Mal_Content's page

Many thanks!

Hi All,

I'm hoping you can help with a bit of clarification. I'm just trying to see if this is a rule that my Google/Archive-of-Nethys search skills have mistakenly missed or if this is a table misunderstanding.

When a PC uses an action with the manipulate trait and an adjacent enemy has the Attack of Opportunity (or similar *disrupt* style) feat. If the AoO hits and is not a crit; is there an additional dc 5 flat check to see if they lose the action?

I couldn't find anything about the flat check, but I wanted to doublecheck the experts.

Cheers

Mal_content check out guiding blade swashbuckler it get way more uses of teamwork feat sharing per day than most archtypes. It make a great one level dip.

That's a really fun twist on the swashbuckler. Thanks

Its funny you should mention this. I've been likewise rolling the same idea around in my head of a non-magic martial buffer. There are quite a few ways to create it, I haven't played one yet so this is mostly my rambling finds.

Sharing Teamwork Feats:
There are several classes and feats that allow you to share teamwork feats with teammates without them needing the pre-reqs. Most notably the Cavalier but also several archetypes; Drill Seargent (Fighter), Seasoned Commander (Fighter), Exemplar (Brawler), Majordomo (Investigator), Holy Tactician (Paladin), and Vanguard (Slayer) as examples. There are partly magical ways of doing it also like the Bardic Masterpiece Battlesong of the People's Revolt (Masterpiece). Also, recently added is the feat intensive Sisterhood Style feat chain. Which allows nearly any class through the use of the combat style to share teamwork feats.

Aiding Another:
A lesser used way of buffing another that pairs well with sharing teamwork feats is Aid Another. If you give the
Harrying Partners teamwork feat your aid lasts a round rather than the normal next action. That means if you buff it either through Traits, Class Abilities, or Some Magic
Items you can get upwards of a +8 to an ally for all attacks or to their AC for a round. Normally Aid is a standard action but
Swift Aid (Feat),
Effortless Aid (Investigator Talent), and Team Up (Feat) are all examples of ways to modify how you can change that.
Also this direction of build makes Bodyguard a must have.

Granting Competence:
Getting competence bonuses to allies is a Bard staple, but we don't have to always have magic to do that, Seasoned Commander and Exemplar mentioned above both grant bardic performance like effects. The Sister-in-Arms Cavalier archetype give you access to Order of the Lion and Order of the Dragon in exchange for losing the Mount and a lessened Challenge class feature. Having both adds some versatility to your buffing options. I'd recommend looking at the Banner of the Scarlet Rose if that archetype looks appealing.
Alternatively you could give up half your non-class specific feats and become a 1/3 bard with Variant Multiclassing (Bard). It would give you Bardic knowledge and Bardic Performance at your character level -4. Depending on your build it could be worthwhile.

Granting Luck:
There's a lot of love for the blundering halfling builds. I haven't dug too much but the basic piece is this feat and it builds off of that and the halfling racial traits.

Granting Sacred:
The Divine Fighting Technique has several options in it, but the one for buffing is 'Iomedae's Inspiring Sword' listed in the PFSRD as 'inspiring sword'. If you go a full BAB, +2 to basically everything for a minute, doesn't sound to bad to me.

Saving Throws:
One piece I was excited to find was Scarlet Rose Devotion which allows you to make an immediate action as a martial to buff someone's save. A +2 on an important role is nothing to sneeze at and the image of yelling to warn someone of danger is very cinematic in my mind.

Prestige Classes:
Other fun options include both the Golden Legionnaire has a great well rounded toolkit for buffing and the Battle Herald is spoken of often in forums, though I personally don't like the look of it as much.

3rd Party:
Basically the biggest winner of this lottery of abilities is the Inspiring Commander (Cavalier) if 3rd party is allowed at your table reading up on this it looks crazy powerful. Maybe too powerful, but YMMV.

This wound up being longer than I thought it would, I hope they're helpful.

Generally I think goblins I think food. They could be chosen to go on a foray out to find new sources of food. Perhaps they think the risk is worth a few dead goblins and attempt to steal from the Ogre tribes. Some gobbo's are caught red handed (maybe the pc's maybe not) and it instigates a grander fight between the two clans.

Maybe during the battles the goblin leader finds out about the magic runes used to control the ogres and desires to have an army of ogres to do his bidding.

Just some suggestions; I like the idea and hope your party enjoys it as well :)

Fair 'nuff, I feel like he said different things on each of those, but I just didn't want you or anyone getting up to level 6 and getting hosed by their DM's ruling :p

Just as Info it looks like weird words can't affect one target with all of the words. Might be worth revisiting the masterpieces with that in comparison.

James Jacobs gave a comment on it.

You can totally maintain Inspire Courage and the Dance of 23 Steps at the same time (along with the Quickening Pulse, and any number of other Masterpieces, as long as you have the actions and rounds of Bardic Performance to spend).

Amazing! Thanks!

I am wondering if anyone knows whether Maintained Masterpieces use the same 'performance' time as the regular Bardic Performances?

Say I was using Inspire Courage attack, and then switch to Dance of the 23 steps as a free action. Does that stop Inspire courage? Quickening Pulse? Gorroc?

I had thought so, but if not, I'm going to grab Dance in a heartbeat.

whereas using Weird Words from the Sound Striker archetype takes one round and deals way more damage far more reliably.

I think I might have overlooked the archetypes too quickly, those do seem pretty solid for what you give up.

I would assume you didn't spend any feats on these things, right? Because there are far too many of those to list.

Yeah, I choose to go with the human favored class bard, knowing I was going to grab a masterpiece or two, so giving up a 1st level known for it wasn't as hard.

I, too, want to take Discordant Voice, but that adds a hell of a lot of damage, not "a bit here." With Quickening Pulse, you deal 1d6 damage per enemy. With Discordant Voice, you add 1d6 damage per ally per attack. You can't take it until level 11 anyway, and crap, a single monk in your party at that point will probably net you +6d6

Maybe I want to like it too much, but now we've got the monk at +6d6 plus the pulse. Heh, it'll probably be laughable by then, but if this thread is still up then I'll fill you in on how well/horrible it goes when I hit 11. :)

I really like the flavor of these and I hope they keep making more, with hopefully a little more umpf for the buck.

GL and HF man.

This has been rattling in my head for a while now. I'm playing in my first Pathfinder campaign with my first ever bard and I have to say I feel pretty much the same way you do about the majority of the Masterpieces. We just hit level 5 so this is all theory crafting for me at this point also.

I feel like a lot of these are underwhelming but there are a few gems here that you might be overlooking. Lemme know what you think:

"The Dumbshow of Gorroc" - Yes it focuses primarily on oozes and plants, but even at half damage (max 5d6) a 30 ft cone of fire/pierce damage that were able to cast 9x times a day isn't nothing.

"Triple Time" - I can vouch that my fighters and rogues love this one. Anytime the mini's hit the map I take a minute and give them an hour long buff of 2 movement squares. At level 5 I've got the whole party covered for 1 round of BP. Yes haste will start to diminish this but I have WAY more BP than I do spell slots to dump.

I can't speak to it's usefulness yet, but "The Quickening Pulse" intrigues me, if only because it strikes me as very bardic. It targets enemies only which it's counterpart "Melody of Frightful Death" doesn't. But it's a 'meh' 1d6 and only on critical susceptible creatures. I guess I like it because I'm heading for the Discordant voice feat and I feel like the Bard is a 'bit of damage here bit of buff here' type of character.

Anyway aside from those I completely agree with your assessment. Hope your enjoying your bard adventures as much as I am. :)