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.
At a glance¶
| Skill | What it does | Useful at | Lyonspyre changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Musicianship | Pre-check before every bard skill use; caps the effective level of every bard skill; above 100 it lowers every bard difficulty | Bards, 100-150 | Effective-skill cap |
| Provocation | Make two creatures fight each other | Bards, 100 | Success counts as full kill contribution |
| Peacemaking | Calm creatures in an area or a single creature | Bards, 100 | Success counts as full kill contribution |
| Discordance | Weaken a creature's stats, skills, and swing speed | Bards, 100 | Success counts as full kill contribution |
| 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 not a skill on Lyonspyre. Skinning is a gathering profession outside the skill system, and there is no corpse-inspection detective skill.
How bard skills work¶
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 - and your effective skill in that check is capped at your Musicianship. A bard with 100 Provocation and 50 Musicianship checks like a 50-skill bard.
So a full bard carries Musicianship at 100, plus their chosen specialty - or all three - at 100. There is no shortcut: the song is only as good as the hands playing it.
Prefer not to mash skill buttons mid-fight? Auto-Bard can play Discordance and Peacemaking on your combat target for you, at full normal cost.
Musicianship¶
The pre-check for every Provoke, Peace, or Disco attempt. Hold an instrument; the game rolls your Musicianship straight up (skill out of 100) the moment you start any bard skill. At 100 the pre-check never fails.
It also sets your ceiling: every bard skill checks at no higher than your Musicianship. 100 Discordance over 50 Musicianship rolls like 50 Discordance - the extra 50 points do nothing until the music catches up. Train them together.
Past 100 it keeps paying: every point above 100 shaves half a point off every bard difficulty check, up to 25 at the 150 cap. Scrolling Musicianship is the strongest single upgrade a bard can buy.
Useful at: 100 minimum for any bard; 150 for a serious one.
Lyonspyre changes: the effective-skill cap above; cap raisable to 150 via mastery scrolls like the other bard skills.
Provocation¶
Target two creatures in range; on success they tear into each other. The classic bard play - set a tough mob on another tough mob, loot both corpses.
The difficulty check is the average of the two creatures, slightly reduced - provoking a dragon onto an ogre lord rolls easier than a dragon onto a dragon. Both targets must be creatures (never yourself or another player), and they must be within bard range of each other as well as of you. Picking the first creature is free; the check and the instrument charge happen when you pick the second. The pair stays locked in for at least 30 seconds, and keeps fighting after that as long as you stay alive, visible, and in range.
Useful at: 100 for prov bards. Below GM you can only reliably provoke easy mobs.
Lyonspyre changes: a successful provoke makes you a full contributor to the kill (see Group Rewards).
Peacemaking¶
Two modes:
- Area (target self): rolls your skill straight up (no creature difficulty) and on success breaks off every calmable creature in range - a momentary combat reset, they can re-aggro right away. Your panic button.
- Targeted (target a creature): rolls against that creature's difficulty and calms it for a real duration - 10 seconds up to 2 minutes, longer the easier the target. Hitting the calmed creature can wake it, and the odds of waking grow as it gets bloodier.
Against another player, targeted peace only knocks them out of war mode for an instant - there is no lasting effect and no silence. Treat Peacemaking as a PvM tool.
Useful at: 100 for bards. A 60-80 defensive dip works on other builds, but the skill slot rarely earns its keep.
Lyonspyre changes: a successful targeted or area peace makes you a full contributor to nearby kills (see Group Rewards).
Discordance¶
Target a creature and pass the check, and it is weakened across the board: 20% off its stats and every skill at GM Discordance, rising to 30% at the 150 cap. The weakened creature also swings slower - the discord penalty feeds directly into the swing-speed math, so a discorded monster attacks roughly a quarter slower at GM.
The debuff has no fixed timer: it holds as long as you stay alive, visible, and within bard range of the target, with a short grace window if you step out. Walk away for good and it fades. Discordance only works on creatures - it cannot be used on players at all.
Useful at: 100 for bards; 150 turns bosses to butter. Disc on a boss can turn a brutal fight into a manageable one.
Lyonspyre changes: a successful disco makes you a full contributor to the kill (see Group Rewards).
Instruments¶
One instrument, one source: the lute, crafted by carpenters from boards and cloth. Nothing drops instruments and no vendor stocks them.
Every bard attempt (success or failure) spends one charge. A fresh lute holds 150 charges, plus 25% per wood tier of the boards it was crafted from, and an exceptional lute doubles the total - a Lyonspire exceptional holds 750. Better wood also plays truer: each tier shaves 1.5 difficulty from every bard check (exceptional adds another 5), and it strengthens the bard talent songs. A left-click on any instrument shows its remaining charges, and an overhead warning fires when one breaks.
Full, never-played exceptional lutes can be banked in the coffer's Instruments shelf, one row per wood tier. Any older instrument you already own keeps working until its charges run out.
Bards also have their own talent tree: one path for your own damage, one that turns your songs into buffs for the whole party.
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.