Any experience with Skalds to share?


Advice

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Liberty's Edge

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Hi, All!

I've got this new PFS skald character, see? Put him through one whole PFS module successfully so far. Kind of new to trying out skald characters myself, although I have played bards in the past, which are cool.

Anyway, I built this fellow, Barachûrg, on the advice of several others on Paizo to a lot more combative than bards could ever be.

Has anyone had cool experiences, or less than cool 'oopsies' to learn from, playing Skalds like that? I like how the Skald can really do a number on foes due to his or her own rage song abilities.

Anyway, if anyone can give me some food for thought on good or bad ideas for combative Skald characters, it would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance!


i haven't tried it, but I really like the Iconic Skald build. 2 Hand Axes and Ulfen. That's probably going to be my next PFS character

Liberty's Edge

I'm partial to half-orcs as PCs, which is why mine's a bit different from that.


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Half-Orc, Barb 1 / Cavalier 1 / Skald X. Get a Valet Familiar and the Amplified Rage teamwork feat. Enjoy +8 Str and Con and Fast Healing 8 at level 3. Add in Courageous and Furious Weapon. Enjoy +10 Str and Con at level 12; grant the entire party Fast Healing 10. If you're struggling to be awesome with a Str score in the high 20s and a Con score in the low 20s, you're doing something very, very wrong.

Liberty's Edge

@heyyon: how do you get the Valet Familiar? Isn't that just for Wizards, or is there some way for Cavaliers to get that?

I've never played Cavaliers before, of course...


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There are several ways to get a familiar:

1)Play a class with a bloodline, such as Bloodrager/Sorcerer/Magus with the Eldritch Scion archetype, and choose a Bloodline Familiar instead of the 1st-lvl Bloodline power.

2)Play a Bloodrager with the Aberrant Bloodline, and use the Aberrant Tumor feat to get a Tumor familiar(as the alchemist discovery)

3)Use Skill Focus(Knowledge: Any) and Eldritch Heritage(Arcane) to get the Arcane Bond(Familiar) class feature at your Character level -2(minimum 1)

4)Use Iron Will + Familiar Bond + Improved Familiar Bond to get a Familiar(Familiar Bond/Improved Familiar Bond are feats from the Familiar folio)

5)Play a class that naturally gets a familiar: Witch or Wizard.

In your case, I recommend Bloodrager1/Cavalier1/Skald X and the Bloodline familiar option.


Pretty sure there's no restrictions on familiars taking the valet archetype. I think the only familiar archetype restrictions are the typical ones, and witches not being able to let their familiars take the figment archetype. For some reason.


Silly guy nailed it. I should have said "Bloodrager" instead of "Barbarian" in my post. Oops.

Liberty's Edge

@SillyGuy: Thanks for those tips; I'll make a note of those!

@Lanitril: I've not used familiars before in PF play, so I'll need to remember that!

@heyyon: I was wondering about that. That's okay, we all make misteaks, even mee! :D

Grand Lodge

You can skip the Cavalier level too, or replace it with Paladin (Holy Tactician) 3. You miss out on using yet another standard action, 1/day, to up your Rage buff. You might also take the Cavalier level and retrain it later on when Skald casting is more relevant.

I'm building a PFS character along these lines, but don't have much experience to report (just one Emerald Spire level.) Weapon+Bite for a full attack is nice at first level?

I'm looking at something like:
Bloodrager 1 (Blood Conduit for Improved Trip, Celestial Bloodline, Bloodline familiar: Goat)
Skald X(Maybe Fated Champion, maybe not)
Feat order:
Amplified Rage
Skald's Vigor
Improved Familiar (Earth Elemental)

With lesser beast totem, your 4th level Goat familiar has an 18 Str, with a Claw/Claw/Gore +7/1d4+4

At 5th, your Earth Elemental has a 22 Str, with a +8/1d6+15 slam. The elemental gets less from Beast Totem, though (slams and claws probably can't use the same limb, and power attack is lowered when they've got more than one natural attack.) So if you're looking this route you might want a different rage power.

Liberty's Edge

@ Markov: Those are kind of cool ideas. I'll give the Paladin bit a miss, though, since I'm very partial to CN as an alignment.

Grand Lodge

Yeah, the Paladin code is a little rough. If you're not going Paladin, it also opens up Warleader's Rage. This only helps you and your familiar, but could provide a lot of extra freedom.

I should also mention that I was considering Totemic Skald. Bull gives everyone raging with you another +2 Str (enhancement, but meh.)

Liberty's Edge

@Markov:

That would be an interesting, that Totemic Skald. I'd be more inclined to use the Tager totem for the dexterity boost for both the ranged hit bonus and AC enhancement.

The Snake looks pretty good too for enhanced AoO.

And it looks like the Totemic Skald is PFS legal too. Cool!


The master performer and grand master performer feats work on a Skalds raging song.
Combine with totemic skald (bear) and you are giving everyone an additional +2 to the morale bonus and the enhancement bonus.

You would be looking at like +12 strength at level 9. +6 morale and +6 enhancement.


What feats are the master performer feats? Ice never heard of those nor do I know what they do.

Liberty's Edge

@Deadkitten: I can't seem to find either of those feats on an internet search. All I keep getting on a search is "Master Combat Performer".


Maybe I'm just dumb, but could someone point out what the Cavalier adds to 1 Bloodrager/1 Cavalier/Skald X? I can understand why you'd want the Bloodrager - that Familiar trick is just plain amazing.


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It allows you to give amplified rage to your other allies to benefit from while under the rage song


Oh! Tactician! I see it now, thank you Chess Pwn - man, that's nice. It takes an extra round to set up - but man.

Grand Lodge

It also gives you a bonus teamwork feat to take Amplified Rage with, since the build is feat starved at early levels. If you go Cavalier, make sure to take Standard bearer, which swaps out the mount (which you can't use in PFS anyway with the familiar) for a morale bonus on charge attacks.

And, while I'm thinking about it, you also want a Courageous Amulet of Mighty fists, to bump your rage bonus (and thus Fast Healing and odd stats) by 1, and your standard bonus if you go Cav.


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Chess Pwn wrote:
What feats are the master performer feats? Ice never heard of those nor do I know what they do.

They are faction feats from the faction guide.

Master Performer

Grand Master Performer

My favorite use of those feats is with the spell warrior archetype for Skald. By level 9 you can make everyone in the party have +4 weapons.

And since you add your rage powers to your raging song, they should count as bonuses for those feats as well. Hello superstition.

Grand Lodge

Unfortunately, not PFS legal. :(


Markov Spiked Chain wrote:
Unfortunately, not PFS legal. :(

What really is these days?

Good for home games though.

Liberty's Edge

@Markov: Oh well, you can't have everything!

For my Half-Orc Skald, I have a Cunning Plan. Based not multi-classing, for the first few levels, should he survive that long:
Level 1: Combat Reflexes feat
Level 3: Skald's Vigour feat & Reckless Abandon rage power
Level 5: Power Attack
Level 6: Lesser Spirit Totem or Lesser Beast Totem
Level 7: Cleave feat
Level 9: Surprise Follow-Throw (Half-Orc) feat & Spirit Totem or Beast Totem rage power

Kind of hard to choose rage powers. There are so many to choose from, but you only get them every third level. Still, it can make things interesting.


One of the issues that I have found with Skalds is the fact that they are EXtremely feat starved.

You probably want to take extra rage power at least once, mayby twice.

You might even want to take advantage of Skalds vigor and Amplified rage.

It is really hard to pass up Power Attack with the bonuses that you can grant to Strength.

Battle Cry almost seems like a 5th level feat tax.

Honestly there are so many feats a Skald can use for support that they don't really have the room for many feats that affect combat directly. They are fantastic party support and I would almost argue that they surpass the Bard in that regard.


There is a 3rd level Skald spell that let's you switch a rage power for another one.

Thee is also a magic item that comes built in with one rage power of your choice as well.
Those might help.

Another option that might help the party out is boosting your DR/-
When you use Raging song, you also grant your allies your DR so you can use stuff like Shoanti War Paint for +1 DR.
There is also a chain shirt in ACG that increases your DR by one as well.

DR 3-5 isn't really much, but when you grant it to your ENTIRE party its not too shabby.

Liberty's Edge

I think the Battle Cry feat is kind of redundant for a Skald. Skalds seem pretty cool as party support. And they are much sturdier in battle than normal bards besides. Less of a skill monkey, though.

I was thinking of the DR rage power too. But there aren't that many skald rage power slots. Decisions, decisions!


I don't know if is allowed in PFS but the Pageant of the Peacock bardic masterpiece helps with skills tremendously.

Just do some reflufing to suit your skald.

Liberty's Edge

Hadn't thought about masterpieces. I just looked in the latest Additional PFS Resources guide. Of course Pageant of the Peacock is not PFS-legal. Oh well. I'll have a look-see at the other masterpieces and see if there's anything suitable for PFS skalds.

Would be cool to use in non-PFS games, though.

Grand Lodge

Triple Time looks solid (1st level spell, give (level) party members +10' movement.)

I really like Shield Other, so Tales of Twisting Steel is also on my list.


This build will now be used to resurrect Minsc, and give new purpose to his giant miniature space hamster Boo.

If you're going to have a valet familiar why not take Escape Route and never provoke an AOO from movement?


heyyon wrote:
Half-Orc, Barb 1 / Cavalier 1 / Skald X. Get a Valet Familiar and the Amplified Rage teamwork feat. Enjoy +8 Str and Con and Fast Healing 8 at level 3. Add in Courageous and Furious Weapon. Enjoy +10 Str and Con at level 12; grant the entire party Fast Healing 10. If you're struggling to be awesome with a Str score in the high 20s and a Con score in the low 20s, you're doing something very, very wrong.

Are we sure Fast Healing will be 8? Reading Skald's Vigor, Fast Healing equal to the STR bonus your song provides. The other bonuses aren't technically ones from your song.


On the other hand amplified rage is modifying the base bonus provided by the song, not granting a separate bonus. There is certainly merit in the argument to give them the whole thing.


Amplified Rage increases the morale bonuses by +4. Courageous increases the morale bonus by 1/2 the weapon bonus. Yes, your raging song gives you a +8-11 bonus to STR. There's not really wiggle room or interpretation, but rules as written it the morale bonus is increased. It's not additional bonuses, but increases to the bonus.

On the negative side, Lesser Celestial Totem specifically calls out fast healing and regeneration and things it does not stack with. That won't work.


Fast healer feat would seem to be easy to build in due to half orcs already having free access to endurance. Get half your (inflated) con bonus to all healing effects like skalds vigor. It does not call out fast healing as not acceptable.


Also, I believe greater skalds vigor only cares about the con bonus you get from raging song to measure the fast healing the party receives.
So for that little trick you are the only one that should need amplified rage.


greater skalds vigor just provides the skalds vigor to the party, uses the same process to determine the bonus.


Also, using the totemic skald archetype you can select the bull as a totem animal, now your song provides far more strength making your vigor provide far more healing.

Liberty's Edge

@Markov:

Thanks for those Masterpiece and spell suggestions. Those look pretty cool! Good for mobility and fighting!


also you could eventually afford a mask of giants for totemic skald to get a large humanoid option for your wild shape

Liberty's Edge

Jodokai wrote:
heyyon wrote:
Half-Orc, Barb 1 / Cavalier 1 / Skald X. Get a Valet Familiar and the Amplified Rage teamwork feat. Enjoy +8 Str and Con and Fast Healing 8 at level 3. Add in Courageous and Furious Weapon. Enjoy +10 Str and Con at level 12; grant the entire party Fast Healing 10. If you're struggling to be awesome with a Str score in the high 20s and a Con score in the low 20s, you're doing something very, very wrong.
Are we sure Fast Healing will be 8? Reading Skald's Vigor, Fast Healing equal to the STR bonus your song provides. The other bonuses aren't technically ones from your song.

I was looking through rage powers and I couldn't find anything that increases the Strength bonus of a song. But the fast healing the rage song would provide is no small thing, even if it maxes out at +6 at higher levels.

Liberty's Edge

heyyon wrote:

Amplified Rage increases the morale bonuses by +4. Courageous increases the morale bonus by 1/2 the weapon bonus. Yes, your raging song gives you a +8-11 bonus to STR. There's not really wiggle room or interpretation, but rules as written it the morale bonus is increased. It's not additional bonuses, but increases to the bonus.

On the negative side, Lesser Celestial Totem specifically calls out fast healing and regeneration and things it does not stack with. That won't work.

But wouldn't the Amplified Rage feat only work if you had another Half-Orc nearby using the same teamwork feat at the same time as you? It is a cool feet, of course, but pretty situational, I would've thought...

Dark Archive

Lesser Spirit Totem is pretty fun. The hit and damage aren't great, but you get an attack for every raging ally adjacent to an enemy. My spirits landed the killing blow on several enemies.

Liberty's Edge

@ Lasoth: Good suggestions those. Especially the Totemic (Bull) skald build. That one looks PFS-Legal, which is cool.

Liberty's Edge

Grigorii wrote:
Lesser Spirit Totem is pretty fun. The hit and damage aren't great, but you get an attack for every raging ally adjacent to an enemy. My spirits landed the killing blow on several enemies.

That's kind of what I was thinking. Each spirit slam doesn't do much damage. But they can sure add up! Just like the bonuses from bards or skalds: it's amazing how often just that extra +1 just barely gets you an extra hit. I had one bard at third level who caused an extra 60 points damage in one prolonged combat from his allies just on account of that.

Of course the Rage Song of the skald does add a lot of cool combat abilities for the Skald and his allies. They sure look cool.


Another thing that's kind of tempting me here is to access shield other and use share spell to have my familiar cast it on me, so he is the one taking half the damage, this could essentially double the effect of our fast healing.

Is it possible to share spell with the Tales of Twisting Steel masterpiece?

Grand Lodge

Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

You called?

Oh wait....

-Skeld

Liberty's Edge

@Lasoth: I think that Masterpiece is just similar to a spell. Could come in handy for a Skald, I suppose.

@Seld: Maybe...


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Barachûrg wrote:
But wouldn't the Amplified Rage feat only work if you had another Half-Orc nearby using the same teamwork feat at the same time as you? It is a cool feet, of course, but pretty situational, I would've thought...

If you get a familiar with the Valet archetype, your familiar gets all of your teamwork feats even if they don't qualify for them. Amplified rage simply says "Whenever you are raging and adjacent to a raging [b]ally[/] who also has this feat..." so the two of you would be raging and both would have this feat. The Valet archetype is in the Familiar Folio which isn't PFS legal yet, but probably will be soon... so there is that.

Grand Lodge

Valet Archetype is in Animal Archive and is PFS legal. It's the Bloodline familiar that's waiting on Additional Resources. So you could do Bloodrager 1/Skald 2 with Tumor Familiar(Valet) and Amplified Rage as your level 1 and 3 feats. But some people interpret the Tumor Familiar's "tiny animal" clause as trumping the Animal Archive "Small familiar" rules, so the familiar won't be that effective.

You can't use Shared Spells to get the familiar to count as the caster of Shield Other. :( I use Imbue with Spell Ability to get that effect, but it doesn't work for Skalds.

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