Inspired from 2ed. Enjoy.
Among the Northlanders dwell wild bardic musicians who live for two-things: poetry and warfare. Accompanying heroes of great renown, these warrior skalds call their inner rage to fight at their sides while composing the epics that will be told for centuries to come.
Advantages
Rage: The skald can rage like a barbarian, his effective barbarian levels being his bard levels to determine duration.
Rage powers: The skald gains one rage power every 4 levels, his effective barbarian levels being his bard levels to determine duration.
Battle howler: At level 10, the skald can rage while using bardic performace. This ability replaces the jack+of-all-trades bard ability.
Drawbacks
Lore Master: The skald loses this class ability.
Jack of all trades: The skald loses this class ability.
Skills: The bard only gets 4 skill points per level. Add swim and survival to his class list. Remove escape artist.
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The Blade is an expert fighter and adventurer whose bardic acting abilities make him appear more intimidating and fearsome. His fighting style is flashy and entertaining but, enhanced with magic, also quite deadly.
Advantages
Spellblade: At level 1 and at every even level thereafter, the blade adds 1 spell of his choice chosen from the sorcerer's list to his bard spell list (not known spells list). This spell must be from the evocation or conjuration school and must be of a level he can cast.
Combat prowress: The Blade can chose fighter feats as if he were a fighter of his Blade level.
Weapon and armor training : The blade gets the fighter abilitis weapon training and armor training as a fighter half his level.
Offensive Spin: At level 4, when using bardic performance, the bard can spend one extra rounds of it to grant himself a bonus to all attacks equal to his charisma bonus. At the end of his offensive spin, he will be tired for a number of rounds equal to twice the number of rounds spent in an offensive spin.
Defensive spin: At level 13, when using bardic performance, the bard can spend one extra round of it to grant himself a dodge bonus to his armor class equal to his charisma bonus. At the end of his defensive spin, he will be tired for a number of rounds equal to twice the number of rounds spent in an defensive spin.
Notes: At lv16th, the blade is no longer tired after using his spin abilities. If both are used simultaneously, the tired effects stack and double in duration.
Spellstrike: At level 20, whenever the Blade scores a critical hit, his next spell his affected by a metamagic feat for which he can qualify for free.
To use this with quicken spell and arcane strike, we have introduced an improved arcane strike feat by the way.
Drawbacks
Bardic Knowledge: The blade loses this class ability.
Lore Master: The blade loses this class ability.
Jack of all trades: The blade loses this class ability.
Inspire competence: The blade loses this class ability.
Deadly performance: The blade loses this class ability.
Skills: The blade only gets 4 skill points per level.
Some of the blade abilities' level (4, 13) are there to fill gaps and to not unbalance things by introducing them too soon (which I admit could also be done by limiting bonuses by class level or not allowing both spins to be used togetehr until a certain level is reached)
Balanced?
I'm thinking the blade might be getting too much for what he gives up >.>
Thanks. I think I'll just remove weapon and armor trainning to make it more balanced and simple and that's about it.
Lets get some additional comments on this, shall we people.