Hello!

Do you think bard song radius in EE is kind of short? When my melee strays a couple meters it cuts off. I asked about this and was directed to the rogue rebalancing mod. Unfortunately it's for original BG2, not BG1 or both Enhanced Editions. And it doesn't address the range of the bard song.

Thank you for replying.

I don't have an answer to the question. However, while playing Icewind Dale (non-EE), I did notice one thing: bard songs would be blocked by anything that would block line of sight, even if it doesn't look like it should.

On the topic of bard songs, I think pretty much everyone agrees that they're pretty useless in BG 1&2 (and for that matter so are bards). So it doesn't really matter what their radius is or how long they last, the fact is that giving everyone else in the party a +1 tohit and damage is not a worthwhile use of a party slot.

It also protects against fear and gives a bonus to thief skills. Their spellcasting gives the bard added utility. And if I need another ranged character I just equip his crossbow.

Edit: I also forgot to add that he becomes a free scroll of identify with his high lore. Bards also have high charisma - giving store discounts and in BG1 getting better quest rewards.

The protection against fear is easy to get from a lvl 2 mage spell, the bonus to thief skill is hardly needed if you use a single class good thief like Imoen, after a few hours you should be swimming in money so free identify is pretty pointless. More importantly, last I checked a bard in BG can't do anything else while he's singing (unless EE changed that) meaning the bard is either a really weak fighter, a weak mage or a weak permanent buff, but he can't do those at the same time (if he could like in NWN, he might actually be decent). Also crossbows are way worse than bows for ranged damage in BG, since bows of all kinds get an extra attack per round, so the ranged damage of a bard is among the weakest.

A fighter/mage is so much better than a bard in IE games that it's not even funny, and for that matter so is pretty much every other character class, so unless you're using a bard for flavour (in which case, it's not my place to tell you how to have fun with the game) you'd be better off using something else.