LE [IDEA] Bard College -- Skyrim's School of Spying

[Snowfaerie]

The idea was originally posted by Darksun45230, but it was in the wrong place. I thought to move it here in the hopes that some kind person would take up the idea! *kitty eyes* Pleaseeee... ._.

 

In the Mage's College we plowed through Nordic burial sites without the slightest regard for respect of the dead.
In the Companions we fought a brutal clan for the right to roam as wolves unto the night.
In the Thieves Guild we did stole the life of a thief and ushered in a new era.
In the Dark Brotherhood we took down an empire.

What do we do in the Bard's College? Chase down instruments and lyrics.

Huh... How about...

Bard College: Gateway to Spy network of Skyrim

In the event (however unlikely) Bethesda adds more Bard quests let's call these side-quests. I want to keep my options open so I'll give a couple of scenarios on how these begin:

a ) While putting your skills as a newly trained Bard to use in a Jarl's court, you acquire a lucrative lead on a rumor and investigate. After all is said and done you learn a terrible secret and must decide whether to expose the culprit or blackmail them for treasure.

b ) You acquire a secret during dialog with an associate of the court or aristocracy, perhaps a rumor you investigate like any other quest, with you learning a terrible secret and deciding whether expose them or blackmail for treasure.

c ) You're approached by a Guild member during or after your initial quests for the Bard College, your new handler sends you on your first mission and you return to him for further assignments. The benefit of this is the procedural and familiar way these quests are handled.

The motif of this mod is stealth for either justice or profit. To condemn people for their secrets or simply milk as much gold as possible.

Features:
* Sing your way into courts and bars telling stories to rowdy patrons brawling whenever you slip and win the love of son's and daughter across small towns to earn fame (or infamy for your bawdy lyrics.)
* Questline takes place in Jarl Courts and on the streets of (mostly Imperial) cities.
* Search the rooms of (or Pickpocket) various NPCs for incriminating evidence.
* Intimidate, woo, or quest for juicy gossip and possibly terrifying secrets.
* Bribe beggars into becoming lookouts, your eyes in the city.
* Less emphasis on tomb-raiding, dungeon crawling, or dragon-slaying and more on investing and dialog chains.

This is the best part I think:

Quest Ideas:
* Scour crime-scenes for clues in order to solve a murder, theft, or unspeakable acts.
-- Investigate a string of murders and expose the closet Vampire or help him/her find a cure.
-- Deceive the wife of an Imperial Aristocrat into drinking poisoned wine or warn her in advance to save life.
-- Browse a burgled shop for clues to the Thief's hideout and either demand half of the loot or turn them in and watch their beheading.
-- Become a hired spook for a wealthy merchant to spy on the competition.
-- Peruse the scene of a mugging-gone-wrong to find tampered evidence and expose the corrupt watchmen behind it.
-- Learn the secret shame of a respected merchant and the source of his soured honey.

* Earn the trust of the Jarl's court, learn their secrets, then use it against them or sell it to the highest bidder.
-- Talk with a gossipy Aristocrat reveals the crumpled wildlife found near the Town may be coming from an unlikely source.
-- After being sent a letter not meant for your eyes, you have the opportunity to expose an affair between a prominent figure or guarantee his silence with daily payments.
-- Exchange information with other Spies to learn of secret meetings leading to higher leveled quests.
-- Find graffiti in Riften Tunnels spelling out the dates for shipment dates and sell the information to bandits.
-- A Nord warrior hires you to place incriminating evidence on a local Mage who desecrated his ancestor's tomb. Plant evidence and earn coin, or putpocket him and watch the show unfold.

Thieves steal, Brothers murder, Companions honor, Mages cast, and brutha, Spies spy.

Infiltrate as a bard, learn to spy, and extort or exercise justice. What could possibly go wrong?

 

 

 

 

[Shadeybladey]

I'd also like the Bard Quests to be tied together AS Bard College quests, rather than miscellaneous side-quests, and for you to be able to rise in rank as you achieve certain things.

 

There are mods that make the Bard's College a place where you can improve your arts, but they are buggy and some are not on the Nexus. The best I have found for playing as a Bard are Become a Bard by LP1 and Playable Instruments - Play and Bash by planexuser

 

But I am not sure about the spying idea per se. Infiltration is always useful, of course.

 

As Bards are minstrels, poets, singers and story-tellers who preserve the oral history of Skyrim, they tend to adventure in the pursuit of knowledge and experiences to inspire more stories and songs, or to locate lost tomes of sagas, songs, poetry, plays or spells. They are particularly fascinated by the legends and lore of rare and mystical magick items with colourful histories and fantastic backgrounds and so always accept quests to find such items, whether lost swords, helms, poems, books etc.

 

So any quests should revolve around that sort of thing - quests that provide fanciful stories to tell, rather than raw power per se. It's not so much the items they want, it's the story behind the items.

 

There are other Bard-like quests in the game (I made a list somewhere), like finding Raganar's sword, finding lost shields and heirlooms etc. It would be nice if that sort of thing could contribute to your rank at the Bard's college, so you can become the GrandMaster.

 

If you COULD rise in rank like at other Guilds.

 

~.~

[RolandSmoke]

I think this mod would be a good excuse to give the speech skill more uses in the game. There have been a lot of changes to make the speech tree worthwhile (SkyRE's comes to mind with shouts) but there is still more that could be done for classes that don't want fight.

 

A bard or merchant would rely more on cunning and charisma to either avoid fighting or buff their companion. For this I think there could be speech power that the player uses for a chance to reason with random hostile humanoid encounters (perhaps not for boss NPCs or NPCs you already failed at persuading). The power could be be a part of a whole branch of speech that revolves around cunning, manipulation and spying (dressing up in full enemy gear and cutting off the very head of a faction, etc)

 

I really can see this mod working for the more immersed gamer. A bard entertains and holds sway over people with personality and amusement. It would be fun to play a character similar to Tyrion Lannister in GoT and have to think of more creative approaches that may or may not work.

[Shadeybladey]

I agree with RolandSmoke in that Speech SHOULD have more uses in the game. It would benefit role-players of all sorts - Bards and Paladins first spring to mind. But the game needs to have options for solving quests in-game using different strategies. EG, the evil cow at the Orphanage - a Paladin might arrest her and turn her in to the authorities, testify at her trial and make a contribution to the orphanage. But, no, you have to murder her or leave her alive to brutalise the children.

 

But I really dislike Speech affecting Shouts in any way. It's not balanced with the other skills. I have looked at several Speech skill overhauls and they all tend to add something that affects the duration or power of Shouts, so I did not even try them.

 

There is one that has much better Yielding mechanics, as well as better Persuasion and Intimidation, which I would love to try. But, again, it enhances an innate Mystical power that only the Dovahkiin has. To be balanced, every skill should have something like that. Otherwise, why not have a Speech perk that improves Turning Undead which adds the White Necromancer or Paladin Dovahkiin's level to the level of creature that can be Turned? Why should Speech do that? Charisma? Sure, but why would a Merchant or Thief be Turning Undead? Same with it affecting shouts in my mind.

 

But the Vanilla Speech Tree is much-maligned. I was astonished at how useful a normal Vanilla perk that lets you sell any item to any Merchant can be. It's like having your own private fences all over Skyrim! :D I did not really notice until I started playing my Bard as I never perked Speech before and have not played a Thief so I avoided the thieves Guild quest lines.

 

It inspired me to make a new Speech mod, but beyond the actual tree I dropped it in favour of other mods I was making. But the OP's idea is beyond my paltry abilities, I'm afraid. I'd be too scared of breaking quests and dialogues.

 

~.~

[RolandSmoke]

I agree with RolandSmoke in that Speech SHOULD have more uses in the game. It would benefit role-players of all sorts - Bards and Paladins first spring to mind. But the game needs to have options for solving quests in-game using different strategies. EG, the evil cow at the Orphanage - a Paladin might arrest her and turn her in to the authorities, testify at her trial and make a contribution to the orphanage. But, no, you have to murder her or leave her alive to brutalise the children.

 

But I really dislike Speech affecting Shouts in any way. It's not balanced with the other skills. I have looked at several Speech skill overhauls and they all tend to add something that affects the duration or power of Shouts, so I did not even try them.

 

Yeah, the mod would mostly focus on expanding conflict resolutions and extra options for confrontations. I remember fallout NV had a last boss which could be defeated entirely by a heated argument that required a lot of speech ability. That's badass.

 

I think the speech affecting shouts feels pretty natural myself. There's a lot of technique to delivering your words and a shout is just that, but in a language that manifests as real magic. The least it could do is reduce the cooldown.

 

It wouldn't have to be totally powerful, as a lot of enemies would just rather kill and loot, but it'd be great to use more infiltration without even needing to sneak, but just dress up and use guile to walk straight through. It would be a massive overhaul though and I've no talent at all for mod creation.

[Shadeybladey]

Yes, Infiltration would include Disguise and a lot of the success of something like that would depend on Charisma, so a good Speech score and maybe the benefit of a new perk (like Disguise or Infiltration) would help.

 

The chances of an enemy seeing through the disguise could work like a Persuasion or Intimidation check, or maybe like the chance of them detecting you Sneaking, but they would be detecting you as being in disguise rather than genuine. So you could enter a bandit lair disguised as a Bandit and not get attacked until someone sees through the Disguise or you attack one of them.

 

IIRC, there is some Thalmor attire that you can find at the Embassy that increases your chance of getting past the guards when you leave the party to snoop about. It's a shame they never developed that more in Skyrim and left it as a more "Sword or Sorcery to the Death" game. But the potential is there.

 

Depending where I am, I get comments about wearing Stormcloak or Imperial uniforms from various NPCs, so the possibility of recognising people or their faction by their clothing exists. So the possibility of fooling people by wearing the correct clothing and using Disguise or Infiltration also exists. There are also comments about my race as well, so a second Rank of Disguise could even make you appear like another race, like making a Bosmer appear tall enough to be an Altmer, or even an Argonian look like a Breton with enough ranks and a high enough skill (although such a radical disguise would have penalties to success).

 

Say, if ranks in Speechcraft also added a 5% bonus to your Disguise and Infiltration skill as well as giving bonuses to prices? And if an Infiltration perk gave a 20% bonus and the ability to look like another, closely related race (Man or Mer, EG a Breton disguised as an Imperial, Redguard or Nord), Disguise I another 15% on top and the ability to look like a more dissimilar race (Man look like Mer and vice versa) and Disguise II another 10% and the ability to look like a Beast race and a Beast race look like Man or Mer? I think a Breton disguising himself as a Khajiit would be easier than the other way around, though.

 

AD&D First Edition and 2nd Edit had some quite good rules on a Disguise skill and what could be done with it which maybe could be adapted by someone clever enough.

 

One time, the Dawnstar Jarl's Seneschal killed me when I said "What's wrong with the Imperials, anyway?" after he insulted me for the ragged costume I was wearing, an insult to the blood of all true Nords everywhere. I don't quite remember, but I was either an Imperial or a Dunmer in that play through. So the potential for such a mod exists. It's a shame the Bethesda staff don't release mods, but I suspect they are bound by contract.

 

~.~