains a 30% increase in language learning, just by virtue of being a level 30 bard?

[Kalopsia]

I'd recommend letting Tongue of Sun and Moon and Bardic Lore increase the lore limit to understanding languages.
A pure bard, for instance, would then have an additional 15% chance (at 80 Lore) to understand all languages, compared to other characters which cap out at 25% (50 Lore).

[R0GUE]

The language understanding cap bothers me quite a bit more than the scroll change. It was a great reason to play a bard to get that bardic knowledge boost to understand languages, which wasn't a really OP ability, it had nothing to do with combat and everything to do with RP. A lot of us bards RP as spies and espionage characters and this absolutely ruins that.

Not only could bards already ID items with bard song, Legend Lore is already on their spell list. So its absolutely a redundant ability at this point.

I don't think letting bards learn languages faster is necessarily the answer, because INT isn't their prime stat. Most bards can probably only learn 1 or 2 extra languages at most.

If I could ask the devs to rethink one thing it's the language understanding cap, but then again I've already radically changed my build due to this nerf.

[Adam Antium]

Wait, you don't play a bard with 18 INT?

Peasant.

I'm joking. My bard is just weird. But uh, literally any change to make bardic lore good would be nice. I actually -like- language and diplomatic RP and stuff. This is just hindering that.

[The GrumpyCat]

Not that I don't partly agree with your point - But lore also increases your chances of finding nifty things in book shelves.

[R0GUE]

Not that I don't partly agree with your point - But lore also increases your chances of finding nifty things in book shelves.

A lot of which are scrolls.

I kid, I kid. That is a decent benefit.

[Adam Antium]

Not really, it's a really insignificant benefit.

A core class feature is "sometimes, if you go into a dungeon with lots of bookshelves, you might find a summoning book you could've bought for 5k-10k."


Pls no

[Drowble Oh Seven]

Tangent here, but does bardic lore count for finding items in shelves? My level 25 bard doesn't seem to find them at a greater rate than my other, loreless characters.

But it's possible I'm just not seeing it.

[R0GUE]

Tangent here, but does bardic lore count for finding items in shelves? My level 25 bard doesn't seem to find them at a greater rate than my other, loreless characters.

But it's possible I'm just not seeing it.

I would assume Grumpycat would know. I find language books quite often with my bard. Sometimes scrolls depending on the dungeon.

[Drowble Oh Seven]

Fair enough. I'll stick my nose in a few more bookshelves!

[Adam Antium]

I am still unsatisfied with that though. You can just copy phrase books. I won't specify what group that has them because FOIG (nya nya!) but I could literally go make a copy of every single language book - even Jotun - if I wanted. If you're part of any scholarly institution in the game you have access to -most- of them, if not all of them, and they can be copied.

gib language perks pls :'(

[Kshatriya]

I am still unsatisfied with that though. You can just copy phrase books. I won't specify what group that has them because FOIG (nya nya!) but I could literally go make a copy of every single language book - even Jotun - if I wanted. If you're part of any scholarly institution in the game you have access to -most- of them, if not all of them, and they can be copied.

gib language perks pls :'(

+1ing this for the sake of bards and tongue of sun/moon for monks. It was something really cool that's just kind of lost now :<

[R0GUE]

I'd like to see it changed back too. Or at least a compromise achieved. I was just acknowledging that Grumpycat made a fair point, it does have one minor benefit so it's not good for absolutely nothing. just almost nothing.

[malcolm_mountainslayer]

I'd like to see it changed back too. Or at least a compromise achieved. I was just acknowledging that Grumpycat made a fair point, it does have one minor benefit so it's not good for absolutely nothing. just almost nothing.

rather than reversing, id like to see bardic knowledge apply to scrolls.

[R0GUE]

I'd like to see it changed back too. Or at least a compromise achieved. I was just acknowledging that Grumpycat made a fair point, it does have one minor benefit so it's not good for absolutely nothing. just almost nothing.

rather than reversing, id like to see bardic knowledge apply to scrolls.

Yeh that's more or less what I meant by a compromise.

[The1Kobra]

Bardic lore used to work for language understanding. However I don't think it does anymore. Can anyone confirm or deny the latter part?

If so, then bardic lore has very little use indeed, especially for high level bards.

[Adam Antium]

I cannot confirm nor deny.

[The GrumpyCat]

Bardic lore used to work for language understanding. However I don't think it does anymore. Can anyone confirm or deny the latter part?

If so, then bardic lore has very little use indeed, especially for high level bards.

Lore contribution to language understanding, effectively giving a 1% chance of understanding any given utterance for every 2 Lore points (which stack the same as they did before), capping at 25%.

Language recognition scales at a rate of 10% per 2 Lore points, capping at 100%.

So basicaly you can have 60+ lore with bardic lore, and still only understand 25% of what is said.

[R0GUE]

Language recognition scales at a rate of 10% per 2 Lore points, capping at 100%.

Does this second part simply mean that with 20 lore points you will always recognize which language is being spoken? Such as if they are speaking undercommon or jotun...

[Adam Antium]

I'm actually quite confused by the wording here, yeah.

[The GrumpyCat]

Language recognition scales at a rate of 10% per 2 Lore points, capping at 100%.

Does this second part simply mean that with 20 lore points you will always recognize which language is being spoken? Such as if they are speaking undercommon or jotun...

Yes, I believe so.

To Clarify

Your character, technically, shouldn't recognise even what language is being spoken, unless they see it written by the side of their dialogue (e.g. Abyssal: 'oogdoo odoo foobbb')
or 'Unknown'- 'oogdoo odoo fooobb'

With 20 points you will always reocginse -what the language is- but you will very seldom have a clue what they're saying.

So your character can then say, 'Oh look, that person is speaking elven!' But won't neccesarly know what they're saying.