I am about to join a lvl 13 pbp game, and I know I want to play a sound striker bard. What I don't know is if I want to go dervish of dawn for melee, magician for more spell oomph, or stick with just the sound striker and boost inspire courage and flag bearer.
Party consists of a MoMS monk o doom, Titan mauling barbarian, caster cleric, and dervish magus. Please don't try to sell me on a different class.
Sounds like melee is covered. Focus on ranged combat and buffs.
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Sounds like melee is covered. Focus on ranged combat and buffs.
This. Go with Magician; Grab some scrolls/wands (in addition to your bonded item, whatever that ends up being) and cover the primary arcanist role. Sound Striker can be used to blast whenever your control is not needed or isn't appropriate.
So stay away from the Aasimar fcb of +4 hit/dmg from inspire courage and another +1/+1 from flag bearer?
What are some good lvl 1-4 sorc/wiz spells to pick up and or wand out?
I would be quite grateful for a +4 to-hit/damage.
=)
How bout haste and bull str? Might as well go all out...
What level do you expect to play to? Each of those options gets different things, so if you don't expect to hit the last couple levels then certain options are better/worse.
Musetouched Aasimar is the way to go, starting at this level you don't have the pain of delayed feats.
Dirge bard is also an option to stack with soundstriker, and works well with perform(percussion) to intimidate and blistering invective. (most enemies at this level avoid the fire damage, but the debuff stacks with dirge of doom for all kinds of fun, so long as you use Dirge of Doom first, since it states it cannot cause an increase past shaken, when you cast blistering invective after they become frightened since the intimidate skill doesn't have that restriction. The skill can't be used twice, and the performance can't be used twice to stack higher effects, but they can be used together.) Also a non-evil animate dead is just cool. Affecting corporeal undead with mind effects is also a fun bonus. Charm person the greater mummy and watch the fun ensue.
Personally I would avoid the magician since it only buffs casters (which leaves out your monk/barb and magus mostly).
Dervish of dawn loses the party buffs, so also not worth it.
I was under the impression that the dawnflower dervish doesn't lose normal performance, but gains battle dance which functions differently. You get to choose which one you want to do. At least that is how Hero lab treats it and the archetype doesn't say anywhere you lose it. I don't have the source material in front of me so IDK for sure though.
A few details since I'm not sure if Nicos told him all of 'em or not:
The game is set to go to 16, at least. Hoping farther but who knows.
Most common enemy type is probably going to be Daemons.
The Barbarian and Magus rarely post, and the latter considers discussing tactics to be "metagaming". I foresee/hope that they will either drop/be dropped from the game at some point if they don't shape up, or die because they don't want to talk tactics OR retreat in a fight with 12 enemies, 6 of which have paralyzing attacks.
Can't buy stat boosting items of most of the "Big 6" (barring the weapon and armor components of that), which is instead replaced with a scaling bonus to AC and saves, freeing up WBL for more interesting items.
Ok... So at least 2 lvls of paladin, maybe 4 to pick up oath of vengeance?
Hey, what are you tryin' to do, beat everyone in saves? ;)
But yeah that'd be interesting. The Palla-Bard. Or Bard-adin.
Being able to Smite with sound seems really cool to me, and probably decently effective (if level 4, a solid +8 to each hit ain't too shabby).
So 10 lvls of bard and flag bearer will give the group +4 hit and dmg, or inspire heroics to 1 person, and 4th lvl spells, and 10d8x cha mod in weird words.
3 lvls of paladin (divine hunter and sling?) gives me divine grace, detect evil, and 1 smite/day with some lay on hands goodness.
This sounding good?
So 10 lvls of bard and flag bearer will give the group +4 hit and dmg, or inspire heroics to 1 person, and 4th lvl spells, and 10d8x cha mod in weird words.
3 lvls of paladin (divine hunter and sling?) gives me divine grace, detect evil, and 1 smite/day with some lay on hands goodness.
This sounding good?
Sounds pretty awesome.
Here is the excerpt:
When a dervish of dawn uses the inspire courage, inspire greatness, or inspire heroics bardic performance types as battle dances, these performance types only provide benefit to the dervish himself. All other types of bardic performance work normally (affecting the bard and his allies, or the bard’s enemies, as appropriate).
Here is the excerpt:
When a dervish of dawn uses the inspire courage, inspire greatness, or inspire heroics bardic performance types as battle dances, these performance types only provide benefit to the dervish himself. All other types of bardic performance work normally (affecting the bard and his allies, or the bard’s enemies, as appropriate).
See that is where it gets strange, nowhere in the text does it say you lose normal non battle dance versions of those performances, you can't inspire courage as a battle dance, but what about using plain old oratory or singing? The only clarification I could find was a reply to a forum post http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2mlu3?Inner-Sea-Guide-Dawnflower-Dervish-questi on#1 How official are random forum posts as errata/FAQ? IMHO if they are official its pretty crappy rules support having to search random forum threads to piece together how things are ruled.
If it is the case where that bard can't ever buff allies than there is no point to the class other than being dex build trap number 32 (dex melee builds universally suck due to opportunity costs). Its effectively being a good archetype vs yet another waste of ink.
Discordant Voice will make this party squeal with glee too.
The maugs drop the game, but still melee is prety much covered.
Does it make me a bad person that my first thought was "Yay!"?
Well, guess ill have to pull my weight then. Buy a few "blasty" wands and what not.
Azata blooded Aasimar 20 pt buy
Str: 12 (-2 pts)
Dex: 17 (-5 pts +2 racial, +1 from lvl)
Con: 14 (-5)
Int: 14 (-5)
Wis: 8 (+2 pts
Cha: 18 (-5 pts, +2 racial, +2 from lvl)
A nice balanced stat spread.
HP= 81 (10d8 + 3d10 + 26)
Fort= 12 (6 base + 6 mod with divine grace)
Ref= 15 (8b + 7m)
Will= 11 (8b + 4m)
BaB= 10/5 (7 from bard + 3 from pal)
You are right... It's +4... And now it's edited. Good catch. I need to go shopping cause that will modify everything that comes after this.
Make sure the GM of this game is in the "Weird Words can be concentrated onto one target" school of thought. The language in UM is very ambiguous about whether or not each word must target a separate creature, and there is controversy around it. I'm not sure if it was ever addressed in a FAQ. If the GM rules that each word must target a separate target, well, the archetype kind of loses most of its appeal.
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Don't dip paladin, don't take any other archetypes beside sound striker. Your group buffs will make the fighty types, and YOU, enormously powerful. You don't need paladin because you will already have good saves (buffs), good attacks (buffs), and healing (wands). Paladin levels just slow your buff casting and inspire courage progression.
Don't take Flagbearer. Flagbearer is for people who can't cast good hope. Good hope is one of the best, most overlooked spells in the game. +2 on everything for everybody for minutes/level in a 3rd level spell slot? Yes please.
Get a couple of lesser extend rods for good hope.
Go archery route. PBS, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Manyshot, Deadly Aim, Wpn Focus, Imp Crit. Shortbow/longbow doesn't much matter because you are all about stacking the adds.
If you're human, take extra spell known favored class bonus every level.
Key spells you want to get are haste, good hope, and greater invis. Really everything else is gravy. Anticipate peril, mirror image, the various teleportation-type spells, glitterdust, see invis, and stat buffs are all good choices. Triple Time masterpiece is worth giving up a spell known, especially with the human favored class bonus, but not a feat. The extra speed will help you stay out of melee reach.
You will find yourself not using weird words except as a finishing move because inspire courage is just that good. And you will do straight up stupid amounts of damage with a bow.
2cp
Thanks CB, great advice.
Wow, Weird words is an absurdly time comsuming ability. 10 touch attacks and then 10 fortitude saves? what?
Lol... No joke, that's why I always group them, hit or miss, save or suck.
I think that is more than fair in light of the dmg output of that ability and the sheer number (22 as of right now) times it could potentially be used.
Feats:
1) lingering performance
3) point blank shot
5) weapon finesse
7) rapid shot
8) precise shot
9) deadly aim
11) dervish dance
13) extra LoH
Not quite sure about the feat load out or some of the gear