This is a bit of a strange post; more of a discussion starter really. I’m sort of wondering about the bard class; it sounds very interesting and unique, but also perhaps a bit risky for Warhorse; it seems to me that it would have the least to do with combat, and would thus be a somewhat unpopular class to play as. I personally would love it; I’d undoubtedly use it to create a Littlefinger-esque character, starting at the bottom and climbing the ladder of chaos to greater influence, but it would still be very dangerous it seems. Surely you’d make many enemies screwing people over, and you probably wouldn’t be carrying a sword at all times, whereas say a knight or assassin would probably be prepared for the worst, have many years of training, and probably have a weapon. I wonder if there would be hireable mercenaries, like followers in Skyrim, who wouldn’t be just for taking forts and castles as Warhorse has said. I don’t know; my questions have probably already been answered, just trying to spark some conversations.
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there is no such thing as a bard class. there are no classes.
Could you please stop with those discussion stoppers? There are no classes, yes. However @King_of_Kiwi is referring to the right side of this picture: 
and the text below:
Win hearts as a popular bard, persuading nobles with your silver tongue and convincing them to fight one another. Use your wits rather than your muscles to get the job done. Share drinks with people, be the funny guy everyone likes… and then stab your rivals in the back when they least expect it.
There’s no need to be over-correct and it’s adding absolutely no value to the discussion.
Alright back to topic: Words and information are the bard’s weapon. Just think of it as the medieval NSA, but with more joy and fun for everyone. The bard or jester has usually been the person with a critical opinion but the package of his opinion was artistic, be it humour in speeches, songs or poems or just some fancy made-up words which rhyme to local authorities’ names. His speech skills may persuade other people to do something for him, like asking a good-looking maid to attract some guards’ attention and distract them from their job so you can get access to the castle. After slipping through the first security breach, the rest is fairly easy. It’s all about talking and talking and sometimes mumbling. Even gossips are a good way to distract the view from you, so basically all you do is sharing the right information to the right people to get them out of your way. However you will have to fight sooner or later, so you might carry some daggers with you. I’ll definitely try the bard’s approach and the sneaky thief. Combined with alchemy to produce poison which is poured over the dagger’s blade you can reach your goals with rather short fights.
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Personally, I love playing the underdog character. The Bard seems to most assimilate with this: the one who looks weak at first but has high levels of influence and intelligence.
My initial reaction is that the branching speech and ‘points of no return’ shouldn’t always be easy to spot etc… that your ‘bard’ character’s merit is truly based on your own intuition. I did hate the way that, in games such as Skyrim, all dialogue branches could be explored - being a perfectionist myself, I had to expend all of them just in case there was a tiny snippet of information I could gather. I do not want KCD to offer this chance of omniscience. Not knowing everything is a part of life - and that’s scary! Scary good though. 
In short, I wouldn’t say the Bard will be a less interesting ‘class’ for most of the people eager to play this game.
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If war horse where being compleetly accurate, then tehnically even a knight would not be carrying a sword all the time, a dagger yes, a sword no as swords whwre not permitted in citys nor houses, you either left them at the gate or surrendred them to the head of the houseolhd. It was to show you where not there to start trouble ect. so in certain sittuations, weapon wise they would be on equal standing, skill wise with weapons onbviously a Knight would have vastly more skill.
Any hoo, I’d like the concept behind this option, I also like the assain role too and then Knight would be my thrid abd final choice.
I could imagen that a Assasin and Bard in many aspects woudl be equally matched, especially if our bard is a schemeing little beggar. I could see both having a hidden dagger or a vile or packet of something nasty. Also I could see them being equally skilled at ‘sneaking’ ect. the Bard in order to eves drop the Assasing to make their kill and get away.
Speech wise the Bard would be the most skilled, I would assume unless the knight held an advisory in the kings court, as Knights where people high up in society offten Lords ect. there is no reason to assume they would not have some skill in politics ect.
I don’t think this sort of playstyle wouldn’t be popular. This game is from a large part supported by people who like and miss the oldschool RPGs with lots of conversations and text involved, like Baldur’s Gate, or Planescape: Torment.
A bard-ish sort of approach with possibly less fighting and more talking was presented as a fully appropriate gameplay style alongside the stealthy rogue and the armed-and-dangerous knight from the beginning, which means that it’s a regular part of the plan. And there are lots of people who like to play this way. Old good Planescape Torment was known for the possibility to finish the whole game without a single combat situation. And there are lots of playthroughs on the web where people are exploring ways to finish many different games in as non-combat, or outright non-violent way as possible. Even with games that were not exactly designed for this.
So I’m really not afraid that the bard gameplay style would not spur much interest. It’s hard to say how much of the game would enable you to talk/sneak your way out of it (that’s not really possible in every situation…), but it might cover a large part of the game, as a viable option at least.
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elsker at der er klasser
It was just said that there won’t be classes. You get to invest in certain skills that benefit certain different playstyles. Like if you like pure combat and such, you invest in those skills and that might help you become a renown fighter. Or you like to solve problems by sneaking around, stealing things and assassinate people of importance. Then you can invest in skills that will help you with that, and you can call yourself a rogue, a thief, an assassin. So the thing with bard is that you want to play as a character that has the gift of speech, and you can invest in skills and perks that makes you better at persuading people, gaining alliances and such, through non-violent means. It’s just a playstyle which is called “bard”.
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In all truth…I’m probably going to play a diplomacy heavy character. So the Bard playstyle is right up my alley.
I usually lean toward Bard or “Ranger” in any normal fantasy RPG…so I usually lean on charisma to get myself out of tough situations.
(Not to say I won’t have at least some skill with a blade though…although I am thinking maybe a dagger, bow, woodsmans axe combo.)
Going from a blacksmith to a bard isn’t usual, I agree - even if it’s really more of a ‘spy’ playstyle than an actual bard. I’ll be interested to see how they pull it off.
I’m not that good with medieval times so sorry if I’m wrong, but I think the bard will also do quite some fighting, like when bandits attack you on the streets outside town or something. As even some merchants have swords and are porbably a little trained in combat.
[quote=“King_of_Kiwi, post:1, topic:15395”]
I’m sort of wondering about the bard class; it sounds very interesting and unique, but also perhaps a bit risky for Warhorse; it seems to me that it would have the least to do with combat, and would thus be a somewhat unpopular class to play as. I personally would love it[/quote]
Same here. The prospect of playing as a bard played a big part on my decision to back this game. Not quite sure yet what to expect gameplay wise, but I would hope that it will unlock more options in dialogue, so that quests can be solved in non-violent ways (or at least that the violence is left to somebody else).
I also do hope that investing in Bard-related skills do not make the remaining part of the game overly difficult, because focus of the game seems to be on the combat system. Often, in non-party based RPGs, one really has to invest in fighting skills to avoid much frustration. I can see how a thief/assasin can still shine in that regard (although possibly not in full frontal assault), so it’ll be interesting to see what aces a bard might have up his sleeve in that area.
I’d rather have a travelling monk as class, with the ability to heal and stir up trouble (in the name of Christ). It would also fit better with the storyline of a blacksmith('s son) whose family has been slain. Weapons of choice could be any blunt weapon or staff (so as not to shed blood). In medieval times, travelling monks spread news and were often used as messengers and spies.
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Seems neat, but this looks like something that the modders would have to put in; I don’t know if Warhorse would have the time/resources to put this in.
I would be happy to play as a musician. But I have a question about the word “bard” itself. I think “bard” is a Celtic poet and singer. In XV Century Europe secular musicians were called differently, i.e.:
- Meistersinger - German musicians affiliated in guilds,
- Minstrel,
- Rybałt (Polish name from Minster, from italian ribaldo).
I don’t know exactly how they were called in Czech Republic. I wonder if developers take some historical consultations in terms of music?
I think, Ragnar is making a lot of sense here. A monk or church education based character working as a spy, diplomat, counselor, etc. either for the church (or an order of the church), a profane ruler or as a travelling monk could really be exciting. Most developers give such characters magic powers to balance out their poor fighting skills, which always seems a bit like the easy way out. That’s why I’m really looking forward to how the WARHORSE people are going to deal with this. To have one or more guards or companions, when going on diplomatic missions or to be able to hire mercenaries would be brilliant in my humble opinion.
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Der er ikke nogen klasser…
Det er ligesom runescape, du kan blive bedre til alt bare ved at gørre det.
I see bard as someone who is quite good in speech, getting informations, using them, more than with sword. Like Jaskier in Witcher.
I agree I like the idea of a Monk or other such Monastical person as a spy.
I know I am more than likly going to get picked at for using this as an ‘example’ but…the charater Cadfeal in Edith Pargeter’s books or the UK T.V serise that was taken from the books…I thinks is a good example (all be it fictional) of how a Monk could also be spy, or in Cadfeals case a ‘detective/CSI’.
I’m pretty sure I’ll be playing as a bard most of the time. I’m a guy who was so pleased he beat the last enemy in Fallout: New Vegas with speech, so…yeah I’m interested in this style of play and hopefully it’ll be well done.