Melee Bard Spell and Magic Item Suggestions please

[Captain Sir Hexen Ineptus]

Hello, I am currently play an Arcane Dualist. I am loving it, but I don't know about a lot of the newer stuff out there.

I am looking for spells that add bonuses to hit and/or damage to all melee attacks.

I could also use some suggestions on magic items out there that might help in this endeavour.

Thank you,
-Hexen

[Captain Sir Hexen Ineptus]

Any suggestions at all from the non-core rule book as to combat spells or any particularly good bard items would be great!

Thank you

[Deyvantius]

Power Attack, Dervish Dance, Weapon Focus, what are your stats/focus?

[Captain Sir Hexen Ineptus]

Catfolk (No variants)

Arcane Dualist: 20
Item Bond Klar

Str 18 (+5 from leveling)
Dex 17
Con 13
Int 7
Wis 10
Cha 16

C1 Arcane Strike
1 Two Weapon Fighting
C-2 Combat Casting
3 Improved Shield Bash
5 Weapon Focus: Klar
C-6 Disruptive
7 Shield Slam
9 Imp. Two Weapon Fighting
C-10 Spell Breaking
11 Dimensional Agility
13 Dimensional Assault
C-14 Penetrating Strike
15 Shield Master
17 Dimensional Dervish
C-18 Greater Penetrating Strike
19 Dimensional Savant

[Captain Sir Hexen Ineptus]

>.>

[Trogdar]

a courageous weapon works very well with long duration spells like heroism. Its also a +1 property, so its relatively good in terms of investment.

[Errant Mercenary]

Ah that's why you were making such a fuss about the Klar being sub optimal in another thread :) What other weapon are you using?
At what level are you?

As always the "Finale" spells are maginificent. Also simple buffing in first round, Song+Quickened Spell+Spell, is going to make you/your party great.

If you're melee, Mirror Image, Displacement, are great. I do a fair bit of tanking with my arcane duelist (we're a party of 3/4 bab, I use crane style and fighting defensively). Cant help you with high level stuff though.

[Fromper]

Timely Inspiration and Gallant Inspiration from the Advanced Players Guide can be used as immediate actions, and give a retroactive bonus to hit rolls after you miss an attack. This can also be applied to any ally within close range, and they work on anything with an attack roll. The only down side is that they don't stack with Inspire Courage.

Timely is good at low levels when you don't have enough rounds of performance to use Inspire Courage constantly, but you'll want to trade it out later. Gallant is +2d4 bonus, so it'll usually be better than Inspire Courage, making it worthwhile to use even while performing.

Heroism, Haste, and Good Hope are obvious bard buff spells that will be good for you, too.

[Captain Sir Hexen Ineptus]

Errant Mercenary wrote:

Ah that's why you were making such a fuss about the Klar being sub optimal in another thread :) What other weapon are you using?

At what level are you?

Right now, short sword, party politics is a problem right now, and my level is 5.

Errant Mercenary wrote:

As always the "Finale" spells are maginificent. Also simple buffing in first round, Song+Quickened Spell+Spell, is going to make you/your party great.

If you're melee, Mirror Image, Displacement, are great. I do a fair bit of tanking with my arcane duelist (we're a party of 3/4 bab, I use crane style and fighting defensively). Cant help you with high level stuff though.

Cool thanks for the suggestions.

[magikot]

Bladed dash from inner sea magic and weaponwand from the same book are twerp good low level spells. weapon wand lets you store a wand in your weapon so you can use your klar as either for a few rounds. Bladed dash lets you move and attack. Starting with a high dex you're better off with a finesse weapon like scimitars.

[magikot]

magikot wrote:

Bladed dash from inner sea magic and weaponwand from the same book are twerp good low level spells. weapon wand lets you store a wand in your weapon so you can use your klar as either for a few rounds. Bladed dash lets you move and attack. Starting with a high dex you're better off with a finesse weapon like scimitars.

I need to stop posting from my phone it would seem...]

[Martiln]

Dance of a Hundred Cuts gives you some nice morale bonuses to attack/damage/AC/acrobatics checks that scale with your level. It's big brother, Dance of a Thousand Cuts gives you the same bonuses, but with haste attached.

[Atarlost]

For spells the most important spells are Saving Finale, Mirror Image, and Good Hope.

Saving Finale gives saving throw rerolls. Mirror Image gives you actual defenses prior to getting medium armor proficiency. Good Hope is a good party buff that nobody else can cast except for clerics of one specific Golarion god (I think Erastil).

Dance of 100 cuts is a self only spell that overlaps with good hope and doesn't cap enough higher than it to be worth it unless there's only one other weapon user in the party. It's worth knowing for when you have a couple rounds to prepare and want to pull out all the stops or if nobody has a ghost touch weapon (because if you with bladethirst are the only one who can hurt the enemy effectively a self only buff looks a lot better).

Timely Inspiration might be useful as well. It overlaps with inspire courage and inspire competence, making it useless in battle, but since it can be used after the fact you can use it in place of inspire competence and only use a spell if it would turn failure into success rather than always use performance rounds. It can also be used on skill checks too long to use inspire competence on.

Avoid anything with a saving throw except possibly one sonic evocation for swarm busting if nobody else has any area blasts. Your charisma will not be high enough to cast offensively.

For magic items someone already mentioned the lesser quicken rod. This is indeed a real gem, assuming the Klar lets you hold an item like a light shield. If your party generally tries to blitz multiple encounters on a single use of a minute/level spell you might consider a lesser extend rod as well to get more encounters out of your minute/level buffs. You definitely want your bonded klar to be adamantine and I think there are enchantments in Ultimate Equipment that also increase durability. If it gets sundered you're hosed. You, of course, want the big six. Runestones may be worth having for some of the most heavily used spell levels. 2nd has mirror image and some utilities like silence and invisibility. 4th has dimension door, which you obviously want to make heavy use of.