The other night a crazy Barbarian friend of mine suggests we try working on
our hand-to-hand skills against the reavers. Sure, I say, let me learn
a few appropriate songs (Chords, etc) and I'll equip the Lute.

We do pretty well at reavers, but I notice my hand-to-hand skill never moves.
Eventually we get into a bad situation (or more correctly, a bad situation
is delivered to us by another player) and I switch over to Longsword and Dirk.
Immediatly I start getting skill-ups in Offense, Dual Wield, etc (I had just
recently made 19th and spent the session before making the cross-country run
to get Clouding).

So it seems that you don't get any chance to increase your skills (hand-to-
hand or any other offensive skills) when using the Lute. As far as I could
tell, you don't increase in Dodge or Defense either...

After realizing that I switched over to pure hand-to-hand, thinking that the
Lute was the problem. I still didn't notice any skill-ups, but I didn't
fight very long this way before giving up (without the Lute it was hard to
take down the reavers). Perhaps I didn't see any skill-ups because my hand-
to-hand skill is pathetically low to begin with?

Anyone with more experience in the support-bard role have any tips for a
battle-bard? I was pretty impressed at how effective I am at higher levels
with just songs...

- Luvas of Fennin Ro.