Pathfinder Rockband Questions

[redcelt32]

Okay, the party I am currently running is fairly large, and happens to have two bards in it now. My question is, do their songs stack? For example, these in particular:

1. Inspire courage, competence, greatness - do these stack?
2. Dirge of Doom - two chances to affect the enemy?

I am leaning towards possibly adding +1 to the first two options, and adding to the overall DC of the Dirge of doom if they play together.

Any thoughts on the matter?

For the record, I still cannot believe I have one bard in the party, much less two, but they both devoutly want to play bards.

[LurkinRangerV]

redcelt32 wrote:

Okay, the party I am currently running is fairly large, and happens to have two bards in it now. My question is, do their songs stack? For example, these in particular:

1. Inspire courage, competence, greatness - do these stack?
2. Dirge of Doom - two chances to affect the enemy?

I am leaning towards possibly adding +1 to the first two options, and adding to the overall DC of the Dirge of doom if they play together.

Any thoughts on the matter?

For the record, I still cannot believe I have one bard in the party, much less two, but they both devoutly want to play bards.

Yeah, I would probably just add +1 to the first option, and I would just make the DC higher for the dirge of doom. Just because if you think of it as a band, one member might sound good, and adding another person just as talented, would make it sound better. These bardic performances would act like the two bards are working together to do their job, I guess. I was considering even just making it like an aid another check, where one bard would perform, and the other would spend however many rounds of his performance to aid another, giving the other bard a +2 on his performance effect or on the DC. I guess you just have to think of it as if they are working together. I mean, if they aren't, then just treat them seperately. Inspire greatness only affects one ally at 9th level, and an extra target every 3 levels over 9th, so if they are lower than that, just choose 2 different targets.

[Dilvish the Danged]

redcelt32 wrote:

1. Inspire courage, competence, greatness - do these stack?

You have to apply the general rule against stacking typed bonuses. Inspire courage grants competance bonuses on attack rolls, since it is a typed bonus, it doesn't stack.

redcelt32 wrote:

2. Dirge of Doom - two chances to affect the enemy?

Stacking isn't really an issue here. It is like two casters casting fireball, simply resolve each one seperately.

Edit : to expand on typed bonuses and stacking- multiple sources of Inspire Courage or Inspire Competence don't stack at all, meaning that you can only apply the highest available bonus to any single d20 roll. The bonus HD of Inspire Greatness probably aren't meant to stack either , but I don't know of a rule that prevents them from stacking.

[Dire Hobbit]

redcelt32 wrote:

Okay, the party I am currently running is fairly large, and happens to have two bards in it now. My question is, do their songs stack? For example, these in particular:

1. Inspire courage, competence, greatness - do these stack?
2. Dirge of Doom - two chances to affect the enemy?

I am leaning towards possibly adding +1 to the first two options, and adding to the overall DC of the Dirge of doom if they play together.

Any thoughts on the matter?

For the record, I still cannot believe I have one bard in the party, much less two, but they both devoutly want to play bards.

Can't one bard "Aid Another"? That would give a plus 2.

[Ernest Mueller]

By the way things normally work, bard songs don't really synergize well. Things like inspire competence create a typed bonus that doesn't stack, and the best you can do with dirge of doom is two shots at shaking, not a higher DC. One bard could aid another on Distraction or Countersong (in fact, the assister wouldn't technically need to be a bard).

I wouldn't give them more for free, but if they took some kind of group performance/harmony feat I'd let them combine same songs for heightened DCs and stacking penalties.

[redcelt32]

Ernest Mueller wrote:

I wouldn't give them more for free, but if they took some kind of group performance/harmony feat I'd let them combine same songs for heightened DCs and stacking penalties.

I agree and had intended to require them to each take the homemade feat Symphonic Performance, as well as RP practicing together, but frankly if I can't offer a solid benefit to their playing together, charging each of them a feat is sort of a high price to pay.

Sice my initial post, I have been thinking of letting the effect happen at the next highest level increment, and allowing an automatic aid +2 to the performance check of both bards. This means one bard could perform inspire courage and one could countersong during the same performance, the inspire courage at +1 higher than the single bard could normally do, and the countersong at an additional +2 to the perform check from the automatic aid.

As a side note, both bards will always be the same level, since we are using level up points during the storyline rather than XP.

[Santiago Mendez]

Here is an idea for a feat you could have them take:

Symphonic Performance (Tactical)

Prerequisites: Bardic Performance, Perform (any) 5 ranks

Benefits: Whenever you are adjacent to an ally who also has this feat, you receive a +2 bonus on perform skill checks made for any purpose, including a Bardic Performance.

If you and an ally both perform the same Bardic Performance at the same time you may make a perform skill check DC 20 each round as part of the Bardic Performance to provide a +1 bonus to the effective Bard level of your ally for all level-dependent variables of your Bardic Performances, such as duration, range, and effect. You may increase the bonus level by 1 by increasing the DC by 10 for each increase of the effective level. A Bard using this aspect of the feat forgoes all the normal benefits of his Bardic Performance to provide this bonus.

Example: Two level 10 bards with this feat both decide to perform Inspire Courage. They both have max ranks in the skill (10), a Charisma score of 16 (3), class skill bonus (3), Skill Focus (perform) (3), and the bonus from this feat (2), for a total skill modifier of 21. Now Bard one is providing all of his allies the benefits of Inspire Courage (+2 bonus) and Bard two uses his Bardic Performance to increase Bard ones effective level for his Bardic Performance, he makes a Perform skill check and rolls a 10 on his check for a total of 31, effectively increasing Bard ones level by 2, making it so that his Inspire Courage provides a +3 bonus instead of the normal +2.

Now if the same bards perform Fascinate the save for the performance is 18 (10 + 1/2 level [5] + Cha Mod [3]) now if Bard two assists and rolls a 10 for a total check of 31 the DC would become 19 (10 + 1/2 level [6 {5 + 1 for the effective 2 level increase}] + Cha Mod [3])

This feat doesn't provide a very large bonus but can be useful in the hands of two bards who really want to focus on their performances.

[kyrt-ryder]

Hey Redcelt, this is another feaet one of them could take.

Dragonfire Inspiration
Requirements- Inspire Courage
Effect: Whenever a bard with this feat would inspire courage, he may instead choose to inspire Dragonfire, granting all his allies a number of d6's of fire damage to each hit equal to the value his inspire courage would grant to their attack bonuses.

In that way, one bard is adding attack and damage, and the other is adding energy damage (do be warned though, that fire resistance and immunity are fairly common, but by the point that's a major issue one could be using dirge of doom or inspire heroism or something)