Bardic Magick is magick that is conveyed by means of a song, poem, or epic story. Bardic Magick also has a similar effect to a song or poem. To a Bard's friends his songs can heal and strengthen, inspire and energize. To his enemies, a bard can strike at the heart, strengthen hatred in the soul, inspire fear and energize paranoia.

Unlike Arcane Magick, Bardic Magick is rarely written down. Instead, songs, poems, and stories are memorized by bards and passed down from one to another or created in response to an event heard about or witnessed. A good bard is always looking for an epic or inspiring story to write a ballad about. It is for this reason that Bards tend to be social and often gravitate towards taverns and places where great heroes can be found. The greatest of bards are even capable of making up a song in the midst of battle to inspire his freinds and instil terror in his enemies.

Bards need not prepare spells in advance like Wizards do, a bard needs to simply recall a proper song or poem for the occasion and perform it. Bardic spells change the abilities of the target in some way. Instead of the Wizard's impressive Fireball spell or the Sorcerer's uncontrolled Bodyburn, the Bard makes his freinds better and his enemies weaker. A bard will make his compatriots faster, stronger, more agile, or more skillful and make his foes feel sick, afraid, weak, or clumsy.

A bard may cast any number of spells per day, but only a certain number may be active at a given time. Bardic spells have no duration, they continue to have effect until the bard conciously deactivates the spell by discontinuing the song or poem. The total number of spells a bard may have active at a given time is the result of a Spellcraft check. Note that this is not the total of all the different leveled spells, just the number. A bard may also spend 30 minutes to raise his score by one. That time consists of practicing a song, tuning an instrument, or simply reading.

A bard must spend experience points to get new songs, just as he may spend XP's toward's raising skills. The only difference lies in the point costs to acquire a new song (as displayed in the sidebar).