[sjmdw45]

Another reason to play a wealthy elven bard:

With 60 points to spend, you can afford to be a Wealthy [20] Elven [20] bard with Bardic Talent 3 [10], Song of Humiliation [4], and Energy Reserve 2 [6].

The elf synergy gives you Bow-15, Stealth-15, and Rapier-16 (yielding a parry of 11+DB), as well as slightly more speed (6.25) and Move 7. More importantly, it unlocks more spells including Concussion. Why is this awesome?

See, IQ 14 and Bardic Talent 3 is already enough to let you maintain some cheap spells for free if they are in the bard colleges. Hush, Hide Thoughts, Keen Sight are all worth having. But how about Resist Sound? You could take responsibility for maintaining Resist Sound on the whole party all the time. A -4 to -6 penalty on all spellcasting is no joke, and something a full wizard, cleric, or druid probably couldn't stand to do routinely given the opportunity cost. But you're a bard, and you don't have THAT many spells you want to keep up constantly.

And that means that the first thing you do every combat is toss your little Concussion ball that you summoned previously (at 15-6 = 9 or better, your reliability stinks, but before combat it doesn't matter much--you can spend 8 points to raise this to 12 or better if you want, and another 8 points will make it both 14 or better and free) before all the speed 6.0 monsters can move.

Now all the monsters have to roll HT-3 to avoid physical stun, and none of the delvers do. A lot of horrifying monsters like Ramexes, Flaming Skulls, Werewolves/Vampires, and even Watchers at the Edge of Time have HT in the 10-12 range and are likely to be stunned; even a tougher monster like a pudding (HT 13) or dragon (HT 15) has 25-50% chance of failing. As far as I can tell, Magic Resistance doesn't even help (per Adventurers pg 51) because Concussion is a Missile spell, so something like a Ramex is just stuck with flat 83% odds of being stunned.

It's not even a Quick Contest, just a straight HT-3 check, so your -6 penalty from having so many spells on doesn't even hurt your success rate.

Normally, the downside to Concussion is the high chance of stunning some of your friends as well, leading to casualties, but you're a bard and you've got them all under Resist Sound already. (So if the wizard wants to start chucking Concussion grenades as well, feel free!)

This is not your main contribution to the group. Your main contribution is your ability to buy low, sell high, and stun enemies with Song of Humiliation as a free action. (Plus make friends, hire good employees, and communicate at long distance, as well as psychically interrogating defeated enemies.)

But it's a nice little combat shtick for someone who otherwise might feel a lot like deadweight in combat against foes who cannot be mind-controlled, and it more than justifies spending those 20 points on Elf, if you have no objection to Sense of Duty (Nature). It's even better than spending them on Song of Terror because it works even on Unfazeable monsters, and has a higher success rate. (Of course you can get Song of Terror as well, eventually.)

Elf bard is best bard.