Bard Tips / Suggestions

[Xen]

I need any feat and spell tips/suggestions for levels 1-16. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have looked at Treantmonk's guide, but it doesn't include any newer content.

Here is the necessary facts:
- Level 3 Human Bard
- Being played as a caster/buffer/face
- Hopeful Thassilonian-expert/Gutter-rat from Riddleport.
- Stats: 7, 14, 10, 14, 12, 17
- Using Versatile Performance for Oratory, then Comedy.
- Current feats are: Extra Performance, and Prodigy (Oratory, Comedy)
- Combat is buffing/spells and crossbow.

Party is: Paladin (Iomadae), Ranger (Archer), Cleric (Sarenrae).

[Heaggles]

if your thinking of using ranged attack you need to get pierce shot thats what would get.

[Dakota_Strider]

Best Feat: Lingering Performance. Triples your performance time, if used correctly. Even better than Extra Performance.

[Xen]

@Heaggles: The crossbow is mostly a time filler. At higher levels it will be replaced with wands/scrolls or spells.

@Dakota_Strider: Thanks! I had overlooked that, just requires some good timing.

[VRMH]

I suggest getting something like a Heavyload Belt, as well as the usual Handy Haversack.

[Devilkiller]

Unless this is a one shot adventure I wouldn't worry too much about running out of bardic performance rounds. You'll have a ton of them by mid levels. Is rebuilding from 1st level an option?

[tonyz]

Essentially, buffing you can handle with your bardic performance and a couple of spells.

Face time you can handle with your skills.

So your feats should mostly focus towards whatever combat roleyouwant to support. I might take Lingering Performance, or a couple of defensive feats, but generally you stay out of the front line, so save-boosting feats might be indicated, especially Great Fortitude. But generally you can do archery, or whip maneuvers, as your combat style. A reach weapon might not be bad, depending onthe rest of your party. Archery is probably more useful overall (longer range, and all that).

The human alternate race feature that trades your bonus feat for three Skill Focus feats over time synergies amazingly well with Versatile Performance, by the way.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Well, in general you should try to pick a focus because the game rewards specialization and no matter what you do, the class will inevitably give you a bunch of random jack of all trades type stuff regardless.

How much of this can be re-built? Most of the major decisions depend upon how you start off. Hypothetically anyone can end up wealthy and living in luxury, but it's a heck of a lot easier and more likely if born to rich parents than into poverty. I would suggest the Chelish Deva or Dirge Bard archetypes if you can go back and change that about your character. Both assist casting type bards pretty well.

I'm not sure what feats would be useful to you. Metamagic effects are great (especially extend) but you lack the spell levels to adjust with them and are better off just using metamagic rods for them.

Spell suggestions:

1st: Anticipate Peril, Grease, Hideous Laughter, Saving Finale, Silent Image, Unnatural Lust (it's a funny way to "draw aggro" to the high charisma paladin... ;) )

2nd: Blistering Invective, Heroism, Invisibility, Suggestion, Pyrotechnics (have Ranger use a flaming arrow; ready to use the spell)

3rd: Arcane Concordance (mainly for extend), Confusion, Glibness, Good Hope, Haste, Sculpt Sound (utility use, AND a multitarget save or lose for most casters)

4th: Dominate Person, Hold Monster, Greater Invis, Modify Memory

5th: Greater Dispel Magic, Shadowbard, Mass Suggestion

6th: Irresistible Dance, Overwhelming Prescence, Project Image, Greater Shout

Most of the offense is mind-affecting; that's just part of being a bard, sadly.

[Thaliak]

Have you looked at the Updated Pathfinder Bard Guide? It's not as organized as Treantmonk's guide, but it covers more recent content.

Also, the Pathfinder Chronicles Faction Guide has two feats that boost the power of Inspire Courage: Master Performer, which requires Extra Performance, and Grand Master Performer, which requires the previous feat and 8th level. Both feats will increase your Inspire Courage bonus by 1.

If you don't like the extra spells known that the human favored class option grants (but you should), you could take the Racial Heritage feat to count as an Aasimar. Its favored class bonus allows you to pick a performance and count yourself as half a level higher when determining its affects, so it could allow you to unlock the level-based Inspire Courage boosts more quickly.

You might also look at the Sound Striker archetype, which trades Inspire Competence and Suggestion for two damaging performances. The first one is weak, but the second can be powerful in mid-levels. It has a short range and falters against enemies with damage reduction, but it gives you a way to blast that doesn't require a significant investment to be effective.

[Xen]

Thanks for all the advice!

@Devilkiller: I can swap feats but that is about it, I really like the character and he fits very well with the party (Not as powerful as a wizard, but the skills have already been well worth their weight).

@Streamofthesky: I don't want to stray from standard bard because of the necessity for Bardic Knowledge. I'm playing him as a know it all (Similar to Kvothe from the Kingkiller Chronicles) So max ranks in History and Arcana are a must, but I have half ranks in almost every other knowledge other than religion.

Does anyone know of a feat that makes it so if you cast a spell in the same round you use bardic music, it doesn't use up a round of music? A friend said he remembered seeing it but doesn't know where.

[StreamOfTheSky]

I think you're worrying far too much about your rounds/day. If such a feat exists...it's not worth a feat to take. Stick mostly to inspire courage and occasional use of fascinate to trigger suggestion. You shouldn't be using inspire competence very much at all and certainly not on lengthy tasks; that's just how it is now that PF limited the duration of performance.

[Odraude]

Spellsong is a nice feat if you want to focus a bit on Illusions, since many rely on concentration. It's also good to hide casting My current bard is more of a caster/martial type of character, but I still find Spellsong to be useful, especially for hiding any mind-affecting spells you want to cast more subtly.

Being a complete caster with the base bard is a bit hard, especially in the early levels when you don't have that many castings of spells. I'd either go with StreamoftheSky's suggestion of an archetype, or try to grab a weapon to use for when you aren't casting.

Oh, from personal experience, make sure you have a codeword for whenever you use Pyrotechnics. The last thing you want to do is blind your teammates. Our codewords is "QUACK!"

[Atarlost]

I'd trade out extra performance and probably prodigy as well. If your diplomacy modifiers aren't high enough there are low level spells you can use. Spells are cheaper than feats.

For what to do I'd go for a readied action crossbow user. You can force some pretty serious concentration checks with readied actions and it comes together more easily than trying to put together a rapid shot build with a crossbow.

Trade out for point blank shot and precise shot. Take arcane strike at level 5 and focused shot at level 7, then go ahead and pick up rapid reload (light crossbow) at level 9.

Try to get a +1 light seeking crossbow ASAP to get through miss chance defenses and ready actions against spellcasting.

[TGMaxMaxer]

I second the option to use the human alt for skill focus at levels 1, 8, and 16 especially if you are going to have versatile performance... that's like 6x skill focus feats at 16th level for your one human bonus.

I also second either: lingering performance and spellsong, (I use spellsong to double dominate person/monster with my bard, one with my own concentration, one with the bardic perform)

or Point Blank and Precise shot for a ranged attack option. Also most (not all) GM's I have played with require those on ranged touch spells as well.

If you are going caster style, Spell Focus enchant and greater spell focus are also not bad choices, keep those DC's up.