Hello all! In the games I've played, I've always appreciated there being a bard; inspire courage is great, and their spells are useful for buffing. But I've never really been tempted to play one, since their usefullness in combat has alway been limited. So I'm trying to build a bard I might enjoy playing.
Kitsune Bard (Arcane Duelist)
25 points:
Str: 10 Dex: 17 Con: 14 Int: 12 Wis: 12 Cha 16
1 Weapon finesse
2
3 Dervish Dancer
4
5 Deadly dealer
6
7 Realistic Likeness
8
9 Pirhanna Strike
10
11 ?
12
13 ?
14
15 Improved Critical (scimitar)
So, my goal would be to be a good buffer/debuffer (the enchantment bonus for kitsune spell DCs might be useful), but also be able to hold my own in combat. If I'm able to be a useful face/skill jockey that would be nice, but I'd rather avoid being spread too thin, I've seen that could be a problem.
-I've also been wondering, are there any "bardic masterpieces" worth taking?
-What are the best spells (beyond haste) for buffing, the best debuffs?
I don't like arcane duelist, personally. If you're going to Dervish Dance, you should be a Dawnflower Dervish instead (they are awesome, by the way, but don't really help the party).
My favorite kind of bard is pure support--just buff and CC as much as possible, so I don't know exactly how best to advise you. If you want to fight in melee, I'd probably suggest a good strength, a Longspear, Power Attack, and Arcane Strike. Archery is good in general, but requires a lot of feats that I'd rather spend on support, but yeah, that's just me.
As for the Masterpiece answer, I kind of did a mini guide on those a while back.
If I were to update it, though, I would say that I've changed my mind on Triple Time. It turned out pretty nice in the end and I think it was definitely worth taking.
I'll admit I have a really hard time seeing how to be a pure buffer; I can imagine spending a round or two buffing the party, then start bardic performance then...? It just sounds really uninvolved and, frankly, boring. Useful but boring. Then again, the wizard has similar issues if they run out of spells.
Well, i've started looking through ways to boost buffing, but I still dont know enough about how you play a buffer. Eventually, wands will help compensate for the luls in your use. I'll have to research some more tommorow.
Well, I've been checking out what you put Magda, and I think I've got something. In theory at least, the arcane duelist seems to be closest to what I want to play (quite similar to the magus, which I like a lot):
Aasimar (Angelkin) (although this can change easily)
25 pts:
Str 16 Dex 12 Con 14 Int 14 Wis 13 Cha 16
Level 1: Kensai
1 ?, EWP (fauchard), Weapon focus (Fauchard)
Level 2+: Bard
2 (Arcane strike)
3 Lingering performance (Combat casting)
4
5 Power Attack
6
7 ? (Disruptive)
8
9 Lunge
10
11 Dimensional Agility (spellbreaker) (Medium armor prof)
...
It could play similar to a magus, with the added advantage of buffing rather than spellstrike
The original build can probably work quite well - go with a dervish dancer, get enough str to use power attack, and you are more or less ok.
One of the problems with the plain dervish dancer is that it loses what I see as the main advantage of a bard, IE inspire courage. It CAN work as a gish type, but it's not quite what I'm looking for.
You haven't even talked about skills and just barely mentioned spells.
Skills:
- Diplomacy (the party "face", high CHA helps spells too)
- Perform: Song (when you don't have an instrument)
- Perform: Instrument (I'd take a small one, like flute. Lute or harp is good too)
- Perform: Dance (if you want to hide that whirling dervish attack until the last minute)
- UMD (wands)
Spells: (all the "bard only" spells, and cross-over spells)
0th: Summon Instrument (just in case), Lullaby, Know Direction, Read Magic
1st: Cure Light Wounds (backup to the healer, and get a wand of CLW)
You seem to want more a more active bard then a support bard, so choose your spells after the first level. But I wouldn't discard the Cure spells with a bard, and neither the transport spell Shadow Walk at 10th.
I havent talked about skills/spells cause I have no idea where to go with them! Thanks for the advice, it's part of what I was looking for.
As for the type of bard, I dont want to be pure support. It just seems boring in combat, and other players will get frustrated if I try to monopolize non-combat. I've got to strike a balance somewhere, and being a buff-bot alone seems limited. I'll probably go for perform song/oratory (I can imagine narrating evrything the party does and making them appear in a "better" light).
So, max out at least one perform, UMD, diplomacy, I'm thinking intimidate could be useful (could take cornugon smash/dazlling display). Wand of CLW is also a must.
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If you want to be a dervish dancer, be a dervish dancer class instead of an arcane duelist:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/bard/archetypes/paizo---bard-a rchetypes/dervish-dancer
It grants you scimitar proficiency, and eventually free haste extra attacks and the Improved Critical Feat @ 8th level
So,
1) Weapon Finessee
3) Devish Dance
5) Arcane Strike
7) Flagbearer (you can actually hold the flag and qualify for the derivsh).
9) Piranah Strike
Kitsune
Str- 7 - -2 (You need to be able to carry Mithril chain and a scimitar, so no 5 str).
Int- 12 - 2
Wis- 12 - 2
Dex - 19 (all level-ups here) - 13
Con - 14 - 5
Chr - 16 - 5
You're "strictly better" in most regards with the Dex/Chr Aasimar (you gain 2 extra build points, and can lower your Con to 12 in exchange for 18 cha), but this is an option for a kitsune if you want it (and it's honestly not much worse, and the ability to shape change will make for some really interesting out-of-combat roleplaying, so I'd say go for it :)).
Regardless, it's a vast improvement over the Arcane Duelist IF you want to fight scimitar-style.
Like I said before, I'm not married to the idea of dervish dancing; the important thing is really balancing the ability to fight and to buff, because buffing alone seems pretty uninteresting. I'll keep the build in consideration, but at the moment a dervish dancing bard is basically just a differently flavored magus (or pretty damn close).
I'm playing a human arcane duelist 5/dragon disciple 4 (rest will most probably go into ad--let'see what level we'll reach).
Between haste, good hope, heroism, Inspire Courage +2
and Arcane Strike I'm doing o.k. I'm using a longspear as weapon (no love for a whip-focussed build since we're using only CRB and APG).
With 25 point buy I'd go
Str: 16 Dex: 12 Con: 14 Int: 10 Wis: 12 Cha 17
lvl 4 --> increase Cha
lvl 8,12,16,20 --> increase Str
Skills are less important to me (I'm a human after all) and I simply hate not having a modifier for Will saves if I'm playing a PC with the potential for high damage output.
You get +4 Str via dragon disciple thus I opted for a slightly higher Cha slightly compared to Str.
Ruyan.
Bards don´t need their music to buff, they a fair amount of spells that they can also buff or help the party with. The question is striking the right balance. The dervish dancer lies on the more self-oriented end of the spectrum, but everyone can appreciate a haste or two.
You can certainly make it work with arcane duelist, but you will have more troubles with the dervish dancer feat unless you multiclass or spend a feat on scimitar proficiency (and warrior bards are sort of starved for feats). If you want to go with a high-dexterity buid, I would aim for a weapon with the agile enhancement, and get either power attack (which afaik can be combined with finesse) or, if it is a light weapon, piranha strike. The Savage Skald can also be an interesting archetype.
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I "generally" suggest against melee-bards, as they tend to falter around level 6 (identity crisis). They don't have the support of the magus for doing those tricks.
But if you must, I'd go:
Str: 18 - 10
Int: 12 - 2
Wis: 8 - -2
Dex: 14 - 5
Con: 14 - 5
Chr: 16 - 5
for a point buy. Wield a Longspear and take combat reflexes to get some extra attacks. You'll find yourself solid at low levels (good damage output) but around 6 you'll regret every feat you spent on fighting and find yourself a semi-useful buffer.
Like I said before, dont have to go dex build (it's VERY feat-intensive), or any build, i'm just looking for something that can buff decently and hold it's own at most levels. Like I've said before, buffing alone seems dreadfully boring, I'd love for someone to convince me otherwise but it just seems like "pop a few spells off, turn on inspire courage then just sit there". It's like "sorcerer-lite": less spells, less spell power, and sadness.
Still, I think a strength based arcane duelist can do decently; they get a bunch of bonus feats that are fairly useful (especially when combined with dim dervish), mainly at the expense of it's skill related powers.
Another issue that i've noticed in play (though this may be particular to me) is that everyone wants to get into the RP, so I feel that if I build a character mainly for out of combat interaction, I wont be given much chances to make it shine. Though this is a fairly minor complaint.
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They can; and their buffs are quite good for the party too... just don't expect to do much damage yourself. I personally prefer the "Aid Another" style, where you use the gloves and bodyguard and such to throw around +4 to hit / damage to someone, then give any ally that is attacked +7-+11 AC (in addition to buff spells). It's a good way to utilize the bard; you're just not going to keep up with the rest of the group for damage. And is actually doing the attack yourself really that much more fun? Dropping confuse on a group of monsters or greasing them up while making the rest of the party feel like gods... that's where the power of the bard is :).
Magus and Fighter-1 Sorc-1 Aasimar Eldrich Knights are going to do the "melee buffer" trick better than any bard could hope to; they are just built more to do the heavy damage-while-casting.
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This is so far my favorite buffer bard, especially if there is nary a cleric in sight.
Bard (Arcane Healer)
Half-Elf, +2 Chr, Swap out Multi-talented for Arcane Training, Skill Focus (Heal)
Str 10, Dex 12, Con 13 (+1 at level 4), Int 12, Wis 13 (+1 at 8th), Chr 18 (stat bump at 12, 16, 20)
Traits; Blessed Touch and Narrows Survivor
Feats;
1 - Nature Soul; to lead into Animal Ally
3 - Eldrich Heritage; Celestial for the heal ray
5 - Animal Ally; Druid Animal Companion at level -3
7 - Selective Channeling; A most for channeling
9 - Boon Companion; AC at full level
11 - Extra Channel; More channels...duh
13 - Channeled Revival; 3 channels = Breathe of Life = frigging sweet man!
15 - Life Lure; fascinate undead with damaging channels or Extra Channel
17 - Improved Eldritch Heritage; Wings, free flight rocks
19 - Greater EH or Extra Channel or Extra Music
Extra performances at a 2/3 ratio for the favored class bonus with skill point at 1/3.
Enough healing to cover a cleric, knowledge a-plenty, AC for meat shield.
@ Weaponbreaker: that does seem pretty sweet, and the fact that your animal companion allows you to help in melee is nice. I'll look into it.
I had posted earlier and had my post eaten.
But I LOVE arcane duelists (they are my favorite gish in Pathfinder) and if you want to go that route, these are my thoughts:
- Note that the arcane duelist gets a lot of spellcaster-harrying bonus feats. Myself, I'd try to milk that and boost that up with other things possibly like Combat Reflexes + Stand Still, both to get as many AOOs as possible as well as to keep casters from retreating from melee. Mobility to get into melee of course is good too.
- The arcane duelist gets a performance dependent on Intimidate. If you want to have some social skill building, this would be the natural skill to start with since you already want it high to make Rallying Cry effective. If you've got room for the feats, the Dazzling Display feat tree could also go along with the Intimidate build (and a fun way to debuff that doesn't require burning a spell or performance, for when you're running low on resources).
- When considering Strength versus Dexterity, remember as an AD you will eventually get medium and heavy armor proficiency. Of course, you may opt not to use those armors. But if you do remember they'll cap out your Dex bonus to AC. Personally, I prefer a more "well rounded" AD with a decent Str and Dex (at least a +2 bonus in each) -- since ADs are largely support melee and not massive damage dealers you just want to be solid with them, but not necessarily maxed out. Of course that is not the only way to run things and there's nothing wrong with a finesse build if you're not aiming for lots of damage. Just something to think about.
- I would certainly suggest on focusing on buff spells for yourself and others, but the way it'd usually go is buff first when possible, then fight. Nice thing of course about Inspire Courage is you get the bonuses to hit and damage along with the rest of the party, and helps make you more effective especially at early levels.