Bard - one of the best premade classes?

[Karina]

Specifically for a semi-casual player that does not want to optimise the hell out of their character. Yes, skills that bard have are not the best of the best, but there is also no redundancy.

1) Only one weapon skill, a good one, and its in major.
2) Acrobatics will help your train strength, it will level very fast due to it being major skill and allow you to ZOOM across the map.
3) Shield will make you more tough and help train agility.
4) Starting with alchemy will allow you make restorative potions from level 1.
5) Speechcraft, trade and high personality will allow you to dominate in social aspects.
6) Medium armor is not the best but it will help you train endurance. Also its not as heavy as Heavy which is important cause you want to ZOOM with acrobatics. It only a minor a skill, but early game you should avoid wearing much armor anyway.
7) Illusion is a great magic school that will make you more durable in combat and will allow you to do some thieving.
8) Security is always useful and it will help you train int.
9) No comment needed about enchanting and what it can do.

All this points and more make bard a good all around class that will do well in all areas of the game, including social which most classes (including most custom classes) are inept at. To quote Todd - "It just works".

[Valden21]

Eh, I don't know. Mercantile isn't really a good skill on its own unless you're planning on doing a lot of haggling, and it's a minor skill for bards, which means it's not going to advance very fast. You won't be able to get a lot out of it. I also think you got Acrobatics and Athletics mixed up; Acrobatics allows you to jump high and far while also taking less damage from falling, while Athletics is the one that lets you move fast. If you want to just ease your way into the game, then I say, yeah, Bard's a good class. But for someone who's played the game a lot, they might want to play a different class.

[The Flying Rodent]

For reference, Bard is:

Specialization: Stealth
Attributes: Personality, Intelligence

Major Skills:
Speechcraft
Alchemy
Acrobatics
Long Blade
Block

Minor Skills:
Mercantile
Illusion
Medium Armor
Enchant
Security

I’d say it’s pretty good for beginners, sure. You have a focus on ‘one weapon + one armour’ types + Block, Speechcraft for conversations, Alchemy for early potion making, Illusion for Brevusa’s ‘abort mission or steal sh*t’ button, and Security for opening locks.

Is there ‘no redundancy’ however? I’d say there is redundancy, but only because Mercantile & Enchant skills in vanilla Morrowind are not worth investing into major/minor slots. Mercantile skill has barely any effect on sell prices, and Enchant both increases incredibly slowing + is only useful at extremely high levels (in which case it’s just easier to buy training in for it with the mountain of money that you’ll have accumulated regardless of Mercantile skill).

I would also argue that it’s missing a key skill: Restoration. Being able to restore health & fatigue is ‘extremely’ useful for a new player, who is going to be entering into the vast majority of combat situations completely blind. You could argue that Alchemy fills this role for Bards, but it no where near as user friendly as Restoration is (need alchemy equipment + the right sets of ingredients , vs ‘learning a few spells from Mages guild/temple merchants’). For this reason, I’d recommend classes such as Crusader, Knight or Archer before recommending Bard.

But hey: there are issues with pretty much all of the base classes, which is why the vets all recommend just making Custom, right?

[Karina]

Originally posted by Valden21:

I also think you got Acrobatics and Athletics mixed up

Acrobatics allows you leap great distances with running jumps. IF its above 50, below 50 there is barely any increase in distance. Better then running, but also a lot more stamina costly. Have a stamina potions on you at all times.

Originally posted by The Flying Rodent:

But hey: there are issues with pretty much all of the base classes, which is why the vets all recommend just making Custom, right?

Im not a new player. I recommend against using custom classes, because being perfect is boring. Morrowind is an easy game anyway. Also, restoration is redundant if you have alchemy.

[The Flying Rodent]

Originally posted by Esteban Failsmore:

Originally posted by The Flying Rodent:

But hey: there are issues with pretty much all of the base classes, which is why the vets all recommend just making Custom, right?

Im not a new player. I recommend against using custom classes, because being perfect is boring. Morrowind is an easy game anyway. Also, restoration is redundant if you have alchemy.

Technically everything is redundant if you have Alchemy; it’s widely considered the most abusable skill in the game, which is the definition of ‘perfection induced boredom’.

Need money? Buy Crab Meat & Small Kwama eggs + a mortar and pestle from Ajira (in the event that you’d rather not steal one from somewhere else), make Restore Fatigue potions using restocksble ingredients, sell them for profit, repeat. Economy solved at level 1.

Need stats? Use the money you made earlier to hoard ingredients for every fortify/restore effect potion & drink 8 any time you need to do something. Stat deficiencies solved, even if you decide to cosplay as a kangaroo because ‘it’s better than running’.

Need ‘power’? Fortify intelligence feedback loop, achieve chim, divide by 0, walk through the universe at light speed, slaughter the entirety of Vivec with a fork, etc.

Anyway.

Bard is definitely one of the more ‘balanced’ premade classes (‘best’ leans into subjective takes on skills territory), and if you’re against going Custom for ‘perfection’ reasons (you can make a completely imperfect class using Custom as well…), Bard seems reasonable for a ‘semi casual’ that doesn’t want to think about character building.

[Karina]

Originally posted by The Flying Rodent:

Technically everything is redundant if you have Alchemy; it’s widely considered the most abusable skill in the game, which is the definition of ‘perfection induced boredom’.

Yeah, thats why i use mod that makes crafted potions cost 0. And dont abuse fortify attribute.

[The Flying Rodent]

Originally posted by Esteban Failsmore:

Originally posted by The Flying Rodent:

Technically everything is redundant if you have Alchemy; it’s widely considered the most abusable skill in the game, which is the definition of ‘perfection induced boredom’.

Yeah, thats why i use mod that makes crafted potions cost 0. And dont abuse fortify attribute.

That’s fair enough ; sounds like a good countermeasure for that particular exploit.

[Cortes]

Bard is a good class.
The only problem it may have would be a lack of ranged options but you can easily make an enchanted item yourself to make up for it.
You are gonna find a lot of them too.