Hi, I posted this copy-pasted text on the "new players tips" forum as a way I discovered to make thief detect traps more effective.
Since I believe that a significant portion of the community here don't read that forum, I am going to post it here as well, to encourage discussion of a correlate idea of mine, about bards. (@Dee, if it turns out that there is significant interest in this idea, in both forums, please merge the two threads.)
Here is what I posted, that started as simply a new player suggestion:
Hi, I know that one of the hardest and potentially most frustrating parts of this game is to detect and disarm traps with thief skill.
Even with 100 percent detect traps, one will often stumble into fatal traps by moving too fast.
Disarming traps with thief skill takes the patience of Job, waiting for that skill to tick.
I have recently discovered a trick that is helping me immensely with this problem. I usually play a skald. I usually spend most of my time singing to give my party my permanently awesome buffing, equivalent to both a bless and a chant, permanently cast as long as I sing.
I noticed a side effect - my song shows up as "Bel sings", on every tick of the round. I also noticed something else. Imoen or Yoshimo detect traps only in their line of sight, over about two inches on my 82" tv screen, per round, during that tick. There is zero chance of detecting a trap around a corner, using thief skill. (While cleric Find Traps spells detect them over a huge area per round tick, regardless of lines of sight.)
So, I can use my bard song, as it shows up in the actions window, to know exactly when every round ticks, and therefore every thief detection attempt, and, it makes a really incredibly useful, handy-dandy round timer, since bard song is the first thing that activates at the beginning of every round tick.
This is yet another handy-dandy use of the much maligned and underrated bard class - you can use your bard to time rounds to detect traps with your thief. :)
This is especially true if one understands the nature of the thief detect skill, which is dependent upon lines of sight from the thief toon, and only activates once per round, *simultaneously* with the bard song tick.
And so, "with their mastery of narrative structure, bards should rule the universe, instead of hanging about in taverns..." That's a quote from Emperor Tarquin, from The Order of the Stick. And, in that comic's universe, I would suggest, that the "incompetent" bard Elan has been saving the Order's butts since the beginning of the comic epic story, by singing his silly little "hit, hit, hit, hit, the little goblins" ditties, and "make, make, make, make, your saving throws", and "detect, detect, disarm, disarm, make your skill ro-oools", and all his other nursery rhyme formula ditties.
Bards control quantum mechanics. Bards influence probabilities, and through their musical and poetic power, decide whether Schroedinger's cat lives or dies. (Elan would sing it like - "Live, live, live, live, little Schroedinger's cat, kitty! Soft, kitty, warm, kitty, little ball of fur! Happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr, purr, purr!)
Umm, yeah, so, you can use your bard's song as a round timer, besides its quantum mechanics altering properties. :)
Since I believe that a significant portion of the community here don't read that forum, I am going to post it here as well, to encourage discussion of a correlate idea of mine, about bards. (@Dee, if it turns out that there is significant interest in this idea, in both forums, please merge the two threads.)
Here is what I posted, that started as simply a new player suggestion:
Hi, I know that one of the hardest and potentially most frustrating parts of this game is to detect and disarm traps with thief skill.
Even with 100 percent detect traps, one will often stumble into fatal traps by moving too fast.
Disarming traps with thief skill takes the patience of Job, waiting for that skill to tick.
I have recently discovered a trick that is helping me immensely with this problem. I usually play a skald. I usually spend most of my time singing to give my party my permanently awesome buffing, equivalent to both a bless and a chant, permanently cast as long as I sing.
I noticed a side effect - my song shows up as "Bel sings", on every tick of the round. I also noticed something else. Imoen or Yoshimo detect traps only in their line of sight, over about two inches on my 82" tv screen, per round, during that tick. There is zero chance of detecting a trap around a corner, using thief skill. (While cleric Find Traps spells detect them over a huge area per round tick, regardless of lines of sight.)
So, I can use my bard song, as it shows up in the actions window, to know exactly when every round ticks, and therefore every thief detection attempt, and, it makes a really incredibly useful, handy-dandy round timer, since bard song is the first thing that activates at the beginning of every round tick.
This is yet another handy-dandy use of the much maligned and underrated bard class - you can use your bard to time rounds to detect traps with your thief. :)
This is especially true if one understands the nature of the thief detect skill, which is dependent upon lines of sight from the thief toon, and only activates once per round, *simultaneously* with the bard song tick.
And so, "with their mastery of narrative structure, bards should rule the universe, instead of hanging about in taverns..." That's a quote from Emperor Tarquin, from The Order of the Stick. And, in that comic's universe, I would suggest, that the "incompetent" bard Elan has been saving the Order's butts since the beginning of the comic epic story, by singing his silly little "hit, hit, hit, hit, the little goblins" ditties, and "make, make, make, make, your saving throws", and "detect, detect, disarm, disarm, make your skill ro-oools", and all his other nursery rhyme formula ditties.
Bards control quantum mechanics. Bards influence probabilities, and through their musical and poetic power, decide whether Schroedinger's cat lives or dies. (Elan would sing it like - "Live, live, live, live, little Schroedinger's cat, kitty! Soft, kitty, warm, kitty, little ball of fur! Happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr, purr, purr!)
Umm, yeah, so, you can use your bard's song as a round timer, besides its quantum mechanics altering properties. :)