I was hanging out with some friends yesterday, listening to High On Fire and talking about RPGs because we were one person short for our Shadowrun game, when suddenly it hit me: what could be more metal than a Barbarian/Bard? Swinging two-handed axes, hulking out, screaming inspiration to your allies, maybe throwing up the horns while you're at it...and yet, I see problems.
For starters, you can't use Perform while you're raging, so your Bard abilities would be totally inaccessible while you're using your Barbarian abilities. One friend suggested the Urban Barbarian's alternate rage, but that one is a bit weaker, isn't it? Is this something you might houserule in (Barbarians can use 'perform' while enraged) on account of it being awesome, or is there another, rules-friendly way to do this?
Isn't there a Bard archetype for this? If there isn't there should be.
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Ah, the Bardbarian (the most epic name for a multiclass evah!)... :)
A friend of mine in another group tried it if I recall, although I think his GM was letting him houserule it. I haven't found any specific way yet to do it "rules-friendly", but it wouldn't surprise me if there is a way. So keep looking. :P
Take a level or two in Barbarian, then Savage Skald the rest of the way.
Hmmm...Savage Skald? I like it; what book was it in? I'm still not sure it would jive with Barbarian (no perform during rage, still) but inspiring other people to rage sounds interesting. Inspiring Blow seems like it would encourage you to go with a wide crit-range weapon, but I'm not sure Rapier is what I had in mind, weapon-wise. :)
Urban barbarian to pump up your dex combined with the dervish dance feat and the dervish dancer archetype could be really good.
Urban barbarian to pump up your dex combined with the dervish dance feat and the dervish dancer archetype could be really good.
And kinda kills the idea of a metal rocker.
Can you mix Savage Skald and Sound Striker? If so, one of those with an Oracle of Metal could be fun.
I mean...come on. You're an oracle of metal.
Bardic performance does not actually require a Perform check in all situations. You can Inspire Courage while raging.
I didn't know this. I was just checking the PRD, and none of the performances actually seem to require a Perform check. I also realized that even if they did, since the performances can only be disrupted by going unconscious, paralyzed, stunned, or being unable to take a free action, you could start the performance, then rage, and you'd be fine.
Actually, distraction and countersong require performance checks. A few other archetypes give ones that do too.
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Only problem, a normal rage won't let you cast the awesome bard spells, especially the immediate action ones.Sounds like we need a magicless bard archetype.
*cracks the whip*
Too much work.
>_>
...
<_<
Hey guys, what about a bard that wouldn't use magic, but emphasizes on skills and inspiring tricks for allies that depends on how much risks or planning he takes ?
It's just an awesome and totally original idea I just got right now.
Or not.
Or invest all/the majority of his spell slots on non-combat spells. You can still cast outside of rage, so this might actually be a way to make utility a useful choice for a spontaneous caster.
Thanks to everyone for all of these suggestions. I'm starting to fall in love with these forums. <3
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I second the Savage Skald archetype... not that other Archetypes or Vanilla Bards don't rock,
but Savage Skald rocks in the way you're wanting it to, I thinks :-)
re: Rage/Performance conflict, I'm not QUITE sure it's as safe as other's seem to think.
Clearly, actual Perform checks run into the conflict with Rage's restriction on CHA skills,
but I think it's EASILY plausible by RAW that ALL Bardic Performances ARE using Performance skill even if they don't make a check.
I say that based on the very first line of Bardic Performance:
So ALL effects of Bardic Performance are 'using the Perform skill to create magical effects...'. Sure, the actual check RESULT doesn't affect the power/success of the effect for MOST usages of Bardic Performance... Though since you ARE 'using the Performance skill', any GM should feel free to ask for checks simply to determine the quality of your music/whatever (pure fluff). Whether or not any check happens, it certainly seems like you are still using Performance (a CHA skill), both RAW and Flavor-wise.
That said, I am fine hand-waving that restriction... ESPECIALLY if you take the Savage Skald Bard Archetype :-)
Good point, though again...even with the restriction, you could start the performance, *then* rage...since the performance wouldn't be disrupted by the raging, presumably. Not sure when I'll have a chance to do this, but I'll definitely talk to the GM about it.
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I second the Savage Skald archetype... not that other Archetypes or Vanilla Bards don't rock,
but Savage Skald rocks in the way you're wanting it to, I thinks :-)re: Rage/Performance conflict, I'm not QUITE sure it's as safe as other's seem to think.
Clearly, actual Perform checks run into the conflict with Rage's restriction on CHA skills,
but I think it's EASILY plausible by RAW that ALL Bardic Performances ARE using Performance skill even if they don't make a check.
I say that based on the very first line of Bardic Performance:
So ALL effects of Bardic Performance are 'using the Perform skill to create magical effects...'. Sure, the actual check RESULT doesn't affect the power of the effect for MOST usages of Bardic Performance... Though since you ARE 'using the Performance skill', any GM should feel free to ask for checks simply to determine the quality of your music/whatever (pure fluff). Whether or not any check happens, it certainly seems like you are still using Performance (a CHA skill), both RAW and Flavor-wise.
That said, I am fine hand-waving that restriction... ESPECIALLY if you take the Savage Skald Bard Archetype :-)
You know, I remember being persuaded that rage and BP wouldn't work at one point, but can't really remember why. I know it wasn't because of the first line, since I think that's fluff.
However, there is this post by JJ.
Bardic performance does NOT require you to use a Perform skill that you have ranks in. It doesn't even need a Perform skill at all. Not only is Perform usable untrained, but the bardic performance ability does not require you to make Perform checks of any kind except for a few specific TYPES of bardic performance, such as countersong or distraction.
This means that when you inspire courage, you're not necessarily doing so by playing the flute or banging drums. It's more likely that you're singing or bragging or taunting or dancing or otherwise just showboating to raise your allies' morale. If you WANT to say that your bardic performance is from a particularly rousing violin solo, that's fine... but once it's started you don't have to keep playing the violin if you want to put the violin down and fight or spellcast or whatever because the actual Perform (strings) skill doesn't ever enter the picture.
The first part is what I'm referring to, and the second part is there because it's interesting.
Oh, I remember why. It was because the Savage Skald can't use Incite Rage on himself. The interpretation of this I took at the time was that it was because if he was enraged, his performance would end...and uh...that's silly.
Yeah, I would definitely say that Savage Skald needs to have an exception to the rules if one reads that first line of Bardic Performance literally. I mean, even if one wants to see the Savage Skald's Inspiring Blow (Crit-triggered beginning of Performance) as their ONLY way to start a Performance while Raging, they don't have a way to CONTINUE that performance by RAW.
Feel free to hit the FAQ on the other post....
the name of that spell doesn't have much bearing on this issue, unfortunately. cool spell though.
If I were your GM, I'd let your rage be a part of your performance. I'd probably also create a feat that lets you stack your rage with your bardic performance.
he may be talking about the morale will save bonus from rage, which doesn't stack with other morale bonus effects.
Alternatively, he could be talking about stacking rounds of rage and bardic performance.
Which could quickly get ludicrous, but would have the nice feature of not requiring tracking two separate pools.
So, this would mean that bardic performance does not rely on the perform skill and so if the BP doesn't work with rage, it's not because it's using a perform skill.
cool... i have no problem believing the RAI is that the skills aren't invoked at all (and thus it's rage-legit),
(or at least that the intent wasn't explicitly that rage can't work with performance)
although BOTH because there's obvious 3.x cruft AND bard/barbarian is such an awesome character type,
hopefully some real Errata comes to this to make it clear and PFS-legit.
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I have a barbarian here, who is a urban barbarian 2/arcane duelist 1. Been fun so far, thanks to the combination of rage's combat prowess, which you can use as a defensive or an offensive augmentation, and various skills and spell utility. She's prodded the buttock for a while now, but I'm fairly sure a pure savage skald would have been more useful in the PFS environment. Quite simply, there's a large amount of barbarians around, who'd love a rage generator in their team and skills are king.
Anyhow, I have no idea if it's possible to cast spells while raging, nevermind if the rage is controlled or not. Not having to worry about lost AC, compared to normal rage, and throwing knowledge checks mid-rage has been a boon enough so far.
Gestalt it.
Some people tried making an alternate bard class for that in 3.5 one of which can be found here while the other one is over there. Maybe that helps if someone wants to design their own archetype for it.
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Bah, you can already do a bard without spellcasting by taking a cavalier with some ranks in Perform, and you can already do a bardbarian without sucking too much, you'll just lose some cool features for fluff and still be efficient for it - after all, no Arcane Strike if you used an immediate action spell before, and the rocker will sure want to deal hot, hard and loud tasty bonus damage points.
A spell-less bard would lose a lost when you can simply take evangelist, sensei, cavalier, or one of the tactical archetypes available around here (see my profile) and help your allies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjtS1FbYeIg
I already built him. Check out my "Bardass" on the boards my friend. Savage Skald is cool.
If this issue is Errata'd (if Rage Performance is intended to be allowable)
it seems that just adding Performance to the list of Rage-allowed DEX/CHA skills is the simplest solution,
and doesn't require precision rules writing AND reading/interpretation...
