I've been bouncing around the idea of an Urban Barbarian / Dervish Dancer bard for a little while now. Here's what I've come up with, up to level 3.
We'll start with Human for the bonus feat, though cases can be made for other choices (anything with a bonus to Dex would probably be okay). Let's assume a 20 point buy. I tend to take the following array: 16,14,14,12,10,8. Stats become:
Str: 12
Dex: 18 (+2 racial)
Con: 14
Int: 10
Wis: 8
Cha: 14
Note that it is probably better to have a 13 in Str to open up the option for Power Attack. Whether this is through the ability score increase at 4th level, or during point buy is debatable.
Level 1: Start off with a barbarian level (Urban barbarian archetype) for the +1 BAB, controlled rage, and 14 HP (max HP at 1st gives 12 plus 2 con). Our two feats will be Weapon Finesse and Weapon Focus (scimitar). At this level, with our scimitar, we have a few options for attacking while raging. If we put all of our rage into Dex, we have an attack of +8 for 1d6+1 damage (+9 attack when in melee with 2 enemies). Putting our bonus in strength, we have +6 for 1d6+3 damage. And splitting it gives us +7 for 1d6+2 damage.
Level 2: We'll now take a level of Dervish Dancer bard, which gives us spells, Battle Dance (inspire courage more specifically), and Fleet for +10 speed with battle dancing. Now we can rage and battle dance at the same time, so our damage and attack from before increases by +1 each.
Level 3: Here's where it gets good. We now qualify for Dervish Dance (since we put two ranks in Perform [Dance]). This allows us to use our Dex for damage with our scimitar. Forget using our rage on Str now, its all Dex all the time. We have a +10 to attack (+4 Dex, +2 Rage, +2 BAB, +1 weapon focus, +1 inspire courage) which bumps up to a +11 if adjacent to two or more foes. Our damage is now up to 1d6+7 (+4 dex, +2 rage, +1 inspire courage).
Future Feats: If we revise our point buy to have a 13 str, Power Attack is an important choice. Extra Rage is probably a necessity. The standard Iron Will, Greater Fortitude, Lightning Reflexes, Dodge, and Toughness are good choices as always. What else?
From here out, I am thinking it is best to just stick with bard levels, but I would be open to ideas. Should we dip again in barbarian for a rage power? Which one? Any dips anywhere else?
I imagine this is not the most optimal build, nor what I trying to make it one. I just liked the synergy with the urban barbarian and the bard class. What other classes could benefit greatly from a dip into the urban barbarian? Feel free to post your own build ideas to expand upon this one.
The Dawnflower Dervish from Inner Sea Magic (I believe) gets Dervish Dance for free, but Dervish Dancer from UC does not. The reason I went with Dervish Dancer is because it is from a more core book, and because originally the idea came about for a Skull and Shackles campaign and I didn't want to be forced to worship Sarenrae.
Very true though. You could definitely go Dawnflower Dervish and free up some different feats, if you don't mind worshiping Sarenrae. Perhaps this character would be better suited for Legacy of Fire!
Dervish Dancer requires two ranks in Perform(Dance) if I recall.
Nevermind, I see the OP already accounted for it.
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Ahh, ok. You're right that I was getting the two archetypes mixed up. I've only briefly glanced at both, though I've considered making a bard like that, probably as a Dawnflower Dervish, not Dervish Dancer.
Combining it with Urban Barbarian sounds interesting - dex up the wazoo while making all your bonuses for attacking rely on dex. What ratio of bard to barbarian levels are you thinking? Is one the primary class and the other just a dip for a level or two, or would you actually go roughly equal levels in both classes?
This combo might actually make the fabled bardbarian into something resembling a well optimized combo class.
I think taking most of the levels in bard, in order to gain the increases in Inspire Courage and such, would be the best. I haven't taken the build past sixth level, really, and at that point I was at Barb 1/Bard 5. However, dipping into level 2 Barb would probably be a good idea for Uncanny Dodge and a Rage Power (which power is up to debate). A third level dip isn't going to be all that helpful except for the increase to BAB. Trap sense is good, but not always necessary (like if you have a rogue in your party already). If you take barbarian up to level 5 you get two rage powers and improved uncanny dodge, but I wouldn't go any further than that, and you would also be missing out on 6th level bard spells. Inspire Courage goes to +4 at level 17.
About Dawnflower Dervish vs. Dervish Dancer... Dawnflower Dervish seems to give benefits for those that wish to cast more often (bonus to concentration checks and quicken spell at 8th level). Dervish Dancer is geared towards the combat (fleet, Dance of Fury, etc). So I suppose if you were to go with Dawnflower Dervish, you may want to focus more on Bard for the spells, where Dervish Dancer may be more geared towards taking more Barbarian levels.
This would take a lot of thinking and would probably depend on the campaign you are playing in anyway, but it may be beneficial to go up to level 8 in barbarian for the better rage powers. You'll still have access to Dance of Fury as a Dervish Dancer bard, at 20th level.
Deciding when to take the levels will depend on what your party needs while you play. But I would always start with Barbarian 1/Bard 1, I think, and maybe take the third level as barbarian.
Should look at the Piranah Strike feat instead of power attack.. Same thing but for dex instead of str.. That would allow u to dump str alittle more
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Should look at the Piranah Strike feat instead of power attack.. Same thing but for dex instead of str.. That would allow u to dump str alittle more
Scimitar isn't a light weapon, and as such can't be used with Piranha Strike. So it's gotta be Power Attack.
I've been working on a Dawnflower Dervish Bard with 1 level in Urban Barbarian. The synergy is pretty amazing.
Why not just go with Pirahna strike, forget power attack and dump all into dexterity?
I've been bouncing around the idea of an Urban Barbarian / Dervish Dancer bard for a little while now. Here's what I've come up with, up to level 3.
We'll start with Human for the bonus feat, though cases can be made for other choices (anything with a bonus to Dex would probably be okay). Let's assume a 20 point buy. I tend to take the following array: 16,14,14,12,10,8. Stats become:
Str: 12
Dex: 18 (+2 racial)
Con: 14
Int: 10
Wis: 8
Cha: 14Note that it is probably better to have a 13 in Str to open up the option for Power Attack. Whether this is through the ability score increase at 4th level, or during point buy is debatable.
Level 1: Start off with a barbarian level (Urban barbarian archetype) for the +1 BAB, controlled rage, and 14 HP (max HP at 1st gives 12 plus 2 con). Our two feats will be Weapon Finesse and Weapon Focus (scimitar). At this level, with our scimitar, we have a few options for attacking while raging. If we put all of our rage into Dex, we have an attack of +8 for 1d6+1 damage (+9 attack when in melee with 2 enemies). Putting our bonus in strength, we have +6 for 1d6+3 damage. And splitting it gives us +7 for 1d6+2 damage.
Level 2: We'll now take a level of Dervish Dancer bard, which gives us spells, Battle Dance (inspire courage more specifically), and Fleet for +10 speed with battle dancing. Now we can rage and battle dance at the same time, so our damage and attack from before increases by +1 each.
Level 3: Here's where it gets good. We now qualify for Dervish Dance (since we put two ranks in Perform [Dance]). This allows us to use our Dex for damage with our scimitar. Forget using our rage on Str now, its all Dex all the time. We have a +10 to attack (+4 Dex, +2 Rage, +2 BAB, +1 weapon focus, +1 inspire courage) which bumps up to a +11 if adjacent to two or more foes. Our damage is now up to 1d6+7 (+4 dex, +2 rage, +1 inspire courage).
Future Feats: If we revise our point buy to have a 13 str, Power...
Ninja'd.