Does anyone here agree with me that a bard should have music as his/her special skill ?
I mean a Gadgeteer has Modern weapon which is very useful, and the mages all have their special school of magic as special skill.
But the bard has the near useless communication skill instead of her spell based skill.

Or have i missed something regarding the communication skill ?

On the same page as the communication skill is a further section on the right hand side of the screen, beneath where you can increase your Bard's sword, throwing etc., proficiency. It contains:

Locks and Traps
Music
Pickpocket

As you level up, you'll be able to increase the Music ability of your Bard in this section.

You have 9 points on this page with every level increase and 3 of them can be allocated to Music up to a certain point or level of ability.

I hope this helps.

1. IMO Communication is a useful skill to have in a party and having the Bard as the best at talking makes sense... at least to me.
2. I consider Modern weapon to be a hindrance to the Gadgeteers and would much prefer the engineering skill but it is nice to have on a Faerie so it just depends on how you play.

Communication governs how much money you get from trade and will the various racial/ alignments join, give information or even just talk to us.

p.s. Only the 4 pure (not Bishop) casters get their magic school.

*shrugs*

I think, built correctly, that bards are just so powerful and versatile that's not even a concern, really. The Rousing Drums get used in round one of every single combat for me. Chaos Drone and the Dulcimer of Mending are icing on the cake. They can even use Fang, arguably one of the best guaranteed swords in the game (others require considerable luck with drops or chests). Set up their stats right and you can even swap to fighter later on and deck out in some of the finest armor and weapons. That way, when there's no immediate need for an instrument, it's pretty easy for them to join in on the melee fun, and excel at it. Bards are beasts.

Switching to Fighter also lets them use the Infinity Helm and Platinum Greaves, which almost completely neutralize stamina loss from instruments. And, unlike Gadgeteers, there's not a lot of incentive to keep them in a single class past level 18.

Bards are strong and versatile, but boring. Fighters are boring too, but with them you just select berserk and they're on autopilot. Bards, on the other hand, play the same instruments in every combat situation. They also require much micromanagement. They can only play their instrument two or three times before falling unconscious, so either they'll have to spend an "empty" turn drinking a heavy stamina potion, or a priest will have to constantly support them with the stamina spell. Faster health/mana regen for the entire party while resting is neat, but not crucial as time in this game is unlimited.

Gadgeteers are the same in this regard, but their gadgets are somehow more fun in that you have to track down their components, and they have a neat omnigun that doesn't do much damage, but has a healthy chance of knocking out or blinding their opponents. If you add the ammo that adds to these effects, they're a ranged powerhouse.

Also from the roleplaying perspective: with all the computers and other hi-tech devices you come across in your travels, it makes sense to have in your party someone who can use (i.e. understand) them.

Yep - I agree. Bards tell tales and communicate with music, so makes perfect sense for communication to be their strong point.

Think I got the wrong end of the stick in my earlier post - sorry folks!

Stamina was always irrelevant for my bards. Mostly because the party priest or bishop was popping off the occasional Rest All spell not only to help out the bard, but also to keep the other characters in the group fueled up and fighting hard. Any character's performance suffers if their stamina is allowed to drop too far. Even if it's not yet 0 there are penalties.

I am suggesting that it would be more usefull for a Bard to have music as the skill that gets 125 points rather than .
communication, and just have communication as one of the other starting skills.

It would be more useful, and I wouldn't necessarily be against it, but let me play devil's advocate for a moment. Beyond usefulness, should music be their primary, special skill? The bard has musical ability, but (s)he's not a pure musician per se. They're many things, including writers, storytellers, and poets. These aspects prize communication and writing skill. All this in addition to being jack-of-all-trades style adventurers that both experience and witness great deeds, then go on to write about them in story or song.

I know - I'm way too passionate about the class, but I thought I'd throw that out there for discussion.

Gameplay wise? I'd be happy with bonus music skill over communication if someone wanted to mod that in. :)

Yes, the bard has the most useless of all primary skills, closely followed by the lord's dual weapons bonus. But as others have said, I find its versatility to make the bard very strong regardless.

I would say the omnigun can actually do a very decent amount of damage once you get the bolt attachment and find or buy some lightning bolts. On top of that, my main reason to bring a Gadgeteer has to be the double-shot and tripple-shot crossbows. They really come in handy for some of the ranged fighters in the late game.

I dont agree because of balancing reasons:

Instruments and gadgets have a higher efficiency than spells from casters,
Bard`s freeze flesh or freeze all is more powerful
than the same spells casted by a pure mage with equal skill,
the mage needs a decent level of powercast (~50) to become more effective.

I even have the theory that it was intended to give engineering/music as primary skills to Gadgeteers/Bards,
and playtesting has revealed that it makes them too strong,
in comparism to pure casters and generally in game.

Music/engineering will also rise faster because stamina regenerates faster than mana.

Ok. From reading posts here and in other forums, it seems that although instruments and gadgets start off with spell level 1 or 3 that they eventually gain equivalent of power 7 as the music and engineering goes up.

So would this mean that if they had those as their special skills instead of communication and and modern weapong that the spells could be even more effective....say like the casters and hybrids having power cast .

The skill would build quickly [if you use it] and that could make the spells more effective yes. Power cast is a different skill but the in game effect would be noticed if thats your point.