Let's Play: The Bard's Tale - Tales of the Unknown

Holy shit, yes, this.

Good catch, Turnip.

Fixed for my choice

You know, I actually considered that. But it would absolutely kill me. I mean, you guys do want updates more than once a month, right?

And man, I guess no one likes Magic Users.

Man, I love this suggestion. I'm going to be so upset if (when) McNabb dies. I mean, sure he'll be injured most of the time, but the fan base will turn on him no matter how well he does.

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Okay, so I'm just going grab the first six (unique) suggestions. Don't worry if I didn't take yours. In the early going of Bard's Tale, people will die. And it is far more cost effective to recruit new adventurers than to resurrect them. So consider them waiting in the adventurer's guild for their chance.

Anyway, the six adventurers that will start off our journey will be:

Doctor Orpheus, Human Paladin
Gimmel, Dwarf Monk
Truckles, Half-Orc Warrior
McNabb, Human Warrior
Pants, Hobbit Bard
Grissom, Half-Elf Conjurer

So far, suggestions for a party name have been:
Pants' Funtime Express
Pants and the Murder Men
Wizardry's Might
Fight an 'eal

Those aren't bad, but none are calling out to me.

And finally, to whet your appetite for what's to come, let's take a look at what are characters can do. The Paladin, Monk, and Warriors can pretty much just bash. As for the bard...

1. Falkentyne's Fury: This tune increases the damage your party will do in combat, by driving them into a berserker rage.
2. The Seeker's Ballad: This song will produce light when exploring, and during combat it will increase the party's chance of hitting a foe with a weapon.
3. Wayland's Watch: This song will soothe your savage foes, making them do less damage in combat.
4. Badh'r Kilnfest: This is an ancient Elven melody, which will heal the Bard's wounds during traveling, and heal the party's wounds during combat.
5. The Traveler's Tune: This melody makes the members of your party more dexterous and agile, and thus more difficult to hit.
6. Lucklaran: This song sets up a partial "anti-magic" field, which gives party members some increased protection against spell casting.

As for our conjuerer, here are the first level spells he starts out with:

Mage Flame a small, mobile "torch" will appear, and float above the spell caster as he travels.

Arc Fire A fan of blue flames will shoot from the caster's fingers, doing hits of damage to a select opponent, times caster's level.

Sorceror Shield The mage is protected by an invisible "shield" of magic, that turns aside many blows that would otherwise hit him.

Trap Zap This spell will disarm any trap within 30 feet, in the direction the party is facing. It will also disarm traps on chests.

Party: Pants and the Waste Band

TRZP just makes me want for BTIII's EAWA. At least you can get LOTR, although not for awhile.

(for the uninitiated - spells are cast by typing in four-letter codes, some of which made more sense than others. A list of BTI's spells.)

Doesn't Bard's Tale have Ybarra's Mystical Coat of Armor (YMCA)?

The first one makes me smile. The second makes me laugh.

Fight an 'eal sounds like Fighting Neil, I support any rag-tag group of adventurers who scare the willies out of everyone named Neil that they come across.

I vote that.

Or The Asskickery Jamboree. Not sure why though. It just speaks to me.

How about "The Pants Party" for the group name?

Yes, YMCA is by far the best spell abbreviation in the game. LOTR is pretty good too, just for the unabashed gall of it.

More precisely, the four letter spell abbreviations where Bard's Tale's copy protection. To cast a spell, you had to type in its four letter abbreviation, which was only found in the manual. Of course, most weren't that hard to guess.

Whereas it sounds to me like "fightin' eel," and gives me a mental image of a scowling moray eel in a pugilistic stance with boxing gloves hovering in front of it.

I vote for that too.

That, actually, was the second thing I thought of with that name.

That's like, 3 recursive votes for Fight an ' eal. I think?

Just wanted to add that I think it could be foolish to wade through The Bard's Tale with just one magic-user, because later in the game, when things like 4*99 Berserkers appear for a fight (do you wish to (A)ttack or (R)un?), I think it is imperative to have as much group-damaging ability as possible. Just my 2 cents...

For the record, I wrote it as 'Fite an 'eal' on purpose as a feeble attempt at an accent.

Could a part of six bards at level 1 survive a single enemy encounter? By fighting and winning even?

This must be tested before we go further!

Bards are decent enough fighters (at low level) that if it were the right encounter, they could. With the front three attacking and the bottom three buffing/debuffing they could certainly win a fight or three. But once they start encountering more difficult enemies, they will start dropping like flies.

Okay folks, here is the first band of suckers... er adventurers. You'll notice the pictures don't change based on a character's race - they are wholly based on class. You'll also noticed that I snapped the photo of PANTS with his eyes closed. Oh well.

You'll also notice that I neglected to show you any of the characters' starting equipment. That's because they have none. Bard's Tale is so hard core, all your adventurers start off naked.

The character's stats are important. I'll touch on those below.













Basically, all characters want Dexterity and Constitution (and to some extent, luck). Fighters want Strength and Magic Users want Intelligence.


Next time, the adventure begins!

To put you in the mood, here is an mp3 of the music that plays during the intro (when the bard in my avatar is telling his tale).

Are you going to be (P)ooling gold and recruiting walking wallets...er...fresh adventurers for extra cash? That DOES work in this game, to some extent, doesn't it?

Thx for the feedback on the all bards, been so long I had no clue if they were more like useless FF IV Edwards, all-buffing EO Troubadours, or actually decent hybrid characters. But I certainly see the need for some meat shields in most games.

Man, I hope this didn't die already. I love LPs of dungeon crawls.

It didn't die. I just... have responsibilities like work and such and can't do daily updates. I'm trying for every other day, but it may be closer to 3 times a week.

Here's a spoiler for the next update (hopefully tonight): People die!

If you let Alena die, I will disown you.

Seriously, I will replace you with Makkuro in my will.

Psh, employment

My plan to have Red Hedgehog left destitute and disinherited is finally coming to fruition. Mwahahaha!

I need a name idea here, folks.

Noam.

Boo. Actually, there's already a play on Noam in the character queue with Chomsky.

I'm thinking of just calling him Philliam.

That's got legs.

Make a Human Monk named Thelonious.

YES. I would not be opposed to naming all future party members after jazz greats.