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Hey. Welp it finally happened my other character bit the bucket (1st death! Outside of combat too >.>) anyway. I want to make a bard to replace him. I kinda want to use an archetype and I am looking at the following
Arcane duelist
Sea singer(the pirate one!?)
Dervish dancer
Magician
Thundercaller
These all feel wonderfully fluffy to me I would just like a bit of input as to mechanically speaking what each would entail and the effectivness of them
We have a thundercaller in our current campaign. The lack of bardic knowledge is extremely annoying for us since we do not have a good variety of knowledge skills in our group. However, his ability to just pump out the sonic attacks is nice. I haven't seen him use any of the more advanced abilities, which I assume is a shame; it looks like he really should be using those.
Generally losing Inspire Competence isn't a huge deal, I haven't used Suggestion much without getting myself killed. I haven't gotten to play a higher level bard personally so I can't comment on other abilities.
For the spells, for all spontaneous casters, try to choose things that scale well with level and have a variety of utility.
If you're looking for a more damage dealer in combat I would suggest the Dervish Dancer. Battle Dance is very powerful, but only buffs you. If you have access to the other races beyond core look into the Aasimar, specifically the Azata blood. +2 Dex and +2 Cha. Also the Aasimar favored class option for bard is amazing with battle dance. I would also recommend picking up Power Attack. Finally spells for DD you'll want to look into the more melee oriented spells; there's actually quite a few really good ones.
Arcane duelist is pretty solid too, but to me it feels very much like a magus without spellstrike.
As said before the Thundercaller is awesome for AoE.
The rest of the archetypes I don't have any experience with.
Decide early on if you want to be a melee or ranged attacker, doing both drains feats and takes a while to get decent at (I'm playing a 7th level bard in RotRL.) If you go melee, check out the Duelist, it works well with bards.
Inspire Courage is a must for the bard class, especially for the other party members, they'll love that bonus.
You will be able to provide some good buffs, and that's kinda the class shtick, but there are also some good blasty spells available in the APG and Ultimate Magic. Plus, you have UMD as a class skill, so max that out to use wands and such.
One spell you really want is Saving Finale (APG I believe.) Another is Summon Instrument, especially if you plan to use Versatile Performance regularly. It's less clunky than carrying around a bunch of instruments.
Bardic Knowledge is important if no one else has a ton of skills, and bards eventually become skill masters. Pay attention to Versatile Performance- you can put one rank onto a Perform skill and it substitutes for 2 other skills.
With a rogue in your group (and one or two others that have 4+int skill points per level), this party has a good smattering of skills going around. So just focusing on combat would be best. And depending on the build for that last divine caster, your group might need a bit more help up front.
Arcane Duelist is certainly a decent choice, since you get plenty of free feats, and later you gain access to better armor. Simply grabbing a long sword on a decent strength build and you will do fine as both a melee combatant and a buffer when you use inspire courage.
Another interesting choice might be the Dawnflower Dervish (the one with double bonuses). The alterations to its inspire courage actually allows it to keep par with a raging barbarian if played well. Of course, since those bonuses work on each and every hit, you might want a style that does a lot of hits (such as TWF or archery) rather than the one handed, one weapon style of dervish dance. Of course, that might step on the rogue's toes. What kind of build does it have?
Also...
Another is Summon Instrument, especially if you plan to use Versatile Performance regularly. It's less clunky than carrying around a bunch of instruments.
...I am fairly sure you do not have to do a little song and dance in order use Versatile performance. It just talks about using your total performance bonus in place of a skill bonus. Admittedly, I suppose that a masterwork instrument helps with that under very strict RAW...but really? In the end, I doubt that putting on a singing voice on every time you want to disguise your lies via bluff actually helps.
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So I have narrowed it down to either. Sea singer (I like this one flavor wise a lot. It also gives me linguistics with some other nice things I WILL find a use fornwhsitle then wind lol.) Also would a trip/cbm gnome/halfing worknhere? Or the assimar? (Did I Spell that right? I'm on a phone sorry)
Arcane duelist (nice melee combatant here)
Dervish dancer (I like this. "Oh your a bard? What buff ya giving me" me "fak you dats my buff!" LOL. (Also +6ac And heal HP /round= to my lvl? WOW.
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You might consider the melee-oriented reach bard build, as described by someone who played a bard 1-15. This approach works with several of the archetypes you are considering. You get a lot of melee effectiveness for relatively little investment in feats & attributes.
So I have narrowed it down to either. Sea singer (I like this one flavor wise a lot. It also gives me linguistics with some other nice things I WILL find a use fornwhsitle then wind lol.) Also would a trip/cbm gnome/halfing worknhere? Or the assimar? (Did I Spell that right? I'm on a phone sorry)
Arcane duelist (nice melee combatant here)
Dervish dancer (I like this. "Oh your a bard? What buff ya giving me" me "fak you dats my buff!" LOL. (Also +6ac And heal HP /round= to my lvl? WOW.
We've had four Bard builds in our group that were used for AP play:
A female Human Sea Singer who took two levels of Lore Warden and was our captain in Skull n Shackles.
A Human Arcane Duelist who took two levels of Divine Hunter in Rise of the Runelords.
A Halfling Archeologist who took two levels of Halfling Opportunist for a Shattered Star campaign that never really got off the ground.
A pair of Aasimar twins who played identical Dervish of Dawn builds with a two level dip in Master of Many Styles for a Wrath of the Righteous campaign which is going on now.
In every instance they were invaluable members of our group who filled a variety of roles effectively. If your build is good, you can't go wrong with any of them.
My group currently uses a plain unarchetyped bard and oddly enough it works really well. She's the captain in our skull and shackles game and is basically the hero that saves the party when the chips are on the table. Pretty standard build, nothing too game shattering but it works really well. Fills the role of invisible creature killer and backup tracker, knowledge monkey, and the party's face.
Duelist is good for melee plus you're get some free "mess with enemy caster" feats thrown in for free.
Nothing beats greater invisibility and cloak of dreams for some fun sneak-sleep-coup De Grace action.
Aasimar favoured class bonuses can accelerate your inspire courage/bladethirst buffs.
Bards are a great class.
Pump UMD and take advantage of scrolls of Form of the Dragon or Mind Blank or anything good on anyone's spell list basically. Charisma and UMD equals cast any spell you like.
I've a 14th level duelist that UMD's FotD III to great effect. Pumped by courage/good hope/arcane strike. Loads of fun.
Duelist is good for Dragon Disciple too if you fancy that but personally I prefer straight duelist and UMD madness!
Vanilla bard ftw!
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So. I'm going either dawnflower dervish or sea singer. I will be playing a gnome or halfing (fluffy reasons and the +1 ac/to hit) control bard takes to many feats to even try to be effective with CBMs. So I'm either going to go scimitar w/ dervish dance or longspear with sea caller or dawnflower (even though some of the dervish dancer abilities are REALLY NICE) for mob control ofc. Lol
Archer bard is something to consider.
Any reason vanilla bard is out of the question?
I think I want to try a more buffer/control bard. Sea singer + whip /we finesse combat exp. Improved trip/disarm and eventually greater. Could this work? I also thinking about using GNOME as the race or halfing.
Maneuvers simply aren't good, especially for a small character, and you want to avoid spells with a DC as a Bard whenever possible.
Open with Inspire Courage then a spell like Haste or Good Hope. Follow that up with dazzling display then help out by flanking, aiding or casting as needed. Every time a Martial deals massive damage on a hit he otherwise would have missed, that's YOUR damage. Every time what would have been a hit misses someone because of you, that's damage YOU healed. The difference a Bard makes in combat is subtle but incredibly powerful - any direct contribution to combat is just lagniappe.
Boring :p
Have you played one before?
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Boring :pHave you played one before?
no, but I meant that I wanted to add a bit of flavor. I hardly ever play straight core anymore. Hell even my wizards usually use schools from UM. so I am prob going to be a gnome/halfing sea singer. (who doesn't love a good shanty) starting at level 9.
party will fore sure, consist of, a swashbuckler, a sorcerer, and a monk. + me.
any good build advice? Cha will be a 20 with my rolls. and I have a 17,16, 14,12, 12 for my other stats.
*Puffs in*
With that cha I suggest focusing on spells with saves, like charm person. High dc and all that
*Puffs out*
I'm disinclined to agree with "lack of flavor" for a vanilla bard. If anything, I think that bards (vanilla!) have the lion's share of flavor from the get-go and, really, flavor comes from playing, not building.
My Wrath of the Righteous (vanilla) bard would probably beat you senseless for suggesting that he lacked "flavor."
Archetypes don't add flavor. The class field is the least important thing on your sheet, it's what that class lets you do and what your character actually does with it that gives your character character.
This is very true. Archetypes change your abilities they don't add to them.
Hey, rorek55, You're good to go. My bard is a Ustalavian Sczarni from a clan of gypsy demon-hunters. When he showed signs of demonic heritage, he was hunted down by his family. He crossed the river into the other, more sinister side of the Shudderwood before he found the demons he had hoped to join. Their actions terrified and disgusted him, so he went on to Kenabres, where he thought that his family (F THEM!) couldn't touch him, anymore.
Flavor?
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If it's between Sea Singer and Dawnflower, I'd definitely go with Dawnflower. Unless you're going to be spending a lot of time on a boat, Sea Singer just doesn't give you anything useful-- except a mechanical excuse to talk like a pirate, and you can talk like a pirate with any bard.
Whichever archetype you choose, if you've got 20 Charisma you want to think about spells, since that's what you'll be good at. Cure spells are important of course (especially if you trade out Inspire Courage, as they let you convince your party you're still helping them directly), and I can't recommend Gallant Inspiration enough. It steals success from the jaws of failure and makes impossible checks possible. If tripping people appealed to you, then you'd probably also enjoy Grease as well.