Burntgerb's page

We just wrapped up Age of Ashes where I took a bard from 1-20 and had a blast. Roaring applause, Synesthesia, Maze, Slow, Calm Emotions, Heroism and a few others were consistently better than doing 1/3-1/2 a monster's HP in damage.

I briefly looked at the remaster wizard when we were discussing new characters for the next AP and I was shocked that the Wizard (still?) felt so flat. I had presumed they would have gotten some added slots or flexibility with scrolls or wand tricks - but saw nothing that made me want to play one.

We're now 2 levels into Alkenstar and I'm having a lot of fun with a Kineticist. I'm sure there's fun approaches to the wizard out there, but I'm happy I don't have the paperwork and stress of a traditional caster to worry about anymore.

But this costs an action to declare who's effected.

I don't see how it does. I've re-read Safe Elements three times - and I'm sure I'm missing something - but as long as you're not using Pacifying Infusion, I don't see any additional action requirement to designate targets safe.

I've seen a lot of content around the Kineticist and have a good idea how it functions - but there's very little feedback that I've seen about how people are *enjoying* the class.

So those of you that have a few levels of real play experience under your belt, what do you like about it?

AFAIK, all illusions are automatically believed as real by default until the viewers interact with it in some fashion (usually by spending seek or other actions vs a spell DC.)

Illusions

I should clarify that at 4-6th levels you're probably not going to need Faerie Fire or Liberating Command, but they're definitely handy for later on.

Additionally, Magic Missile is my Esoteric Polymath extra daily signature spell - so I could cast it from every slot at every level in a pinch.

If you get a chance to get a Staff of Divination (lvl 6), consider doing so - it's effectively extra spells per day - particularly for true strike. True Striking with Telekinetic Projectile or Biting Words on a frightened enemy often work out well for me when I'm feeling lucky. (I plan on getting Chromatic Ray (4th) next time I'm shopping so I can fish for those sweet crits). This will become a much better strategy at 9th when you get access to one of the best spell in all of occultism, Synesthesia.

Nearly 13th-level bard in Age of Ashes here - and playing a 2e bard has been a great time - but not without quite a bit of homework.

I've been playing an polymath / maestro bard - and I'll give you a few things I've learned.

Lingering composition from Maestro is huge for me. 3 or 4 rounds of Dirge of Doom without having to use a action on subsequent turns gives me the option to cast spells and move on those other turns.

At levels 3-7 I got a lot of mileage from heightened fear until I tried using Calm Emotions as my level 3 signature - and that thing **STILL** ends encounters when I cast it from a 5th or 6th level slot. It's incredible and I can't recommend it enough.
Fear also conflicted with Dirge of Doom once I got it - so keep that in mind.

Your hunch is correct regarding knowledge and bards - I haven't found that there's enough impetus to make bard knowledge worth pursuing. It is a lot of effort and feat tax and very little payoff. Combat reading has proven better to me - it all keys off of occultism and it tells me the important stuff. (I think a flaw in the system was that knowledge was intended to be necessary, but it's seldom better than metagaming/guessing and often worthless - but that's a whole other thread.)

You're definitely going to get more mileage from doing buffs/debuffs and battlefield control. I'd say to keep Magic Weapon on 1st or 2nd sig for the time being and consider something like Calm Emotions as a signature also - it's worth the sustain. Also, don't scoff at the power of illusions in this edition. They're definitely worth having in the arsenal.

At 12th, my first three levels of spells are these:

(1)
Lose the Path
Liberating Command
Magic Missile
Soothe(S)

(2)
Faerie Fire
Illusory Object
Dispel Magic (S)

(3)
Calm Emotions (S)
Time Jump
Slow

You'll find that in time you'll need to repurpose your lower level spells for general utility - and the Esoteric Polymath feat chain has been a huge time saver there. As the party gets access to funds, you'll have the ability to grab some scrolls. Don't be afraid to grab one or two of the niche utility spells in case you need them. By time you're out of them, you'll like be richer and in the next town over.

Reading the Bard guides has helped me some - but I've found at points, there were places where our experience differs. Definitely check them out - if not for anything else other than a sense of planning how your character will develop.

This thread really got off track!

It sure did! And I still don't know if I'll take Quickened Casting or not!

I'm playing a 9th level (Maestro + Polymath) bard in Age of Ashes - and I'm currently determining if Quickened Casting is actually my best feat option at 10th level. Myself and the Cleric are the only casters in the party - so I've assumed the role of primary offensive caster for the party. I'm tempted to take Quickened Casting despite how the guides indicate otherwise - there just doesn't seem like a more ideal option available.

I understand that it's usage is only 1/day - but climactic boss battles are pretty evident (and often easy to anticipate to be fully rested for), but it's potential to almost immediately tip the scales in your party's favor without having to even fire off your highest level slots (I'm looking at you, Spiritual Anamnesis...) seem too good to pass up. We don't typically have 15-minute workdays, but the rest of the party does understand the value of having the casters close to full power - and this version of the game seems to understand that you'll be near full power for most encounters.

It just seems that once I hit 11th level, being able to cast two massive debuffs or sing, move (to the champion) and cast greater silence on him in the first round of battle seem as though they'd be tremendously helpful often enough to be worthwhile.

Used judiciously and carefully, I think that despite it's spell level and 1/day usage limitations, it's still to me well worth the investment to help your caster have more capability to overcome encounters.

It sounds to me like your character would be attempting to disbelieve the illusion by doing that.

Sometimes illusions allow an affected creature a chance to disbelieve the spell, which lets the creature effectively ignore the spell if it succeeds at doing so. This usually happens when a creature Seeks or otherwise spends actions to engage with the illusion, comparing the result of its Perception check (or another check or saving throw, at the GM’s discretion) to the caster’s spell DC. Mental illusions typically provide rules in the spell’s description for disbelieving the effect (often allowing the affected creature to attempt a Will save).

If the illusion is visual, and a creature interacts with the illusion in a way that would prove it is not what it seems, the creature might know that an illusion is present, but it still can’t ignore the illusion without successfully disbelieving it. For instance, if a character is pushed through the illusion of a door, they will know that the door is an illusion, but they still can’t see through it. Disbelieving an illusion makes it and those things it blocks seem hazy and indistinct, so even in the case where a visual illusion is disbelieved, it may, at the GM’s discretion, block vision enough to make those on the other side concealed..

As far as who's affected, you have to look at the Visual Tag:

A visual effect can affect only creatures that can see it. This applies only to visible parts of the effect, as determined by the GM.

I guess that also means that using shadow siphon on a green dragon's breath weapon in an unlit cavern would technically be ineffective as well?

Although - if my enemies want to spend their turns screaming with their eyes closed, they can be my guest.

Yes, Bon Mot isn't physical hostility.

Yet if applying penalties isn't hostile, that opens up a can of worms re: many spells. Heck, even Grapple, Disarm, etc. don't harm or damage.

Setting a target up for an aggressive spell seems like indirect harm, even if hit points are not involved. It's similar to tripping an enemy so you or an ally can smack them.

----
Stepping back a bit, you could have a PC ally (that the target doesn't know is your ally!) perform the Bon Mot and you're golden.
Well, unless initiative interferes.

But Grapple, Disarm, Trip, Shove, etc all have the Attack trait. Bon mot does not.

To me, indirect harm is more akin to luring them to use an illusory bridge over an environmental hazard. If you were to use Bon Mot on someone and walk away, odds are no further harm would come to them.

Back to my original question: Say it's use doesn't count as a hostile action - Charm states "threatened or used a hostile action". Could this be construed as a threat? There is no definition of threatening in the CRB that I could find.

I think there's plenty of room for discussion about whether or not Bon Mot is a hostile action - when do simple words equate to the same thing as fisticuffs? Does the line get crossed only when one escalates the situation to actual physical violence?

A hostile action is one that can harm or damage another creature, whether directly or indirectly, but not one that a creature is unaware could cause harm.

I (personally) don't see how teling someone "The jerk store called - they're runnin' out of you!" harms or damages them directly or indirectly (in game terms) - but I could see how it could be interpreted as such - and there is that disclaimer that it's ultimately up to the DM to decide these things.

Yeah, I definitely was in the camp of not liking Incap when I read the rules, but after seeing it in play I definitely wouldn't play without it.

Forget Charm - if not for Incap, the bard in my party would currently be using every single one of her 5th level slots on Synaptic Pulse and trivializing three encounters a day without touching her higher level slots.

As an about-to-be 9th level bard, incap spells started out better than I thought (before I understood the tag) then worse than I thought ( after I understood the tag) then actually really well balanced once I used Calm Emotions as a signature Spell and actually used it in combat.

It gives you some great utility and easy ways to deal with mobs - and it'd let me save my higher-level spells for single-target stuff like Synesthesia. My point is is that incapacitation spells are hard to determine on the page - you really need to see them in play to understand their niche.

The strength of the Warrior bard doesn't seem like it's being able to use your actions for your weapon attacks - it's to be able to spend a single action (and their reaction) for your best melee basher to take a big 'ol swipe at the baddie.

That's presuming that a good melee character's average damage will outweigh even the best cantrips.

I'd guess that Bon Mot is. It's a super demoralize that sets up potentially huge swings for phantasmal killer, Synesthesia or even worse.

Sure, it's got the most tags I think I've seen on a feat - but I get the hunch that it's going to be hugely useful.

Bard Focus spell feats don't appear to have the boilerplate "Adds 1 focus point to your pool if you have less than three" language bard focus spell feats had in the CRB. Unsure if this is an oversight or intentional design.

Some abilities allow you to increase the Focus Points

in your pool beyond 1. Typically, these are feats that give
you a new focus spell and increase the number of points
in your pool by 1.

So it looks like the CRB left room for this to be a possibility - but it certainly breaks the trend of how these feats had functioned in the CRB. If I had to guess, I'd say it was a mistake.

Bon Mot looks extraordinary. -3 to an enemy's will saves & perception for up to one minute for one action?

Bards and other occult casters seem like their go-to move will be Bon Mot the boss + Synethstesia or Phantasmal Killer.

Hopefully we get some clarification on Dirge of Doom - I posted this in the "Question for the Devs" pinned thread:

When the Bard is playing Dirge of Doom and stops playing (or is counteracted, silenced, etc) the frightened 1 condition that is imposed onto enemies - does that condition end immediately or does it wear off at the end of the enemy's turn as normal for frightened?

If the answer is "it's treated as normal frightened" does that answer change if the bard begins playing a different song while enemies are still frightened?

I've had a good bit of experience with a bard (currently lvl 8 in Age of Ashes) here's what I've found:

- You'll use spells a lot. I have a similar plan for cantrips - Ray of Frost and Electric Arc are the optimal choices IMHO. With those two and Chill Touch, my bard doesn't even carry a weapon and hasn't needed one since I started the campaign.

- I started Enigma (not having enough time to read the whole of the rules to know what that locked me into) and swapped to Maestro and it's been far better for me. I'm going to retrain into Multifarious Muse for Polymath and get the 'get a spellbook' once we get some downtime.

- We have a cleric in our party but I still need to dish out some mid-combat heals when the cleric can't. You'll probably be even more heavily-relied upon for heals.

- Buffs and Debuffs are your bread and butter. I know it might not seem like it, but Fear and Slow are huge spells for you - almost always better than the damage I can dish out with cantrips. Heightened fear has changed the tide of so many encounters. Inspire Courage will be huge for a party that has so many multiple attacks (and chances to crit). Lingering Composition helps when you need some actions to move and blast while still wanting your song to be active.

- You'll want to absolutely max Perform - there's so much that it influences as you progress.

- I don't know how a mount will interfere with your action economy - your allies will likely want you to sing and blast/heal/debuff every turn. Reach Spell will serve largely the same purpose (action-wise) as having a mount would.

- Pay close attention to how you influence encounters. It seems to me that oftentimes that when my bard is working really well he's doing subtle things - like turning misses into hits, hits into crits, healing and debuffing monsters.