Social & bard skills¶
The "talk to NPCs, play instruments, sniff items" cluster. Of this group, only the bard skills - Musicianship, Provocation, Peacemaking, Discordance - carry real combat weight. The rest are utility and 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 |
| Taste Identification | Detect poison on food/drink | Paranoia tax | None |
Forensic Evaluation is removed. It used to govern skinning and carried a niche detective use (reading who killed a corpse); both are gone. Skinning is now a gathering profession outside the skill system, and the detective inspection no longer exists.
Bard skills - overview¶
All four bard skills run through the same two-stage gate:
- Musicianship check - succeed a Musicianship check on your instrument first, or the bard skill fails outright with "You play poorly". Below GM Musicianship, every attempt carries a noticeable fail rate.
- Bard skill check - once Musicianship passes, the actual bard skill (Prov / Peace / Disc) rolls its own check against the creature's difficulty.
So a full bard carries Musicianship at 100, plus their chosen specialty - or all three - at 100.
Musicianship¶
The pre-check for every Provoke, Peace, or Disco attempt. Hold an instrument (lute, harp, drums, whatever) and the skill rolls against the instrument's difficulty the moment you start any bard skill.
Useful at: 100 for any bard. Below 90 the fail rate gets painful.
Lyonspyre changes: None.
Provocation¶
Target two creatures in range; on success they tear into each other until one dies. The classic bard play - set a tough mob on another tough mob, loot both corpses, and train your bard skills off the fight.
The difficulty check is the harder of the two creatures. Provoke a dragon onto an ogre lord and you're rolling a dragon-tier check. You can't provoke onto yourself or another player - both targets must be NPCs or monsters.
Useful at: 100 for prov bards. Below GM you can only reliably provoke easy mobs.
Lyonspyre changes: None.
Peacemaking¶
Two modes:
- Area (target self): calms every creature in range - they stop attacking, you walk past
- Targeted (target a specific creature): drops that one into a brief "can't act" state
Area peace is your panic button in a melee dungeon. Targeted peace is a PvP control tool against enemy casters - it briefly silences them.
Useful at: 100 for bards. A 60-80 defensive dip works on other builds, but the skill slot rarely earns its keep.
Lyonspyre changes: None.
Discordance¶
Target a creature, pass the check, and its skills and stats are debuffed for a duration (~25% reduction). A tough mob gets temporarily softer - the bard's answer to a curse spell, scaling your discord skill against the target's resist.
Useful at: 100 for bards. Disc on a boss can turn a brutal fight into a manageable one.
Lyonspyre changes: None.
Begging¶
Use the skill on an NPC and they might toss you a few gold coins - though most just ignore you, and town guards eventually lose patience. It was a low-effort gold farm in the old days; here it's pure flavor.
Useful at: Never, for any serious build. Roleplay only.
Lyonspyre changes: None.
Item Identification¶
Use it on an unidentified magic item (a random loot drop) to reveal its properties. Below GM you can fail, leaving the item unidentified. The old trick was to ID an item and then sell it to a vendor at its proper price - but Lyonspyre auto-IDs most loot at drop, so the skill is largely redundant.
Useful at: 80+ for loot processing, if you push 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.
Taste Identification¶
Use it on food or drink to detect poison. Skip it and you swallow the poison along with the meal. The reason to train it: paranoid PvP at high-trust tables.
Useful at: Edge case. Skippable for almost everyone.
Lyonspyre changes: None.