As the tittle says I'm looking for some advice for our 6th and last player.
We currently have:
Paladin - melee damage
Sniper Rogue
Cleric - typical cleric with focus on healing, dispelling, buffing
Fighter
"god" conjuration Wizard (me)
The player doesn't have a lot of preferences but he'd like to bring something new to the group (if possible) and potentially be a party face.
Everything is allowed, even 3pp.
Edit: don't know what campaign we'll play but it's not going to be a specific one (such as urban setting, all undead, on the water, etc...)
Go with a bard, high charisma, face of the party, and able to buff them with bardic abilities.
Alternately, an Oracle of Battle to augment healing, melee, and ranged (bow spec). This isn't bringing anything new, but it is going to let them be a face and they can be a backup for everyone else.
Another option would be a Warlock, another good 'face' class from 3.5. Quite a few of the Warlock abilities are not duplicated in the PF architecture. This works especially well with a dip into Scout (bonus on damage when you move 10 feet) or with the warlock abilities to make a weapon out of your blast for iterative attacks. Nice thing about a warlock is you can make them a small race, and not affect their damage out put at all. Give them riding and a mount with a high movement that can climb and they can be portable artillery.
Bard. The buff is excellent in a large group. On top of that, you get some backup spellcasting and healing, he's the natural party face, and a ton of skills to do everything the rogue doesn't do, and he can help out in combat. Jack of all trades but master of buffing.
bard really probably is the best option all around, for all the reasons that have been mentioned. aside from that, you don't have any AoE damage- so a blaster sorcerer (or flame oracle) would bring something new there and have the charisma to be a face.
ask the gm about traps. The sniper doesnt have trapfinding, and while in some campaigns traps arent a huge issue, I've seen some dms go to great lenghts to make sure they matter. You might want to address that with one of the bard archetypes that have it if he does favor using a lot of traps.
Well I see the archery not being covered, sniper rogues are pretty awful after all.
Um, archer ranger, druid, or bard. Or even blaster sorcerer.
Of those choices bard is the king. 5 man group and multiple melee combatants who can make use of combat bonuses. I call it a 5 man group because sniper rogues don't count (because they act in my experience as a second party of 1 and are pretty ineffective).
Bard will overlap with the cleric, but most of the good buffs stack with each other... And it's the clerics fault that he is only using half of his character sheet (clerics make superb secondary combatants).
Snipers being terrible is exactly the reason I wouldn't recommend an archer. You'll just make the person playing the sniper feel useless. Especially if you go archer bard so that you will also be consistently better at all out of combat challenges.
Its the sniper player's fault for choosing a terrible archetype of one of the least effective classes. No reason to hold hands just to make him feel better if its going to harm the party. After all it's the sniper who is letting the team down.
Bards are actually pretty damn good in PF, if you think they are bad perhaps you haven't really explored what they can do.
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We currently have:
Paladin - melee damage
Sniper Rogue
Cleric - typical cleric with focus on healing, dispelling, buffing
Fighter
"god" conjuration Wizard (me)The player doesn't have a lot of preferences but he'd like to bring something new to the group (if possible) and potentially be a party face.
From a selfish standpoint, a bard will synchronize well with your conjurers summons, buffing them as he buffs the paladin, fighter and anyone else in combat. He's also a secondary healing source (through wands, if nothing else) and can keep the cleric on his feet if things go bad.
He may also cover some enchantment or illusion spells you might not care much for, if you want to ditch those schools.
Good Hope and Inspire Greatness are amazing buffs too.
Bah! Fools! Raziel747 do not be seduced by such rhetoric.
Bards are actually pretty damn good in PF, if you think they are bad perhaps you haven't really explored what they can do.
They were stronger in 3.5, and there were a lot of stronger classes than the tard back then, and in PF there still are. Flavor wise a npc class is better!
I respectfully don't concur.
On my table, the Bard is the star. If he wasn't there, all those "save or die" monsters abilities would have made already an epic TPK against the group.
Bah! Fools! Raziel747 do not be seduced by such rhetoric.
Bards are actually pretty damn good in PF, if you think they are bad perhaps you haven't really explored what they can do.They were stronger in 3.5, and there were a lot of stronger classes than the tard back then, and in PF there still are. Flavor wise a npc class is better!
Could you perhaps forgive my ignorance and explain exactly how bards were more powerful in 3.5? I'm just not seeing it.
Bard 8/Cavalier2/Battle Herald 10
Inquisitor 18/ Rogue 2
Alchemist 18/Barbarian2
Ranger(Urban)10/Druid(Urban)10
Not liking the Bard because you don't like the idea of adventuring musicians, that's fine (though a Bard doesn't have to make music at all, and don't forget that Fafhrd is a skald). But flavourwise a troubadour goes very well with a band of heroes, and suggesting that a Bard in PF are somehow an ineffective choice is just silly.
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as ericthecleric suggested, you have kind of a unique opportunity here... all of the necessary roles are covered (with the arguable exception of ranged damage), you could take advantage of this opportunity to make a less optimized but possibly more memorable character (just don't do anything foolish, like trying to make a blind dwarven oracle).
i'm not really familiar with any 3pp, and i don't know your point buy/starting level/etc, but here's a couple ideas of the top of my head:
plumekith (aasimar), unarmed fighter/qinggong master of many styles- by 7th level (f1/m6) you could have the elemental fist feat and an entire genie style feat tree... this is a very MAD build, but if you can muster the Cha for 1-2 eldritch heritage feats of an appropriate element/genie/whatever you'd have the ultimate bender (a la Avatar)
human, lame nature oracle with low to average wisdom and 7 int- take the revelation for a mount (a horse named edgar) and spend 1st level feats on extra revelation (the one that lets you talk to animals- pick horses) and skill focus [know-nature]; at 3rd take eldritch heritage[arcane] for the familiar (a hawk named jeeves) and you get another animal type for your speak with animals ability (pick hawk). play him as a guy who lived alone in the middle of nowhere and was basically content to be a subsistence farmer until edgar got wanderlust... have him let the animals do a fair bit of decision making (they're as smart or smarter than him anyways, lol).
(standard) aasimar, sohei 1/wildblooded sorcerer [empyreal] 1/eldritch knight- i'd actually take sohei @1st, EK @2nd, sorc @3rd, and then EK from 4th-12th. how this works out, and what he does in the party will depend mostly on what spells (and skills) he picks, but he'll have a lot of survivability for a sorcerer, always threaten, have some decent skill options, and even be able to pick up weapon specialization [rays] if he wants to help out with ranged damage.
I respectfully don't concur.
On my table, the Bard is the star. If he wasn't there, all those "save or die" monsters abilities would have made already an epic TPK against the group.
I believe your party would better be served by a archivist, cleric/oracle, properly built paladin with a dip of marshal, or a sorcerer in regard to such.
Could you perhaps forgive my ignorance and explain exactly how bards were more powerful in 3.5? I'm just not seeing it.Bah! Fools! Raziel747 do not be seduced by such rhetoric.
Bards are actually pretty damn good in PF, if you think they are bad perhaps you haven't really explored what they can do.They were stronger in 3.5, and there were a lot of stronger classes than the tard back then, and in PF there still are. Flavor wise a npc class is better!
But of course.
Nerfs:
Instead of having one use of bardic music per level per day, you now get X rounds of bardic performance, where X is 4+Cha modifier at level 1 and then increases by 2 per level. This may look like you're getting more bardness, but you need to expend a round of performance every round you want to maintain an effect, instead of just letting it keep going on.Fascinate used to use your Perform check as the DC, making it almost unbeatable. In PF, it's down to the regular 10+half level+Cha bonus.
Inspire Courage used to last five rounds after you stopped performing. Now it runs out immediately.Inspire Competence used to last for as long as you needed, up to 2 minutes. Now you need to spend one round of performance per round you need, so if you want to buff someone long enough for them to take 20 on a skill it's going to take a 7th level bard's whole daily allotment.
Inspire Greatness used to last five rounds after you stopped performing. Now it runs out immediately.
Lost Song of Freedom at 12th level, the equivalent of a single-target break enchantment with a cast time of 1 minute (which is the same as the spell).
Inspire Heroism used to last five rounds after you stopped performing. Now it runs out immediately.
Also, Words of Creation feat doubles bonus from bardic music effects.
Bardic Knowledge was more versatile.
The Doomspeak feat. Potent, no?
Here's a couple of links for further study, if you like.
Not liking the Bard because you don't like the idea of adventuring musicians, that's fine (though a Bard doesn't have to make music at all, and don't forget that Fafhrd is a skald). But flavourwise a troubadour goes very well with a band of heroes, and suggesting that a Bard in PF are somehow an ineffective choice is just silly.
Fafhrd is more of a multiclass character, but definitely a dip of bard. Not silly, just ineffective for party survival when compared to what else is out there in PF, like: Alchemist, Barbarian, Cavalier, Cleric, Druid, Gunslinger, Inquisitor, Magus, Oracle, Paladin, Sorcerer, Summoner, Witch, and Wizard!
Mess with one bard and they bring the whole band. Oh well, C'est la vie. ;-)
So, he's been working on a blaster Sorcerer/Wizard multiclass (idea came from link post 6) but I got a few questions because we aren't all too well familiar with certain rules.
Is it legal for Sorcerer to take crossblooded, tattoed sorcerer and wildblood (primal) archetypes?
also, if he multiclasses Sorcerer (first level only) with Wizard can he use Charisma modifier instead of Intellect modifier to increase spells DC for spells which he casts as Wizard or it doesn't matter because you cast spells as Sorcerer/wizard instead of just wizard?
I would like to know if this multi crossblooded Sorc/1 Wiz/19 is a better choice then a pure sorcerer or pure wizard for blasting (later on some sort of a AoE blasting)? Since the party doesn't have a party face, but has utility and both ranged and melee single target damage. Would a sorcerer or dazing elf wizard be a better choice? Also, is 14 cha ok for a party face? The stats without racials are: 18 14 14 13 12 10.
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I'm going to suggest bard, but not the buffing kind. It sounds as if they've got enough of that already. No, archaeologist bard, for the trap finding and disabling and the evasion and the uncanny dodge and the social skills and the spells and the luck bonus (of course the Lingering Performance feat then becomes a must have, even though the theme music is all in your heads).
Nope, AFAIK, he treats his two lists as totally separate. He'll be using his Charisma when he casts spells from his Sorcerer spell slots and Int when he casts spells he memorized as a Wizard.
also, if he multiclasses Sorcerer (first level only) with Wizard can he use Charisma modifier instead of Intellect modifier to increase spells DC for spells which he casts as Wizard or it doesn't matter because you cast spells as Sorcerer/wizard instead of just wizard?
Unless you take sage wild blood line
My apologies.
Is there any way that you could reincarnate (edit&repost) the post? I believe it to be a enlightening piece on the bard that many can appreciate!