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Advice

Grand Lodge

(After putting this in the wrong forum...)

Need help in building a PFS Skald. I have chosen the Fated Champion archetype because that seems like the obvious max but looking for the rest. Im even stuck on the attribute distribution. Dont need a full guide but would appreciate attribute pt distribution, race, feat and trait recommendations up to say level 8 or so.

Thanks.


I'll give this a bump because there needs to be more skald discussions.


Considering I'm thinking about compiling data to make a Skald guide, this works as a test bed for the Fated Champion build.

Race wise, I don't think you can go wrong with either Half-Elf or Half-Orc. In fact, I'd recommend them above a Human because of the favored class bonus. Humans only get extra spells known, while Half-elves and Half-orcs both get extra rounds of raging song. That's a hell of a lot of party raging there. Half-orc does seem like the more definitive winner because you can swap your Orc ferocity for Sacred Tattoo and combo that with the Fate's Favored trait. That give you a +2 luck bonus to all saving throws.

I'm assuming you want this guy to be a melee dude, so we're going to build him for reach weapons. Early on, this is to help compensate for the standard action start-up for your raging song. And honestly, this build is well suited to using a two-handed weapon. Glaive or Lucerne Hammer are solid choices as your starting reach weapons.

We can technically get away with a lower Strength because we have Inspired Rage to bump that up. However, we aren't exactly going to be too careful with this. A little Dexterity goes a long way, as we may need it for various skills and Combat Reflexes. Con is of course necessary for both Fort saves and health. Intelligence should be a 14 for any non-human race because you will need those skill points, and humans can roll with a 12. We want the Skald to get an average of 6 skill ranks per level to accommodate the necessary skills as well as some ranks in a few knowledge skills to take advantage of Lore Master. Wisdom is your dump stat, but we only want to dip a couple points from it to make up any slack. Finally, Charisma should be at least a 14 to start. We'll be bumping that up to about 16 by level 8, before magic items come into play.

So for an effective baseline before we start wiggling things around, we have this stat lineup:

Str 16 (up to 20 while Inspired Rage is on at level 8)
Dex 12
Con 14 (up to 18 while Inspired Rage is on at level 8)
Int 14
Wis 8
Cha 14

As mentioned earlier, you may want to consider Fate's Favored as one of your traits. Given that you can cast Divination spells as if they took a lower level spell slot, that means you can gain additional luck bonuses that this trait will boost. For Humans/Half-orcs, you may also consider the Reactionary trait to give you an additional +2 to Initiative. Half-elves have their own version of that trait to select.

Feats should be a fairly simple thing. We look towards combat for most of what we do.

1st level: Arcane strike or Skald's Vigor
3rd level: Power Attack
5th level: Improved Initiative or selection at level 1
7th level: Extra Performance or Lingering Performance


I would probably go with something like:
Str17
Dex13
Con12
Int10
Wis8
Chr16

Human or halforc are both good choices.
If you go half orc the alternate that gives +1sp is required.
Grab a reach weapon since your ac is going to be horrible and it's much easier to cast with reach.

Skalds vigor is good, but not spectacular, but improved skalds vigor is simply beastly.

You are going to be feat starved, so choose carefully.
Rage powers that I like:
Beast totem line. Party pounce is strong, but it is heavily Dependant on party composition.
OR
Spirit totem line. (1d6+1d8+cha)*allies is nothing to scoff at. More reliable than pounce, easier to activate, but ofc...not pounce.
OR
Lesser Celestial totem. If your party is taking more damage, if you lack tanks, etc. Pair it up with path of glory and at level 4 you have a 2nd lvl spell healing the whole party for 20hp each within 4 rounds. Even at high levels, a 2nd level giving effectively 10+HP regen/round to the party is godly (15/sec at level 10 with greater skalds vigor)

My personal choice is grabbing lesser spirit totem and swapping to lesser celestial if needed (through flexible fury)

You also want superstition and probably witch hunter.
Other good rage powers include:
Reckless abandon
Eater of magic
Raging leaper->raging flier
Strength surge->spell sunder

So since you obviously can't really grab all those then you need a few extra rage power feats. Add the 2vigors, and you are already hard pressed (let alone things like imp init, lingering, battle cry, steadfast personality, etc)

I would personally go with something like:
Traits: community-minded (awesome for skald), fates favored
Half orc: skilled, familiarity, tattoo, apprentice
Feats:
1:vigor
3:extra rage power, rage powers: lesser spirit totem, superstition
5:extra rage power, rage powers: reckless abandon
6:rage power: witch hunter
7:power attack/rage power:str surge
9:furious focus, rage power:str surge/spell sunder
10: retrain furious focus to greater vigor
11:discordant voice
12: rage power:spell sunder/eater of magic

So you have 5-6 rage powers,grant 1d6 sonic/hit, fast healing 4 and etc.
All your bonuses are morale (add good hope and etc) and raging so: the whole melee party should wield furious+courageous weapons, and most of them apply even after you terminate them with things like saving finale (community minded)

You should probably first cast haste then sing. Second round let song fall (morale bonuses stay) and cast good hope (to not worry about superstition) 3rd round start song again and smack things

All in all you will be granting: +7attack, +2damage, +4str, +4 con, -4ac, fast healing 4, +1d6 on each attack, one extra attack, one extra attack dealing 1d4+YOUR chr, +5sv throws, 1 sv throw reroll+temp HP, 1 spell sunder at +12, +4damage vs creatures with SLA or casters.
Most of the above are +2 higher with a +2furius courageous weapon


Currently playing a PFS Skald, 6 sessions under his belt. From a PM I sent earlier this week on the board...

Quote:

My build is fairly simple. I've distributed my stat points to get a blanket of skills. At level 3, I have 16 skills with at least 1 rank. While I lose to a Bard here, it's been sufficient. My stats, in order, are 14, 12, 14, 13, 10, 16. I've taken Defiant/Inexplicable/Bestow Luck (human racial feats from ARG) to accommodate difficult skill checks. Level 5 will bring the incredibly powerful Battlecry (ACG 141), assuming it's not nerfed.

Item-wise, I treat myself slightly more melee-ish than the average bard. I maintain a full golf bag of weapons with different materials, MW Breastplate +1, Buckler, etc. I recently added a MW Thieves' Toolkit to the roster as I've found myself consistently being the closest thing to a trap-spotter in most parties. This puts me in a very versatile place for most groups as I have melee, ranged, skills, and arcane casting all reasonably covered.

For spells, I started with Ear-Piercing Scream and Saving Finale. One important note with Saving Finale is that you cannot target someone who did not accept the song, but you can bypass that at level 3 by starting the Marching Song instead of the Rage Song if the situation demands it. I've focused on utility for level 1 spells, adding Alarm (surprisingly useful in PFS) and temporarily getting CLW because I don't have Spring-Loaded Wrist Sheaths.

Following the advice of the thread, I ended up deciding on Spirit Totem, Lesser as my Rage Power to pass along. The bonus here is that it also allows an extra attack from summons and it uses my CHA mod instead of the recipient's. At level 3, it's a Slam +5, 1d4+3 Negative energy damage attack, regardless of the recipient's action, against an adjacent, living foe. If you party with casters or companion-based characters, this becomes particularly powerful. I'm up in the air as far as the progression of Rage Powers as I would very much like to get Celestial Blood, Lesser (ACG pg 80) at 6, but it competes with Spirit Totem.

Shroudb's post doesn't cover the very, VERY important point that only Rage Powers gained through the class feature are shared. Extra Rage Power does not share at all, so anything you get through there is exclusively for you. Bear that in mind as you pick feats.

I've built for passable melee. Not good, not great. Just good enough. I'm also not specifically optimizing for a single role. The character is really good at filling a lot of party holes. Only 3 skills have more than 1 rank in them: Linguistics, Perception, and Perform: Sing.

From a support standpoint, I cannot say this enough: GET BATTLECRY. It allows a reroll for each party member with each use. It's a swift action. You're going to have the CHA to support it. Unless it gets errata'd, it is the absolute best 5th level feat out there for a support-based character.


Serisan wrote:

Currently playing a PFS Skald, 6 sessions under his belt. From a PM I sent earlier this week on the board...

Quote:

My build is fairly simple. I've distributed my stat points to get a blanket of skills. At level 3, I have 16 skills with at least 1 rank. While I lose to a Bard here, it's been sufficient. My stats, in order, are 14, 12, 14, 13, 10, 16. I've taken Defiant/Inexplicable/Bestow Luck (human racial feats from ARG) to accommodate difficult skill checks. Level 5 will bring the incredibly powerful Battlecry (ACG 141), assuming it's not nerfed.

Item-wise, I treat myself slightly more melee-ish than the average bard. I maintain a full golf bag of weapons with different materials, MW Breastplate +1, Buckler, etc. I recently added a MW Thieves' Toolkit to the roster as I've found myself consistently being the closest thing to a trap-spotter in most parties. This puts me in a very versatile place for most groups as I have melee, ranged, skills, and arcane casting all reasonably covered.

For spells, I started with Ear-Piercing Scream and Saving Finale. One important note with Saving Finale is that you cannot target someone who did not accept the song, but you can bypass that at level 3 by starting the Marching Song instead of the Rage Song if the situation demands it. I've focused on utility for level 1 spells, adding Alarm (surprisingly useful in PFS) and temporarily getting CLW because I don't have Spring-Loaded Wrist Sheaths.

Following the advice of the thread, I ended up deciding on Spirit Totem, Lesser as my Rage Power to pass along. The bonus here is that it also allows an extra attack from summons and it uses my CHA mod instead of the recipient's. At level 3, it's a Slam +5, 1d4+3 Negative energy damage attack, regardless of the recipient's action, against an adjacent, living foe. If you party with casters or companion-based characters, this becomes particularly powerful. I'm up in the air as far as the progression of Rage Powers as I would very much like to get Celestial Blood,

...

actually i had the same question about "extra rage" feat applying to rage song or if it is considered another source, and according to the rules forums most people seem to think that the feat does indeed grant you you those powers to the song, and only rage powers gained from a class feature of another class (p.e. bloodrager, barbarian, etc) don't count.

generally ACG is in dire need of faq/errata as there are a LOT of vague things accross the book.

i don't play pfs though so there i assume you can ask someone how he thinks is fair to be run


A feat is a different source than a class feature. It probably should be clarified in a FAQ, but I can't imagine any PFS judge ruling otherwise.

I'm definitely with you on the editing problems of ACG. Good flavor, lackluster writing/editing when it comes to clarity. At least it's not as bad as the Mastermind archetype typo with Inspiration being free on all skill checks. :-)

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