Bards are pretty awesome if well built, but they take a greater degree of system mastery than many other classes to not screw up.
That being said, once your allowing 3.5 material pretty much everything flies out the window.
Bard.
Archaeologist is self buffing and pretty much combat only buffs with his performance. But then he has Trapfinding if you do not have a rogue.
A plain bard is a good skill monkey, a great face, and can buff the whole party with Bardic Performance. He has some decent buffs on his spell list too. Give him a good Str and he can contribute in melee when not buffing. Give him a decent Dex and he can be a competent archer.
A bard will never win the damage olympics, but can make a solid contribution. Generally he will be second best at everything, but he can do everything so will never be useless.
Lots of choices for characters who are viable in combat, have some skills and uses out, and still have face talent. Sorcerer, inquisitor with the right inquisition or archetype, wizard/magus/maybe alchemist with student of philosophy(depending on how good you want them to be at it), bard can be(though archaeologist would be my last pick personally). Probably missing a few.
Why no tome of battle? Warblade might've been an option.
There aren't many class skills that really make or break "party face." What it really comes down to is your Charisma and, as you said, your skill points. Even your Charisma only has a huge effect at lower levels. At level 1, the +4 from a 16 charisma instead of an 8 charisma is huge. As you gain levels, how much skill you devote to it begins to far outstrip that bonus from the stats. I mean you don't want a 7, but anybody with a 12-14 charisma isn't going to lag very far behind an 18. The benefit you get from devoting those resources to dex or str is going to help your combat prowess far more than it will hurt your face abilities.
Bard. Also, Inquisitor with the Conversion Inquisition.
With the right traits, anything with enough skill points might do it, including but not limited to: Barbarian, Ranger, Magus, Druid and Wizard.
Sorcerer.
Okay so for combat do you think archaeologist, or one of the dervish archetypes would be best. I know the performance part is what makes him less interested usually.
I'm confused, are you making a character for someone?
Dervish or nilla' performance would be best imo.
If you want to play hard-mode, Cavalier is an option.
Many small spaces. Many broken hearts.
summoner. 3/4th BAB, cha based, great spell list, eidolon
grab a mask of stony demeanor and (eventually)bracers of the glib entertainer and your are set for offense and face stuff
A summoner can be a face. They don't have a lot of skill points but a human with 14 INT gets more than enough for that one job, and they don't depend on other attributes so much that they can't afford that INT. Their spellcasting uses CHA and goes to 6th level.
PF's Ninja using vanishing trick is an effective archer. They are marvellous with skills and use CHA for their tricks.
Dawnflower Dervish is another option on the bard side if he wants to get personally involved in combat rather than buffing others.
It is very possible to use dips in many classes from 3.5 to make an effective martial character with a bunch of skills. 1 level of Battle Dancer, a dash of Bard and some feats from 3.5 to improve bard song for a start. It can get extraordinarily complicated and I wouldn't recommend it to someone without experience.
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Almost any class will do.
No, really. To be a face character you "need" Diplomacy and perhaps Bluff or Sense Motive. Make a barbarian without a Charisma penalty and put one of your skill points into Diplomacy. Problem solved. Or a wizard. Or a summoner. Or a cleric. Or a monk. Whatever.
You don't need to be as-high-as-mathematically-possible to be good at something. If you need to, use a trait to make Diplomacy class and you've got a nice +4 bonus between the trait and the class bonus.
Don't let classes shoebox you.
Almost any class will do.
5 charisma dwarf fighter with 8 int.
Some might be easier than others. No really! Some classes are just better choices.
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Almost any class will do.5 charisma dwarf fighter with 8 int.
Some might be easier than others. No really! Some classes are just better choices.
He did say any class not any stat array. Dwarf fighter with 10 charisma and 10 int can get by even if not as well or easy as some. Higher cha/int can do better, and some classes tend to need more of those stats to push you into having them. But that is not the end all be all of character creation.
The Dwarf Fighter has to put those skill points elsewhere and can't really afford to waste any on talkie roles. Bards don't have to make that choice.
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Oh jeez. Yeah, with that stat array he can be a party face with practically any class. Yay for not having to make hard choices!
Go summoner and you can be two faces! You can pick 4 (I think) skills to be class skills for your eidolon.
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So with summoner it'd be best to not go synthesist?It's usually best not to go with the synthesist. Synthesist IS a bit more survivable/tanky, but it sacrifices action economy. A non-synthesist gets a caster action and eidolon action every round.
Depends on play style i guess. I would rather be the super beast than be a puny caster with a kinda cool pet
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"What's that? We need to interview the children to find out where the fey took little Timmy?
All right, Let me just put on my huge quadraped insectoid tentacle monster suit."
Synthesist is for people who want to feel like "they" are powerful. Sometimes when a class relies on a pet/summons to do the work it as looked at as "they" aren't doing it, their pet is. As a synthesist you get to do it all; cast well, melee, good saves, etc but if you look at the loss of action economy it is actually weaker.
A synthesist can run in and attack or buff itself, a regular summoner can buff it's eidolon while it runs in and attacks.
Basically the synthesist trades action economy to feel cool and have more survivability (though at low-mid levels the summoner can cast invisibility and still have it's eidolon doing insane amounts of damage)
So with summoner it'd be best to not go synthesist?It's usually best not to go with the synthesist. Synthesist IS a bit more survivable/tanky, but it sacrifices action economy. A non-synthesist gets a caster action and eidolon action every round.
I had to retire my Kobold Synthesist in a campaign it was in because it became so powerful it overshadowed everyone else in the campaign. Once it can get large size, it gets out of control powerful.
To the OP:
Obviously Bard has been mentioned many times, and it is the obvious answer, but with the stats you provided there are many options that fill your requirements of:
1) Can be party face
2) Has lots of skills
3) Useful in combat
- Inquisitor has lots of skills, and some bonuses to some social skills, it is also quite effective in combat
- The Oracle is CHA strong, has some social skills, potential synergy with Mystery choices, and with 4+Int SP/level is doing decent in that regard as well
- Druids are silly-powerful in combat, have spells, have decent skill points, have diplomacy as a class skill. Is there anything Druids are bad at?
- Alchemists are also an interesting option, the skills have a definite Rogue-quality to them, and with a strong INT he's going to have lots of skill points to spend. Alchemists can be made very strong in combat, including in melee.
- This seems to obvious to even mention, but what about Rogue? They have the most skills of all, have all the social skills, and can be made decent for combat. Consider multiclassing with Ranger or Fighter to up combat ability.
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Synthesist is a a bit of a waste on this character, though... His lowest attribute is a freaking 15!
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- Druids are silly-powerful in combat, have spells, have decent skill points, have diplomacy as a class skill. Is there anything Druids are bad at?
Uh...default Druids don't get Diplomacy (though Urban Druids do) and Charisma is one of the few stats they can afford to dump, making this a bad call, IMO.
I'm in agreement on the rest, though (barring the whole 9-level caster restriction, anyway).
Must have been a martial-heavy campaign? A Synthesist would probably be my first pick for a BSF I'd like to have doing the grunt work.I had to retire my Kobold Synthesist in a campaign it was in because it became so powerful it overshadowed everyone else in the campaign. Once it can get large size, it gets out of control powerful.So with summoner it'd be best to not go synthesist?It's usually best not to go with the synthesist. Synthesist IS a bit more survivable/tanky, but it sacrifices action economy. A non-synthesist gets a caster action and eidolon action every round.
It was. We had an Ogre Fighter/Barbarian and a Grey Dwarf Fighter, and my character had better to hit, more damage per hit, more HP, better saves, better AC (WAY better AC), more speed, more attacks/round, could fly, could make his attacks ghost-touch etc, could dimension door...
You get the idea.
At low levels it was no problem at all, but I had been saving evolution points for level 8, and when it came and I went to large size, I never even played it. We came to session, compared some stats, and I retired the character.
Synthesist is a a bit of a waste on this character, though... His lowest attribute is a freaking 15!
Agreed, high stats are a waste on a Synthesist, besides, he wanted a character that was skill based! If Summoners have a weakness, it's a small # of skills.
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Treantmonk, thanks, i hear you on bard, i just know he's a bit prejudice against them lol. Druid, and oracle are off the menu because of their spellcasting. I think he'll probably like ninja over rogue, because of the tricks, and potential extra attacks.
Ninja's probably a better class than Rogue, anyway.
But if Bard's off the table, Inquisitor is great and my recommendation. Normally with the Conversion Inquisition, but with those stats, you might not even want to bother.
why do people say summoner has 2 +int skills? He has 6 + int skills; 2 from his class and 4 from the eidolon which also can have +8 to skills...
lets see at level one you can have +15 to your skill of choice by using 1 evolution point
(+3 skill focus (eidolon feat), +8 skilled evo, +3 class skill, + 1 rank)
As the summoner you can choose extra evolutions which gives him that evolution point back meaning you still have 3 evolutions worth of stuff to buy.
*edit and with this stat array you could fight along side your eidolon...