|
I've been looking through the Faction Guide and I saw the Ninth Battalion had a number of new bard songs that you can pay prestige awards to gain. One of is called “Taargick and the Quest
for Sky". It basically gives all allies a number of temporary hp = to your bard level. At the end of the song the temporary hp are removed. So can you simply stop and restart the song every round to keep refreshing the temporary hp? Effectively giving your party DR = your bard level? At early levels this would cost your standard action every round, but later it would only cost your move or swift action. This seems incredibly powerful.
|
Well, efficiency of action is pretty big in the game.
At higher levels, sacrificing your move action means losing a full-round action. Using a swift action means not getting to cast that extra quickened spell, or activate a plethora of other abilities.
When you're referring to songs, are you referring to initiation a performance, or are you referring to an additional ability that you can only use during performance.
Starting the performance is a standard action. At 7th, it's a move action. at 13th, it's a swift action. So at 7th, you're giving up an additional attack or two, or the ability to cast full-round casting time spells in order to provide 7 points of damage prevention per round to your party. Average high damage of a cr 9 creature is 40.
At 13th, your swift action could be used for arcane strike, a quickened spell, or a plethora of other feats. Instead, you're providing 13 temporary hitpoints. Average high damage of a cr 15 creature is 70.
Generally speaking, while there may be times when the temporary hitpoints are a winning strategy, most of the time it's more economical to use those actions and abilities to kill the enemy faster so he has fewer rounds to deal damage in.
|
|
Well, efficiency of action is pretty big in the game.
At higher levels, sacrificing your move action means losing a full-round action. Using a swift action means not getting to cast that extra quickened spell, or activate a plethora of other abilities.
When you're referring to songs, are you referring to initiation a performance, or are you referring to an additional ability that you can only use during performance.
Starting the performance is a standard action. At 7th, it's a move action. at 13th, it's a swift action. So at 7th, you're giving up an additional attack or two, or the ability to cast full-round casting time spells in order to provide 7 points of damage prevention per round to your party. Average high damage of a cr 9 creature is 40.
At 13th, your swift action could be used for arcane strike, a quickened spell, or a plethora of other feats. Instead, you're providing 13 temporary hitpoints. Average high damage of a cr 15 creature is 70.
Generally speaking, while there may be times when the temporary hitpoints are a winning strategy, most of the time it's more economical to use those actions and abilities to kill the enemy faster so he has fewer rounds to deal damage in.
The primary purpose of the bard( as far as I can tell ) is not to deal damage. While you may not be able to use a quickened spell or the like, I'm pretty sure your group would agree that preventing 13 damage from effecting every party member is fairly substantial. You aren't likely to face a single max cr enemy as often as you'll face a few lesser enemies. If every encounter is the big bad, then you don't really have a big baddy.
Thinking of this a different way, average die roll for a 4d channel is 14. So at 14th lvl you are effectively providing the same benefit as a 7th lvl cleric channeling every round except you can use it far more often. Seems like there really isn't a reason not to use it.
...Thinking of this a different way, average die roll for a 4d channel is 14. So at 14th lvl you are effectively providing the same benefit as a 7th lvl cleric channeling every round except you can use it far more often. Seems like there really isn't a reason not to use it.
How does this trump +3 to hit and damage and certain saves for everyone?
Unless you can prevent the death of a PC with it, this seems not very useful as you are equally effective at 1 HP and at 100 HP.
I would rate this song as mediocre and only to be used under special circumstances, at best it would make a nice starter song in a surprise round where many of your party members are flat footed and you are not and have the highest initiative...