1. What is a Bard? 
2. Links 
3. What are the four Bardic skills? 
4. What kinds of Bards are there? 
5. What are the best skills for a Bard? 
6. Is a Performing Bard primarily a role player and the Battle Bard not?
7. Can the Bardic skills be macroed?
8. How difficult is it to become a GM Bard?
9. What is the appropriate set of starting skills for a Bard?
10. Can a Bard PvP?
11. How do I keep my Str up while Barding for skill? 
12. Are Bardic skills skill based? 
13. Tell me about the various music instruments.
14. Do musical instruments break?
15. Why is SP different? 
16. How does Karma and Fame work for the Bard? 
17. If I Provoke a monster on another can I then attack it?
18. What is the purpose and goals of the CBA?

The comments, opinions and advice in this FAQ are provided by the following Bards of the CBA: 

Belldandy of Yggsdrasil
Ce'Nedra Willow, The Producer
Dedigan
Fauna Windsong – Napa
Leyf Bolden, Bard o' catskills
Mikhail
Salkind of Trinsic
Shari
Silent of Napa
Stryker Zarkoneon
Talesn of Woodcliff
Trinculo of Nappa 

1. What is a Bard?   The following somewhat formal and arbitrary designation was offered by one Bard, but not all agree with this notion: From the viewpoint of skills, a Bard is an Avatar (i.e., a Player Character or PC) who has at least at least 60 points in at least two of the four Bardic skills, and uses these skills as a primary way, or on at least equal basis with other skills, such as Swords, to make their way on the Virtual Soil of UO. It is intended to capture the idea that the Avatar is primarily a Bard as opposed to a Mage or a Fighter, etc. It is in contrast to those who use the Bard skills for other purposes. An example of the latter is a Fighter who takes up Music to increase their Dex. 

A simpler point of view is that you only need Music skill to be a Bard. You need Music and Provoke to be a Battle Bard. Peacemaking and enticing are extras. 

Another point of view is that, for the purpose of the CBA, a Bard may be one who tells stories or writes poetry or reports news but may never have any music based skills for their Avatar. 

2. Links   These links have a lot of information available. Some are relatively static and others are quite dynamic discussion boards. Of course, these links lead to further links. They are only guaranteed active links as of the date of this FAQ.

3. What are the four Bardic skills? 

Music: Play any music instrument. All other Bardic skills are based on the Music skill. All other Bardic skills check Music along the other Bardic skill for success. Many non-bards use Music to increase their Dex. 

Provoke: The most popular Bardic skill. Use Provoke to cause two monsters to fight each other. It has no effect on Avatars or pets.   An experienced Bard described Provocation's use as being the most obvious. Aggressive uncommandable summons (AUS), i.e. energy vortex and blade spirit, can in fact be retargeted, and NPCs can be made aggressive towards PC's. It will not affect players nor their pets though, for reasons of balance. Provocation, like Peacemaking, is more powerful with larger spawns, and faster monsters. Provocation can be used also to provoke things onto pets. This is effective for lower level Tamers as well as Tamers whose dragon follows the critter following THEM. (Including AUS, of course) 

Peacemake: The second most popular Bardic skill. Successful Peacemake causes peace for a very short period of time for all Avatars and Monsters on the screen. Peacemake causes the Swordsman, for example, to have to retarget their foe. This they usually do quite quickly, often using “Last Target”. Some Bards do not favor this skill, saying it is not very useful. Others find it quite useful and consider it a very important part of being a Bard. 

A Bard gave the following advice: Peacemaking can have an AUS retarget on something else, as well as disrupt the attack of pets, NPCs and PCs. Aggressive NPCs take a random amount of time to retarget, PC's must manually re-enter war mode and pets must be re-commanded. This Bard, who is also a Mage, has a better chance against dragons than most tank Mages. While this Bard runs off he can use Peacemaking to end the fight. Peacemaking is also valuable for Tamers with magically potent pets that mass-curse. Peacemaking in areas where pets unintentionally attack the wrong targets are remedied by Peacemaking, though gray flags are not cured this way. Finally, Peacemaking is a powerful disruption in a laggy situation, causing monsters to attack unpredictably and lagging players to death, cursing Bards as they fall. Peacemaking, in the right circumstances, is an extremely deadly art. 

Entice: The least popular Bardic skill. In fact, very few find any use for this skill. It’s intention is to cause a monster or animal to come closer to the Bard. However, Provoke can do much the same. If the Bard does not want the animal to be mad at them, follow with Peacemake. Of course, the use of Provoke this way is more dangerous than Entice. It may be the recommended means of manipulating a Wisp. It has no effect on other Avatars. Some Performing Bards find a use for this skill.   A clever Bard advised that the cunning use of this Bardic Skill can be used to herd AUS’s away from allies towards one's self, either in a case of sacrifice, or as a sly way of maneuvering them into an opponent. 

4. What kinds of Bards are there? 

Battle Bard: An adventurer, explorer, and hunter of animals and monsters who uses their Bardic skills to make their way about. Typically a Battle Bard claims other defensive and offensive skills to use along with their Bardic skills. These are primarily Magery, Sword, Fencing, Mace or Animal Taming. 

Performing Bard: A Performing Bard produces plays, entertains at inns and taverns, and perhaps on the streets. They may sing, tell stories, and recite poems. The use of props, as in fireworks and tamed animals is sometimes employed. 

5. What are the best skills for a Bard? 

There are many possibilities for “the best skills for a Bard”. Here are some examples. These are opinions, not recommendations that “must” be followed. 

General Comments
A Bard suggested that in addition to at least two Bardic skills, you can choose pretty much whatever you like. If you are interested in claming fame you will need some offensive skill to kill the monsters before they kill each other because you Provoked them. Additionally, when two monsters are Provoked, one will probably kill the other, but that still leaves one that needs to be dealt with. 

Warrior Bard
100 maces (or Sword or Fencing)
100 tactics
90-ish provoke
90-ish music
70-ish anatomy
50-ish healing
50-ish magery
50-ish resist 
The Warrior Bard using Mace or Sword should be able to develop sufficient Str to be quite effective. The Fencer Bard will have a challenge maintaining Str as Fencing  develops Str and Dex and Bard Skills develop Dex and Int. 

Mage Bard
 

	(Wants)	Has
Str	(80)	56
Dex	(45)	69
Int	(100)	100

Magery              (100)   93
Meditiation        (50)     68
Musicianship     (100)   90.8
Resisting Spells (65)     52
Tactics               (0)       93
Wrestling           (100)   89
Peacemaking     (100)   69
Provocation       (100)   80.2
Evaluating Int    (85)     65 

The Mage Bard will have a challenge maintaining Str as Magery develops Int and Bard Skills develop Dex and Int. 

Archer Bard
Archer bards are good. The only trouble is if you want magery with your archer-bard. The intelligence gain from magic and provoking out-weighs the strength gains from archery-tactics. The good thing about an archer-bard is you don't have to stand next to the creatures you provoke. This gives you a bit of extra time to run away if they decide you're more tempting than the monster you provoked it against. A good skill combination for an archer-bard is Music, provoke, archery, tactics, healing, anatomy and about 50 resist and magery. Final stats, High strength (80-100), 100 dex and low intelligence. 

Animal Taming
Peacemake is said to be a useful skill for Animal Taming. Dragons are often mentioned in this context. However, since both Peacemake and Animal Taming is a skill, and there is a delay between the use of these skills, and Peacemake times out before the delay is complete, it is probably of little value for the Animal Tamer to use Peacemake themselves. Instead, it is recommended that the Animal Tamer bring along a Bard friend. See the essay at http://uo.stratics.com/strat/bard.htm#3 . 

Bard jack-of-all-trades
One anecdote describes an Avatar who would like to set his Magicianship at about 70 and keep his Provocation low to consistently attract monsters to himself. This Avatar is considered to be a jack-of-all-trades, but is very effective with others in large groups. The opinion is that within a group of organized people working together, the importance of skill is not nearly as much as is commonly suggested. Interestingly, despite this Avatar’s success at Provoking things on himself, he still denies being a Bard. 

Rogue Bard 
An experienced Rogue Bard offered the following advice: I have known a few rogue bards. The chest thief works better, with reveal, lockpicking and remove traps in addition to provoke and music... there's even enough room for weapons/tactics or magery. With snooping and stealing, most of my old tactics don't work any more. But a bard can be pretty effective when working with a thief (or vice versa). The assassin-bard is actually a really good idea. Consider this, Provoke, Music, alchemy, poisoning, swords or fencing (no need for tactics, poison is the damager). A bard could provoke a couple of nasties, poison each of them and wait for a pair of deaths. With tactics and anatomy, the bard could be good in a PvP fight as well. Making your own *boom* potions goes a long way. But that doesn't figure in resisting spells. 

6. Is a Performing Bard primarily a role player and the Battle Bard not? 

Some Bards think the answer to this produces only a personal response and so this question needs to not be part of the CBA FAQ. There are, of course, many opinions. 

There is no hard and fast line between the kinds of Bards. While a Performing Bard probably tends to be a role player, they might just be themselves. They might just like poetry for example. The Battle Bard may not be primarily a roll player because it is hard to “talk funny” while running from an enraged Dragon. Yet some do not play as their Real Life selves and try to be as much of a Performing Bard as the situation allows. Some people enjoy this, sometimes. Others do not relate to it well and one might consider not “talk funny” to them. “Drat, all th’ peeps o’ UO talk funny!” Still, a bit of joking around can be fun. Of course, there is a lot more to role playing than “talking funny”. In fact, you don’t have to “talk funny” at all when role playing. 

One view sees Performing Bards as messengers and heralds of the “new ways of Virtue” and of the benefits and joys in positive action, and role playing. This view is that a Performing Bard has to be a roleplayer, since the tunes get soooooo annoying after a while. Battle Bards don't need to be performers but they aren't necessarily not roleplayers. It is just that Performers really only have that avenue to pursue. 

In fact, role playing can work well for the Battle Bard, as another Bard describes: I have a Warrior-Bard who heals and a Mage Bard. When you combine these with Peacemaking you can go just about anywhere there is a battle and heal people, stopping the monsters with Peacemake. I find that this is really fun because people do not expect you to be nice in UO. You get a chance to talk to people and roleplay. Occasionally they will pay you back. I think that a Bard lends itself very much to roleplaying even in combat, and I and several Bards I have met, say funny or dramatic things when Peacemaking and Provoking. Just be ready to be murdered if you ever venture forth this way... such is live in UO! 

7. Can the Bardic skills be macroed? 

Music and Peacemake are easy to macro. Provoke and Entice require active targeting. Some don’t macro, and fear maybe it leads to the “Bored of Sosaria” disease and the dreaded “Red Disease” of the Pk and Murderer. Unattended macroing is now considered a bannable offense by OSI. 

8. How difficult is it to become a GM Bard? 

Some say it is easy to become a GM Bard in Music, Provoke and Peacemake, and have accomplished this objective in a matter of weeks of hard work and macroing. Others are several months old and are barely Masters in Music and not Master of any other Bardic skill. 

Some consider the essence of the Bard to be one of intent rather than skill level. The extreme of this point of view is to point out some story tellers have no music skills at all, but are extremely good Spinners of Tales. 

One Bard related becoming a Master Bard in about 6 hours. Another Avatar of Siege Perilous Shard, but created by the same Maker, became Master Bard in about two months. This maker hasn’t yet had a Grandmaster Bard because “the extra 10 skill points wouldn't do me a bit of good.” One must bear in mind that the Siege Perilous Shard does not work like the other shards. 

9. What is the appropriate set of starting skills for a Bard? 

One Bard said, I was born a Bard. That was a philosophical decision on by my maker. Here is my profile when I was born. By choosing the three Bardic skills I received three newby music instruments. The hope was to get one of each. Choose high Str as that is an attribute which is difficult for some Bards to gain. 

Str 44  Musicianship 50
Dex 10  Peacemaking 1
Int 11  Provocation 49 

This Bards colleagues from Siege Perilous disagreed, saying his  answer is only the mandatory starting skills for a Siege Perilous Bard. This Bard found it to be easier on the standard shards to start either 49 Magery or 49 Healing, depending on if you want to be Mage-Bard or Melee (Fighter) Bard, and 50 Provoke. Training Music to 70-80 takes only 1-2 hours from 0 with constant use. This Bard usually takes Music as the third skill for the extra instrument. 

Another bard offered that as far as starting skills, I would suggest: 

50 provoke 
49 your choice (depends on character) 
1 music 

Why 1 music? Well, music does not have a skill delay. You can raise it to 50 quite fast by simply walking around playing your instrument with the "last item" key. By having provoke and music as starting skills, you'll get 2 newbie instruments. Hopefully, 1 will be a tambourine or a drum so you don't annoy the heck out of other people. 

Starting stats? 

44 str (you need all you can get)
10 dex (as a bard it will pile on)
11 int (so you can recall from right when you start, should you choose magery as a 
starting skill.) 

There are many possible choices of skills on creation. A good, if slightly outdated essay can be found at http://uo.stratics.com/strat/bard.htm . 

10. Can a Bard PvP? 

As a Bard said, they can PvP to an extent, but their role is very limited unless they use their musical skills as a secondary skill. The weakness and strength of music is that for it to be effective, it requires an audience. 

Another believes, yes, but its easier to PvP as a tank mage 

Then there is the role playing point of view, expressed this way. Ummm why? I hate this bit of this game really - combat is the most boring part of any roleplaying game - death is good but death doesn't happen in UO... So no drama or romance ... sigh... 

Most Bards would agree that the Bard skills are of little value if you want to PvP. That includes defending yourself from PKs. However, a successful use of Peacemake followed by a recall should be counted as a successful PK defense.

11. How do I keep my Str up while Barding for skill? 

This is really a large issue for some Bards, so there is a lot of advice. In truth the problem may only be acute for the Bard who is also a Mage or a Fencer. This issue appears to be at least partly solved with the advent of skill locks. 

The general advice for increasing Str applies to the Bard: use a skill related to Str. Mace and Sword is effective for the Fighter. Wrestling is appropriate for a Mage. Many recommend Animal Taming, Arms Lore or Herding. One should consider carefully before developing a skill only for the purpose of increasing Str. Thus, some would question the usefulness of Arms Lore to a Mage Bard, for example. 

A quite knowledgeable Bard offered the following advice: If a Bard skill starts raising your Dex too high, lock the Bard skills down, Provoke for a while and use your Str related skills such as Sword or Wrestling to work up your Str. You can keep using your Bard skills while locked, they just won’t raise and so won’t increase your Dex while they are locked. When your Str and Dex are back to good, set the Bard skills back to "up." 

Similar advice was provided by a mage Bard with the impressive stats of 93 Str, 100 Int, and 32 Dex: I've had this character for quite a while (before skill locks). My method for creating and maintaining this character was simple. As I would gain dex (generally at the loss of str), I would immediately stop barding and use skills that returned my str. The stat gain mechanism seems to have some memory. If you practice a str-based skill for a long time, you can successfully go barding for quite a while before you start to lose str. I usually had a threshold of str loss before I had to break off barding in favor of taming - usually about 3 str points. Now, having said this, I have to say that I use to regain my strength by macro'ing (oh... I'm evil). The macro'ing crackdown had stopped me from using this method, and fortunately, the skill locks made it no longer necessary. 

12. Are Bardic skills skill based? 

Only on the Siege Perilous shard. 

Some will not understand he implications of this question, so here is a good example provided by a Bard and a Tamer: As I was using my newbie Carpenter and Lumberjack this morning, I thought about how I could compare the Bardic skills to Lumberjacking. Lumberjacking isn’t difficulty based at all. Chop a tree and walk on to the next. Maybe get wood, maybe not. I tell you that at 38 Lumberjacking I’m not getting a whole lot of wood. In comparison, Carpentry is difficulty based. I think the whole three days I’ve been playing this char I’ve only failed maybe 10 times on the small orange chests. It is something that I can nearly always make with 38 Carpenter skill. So if Provoke were difficulty based (as is the case on SP), there would be some things that would always be Provokable at any given skill. True, it would cause even GM’s to fail at some things, just like Gm Mages fail at 7th & 8th circle spells from time to time. 

13. Tell me about the various music instruments. 

There are four standard instruments: lap harp, mandolin, tambourine and drum. Any of these can be received as a newby instrument. They all play essentially the same monotonous tune, and a discord version of it to represent a failed music skill. Almost everyone gets annoyed by the music of a Bard constantly playing their instrument for skill. Some recommend the tambourine to play around other Avatars, believing it bothers others the least. The tambourine is the lightest of the music instruments, and Bards with low Str are advised to carry it. 

A standing harp plays the same tune as a lap harp, but the tone is deeper, and some say more melodious. It can only be made by players with carpentry and music skill. To obtain one look in the various player run shops. Expect to pay a fair ammount of gold for one. Since they weigh 30 stones Bards do not usually carry them about. 

The tambourine with a tassel can also be made by players with carpentry and music skill. It sounds the same as other tambourines. 

14. Do musical instruments break? 

Only on Siege Perilous. Rumors you've heard about those changes making other production shards are false. 

15. Why is SP different? 

Well, there are a lot of differences between the Siege Perilous shard and the rest of the shards. (Maybe an SP Bard will put something together to address this?) So far there are only scattered comments throughout this FAQ. 

16. How does Karma and Fame work for the Bard? 

There is a Stratics link describing Karma and Fame for the Bard at http://uo.stratics.com/reputation/bards.shtmll . This information was last modified on 11/30/1999. The core of this information is as follows. As far as is known to CBA, this information is accurate. “Provoking a creature sets the bard as the creature's controller. As soon as the provoked creature attacks another target, the bard is no longer the controller of that creature. If the creature attacks an Innocent (different from the original target) after the initial provocation, then the bard will no longer be the controller, and the bard will not be flagged as a Criminal or Aggressor towards the Innocent. 

“The following explains how provoking a creature to attack a target relates to Karma, Fame and Criminal flagging: 

A. “Creatures dying as a result of Provocation does not result in Fame or Karma gain for the Bard. 

B. “If the target is a pet or good NPC, the bard is flagged as a Criminal. If the pet or good NPC dies, the bard will lose Karma. 

C. “If the target is an Innocent, the bard is flagged as a Criminal and Aggressor and he can be reported as a Murderer if the Innocent dies. (This will also result in the normal Karma loss associated with being reported)” 

If a Bard seeks Fame or karma it is necessary to kill the Monster using some non Bard skill, such as Magery or Swords. In theory one could make the final kill by tossing in a Purple Potion at the critical time. 

One exception noted to the above is noted. A bummer of a bug/feature is that if you try to provoke a brigand you will loose Karma. 

17. If I Provoke a monster on another can I then attack it? 

One Bard asked this question this way.  Normally I've found that once I Provoke and target a monster, I'm free to attack it without being attacked. I tried this with a gazer that I had provoked and targeted on an ettin and the gazer immediately turned on me. Is this normal and are there other monsters that can do this?   

A Bard offered this advice: It is  true that some monsters take a bit more Provoking to keep them on the target you have intended. It seems that the harder monsters do not remain provoked on the target. I am not too sure how this works, but have heard that once the monster attacks you it takes a few provokes to get him to stay on the target you wish. Also I let the monster attack the targeted monster a bit before I join in, just to make sure it doesn't then turn on me.   

Another Bard offered more advice: It seems to me that in most cases, the Provoked monster will generally have a tendency to target the thing that first dealt it damage. Therefore, if you have 2 undamaged monsters that you provoke on each other, let them get some damage (from each other) before you join in. After that, you're usually ok. 
Now, having said that, there are some monsters that don't follow this rule. Usually it's the big baddies - drakes, dragons, daemons, and the like. They seem to have an extreme dislike of PCs and will always turn back to one, even if they're getting pounded by another monster. 

18. What is the purpose and goals of the CBA?   

As described at the About Us section of the site, the basic goals of the CBA are:

Developmental Bardic Enhancements
Holidays
Services
Awareness
Travel Guide 

As Ce'Nedra Willow has said, some of these have been or are being met, and some still need to be looked at, but it's a start.