Penumbra Bard's page

Looks pretty good, only have a few minor things. First, try to have 10 Str; its easy to get in point buy, gives you +1 damage with bows and your carrying capacity will be higher at lower levels before Handy Haversack makes this irrelevent. Second, swap the positions of Lingering Performance and Steadfast Personality. Lingering is most useful early on in your career. Third, maybe replace Steadfast Personality with Rapid Shot? Finally, for spells, why not have Silence at level 2, very good against mage bosses, and perhaps ditch Cure Serious and Cure Critical, at these levels a Cleric can easily out heal you.

Regardless with what you choose, have fun with your character!

Hey! Gald to hear my post was helpful. It seems you're building a jack-of-all-trades kind of character, except for damage dealing. Well, bards do have social skills, buffing and debuff curing built into them. Many bards spend some resources into melee or ranged combat, because they naturally buff themselves when they buff the party and there's little sense to cast new buffs when the fight is wrapping up. Also, whenever you deal damage, you have a chance of applying one of the most devestating debuff conditions: dead :)

However, a crowd control bard may need to specialise in order to be effective, especially at later levels. General choices are enchantment (takes alot of specialisation), specific spells (like Glitterdust or Sonic Burst) or performances. The masterpiece Dirge of the Torn Sail is an easy way to get an area crowd control effect, however, I believe in PFS you can have only one performance or masterpiece active at a time, so you can't use Inspire Courage at the same time.

Debuffing is even harder. There aren't many great debuffing spells on the bard list. You could try and apply shaken by with Dazzling Display or sicken with Distressing Tone, but this isn't an easy thing to be good at. There are some bard archetypes with debuffing performances, like Court Bard, but again you can't buff with Inspire Courage in parallel.

In short, there's only so many things you can be competent at all at the same time. Bards are especially feat-starved since Discordant Voice (and perhaps Lingering Performance) ought to be class features, considering how often they are picked.

One build I was mulling over in the past was a 'red mage' like build. It had the Arcane Healer and Flame Dancer archetypes, Extra Channel, Dirge of the Torn Sail, Glitterdust and some melee feats. He had decent melee ability from feats + buffs; great buff, status removal and skills from base bard + Arcane Healer; good crowd control with Glitterdust, Dirge and Flame Dancer; and decent fire damage with the Fireball spell and a Lesser Empower Metamagic Rod.

I have 3 complications that I feel this FAQ should look at before making a decision.

1) Does a prestige class (for example Pathfinder Chronicler) that advances bardic performances also advance masterpieces? If masterpieces are not the same as bardic performances, then this is not necessarily the case.

2) Harmonic Spell: if masterpieces are bardic performances, then a bard with Harmonic Spell can get around the long activation time of many perfomances by casting a lvl 1 or higher spell. The feat would then allow you to switch to the performance as a swift action. I've highlighted this issue earlier in this thread, I believe.

For example, at lvl 11 a bard could Inspire Courage as a move action, cast Haste as a standard, then thanks to Harmonic Spell, as a swift action switch to Pallavi of Nirvana’s Blossoming. The issue with this is that many of the more powerful masterpieces are balanced by having a long activation time, this method bypasses this entirely. I believe this will only be an issue for Position 1.

3) Pathfinder Chronicler has the ability called Epic Tales. Can a Pathfinder Chronicler create an Epic Tale of masterpieces that she knows? This would be another way to bypass the long activation time of many masterpieces. Moreover, anyone literate can read out loud the Epic Tale to produce the effect; no UMD check is needed. Hence a familiar, or cohort, or literate NPC can use it, in addition to PCs. This could allow the stacking of many masterpieces simultaneously.

However, Pathfinder Chronicler is not considered a strong class by any means, so a boost in power many not be unwelcome. The Pathfinder would have to spend feats to get high level masterpieces, since she doesn't have spell advancement. Also, the Epic Tales ability is gained at character lvl 9, and only affects people other than the reader at lvl 13. This tactic would require devoting many levels to a suboptimal class before reaching the pay-off, when one would most likely be better off just advancing bard instead.

Some food for thought!

I have some advice for you, if you're still interested. It would be useful to know at what level you are starting out at. In my view, there are several problems with your build as is. Firstly, if your spells are mainly buff spells, then there is no need for charisma to be higher than 14. Afterall, your allies generally don't try to save against your buffs.

Secondly, you have little to offer except buffs and minor healing during a fight. The bard spell list has nice status removal spells, but for healing hitpoint damage, you only have Cure spells and 3d6 channel energy twice per day at lvl 11. It's not going to heal much. You could take the feat Extra Channel Energy for two more channel energies.

However, in combat healing is generally regarded as not worth the effort, other than to heal a downed companion or certain extremely specialised builds. Most bards end up spending the first 2 rounds of a fight buffing the party, then the remainder helping to mope up the enemy forces.

In a melee (or doing archery) you're unlikely to be as good as a dedicated fighter, but that's not the point. All the bard needs to do is to be competent, i.e. contribute a respectable amount of damage. If you decide to go down this route, dedicate ~3 to 4 feats on one combat style. For archery: Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot, Arcane Strike, Multishot. For sword and board: Power Attack, Furious Focus, Arcane Strike. You get the gist.

Unfortunately, Argent Dramaturge doesn't advance bardic performances, so your Inspire Courage will never improve. I'd recommend Bard 7/Argent Dramaturge 4 so that you can use Inspire Courage as a move action.

Your trait selction is good, but you can drop the Extra Performance and move Lingering Performance to it's spot. You'll have plenty of performance rounds. Since you need Skill Focus as a prerequiste, taking Half-Elf is equivalent to Human mostly so you may consider it; you may see some options you like.

All together, if I were doing your build, it would look something like this. Brad 7/ Argent Dramaturge 4, Str 16 Dex 14 Con 14 Int 10 Wis 10 Cha 14, all level increases in Str, either Human or Half-Elf. I'd have similar traits as yours. Bonus feat: Skill Focus; Lvl 1: Lingering Performance; Lvl 3: Arcane Strike; Lvl 5: Power Attack; Lvl 7: Furious Focus; Lvl 9: Great Fortitude; Lvl 11: Discordant Voice. You might replace Great Fortitude with Extra Channel Energy if you feel like it. Argent ability selection would be down to personal taste; I'd prefer Sudden Competence and Reactive Performance, because immediate actions are great.

This build is a sword-and-board buffing bar with immediate action status removal spells. Must have spells are Haste, Heroism, Good Hope, Mirror Image, Saving Finale, and Reinvigorating Wind. Coin Toss is a neat new spell that gives a firearm-like attack; I would take it for cool points and to handle distant opponents. Bladed Dash is also good for melee bards to teleport up to your foe.

Ina typical combat, I'd spend the first 2 rounds buffing the party. Before lvl 7/8, I'd Inspire Courage round 1 then Heroism the Rogue or Fighter and move up during the second round. Above lvl 7, I'd Inspire Courage and Haste round 1, then Heroism or Good Hope and move up round 2.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ignore or change anything if you disagree or dislike.

Inspire Courage is perhaps the best party buff in the game. At lvl 13, you can start a performance as a swift, move or standard action. If you have Flagbearer, Banner of the Ancient Kings and Dervish Sikke, at lvl 13 you can Inspire Courage as a swift action to provide +5/+5 competence to attack/damage on top of +2/+2 morale to attack/damage from Flagbearer. Can you name a Wizard or Cleric spell that gives +5/+5 to the whole party as a swift action? If your DM allows the faction feats Master Performer and Grand Master Performer, your Inspire Courage goes up to +7/+7.

With the above feats and items, with Discordant Voice and a Lesser Quicken Metamagic Rod, then a round 1 buff routine could look like:
Swift: Haste (using metamagic rod)
Move: Inspire Courage
Standard: Greater Invisiblity
In total, you and your party all have one extra attack, +10/+9+1d6 attack/damage, +1 AC and Reflex, +4 Inititive, +2 resistance vs mind-effecting, +7 morale bonus vs fear and charm, plus Greater Invisiblity to one ally! All this in the first round!

I'd recommend both Sound Striker and Lotus Geisha. These archetypes stack with each other, so you may as well take them both. These archetypes keep Inspire Courage, unlike Street Performer, which is very important for your combat effectiveness. Also Madcap Prank while hilarious, only effects one target. Since there are very few ways to buff the DCs for performances, you target probably has a 50/50 chance of saving, increasing the chance you wasting your action.

A couple notes on your builds: enrapturing performance is not a particularly useful ability, since again it only affects one target. You'll piss off your allies by making Inspire Courage affect one person, and any debuff/CC performance you use on the opponent has a decent chance of being saved against, so its better to affect as many enemies with a slightly lower DCs.

Bards don't get any bonus feats, so most bard builds put most their feats towards 1 combat role (i.e. archery, Dex-to-damage, enchantment). The easy way to be good at combat is to have 14 or more Str, Flagbearer, Arcane Strike and Power Attack (maybe also Furious Focus). Also, always take Discordant Voice at lvl 11, your party will look at you as if you've grown an extra head when you explain to them that you took Greater Dirty Trick instead.

If you want to be good an enchantment spells, you may want to look at the archetype Negotiator. Replaces Inspire Courage with an ability that decreases enemies' saves vs charm and illusion spells, gets bardic knowledge to social skills, and gets rogue talents, which is a free Weapon Focus and combat feat if you don't see any talents you like. A dip into Sorcerer can give you abilities to boost your DC's of enchantment spells, like Fey bloodline. You may want to look at the following traits: Overwhelming Beauty, Domineering, Charming, Strict Judgement, and Honeyed Words. Remember, trait bonuses don't stack!

PFS is a campaign. The first sentence of the (Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide) begins: "In an organized play campaign...", and the PSRGG is the "campaign bible". The DPR challenge is a hypothetical encounter.

Ahhh, okay. I thought this was an isolated fight test using the PFS rules. Well reading the rules for contingent services, it doesn't say how long it takes to recruit 167 hirelings, so that's upto the DM's descretion. There's very lower requirements for hiring; they just need to be able to read out loud and not run from combat. I realise now that most of the items I bought are superfluous, since it's impossible to boost the DC of performances to 36 or over. Thus, Brian could only buy the ring and the amulet, then use all the left over money to stuff the mouths of any hirelings who complain.

What about my original build? In that one, the hirelings can be upto 100ft away from the monster. Is that less suicidal?

On another note, if you want a Peasant Railgun, then you may have one. Brian at Pathfinder Chronicler lvl 8 with 168 hirelings and 167 Epic Tales(Inspire Action). The idea is that Brian and 167 hirelings all use Inspire Action on 1 hireling (called Gonzales), who uses all his standard actions to ready a move action to trigger when Brian shouts "Go!".

Brian casts Expeditious Retreat on Gonzales as a swift action, using a Lessser Quicken Metamagic Rod, then uses his move action and standard action to Inspire Action twice. With 167 bonus standard actions from the other hirelings and his original standard action, Gonzales readies 170 move actions and has 60ft move speed. Brian shouts "Go!", and Gonzales takes off, moving 10200ft = 3111 metres in 6 seconds=1 round. He moves at 519 m/s, a standard human has a base weight of 120lb and with 10 Str can carry 33lb before becoming encumbered, for a total weight of 69kg. Thus, his kinetic energy when he runs into the monster is 9.3*10^6 J, or about 2kg of TNT, which according to Wikipedia is enought to destroy a small vehicle. Of course, in game Gonzales runs headlong into the monster and damages only his ego (and perhaps face).

If we use Gonzales' friend Harry, who we've given a Racing Broom of Flying, he can move 120ft in a move action using the speed boost. The broom can also carry upto 200lb =90kg before encumberence. Doing this increases the energy to 11.6kg of TNT, but costs 30000gp per broom. Probably cheaper to use peasants.

As an aside, Epic Tales have a duration of 1 day/lvl. Is it possible to extend it by either coating it in Unguent of Timelessness, to make it last 1 year/lvl, or place them in a Death's Head Coffer, which holds the contents in stasis rending the contents immune to aging?

Oh! I forgot to mention that things get even sillier at lvl 13. Firstly, Brian gets Greater Epic Tales.

At 8th level, the Pathfinder chronicler’s written word gains power. This ability functions like the chronicler’s epic tales ability, except that if read aloud, the bardic music takes effect as if the author had used the ability, but the effects are targeted by the reader and use the reader’s Charisma score where applicable.

So we could take the Thundercaller archetype, write 167 Epic Tales (Thundercall) and hit the monster for 167*5d8 damage with no save. The average damage is 3757.

We can go even more ludicrous if we look at non-PFS material. The masterpiece Music Beyond the Spheres grants the spell Limited Wish. I'm not sure what the rules are for supernatural (Su) abilities and material components. If we use the dubious ruling that: (Su) abilities do not require material components if they replicate a spell that requires them, then we have 167 Limited Wishes! If you can't kill a monster with that, I don't know what else to do. I think 167 Flesh to Stones would work, the monster is exceedingly likely to roll a critical failure on one of those rolls.

If we do require the material components, then by losing all the equipment except the ring and the amulet, Brian would have enough money for about 70 Limited Wishes.

You may think we've reached peak absurdity, but we can go even better by taking another level in Pathfinder Chronicler. At lvl 14, we improve the performace Inspire Action:

As a special use of bardic music, a 6th-level Pathfinder chronicler can exhort any one ally within hearing to a sudden surge of action, allowing her ally to immediately take an extra move action. This does not count against the ally’s number of actions on his own turn.

At 9th level, she can enable an ally to immediately take a standard action instead.

If we allow allies to be helpful, then Brian can create 167 Epic Tales (Inspire Action), have the hirelings read them in round 1, then because of Lingering Performance Brian gets 167 bonus standard actions in rounds 1 and 2! That's enough time to apply every buff from potions or scrolls you fancy in round 1, then Bladed Dash up to the monster and attack 167 times! Plus, if we reintroduce the silly assumption that Brian, the monster, and 167 hirelings occupy a 30ft diameter circle, then every attack is buffed by Discordant Voice to have an extra 167d6 sonic damage!

Rather than trawl through the lists of every possible spell to find an optimal buff routine, lets simplify and say Brian hits 80% of the time and deals an average of 20 damage without the Discordant Voice buff. Then he deals 20+167d6 damage per attack, for an average of 604.5 damage. With 167 attacks, plus the attack from Bladed Dash, Brian deals a total of 80761.2 damage! I will remind you this build is PFS legal, but requires a (very) silly assumption plus helpful allies. Enjoy!

Firstly, the Epic Tales lose potency after 1/day per lvl in Pathfinder Chronicler, so after 7 days, not caster level (which is 5 by the way, Pathfinder Chronicler is a bad prestige class that doesn't advance spellcasting).

Secondly, the time to interview and hire hirelings is not taken into account because this is not a campaign. This is a DPS test, so we only care about the crunch of a character. If you want a fluff reason, then perhaps you have a recuitment agent/agency do the legwork, or your lazy party members, or the king pressgangs people to kill an unstoppable monster.

Thirdly, I assume the hirelings are lvl 1 of any NPC class. The only requirement is that they can read. I don't think this is a contingency service, a cotingency service is when the NPCs hired a completing a task without the player characters. In this case, Brian is with them. I just realised I don't need the metamagic rod, since Mirror Image can be one of the pre-existing buffs on Brian (not like he's using any). That's extra money, if more is needed to hire people.

Fourthly, again this is a story objection, in a DPS test. In an actual campaign, perhaps the unstoppable monster is heading towards their city and will destroy it. Perhaps, as Brian has high Charisma and easily can pump up Diplomacy, he persuades them.

Anyway, thanks for the reply! Any objections to the build or the combat rounds?

I've been mulling over an unusual build: I hope you all enjoy it!
Bard(Savage Skald)/Pathfinder Chronicler 5/7 ! That's right! A terrible bard archetype combined with an even worse prestige class. My thanks goes to the Pathfinder Chronicler guide for inspiration and help.

If I use any rulings or assumptions that are questionable or silly, they will be in bold.

The crux of this build is the Pathfinder Chronicler ability: Epic Tales.

A 4th-level Pathfinder chronicler can inscribe a tale so evocative and so moving that it conveys the effects of bardic music through the written word. To create an epic tale requires the pathfinder chronicler to expend a number of rounds of her bardic performance ability equal to twice the duration of the epic tale (maximum duration of 10 rounds), and any relevant Performance skill check is made with Profession (scribe) instead. An epic tale affects only the reader, but it grants all the benefits that would normally apply for hearing a performance. A Pathfinder chronicler may apply the effects of any feats that affect bardic music to her epic tales. An epic tale retains its supernatural potency for 1 day per class level. It requires 1 hour to inscribe, a full-round action to activate, and a duration equal to 1/2 the number of bardic performance rounds expended during its creation. Once activated, an epic tale’s magic is consumed.

Essentially, Brian can create Epic Tales which apply the effect of a bardic performance to the reader, it takes a full-round to activate and it does not require a skill check to do! Thus, anyone who can read can use an Epic Tale. It takes 1 hr to make one, with only ink and paper as costs. With the Ring of Sustenance and the Amulet of Everwake, Brian can create Epic Tales for the 6 days and 23 hours before the fight, for a total of 167 Epic Tales. Since the feat Lingering Performance is applied to the Epic Tale, an Epic Tale made using 2 performance rounds lasts for 3 rounds.

What performance do we scribe into these 167 Epic Tales? Why, Vindicative Soliloquay of course! For these, we require the ruling: Bard Masterpieces considered Bardic Performance, and thus subject to ALL rules and mechanics that govern performances. There's a long running FAQ on this subject that has not been resolved. Normally this performance requires 5 full rounds to activate, but when it is an Epic Tale, it requires only a full-round. Once the performance is complete, you may conjure bolts of lightning as though you had cast call lightning storm. Each bolt requires a standard action to call down and deals 5d6 sonic damage (Ref half), range 100'+10ft/lvl.

This next build changes two things: first, the lvl 11 feat is now Discordant Voice, second, the 167 Epic Tales are the Savage Skald performance: Song of the Fallen. Song of the Fallen summons 2d4+2 (av. 7) lvl 2 barbarians that obey the performer absolutely and completely. The important bit is Discordant Voice. Since the Epic Tale applys the effects of Dischordant Voice, and multiple users of Discordant Voice stack with each other, everyone in 30ft gains 1d6 sonic damage on their attacks for each reader!

Whenever you are using bardic performance to create a spell-like or supernatural effect, allies within 30 feet of you deal an extra 1d6 points of sonic damage with successful weapon attacks. This damage stacks with other energy damage a weapon might deal. Projectile weapons bestow this extra damage on their ammunition, but the extra damage is dealt only if the projectile hits a target within 30 feet of you.

Hence:

You may want to add a section for example builds; you're free to use the ones I've posted. Also in the archetype section, you should mention Picaroon, since Juggler makes that archetype go from trash to usable. There could be something interesting in using a Poisoned Sand Tube with confabulation Powder, a poison with DC 18 and staggers for 1 min.

While a melee bard can work quite well, there are a couple problems with your build. First, the feat Bodyguard only applies to adjacent allies, so the extra reach of the whip is useless. Also a whip cannot deal lethal damage without feats, and will not damage heavily armored enemies without feats. Second, at lvl 5, the Arcane Duelist must take a weapon for the Arcane Bond. The weapon must be one-handed (so it cannot be the longspear) and you must make a concentration check to cast a spell without touching your bonded weapon. Third, Weapon Finesse only works for light weapons, so not for a longspear. Four, you are spending all you wealth on just 2 items, you should spread out the wealth a bit more.

I would recommend the following build: Str 16 (+1 @lvl 4, 8), Dex 14, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 10, Cha 14. Human feat: Power Attack. Lvl 1 feat: Combat Reflex. Lvl 3 feat: Bodyguard. Lvl 5 feat: Weapon Focus(Rapier).

At lvl 5 you can use the hand holding your bonded weapon for somatic components. So at lvl 5, you can use a rapier and a heavy shield and still cast. Also you enchant the bonded rapier at half price. Items: +1 rapier, +1 Chain Shirt, +1 Heavy Shield, +1 Amulet of Natural Armor, +1 Ring of Protection, +1 Cloak of Resistance for a total of 8000gp spent, leaving 2500gp remaining for extras.

This build has +10 attack/12.5 average damage with Inspire Courage, Arcane Strike and Power Attack and your AC is 22. So you are a support fighter, standing next to a low AC rogue/barbarian and giving them +4AC from Bodyguard while still be able to reliably deal damage on your own. Hope this is helpful!

Well, I'm sure you know that buffing comes easily to a Bard. Inspire Courage is a great performance, and half of your spells are buffs. The main ones are Heroism, Haste, Good Hope and Greater Heroism.

Bards aren't as good at CC, but it can still be done. Most of the CC spells on the bard list are either enchantment or single target spells, which aren't ideal. Some good CC spells bards can take are Glitterdust and Calm Emotions. Some archetypes can learn spells from other class' spell lists, so look for that if you feel your spell list is lacking in that regard. The base bard doesn't get performances that have CC effects, but some archetypes do. I've included a partial list below, you can look at them in more detail here:

• Buccaneer: Song of Surrender: Lvl 4, single target, drop weapons and fall prone, mass version at lvl 16

• Sea Singer: Whistle the Wind: Lvl 6, cast Gust of Wind, affects area, prohibits movement for medium or small creatures

• Thundercaller: Thunder Call: Lvl 3, AoE damage + stun, probably the most OP bard archetype because of this performance

• Watersinger: Watersong: Lvl 1, create walls of solid water, requires a nice GM to give you an item that stores multiple 5 foot cubes of water

• Fey Prankster: Song of Clumsiness: Lvl 1, if enemy draws item or weapon he drops it and if enters difficult terrain falls prone. Incite Unreliability: Lvl 1, casts Lesser Confusion, replaces Inspire Courage!

• First World Minstrel: Gremlin’s Luck: Lvl 8, just like the Witch hex Misfortune. Replaces Inspire Courage with another performance that buffs allies

• Flame Dancer: Song of the Fiery Gaze: Lvl 3, all allies can see through smoke, fog and fire, combine with Obsuring Mist or some other cloud spell

• Chelish Diva: Scathing Tirade: Lvl 8: frighten single target, target remains frightened for 1d4 rounds after performance ended or switched to a different target.
  

Remember that most performances become a move action at lvl 7, so with these archetypes, you could cast a buff spell and do a CC performance in the same round, not something a wizard can accomplish so easily.

There are also some CC masterpieces. Masterpieces are performances you can learn if you have enough ranks in perform and you either give up a spell known or a feat known. Many take more than 1 round to activate, so are not useful in battles.

However, the best CC masterpiece, Dirge of the Torn Sail, requires a standard action (going to move action at lvl 7, and sift action later). This causes all enemies who fail within 30 feet to flee from you as the spell Greater Command. Regardless of what archetype you take, I'd recommend you learn it at lvl 7 when it's available. Another interesting masterpiece is Rondeau of Heavenly Order, which restricts how your opponents can move.

Your tactics will depend on what archetypes and spells you pick. For instance, a Thundercaller has little need for CC spells, since Thunder Call is so strong, so will cast Haste/Good Hope and then spam Thunder Call until the encounter is dead. In general, you will probably want some ability to deal damage as well, perhaps investing your feats into Power Attack and Arcane Strike and having a decent Str or having good Dex and Weapon Finness and a Dex-to-Damage feat.

In the first 2 rounds of a fight, focus on applying at least 1 buff to party members and 1 successful CC (i.e. effecting at least 1 enemy. preferably more). Then before the 3rd round, assess the situation: do I need more CC or should I deal damage and help end the fight faster? I hope at least some of this is helpful to you

1) Why not take both? They synergize together quite well. The advanced benefit of Desna's Shooting Star is a powerful attack against a single target, whose damage is boosted by the Startoss chain, whereas the Startoss Comet is used against a group of targets.

2) Feats: PBS, Precise Shot, Startoss style chain, Arcane Strike, Improved Precise Shot, Deadly Aim. Bards don't have proficiency with starknifes, so choose your race or dip (or spend a feat) accodingly. For equipment, you definitely need a Blinkback Belt so you only need 1 enchanted starknife, a Dervish Sikke improves your inspire courage bonuses by +1. The rest can be standard fare.

3) Dervish of Dawn doubles the bonuses from your performances, but the performances only boost yourself. Combine this with the Dervish Sikke, Startoss chain, Arcane Strike and Deadly Aim and you will do damage that will make a barbarian drool with high attack as well. Diva would give you medium armour proficency, which is useful since you don't need your Dex score to be higher than 14 for your feats. Other archetypes that may interest you are Sound Striker and Flame Dancer

I'm afraid there aren't any really good damage spells on the bard list, and increasing damage is probably the best use for increasing caster level. It's probably best to look for a better spell from another class and get it through an archetype.

Like you said magician gets any wizard spell you want but it does lose inspire courage. Arrowsong Minstrel adds evocation wizard spells, Dirge Bard adds necromancy spells from any arcane class, Flame Dancer adds some damaging fire spells and Voice of the Wild gets spells from the druid/ranger lists.

Good lvl 1 or 2 spells to poach would be: Frostbite, Snowball, Shocking Grasp, Magic Missile, Lightning Lash (from Ranger list, 2d6 touch attack with free trip attempt), Stone Discus, Burning Arc and Scorching Ray.

Also, Sound Striker or Thundercaller archetypes give sonic performances, although they are very obvious options.

I'd be careful with masterpieces. Many of them take multiple rounds to activate, which is fine so long as you're not fighting. Also, if you make a custom masterpiece, your DM may not allow it. Remember that a masterpiece shouldn't be more powerful than the highest level spell a wizard or cleric or the same level can cast.

I still worry that you won't be able to contribute much in a fight. I have no doubts about the usefullness of bards outside of combat, so you don't need to allocate any feats to be useful as a bard in social/skill situations. However, a bard should focus on something that he/she is good at while fighting. Since bards don't any bonus feats, this usually takes up most of your feats. As it stands, only two of your feats help you in combat.

If you intend to be a dedicated illusionist, you really need to ramp up the DC's of your spells. To have an average CR12 monster fail on a bad save against your illusions at least 60% of the time, your spell DC should be at least 25. Currently, for your fourth level spells, it is +21. You may want Greater Spell Focus and a +6 Headband of Charisma at a bare minimum. Persistant or Focussed metamagic would also help; shame about the rods though. The headband would also bring the DC of your performances to 24, which is good enough if it hits multiple opponents.

It's not a bad build, but I'm not sure what you'll be doing in combat other than illusions and inspire courage. Bards don't have as many spells to cast as a full caster, so if you plan on just casting spells, you may run out before the day is through.

If you want to improve your buffing capability, use the feat Discordant Voice and buy the Dervish Sikke to add an extra +1 to attack and +1+1d6 damage to your allies. Maybe add Flagbearer and Banner of the Ancient Kings, although almost every other bard build does this, so it ain't exactly unique. Then in a fight, first round buff allies, second throw down illusions/CC spell, then third round onwards support with the longspear.

If you want to debuff your foes, you could pick up a Lesser Persistent Metamagic Rod since most of your spells are lvl 3 or lower, so getting them to stick may be tricky for you.

Aside from the awesome fluff, I'm not sure what you're getting from the Prankster archetype. Maybe Court Bard or Magician would take your fancy? Also, at lvl 12 you should have plenty of rounds of performance (unless you're a Thundercaller), so it would be better to put the favored class bonus into hitpoints.

Additionally, your dexterity is rather low for a class with light armour, you should worry about your AC. Incidentally, the Diva archetype gets the ability to wear and cast in heavy armour and a strong performance that frightens enemies for 1d4 rounds.

Hope some of this was useful!

Why not just play a bard? It does everything you want and has spellcasting in addition. Also, if you like starknifes, then a 2nd lvl bard can trade his lvl 2 versatile performance for the initial benefit of Way of the Shooting Star and at lvl 10, he can trade his lvl 10 versatile performance for the advanced benefit. This would save you two feats. Still, a 1 level dip into fighter or Far-Strike Monk would save you feats and give proficiency in starknifes if you race isn't proficient in them.

There are also lots of archetypes for the bard class depending on what you want to focus on.

If you want to use a longbow, Arrowsong Minstrel or Voice of the Wild are good, Arrowsong is akin to a magus/bard cross focused on bows, Voice of the Wild gives you access to your choice of juicy ranger or druid spells.

If you care less about buffing allies with your Inspire Courage, then either Archaeologist or Dervish of Dawn are right down your alley. Archaeologist gives you a swift action luck bonus, Dervish of Dawn makes Inspire Courage/Greatness/etc only affect yourself but doubles the bonus you receive, so at lvl 8 wearing a Dervish Sikke, you would get +6 to attack and damage.

Soundstriker gives almost any bard a ranged touch attack which deals respectable damage.

I feel that there is some flavor of bard that would be great for your character concept and party role.

Hey, I don't know if you're still planning on updating this guide, but I have a few ideas. I feel that juggler is best used when you want to duel wield whilst requiring a free hand. This could be to reload a weapon, like a crossbow or gun, or simply to cast spells without dropping a weapon. I've come up with a couple of build ideas for juggler. I focus on having bard as the main class, though in principle with these builds you could just dip juggler for 2 lvls.

Juggling Picaroon
This build uses the unpopular swashbuckler archetype picaroon as a 1 lvl dip. The dip gives you proficiency with one-handed firearms, panache on guns and one-handed piercing weapons, Weapon Finesse, TWF when using a one-handed gun in one hand and a light or one-handed piercing weapon in the other, and the ability to spend 1 panache point to avoid attacks of opportunity when firing your gun for 1 attack that round. Phew, that's quite a lot!

The main idea is that you fight with a pistol and dagger, shooting at the enemy and tossing a dagger at them for extra damage. The juggling allows you to reload your gun while duelwielding, and at lvl 6, you can juggle two pistols and a dagger so you can make your twf full-attack using only your pistols. A build might look like this: Picaroon 1/Juggler X
lvl 1 feat:Point Blank Shot
Human bonus feat:Precise Shot
lvl 3 feat:Rapid Reload(pistol)
lvl 5 feat:Arcane Strike
lvl 7 feat:Rapid Shot

Two Halfings For The Price Of One!
Another build could be to duel wield slings. Why not use a double sling I hear you ask? The halfling warslinger trait only works with ordinary slings, so you would have to waste feats on Ammo Drop and Juggle Load, and bards don't have feats to spare. A lvl 2 halfling juggler with warslinger can easily reload both slings without any further investment. Such a build may look like: Fighter 1/Juggler X
lvl 1 feat: PBS
Fighter feat: Precise Shot
lvl 3 feat: TWF
lvl 5 feat: Arcane Strike
lvl 7 feat: Rapid Shot

Gladiators!!!
My last build has a half-orc with the beastmaster trait using a net and short sword in combat as a support fighter. Spend rounds 1 and 2 on party buffs, then use the net to entangle/trip/disarm etc a foe and follow up with the short sword. This isn't a powerful build by any means, but it might be useful and flavorful for someone. It looks as follows: Fighter 1/Juggler X
lvl 1 feat: TWF
Fighter feat: Net Adept
lvl 3 feat: Net and Trident
lvl 5 feat: Net Maneuvering
lvl 7 feat: Arcane Strike
lvl 9 feat: Net Trickery

I hope this is useful.

I'm afraid I don't see how Spellsong is useful, could you elaborate? If you take 5/5 Bard/Arcane Trickster, then you won't get your next iterative (Arcane Trickster has 1/2 BaB). However, Arcane Trickster does advance sneak attack and spellcasting, allows trap disabling and pickpocketing at a distance, at lvl 3 you can 1/day declare a melee or ranged attack to be a sneak attack, without flanking etc, and at lvl 5 you can cast 3 spells /day with both Silent and Still Spell metamagics.

I'd say, if you're not fussed about performing in combat or iterative attacks, then going Arcane Trickster is the better option. If you don't have iterative attacks, a good option is to have natural attacks instead. Various races get natural attacks (Catfolk, Kobold, Tengu, Skinwalker, Half-Orc, Lizardfolk etc). All primary natural attacks are at full BaB, secondary at BaB-5, it's a pretty good option for bards.

There are some interesting masterpieces you could look at:
1)Arrowsong's Lament (Oratory), 3 ranks: Add an extra spell to your spells known for 1 day
2)Endless Waltz of the Eldest (Dance, String), 4 ranks: Heals ally 3hp /round and if affected ally heals someone, they heal an extra 3hp. So heals max of 6hp/round between two people.
3)Hymn of Restorative Harmonics (Sing, Wind), 6 ranks: Gives all allies in 30ft a reroll to end ongoing debilitating effect
4)Legato Piece on the Infernal Bargain (String), 11 ranks: Probably not get in PFS, but this allows you to cast Planar Ally.
5)Rondeau of Heavenly Order (Sing), 4 ranks: Enemies that fail save must move in straight lines, an unusual CC effect.
6)Stone Face (Comedy, Oratory), 7ranks: Stone to Flesh
7)Symphony of the Elysian Heart (Keyboard, Wind), 7 ranks: Freedom of Movement for all allies
8)Tales of Twisting Steel (Act, Oratory), 3 ranks: Shield Other
9)The Dance of 23 Steps (Dance), 4 ranks: 1+1/4 ranks of Dance as dodge bonus until next round. Is a free action to activate!
10)The Rheumy Refrain (Sing), 5 ranks: 1 subject if it fails will save must make concentration check to do more than a single attack or a single move action. Interesting debuff.
11)Triple Time (Percussion, String, Wind), 3 ranks: Increase ally's base speed by 10 feet for 1 hour.

Also, how attached are you to Nagaji?

I think that bard 5/Arcane Trickster 5 is better than taking a dip in Brawler, mainly because you don't lose any caster levels. Whenever you dip away from a caster class, you should consider whether what you'll get is worth delaying higher level spells by one level. If you dip Brawler, you delay spells by one level and delay entry into Arcane Trickster by 1 level (unless you use Accomplished Sneak Attacker, but then any bard archetype could enter Arcane Trickster that way). You would gain 1BaB, 1d6 sneak attack that you can get by Sandman 5 and Acc. Sneak Attacker and Brawler's Cunning. I don't feel the trade-off is worth it.

Also while Fascinate/Slumber Song/Stealspell are useless in combat, they will have some use out of combat. You could use Slumber Song to avoid awkward encounters, e.g. put to sleep some guards so your party can break into a nobleman's house. If you party needs multiple castings of a spell that someone knows but has only one prepares or few remaining spellslots, Stealspell you allow you to cast it in your ally's stead. So they may not be earth-shattering abilities, but I could see you getting some use out of them.

When fighting, unless you get a really good masterpiece and focus on it, it may not be worth it starting performances. But you'll still have bard spells and sneak attack, so you should still find some useful role in battle.

Whoops! Sorry.

To be honest, if you were to use Stealspell in combat against an ememy caster, it would have been better to cast Silence on yourself and attack the caster. With Silence, the caster becomes completely incapable of casting, whereas Stealspell barely effects him. The best use for Stealspell I think is borrowing from allies outside of combat.

I don't understand why you dislike Power Attack, it's a nice boost to damage. You don't necessarily need it, but its a lot of bang for your buck, and bards get very few feats so its quite helpful for them.

With 5/4 Sandman Bard/Dragon Disciple, you'd akin to a combined fighter/caster/rogue. You'll have 3rd level spells, 20 Str without equipment or buffs, similar to a raging barbarian, and you'd have sneak attack and trapfinding. The downsides are that bardic performances fall to the wayside and you have less skill points/level when in Dragon Disciple, so you'll have to focus on a couple skills at that point.

Feats could be:
1) Arcane Strike
3) Power Attack
5) Accomplished Sneak Attacker
7) Accomplished Sneak Attacker/free feat
7 bloodline) Toughness, Improved Inititive or Great Fortitude
9) Accomplished Sneak Attacker/free feat

Oh, also with Arcane Trickster, you only need to dip Snakebite Striker if you intend to take Combat Expertise.

Well it's a bit difficult to think of a build for Sandman that doesn't focus on sneak attack to some extend, since it is by far the best feature of the archetype.

If you would like something different, you have a high starting strength score, so maybe Dragon Disciple would appeal to you? Perhaps you nagaji has some dragonic heritage in her? PFS stops around lvl 10, so either 5/5 or 6/4 Sandman Bard/Dragon Disciple would work well. 4 lvls of Dragon Disciple gives 4*d12 hp, 3 caster levels, +4 Str, +2 natural armor, limited bite and claws and a free bloodline feat.

Recommended feats would be Arcane Strike, Power Attack, Accomplished Sneak Attacker. You would mainly get sneak attack from flanking and perhaps from spells (e.g Dazzling Blade is a swift action blind for 1 foe for 1 round), but with a good 2-handed weapon, Power Attack, Arcane Strike, Heroism and your naturally high strength, you'll do plenty of damage without sneak attack.

If you're interested in other masterpieces than Battle Song, Symphony of the Ascent and Hymn of Restorative Harmonics both get rid of negative status effects on allies, Melody of Frightful Death deals 1d6 damage/round to all who fail a Will save and Rondeau of Heavenly Order is a weird crowd control that makes enemies that fail their save only able to move in straight lines.

Another prestige class that may intrigue you is Ashavic Dancer. This advances both spellcasting and bardic performance. It's anti-undead focused, gives you new anti-undead performances and gives you versatile performance, which Sandman trades away.

Hope this is helpful to you.

Using Tactician from Guided Blade takes up yet another standard action, and to be honest, there are very few worthwhile teamwork feats; most are kinda useless or minor in effect. I suggested Arcane Trickster because:
1) Full sneak attack
2) Full spell casting
3) Ranged disarming of traps and ranged pickpocketing
4) The ability to make any melee or ranged attack a sneak attack 1/day (up to 2/day at lvl 7)
5) Free action invisibility at lvl 9, which makes your next attack a sneak attack
6) Capstone is that any spell that deals damage to a flat-footed foe deals sneak attack
7) It meshes well with the theme of a bard with sneak attack
8) If you primarily use Stealspell to "borrow" spells from your allies, then the DC is irrelevant.
9) You'll still be able to learn new masterpieces if you go into Arcane Trickster. Some of the higher level masterpieces give powerful out of combat spells, like Earthquake or Planar Binding, which you wouldn't normally get.
10) You don't get anything great for remaining in Sandman Bard. You'll have a slow sneak attack progression and all the performances (except for Spellsteal and Slumber Song) are very much skippable.

If you don't want to be a sneak attacking magical bard/rogue, that's fine. But then you should give us a better idea of what you want instead so we can help you. Also, what level will this character be starting at?

If you want to use channel energy more, you could take Extra Channel. Channeled Revival lets you cast breath of life. Fateful Channel is a way to buff your allies as well as heal them.

I've had an idea as to how you can use Stealspell. You could steal spells from your allies! Example: You're in a party of 4, you need horses but your wizard has only 1 Mount spell memorized. Using Stealspell, you can steal Mount from the wizard (he chooses to fail the will save), then cast it using your spell slots. Then end the performance and the wizard regains the prepared spell, so now he can also cast Mount. Result: you have at least 2 horses to ride.

There's no restriction on the type of magic you can "borrow", so you could potentially cast arcane, divine or psychic spells that your allies know. I don't recommend doing this in combat before lvl 7 bard, when you can start Stealspell as a move action. Otherwise, you waste 2 rounds, first activating the performance, the second on stealing the spell, before you even contribute to a fight. But outside of combat, it should be useful.

If you want a Battle Song that helps your allies, try Precise Strike, so all allies that flank deal an extra 1d6 precision damage that stacks with sneak attack. The method I suggested was to ensure you'll be getting sneak attack damage on most of your attacks. Sometimes, your friends won't move to flank with you, no matter how much you plead. As such, I'd recommend some way to get sneak attack without flanking.

I'd envision a 7/3 Sandman Bard/Arcane Trickster with Battle Song (Pack Flanking), Animal Ally, Accomplished Sneak Attacker and Boon Companion. He would be a magic adept rogue whose viper lashes out from his sleeve to bite his foes during combat. 7 lvls of bard are needed to get move action Stealspell, if you really intend to use it in combat. If not, you could go straight 5/5 Sandman/Trickster instead.

If you'd prefer feinting, replace Pack Flanking, Animal Ally and Boon Companion with Combat Expertise and Improved Feint. I'm sure if you search the boards, you can find other ways to reliably sneak attack in fights.

I have a few comments:
1) Juggler gets proficiency with all martial thrown weapons. This adds some exotic choices: Starknife, Sling Staff (for Halflings), Poisoned Sand Tube (for poisoning a cone of foes), Net (if half-orc plus Beastmaster racial trait) etc

2) Flame Dancer and Sound Striker are both great archetypes I feel, even if their fluff doesn't perhaps match with Juggler. Sound Striker gives a useful ranged touch attack. Flame Dancer gives some damage spells to your spell list, fire resistance for your party, and most importantly the ability for your party to see through smoke, fog, flames etc. Combining this with Fog Cloud or Obscuring Mist from a teammate is a fantastic advantage.

3) Its a shame Busker doesn't stack :(

4) You should add some specific builds.

5) For duel-wielding builds, why have more than 2 levels of juggler? Duel-wielders need quite a number of feats and bard gives you zero extra feats.

5) My main issue is, coolness factor aside, why bother juggling? You should state specifically why it is useful and list a few examples. How is it better than taking Quick Draw and drawing whatever item you need at the moment and then dropping it when it's no longer useful?

One idea for a build is to use a Starknife and take Divine Fighting Technique - Way of the Shooting Star. This way a lvl 1 juggler has Cha to attack and damage instead of Str or Dex. You could also have a prepacked Poison Sand Tube to poison a 15ft cone of enemies. You can also use alchemical weapons, like Gel Shard, grenades, Fungal stun vial etc to debilitate enemies. The Full Pouch spell will increase the dc of these items, as well as stretching your wallet.

I don't want to discourage you, I like Bards a lot, but SpellSteal is not very useful in my view.
1) You need to be next to your victim.
2) Takes a standard action, so why not attack instead?
3) You get a random highest level spell you can cast, but there's no telling whether it's any use to you.
4)A spellcaster likely has more than one highest level spell, so it's unlikely you'll significantly effect his/her spellcasting.
5) You may be in the situation where the victim has higher level spells than you, so you're not even stealing his/her best spell.
6) If your in the position to spellsteal, you could also attack him. Why is spellsteal better than just killing the wizard?
7) Bards can only cast their highest level spells a couple of time, so you may have exhausted your highest level spell slots by that point.

Sorry again for being a wet blanket, but Spellsteal has a few problems with it as I see it. If you can convince me otherwise, please do, I'm interested to learn more.

That said, Sandman Bard is the only bard archetype with sneak attack, so naturally I focused on that. Another idea I had was that a lvl 5 Sandman Bard with Accomplished Sneak Attacker can enter the Arcane Trickster prestige class. You could have full bard casting with sneak attack almost on par with a straight rogue. The animal companion/Pack Flanking combo almost guarantees sneak attacks in melee. Outflank only gives an extra +2 on flanking attacks, so it isn't particularly useful. Also as a bard without inspire courage, it pays to be a little more selfish.

With regards to Guided Blade, with 16 Str you don't need Weapon Finesse and teamwork feats aren't all that strong, plus you can only give the teamwork feat for a total of 9 rounds with your stats, so it won't last long. Also it's a standard action, so it's not as useful as casting heroism or allegro on yourself.

Anyway, I hope this doesn't come off as too harsh, I really like peculiar bard builds, so I want to see this work for you.

I would recommend 1 or 2 levels of Snakebite Striker Brawler. This is for earlier sneak attack and so you don't need 13 int for combat expertise. Since you don't have Inspire Courage and Spellsteal is a rather situational performance, I'd advise taking a few bardic masterpieces. By using a feat or giving up a known spell, you can learn new performances. A good one is Battle Song of the People's Revolt. This gives everyone one teamwork feat.

I would suggest something like this:
lvl 1: Sandman Bard - feat: Nature Soul
lvl 2: Sandman Bard
lvl 3: Snakebite Striker Brawler - feat: Combat Expertise
lvl 4: Bard
lvl 5: Bard - feat: Animal Ally - masterpiece: Battle Song of the People's Revolt keyed to the teamwork feat Pack Flanking
lvl 6: Bard
lvl 7: Brawler - feats: Boon Companion and Improved Feint

The idea is that at lvl 5, you have an animal companion which, thanks to Battle Song, you always have flanking, and thus sneak attacks, when next to him. In fact, you could drop Combat Expertise and Improved Feint for some other feats if you wanted.

Hope this helps.

I think this is a cool build. A couple points for consideration: the Divine Fighting Technique feat would allow you to perform non-lethal attacks with your scimitar. Also when you do non-lethal damage with your scimitar, you heal 2d6 hp once per round. For that you'll also need Great Fortitude and 10 ranks in Heal.

You could reduce your Charisma by two points and increase your Int and Con.

For spells, I would recommend Windy Escape, Mirror Image and Allegro.

Also, shouldn't your Dex be 24?

Link doesn't work I'm afraid.

Here's my contribution: a Lizardfolk Dervish of Dawn Bard known as The Elite Beat Agent!

Master Performer and Grand Master Performer increase the bonuses given by a bard's performance by a stacking +1 each. So for a regular bard with these feats, Inspire Courage provides +4/+4 competence to attack/damage and Inspire Greatness provides +4 Hit Die (~+30 temp hp), +4 competence to attack and +3 Fort. Therefore, for a Dervish of Dawn Bard, Inspire Courage is +8/+8 attack/damage and Inspire Greatness gives +8 Hit Die (~+60hp), +8 attack and +6 Fort.

Lizardfolk is chosen to give the maximum number of natural attacks for the least effort and some extra AC.

His full-round attack (including +8 Inspire Courage) is: +22 scimitar/+17 scimitar/+21 gore/+21 claw/+21 tail/+21 bite for 1d6+15 (18-20/*2) /1d6+15(18-20/*2) /1d6+13(/*2) /1d4+13(/*2) /1d4+13(/*2) /1d3(/*2).

DPR = 94.2. With +1 attack: DPR = 98.5. With +1 damage: DPR = 99.8. With one extra attack at full BaB: DPR = 112.7

A neat trick to improve tankiness is to cast Virtuoso Performance, which allows you to have both Inspire Courage and Inspire Greatness on at the same time (no attack bonus stacking unfortunately). Also at lvl 11, Inspire Courage improves to +10/+10 to attack/damage.

What do you guys think?

Hello all, I would like to make a wayang shadow puppeteer and I have a few questions; primarily about how to improve the Shadow Puppets ability.

1) Can I use Spell Focus (Illusion), Shadow Magic trait and Ability Focus to improve the DC of Shadow Puppets?

2) Can I use feats like Augment Summons and Summon Good Creature on the Shadow Puppet ability, to summon new creatures and improve them?

3) If I have feats or traits that increase the caster level of illusion spells or the Shadow Conjuration spell, would that allow Shadow Puppets to act as a higher level version of Summon Monster? For example, for a 3rd level Shadow Puppeteer with Mage's Tattoo (Illusion), would he be able to use Shadow Puppets as a 4th level caster and create monsters from the Summon Monster II list, instead of from the I list?

4) If I summoned a creature with the ability to use spell-like abilities, e.g. CLW, would it be able to use them?

5) Since I create the monsters with the Shadow Puppets ability, do I have control over what they do, or do I have communicate with them, if possible, as in the Summon Monster spell?

Thanks in advance!

If I may respond to your points, CBDunkerson. Firstly, yes, you will drop Inspire Courage when you switch but maybe you get something else that's worth the switch (like an extra action on all allies). It also makes masterpieces that have interesting combat effects but long activation times much more viable, for example Vindictive Soliloquy, Pallavi of Nirvana’s Blossoming and Clamor Of the Heavens.

Secondly, there's nothing in the text of Harmonic Spell that refers to the original activation time of the performance. All you can assume from the text of the feat is that normally to switch performance takes longer than a swift action. Perhaps the feat was written before masterpieces existed, but I feel that I would be on shaky ground if I made assumptions about the feat's authors' assumptions.

Thirdly, at level 13, you cannot activate Arrowsong as a swift without this trick because:

Action: This line indicates the type of action performing the masterpiece requires. If it only requires a standard action to activate, being able to activate a bardic performance more quickly (at 7th level, activation is a move action, and at 13th, it becomes a swift action) applies to the masterpiece as well.

Only standard action masterpieces become a swift at 13th level. Arrowsong isn't a standard action masterpiece so it doesn't change.

Remember, this can only occur if masterpieces are ruled to be bardic performances. I brought this trick up because:
(a) I want to see whether my reasoning is correct
(b) To see whether other people like or would allow this combo
(c) To bring this issue to attention so that it might be discussed when making a ruling on whether masterpieces are bardic performances or not.

I will agree that the image of an hour-long performance being done in less than six seconds is a little silly (think Flight of the Bumblebee sped up by ~3600). To me that's a plus, I like having my bard being ridiculous.

I've thought up a combination which I think makes masterpieces much more usable in combat if masterpieces are considered to be bardic performances. The trick is to use the feat Harmonic Spell. The key point is this line:

In addition, you can switch from one bardic performance to another as a swift action when you cast a spell while maintaining a bardic performance.

So on round one of combat, use inspire courage. Come second round, cast a level 1 or higher spell then as a swift action activate a different performance regardless of the original activation time! Now masterpieces can be activated as a swift action.

If you want to destroy a town in a hurry, swift action earthquake or control winds. Want an extra pair of hands? Swift action planar ally! Hate evil creatures? Swift action Clamor of the Heavens! Want to seduce someone quickly? Swift action Dance of Kindled Desires! Battle taking too long? Swift action Requiem of the Fallen Priest-King!

For example, a level 10 bard.
Round 1:Cast haste (standard), inspire courage (move)
Round 2:Cast level 1 or higher spell(standard), requiem of fallen priest king(swift) {allies get an extra non-magical standard or move action}
Round 3:Gain bonus standard(swift), attack(bonus standard), attack/spell(standard), inspire courage(move)
Round 4: Goto round 2

In this way, you can grant extra actions to all allies every other round (pairs great with Heroic Finale). Other builds become possible, like a sonic-based bard/dragon disciple who uses Harmonic Spell for swift action Vindictive Soliloquy.

What do you guys think?