I can't speak to the AP, but what level/terrain you gonna be in?
It depends on what you want to do really.
The normal bard should work, as well as the archaeologist, or the detective.
Personally I would go with one of the first two.
Which one to choose depends on what the rest of the party has and do you prefer to buff them or fight.
Thankfully I can't give any spoilers 'cause I haven't read the AP, but I did get the "vibe" of it and just checked out the free player's guide to make sure, and the tip I was going to suggest is one mentioned in there:
"Those who focus entirely on enchantment or mind-affecting effects may find parts of the adventure path challenging; at least passing skill in combat or the ability to magically enhance allies will come in handy."
They recommend the Archivist, Detective, and Magician archetypes. I recommend no archetype. But that may be because I'm a newbie when it comes to archetypes.
I'm also wondering if you took a level of Sorcerer with the undead bloodline, if the bloodline benefits would apply to all your Bard spells/Su abilities as well.
Undine watersinger might be cool then. It is a ARG archetype, but really depends on how much water, and what your group comp is.
It would apply to the bard spell if the undead bloodline was taken, but undead traditionally have very high will saves. This does not help the fact that bard spells are not as high as full caster spells, level wise, and the base save of a spell is based off of the spell level.
The core bard is the best all around bard though IMHO.
Be an arcane duelist. They are fairly competent melee combatants and get some really good bardic performance capabilities. If you can go for unusual races a suli might be a lot of fun. They get a +2 STR, +2 CHA, and -2 INT. It means they won't be great with skills, but the arcane duelist is not really about skills anyway. Also, the sulis get the ability to add energy damage to their melee attacks. It is rather meh as is, but there is a new feat from the ARG that lets them break up the duration.
If you can't do an unusual race, humans, half-elves, and half-orcs would all work fine as an arcane duelist.
CC is a easier with social skill and knowledge checks. I would not ignore them unless someone else has it covered.
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I'm surprised no one has suggested Dirge Bard yet. Let me be the first! It's an amazing class.
Secrets of the Grave (Ex)
At 2nd level, a dirge bard gains a bonus equal to half his bard level on Knowledge (religion) checks made to identify undead creatures and their abilities. A dirge bard may use mind-affecting spells to affect undead as if they were living creatures, even if they are mindless (though spells that affect only humanoids do not affect them, even if they were humanoids in life). In addition, he may add one necromancy spell from the spell list of any arcane spellcasting class to his list of spells known at 2nd level and every four levels thereafter.
This ability replaces versatile performance.
In my opinion the most powerful spells/abilities a bard has at their disposal is mind effecting, and with this class you get to ignore that pesky undead immunity to mind effecting. Worth a consideration at the least.
I just rolled a dirge bard to replace another pc in carrion crown.
Nice and fitting archetype for that AP.
Undead with their high will saves are not worried about mind affects, except for the mindless ones. :)
The dirge bard is not only about mind affecting undead.
Maybe, but that was the prime reason the last poster gave. I have not looked at them in a while honestly, but if we are looking at mechanics only using mind affects on undead would make them a good replacement, IMO.
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Yes undead do have decent saves vs mind effecting. They are also have:
Immunity to any effect that requires a Fortitude save (unless the effect also works on objects or is harmless).
The class strong point vs undead is that you get more options when picking what to do verses them. Not disagreeing with you, wraithstrike, just clarifying what my intention was.