Oh there you go Velderan, trying to be all diplomatic and a team player...
Hey! You're really a bard aren't you?
Cheers
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If we stick to 3.5 PHB rules, there's not much in terms of feats to support the development of an interesting bard.
However, 3.5 D&D "Complete" books did a great job at expanding the bard, with the myriad of substitution levels, feats and PrCs, one could make a truly "balanced" bard (i.e. in comparative terms with the power level of other core classes, I mean).
My personal favorite is a bard/lyric_thaumaturge/sublime_chord combo... another good one was the Virtuoso (not sure if that was just 3.0 or if they brought it to 3.5 too...)
A current good example of a nicely powered bard is within the main campaign of the NWN2 video game: the gnome bard - Grobnar - has a really good selection of bardic music powers (more than PHB, such as Ironskin Chant, Inspire Defense, etc.)
Hmmm... I wonder where the video game designers picked those powers from, as most stuff from this game is based on actual 3.5 D&D rules...
Anyhow: if the Golarion/Pathfinder bards are restricted to PHB rules, it will suck. I hope Paizo invents more bardic feats and new applications of the bardic music ability in the future...
PS: not understanding the situation a 100% here, but basically, why is it that Paizo can't use the Complete books in their RPG books and in the Adventure Path NPC builds?
PS2: I'm currently playing a bard in the Pathfinder Society campaign, and I find that the "PHB only" rule for this campaign makes it very hard to play a mechanically-interesting bard... wish I had more bardic music abilities, skill applications and bardic feats available to him.
PS3: by the way, will non-PHB builds ever be allowed for use within the Pathfinder Society? (swashbucklers, favored souls, PrCs, etc.)
Technically as a player the only thing that stops you from using the splat books as they are called is your DM.
Pathfinder may be able to support conversion of that material, however unless they get Wizards of the Coast's permission to use that material it is protected by copyright. Only "Core" material is opened up by the Open gaming Lisense (OGL), so that is the only material pathfinder can offically work with.
Which is why, while a lot of the splat book stuff would work well here we can't use it for improving the base bard in the pathfinder book.
It would be my hope that the Pathfinder RPG - while technically being "backwards compatible" - is sufficiently strong on its own that it has no need to sweat that compatibility. I would rather integrate choice selections into the campaign 'manually' than use PFRPG and attempt to fully integrate the splatbooks into that rules set...
I'll lose fewer SAN points that way.
Oh there you go Velderan, trying to be all diplomatic and a team player...
Hey! You're really a bard aren't you?
Cheers
Hehe...I actually was trying to help, given dev. feedback.
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I'm liking the suggestions above, would let you tailor your bard to a particular kind of performance/bardic music ability.
perhaps something on the order of
Oratory/Singing/Strings: Enchantment stuff, Inspire Courage, Heroics, Etc..
Dance/Comedy/Tumbling: Movement stuff, Bonus to AC, extra speed, grant allies extra movement, etc.
Writing/Painting: Scrolls, Magic Items, Knowledge bonuses, skill "tricks" or mimicry of other abilities (Channel Energy, etc)
Would expand the bard class to the point where you really COULD build a bard to do ANYTHING, or if desired, a little bit of EVERYTHING.
-t
Ok, can I make a suggestion? Having re-read this based on your request, I don't think all of this dilettante stuff is bad. In fact, some of it, including rogue talents seems good. Why don't you start a new thread suggesting these Dilettante talents, without the "not a musician" component, discussing how something like this could be incorporated into the existing class instead of as a nonperforming variant? That might be a nice way to keep on track and keep from alienating other posters.
For those that haven't seen it, the thread Velderan requested has been created and there's already a great discussion going on. So move over there and weigh in. This thread is pretty much closed.
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simply put, bards are annoying in there current setup. no one want one in any game i play in or run. We dont want a singing dancing guy giving us moral support PICK UP A SWORD AND START HELPING! the use of speech as a performance only goes so far. a magical music man really only fits into so many games. a jack of all trade can fit in most, however. sure you can have an instrument, its a great way of making some quick coin on the road. I just dont want a magical dance to put me in the mood for killin.
Jack of all trades me, or Redmage me but dont Bard me (yes you can still use the bard name, I dont remember my history class informing me of ancient bards ability to give bonuses to hit and damage.