Bard Question: Exchanging Spells?

[Ode1st]

Hi guys,

My Warchanter prebuild Human Bard just hit level 4 and I got the Blur and Heroism spell, which made me remember to check out the exchange spell option at my trainer and I have a few questions:

1) I see that I can only exchange one spell every 72 hours (seems kind of overkill). It turns out I have a lot of spells available to me, most of which seem fun/funny/interesting and I want to try them out. However, is it just me, or does this system seem extremely counterintuitive if you're trying to get people to actually play your game? For example, I'd exchange a spell (Master's Touch, let's say) for some funny spell like Hypnotic Pattern, but it turns out I don't really like Hypnotic Pattern, or I don't find it useful at my level/with my current DDO group, etc. Now I have a wasted spell slot for 72 hours? If I wanted to just try out a spell I haven't used before, I can only try out one spell every 72 hours? That seems ridiculous. I feel like I'm missing something.

2) I have to actually pay to exchange spells? At level 4, to exchange a Lvl 2 spell, I needed to pay 360 platinum, a sum that was more than half my total money on that character. If I didn't have another character at a higher level, this seems like it would really put a halt on a newbie (especially one who only casually plays and doesn't make the money back fast enough). Is there a point in the game where Bards don't have to pay money to exchange spells? I understand it's only every 72 hours, but if I'm a casual player, that gets expensive, it seems.

3) [Kind of a logic statement, I guess] When I hit level 4, the level-up screen said I learned Heroism and Blur. I went to my trainer and checked out the exchange spells screen after that, since I thought I'd have to exchange those spells to be able to use them. However, when I went to the exchange spells menu, there were A LOT of spells already available to me. Now, if I didn't happen to go to the exchange spells menu from my trainer, how would I even know there were spells to exchange? From level 1-3 I assumed I didn't have any spells to exchange because my character sheet didn't tell me I had them available for exchange.

So, sorry about the length of the questions :P. I still really love my bard so far, and really like how all the spells my friends and I get hit with/see cast that make us go "What the heck was that!?" ended up being bard spells. I just feel like I'm missing something (or a great many somethings :P) regarding the questions above. Thanks .

[tfangel]

Be glad they made it so you CAN change them. Sorcerers and Bards were stuck with them at the beginning.

If you want to swap spells, play a wizard, that's what they excel at, having a huge arsenal to tackle any dungeon. (even if most people just use certain ones anyway)

If sorcerers (and bards by extension of how their spells work) could swap at will, there would be no point to wizards. The idea of Sorcs and Bards is that they are a more experienced class to play, and you are supposed to plan out more about what you pick. If that makes any sense.

Not sure why you don't like hypno though, nothing better than a spell that makes mobs stop attacking you so you can go after them one at a time. (takes party cooperation though, if they hit the ones hypnoed it just breaks it) Also, masters touch as a bard? Not sure why you would need that.


As to spells, if you really want to know what each is like, try out a wizard, they get a huge selection and can just pop out ones they don't like at a rest shrine or tavern. You can also check out this thread that goes REALLY into depth about each wizard spell (don't know about other spells as i really only play wizards) http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=116560

edit:

When I hit level 4, the level-up screen said I learned Heroism and Blur.

From this it seems you might be going on the "path" offered from character creation. If i remember it selects spells for you, but if you go off the path, you can pick spells on level up. Paths are really only good for really new people, and once you get the game better you will want to get off that. When you level up off it, you get all those spells to choose from, and can pick how ever many it says you get on level up. So if you get two, you can decide on which of those you get instead of Heroism and blur (although those are two great buffs that will be used for a good while, heroism until you get Greater Heroism, blur till end.)

[Dexol]

If you want to swap spells, play a wizard, that's what they excel at

Not a bad bit of advice, I rolled a wiz as my first caster so that i could play around with spells and find out what i liked, then i rolled my sorc and bard with a good idea of what their spells do, i changed a few spells along the way when i got better optons later.

Also be aware that spell swaps get more expensive as you level, but you bank balance will increase considerably too

Good luck,

Dex

[Ode1st]

Thanks for the responses .

Ah okay, so it turns out I actually wasn't missing anything. Maybe it works like that because bards would be overpowered if they could swap out at a shrine/tavern for free like a cleric can, so there needed to be some kind of balance?

As for Hypnotic Pattern, that was just an example because it was one of the only spells I could exchange that I remembered the name of at the time of the post. I don't mind paying to exchange, I guess, and I probably won't mind only getting to swap every 72 hours when I get more spell slots. But I'm one of those gamers where I like to see everything, and I can't really do that when I can only exchange one spell every 72 hours if I want to actually play my bard and have him not waste a spell slot :/.

As for playing a sorcerer, I actually don't like magic classes very much (my main is a mechanic rogue, and I pretty much play the nonmagic classes in every game before I ever try a magic class). I do, however, like bards because they're rogueish and scumbaggy in a lot of mediums where bards exist and that's the kind of thing I enjoy :P.

I guess I could try to look on the 72 hour spell exchange positively, and be excited every 3 days to try out a new spell.

[CountHenri]

You could also acquire scrolls of any spell you're interested in and cast from them to try it out

[Tuney]

Master's Touch is good for melee built bards and for Warforged Battle casters as they don't have to deal with splashing a class with the weapons. To use more of the other weapons , mostly probbly picks ,battle axes and the two handed weapons hehe.

[Ode1st]

Master's Touch was fun for a bit since I gave my bard some fun weapons I got from level 9 quests I did with my main, however, with the group my bard plays with (a paladin and a ranger), he ended up not needing Master's Touch at all and his longswords I got from level 9 quests with my main are working just fine (rather than the elemental scimitars and stuff I was using with Master's Touch), and I'm not wasting mana on casting Master's Touch throughout a dungeon.

Right now I have Cure Light Wounds (don't need moderate yet, since my current group seems to immediately murder everything in a few seconds on elite), Otto's Dancing thing (for comedic purposes, the crappy one where it only targets one guy at a time AND you have to basically be sitting on the target because of the short caster range), Heroism, Blur and that one spell that gives the bard a + to things (can't remember what its called, the icon is of the lower half of a face). I plan on switching a spell every 3 days to try everything out. Sure looks like it is going to take a while and be expensive.

I assume at some point I'm going to have to stop wasting a spell slot to try out fun spells and stick with cures, party buffs and evasion spells.

[MysterX]

Thanks for the responses .

Ah okay, so it turns out I actually wasn't missing anything. Maybe it works like that because bards would be overpowered if they could swap out at a shrine/tavern for free like a cleric can, so there needed to be some kind of balance?

As for Hypnotic Pattern, that was just an example because it was one of the only spells I could exchange that I remembered the name of at the time of the post. I don't mind paying to exchange, I guess, and I probably won't mind only getting to swap every 72 hours when I get more spell slots. But I'm one of those gamers where I like to see everything, and I can't really do that when I can only exchange one spell every 72 hours if I want to actually play my bard and have him not waste a spell slot :/.

As for playing a sorcerer, I actually don't like magic classes very much (my main is a mechanic rogue, and I pretty much play the nonmagic classes in every game before I ever try a magic class). I do, however, like bards because they're rogueish and scumbaggy in a lot of mediums where bards exist and that's the kind of thing I enjoy :P.

I guess I could try to look on the 72 hour spell exchange positively, and be excited every 3 days to try out a new spell.

This is implemented this way because in 3rd Edition D&D, they changed magic so that not every class had the full spell list that could be swapped out at rest times. They introduced Bard and Sorc arcane casting rules that give them a smaller spell list, but without the need to prepare spells in advance.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/bard.htm

The bard’s selection of spells is extremely limited. ...
Upon reaching 5th level, and at every third bard level after that (8th, 11th, and so on), a bard can choose to learn a new spell in place of one he already knows. In effect, the bard "loses" the old spell in exchange for the new one. The new spell’s level must be the same as that of the spell being exchanged, and it must be at least two levels lower than the highest-level bard spell the bard can cast. A bard may swap only a single spell at any given level, and must choose whether or not to swap the spell at the same time that he gains new spells known for the level.

So in fact, DDO is pretty lenient by letting you swap every 72 hours, instead of limiting spell swapping to particular level-ups.

[oilnwater]

dammit now you have me wanting to play a Wiz !

[tfangel]

You could also acquire scrolls of any spell you're interested in and cast from them to try it out

Gah, i should have thought of that. Yes, do this if you want to see what some spells are like, they won't be as powerful as if you cast them, but a bard should have high enough UMD to use most.

Don't forget as a bard you can use a lot of wands, so you can get spells that way too. You could always party with a wiz and ask them to see what their spells are like.

I don't know why they took out Kobold Island (unless i'm just missing it and it's still there), it was a great place for any level to just trying out spells at early levels. I'd suggest picking up some scrolls of spells you are curious about, going to Korthos and just playing with them to get an idea.

Didn't mean to knock bards, they are awesome and underrated. They just take a bit to play with knowing spells. (and with wands and scrolls you can do more than you have memorized).

[Tuney]

You should drop heroism, that spell you were talking about with the 'face'. "Good hope" is a buff that does everything Heroism does with the kicker of +2 damage and being a group buff. Then there is the counter to good hope "Crushing Despair" which becomes the other reason to carry it. LIke how haste counters slow, Bless counters doom , Good hope counters Crushing Despair hehe.

That or you are thinking of Focusing chant... one of the two

[Ode1st]

Oh, right. I was thinking of Focusing Chant. I'll probably drop that for some other spell sometime soon. I never seem to need it and would rather have suggestion, hypnotism, cure moderate wounds, etc.

And yeah, aside from actually just liking the way I view a bard (charismatic fellow of questionable morals), I was able to immediately see how/why bards are useful in this game.

[Tuney]

Focusing chant is useful , It is a +1 to attack and skills that can be useful when you are finding you self barrly missing as well as +1 to skills is VERY useful when you need that scroll/wand to go off.

[oilnwater]

Speaking of Hypnotism, why is my Hypno no longer acting as an Area of Effect spell?? I used to rely on it a lot. Then after ranking, something happened. I now have to target an enemy to make Hypno pop off. If I have no enemy selected it says "Failed Action! No Target Selected".

Nothing has changed since I leveled. My CHA has gone up by 2 since I've noticed Hyno stop working. My equipment is the exact same. One of my new spells, that lvl 2 "web of fascinate" or something, idk the real name, but it's that spell that you need a bit of bone as a spell component for and makes a large rainbow colored area with a chance of fascinating an enemy within it. Well, the only thing I can think of is having that spell combined with Hypno might be causing some sort of conflict or bug?


Anyone else having trouble with this?

[FunkyGoose]

it is still an aoe spell, but it centres on your target, if your having trouble try turning auto target on, g default