Just what IS a Chanter anyway?

[FlintlockJazz]

Something that I have been mulling over somewhat: just what are Chanters.  Are they performers, who use their performances to perform (heh) magic?  Are they Historians, like Kana, who just recite historical phrases to perform magic?  Are all Chanters good storytellers?  Would an Animancer Chanter be a thing or are they just more interested in folktales?  It says they come from cultures with a strong oral (heh) tradition, does this mean they are all good speakers?  I mean, just how 'Bard' are Chanters? 

 

Looking on the wiki (that source of up to date and accurate information...) I see that Lumdala (a certain performer) is a Chanter, supporting the concept that Chanters are performers, but then I see that Ranga Nui (the midwife) is a Chanter also, and I can't see her spending her time reciting Shakespeare (or whatever Pillars equivalent is).  The ingame description is that they form groups of "performers and researchers", are they groups that do both or some that do one or another, and do they only research folktales, cultures and history or do they also research the sciences? 

[Torin]

A Chanter is a Bard - like in Bard's Tale. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bard%27s_Tale_(1985_video_game)

"The Bard was author Michael Cranford's contribution to the genre, a character who casts spells by singing one of six tunes."[

[FlintlockJazz]

But are they though?  A Bard is more clearly a performer, whereas a Chanter seems often to be more of a Historian type character.  They both fulfill a similar role in the party but the background lore on how they work seems different.

[Heijoushin]

Well, the game says:

 

...their hallowed phrases stirs the collective memory of wayward souls around them, compelling them to generate magical effects in a kind of "reenactment."

 

To do the hallowed phrases, I guess they need good voices. To tap the collective memory, I guess they need knowledge of history. So those are the key points. Things like actor, midwife, researcher etc. are probably just day jobs that overlap with those skills to a certain degree.

 

The research that they do is probably something like anthropology.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

They're bards that aren't called bards with mechanics to differentiate them and full casters. Like most classes in PoE, they seem not to follow any particular occupation but based on lore I'd say they could either be historians, performers, or some weird combination of both that fights random people or creatures.

[FlintlockJazz]

Yeah I'm just trying to ascertain just how much of what a Chanter does is 'performance' in the form that a Bard would do.  I can't imagine Kana performing on stage like a traditional Bard would do, and there seems to be more of an emphasis on cultural stuff and traditions though that could just be Kana.  I'm just trying to picture the kind of people who would develop Chanter class, whether they are all musicallly gifted or if its just the ability to tell stories that matter.  I have always found it amusing that a Chanter can chant while reading scrolls though. :D

[jsaving]

There's a (mis)impression that D&D "bard songs" literally involved singing, when in fact they could be delivered through "poetry, chanting, singing lyrical songs, singing melodies, whistling, [and/or] playing an instrument."  The only requirement was that there be a verbal component to the song (though some DMs allowed sign and other performance-art "songs" to count as well).  So PoE's chanter is very much in the broad thematic tradition of D&D bards. 

 

What's different is that, mechanically, chanters can do lots more than bards could while singing.  There's also the notion that chanters "charge up" their invocations by contributing to the fight, which wasn't true for D&D bards.  To be sure there are problems with PoE using "number of seconds in the fight" as its measure of how much of a contribution you've made, because you can simply cower behind an obstacle or flat-out run from your enemies and still be counted as contributing as long as someone else in the party stays close enough to your foes that the encounter doesn't end.  But it's always tricky to measure contribution for support/buff characters (unlike ciphers where the devs could let focus be refueled by damage-dealing).

Edited March 19, 2017 by jsaving

[Heijoushin]

Yeah I'm just trying to ascertain just how much of what a Chanter does is 'performance' in the form that a Bard would do.  I can't imagine Kana performing on stage like a traditional Bard would do, and there seems to be more of an emphasis on cultural stuff and traditions though that could just be Kana.  I'm just trying to picture the kind of people who would develop Chanter class, whether they are all musicallly gifted or if its just the ability to tell stories that matter.  I have always found it amusing that a Chanter can chant while reading scrolls though. :D

 

Yeah, to be a great bard, I imagine you'd have to be charismatic and have lots of musical talent. On the other hand, I imagine that you could become a Chanter just through study and practice, regardless of your crowd-pleasing ability. It's probably just because Kana is the chanter we know best, but I see them as singing history nerds.

[Androoh]

I think a chanter is meant more to resemble a Viking era skald.

That is to say less a singer (as per what one thinks of a bard, singing a song and strumming a lute) and more a story-teller or orator performing a spoken poem.

Edited March 19, 2017 by Androoh

[IamNOOB]

 

Yeah I'm just trying to ascertain just how much of what a Chanter does is 'performance' in the form that a Bard would do.  I can't imagine Kana performing on stage like a traditional Bard would do, and there seems to be more of an emphasis on cultural stuff and traditions though that could just be Kana.  I'm just trying to picture the kind of people who would develop Chanter class, whether they are all musicallly gifted or if its just the ability to tell stories that matter.  I have always found it amusing that a Chanter can chant while reading scrolls though. :D

 

Yeah, to be a great bard, I imagine you'd have to be charismatic and have lots of musical talent. On the other hand, I imagine that you could become a Chanter just through study and practice, regardless of your crowd-pleasing ability. It's probably just because Kana is the chanter we know best, but I see them as singing history nerds.

 

 

+1

This is it. Also, chanters are kind of archaic while wizards are kind of new-age chanters in my view.

[Elerond]

Chanters have reminded me from start of Väinämöinen and other poem signers, whose magical voices can do all sort of things, in Finnish national epic Kalevala.

Edited March 19, 2017 by Elerond

[FlintlockJazz]

 

Yeah I'm just trying to ascertain just how much of what a Chanter does is 'performance' in the form that a Bard would do.  I can't imagine Kana performing on stage like a traditional Bard would do, and there seems to be more of an emphasis on cultural stuff and traditions though that could just be Kana.  I'm just trying to picture the kind of people who would develop Chanter class, whether they are all musicallly gifted or if its just the ability to tell stories that matter.  I have always found it amusing that a Chanter can chant while reading scrolls though. :D

 

Yeah, to be a great bard, I imagine you'd have to be charismatic and have lots of musical talent. On the other hand, I imagine that you could become a Chanter just through study and practice, regardless of your crowd-pleasing ability. It's probably just because Kana is the chanter we know best, but I see them as singing history nerds.

 

Yeah this is the impression I got, and is also because Kana is the only Chanter we really get to know in game.

[asnjas]

i saw them as experts in lore and storytelling. they are not necessarily charismatic but wise and knowledgeable in many stories etc. i played mine like some old hermit loremaster philosopher. 

 

the bard in baldurs gate 1-2 i saw as charismatic performers. the chanters in pillars seemed different.

[scythesong]

All spellcasters in the game basically use some variation of soul power/energy. Ciphers handle that power directly using sheer force of will (ala sorcerer), while wizards/druids/priests learn to shape that power using the medium of spells - the difference is that the wizard's approach is academic, the druid's is based on nature and the priest's is about faith and the gods.

 

It is also important to consider where these spellcasters draw that soul power/energy from. Cipher magic apparently draws that power directly from living/animate things (including themselves), wizard magic is more from the self, and priest/druid magic seems to draw soul power/energy both from themselves and somewhere else... possibly the gods/nature.

 

Chanter magic is all about knowledge. Using chants based on some of the most significant happenings in Eora, they basically stir soul power/energy around them, resulting in minor bonuses. Once enough soul power/energy is stirred, they are able to shape that power using an invocation.

 

Note that none of these methods actually say anything about what ciphers/wizards/priests/druids/chanters do in their day-to-day - ie, class =/= profession. It's actually the same for D&D - note that the profession of most D&D PCs is actually ADVENTURER and not wizard/sorcerer/cleric/fighter/etc. I'm pretty sure there's a priest somewhere in the realms that moonlights as an acrobat, a thief who does magic "tricks" to entertain an audience or a fighter who is also a philosopher/scholar/teacher.

 

Because chanters don't really need to study soul power/energy directly and really only need lore and knowledge (and experience) to learn new chants, as far as profession goes chanters dedicated on improving their craft can basically be anything that involves learning new things. Explorer, archaeologist, student doing menial work to pay for their education, teacher, spy, traveling merchant, traveling merchant's bodyguard, sailor, pirate... all of these can be chanters along with the traditional storyteller/performer.

Edited April 21, 2017 by scythesong