This guide will help you get up and running with bard bot quickly. The video covers setting it up with Avrae and a fresh server. The written guide covers that and how to use the bot without Avrae.

Avrae character sheet used in the video

Initial Setup

1. Invite the bot to your server. Note: Due to discord limitations, the invite shows the old name. In your server though the name will be correct.
2. Hop in a discord voice channel
3. Ask the bot to ~join
4. Try it out:
   1. With the avrae bot and a character set up run !cast "fire bolt" -i. If it doesn't work, check out the troubleshooting section below. If it still doesn't work come by the dev discord and ask for help there.
   2. If you're not using Avrae you can use the play command to trigger a custom sound from the default profile. Run ~play explosion to trigger the built in explosion sound. If it doesn't work, check out the troubleshooting section below. If it still doesn't work come by the dev discord and ask for help there.
   3. With the Avrae bot and a dnd beyond campaign linked to the text channel you ran ~join in, simply cast the fire bolt spell through the dnd beyond ui. You should see an Avrae message appear and the bot should play a sound in response. If it doesn't work, check out the troubleshooting section below. If it still doesn't work come by the dev discord and ask for help there.
5. Ask the bot for ~help
6. Log in with discord and open the sound profiles page to view the built in sounds.
7. Play D&D!
8. When you're done, ask the bot to ~leave
9. If you get stuck don't hesitate to come by the dev discord and ask for help.

If you can't get it working, don't panic. There are lots of discord permissions issues that can prevent the bot from working right. Start with the troubleshooting steps below and if it still doesn't work come by the dev discord and ask for help there.

What's Next?

Now that you have the bot set up you can leverage the customization features to bring your game to life. The basic usage section explains how to upload your own sounds, what each section of the sound profile is for, and how to set up a profile just for your character.

Once you've got the basics down the scenarios section has detailed guides on how you might set up the bot for different situations. Things like encounters, boss monsters and pimping your character.

Troubleshooting

When I run ~join the bot doesn't join

This usually happens because the bot doesn't have the right permissions. There are two things to check.

1. Make sure the bot can see the text channel
2. Make sure the bot has access to the voice channel

When the bot joins it's muted

This happens when the bot doesn't have permission to talk in the channel. Update the voice channel permissions to allow the bot to speak.

I've linked my D&D Beyond campaign but my rolls aren't showing up

You should contact the Avrae support team through their support server. A link can be found on their website.

I see Avrae messages coming through, but no sounds are triggered

First, double check the bot has permissions to play sounds in the voice channel. Run ~play explosion to confirm the bot can play sounds. If no sound is triggered then you'll need to update the bot's permissions to make sure it can play sounds.

If the ~play explosion command works, but the Avrae ones aren't triggering sounds, then you most likely encountered a bug. Bard Bot is very sensitive to the Avrae messages that are generated, if Avrae updates their output format at all, or introduces a new ways of gererating messages, it can break Bard Bot. Please report the bug in the dev discord, and include screenshots of the Avrae message(s) you expected to trigger the sound.