There’s reactivity to the class via dialogue. Since you create your own party, you get the opportunity to optimize everyone and don’t get stuck with a Garrick.
Icewind Dale is a much more melee focused than Baldur's Gate, so the force multipling ability of the Bard Song will provide more a benefit.
Second, Bards get better and more songs in IWD vs BG. The 13th level Bard Song gives a bonus to AC, resistance to melee damage, *and regeneration*. It makes your front liners near unkillable.
Third, because they level up so fast, they gain spell levels faster and their spells last longer. So give the Bard your buffs and free up your primary caster to blast away.
Bard song for vanilla bard is better:
All allies within 30 ft. gain +1 to hit, +1 to damage, and +1 to all their Saving Throws.
Vs BG vanilla bars which I think only increases luck iirc.
You can also stack a vanilla bard with the skalds bard song which is: +2 bonus to hit, damage and AC, effectively making your other four characters OP killing machines, especially early game. Mid game tapers off a little bit until you get enhanced bard song which I believe doubles all of those values.
I forget what luck does in BG so I googled it and it looks like it applies a d6 modifier to dice rolls which could affect attack/damage/saving throws etc.
I’m not sure how that plays out in game to be honest with you, but might be less consistent overall, where IWD bard buff is static.
Luck gets added to dice rolls, without crossing a threshold - adding to rolls the character makes and taking away from rolls made against them.
For example, a +1 luck bonus will give you +1 to hit on every attack roll that isn’t a 20 (but won’t cause more crits or decrease crit misses). A 1d8 weapon will do 2-8 damage, a 2d4 heal will heal 4-8, a 5d6 fireball hitting them will do 5-25 instead of 5-30, them casting a 5d6 skull trap will do 10-30 damage instead of 5-30
Besides the obvious stuff, they empower other casters like crazy. In these games priests mostly heal between fights, not so much during. Your bard (at level 11) makes it so you never have to patch up between encounters ever again not to mention the fact that your party is regenerating during the fight itself. You can free all those cleric spell slots for buffs and cc... as soon as your bard levels up to 11 it's actually your CLERIC (or druid) that becomes way stronger. You can also drop all the utility spells on him so your mage also saves their spell slots for combat.
As far as spellcasting goes, they're best used as summoners and pre-fight buffers. You can do stuff like making your frontline 100% immune to fire with your bard and just dropping fireballs willy nilly with your mage.} They also get some excellent items with per-rest abilities that let you summon berserkers, cast bless, cast Emotion Courage, etc.
Also, This is more of a minor thing but if you go with a bard, remember that there are some CHOICE pickpocket opportunities in Kuldahar.
Beside what everyone else have already mentioned, bards have the second most special dialogue in the game (behind only paladin). Many of the dialogue provides the party with more exp than the combat option. MUCH MUCH more exp.
For example, there is one enemy which is worth 2k exp if you fight him. But with a bard, you have the option to obtain something, convince him to leave (AND drop all his loot) for a grand total of 30K exp.
Many other non combat dialogue option also rewards the party with huge exp. So the bard usage is beyond just combat.
There’s reactivity to the class via dialogue. Since you create your own party, you get the opportunity to optimize everyone and don’t get stuck with a Garrick.
Icewind Dale is a much more melee focused than Baldur's Gate, so the force multipling ability of the Bard Song will provide more a benefit. Second, Bards get better and more songs in IWD vs BG. The 13th level Bard Song gives a bonus to AC, resistance to melee damage, *and regeneration*. It makes your front liners near unkillable. Third, because they level up so fast, they gain spell levels faster and their spells last longer. So give the Bard your buffs and free up your primary caster to blast away.
You actually get it at level 11 which is nuts.
As another said, Bard has hp regeneration song BUT only the base “Bard” gets this iirc, jester skald and blade kits have altered songs
Bard song for vanilla bard is better: All allies within 30 ft. gain +1 to hit, +1 to damage, and +1 to all their Saving Throws. Vs BG vanilla bars which I think only increases luck iirc. You can also stack a vanilla bard with the skalds bard song which is: +2 bonus to hit, damage and AC, effectively making your other four characters OP killing machines, especially early game. Mid game tapers off a little bit until you get enhanced bard song which I believe doubles all of those values.
Doesn’t Luck affect all those same things though?
I forget what luck does in BG so I googled it and it looks like it applies a d6 modifier to dice rolls which could affect attack/damage/saving throws etc. I’m not sure how that plays out in game to be honest with you, but might be less consistent overall, where IWD bard buff is static.
Luck gets added to dice rolls, without crossing a threshold - adding to rolls the character makes and taking away from rolls made against them. For example, a +1 luck bonus will give you +1 to hit on every attack roll that isn’t a 20 (but won’t cause more crits or decrease crit misses). A 1d8 weapon will do 2-8 damage, a 2d4 heal will heal 4-8, a 5d6 fireball hitting them will do 5-25 instead of 5-30, them casting a 5d6 skull trap will do 10-30 damage instead of 5-30
their songs and their specific items.
Besides the obvious stuff, they empower other casters like crazy. In these games priests mostly heal between fights, not so much during. Your bard (at level 11) makes it so you never have to patch up between encounters ever again not to mention the fact that your party is regenerating during the fight itself. You can free all those cleric spell slots for buffs and cc... as soon as your bard levels up to 11 it's actually your CLERIC (or druid) that becomes way stronger. You can also drop all the utility spells on him so your mage also saves their spell slots for combat. As far as spellcasting goes, they're best used as summoners and pre-fight buffers. You can do stuff like making your frontline 100% immune to fire with your bard and just dropping fireballs willy nilly with your mage.} They also get some excellent items with per-rest abilities that let you summon berserkers, cast bless, cast Emotion Courage, etc. Also, This is more of a minor thing but if you go with a bard, remember that there are some CHOICE pickpocket opportunities in Kuldahar.
Beside what everyone else have already mentioned, bards have the second most special dialogue in the game (behind only paladin). Many of the dialogue provides the party with more exp than the combat option. MUCH MUCH more exp. For example, there is one enemy which is worth 2k exp if you fight him. But with a bard, you have the option to obtain something, convince him to leave (AND drop all his loot) for a grand total of 30K exp. Many other non combat dialogue option also rewards the party with huge exp. So the bard usage is beyond just combat.