Just wondering what kind of role a bard can play as a villain? It seems to me the bard class is at its greatest when it is supporting a party of other characters. Has anyone used a bard as an effective villain?
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Out-of-combat? They make the best villains of all, with that whole 'manipulative mastermind' thing down cold.
In combat? Minions are the obvious answer. All those buffs stacked together make minions hit almost as hard as PCs. A 7th level Bard with Haste and Good Hope plus his four 4th level Fighter or Barbarian minions/bodyguards is a solid CR 10 (ie: 'boss level') encounter for a party of 6th or 7th level characters.
Out-of-combat? They make the best villains of all, with that whole 'manipulative mastermind' thing down cold.
In combat? Minions are the obvious answer. All those buffs stacked together make minions hit almost as hard as PCs. A 7th level Bard with Haste and Good Hope plus his four 4th level Fighter or Barbarian minions/bodyguards is a solid CR 10 (ie: 'boss level') encounter for a party of 6th or 7th level characters.
This exactly.
If you're asking, "does a bard make for a good single-bad-guy BBEG combat?" the answer will often be no, but then that's really true for nearly anything (single-bad-guy combats either go poorly for the party--BBEG gets off his uber ability and kills them all--or more often, overly and undramatically poorly for the BBEG, as the BBEG loses the action economy fight versus the party).
But a bard villain has a LOT of story potential; a good one can probably, in disguise, talk to the party and give them false information they will entirely believe without them ever realizing it until it's far too late--and even after they deal with him, may never realize the the source of false leads they were following were all the same person. And as ANY competent BBEG has his subordinates do most of his fighting for him, a bard will excel there as Deadmanwalking describes.
Off the top of my head I can think of at least one AP that has a bard as the BBEG.
Like others have mentioned, bards make great foils and harassers. If your villain is a bard, odds are the party are going to be (or at the very least should be attempted to be) branded as heretics, proven to be traitors to the nation, and generally presented as people who kick puppies and cheat on their taxes to boot.
Bard villains are memorable because they are so much more than a single fight, which makes them incredibly satisfying to curb-stomp at the end of a long and frustrating chase.
As for the actual encounter...
A bard that focuses on buffs on IC can turn your average mook lineup into a battle line that'll punish anyone dumb enough to pick a fight with them.
If a big battle isn't your thing, consider the archetypes and spells that are available to bards. With Allegro and Mirror Image a 4th level dervish of dawn bard makes for a very viable melee encounter, for instance.
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That's funny, I'm actually gonna run the negotiations between the party and a Dirge Bard tomorrow. The bard is a half-villain; obsessed with learning the secrets of a past civilization. So he breaks into tombs, and tries to use Fox's Cunning to re-awaken the intellect of undead residents so that he can question them. But he's also discovered that he can gain power from eating humanoid flesh, and he's gathered a large posse of ghouls and festrogs; they see him as kin and good at leading them to feasts.