First off, since I am playing in a campaign that revolves around politics and roleplaying, I am not worried about being useless or underpowered.
That being said, I want to build a bard based on Harry Houdini. I want to remove all access to spells and substitute with some thing else.
I still want him to be able to combat song/vocal attacks, etc. But I want him to be able to do so through the power of his presence and possibly mesmerism/counter-hypnosis.
I like playing challenging PCs. I just need some more ideas.