Performance-Enhancing Instruments

[Wids]

So unless I'm mistaken, the only place on the server where one can buy music instruments is Sarayend's Imports in Llorkh, and those instruments are entirely mundane.

For a performing Bard, there is also the option of summoning music instruments, and those instruments are just refined enough to offer smoother, more mellow tones (or whatever else constitutes a Perform bonus).

But for those bards with enough Gold and an unwillingness to cast a cantrip for the sake of a better yet fleeting instrument, perhaps a new music store or two — and/or a widened selection at Sarayend's Imports — could offer music instruments similar to those on the FRC server, ones which confer bonuses to Perform when equipped...let us say, from Perform +1 (for a fairly well-crafted instrument) all the way up to Perform +6 (for the Stradivariuses, Gibonuses and Les Pauls of the Savage Frontier).

I suppose that certain equippable books from Sarayend's Imports and Loudwater's bookstore fit the bill...

...but music instruments may be preferable for those bards who are more inclined to music than storytelling.

Besides, kalbaern, do you really want me to run with the idea of implementing Perform through literature?

Didn't think so.  

[Wids]

Now that I think about it, what about the idea of balancing the instruments in terms of weight versus Perform bonuses? Tambourines and panpipes would weigh less than guitars, lutes and violins do, obviously. But on the other hand, tambourines are strictly percussion instruments (and so, though they can help keep the rhythm, they aren't nearly as suitable for carrying a melody) and panpipes prevent singing, whereas the lutes, the guitars and the violins can carry a melody while allowing the musician to provide vocal and lyrical accompaniment. Harps (though NWN's "harps" are more like lyres, actually) allow singing, but they lack the resonance-providing body that guitars, lutes and violins have, so their sound doesn't quite carry the same. Trumpets are on the other side of the coin from the harp; they have the body and the resonance for stronger volume and tone-carrying that panpipes do not, but they too prevent singing and lyrical accompaniment. Therefore, tambourines and panpipes = less weight, lower Perform bonuses. Guitars, lutes and violins (with bows) = more weight, higher Perform bonuses. Harps and trumpets might be middle-of-the-road, with moderate weight and moderate Perform bonuses.

(Violins seem to be a bit backward, as the bow weighs ten times as much as the violin itself. And neither one should work without the other; that's simply how violins work. How do we ensure that the character has both the violin and the bow equipped before conferring Perform bonuses? Should the violin provide an overall higher Perform bonus as compensation for occupying both of the character's hands? Or am I just being nitpicky here?)

Thoughts?