I am a Bard

Bards are the cream of PvM in UO. You can earn as much loot as a Tamer, sometimes more, but not just anyone can do it well. While (in most cases) PvM for Tamers translates into a simple "Pluto Kill" and the odd An Lor Xen, Barding can require great skill. A good analogy between a Bard and a Tamer would be the Mage and Dexxer in PvP. Both are very good templates to kill with, but not just anyone can play a Mage - and do it well. This essay will teach you everything you need to know about using a Bard to its full potential. After reading this, you have no excuse for being a Tamer anymore. Be all you can be: Be a Bard.

To use the Bardic skills, you must have an instrument. Always choose a Bardic skill (1% is enough) when you create a a new Bard character. That way, you will start out with a newbiefied instrument. Make sure it's a tambourine or drum, because lutes and harps sound very annoying. Also, Tambourines and Drums weigh less (Tambourines weigh 1, Drums 4, Lutes 5 and Harps 10 stones).

You can set UOA to filter the sound of Bard music, but don't have this setting checked when you play your Bard. As you become better you will play in places where things happens fast and you wont have time to read all text messages stating whether you succeed or fail. The sound of your instrument will tell you this.

Lets talk a bit about the Bardic skills and how they can be used.

The Bardic skills are:

• Musicianship
• Peacemaking
• Provocation
• Enticement

There are 2 basic ways to raise Music to GM. Up to 70-80 its fairly simple to just play the instrument (Use several instruments at once to speed up gains even more), but be sure to stay away from crowds as the noise tends to piss people off. And pissed people tend to slow down skill gain. When gains taper off, you either 8x8 the skill (do it while you work other skills, like Magery or Healing) or failing that, use the passive skill gain method. What that means, is you use the skill Enticement (have both Enticement and Musicianship skills marked up). Once you get a passive gain in Music, you lock Enticement and keep enticing. Music gains should be massive. When gains stop, rinse and repeat until GM. If that passive gain never seems to come just 8x8 it, it should not take too long either way.

Peacemaking is mostly a defensive skill. If successful, it will pacify all monsters that are currently targeting something in the area. It affects players and monsters alike. Players will need to retarget monsters (or other players) after a Bard successfully peacemade nearby. Its main use is to keep either a very powerful monster docile while players are vulnerable, or to get out of a crowded situation. Its not a panacea though, all monsters will retarget after a few seconds (up to 12 seconds). So peacemaking will buy you some time, that's all.

All monsters that are currently targeting you when you successfully peacemake, will attempt to go to the tile where you used Peacemake skill. Be aware of this so that you allow for this in how you play. You can even use this to your advantage as it can be used to bring together monsters to Provoke onto each other - or to clear a passage when you don't want to run past the monsters.

Some mages use peacemaking in PvP, but it is truly a rare event. PvP often means furious running around, and often double clicking someone to initiate an attack can be tricky. Bards can take advantage of this and peacemake to force warriors to double click their targets again. Experienced warriors can counter this by having a macro to attack last target (again this is very rare too).

Peacemaking is mostly a defensive skill. It can also be used to create problems for other players. One favorite ploy is to use Peacemaking in such a way that monsters that were locked onto someone else retargets a few seconds after being peacemade. The new target is then often overrun and subsequently looted by the Bard that peacemade. This is a grief tactic which is pretty lame. If you don't have the guts to directly kill someone to get their loot, you don't deserve it. Just be ready, and you wont fall for this cheap trick. Nothing frustrates a grief player more than failing to cause grief.

Peacemaking is an 8x8 skill and is not difficulty based.

Provocation is the best Bardic Skill. Any skill that lets you send one Balron onto the other is pretty powerful. Provocation does just that. Provocation, if successful, will make that target attack another target. The second target is almost always a second monster, but could be a NPC or a player (normal flagging and facet rules apply, of course) or even something summoned, like a Blade Spirit. Provocation can be used in many different ways, and will be explained in more detail in other parts of this essay. Some creatures cannot be provoked (Zealots, The Harrower, Ancient Liches in Khaldun, Orc Bombers are some), they can be provoked onto, however.

Provocation can also be useful for dropping your karma. Just use Provoke and target an NPC. Keep doing this and your karma will drop to -4 level in an hour or so. Nobles can't be provoked, so target other types of NPC:s. There are plenty to be found. Also, in Felucca, do this outside of guard area, as you will go grey and be guard callable. This use of Provocation is mainly for those seeking a Dread Lord title. But it can be used to loose a thieves tell tale "Scoundrel" title.

Provocation is target based and fairly slow to raise, especially in the 90s. The best method to gain is to be in a place where you have a good respawn of non aggressive spawn (like farm animals in a pen) and use an in game macro using TargetNext to rotate between targets. (Warning, doing this with blue targets nearby can make you grey.) Never macro unattended if you value your account.

Enticement, although a Bardic skill, is rarely used by "real" Bards. When successful, this skill allows you to have the targeted Monster or NPC follow you. So it is similar to what Herding does for animals. The only real use for this skill is to have Noble NPC:s follow you out of Town so they can be killed. It used to be quite profitable, but nowadays Nobles have henchmen which must be killed before you get any NPC loot. Enticement will not be discussed further in this essay as it is a waste of skill points on a real Bard.

Choosing a template is a personal choice. The templates offered here reflect an experience and playing style that may be different from yours. Having a good connection, is often a must for the way these templates needs to be played. If your idea of fun is to stand in a safe spot all day and harvest gold in safety, your template will not be critical for your playing. However, if you prefer a fast tempo and to have more risk involved, more thought and effort must be put into your template. Should you find yourself in disagreement with what is proposed in this essay, feel free to go your own way. After all, it's your character and ultimately, you decide whether it is a success or failure.

There are several types of Bards. Other sections of essay will mostly talk about the Mage Bard, but there are many combinations to use the Bardic skills. The skills you choose for your Bard will bring different strengths and abilities into your Bard - but it will also mean that each Bard template needs to played differently if you want to take it to the limit. There is no one template that is best - simply because every character is only as good as the player behind it. Choose skills you are comfortable with, but don't shy away from a good template because you haven't given some of the skills a real go yet. Don't forget that Mages are more vulnerable to melee, so if your connection is not up to par in speed or stability, allow for this in your template.

The Bardic Skills provide the foundation for any Bard. But without supporting skills, no Bard can ever reach its full potential. Different support skills brings out different strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes the differences are subtle, sometimes they define the template. Either way, a good player knows his chosen template well and adapts is tactics to fit the template.

This essay will cover 4 different major Bard templates. These are:

• The Mage Bard
• The Warrior Bard
• The Tamer Bard
• The Treasure Hunter Bard

Their names pretty much sums them up, but lets just quickly run through them:

Mage Bard: Music
Provocation
Magery
Meditation
Evaluate Intelligence
6th Skill, see end of section (Wrestling recommended)
7th Skill, see end of section (Lockpicking recommended)
Stats: 100/25/100 SDI

With enough player skill, this template can kill anything, anywhere. Great potential to be a fun character in PVM; possibly THE most fun. However, it wont hold up in dedicated PvP with 200 skill points tied up into Musicianship and Provocation.

Magery is the secondary weapon of this template, and with player skill it is an extremely powerful one. With high Evaluate Intelligence and Meditation, this template can easily kill off several powerful monsters near death or kill a medium monster in one mana dump. With Magery comes all the utility spells, such as Telekinesis, Invisibility, Teleport and various field spells to mention a few. Lockpicking turbocharges the earning power of this template if you go through the effort of doing the dungeon chests) The main weakness of the Mage Bard is its low AR. With little or no armor, the Mage Bard must always be on the move, one step ahead of the monsters or face the risk of going monochrome.

With PVM being your focus you don't need balanced stats, go for maximum hit points and mana.

Warrior Bard: Music
Provocation
Weapon skill (Archery recommended)
Tactics
Anatomy
Healing
Magery (for recall etc)/Resist
Stats: 100 90-100 25-35 SDI

This Bard is easier to play, at the expense on some of its potential. With the ability to wear armor, and with Healing, this template can stand its ground and fight most of the time. The ability to turn opponents on each other is a powerful addition to any Warrior. However, it lacks the versatility of the Mage Bard. Some creatures just cant be finished with melee (Balrons and Terathan Avengers come to mind), so low magic damage capability could be a drawback. Archery do help with this, as its a ranged attack, which can help you finish tough monsters without closing in for melee. If you have a slow or unreliable connection, or need more time targeting when Provoking, the extra AR of a Warrior Bard may make it the right template for you.

A Warrior Bard is more likely to be targeted by spell using monsters. Thus, this template could definitely use Resist, but the melee related skills take up too much room. So add Resist at the expense of Magery. However GM Magery is never a bad thing. Should you choose high Magery, let yourself have at least 35 mana and carry a wizards hat. This way you add the power of Gate and other 7th circle spells (like Energy Field or possibly Chain Lightning) to your Warrior Bard

The Bardic skills mean this template can fight more challenging spawns. so its more fun than a pure Warrior. Warrior Bards are best used in places with medium to strong monsters, like Terathans/Ophidians, Liches/Lich Lords, Titan Valley, Shame or the Gazer Rooms.

With PvM being your focus, you don't need balanced stats. Go for maximum Strength and Dexterity. However, should you choose high Magery, let your Intelligence be at least 35.

Bard Tamer: Music
Provocation
Magery
Meditation
Animal Taming
Animal Lore
Veterinary
Stats: 100 25 100 SDI

This template is pretty hard to attain, and is practically the definition of overkill. With both Taming and Barding, this is the closest thing to invincible (in PvM at least) as one gets in UO. What a Dragon can't kill, a few well placed provokes will take care of. This will practically guarantee that no monsters ever gets the upper hand vs your pets. However, with all the power in this template, there is little need for the player to have any skill. The only challenge with this template is actually attaining it, as Taming and Provocation is quite time consuming to GM. The risk is that you will be bored soon. You have been warned. . .

If you attain this template you need 100 Strength to carry all gold. Rarely will you have the need to even cast a Greater Heal or use Magery offensively. So all you need beyond carrying strength is at least 40 mana to Gate your pets around. If you get ambitious 100 mana looks nice.

Treasure hunter mage: Music
Provocation
Magery
Lock picking
Cartography
6th Skill, see end of section (Meditation recommended)
7th Skill, see end of section (Evaluate Intelligence recommended)
Stats: 100 100 25 SDI

Most Treasure Hunter Bards are Mages. If you really want to, you can be a Warrior, but with only 200 (300 if you leave out Magery, but then you must find an alternate way of removing the traps).skill points left it will be a weak Warrior. Choose your support skills wisely and with skill, you will be able to do a level 5 treasure chest solo.

Before attaining character, you might want to add Item ID and let it decay as the other skills increase. Digging chests will give you plenty of items you need to ID. When not digging treasure chests, this template can net some nice gold emptying the chests around the powerful spawns in dungeons.

With PvM being your focus, you don't need balanced stats. Go for maximum hit points and mana.

Support skills: There are many useful skills and some not so useful. Which skills are useful is determined by your playing style, how you plan to use your character and what other skills you choose. Magery, Music and Provocation are the 3 must have skills on any Bard template, this leaves you with at least 4 other skills. Most of the time, the specific template you are aiming for makes the choice of support skills obvious. Some support skills has already been included in the templates. What follows is a brief run through on the support skills that are optional in one or more templates.

Desirable Bard support skills:

• Meditation
• Evaluate Intelligence
• Wrestling
• Resist
• Hiding
• Lock Picking
• Peacemaking

These skills will all add to your Bard template, but you cant add them all. Here are some things to keep in mind when choosing:

Meditation:
If you depend on mana to support your Barding, Meditation is your friend. Whether you use Magery to kill off your opponents or to manipulate/evade a spawn you only have so much mana. . . The speed of regeneration depends on your intelligence, so if you have low intelligence, you may want to consider another skill.

Evaluate Intelligence:
This adds some serious punch to your attack spells. It fits the offensive player that relies on Magery to kill off whatever survives Provocation. It is also useful to have for the occasions when you have to fight a solo monster.

The above skills are best used in combination as they support each other quite nicely. However, don't be afraid to choose just one if your template is tight. For quick burst of high damage potential Evaluate Intelligence is your best choice. For staying power, go with Meditation.

Wrestling:
Most of the time, Bards will not use a weapon and thus any melee attack will check vs. your Wrestling skill. This is especially true if the Bard depends a lot on Magery and has a not so fast connection. Wrestling is a big life saver, so don't underestimate it. The facts are plain. With 0 Wrestling you will be hit 100% of the time. This is annoying with Mongbats or Orcs, but where you want to go, melee damage can be deadly (think Shadow Wyrms or Terathan Avengers). With GM Wrestling you will be hit less than 50% of the time (actual percentage depends on the skill of the monster), so the benefit is clear. Don't go 70 or 80 in this skill. Either go with GM or drop it completely. If you have a fast connection and you feel confident you can be successful with an aggressive playing style, feel free to add other skills instead of Wrestling. But if you wish to build in a good defense into your template, Wrestling is an excellent choice.

A Warrior Bard will be holding a weapon most of the time, and will only really need Wrestling when casting spells. Bard Tamers have it easier in that their Pets can deflect unwanted attention. However, Monsters have been known to retarget, and being caught close can be lethal. So while Wrestling would be nice to have for both these templates, they need other supporting skills more to really be able to afford the luxury of this skill. Ah to have 800 skill points. . .

Resist:
What Wrestling is for melee Resist is for magic attacks. No spell casting monster will open up on you before some damage has been done to it. Any good Bard knows this and makes sure that monster spells are used against other monsters by a few well timed Provokes. Nevertheless, in many spots close contact with monsters is hard to avoid, and some monsters likes to retarget. If they do, Resist can come in very handy. However, Bard templates are tight as it is, so only choose this supporting skill if you feel that you will be hit by spells a lot. A good Bard is always prepared and often, a Greater Heal potion used at the right moment, can do the trick instead.

Hiding:
A useful all around skill. Its defensive in its nature as noone can attack you while you are hidden. Unlike Invisibility (from spells or items) which is limited in duration, Hiding lasts until you are Detected or you take an action which reveals you (using most skills/items, opening up corpses, casting spells, talking or moving covers most of the ways you can reveal yourself). You can hide anywhere as long as you are not targeted. If you are, you need to break the Line of Sight or make sure there is a certain distance between you and whatever targets you. At GM Hiding you need 8 tiles.

Its main use in Barding is to loose unwanted attention from surrounding monsters. If your template is tight, you can use the spell Invisibility or items with Invisibility charges with the same result.

Lockpicking:
In most dungeon settings, and definitely around the powerful spawns, chests spawn which can add to the already impressive earning power of a good Bard. Its also a required skill for any Bard which plans to do Treasure Maps. This skill will not help you stay alive, nor kill anything. Only add Lock Picking if you are confident your other 600 skill point are sufficient to take care of that.

Peacemaking:
Peacemaking has been discussed in an earlier section. Its a defensive skill used to stall monsters, either to escape or to buy time to set up a Provocation. Hiding/Invisibility does the same thing, with the added benefit of not messing up any Provokes you may already have set up nearby. However, Peacemake cannot be interrupted and has a shorter skill delay on success. Add it if you want more defensive capability in your template.

Having a character is just the beginning, much like getting a drivers license doesn't automatically make you a race track driver. What follows in this section, are some guidelines on how to play your Bard to its full potential.

Basic knowledge about Barding:

To use Provocation you need to know some fundamental facts about how the game works.

Skill Delay Timer:
One of the major limitations are the skill delays on Peace/Provoke.

Bardic Skill Delays:

This means that if you fail whatever you attempted, it's going to be a while before you can attempt any skill again. 5 seconds may not seem like much - until you are boxed by a Terathan Avenger or two. Don't ever rely on your Bardic skills as your last resort, always plan ahead some escape route or means to avoid whatever is chasing you. This is a time when magery comes in very handy with, say, Teleport, Paralyze, Paralyze field and Invisibility. Simple running around can often do the trick, but some locations are tight and sometimes additional spawn zooms in on you. But more on this later on.

LOS:
LOS, or Line-of-sight is something that all Bards need to be very aware of. A long time ago, Bards could use their skills on monsters through walls, essentially never exposing themselves to danger. So the designers, put LOS into the game to balance Bards. As a result, spell casters and Bards needs to take LOS into consideration. You cannot target anything that you cannot see. You always need a clear LOS between you and your target. If you target something without the LOS established, you will need to wait for the skill delay to reset. However, LOS only matters between you and whatever you target. You don't need to have a free LOS between the targets themselves. This means you can Provoke two monsters on either side of a corner.

Looting Rights (and Fame/Karma):
You will only get looting rights if the monster you provoked killed the other monster you provoked onto. So make sure you Provoke the stronger monsters onto the weaker. If you Provoke two equal monsters onto each other, you can either Provoke both ways, or use secondary skills to kill off the monster you provoked, should it loose.

Respawn:
This is a basic, but pretty important aspect of hunting in UO. If you kill something, it will respawn. Often sooner than later. Sometimes this is what you want, but there are also times when you don't want this. Good examples would be all lesser monsters which are there just to annoy you. Think scorpions in Shame 1 or Terathan Drones etc. Sometimes its better lay off killing these and make an effort to lead them away from where you work. While they are alive they wont respawn, and when they are someplace else they wont annoy you.

Monster AI:
Monsters sometimes always work according to a set of rules. Once you know roughly what rules the AI works with, you can better predict what will happen. Monsters generally target whoever is closest to them and then stick with that target as long as they can. A previously provoked monster that kills whatever it was provoked on, will almost always turn onto the closest player/pet it finds. However being the weakest character nearby (lowest str) can make monsters choose you.

Whatever a monster targets, or whatever targets it, ends up on its hate list. Doing damage to a monster will land you a spot on that monsters hate list. The more damage, the higher you are placed on its list. Monsters almost always attack whatever is on top of their hate lists. So if you aren't on the list you can safely stand beside the monster and it will ignore you. At least until it looses track of whoever it is targeting or until it gets low on hit points and enters "panic mode". What does all this mean? If you are a Bard Warrior, you might want to wait before engaging in melee with that Terathan Warrior you just provoked onto another. Chances are, you will be back at the of its hate list again real quick unless you wait a little.

Another thing this means, is that its better to Provoke creatures close to each other. That way they will quickly close and start raising their hate for each other. Its very common to see a Bard Provoking two monsters onto each other while they are far apart. In the time they take to close to each other, they will sometimes forget about whatever they were provoked onto and retarget the Bard. Since non spell casters can't damage each other while closing in, they build no hate for each other. Make sure you stay out of their sight if you want to do some long range Provocation (i.e. Invisibility or breaking their LOS with you). Provoked monsters don't retarget if they don't have anything to target. If one of them "forgets" and heads for you, simply hide/go invisible and it will go back to its old target.

Some monsters doesn't always set their hate lists according to damage done to them or whoever they targeted initially. Powerful monster who can kill in a few hits, Demon-and Dragon kin most notably, tends to target whoever is moving close to them. This means that you don't want to move around a lot while being within approximately an 8 tiles radius. However, teleporting works fine and doesn't seem to catch their attention.

Also, once you get the hang of how monsters path find, it will be easier to lead them to wherever you want them to go, or to avoid them if you need to wait for the skill delay to be reset.

Monster retarget on a cycle (most monsters seems to have a cycle of roughly 12 seconds, although this may vary from monster to monster). This is why you can run past one monster and it will ignore you, but another will go for you almost instantly. This has little impact on how you play, but if you plan on using Peacemake this is worth giving some though. The Peacemaking delay when successful is only 5 seconds. If you Peacemake a second time it will often last longer than the first time.

Keep your eyes open and observe how monsters act. It will make you a better Bard.

Spell casting Monsters:
Spell casting monsters don't cast spells until they are double clicked on, or done damage to. So, as long as you don't do this they will just follow you. If someone else does just a little damage to a spell casting monster that is targeting you, chances are they will not go to the top of the hate list. That leaves you there. And now that the monster has been damaged. you can expect it to open up on you. Sometimes, when many spell casting monsters are targeting the same player, grief players, run up and damages all of them just a little. The net effect can be a barrage of spells that occasionally kills the player that was chased. Be careful and be ready to heal if this happens (pretty rare).

Auras:
Some monsters do damage to everyone standing next to it. Most of these are Snow creatures which radiate cold damage, but some creatures, like the Phoenix, radiates heat instead. Any aura creature that is currently fighting something else will retarget whatever it damaged with its aura. This makes it practically impossible for a Warrior Bard to melee one of these creatures while Provoking it onto others. So Bards have even better reason to stay their than most.

Spawns are very different, some are easy, some are hectic. Some give good gold, some give a good challenge but crap loot. Some are crowded and others are left alone by other players. Some monsters, mainly in Khaldun cannot be provoked. Since Provocation is your main weapon, choose spawns that spawn more than one creature. What are you going to Provoke a lone Balron or Lich Lord on? It sounds basic, and it is. Choosing location for your Barding is important. Don't just wander aimlessly looking for monsters to Provoke. Know the spawns and choose one that suits your goals and playing needs.

Provocation is a very powerful skill, but more often than not, most of its power comes from how you use it, not the skill itself. The tactics you use as a Bard can make the difference between a rich and happy Bard and a dead one. If you don't need tactics to dominate your spawn, chances are you need move on up from that Mongbat spawn to something more challenging (and fun). There are three basic tactics when you Provoke, the Spar, the Duel and the Sacrifice. Some spawns just require one tactic, while more complex spawns require you to use all three, sometimes in a certain order, in order to control it.

The Spar:
The Spar is used to get rid of unwanted attention from excess spawn. Some spots are home to a horde of monsters and it can be a bit too much when they all target you at the same time. Buy yourself some time and Provoke two monsters of equal strength onto each other. The longer they take to kill each other the better, and if done with the right monsters, they will in effect be sparring each other rather than really fighting.

The Duel:
The Duel tactic is very similar to the Spar. Provoke two monsters of similar power onto each other as before. The only difference is that the power of these monsters are such that they will kill each other off in a decent time. Use this, not as much to buy time but as a means to kill. Some spots spawn monsters in pairs, like the Efreet room in Fire dungeon. Other spots make it possible for you as a Bard to set up multiple duels (Covetous Lich Room or Wind for example). To end Duels faster, and to deal with the victor of any duel, use your secondary skills.

The Sacrifice:
The Sacrifice tactic only use is to kill quickly. You Provoke a very strong monster upon a weaker one. More often than not, your goal is not really to kill the strong monster, but to use it as your weapon against the rest of the spawn. In a way your Bard becomes a High Priest that herds the weak in sacrifice to a hungry Deity. As your reward, you collect the loot of those sacrificed. Just make sure you have enough "lambs" around, or the "Deity" will turn upon you. Be prepared and don't ever lag when playing the Sacrifice tactic.

These tactics are used by any good Bard, whether aware of it or not. Being aware of what tactics you use can change how you control a spawn significantly. If you use a Multi Sacrificing tactic in a spawn, you may find that the skill delay is too long too keep the stronger monsters occupied. Try buying some time by setting future sacrifices on Spar and then Duel some of the stronger monsters ("Deities"). Once you can keep up with the respawn, you can start Sacrificing the Sparring monsters again.

Peacemaking is primarily a defensive skill. If you become good at setting up Spars, there will be few situations you can't control. Remember that any Spars and Duels you may have set up nearby are lost when you peacemake. Therefore the best use of Peacemaking is when first entering a crowded spawn. Simply Peacemake while you pull up the health bars of the creatures nearby and leisurely decide which pairs you want to Provoke. To most Bards this is more of a convenience than necessity. However if you do have Peacemake in your template use it to its fullest.

If you arrive and find the spawn very scattered, you can run around to attract everything onto you. Once you're satisfied, place yourself where you want everything to be when you start Provoking, then Peacemake them. Since everything that's was Peacemade will go to where you stood, you can simply move to where you want to start Provoking and play your instrument to your hearts content.

In many cases Peacemaking is being used as a means to escape a tight spot. If you have Provoked creatures fighting each other nearby, you should consider using Invisibility or some other means of escaping (like Teleport). Otherwise, all the monsters you had already Provoked will be free to go after you again, effectively returning you to square one. With practice you wont need to rely on Peacemaking in emergencies.

A few things to remember about Peacemaking is that you will never kill any monsters (however, depending on the situation, you may well kill other players when the peacemade monsters retargets). Use the skill with care, lest you accidentally kill players nearby. Regardless of your playing style, it's a fact that its harder to be an efficient Bard when people come back in a bad mood and hell bent on getting back at you. Make sure they do because something you intended, and not because you didn't know what you were doing.

Provocation is not a panacea, and besides it's more fun to go places where you get a real challenge. Using your secondary skills will become more important when you do.

Be a local: The first rule of all hunting is, be a local. Which areas are open, which are cramped? Safe spots nearby? Where will you have LOS problems, what spawns where? Any locked doors in the area? Good places to makr runes? Other players around? Is there a risk of a being visited by PK:s? Obviously, its hard to know an area before you have been there, but your top priority that first time in a new hunting spot should be to know these basic things about it before you leave.

Don't get caught:
In some areas, you may be chased down narrow passages and/or risk being trapped. Anticipate these situations and make sure you have the time to prepare.

Now you see me, now you don't:
Invisibility or Hiding are useful ways to evade unwanted attention and to buy some time. Don't wait until the monsters are breathing down your neck, predict what's happening and pre cast the spell so you don't get interrupted. Invisibility is extremely useful, but be careful, as monsters sometimes reveal you if they target you with a spell just when you go invisible. If you have a hard time putting enough distance between you and the monsters to successfully hide, try teleporting and then immediately hide. Another way to get a hide in, is to break the LOS around a corner or with a Wall of Stone. Hiding does not have a duration so sometimes its worth using the skill over the spell in this way. Just remember, using any Bard skills while hidden/invisible will make you visible again.

Poof:
Teleport is another useful spell to escape in tight spots. If you know the terrain, you know better than to lead a train of monsters down a dead end, corridor or towards a locked door (or the annoying bugged "multi doors"). If you, for some reason do, don't panic, just pre cast Teleport and let them close in on you, then Teleport to freedom. If you cant Teleport, stand at one side to lead the monsters to that side of the passage, then make a run for it on the other. Be prepared with Total Refresh should they block you anyway. This is not a good idea if it's a Balron, but works pretty well with most monsters.

In some spots there are ledges, roofs, fences or other safe spots which can be reached through Teleport. Use it to loose unwanted attention and buy yourself some time.

Keep the distance:
Paralyze is a good way to buy yourself some time, either to reset the skill timer, or wait for something to spawn so you can Provoke. If you are chased by a several monsters you have the option to use Paralyze Field instead. Powerful monsters have pretty good resist and wont be paralyzed for long. Paralyze field lasts longer than the Paralyze spell.

Create your own barriers:
If you need time, you can consider Energy Field. It costs 40 mana, but will last 45 seconds. You have a free LOS so you can use Bard skills on targets on the other side, or use spells for that matter. However, you cannot Teleport through. Wall of stone costs only 9 mana, and lasts only 10 seconds, and there is no LOS through it.

Even the playing field:
Another way to buy more time, or to equalize bad odds is to summon a Demon or two, and have the monsters attack these while you sort out the Provoking. Do this before arriving in a busy spot, or summon them in a quiet spot and lead them where you want to work. Summoning in a busy spot takes too long and can make you a sitting duck. Blade Spirits are good allies either to equalize the odds, to distract attention, or just to speed up the killing. Don't forget you can Provoke monsters onto your summons.

Remote Control:
Telekinesis can open and close doors from a distance, which may be preferable to opening or closing manually. This comes in handy if there is a Balron answering the door, for example.

Supercharge yourself:
Magery also provides all the benefits of buff and protective spells. At GM Magery, Bless or Strength/Agility/Cunning will add 11 to your stats. Having Reactive Armor on a Mage Bard gives you a little more margin if you happen to brush a little too close to a powerful monster. Protection decreases the risk of interruption. (Remember, that for RA and Protection, to be of any use, you need at least one of Evaluate Intelligence/Meditation/Inscription in your template.) Arch Protection increases AR and does not slow down Meditation.

If you cant keep up your mana regeneration, cast Cunning or Bless. 11 extra Int will increase passive mana regeneration through Meditation by roughly 20%. Also a Bless or Strength spell is a wise precaution around hard hitting creatures so you get a little more margin if that Balron comes to close for comfort.

• Make sure you carry an instrument (newbiefied) on you at all times. Without an instrument you are useless as a Bard.
• Reagents for utility spells and to kill off monsters, as needed.
• Runebook. Make sure all the places you usually go to are here, having charged the book will make recovering from untimely deaths easier.
• GHeal, GCure and TRefresh potions. Add a couple of GStrength as well, with all the loot you will be hauling, you will end up heavy. Dying because a monster cast weaken at the wrong moment is just embarrassing. TRefresh are needed if your stamina drops to 0 (the Executioner NPC in Wrong is but one place where this can happen) or when you need to shove through monsters/players.
• Trapped Pouches. Balrons, Terathan Avengers, Poison Elementals, Lich Lords and many other, cast Paralyze at times. Not to mention PK:s. Be sure to hot key them using the Use Once feature in UOA.
• A Mount (required). The added speed will give you an extra second to get a Provoke off in a tight spot. Don't be cheap, a horse is only 600 gold or so. An ethereal mount is even better.
• Leather armor is not a bad idea, especially if you don't have a speedy connection. (A Warrior Bard should have heavier armor though.)
• A Bard Warrior should bring whatever he/she needs as a warrior.
• A Bard Tamer brings his/her pet and bandages for bandaging the pets.
• A Treasure Hunting Bard should bring a lock pick and a shovel/pick axe when digging a map. Lock picks are good to have if you come upon a chest in a dungeon.
• If you need them, items of Invisibility or Teleport can be life savers in tight spots.

There are many areas where you can go and have fun as a Bard. Below is a list of a few good spots sorted into three categories for your convenience. There are many more, so don't be above a little exploring.

This template works pretty well in normal dungeon settings as well. Be sure to bring lock picks as chests can be a profitable source of income. Don't forget to check for traps using Telekinesis on the chest from a distance (some chest have multiple traps). Be vary of cramped and crowded areas if you did not add wrestling to your Treasure Hunter Bard.

When digging up a map there are a couple of things any Treasure Hunter will benefit from knowing. The initial spawn of a level 3 map and higher, can easily kill the digger, almost instantly (imagine 4 angry Ogre Lords next to you and you get the idea). To avoid this, have Teleport pre cast and target it right when the spawn appears. Then run and cast Invisibility onto yourself (or have a boat you run to a boat if the chest is near a coast) . Then you can return and deal with the spawn at your leisure, using the Bard Tactics described here. Peacekeeping is an option. But don't depend on it, as things can get ugly if you fail.

After emptying a chest, you can often "milk" the chest for more spawn by moving around an item in the chest (be sure to keep an item left till end; if you empty all, you cant't put anything back). Typically this will leave you to fight single monsters, making Provocation useless (unless there are local spawn that can be used) so be sure you have the capability to kill monsters without Provocation.

All level 4 and 5 maps are on islands. This means that you can always have a boat nearby, should the spawn prove too much for you. However, if you apply the tactics outlined here and if you use your supportive skills well, most spawns should be fairly quickly dealt with, boat or no boat.