Do perform actually usefull ?


Advice


Perform skill makes you to get money by performing task. But the result are low. (Ridiculously low) and can be do it per day. I eas thinking to make this skill in good use.

Like having a leadership feat. I could have a band performer who can gives me money depending how large the group. Minus deduction by food and water.

But my DM for now wont allowed leadership feat maing this perform thing useless.

(You must dedicate yourself for this kind of skill for good use)


So if I understand this right, you want to take the Leadership feat to have a "Band Manager" cohort, with your followers being "Band Members," and you want your Band Members to perform, with your Band Manager setting up concerts in local taverns and stuff, in order to make a profit for both you and them, I'm presuming.

Let me preface this by saying that using the Perform skill to generate money isn't really a worthwhile endeavor. Even going out and killing some CR 1 peon will give you more money's worth than several month's worth of Perform or Profession skill checks. I'm not trying to undermine what you're doing, but this will be relevant to my next statement:

There are much more broken ways to utilize Leadership than to use them to earn a few gold here and there. For starters, having a Cleric or Oracle or similar cohort will let your adventuring capabilities have a much higher level due to the ability to provide constant out-of-combat healing and the ability to remove conditions. Knowledge checks, Channel Energy, etc. Are all very potent, especially for a group that either doesn't have one of them, or would prefer to save the big guns for more offensive uses.

Another example is taking a Wizard and making them into either a Crafting God (easily doable, even as a cohort), or into a Divide-and-Conquer Combatant (with their spellcasting able to turn the tides of battle easily). This essentially doubles your WBL, and can grant you access to powerful items well before you'll actually want/need them, or double your capability of turning fights into absolute cakewalks.

Even a frontliner to provide flanking for your Rogue buddy, to help you utilize Teamwork feats, or even serve as a human shield, is still damn useful to you.

These are the sort of things that would cause a GM to ban Leadership, as it gives a PC (or even the entire party) a lot more power than what they normally should have. Compared to what you're wanting to do? I think the GM is nuts if he thinks the way you want it being used is overpowered. (In fact, not only is it not overpowered, and well within the strength factor of what Leadership should provide, it also has a great amount of flavor, too.)


is there a way to buff this skill ?

its bad to have this thing useless :(


Hire them as NPC hirelings rather than taking the leadership feat.
They'll be much less loyal, but its the same amount of pay and as long as you're decent to them I can't see why they wouldn't follow you about and sing the song of Brave Ser Robin.


BLloyd607502 wrote:

Hire them as NPC hirelings rather than taking the leadership feat.

They'll be much less loyal, but its the same amount of pay and as long as you're decent to them I can't see why they wouldn't follow you about and sing the song of Brave Ser Robin.

no... i mean if i could take this perform skill. its isn't worth it, i rather take perception skill than perform skill thing.

no this thread didn't focus on leadership feat.

The Exchange

Profession earns you half your check result in gp per 'week of dedicated work', but Ultimate Campaign explains that a 'week of dedicated work' is only five days (which kinda' makes me want to move to Golarion, but I digress...) so you get 1/10th your check result per day of work with Profession.

Looking at the results you can get for Performance, we see that from Routine to Great performances you earn less than a comparable day's 'honest toil', but for Memorable and Extraordinary performances you earn, on average, more. Extraordinary performances are the top of the table, but at an average of 10.5 gp per day you'd need a +95 in a Profession skill to be making the equivalent daily wage.

So... a little like real life... Perform is a pauper's lot when you're at the bottom, but the road to great wealth when you're at the top of your game!

Of course, as Darksol notes, adventurous types are usually better off actually going out adventuring whenever possible, but if you happen to have some downtime then being an absolute legend on the lute wins you fortune (but the groupies still all sleep with the drummer... don't ask me why...). :)


Veilgn wrote:
BLloyd607502 wrote:

Hire them as NPC hirelings rather than taking the leadership feat.

They'll be much less loyal, but its the same amount of pay and as long as you're decent to them I can't see why they wouldn't follow you about and sing the song of Brave Ser Robin.
no... i mean if i could take this perform skill. its isn't worth it, i rather take perception skill than perform skill thing.

There are other uses for Perform beyond the money, but they're niche and unless you're a bard, rely on the GM a bit.

Perform can be used to charm, to fit in in formal settings, a DC 35 check can get the interest of the gods themselves. Its all fluff, but its powerful fluff.

Sovereign Court

Perform is basically there for bards to have. Anything else comes up very infrequently. Though I do remember an old PFS faction mission which required a DC 20 Oratory check. It wasn't my faction's mission, but fortunately for them, my bard with Oratory was along and bailed them out.

Anyway - while it might come up on rare occasions otherwise, Perform skills mostly just exist for bards. (and skalds now I suppose)


Remembering that greatest artist that even god like. Cant even buy wine that cost 20 gold. Let alone caviar. All days !

Poor performer :(

Also skald performer in fantasy medival era :^)


Well by the time you can get god impressing perform checks consistently you're probably high enough level to walk into a small village and conquer it, single handedly.

The Exchange

412294 wrote:
Well by the time you can get god impressing perform checks consistently you're probably high enough level to walk into a small village and conquer it, single handedly.

Charisma 20 = +5

Prodigy Feat = +2
Skill Focus Feat = +3
Masterwork Musical Instrument = +2
Class Skill = +3
Ear for Music Trait = +1

So... you need rank 4 in your Perform Skill on top of that to get +20 (so you can consistently get a 30 by taking 10)... so you'd need to be all of Level 4 to do that (assuming no other class features, racial traits or Feats are stacked on, of course).

That gets you that 10.5 average gp per day. Assuming that 5 day week we mentioned, 4 weeks per month, you're grabbing 210gp per month... that's enough to pay for a Wealthy lifestyle twice over (maybe for yourself and your better half), with change.


Still, at lv4, one probably could conquer a small village alone.

The Exchange

Well, a 'village' has 3rd level spellcasting available, along with 2d4 minor and 1d4 medium magic items and a sample population of 70 people... so no, probably not conquerable by a solo level 4 character... ;)


ProfPotts wrote:

Charisma 20 = +5

Prodigy Feat = +2
Skill Focus Feat = +3
Masterwork Musical Instrument = +2
Class Skill = +3
Ear for Music Trait = +1

So... you need rank 4 in your Perform Skill on top of that to get +20 (so you can consistently get a 30 by taking 10)... so you'd need to be all of Level 4 to do that (assuming no other class features, racial traits or Feats are stacked on, of course).

lvl 1 Human.

Charisma 20: +5
Defiant Luck + Inexplicable Luck feats: +8 (once per day)
Inner Beauty trait: +4 (once per day)
Class skill +3
skill ranks +1


Other traits:
Looking for Work Choose one of the following skills: Bluff, Craft (any), Diplomacy, Intimidate, Perform (any), Profession (gambler), or Perception. You gain a +1 bonus in that skill, and that skill becomes a class skill.
Dilettante Artist (Elf) +1 bonus to one category of Perform and a +1 bonus to Diplomacy. One of these skills (your choice) becomes a class skill.
Rude Songs(Race?) +2 bonus on Perform (song). Perform is always a class skill for you.
Savant +2 bonus on all Perform checks made using one performance type. Perform becomes a class skill.
Inner Beauty (Shelyn) Once per day, gain a +4 bonus to a single Bluff, Craft, Diplomacy, or Perform skill check.
Stage Magic When you use an alchemical item as part of a performance, you gain a +2 bonus on your Perform check for the duration of that performance.

Looking for Work +4
Dilettante Artist (Elf) +4
Rude Songs(Race?) +5
Savant +5, provided "performance" = "perform(X) check"
Inner Beauty (Shelyn) +4 once per day
Stage Magic +2 once per performance

Rude Songs is the surest way of getting a +5 for Perform(Song)
Savant is better, but depends on a reading that may not be correct

Add to ProfPotts' instead of Ear for Music, and do it now at 3rd.
Add Stage Magic and do it at 1st.

You no longer need 4th level, but can do it at first.

Add Stage Magic to VMRH's list, and hit a DC of 33 once per day.

/cevah


There's a reason that Perform is a background skill in Unchained...that reason being that it's a bit useless for anyone except Bards.

The Exchange

Of course you get two types of Skills in Pathfinder: ones that have an upper DC they'll ever need to hit (like Perform basically topping out at DC 30, 'cos its usage is based on the chart) and those that produce open-ended results (I'll use Acrobatics to jump to the moon!). So unless you have some class feature that requires the use of Perform you'll never really need more than +20 ever (as that's what nets you the best result possible when taking 10).


You can jump to moon in acrobatic?

You can use jump attack as well ?

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Rude Songs is a goblin-specific trait. You can't use it in PFS unless you have a goblin boon, but you can take it with other races by using the 'adopted' trait in home games.

Perform is one of my favorite skills. It gives me an excuse to improvise my filks* live in games. I often put a point in it on non-bard characters, just for fun.

On my bardic characters, it feeds into versatile performance, which usually gives you a great bonus to other things.

___

On my non-bard characters, my uses for it have gone way beyond just making money:

  • To distract townsfolk while my colleagues bash in doors, or do other forms of B&E;
  • To entertain and impress a bunch of NPCs on a diplomatic mission;
  • To tell a story to a god Whale that had a habit of sinking ships while we were in his ocean. I told it over the course of the entire journey, Scheherazade-style, always ending on a cliff-hanger. My performances saved out ship, though we had the whale following us ominously the entire journey;
  • To get information... Sing songs in a bar, and then have drinks with the patrons afterwards;
  • To infiltrate... Don't look at me, I'm just the entertainer;
  • To entertain and distract a group of goblin prisoners that we had to keep alive;
  • To use my celebrity status to get in to a private audience with a VIP NPC...

    The list goes on. I love perform!

    Hmm

    ___
    * Okay, so that particular filk was not from a game. But I improvised it, and people enjoyed it!


  • ProfPotts wrote:
    412294 wrote:
    Well by the time you can get god impressing perform checks consistently you're probably high enough level to walk into a small village and conquer it, single handedly.

    Charisma 20 = +5

    Prodigy Feat = +2
    Skill Focus Feat = +3
    Masterwork Musical Instrument = +2
    Class Skill = +3
    Ear for Music Trait = +1

    So... you need rank 4 in your Perform Skill on top of that to get +20 (so you can consistently get a 30 by taking 10)... so you'd need to be all of Level 4 to do that (assuming no other class features, racial traits or Feats are stacked on, of course).

    That gets you that 10.5 average gp per day. Assuming that 5 day week we mentioned, 4 weeks per month, you're grabbing 210gp per month... that's enough to pay for a Wealthy lifestyle twice over (maybe for yourself and your better half), with change.

    Sounds like the gods should raise their standards.


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    Asides from progression unlocks, story necessity, I view perform outside of bardic utilization as flavor and fluff, something to justify a roll on when my PC is bored.

    I asked the DM could I teach Perform (Other: Puppeteering) to my T-Rex Animal Companion "Princess" and I succeeded at the Handle Animal roll given to me enough times when I kept asking for it. So, 1 point later and Princess is now using her stub arms to play with the preserved heads of memorable enemies. Any actual purpose? Nah, just to make the DM cry a little inside as the repetoire of bosses became a revolving cast as the T-Rex puts on a play summarizing the campaign as it progressed.

    Rawring in iambic pentameter has never been so entertaining. I got it so she would perform a weird Dialogue with two Heads as Protagonist and Antagonist with her as a Narrator/Chorus.

    "Uh, that's a total result of 19, what does that get us?"

    "Nothing. The townsfolk view you and Princess as abominations. I hate you so much."


    The Grig Jig rogue talent is the best use of the perform skill. no discussion.

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