Social & bard skills¶
The "talk to NPCs / play instruments / sniff items" cluster. The bard skills (Musicianship, Provocation, Peacemaking, Discordance) are the only ones in this group with serious combat impact; the rest are utility / flavor.
Summary¶
| Skill | What it does | Useful at | Lyonspyre changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Musicianship | Required pre-skill check before every bard skill use | Bards, 100 | None |
| Provocation | Make two creatures fight each other | Bards, 100 | None |
| Peacemaking | Calm creatures in an area (PvM) or a target (PvP) | Bards, 100 | None |
| Discordance | Lower a creature's skills/stats (debuff) | Bards, 100 | None |
| Begging | Beg NPCs for gold | None really | None |
| Item Identification | Identify magic items (unidentified weapons/armor reveal properties) | Crafters/lootmasters, 80+ | None |
| Arms Lore | (cross-listed from Combat) Inspect weapon/armor | Crafters | None |
| Forensic Evaluation | Inspect crime scenes (corpses → who killed) | Roleplay / anti-thief | None |
| Taste Identification | Detect poison on food/drink | Paranoia tax | None |
Bard skills — overview¶
All four bard skills share the same gating mechanic:
- Musicianship check — you must succeed a Musicianship check on your instrument first, or the bard skill use fails outright with "You play poorly". Without GM Musicianship, every bard attempt has a noticeable fail rate.
- Bard skill check — if Musicianship passes, the actual bard skill (Prov / Peace / Disc) rolls its own check against the creature's difficulty.
So a full bard always runs Musicianship at 100, plus their chosen specialty (or all three) at 100.
Musicianship¶
The pre-check for every Provoke / Peace / Disco attempt. You hold an instrument (lute, harp, drums, etc.) and the skill rolls against the instrument's difficulty when you initiate any bard skill.
Useful at: 100 for any bard. Below 90 the fail rate gets painful.
Lyonspyre changes: None.
Provocation¶
Target two creatures within range; on success they attack each other until one dies. The classic bard combat technique — make a difficult mob fight another difficult mob, loot both corpses, train your bard skills off the fight.
Difficulty check is the harder of the two creatures. Provoking a dragon onto an ogre lord = dragon-tier check. Provoking onto yourself / a player is not allowed (provoke targets must both be NPCs/monsters).
Useful at: 100 for prov bards. Below GM you can only consistently provoke easy mobs.
Lyonspyre changes: None.
Peacemaking¶
Two modes:
- Area (target self): calms all creatures in range — they stop attacking, you can walk past
- Targeted (target a specific): puts that one creature in a brief "can't act" state
Area peace is a panic button in melee dungeons; targeted peace is a PvP CC tool against player casters (briefly silences them).
Useful at: 100 for bards. Useful as a defensive 60–80 dip on other builds, but the skill slot rarely justifies it.
Lyonspyre changes: None.
Discordance¶
Target a creature, succeed a check, the creature's skills + stats are debuffed for a duration (~25% reduction). Effectively makes a tough mob temporarily easier — bard's equivalent of a curse spell, scales with the bard's discord skill against the target's resist.
Useful at: 100 for bards. Disc against bosses can shift a hard fight to manageable.
Lyonspyre changes: None.
Begging¶
Use the skill on an NPC, they may toss you a few gold coins (or none — most ignore you). Town guards eventually get annoyed. Pre-T2A "low-effort gold farm"; on modern shards it's a flavor skill.
Useful at: Never, for any serious build. Roleplay only.
Lyonspyre changes: None.
Item Identification¶
Use on an unidentified magic item (random loot drop) to reveal its properties. Below GM you can fail and the item stays unidentified. Pre-T2A practice was to "ID then sell to vendor for proper price" — on Lyonspyre most loot is auto-ID'd at drop, so this skill is mostly redundant.
Useful at: 80+ for loot processing, if you handle a lot of random drops. Otherwise skippable.
Lyonspyre changes: None.
Arms Lore (cross-reference)¶
Already covered in Combat → Arms Lore. Inspect weapon/armor durability + damage band + AR/MR.
Forensic Evaluation¶
Use on a corpse to learn who killed it (name reveal). Use on a player to detect if they're a thief / have committed crimes recently. Pure utility / anti-thief / roleplay skill.
Useful at: Roleplay / anti-thief. Most modern shards don't use it.
Lyonspyre changes: None.
Taste Identification¶
Use on food or a drink to detect if it's poisoned. Without it, you eat the poison along with the food. Practical reason to train: paranoid PvP at high-trust tables.
Useful at: Edge case. Skippable for almost everyone.
Lyonspyre changes: None.