making a bard


Advice


so im thinking about dabbling in a more casterish class for my next character in the event of a tpk(i like to plan ahead) and i was thinking of making a bard but going through their spell list i can say i'm am very underwhelmed by the spells they use especially for 1-3 spells they are all just kinda bad only some what useful ones i found were the cure spells.... so is there any way a bard could pull spells from another class? like say the wizard/sorcerer spell list? for basic spells like magic missile, shield and fly


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A few archetypes can get spells from other lists.

The Magician can use Expanded Repertoire to get spells from any other arcane spell list at levels 2, 6, 10, 14, and 18.

The Voice of the Wild can use Nature Magic to get Ranger or Druid spells at levels 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, and 16.

The Watersinger (Undine) racial archetype adds a number of water-based spells to their list.

The Flame Dancer adds a few fire-based spells to their list.


A lot of useful low level spells come to mind: Invisibility, haste, glitterdust, Grease, silence, silent image... They are all just great.
Keep in mind you are not going to be blasting your enemies but mostly buffing and controlling and acting as a support character. If you don't like the idea maybe you won't be enjoying bards a lot.

Grand Lodge

Storyteller Medium plays very similar to a Bard, with Bardic Performance starting at lvl2, and you can take the Archmage Spirit most days to grab Sorc/Wizard spells with Bard casting.


all of those trades away either inspire courage or inspire competence unfortunately which is the only reason i'm even considering a bard any other ways to do it? although now that i think about it i could VMC bard as a sorcerer but i'm unsure on how VMC would react with creatures with racial hit die.

if your wondering about the type of thing i'm trying to do with the character i'm hoping to play a child(young template) who inspires the party with courage in combat and competence outside of combat by drawing poorly drawn pictures of them either beating up the bad guys or depicting them doing good at the activity they are trying to do

i probably should have said this in the 1st post but i forgot ooops


The only issue would be that drawing is not a perform skill but a craft so I don't think that could be possible.


Kileanna wrote:
The only issue would be that drawing is not a perform skill but a craft so I don't think that could be possible.

i could take perform art :)


You can houserule it, of course, but AFAIK there are only nine official Perform categories:

Act (comedy, drama, pantomime)
Comedy (buffoonery, limericks, joke-telling)
Dance (ballet, waltz, jig)
Keyboard instruments (harpsichord, piano, pipe organ)
Oratory (epic, ode, storytelling)
Percussion instruments (bells, chimes, drums, gong)
String instruments (fiddle, harp, lute, mandolin)
Wind instruments (flute, pan pipes, recorder, trumpet)
Sing (ballad, chant, melody).


so does any one know how vmc works with creatures with racial hit die?

Silver Crusade

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Dalindra wrote:

You can houserule it, of course, but AFAIK there are only nine official Perform categories:

Act (comedy, drama, pantomime)
Comedy (buffoonery, limericks, joke-telling)
Dance (ballet, waltz, jig)
Keyboard instruments (harpsichord, piano, pipe organ)
Oratory (epic, ode, storytelling)
Percussion instruments (bells, chimes, drums, gong)
String instruments (fiddle, harp, lute, mandolin)
Wind instruments (flute, pan pipes, recorder, trumpet)
Sing (ballad, chant, melody).

It does make me chuckle that one can easily make a enormously powerful and optimized Bard by putting max ranks into Buffoonery, Twerking and Kazoo.


The Arrowsong Minstrel gets a few bow-related spells and ALL of the Evocation school. You don't gain the spells automatically though, so you really have to choose. But yeah, you sacrifice quite a few things (diminished spellcasting hurts quite a bit), but at level 7 you can throw around Fireballs. As a Bard.

Also, Half-Elves have an alternate racial trait called Arcane Training. It requires you to give up your favored class bonus (rather, you put it in Sorc/Wiz, rather than Bard), and you're effectively a Caster Level 1 Wizard for wands and scrolls and stuff. Not really what you want, I think, but it's close. If you really want Shield, just grab a Wand of it and you can use it.


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0o0o0 O 0o0o0 wrote:
It does make me chuckle that one can easily make a enormously powerful and optimized Bard by putting max ranks into Buffoonery, Twerking and Kazoo.

OMFG! I NEED to play that!!!


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Dalindra wrote:
0o0o0 O 0o0o0 wrote:
It does make me chuckle that one can easily make a enormously powerful and optimized Bard by putting max ranks into Buffoonery, Twerking and Kazoo.
OMFG! I NEED to play that!!!

You can't. I forbid you for my sanity's sake.

I wonder what the Versatile performance bonus would be for these, though.


Kileanna wrote:

You can't. I forbid you for my sanity's sake.

I wonder what the Versatile performance bonus would be for these, though.

BUT I NEED IT!!!

By the way: Comedy, Dance and Wind Instruments.

Silver Crusade

Dalindra wrote:
Kileanna wrote:

You can't. I forbid you for my sanity's sake.

I wonder what the Versatile performance bonus would be for these, though.

BUT I NEED IT!!!

By the way: Comedy, Dance and Wind Instruments.

Yup, it means you have maxed ranks in Bluff, Intimidate, Acrobatics, Fly, Diplomacy and Handle Animal. You want to do this anyway. Shake your booty!


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On topic, dirge bard adds a few necromanch spells to the list.

For low level good spells check out grease, saving finale, solid note, ear splitting scream, heroism, invisibility, haste, mad monkeys, glue seal, bladed dash.

On the disturbing side, my current party contains a twerking, bagpipe playing gnollish dirge bard. I try not to think too much about that character.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

There is also the somewhat less popular "bard as Batman" approach by pumping ranks into UMD and taking advantage of scrolls and wands (and later, staves).


Lady-J wrote:

all of those trades away either inspire courage or inspire competence unfortunately which is the only reason i'm even considering a bard any other ways to do it? although now that i think about it i could VMC bard as a sorcerer but i'm unsure on how VMC would react with creatures with racial hit die.

if your wondering about the type of thing i'm trying to do with the character i'm hoping to play a child(young template) who inspires the party with courage in combat and competence outside of combat by drawing poorly drawn pictures of them either beating up the bad guys or depicting them doing good at the activity they are trying to do

i probably should have said this in the 1st post but i forgot ooops

What spells are you looking for exactly? Because bards are pretty perfect for what you're describing. I think you may have just have expectations for the spell list that it wasn't going to meet. The bard spell list is mostly about buffing with some control spells thrown in there. The bard spell list is pretty good, if you like the doing those sorts of things (as a bard is designed to). Everyone likes the bard who opens combat by casting haste.

I think you'll fine the bard spell list is great if you just realize what it's supposed to do is pretty different from what you expected it to do.

Take a look here to get a break down on the spell list.


Bards have buff spells and enchantment spells for offense. So what kind of spells are you looking for is important to know how to get them for you.

The Concordance

Don't forget the Studious Librarian Archetype from Inner Sea Intrigue!

At sixth level they get this:

Comparative Arcane Studies:
Comparative Arcane Studies (Su): At 6th level, the studious librarian is exposed to a wide variety of magical writing, and can use his own magic to duplicate spells from other classes' spell lists. Once per day, a studious librarian can cast any spell from the bard, sorcerer/ wizard, or witch spell lists from a scroll or spellbook in hand as if it were one of his bard spells known, expending a bard spell slot of the same spell level to cast the desired spell. Casting a spell from a scroll this way does not cause the spell to vanish from the scroll. A spell cast in this way cannot be modified by metamagic. The studious librarian gains one additional daily use of this ability at 10th level and again every 4 bard levels thereafter, to a maximum of four times a day at 18th.

It's like a free Mnemonic Vestment that stacks with Mnemonic Vestment, and can be used with the wizard spell list.

Even better, the keep all the things you want from a bard: Inspire Courage, Bardic Knowledge and Versatile Performance.

Cup is a low level Studious Librarian bard, currently in PFS.

Hmm

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

And this Hmm, Cup's player.

The bard spell list is amazing from level 2 onwards.

Some of my favorite bard spells.

Burning Invective -- Make an intimidate check as part of the spell. If you succeed, you not only get a group demoralize, but they have to make a reflex save to avoid catching fire.

I used this against an invading ARMY in one scenario. I leaned out of a window, yelled, "Cowards!" rolled high on my intimidate, demoralized them all and set them on fire. Glorious.

Heroism

Fantastic buff. Cast it on yourself or a friend before entering a dungeon.

You also get mirror image, Good Hope... the list goes on and on.

Hmm

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Gisher wrote:

A few archetypes can get spells from other lists.

The Watersinger (Undine) racial archetype adds a number of water-based spells to their list.

The Flame Dancer adds a few fire-based spells to their list.

Lady-J wrote:

all of those trades away either inspire courage or inspire competence unfortunately which is the only reason i'm even considering a bard any other ways to do it? although now that i think about it i could VMC bard as a sorcerer but i'm unsure on how VMC would react with creatures with racial hit die.

Hey Lady-J --

Inspire Competence is not that great. It's really conditional. Give your allies other skill boosts like heroism instead.

Both Watersinger and Flamedancer keep Inspire Courage (the most important performance), as well as the skill boosts of Bardic Knowledge and Versatile Performance. They're both great archetypes.

Hmm

Grand Lodge

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Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Bards aren't made. They are born. \m/

-Skeld


I was looking at someday playing a voice of the wild archer bard that gets named bullet at level 7 from the ranger list.


On the basis of the "Wit" archetype of the bard can make a great character Chicot or Jean-Antoine d'Anglerais, the jester of King Henry III of France...


Of course, one could argue (and I do, frequently in these boards) that Bards should have the Skald's Spell Kenning...
But, there is a decent masterpiece that would enable a Bard to learn some Wiz/Sorc spells for a day in the form of Arrowsong's Lament.


the thing is the only buffs i want to do is via inspire courage and inspire competence and i want the spells for more offensive things like blasting and what not so i've gone and made them a sorcerer with vmc bard as i can gain the inspires i need with vmc. that way i get the spells i'm looking for wile maintaining the thematic of the character of the character but i need to figure out how vmc works with monstrous races with racial hit die.


It doesn't, VMC progresses at the same rate as your regular class leveling does.

For the purposes of calculating total "level" it's monstrous HD + class levels. Pathfinder didn't include (to my knowledge) rules for reducing the penalty of racial HD like 3.5 did.


If you are including a single monster character in a group of standard characters, make sure the group is of a level that is at least as high as the monster's CR. Treat the monster's CR as class levels when determining the monster PC's overall levels. For example, in a group of 6th-level characters, a minotaur (CR 4) would possess 2 levels of a core class, such as barbarian.

Note that in a mixed group, the value of racial Hit Dice and abilities diminish as a character gains levels. It is recommended that for every 3 levels gained by the group, the monster character should gain an extra level, received halfway between the 2nd and 3rd levels. Repeat this process a number of times equal to half the monster's CR, rounded down. Using the minotaur example, when the group is at a point between 6th and 7th level, the minotaur gains a level, and then again at 7th, making him a minotaur barbarian 4. This process repeats at 10th level, making him a minotaur barbarian 8 when the group reaches 10th level. From that point onward, he gains levels normally.


My point remains though, that VMC is tied to your gaining levels and feats.

Whatever system you use to gain class levels will determine how you gain your VMC powers.


well it would treat the monsters cr as class levels until you start wrighting off the level adjustment and monsters do gain feats so i guess it would work out normal

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