My "warchanter" and how chants work

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Dorn
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My "warchanter" and how chants work

Post by Dorn »

So i've got this big grizzly northman type who along with the big muscle classes has bard levels as well.

Going into battle he 'chants' in draconic. For something like inspire courage i emote (through the text macro's) something along the lines of:

Ooga booga tum tiddly umm (ok not that but you get the idea) *the harsh strange words seem to fire the air and your blood filling you with courage as you charge the enemy*

I'm playing on the chant being magical in their own right so a party member understanding them or not is not important. This is rather than someone lisening to a song and going "oh boy! those lyrics are sooo awesome, how could i NOT be better in battle after that!" type inspiration.

Thoughts on bard inspirations/songs and having to understand the words? 've not played one before.
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Re: My "warchanter" and how chants work

Post by johnlewismcleod »

I thought of it similarly with my bardess. One really can't deploy song text and even hope to walk simultaneously IG, so singing in battle is beyond the ability of most mortals, I think.

I did load up some battle cry emotes and what not that I tried to deploy (with rather spotty success at best).

For practical use of bard song IG one really must think of them as a magical effect and settle on humming/chanting and the like via ready-made emotes IMO...if not there is little hope to use the feats at all IG.
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t-ice
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Re: My "warchanter" and how chants work

Post by t-ice »

Given that even the base rules say:
d20srd.org wrote:a bard can use his song or poetics to produce magical effects on those around him (usually including himself, if desired). While these abilities fall under the category of bardic music and the descriptions discuss singing or playing instruments, they can all be activated by reciting poetry, chanting, singing lyrical songs, singing melodies, whistling, playing an instrument, or playing an instrument in combination with some spoken performance.
The "magical effect" is pretty much a given. (At lest most) songs are also mind-affecting abilities. So I'd say inspire courage is not that unlike Bless. The main difference is that the target must hear the song, but hearing verbal components of a spell is not necessary to be affected.
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Re: My "warchanter" and how chants work

Post by Zelknolf »

There is a special notation for abilities which require the subjects to understand spoken words to function-- they're labeled as "Language Dependent" abilties. See suggestion as an example. (or even scroll down on the bard page and compare with the suggestion / mass-suggestion songs, which are labeled as language dependent).
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Re: My "warchanter" and how chants work

Post by loulabelle »

I've always thought the bard inspiration auras were kind of weird to rp. I mean, how do you still rp them while making them distinct from spells and bardsongs? In Exodus, my bard Teana would sing a burst of "infectious" song as I activated the aura then I'd continue to rp her humming the melody with the idea that it became a brainworm of awesome make-you-feel-good-make-you-feel-like-you-can-do-anything! Another time, playing with Nuran his pc Rain asked T to come over as he tried to pick a lock and had failed. Rain made some comment about her smile making him feel confident and that was a cue to turn on the skill aura which I did. I thought that was a cool way to do it.

When T got high enough in level to have the regeneration aura, there was no way you could justify a feel good vibe physically knitting wounds together. So the way I played that was that it was an arcane song with physical manifestations, it was utterly exhausting for her, like it transferred some of her own life force to others in order to be done, connected to the Weave but not drawing from it. I actually really liked playing that, opened up lots of interesting rp. With Amn being as it was with regards to arcane magic, I used that aura very sparingly which was good because it felt very PG oocly.

With my current bard, I have her say something inspirational, tailored specifically to the people around me and what I think might inspire them. I also turn my auras off after the encounter they were needed for, I've tried leaving them on permanently but it feels too weird. Sometimes I leave the skill on one because she's so full of herself and arrogant.

Just my opinion :-)
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Re: My "warchanter" and how chants work

Post by Zelknolf »

loulabelle wrote:I've always thought the bard inspiration auras were kind of weird to rp. I mean, how do you still rp them while making them distinct from spells and bardsongs?
Of note that mechanically, bardsongs and bardic inspirations are songs. Their effects continue only so long as the bard is able to make noise and people are able to hear it. This whole nonsense of the "combat mode"esque interface muddies the waters considerably, I know, but the whole thing got debated before and the ruling was for no mechanical change (i.e. they work like songs that keep working for as long as you sing them).
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Re: My "warchanter" and how chants work

Post by loulabelle »

I guess my point is, if they are technically the same, why in the game is one essentially a spell-like thing with a limited duration and the other something that is limitless on or off. I feel like when they're in as two different things, it must be for a reason and therefore must be rp'd differently. I also forget to use bardsongs, all the time, not sure why. Not just with Kori (who has never used them) but also with Teana, until I discovered the epicness that was Curse Song and got addicted to making horrible noises in battle. If there was a discussion on it in the past, sorry that I missed it while I was gone so long! And no worries, unless someone has a problem with how I rp all this, I'm going to stick with it. But in my experiences, I'm likely to be the person who worries the most, with most things, they're a bigger deal to you than anyone else ;-D
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kid
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Re: My "warchanter" and how chants work

Post by kid »

On a related topic...
Could you sneak and use them?
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Re: My "warchanter" and how chants work

Post by Brokenbone »

kid wrote:On a related topic...
Could you sneak and use them?
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Re: My "warchanter" and how chants work

Post by t-ice »

they're labeled as "Language Dependent" abilties
Good and spot on rules wonkery, Zelk. :hail:
kid wrote:On a related topic...
Could you sneak and use them?
I think inspiring competence to sneak quietly across the battlefield is the prime example of "Certain uses of this ability are infeasible." from the rules.
...Curse Song...regeneration aura
As I recall, these two are currently removed from ALFA, and for good reason. The regeneration, which makes sense in the single player campaigns, is certainly problematic within a PW where you can't just click a button in a safe zone to recharge everything back up to 100%. Curse song is rather uber considering that you can use it on top of boosting inspirations, something that can't be done by the canon rules, and it is the only actual nwn2 bardsong that is generally worthwhile.

As for RPing nwn2-inspirations versus "actual" songs - anything that brings RP meat to the bones that are the rules is generally teh goods. :D
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Re: My "warchanter" and how chants work

Post by loulabelle »

I know those two are removed, I was talking about Exodus T-Eyes! ;-D
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Re: My "warchanter" and how chants work

Post by Zelknolf »

loulabelle wrote:I guess my point is, if they are technically the same, why in the game is one essentially a spell-like thing with a limited duration and the other something that is limitless on or off.
Most of the various "Inspire [x]" abilities from pen and paper*, which which the "Inspiration" mechanic come, are distinct from other bard songs in that they are the ones that you can maintain until interrupted: and they're described that way in the songs' text (which is why the duration is "as long as the ally hears the bard sing and for 5 rounds thereafter"). They are, presumably, less-grating versions of The Song that Never Ends, as these songs have no listed maximum time that the bard can sing, beyond the standard rules for remaining active for extremely-long periods of time (e.g. forced marches).


* Y'all actually get a pretty sweet deal on inspire competence, which has a concentration duration, up to 2 minutes, has only one target, and cannot affect the performing bard in pen and paper. Courage / Greatness / Heroics, however, work this way in pen and paper.
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Re: My "warchanter" and how chants work

Post by t-ice »

I thought the real sweetener is infinite duration, plus this:
d20srd.org wrote:Even while using bardic music that doesn’t require concentration, a bard cannot cast spells, activate magic items by spell completion (such as scrolls), spell trigger (such as wands), or command word.
Which isn't included in nwn2 inspirations.

PnP bards are supposedly for shining in social situations, and nwn2 is a hack-n-slash game, so I suppose they had to beef up the bard. Just as a thought, we might consider giving bards ASF 100% while an inspiration is active, though?

One thing I never understood about a bard is why would one (mechanically, talking PG here) ever use an instrument when you can do the same by singing/chanting, and still have your hands free.
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Re: My "warchanter" and how chants work

Post by Ithildur »

t-ice wrote:
One thing I never understood about a bard is why would one (mechanically, talking PG here) ever use an instrument when you can do the same by singing/chanting, and still have your hands free.
PnP has instruments that not only give bonuses to perform checks, but have rather powerful magical abilties; if you're talking strictly PG, it'd be nice to have one of those instruments (which normally have minimum perform: specific instrument type ranks as a requirement to play/activate the powers).

There are some rather well known FR specific magical instruments (at least they were specificly FR in 3e, though now they're available generally in 3.5e). A few might actually be available ingame in one of the servers (although most do not have the full functionality of their pnp counterparts, nor the required perform: x restrictions). For example:

Doss Lute (masterwork lute, +2 to perform: stringed instrument checks)

Delay poison, hold person, mirror image 1/day each, +3 on various bardic music checks (Countersong, Fascinate, Suggestion)

Market value 9800gp

Not bad, eh? Trick is you need 6 ranks of Perform: String Instrument, so someone exclusively invested in only Perform: Sing couldn't use it, or else they gain a negative level just for holding the instrument!

Plus style points - no instrument = crooner, string instrument in hand = rockstar :wink:
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