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Bard's Tale IV: Tips & Tricks

By Hieronymous Alloy

This game kinda drops you in the deep end so here's a list of not-immediately-obvious tips that may help people out, culled from reading various forums etc.

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Created by

Hieronymous Alloy
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Category: Gameplay Basics

Languages: English

Posted

Updated

28 Sep, 2018 @ 8:31pm

13 May, 2019 @ 6:23am

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Guide Index

Overview

Tips and Tricks

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Tips and Tricks

When given the choice of which party member to send off solo at the beginning, if you kept Melody as your primary, the smart strategic choice is probably to send the Green Lady away, as you get another mage character almost immediately afterwards; it's a good idea to have at least one character of each archetype in the party. Whoever you send, don't count on seeing them again..
The game assumes you're going to do an immense amount of backtracking. If you can't get somewhere after digging around a bit, you probably don't have the tools to unlock it yet -- move on to something else for a bit and you may find what you need.
Plot out your skill choices in advance, it will make the game a lot more manageable. The little arcing bands on the [K] screen tell you how many points you need to spend to unlock the next tier [arcing chain], which you do by going to the Review Board after spending that many points. A new character starts with three "Free" skills and three points to spend (Melody starts with those three points already spent); you can unlock the second tier at eight points spent, around level 6ish, and the third tier at 16 points spent or level 14ish.
Because you can only use four active skills at once, it makes sense to put most of your points in passive boosts, with only a few specific active abilities per character.
Think about which capstones skills you want to unlock and make sure you get the prerequisites before about level 15, so you can unlock the capstones as soon as the Review Board allows.
The armor and shield skills make a big difference; you want at least one frontliner with strong defenses and Taunt, and at least one party member who can strip armor (easiest way is via the two-hander tree, but there's also a wand with the ability about halfway through the game).
Weapons and weapon skills (including passives) are somewhat counter-intuitive. You do not need to have that kind of weapon equipped to use a given weapon skill, but equipping a weapon may help use that skill -- for example, you can use the "loose arrow" skill without a bow equipped, but equipping a short bow will let you use "loose arrow" more often. Make sure you're using the right weapon for the skill, though -- equipping a Long Bow helps Rain of Arrows, not Loose Arrow!
The same is true of most (possibly all) weapon skill passives; they function off of skills, not actual weapons.
Therefore, If you attack with weapon skills you probably want to take weapon passives and use purchased weapons (bows, longswords, maces, etc.) for the skill bonuses they give. If you do not attack with weapon skills or if you plan on using artifact weapons (spectre snare, etc.) you may be better off not taking weapon skills and using elven weapons or artifacts as stat sticks.
For mage spells, Fan of Flames, Conjuror's Mark, Crackling Bolt, and Arcane Barrage are all you really need (especially if coupled with Falkentyne's Fury). The higher-level mage spells can be very potent but are a bit hard to use consistently due to high spell point cost -- if you want to use the big spells, you'll need some way to boost SP generation (Best options are probably either a bard with the pipes tree or a vampiric source dagger).
Max level is somewhere between level 24 and level 28 or so depending on how much side content you do. Level 30 may be possible but I have yet to hear of anyone actually hitting it.
Emphasize strength over most other stats for physical damage characters, include mages. Due to the opportunity system it's ok to have specialist characters who do most of the damage and others who sit in reserve and support them.
Strength helps with the damage of your non-mental damaging spells, like Warstrike. So you actually do want your damage casters to beef up their Strength score. Keep this in mind when equipping them with weapons.
Intelligence influences Mental damage, including the skill Skull Knocker. So, if you want a front-liner to have this skill to break concentration of casting enemies, they actually do need Intelligence to make it effective.
The companions who join you late game (Fiona the Harper, Bryan of Dorn, Lioslaith) are unfortunately either going to duplicate the skills of party members you already have OR have a bunch of random crap you don't want.
Because of the way the "cleric" class tree adds on to an existing class, and because you must "finalize" all skill points of a new mercenary hire before they join your party, you may want to purchase some mercenaries early and then "park" them for a few levels, recruited but inactive, before you make them a cleric, so they can then immediately fill out the tree. A fighter class cleric will have powerful heals due to high Strength, but will need to raise Max Spell Points with items and will likely never be able to cast the 6-pt capstone Resurrect power from the tree; conversely, a caster or bard cleric can reach the 6-sp cost of Resurrect more easily, but may have weaker healing due to lower Strength. (The "best" choice may be a bard cleric, as your casters will generally be preoccupied with offense).
Because pure Fighters don't really have a good way to get spell points, the Veteran capstone isn't that great for non-clerics. If you have a fighter-cleric, you will probably want them to use swords, for the Spell Point boost (may want to also consider Elven armor, but it's too fragile for a frontliner, and there are other alternatives). Thief/cleric monks can also benefit from Elven armor but lack the synergy with Veteran. If you have a fighter/cleric or thief/cleric in the party, itmay help to have a bard with the pipes line in the party to boost mana generation.
"Nearby" in skill descriptions usually means the five spaces around the character. For example, the "War Horn" ability "All Together" copies the Fighter's stance -- i.e., Shield Deflect or Dueling Stance -- onto any ally in one of the five squares around the Fighter, unless they have an active stance of their own (such as Cleric Chant; note that Cleric Chant cannot be spread with "All Together" as each requires a trinket).
Thos monoliths with the "offering" receptacle and the constellation symbols on them -- the "Offering" shrines -- are for use with the "code wheel." You can find an online code wheel here: https://codepen.io/johnwun/full/eLobpO/ . Note that the shrines may ask for items you can't get til later in the game. Most shrines give cash, but a few give elven weapon shards or other significant rewards. (If you want a second cleric in the party, you can get a second "Fatherite Relic" from the offering shrine in Mathen's Glade).
You can find a homebrew respec mod in this thread on the official forums: https://forums.inxile-entertainment.com/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=19515
Each of the little green runes you see scrawled on the walls around Underbrae have a nearby hidden switch; hit all switches to unlock a door in the bottom left corner of the map.
Make sure to keep plenty of alcohol in reserve -- the #1 way fights get lost is running out of supplies halfway through!
If you find an "elvish" weapon with special stats, inspect it and click around on it, especially near the pommel. If something cool happens and the camera zooms in, you have a puzzle weapon. These are somewhat randomized, so beyond the scope of this guide, but very much worth puzzling over.

Feedback and disagreement welcome -- just trying to smooth out the confusion.

12 Comments

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Amorph Lex 18 Apr, 2022 @ 9:10pm

I completely agree with Pilda, dwarf just useless cannon fodder and elf is the only one who can deal more than 2 damage to paladins and other armored creatures or burst packs of 30+ mangar spells with soul drain to clean whole scara brae on 10 lvl (even big red paladin pack though it was horrible to keep her and bard at least alive... Demon Mage is quite funny, but his build is based on dagger strikes, which forces you to put the mage! in the front row or skip turn until he accumulates mana for lightning, skipping another turn for cast and.. hitting the shield. Not to mention exchanging a cute smart elf for a boring dwarf with nothing to remember at all.. Also a Wringneck talking with Lady her about her name is amazing ^_^
ps (advertisement: leave all ur money for memoriam in roscoe's emporium!

lotrecht 26 Jun, 2019 @ 10:38pm

Wie kommt man an den Feuersteinen weiter?die Tür läßt sich nicht entsperren?
Ansonsten recht enttäuscht von dem Teil...

woomera 16 Dec, 2018 @ 12:35pm

Thanks! Very helpful...but could someone please explain how to move from one map area to another? I have the "High Road" side quest and go to the stones, sing the song, get the map, and nothing after that! Would appreciate your help...thank you.

Hieronymous Alloy [author] 1 Oct, 2018 @ 3:05pm

Yup, I'll clarify -- those are the "offering stones" I mentioned in the guide -- use the link to interpret the symbols on the stones ( make sure you have the moon facing the right way).

roady 1 Oct, 2018 @ 6:34am

Thanks for the nice Tips and Tricks. Since I play BT 4 after release I have still one Problem. What to put in the stone Statues as a gift for the goods. I didn't find anything in the net. Maybe, someone can help me, how it works and what to give to the statues. The symbols over the stones didn't make me smarter. Thx in advance.

Hieronymous Alloy [author] 1 Oct, 2018 @ 4:38am

I've used it, yeah. You have to run it from the command line and it's a little kludgy but it does work. I don't want to step on the toes of the guy who wrote it.

eiryndul 1 Oct, 2018 @ 1:47am

Heya Hieronymous! Have you used the Respec mod? If so would you consider a guide, with pics, for it?

Hieronymous Alloy [author] 30 Sep, 2018 @ 8:13pm

Thanks Shneeky, I'm just gonna add that in directly!

Shneekey 30 Sep, 2018 @ 9:09am

What stats affect which abilities is also unclear, so here are some rather counter-intuitive stat synergies:

* Strength helps with the damage of your non-mental damaging spells, like Warstrike. So you actually do want your damage casters to beef up their Strength score. Keep this in mind when equipping them with weapons.

* Intelligence influences Mental damage, including the skill Skull Knocker. So, if you want a front-liner to have this skill to break concentration of casting enemies, they actually do need Intelligence to make it effective.

Hieronymous Alloy [author] 30 Sep, 2018 @ 3:36am

Redhan -- good point, I'd gotten confused by the "bladecasting" tree, the text of which oddly does refer to weapons, not skills (perhaps because it's assuming you're using a Source Dagger).

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