The Bard System expands the traditional barding skills of Discordance, Peacemaking, and Provocation with new instrument qualities, magical properties, creature resistance, and equipment progression.

A skilled bard can still rely on their abilities alone, but powerful instruments can greatly improve performance against tougher creatures.

The three primary bard skills remain:

• Discordance: Weakens creatures and reduces their combat effectiveness
• Peacemaking: Calms creatures and temporarily prevents aggression
• Provocation: Turns creatures against one another

Musicianship remains an important part of all barding abilities.

Higher skill levels improve your chance of successfully affecting difficult creatures.

Creatures now have a hidden Music Resistance value based primarily on their strength and maximum health.

Music Resistance ranges from easier creatures at the low end to extremely powerful bosses at the highest levels.

As Music Resistance increases, barding abilities become more difficult to land.

This means that the strongest creatures may require:

• High barding skills
• High Musicianship
• Better instrument quality
• Instrument properties
• A matching Slayer
• Proper bard equipment progression

The most powerful encounters are intended to challenge even fully trained bards.

Bard instruments now use their own quality system.

Instrument qualities are:

• Low
• Normal
• Exceptional
• Exquisit
• Mastercrafted
• Tuned
• Harmonic
• Virtuoso

Crafted instruments can still be created as Normal or Exceptional.

Higher quality instruments may be discovered through loot and special rewards.

Better quality increases the overall Gear Power of an instrument.

Each instrument can contribute Gear Power to your barding abilities.

Gear Power is built from several parts:

• Instrument Quality
• Instrument Properties
• Matching Slayers

Each magical instrument property contributes additional Gear Power.

A Slayer that correctly matches your target provides a significant additional bonus.

The stronger your instrument becomes, the better equipped you are to challenge creatures with high Music Resistance.

Magical instruments may contain special properties that improve barding abilities or trigger additional effects.

Each property also contributes to the instrument's total Gear Power.

• Quickstep: Can shorten the recovery time between barding attempts
• Encore: Can allow another performance without consuming the normal reuse delay
• Carrying Tone: Allows a melody to reach farther than normal
• Perfect Pitch: Rewards careful and consistent barding performance
• Steadfast Grip: Helps maintain control of the instrument during difficult performances
• Practiced Ear: Can improve bard skill training opportunities
• Extended Hold: Can increase the duration of successful bard effects

• Wide Chorus: Expands the reach of area Peacemaking
• Still Waters: Enhances Peacemaking with an additional magical effect
• Siren's Call: Adds an additional Peacemaking-related effect

• Discordant Echo: Can create an additional Discordance effect
• Echo Chamber: Can spread a weaker Discordance effect and magical damage

• Warlord's Beat: Adds an additional combat effect to Provocation
• Cursed Notes: Places an additional curse-like effect on affected creatures
• Bloodfeud: Enhances the conflict between successfully provoked creatures

Some instrument properties activate as procs when their conditions are met.

When a property activates:

• A visual effect appears
• The bard receives a message identifying the activated property
• An overhead effect may appear on the affected creature
• The property's special effect is applied

Multiple properties can activate during the same performance.

When two or more properties activate together, an additional Harmonic Resonance effect may appear.

Slayer instruments remain an important part of high-end barding.

Using the correct Slayer against a matching creature provides additional Gear Power and can significantly improve your chance of success.

Using an opposing Slayer may instead make the performance more difficult.

Both native instrument Slayers and supported Slayer enhancements can contribute to the bard system.

Boss-tier creatures have additional protection against barding.

Very powerful creatures may resist normal Peacemaking and Provocation, even when ordinary creatures would still be vulnerable.

Discordance remains usable against these targets, although high Music Resistance can make success difficult.

Master bards can gain access to a special form of Peacemaking against the most powerful creatures.

To qualify, the bard must have:

• Master-level barding skills
• Sufficient total Gear Power
• A powerful enough instrument
• A valid high-resistance target

Successful Apex Peacemaking can briefly calm creatures that would normally be immune to ordinary Peacemaking.

Apex Peacemaking has its own success chance and target cooldown.

Crafting instruments continues to work normally.

A successfully crafted instrument may be:

• Normal
• Exceptional

Exceptional instruments begin with stronger Gear Power than Normal instruments.

Special qualities above Exceptional are generally obtained through loot, rewards, or special content rather than ordinary crafting.

Some special and artifact instruments may have predefined qualities, Slayers, appearances, or other unique properties.

Existing special instruments continue to function with the Bard Quality system.

The traditional Harp has been reduced from 35 stones to 5 stones.

Existing Harps are automatically updated to the new weight.

A strong bard is no longer defined only by reaching maximum skill.

Progression now includes:

• Training Musicianship
• Training Discordance, Peacemaking, and/or Provocation
• Finding higher-quality instruments
• Collecting useful instrument properties
• Finding matching Slayer instruments
• Building enough Gear Power to challenge high Music Resistance creatures

The strongest bard equipment is intended to provide meaningful progression beyond simply reaching maximum skill.

The Bard & Instrument System is designed to support additional instrument properties, qualities, rewards, and bard-related content in the future.

New instruments and bard equipment may be added as the system continues to expand.

Happy performing!