Hello Guys,
First, I'm new here, and on Pathfinder, also I would like to say sorry about my bad english.
Well, straight to the point. I'm doing a new char, and my choice was elf for race, and bard for class. Never played this char before. Can you help with some tips, talents, skills, weapons, and others?
Anything could be useful. Since I'm new to the system.
Tks
Hey there, welcome to the game!
First off, it's all about how you want to build.
Bard is a VERY versatile class, capable of doing a little bit of everything; it can heal, buff, social, martial, magic, and even do a little bit of traps.
That said, if you try to do everything, you will be a master of none.
Pick a direction and run with it.
As to what direction to go, it largely depends on your group.
My Saturday group is usually very heavy on melee characters.
If I opt to go bard with them, I'd roll up a buffing bard.
For this type of build, focus on your bard song and your spells.
The Lingering Performance feat allows for your songs to persist a few extra rounds after you stop, useful for keeping your buffs going as long as possible.
Extra Performance also helps in this regard.
Since I'm focusing on doing my damage through other players, feats like Flag-bearer are decent choices.
As to weapons, since my focus is on making others better, my personal damage is much lower; I'd opt for a whip in order to make disarm and trip attempts at distance.
If I had the feats available, I'd consider the Improved versions of those combat feats.
And as to spells, a buffing bard's best friend is Haste.
That all said, this is just ONE way to build a bard.
You can go full melee, using your spells to buff yourself.
You can go full lore and use your spells to better succeed knowledge checks and other skill checks.
You can go party face, using your charisma and skill set to bluff and diplomacy your way into and out of every situation.
Or you could combine a few rolls and be decent at a couple things.
Just don't pull yourself too many directions.
This should go into the advice forum, really, but lets get to the main dicussion anyway.
What do you want to do?
Stick back and buff/enchant with your spells and such?
Go into melee? Do an archery build?
All of those are valid approaches to a bard. So what kind of play style do you want to build for?
Lord Twitchiopolis and lemeres, tks for the answer.
In my groupo, the only one who "cast" spells is the Cleric, we're in a table with 6 players, including me. I'm thinking about doing a bard to cover this hole, and yet give a support if needed. And a sword ou at least a dagger for extreme cases.
My own methods for designing characters starts with the roleplaying. Is your elf bard deep into elven culture, or did he grow up in human lands? Is your elf suave and charming, or more interested in music than in social interaction? Is he willing to put himself into danger in the front line of combat, or does he prefer the safety of spellcasting or archery?
After those decisions, look at the mechanical details and see what is already there and what needs to be improved to fit the mechanical abilities to the character design. An elf's racial modifications to attributes are +2 Dexterity, +2 Intelligence, and –2 Constitution. High dexterity makes a good archer. It makes a good melee combatant only through the Weapon Finesse feat, and even then, the elf's damage will be lower than a strong character's damage, but the Inspire Courage bardic performance partly fixes the low damage.
A bard gains lots of skill ranks per level. High intelligence improves that. And a high dexterity gives a boost to many skills. Your elf bard could be an expert in every lore and every athletic activity that does not require strength. However, use the Favored Class Bonus from bard class for the extra hit point, not the extra skill point, to make up for the low constitution.
A bard's most important attribute is Charisma. His bardic performance ability is limited to a number of rounds per day equal to 4 plus his Charisma modifier plus an additional two rounds for each bard level past first. The Inspire Courage bardic performance is a bard's best contribution to combat. The difficulty (DC) to resist his spells also increases by his Charisma modifier. So, a bard needs high charisma. The elven racial bonuses don't help there; instead, use your best dice roll, or most of your build points, to give the bard high charisma.
With the high charisma and the many skill points, your elf bard could be a master of social skills. But he would have to lessen his knowledge skills or athletic skills for that, because no character can study everything.
A first-level bard does not cast enough spells to be a dedicated spellcaster during combat. He will have to pick up a weapon.
Bards ordinarily are not archers, but elves are proficient with longbows and shortbows. Your bard could stay back in combat, learning Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot feats to become a master archer. That is two feats, so this won't happen until 3rd level. At first and second level, he will be merely a good archer.
The alternative for combat is Weapon Finesse with a rapier or shortsword.
Regardless of which one he specializes in, he should carry both a sword and a bow. Combat is unpredictable.
A bard is a spontaneous spellcaster, which means that he knows few spells, but can switch between the spells he knows at will. Thus, it helps to select spells that serve many different needs: offense such as Cause Fear or Sleep, defense such as Cure Light Wounds or Saving Finale, battlefield control such as Charm Person or Grease, and utility such as Identify or Share Language.
If the cleric is the only spellcaster, then having your bard be a secondary caster is a good idea. Don't worry about healing spells, your cleric (If they are a good aligned cleric) can handle that. Focus on spells like Grease or Sleep at early levels to help your party the most, since enemies affected by it are usually not dealing damage. That means your highest stat will probably be Charisma, followed by Constitution.
If you want to do something with your sword in the event you have to use it, consider putting your third highest stat in Strength. If you really only have it as an emergency weapon, put your third highest into Dexterity for that extra AC and reflex saves. Assign the rest as you see fit.
Remember that you are one of the few casters with Shields and Light armor that doesn't affect your casting, so get them ASAP.
As for Skills, Bards are great for that. If you are playing a Vanilla Bard, look at what your Perform skill is going to be, since you need it for Bardic Performance. When you hit 2nd level, you can use that skill in place of two other skills with Versatile Performance, which will really help you when picking what skills to put points in. So make sure you don't put skill points into skills that Perform can cover.
Finally as a starting feat, Spell Song is fantastic, along with Improved Initiative and Toughness. If you can't find any other feat that you want in the long list of feats, these ones will always do you good.
If there's only one other character who casts spells, it sounds like you have a very martial-focused party, who will greatly appreciate your Inspire Courage, so that's good.
If you're playing an elf, your racial traits are a great fit for an archer. You're proficient with longbows, have a racial bonus to Dexterity, and your penalty to Constitution means you'll want to stay away from melee whenever possible.
What do your stats look like? I'll assume a 20 point buy, at least to give you an idea of how it goes together.
Archer Bard
12 Str
17 Dex (15+2)
12 Con (14-2)
13 Int (11+2)
10 Wis
14 Cha
Feats:
1: Point Blank Shot
2:
3: Precise Shot
4:
5: Arcane Strike
6:
7: Rapid Shot
8:
9: Deadly Aim
Damage output isn't huge, but it gives you something to do when your spells aren't called for.
If you want to go pure support instead, maybe try something like this:
Support Bard
8 Str
14 Dex (12+2)
12 Con (14-2)
14 Int (12+2)
10 Wis
17 Cha
Feats:
1: Improved Initiative
2:
3: Breadth of Experience (if you're OK with worshipping Irori, maybe use Deific Obedience instead, for a massive boost to your Knowledge skills)
4:
5: Toughness
Mathmuse and Icy Turbo, tks for answer!
Well, I did not reached to think about those details like "deep into elven culture, or did he grow up in human lands?" and things like that. But I am more for music than social interaction, the cleric is doing the part of talking to others and so, I will do this too, but I will leave the major part of the thing with him. I do not want to go in frontline because I have few Hit Points, I would prefer to leave the battle to those prepared for that and stay "safe" behind doing my job =P So, I will opt for an archer, and take a bow, and a one handed weapon for emergency. And maybe take a light armor.
I have 80 points to divide between the 6 stats. I made this, including the racial modifications:
Str 12
Dex 16 (14+2)
Cons 12 (14-2)
Int 15 (13+2)
Wis 10
Char 17
Any suggestions? Is that okay for an archer? Would you change something?
For the skills the calculation is 6 + Int Mod, in this case 6 + 2 = 8, on each level? Right?
I love my archer bard I used for Carrion Crown. Here he is. Rikko
My wife played more of a caster bard (although still used archery as her martial contribution). Here she is at level 9. She was excellent at knowledge skills and was good at other social skills as expected. She was not a powerhouse at combat, though. She was the only arcane spellcaster in the group and her bard buffs made the largely martial group shine.
CG Medium elf bard 9
STATISTICS
Str 14, Dex 16, Con 12, Int 16, Wis 10, Cha 19
Feats Bullseye Shot, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Weapon Focus: longbow
Traits Focused Mind, Seeker of Brightness (Knowledge: history)
In short, I'm a fan of the bard. Enjoy!
Edit to add: I should mention that these characters were for 2 different groups, but both groups used 25 point buy for stats.
Mathmuse and Icy Turbo, tks for answer!
Well, I did not reached to think about those details like "deep into elven culture, or did he grow up in human lands?" and things like that. But I am more for music than social interaction, the cleric is doing the part of talking to others and so, I will do this too, but I will leave the major part of the thing with him. I do not want to go in frontline because I have few Hit Points, I would prefer to leave the battle to those prepared for that and stay "safe" behind doing my job =P So, I will opt for an archer, and take a bow, and a one handed weapon for emergency. And maybe take a light armor.
I have 80 points to divide between the 6 stats. I made this, including the racial modifications:
Str 12
Dex 16 (14+2)
Cons 12 (14-2)
Int 15 (13+2)
Wis 10
Char 17Any suggestions? Is that okay for an archer? Would you change something?
For the skills the calculation is 6 + Int Mod, in this case 6 + 2 = 8, on each level? Right?
The attributes look good for an archer bard.
For gear, a bard starts with 105 gp. That can buy a longbow (75 gp), 40 arrows (2 gp), a shortsword (10 gp), and leather armor (10 gp). That leaves 8 gp for personal gear, such as a bedroll and soap, and professional gear, such as an entertainer's outfit. A PC can walk around town in armor without attracting undue attention, but bards like to look nice. A shortbow does less damage than a longbow, but it is cheaper in case your bard needs money for other professional gear, such as a musical instrument. Most first-level bards sing.
For skills, yes, your bard gets 8 points per level, which is a lot. Therefore, don't fret about selecting skills, because any oversight can be corrected at the next level. Putting skill ranks into class skills gives a +3 bonus, so pick 8 of the bard's many class skills. An elf receives a bonus to Perception, so that is a good one to train.
Feats, in contract, are few, so they must be selected carefully. Other have made suggestions here: Lingering Performance, Extra Performance, Point Blank Shot, Deadly Aim, Arcane Strike, Improved Initiative, Breadth of Experience, and Toughness. Let me explain the benefits of each.
- Lingering Performance: Your bardic performance still has its effect two rounds after your bard stops singing. Your bard will start with only 7 rounds of bardic performance, enough for two encounters. If your bard sings for only one or two rounds per encounter and handles the next two rounds via Lingering Performance, he can stretch that to four encounters.
- Extra Performance: Six extra rounds of bardic performance. Nearly as good as Lingering Performance but without the guesswork about when to stop singing.
- Point Blank Shot: +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls of bows if close to target. This feat is the prerequisite to almost all good archery feats. It unfortunately is a weak feat itself, because archers prefer to be far away from their targets.
- Deadly Aim: Extra archery damage in exchange for a little less chance to hit. The one good archery feat that does not require Point Blank Shot.
- Arcane Strike: Extra damage, for arcane casters only. Less extra damage than Deadly Aim, but it applies to both ranged and melee weapons.
- Improved Initiative: +4 to initiative rolls. Your party loves your bardic performance and they want you to start it as quickly as possible.
- Breadth of Experience: +2 bonus to all knowledge and profession skills. The only profession anyone uses is Profession(sailor) because it gives sailing skill. For if your elf spent the last 100 years in college.
- Toughness: One extra hit point per level, except you receive the first three immediately. Useful for surviving first level.
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I'll mention that in a large party, especially one not full of casters, you're going to have a really hard time with archery. At first level, you'll be faced with your party bring in melee with the enemy, so you'll often take a -8 to hit, 4 from cover (allies in the way) and 4 from lacking precise shot (shooting into melee). It works, but I'm just giving you a heads up that the character progression for archery looks like this:
Lvl 1 probably can't do any damage
Lvl 3 sometimes hits for a tiny amount of damage
5 continue to miss a lot and maybe do some damage
10 your damage is almost reasonable, but you could instead cast Dominate Person.
To give you some comparison, you need need 3 feats more than a melee character to do the same damage. So around 7th level you'll catch up. If you want you can just shoot a bow at the beginning of combat or as a backup option, and cast spells as necessary. For the first 6 levels, you take a standard action turning on bardic music, it takes a standard action to cast a buff, etc. So my advice is strongly be a caster and support character. Bards have the most skill points in the game, even above rogues 6th level plus through versatile performance, you have bardic more and a high int, I'd say take breadth of experience or if you really want an in combat option weapon finesse or agile maneuvers, then cast save or suck/die spells right from level one (hideous laughter) with an 18 cha. Have fun either way and good luck! If you're the only Archer the DM might be lax about cover.
Bards make really good archers. They're only natively proficient with (composite) shortbows, but in my experience, the extra range is rarely relevant, and the difference between 1d6 & 1d8 damage is really small anyway.
Master Performer: All bonuses granted by your bardic performance increase by 1.
Grand Master Performer: All bonuses granted by your bardic performance increase by an additional 1.
Please note you are your own ally so these do apply to you.
Also these feat require Kitharodian Academy TPA which is basically reputation, If you are not using the faction guide rules or playing in Golarion simply work with your GM on what is appropriate. I usually simply waive the TPA requirement for my players.
Deadeye Bowman (trait) and Precise shot (feat) will eliminate most ranged penalties.
I'll mention that in a large party, especially one not full of casters, you're going to have a really hard time with archery. At first level, you'll be faced with your party bring in melee with the enemy, so you'll often take a -8 to hit, 4 from cover (allies in the way) and 4 from lacking precise shot (shooting into melee). It works, but I'm just giving you a heads up that the character progression for archery looks like this:
Lvl 1 probably can't do any damage
Lvl 3 sometimes hits for a tiny amount of damage
5 continue to miss a lot and maybe do some damage
10 your damage is almost reasonable, but you could instead cast Dominate Person.To give you some comparison, you need need 3 feats more than a melee character to do the same damage. So around 7th level you'll catch up. If you want you can just shoot a bow at the beginning of combat or as a backup option, and cast spells as necessary. For the first 6 levels, you take a standard action turning on bardic music, it takes a standard action to cast a buff, etc. So my advice is strongly be a caster and support character. Bards have the most skill points in the game, even above rogues 6th level plus through versatile performance, you have bardic more and a high int, I'd say take breadth of experience or if you really want an in combat option weapon finesse or agile maneuvers, then cast save or suck/die spells right from level one (hideous laughter) with an 18 cha. Have fun either way and good luck! If you're the only Archer the DM might be lax about cover.
Ksarress is correct. That -8 penalty to hit will occur in the most common kind of encounter. On the other hand, you will have other encounters where the enemy runs toward your party from a distance or an opposing band of archers is trying to keep out of melee, and then your archer bard will shine.
If your bard takes Point Blank Shot at first level and Precise Shot at third level, then the -4 penalty for shooting into melee disappears. In a roomy encounter, your bard will often be able to step sideways to get a clear shot on a foe and avoid the -4 soft cover penalty for shooting through your allies. That Deadeye Bowman trait that Covent pointed out will make that easy, if your GM gives free traits at first level.
If you were playing a dedicated archer, such as an archery-based ranger or a zen archer monk, this would matter a lot. But you will be playing a bard. Archery is only your third most important ability. Bardic performance and spells are your most important abilities. Thus, you could let your bard be mediocre at archery, ignore Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot, and focus on bardic abilities instead. Or focus on your fourth most important ability: your bard's great skills.
If your bard takes Improved Initiative instead, then he will be fast enough to routinely get one clear shot on the first round. On the second round, he will start his bardic performance, justifying the delay due to his limited rounds of bardic performance.
If your bard takes Lingering Performance or Extra Performance, then he will start his bardic performance on the first round. On the second round, if he has a clear shot, then he can take it; otherwise, he casts a spell. A bard can cast a spell while holding a bow in one hand.
Pathfinder is great for customization. You have a choice.
Take a look at the Sound Striker archetype: at 6th level, you give up Suggestion for Weirdwords--turning your Bardic Performance into 4d6 sonic ray ranged touch attacks! Very nice. And if you're going Archer anyway those feats will apply to Weirdwords as well!
Wow, tks for all the support!
It was veryuseful! I played last night with my bard archer! Very nice and I won a good XP for interpretation and so. Almost no combats, more dialogs and diplomacy. The problem is that the other players are 2 or 3 levels higher than me, we have a 5th lvl player on the table. That difference between looks like an abyss. But let's play and forget about it. I choose Lingering Performance. But at least for now, while on level 1 I Will try use more archery than other bards abilities.
Some doubts persist but I think that playing is the better way to find the answers I need.
Tks for the tips, really useful.
You should strongly consider buying/having a whip handy. Bards get proficiency for free and a whip is useful for making disarm and trip maneuvers at 15 ft reach, avoiding the attack of opportunity as long as there is not an adjacent opponent (also avoids the -4 penalty on shooting arrows into melee without Precise Shot). Also, a whip can be used with animate rope to entangle an opponent.