This Bard template looks really cool (although it really ends up not being a bard at all). So has anyone play tested the Dervish Dancer template. If so please give me some feedback. :)
Haven't tried it, but to be honest the Dawnflower Dervish puts it to shame. ;)
What book's that in?
Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea Magic
Creative Director
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The thing to keep in mind with the Dawnflower Dervish, of course, is that overall, your bardic performance is going to do LESS damage overall. It's basically a "selfish bard" archetype. You're the only one who gets the damage bonus, and until higher levels, you effectively lose a round of combat activating bardic performance anyway (since it's a standard action to activate bardic performances—a typical bard can fire it up and his allies can get bonuses immediately, whereas the dervish dancer has to wait a round before getting to use it until higher levels... save for the possibility of attacks of opportunity, I guess). So overall... the Dawnflower Dervish's change to inspire courage is actually, I would say, a slight nerf to the class—one that is made up for by the fact that you get free access to a pretty great feat.
It's still a fun class—I'm actually playing a Dawnflower Dervish in Erik's game—but it does play a bit different than a normal bard. And you WILL annoy some other players who think that your character's there to help them just because you're a bard.
The thing to keep in mind with the Dawnflower Dervish, of course, is that overall, your bardic performance is going to do LESS damage overall. It's basically a "selfish bard" archetype. You're the only one who gets the damage bonus, and until higher levels, you effectively lose a round of combat activating bardic performance anyway (since it's a standard action to activate bardic performances—a typical bard can fire it up and his allies can get bonuses immediately, whereas the dervish dancer has to wait a round before getting to use it until higher levels... save for the possibility of attacks of opportunity, I guess). So overall... the Dawnflower Dervish's change to inspire courage is actually, I would say, a slight nerf to the class—one that is made up for by the fact that you get free access to a pretty great feat.
It's still a fun class—I'm actually playing a Dawnflower Dervish in Erik's game—but it does play a bit different than a normal bard. And you WILL annoy some other players who think that your character's there to help them just because you're a bard.
FYI: It's a move action to activate the Dawnflower Dervish's dance, and changes to a swift action at 10th level. ;-)
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Dervish Dance tides you over until about 5th or 6th level, at which point you can afford a +1/Agile weaponry. After that, it saves on not having Weapon Finesse (if you don't, as via Dawnflower), but limited by inability to TWF or apply Piranha Strike in a DEX build.
It's good, but only to the extent it permits a STR-dumper build to be viable in the baby levels.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Dervish Dance tides you over until about 5th or 6th level, at which point you can afford a +1/Agile weaponry. After that, it saves on not having Weapon Finesse (if you don't, as via Dawnflower), but limited by inability to TWF or apply Piranha Strike in a DEX build.
It's good, but only to the extent it permits a STR-dumper build to be viable in the baby levels.
Well, also, that 6,000gp that you would've spent on an Agile enhancement can go to something else instead, like Flaming or Bane.
And as a minor point, you can't Agile a scimitar, meaning the guy going with Agile more than likely uses a piercing weapon as his main, and personally I'd rather use slashing.
I'm playing a halfling dawnflower dervish (str 6, dex 19) in our Jade Regent game we're just starting. At 1st (and now 2nd) level its been fun to make everyone else do all the 'heavy lifting' while at the same time being the main damage dealer for the party (at least for now).