Provocation

Provocation is a bard skill that turns monsters against each other. The prose is community-derived (paraphrased from the uorenaissance.com skill list plus ServUO behavior) pending field verification; the stats table and difficulty/cooldown notes below are source-verified against ServUO.

What it does

Provocation plays music to enrage one creature into attacking another. A skilled bard can walk into a dungeon and make the monsters kill each other, taking no risk and earning the loot. It is the most powerful PvM bard skill and a Mastery skill. See combat basics.

How to use it

Equip an instrument and use Provocation. Target the creature you want to enrage, then target the creature you want it to attack. A successful Musicianship play is required, then the Provocation roll decides whether it works. The two creatures must be hostile-able to each other.

How to train it

• Low skill — provoke pairs of weak creatures against each other.
• Mid/high skill — provoke progressively tougher pairs; the combined difficulty of the two targets sets the gain window. High Musicianship is mandatory.

See skill gain.

Mechanics & numbers

Primary stat	Intelligence
Secondary stat	Dexterity
Title	Rouser
Mastery skill	Yes
Gain notes	skill-ups can raise Dex +0.45, Int +0.05 (per-use stat gain weights)

From Scripts/Skills/Provocation.cs: the difficulty is the average of both creatures’ instrument difficulty, minus 5 — diff = ((diff(A) + diff(B)) × 0.5) − 5 — and the check is CheckTargetSkill(Provocation, target, diff − 25, diff + 25). Musicianship above 100 subtracts (music − 100) × 0.5 from the difficulty. The reuse delay is about 10 seconds (reduced by the mastery bonus).

Related skills & synergies

• Musicianship — required for every attempt.
• Peacemaking + Discordance — the full bard trio; see the Bard build on seven-GM templates.

See also

• Combat basics
• Instruments catalog
• Skill gain · Skills index

Banner icon courtesy of uorenaissance.com.