Bard Perform Skill - Still Useless...

[Freeman]

I'm currently also looking into ways of having a character's Perform skill have an effect on your songs - it's likely that that will somehow play into song durations, so there's no need to panic about fascinate durations yet.

Original post.

So, since it has now been something like 8 months since this was originally posted, has there been any work done on actually making Perform items, enhancements, and feats have any function in the game at all? I've had a Perform item in the bank for almost two years now. At this point, I would say either give it a function, or remove it from the game completely and give the bard songs as automatic class abilities at the appropriate levels. Then you can also remove the items, enhancements, and feats associated with it. I really don't care which you do, but it would be nice if you actually did SOMETHING about it.

[In_Like_Flynn]

Jeebus, points into perform are a waste?

[Cruzer]

Hehe I had heard the idea that putting points into perform was a waste. And then a Bard friend of mine told me he couldn't do the Inspire Heroics song that we get at 15 because he didn't have enough RANKS in perform.

Suckers.

However, yes the items themselves don't really do anything. Its just another useless item effect clogging up my good loot tables. Like body feeder, lifeshield, and other crappy weapon effects.

[Freeman]

Jeebus, points into perform are a waste?

You still need to have a minimum number of ranks(Actual skill points put into the skill) to qualify for various bard songs. Right now, I think the minimum for all songs is 18 ranks. Beyond that, anything else is a waste. Feats, enhancements, and items that increase your perform skill do not have any effect at all on the game. That's why I referred to items, enhancements, and feats in my OP.

[Karavek]

To make the Skill Perform which is meant to be the stock and trade of Bards abit more useful perhaps they could extend the duration of songs based on a skill check allowing the greater performers songs to be more powerful then a UMD or Haggle Bards songs. Just my 2 coppers on te subject.

[Freeman]

To make the Skill Perform which is meant to be the stock and trade of Bards abit more useful perhaps they could extend the duration of songs based on a skill check allowing the greater performers songs to be more powerful then a UMD or Haggle Bards songs. Just my 2 coppers on te subject.

That's what Eladrin was supposedly looking into back in July of last year. Since we hadn't heard anything about it, I thought I'd see if we could get some idea of whether this was still the plan. Perform in and of itself is currently a useless skill. It is necessary for bards to take it to gain their useful abilities, but the skill in and of itself is useless. That's what I would like to see changed.

[TommyBoy]

Wait a minute. I thought that perform effected the DC of your songs. Am I completely wrong for think it should? Because that seems like the obivous thing to me.

[Vormaerin]

No, what they should do is have it generate the save on Fascinate instead of Fascinate be no save.. (eek! screams most of my fellow bards, especially the dorfs). They have mentioned that it might some day happen, but its not particularly important at the moment.

Tommyboy,

It *should* do that. But it doesn't. Fascinate is foolproof, there is no save except being a red boss. The only song with a save is Suggestion and that isn't effected by your perform skill (except that you can't use it at all unless you have a certain minimum value).

[TommyBoy]

No, what they should do is have it generate the save on Fascinate instead of Fascinate be no save.. (eek! screams most of my fellow bards, especially the dorfs). They have mentioned that it might some day happen, but its not particularly important at the moment.

See thats what I thought it did already. They deffently need to change that. It would be like a rouge getting to auto succeed at traps and locks. Maybe they can switch it and also make the suggestion song based off of perform too and not require the mods to be fascinated first.

[Zenako]

The problem as I see it, is how would you make it matter.

Right now, anything in the area of effect of a song, that can be affected by the song is affected. 100% success. If we made it a saving throw, take your pick, my guess is that anything in the area of effect will be 95% of the time charmed. Lets see, 18 ranks, +12 Stat bonus, +10 (at a minimum) item gives us a 40DC before any feats, or other affects kick in. Make a lot of code changes for not much of any affect in gameplay.

OK, perhaps make it an opposed skill check. But which one? There is no base skill that is the opposite of Perform (like Hide and Spot or Move Silent and Listen). Likely would end up with the same 95-100% success.

A skilled bard in D&D can be irresistable, unless we have spells like Silence in play.

New spell, how do you code that. How do you introduce a meaningful silence effect. You could cut down the in game volumes to zero while under the spell. OK, probably need to work on a bunch of coding on that, since you have about 5 sound sources in the game. You would also now need to identify all those spells with verbal components and disable them while under the silence spell. Is the silence spell a personal effect only or does it have a radius of effect and you now need to dynamically track that affect as well. Can be done, look at Paly Aura's, but also look at all the fun we had with Auras and some other persistent spells like Bless.

Ding...Ding....Ding....Ding.....

Would being in a silence spell make you immune to all sonic damage? Perhaps the End boss of Von5 just needs a single Silence spell on it to make it a pushover? Would Sonic traps hurt?

Gets complicated.

End result, what would be the NET in game benefit to really changing the way Perform works in DDO. I too have an assortment of nice +13 and +15 items in the bank if they ever do choose to make it matter.

Perhaps certain NPC's could be bribed with a Performance instead of a Bluff or Intimidate check. Might be a nice touch, but probably right now, any bard can also hit the numbers for Bluff, or Diplomacy anyway so just giving them yet another way to bypass something really does not change things much at all.

[Coldin]

Here's a thought, how about the perform skill, while also extending the duration of buffs based on a percentage of your total skill modifier (10 perform nets you a +10% increase in song duration before enhancements), it also changes the song into a progressively more complicated, and cooler , version. It'd be pretty awesome to compare a high level bard versus a low level bard just by how they play Inspire Courage.

Of course to do that they'd need to pony up some money to hire a musician to record some alternate songs, and it seems they have a hard enough time getting a musician to create unique songs for Song of Freedom, Spellsong Trance, Warchanter Chant, Fascinate Constructs/Undead, Inspire Heroics.

[Dane_McArdy]

Right now, outside of the ability to use songs or not, which you can make sure you have the right amount leveling, perform doesn't nothing else.

So those +15 gloves I have, I don't need. I kept them because I felt one day, things might change. But currently, I don't have any use for any item that gives a bonus to perform.

Now, while I love fascinate always working, I also don't have an issue with mobs getting a save, if Turbine decides to go that route with making perform have more impact.

And the fact that my songs could last longer because of perform? All for that. Because I have a high perform, with no gear, I have all the lingering song enhancements, so if anything, I will just get longer lasting songs, in my mind. A ten minute long song? Heck yeah, I'll take that.

Having a save for fascinate, that doesn't bother me. If it works like paper, the DC should be a perform check, which is a d20+ perform skill. So with a 45 perform, plus 1-20, means even if I roll a one, the DC against the song would be 46, seems hard to beat. That means creatures resisting it have a +26 save to will, which might be possible. But if I roll a 20, that's a 65 DC. I can not see a creature making that save unless they roll a 20.

And I wouldn't be adverse to them making the mob immune to a failed attempt like in the rules.

[rimble]

The problem as I see it, is how would you make it matter.

Set the DC (Will Save) equal to your Perform Skill Ranks + Ability Modifier. That'd be high 20's for most pure Bards right now I think. You could also just set the DC to one-half your total Perform skill (including everything), which would result in about the same DC at the high levels. There's no real precedent for doing things this way, but it's a start.

To make items useful, have the duration of all songs (including Fascinate) affected by your total Perform Skill (Ranks + Ability Mod + Items + Buffs, etc).

Now granted, I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about this, but I think there are options.

[Zenako]

Right now, outside of the ability to use songs or not, which you can make sure you have the right amount leveling, perform doesn't nothing else.

So those +15 gloves I have, I don't need. I kept them because I felt one day, things might change. But currently, I don't have any use for any item that gives a bonus to perform.

Now, while I love fascinate always working, I also don't have an issue with mobs getting a save, if Turbine decides to go that route with making perform have more impact.

And the fact that my songs could last longer because of perform? All for that. Because I have a high perform, with no gear, I have all the lingering song enhancements, so if anything, I will just get longer lasting songs, in my mind. A ten minute long song? Heck yeah, I'll take that.

Having a save for fascinate, that doesn't bother me. If it works like paper, the DC should be a perform check, which is a d20+ perform skill. So with a 45 perform, plus 1-20, means even if I roll a one, the DC against the song would be 46, seems hard to beat. That means creatures resisting it have a +26 save to will, which might be possible. But if I roll a 20, that's a 65 DC. I can not see a creature making that save unless they roll a 20.

And I wouldn't be adverse to them making the mob immune to a failed attempt like in the rules.

Don't forget the ever present Greater Heroism at those levels for another +4 to skill checks. mmm

19 Ranks, 12 Stats, 15 item, 4 for GH, 2 for Luck item, plus the d20 roll. DC ranging from 53 to 72. Not really any different than 100% as things now stand. 95 vs 100....not hardly worth making all the changes to achieve....

[Freeman]

No matter what the Perform skill, it would still fail 5% of the time. I liked the idea of having the song duration be effected by the perform skill, since that would be a more practical and noticeable effect. It would also likely involve less coding. However, if it was decided that it was too much effort to give it a use, then I still think it should be removed from the game completely. Right now, people wear equipment, take enhancements, or use up feat slots to improve it because they have the false impression that it actually matters if they do that. I've grouped with high level bards that believed Perform raised the DC of their Fascinate. Even the skill description has it wrong. From the Compendium:
"Perform
Allows you to use and improve your musical ability to inspire and fascinate others."

It didn't take them long to change Balance so that the skill actually matched the description. Before that, Balance didn't do anything in the game either, so asking for the same treatment for another skill doesn't seem out of line.

[Zenako]

At least with any changes to the Perform skill, almost every bard in the game has already kept that skill maxed out (or nearly so) in order to gain all the new songs. There would be minimal gnashing of teeth over a change like that. (unlike other retroactive skill changes which caused much grief to some players).

Make songs last longer, sure, but again to how much benefit? My level 15 songs already last about 7 minutes a pop (and close to 4 on spellsong). I am hard pressed to run out of songs between shrines as it is unless doing something solo and suggesting everyone to join the Bards team.....

[Dane_McArdy]

Don't forget the ever present Greater Heroism at those levels for another +4 to skill checks. mmm

19 Ranks, 12 Stats, 15 item, 4 for GH, 2 for Luck item, plus the d20 roll. DC ranging from 53 to 72. Not really any different than 100% as things now stand. 95 vs 100....not hardly worth making all the changes to achieve....

That maybe, but a small chance is better then no chance, and can keep things interesting. But I could see that work A dev would need to do to offer that 5% isn't worth the time.

Then again, that only applies for maxxed out bards, and at lower levels, is a different story.

[rimble]

Make songs last longer, sure, but again to how much benefit? My level 15 songs already last about 7 minutes a pop (and close to 4 on spellsong). I am hard pressed to run out of songs between shrines as it is unless doing something solo and suggesting everyone to join the Bards team.....

My off the cuff suggestions were envisioning replacing the current durations, not supplementing them. So, not 7 minutes plus more time for a high Perform skill, just a straight 9 seconds (or whatever value, not important right now) per total Perform skill point.

Sounds pretty easy really now that I think about it. DC = 1/2 * Total Perform Skill, Duration = (Some Time Value) * Total Perform Skill. The (Some Time Value) can be different if they want different songs to be balanced by shorter/longer durations. Maybe 6 seconds per skill point for Spellsong, 9 seconds per skill point for Inspire Courage, so on.

More thought would be required to see if that totally gimps multi-class Bards and if it grows fairly/smoothely as a Bard levels up.

[Zenako]

My off the cuff suggestions were envisioning replacing the current durations, not supplementing them. So, not 7 minutes plus more time for a high Perform skill, just a straight 9 seconds (or whatever value, not important right now) per total Perform skill point.

But that would run into the whole issue with the Enhancement system and Lingering Songs, which are a requirement for things like SpellSingers. gets more complicated...

So, lots of stuff to tweak to change what....not much....would it be a worthwhile use of Dev Time....probably not really. Would it be cool if perform mattered. Sure. Perhaps some future quests will have NPC's that can be influenced to aid your quest if they are affected by some skill (diplomacy, perform, etc). Make it possible for any CHA based character who devotes skill to those areas to hit certain marks, but makes it EASY for a bard to just waltz in and make it so....

[Freeman]

Sounds pretty easy really now that I think about it. DC = 1/2 * Total Perform Skill, Duration = (Some Time Value) * Total Perform Skill. The (Some Time Value) can be different if they want different songs to be balanced by shorter/longer durations. Maybe 6 seconds per skill point for Spellsong, 9 seconds per skill point for Inspire Courage, so on.

More thought would be required to see if that totally gimps multi-class Bards.

Actually, something like 60 seconds + (some value) * Perform skill would be better. That way, it would still be useful at low levels, but give you some incentive to increase it. If it were 60 seconds + (6 * Perform)seconds, it would still be useful at low levels, but not game-breaking at high levels either. The Lingering Songs enhancements could add time on top of that, although they may have to be adjusted somewhat to keep the durations from getting too high.