Drum of the Jharin Recruit    

Hun you have to unequip your weapon to use the drum.

My little Jharin is level 17 now. I did a few tests, mainly trying to see if the Combine instruments are actually worth something.

I did this minor test with the level 17 bard song, Guardian Rhythms:

Base AC without buffs: 482
Base MR without buffs: 31

AC while Singing: 486
MR while Singing: 44

AC while using Hand Drum: 488
MR while using Hand Drum: 54

AC while using Combine Drum: 489
MR while using Combine Drum: 57

AC while using Jharin Drum: 489 (+AC on Drum, 493)
MR while using Jharin Drum: 57

AC while using Walrus Skin Drum: 491
MR while using Walrus Skin Drum: 60

Without getting into fancy percentages and such, it's pretty easy to see that the Jharin Drum is slightly better than a regular Hand Drum, and if you don't already have better, the Combine Drum is worth buying (roughly 17pp with indifferent faction and 90 charisma). I'd say that's awesome for a level 8 quest drum. The fact that you can't actually *buy* a drum in Shar Vahl makes doing that Recruit quest even more important; not only will you get a drum in a place where you can't simply buy one, the drum you get is actually better than the drum you would have bought. The added 2ac on the Drum of the Jharin Recruit is just icing on the cake. The only real downside is the 2.0 wt, compared to the low 0.5ish wt on other drums.

Now I wonder if there will ever be any higher level upgrades to these things... maybe a Vah Shir mini-epic, like the Iksar get? :)