|
For my next gaming session I've rolled up a 14th level human bard. His stats are approximately as follows after level-gained bonuses: 12 STR, 16 DEX, 12 CON, 16 INT, 10 WIS, 20 CHA.
What would be some good feat choices if I wanted to focus on his magic or skills? Human bards (choosing bard as the favored class) can get a lot of skill ranks.
In this case, I was designing the character after a Lasher I made back in 3.0. I've selected the following for him: Agile Maneuvers, Combat Expertise, Improved Trip, Greater Trip, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Defensive Combat Training, and Lunge. With this build, he has a decent modifier to his CMB when attempting a trip attack (even though the whip only gives a bonus to disarm attempts). He can trip from 20 feet away and raise his AC by 8 when using Dodge, Combat Expertise, and the Fighting Defensively option. If he trips an enemy, they provoke AoOs from anyone near them (but not the bard, using only the whip) when they fall down and again when they stand (unless they make a high Acrobatics check).
It would be helpful if there were Pathfinder weapon enchants that added to trip, disarm, or sunder, but I understand the first book doesn't have room for everything.
Let's see...
Combat expertise will subtract 3 from your BAB, Agile Manuever's gives you 3 back from for tripping, + 2 from improved trip fighting defensively subtracts 4 from your BAB... so your CMB for tripping will be:
+10 BAB
-3 Combat expertise
+3 Agile Manuevers
+2 Improved Trip
-4 Fighting Defensively
= +8
Against a DC minimum of 23 (15 + 7 poor BAB)
And your AC modifier will be:
Base AC
+ 3 Combat Expertise
- 4 Lunge
+ 2 Fighting Defensively
+ 1 Dodge
= Base AC + 2
Also remember that if you are in melee when you attack with a whip you will provoke an AoO (if you say a trip is not an attack then you can't use combat expertise, fighting defensively, or lunge while tripping because those only work with an attack).
As for advice:
I would suggest arcane strike, it takes up your swift action but it doesn't cost anything else and will add 3 to your damage. Not much but add in the music and so on and it pumps up fairly nicely.
The new dragon disciple could be a nice choice too.
Good analysis by Abraham spalding.
OP: Are you sure you want to invest that much of your build to have a 30% chance to trip easily-tripped foes, and much less chance to trip the majority of the foes you fight?
The trick, I've discovered, to playing a bard is to pick one thing besides bardic music to specialize in, since there's really not many decisions one can make to improve bardic music, save maybe Words of Creation or Song of the Heart if your campaign includes them.
Melee, ranged, or spellcasting... skills somewhat come automatically.
So you've chosen another niche, a trip specialist. Good idea, but you'll be running into the problem every trip specialist begins to face at high levels: more and more monsters can fly, and thus can't effectively be tripped, at high levels.
But there's hope!
Specializing in both tripping and disarming might be a better path. If a ground-based creature is holding a weapon, and it's disarmed, the weapon drops to its feet, and can be picked up as a move action. But if a flying creature is disarmed, the weapon lands much farther away, requiring at least two move actions to recover.
-Matt
Actually, after some reevaluation I'd probably want to pick up the ranseur(I think) for the reach and trip bonus it gives. The additional 5 feet with a whip is nice, but lacking lethal damage isn't.
The stats I offered were before purchasing magic items, so that is also left open for suggestions.
Not to put you back onto a questionable path of tactical melee failure, but you might want to check out the whip-dagger, a version of a whip that has a dagger at the end for doing lethal damage. It's in one of the splat books (I think it might have been Sword & Fist but don't hold me to that - I think it's also in the Arms and Equipment Guide).
Also note that if you have the strength for it, daggers, including whip-daggers, can be made "mighty" to allow you to gain your strength damage modifier.
I am not sure if I have seen it in a 3.5 source, and maybe the DM won't allow it, but it might be worth looking into.
The whip-dagger was reprinted for 3.5 in Dragon 353 for the Demonomicon of Iggwilv: Malcanthet. Thank you James for legitimatizing the whip dagger's use in 3.5. I've loved the whip-dagger since sword and fists.
If you want to focus on spells, here's what I would suggest for a Bard:
1st level - Point Blank Shot
3rd level - Precise Shot
5th level - Spell Focus (Enchantment)
7th level - Leadership
9th level - Spell Penetration
11th level - Greater Spell Focus (Enchantment)
13th level - Greater Spell Penetration
The first two feats will allow you to safely shoot arrows at your enemies from a distance until you start getting better spells. Spell Focus comes in at 5th level to help you with your Suggestion spells, Leadership lets you pick up a pet Cleric to help you out at 7th level, and the remainder of the other Feats helps you land your Enchantment spells against targets at higher levels.
For your next three Feats, consider taking things like Craft Magical Arms and Armor, Eschew Materials, Improved Initiative, and Great Fortitude or Improved Great Fortitude.
You could always go for Illusion instead of Enchantment, at which point you'll need to decide if you want to keep the Spell Penetration Feats for Shadow Evocations and Conjurations, or if you want to replace them with other Feats altogether.