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Here's a post from someone who played a melee bard from levels 1 through 15. He emphasizes how awesome the inferior-seeming longspear can be for a Bard. It also works great with the Flagbearer feat. This gives your entire team +2 +2 combat bonuses from first level, for the win.

Great thread, thanks a bunch for the link.

I played a melee bard from level 1-12 and I can attest to the awesomeness of the longspear for this kind of character.

Did you do this with an Arcane Duelist?

For a support bard who is also good in melee, Arcane Duelist is the way to go. For a melee bard that can do some support, Dawnflower dervish is what you want.

This seems like a pretty good way to put it. It seems like I just need to figure out which I'd rather do.

A dex based aasimar savage scald would be a compromise between the supportive and the melee bard, with a clear emphasis on the supportive part. Use a rapier and shield and your alt. racial class bonus on inspire courage.

Would you mind giving me an idea of what this would look like? I haven't looked too much into the finesse feats yet and this sounds really interesting.

Found out some more about the grp if it hrlps at all. Greatsword using ranger, conjuration school wizard and a plague bringer alchemist.

Still so undecided. I don't want lose inspire as grp buffs but dervish really looks so much better.

Thanks for all the advice so far, still lots to think about.

Is it better to focus on power strike and a 2hander with arcane duelist or dex and TWF?

Oh and I was able to get a 20 pb! So that makes things a bit easier.

Have you thought about Arcane Duelist 5/Dragon Disciple4/Rest???

Grab a longspear, wear a buckler, you keep inspire courage and get Arcane Strike as bonus feat and a bonded item (see wizard).
You lose some of the vanilla bard stuff (esp. the knowledge/skill-related stuff).
With Dragon Disciple you add +4 to Str, some Natural Armor, natural attacks (bite, 2 claws for a couple of rounds/day) and better hp.

Ruyan.

That is a cool combo but I wouldn't be able have a roleplaying justification for it.

Makes me realize just how many combinations I haven't looked at. It sucks being new. :p

Yeah that was my biggest worry about the two dervish builds. I really would like to inspire the group if possible. I haven't looked into savage skald yet maybe I'll read up some on them. For race I'd like to stick with human or aasimar most likely. Any other thoughts on the arcane duelist? They don't seem to be well liked.

Don't think I'm interested in any cavalier levels, not much interested in the class.

With a 15 point buy you cannot expect to go for TWF feats with a Str based bard. It is nice in theory but in practise you need to be high lvl in order to reap the benefits of the TWF or even archery style as a dawnflower dervish.

I say start with a Dex build and use a Scimitar. The feat invested in TWF or archery can be invested in other useful staff. This way you will be effective at every stage of the game, instead of waiting with useless feats until the high lvls in order to shine.

For example, you could take Eldrich Heritage (Arcane) and Improved Familiar and have Faerie Dragon casting haste on you without losing your own actions.

Azata Blooded Aassimar, 15 pb

STR 10
DEX 18
CON 12
INT 10
WIS 8
CHA 16

Would a 20 pb open up more options? How would you go about that?

Thanks for the advice so far. Working on the Azata Blooded Aasimar Dawnflower Dervish right now. Kind of bummed about not being able to inspire courage on the group but it does look like the best match for what I want to do.

Pet bard sounds kind of neat, but not really the concept I have in mind.

Lvl, pointbuy, others in group?

Helps if we have more information

Beginning at level 1 and playing Rise of the Runelords. We'll be doing a 15 point buy (may be able to change this if I ask). Unfortunately I don't know the party composition yet besides there will be one other melee. Not playing PFS.

Melee is my first priority, support is my second.

With a dawnflower dervish that doesn't go with the scimitar, do you just wait until agile weapon for dex bonus then or do you use a str build and ignore the feat altogether?

I'm new to Pathfinder and am looking to build a bard that is both melee and support. I've been looking through arcane duelist, dervish dancer and dawnflower dervish but really can't decide which one is best for what I want. There will only be two melee characters in our group (including my bard) so I think I'm leaning to one of the dervish archetypes. Any advice you guys can provide?