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Alright, so I’ve been kicking a bard archer idea around in my head for a bit and wanted to lay out some plans here and get some feedback / learn some new tricks from some of the people here. Remember, we’re dealing with Pathfinder Society here so 20 point buy, max level 12, few other oddities that I’ll address as needed later if I feel a choice needs more explanation.
Basic idea: A very socially adept skill monkey bard with excellent buffing abilities and very respectable ranged damage abilities. What he won’t be is a save-or-die spell slinger or a melee combatant.
Race: While I like Halflings and Elves, given the very limited scope of feats in PFS play, it’s a human for me for the feat and skill point bonus. Floating +2 is always appreciated.
Ability Scores: 20 point buy results in:
Strength: 14
Dexterity: 16 (after racial +2)
Constitution: 12
Intelligence: 14
Wisdom: 8
Charisma: 14
Some explanations: Strength for damage and because I don’t plan to take arcane strike (explained in greater detail later) so I’ll need the damage boost here. Dexterity should be self-evident. Constitution because a bonus to fort saves and hp is always nice (and I plan on taking skill points for the favored class option). Intelligence because he’s a skill monkey. Wisdom I didn’t want to drop below 8 because in Pathfinder, failing will saves pretty much always sucks. Finally, Charisma is 14 because I plan on boosting it at levels four and eight to get a proper 16, then enhance it with a +2 Charisma ioun stone for the 18 I need to keep a bonus level 4 spell (the highest level spells I’ll get to in PFS play).
Skills: With the favored class bonus as a skill point, this character is looking at 10 skill points per level. Over the first four levels, I plan to get at least 1 rank in each knowledge skill, and over time build up to about 6 ranks in Arcana, Nature, Local, and Planes so he will be competent at all knowledge checks and very likely to identify and know something valuable during creature encounters.
Other than that, versatile performances will include Oratory (Diplomacy, Sense Motive)at level 2 and Comedy (Bluff, Disguise) at 6, with Dance (Acrobatics, Fly) kicking in at level 10.
Headband bonuses will cover perception and, eventually, escape artist. Other than that, I intend to follow linguistics (character flavor and forgery for fun), stealth, and UMD closely. Odd choices I intend, skip intimidate, and have only 1 rank in climb (activate class skill) and 1 in spellcraft (with the intention being to have a wand of identify on hand if I need to start doing item identification). Oh, will also have a trait for ride as a class skill and should have a +17 or so modifier to it around level 10.
Feats:
Level 1: Point Blank
Human Bonus: Rapid Shot
3: Precise Shot
5: Deadly Aim
7: Skill Focus (Oratory) – WHAT, I know, I know, why isn’t arcane strike here. Remember, the idea here is a party and skill focused character, and this means +3 to my perform check (nice for distracting song if my party is befuddled by illusion as well as day job rolls) and bonus to two very important PFS skills, diplomacy and sense motive. That this increases to +6 at level 10 just about seals the deal for this concept over a +2 (+3 at level 11) increase in damage on each arrow. If this wasn’t PFS, arcane strike for sure, but that’s the reason I’m skipping strike (also, my BAB isn’t high enough for manyshot yet).
9: Manyshot (duh)
11: Now level 11 has all kinds of interesting options for feats, and I haven’t decided yet. Arcane Strike is of course very tempting, but consider a few other options as well. At this point his UMD skill is +21, so he can make many checks without much difficulty already, but skill focus in this would just seal the deal. Then, I noticed the prodigy feat, which gives +2 (+4 with 10 ranks) in any two craft, profession, or PERFORM skills. …….. oh BABY, another +4 to two perform skills in addition to diplomacy, bluff, sense motive, and disguise? With that you’d be looking at a +31 perform oratory and +25 perform dance at level 11. The extra damage from arcane strike would be sweet, but oh man is that tempting, and please throw out some other ideas I may not have considered (mounted combat is always interesting, and he’ll have a trait to make it a class skill and quite high by level 10 with plans to use a phantom steed).
Spells: I won’t go into exhaustive detail here, but some at each level I’m most interested in for skill/party aid benefits include:
Level 1: Grease, Innocence, liberating command, saving finale. Feather step and invigorate (and their mass versions) I like more as a scroll option.
Level 2: Glitterdust (stupid useful spell), honeyed tongue, mirror image, silence.
Level 3: Haste (of course), good hope (remember it stacks with inspire courage for hit and damage though not saves as that’s a moral bonus as well), glibness (oh yeah), phantom steed, and terrible remorse (depending on how cheesy I’m feeling even after the errata).
Level 4: Dimension door (cause rings of freedom are EXPENSIVE), freedom of movement
There are others I’m interested in but this makes up a list of spells I consider central to this character concept. Also, I plan on supplementing this with a freaking battery of scrolls across many classes, wands (mainly level 1 options), and plenty of potions.
Other thoughts: That lays out most of my plans so far, so here I thought I’d toss in some extra tidbits I was thinking of that just seem cool:
1. So I get a composite shortbow early in life, woohoo. Since I’ll likely skip arcane strike, my damage isn’t anything to write home about, but hey, lesser bracers of archery get me that longbow proficiency I’m after, and while that is only a slight bonus to damage output, the icing comes from using UMD to invoke scrolls of gravity bow. Now, instead of 1d6 damage on my shortbow, when I need it I’m rocking 2d6 per arrow damage on my gravitated long bow for a minute at a time. Won’t be always, but that’s a nice damage boost I should be able to swing more often than not.
2. Oil of weapon of awe: 3 minutes of +2 sacred bonus to damage on each arrow and target is auto shaken on a critical hit. Not bad for when I have a moment to prepare for combat.
3. Giving some thought to possibly doing the Animal Speaker archetype from Ultimate Magic since it doesn’t give up inspire courage (though you do lose lore master, inspire competence and well-versed). The gain is quite nice, though, and offers some fun options that might be worth the trade since I’m capped at level 12 here.
Wrapping it up: There are quite a few other ideas I’ll get to later thanks to UMD opening up all kinds of options, but let me leave this garbled mess here for now and see what discussion and ideas come about because I’ve been looking forward to playing a face/skill-based character and am quite interested in new ideas that we generate here.