It's always nice to have more spells per day, I know of a few methods for a bard to get more but, is there anything I missed?
1. Runestones of Power let you cast one extra spell per day
2. High charisma gives bonus spells, but you need a very high casting stat to get much out of this.
3. Arcane bond item (via Archetype or Eldritch Heritage Arcane) lets you cast one extra spell per day.
4. Indirectly via wands, scrolls etc...
5. Indirectly via Eldritch Heritage Arcane and Improved familiar (+ Fairy Dragon)
There's the venerable Ring of Wizardry. Various items of spell storing let you use another day's casting today.
Someone else casting Channel the Gift can use their spell to power yours.
I suppose you could take a level in the Bloatmage PrC. Icky at best.
Are spontaneous casters able to use rings of wizardry? That would be great if they can.
Good idea with the spell storing items, thanks.
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Are spontaneous casters able to use rings of wizardry? That would be great if they can.
This special ring comes in four varieties, all of them useful only to arcane spellcasters. The wearer’s arcane spells per day are doubled for one specific spell level. A ring of wizardry I doubles 1st-level spells, a ring of wizardry II doubles 2nd-level spells, a ring of wizardry III doubles 3rd-level spells, and a ring of wizardry IV doubles 4th-level spells. Bonus spells from high ability scores or school specialization are not doubled.
All it cares about is Arcane vs. Divine. Sorcerers, Bards, Wizards, Summoners, Magi, and Witches can all benefit from it.
It's always nice to have more spells per day, I know of a few methods for a bard to get more but, is there anything I missed?
1. Runestones of Power let you cast one extra spell per day
2. High charisma gives bonus spells, but you need a very high casting stat to get much out of this.
3. Arcane bond item (via Archetype or Eldritch Heritage Arcane) lets you cast one extra spell per day.
4. Indirectly via wands, scrolls etc...
5. Indirectly via Eldritch Heritage Arcane and Improved familiar (+ Fairy Dragon)
Runestones of Power are as weapons; unless you won't be using any weapons (even a Bard would use weapons, though only for support purposes), it gets very expensive, very fast, and is something I may not spend too much money on since there are more important items to buy.
That being said, I find Bards to be support casters first before having anything to do with martials. So if you don't start with a 20 Charisma and make active investments into those Runestones of Power, you're simply shorting yourself out of the #1 resources you rely upon: Charisma and Spells.
Arcane Duelist archetype is superior to a traditional Bard in terms of combat because of the Arcane Bond subject, since you can have a Spiked Gauntlet Bonded Weapon, use a Metamagic Rod in that hand, and still cast spells with a Heavy Shield. The ability to enhance it as if you have the proper craft feat and a "Get out of Jail Free" spell becomes icing on the already delicious cake.
Wands can be helpful, and perhaps interchangable with a Metamagic Rod in the early levels, though you'll need UMD for it to be reliable, and since they use a minimum CL, unless you craft it yourself and set the CL, it won't be particularly useful. The same can be said for scrolls, though they are more like a "Get out of Jail Free" consumable, and require more extensive UMD investments for them to be reliable.
Eldritch Heritage is one of the better feat tree investments for a caster-based Bard (which I believe is the only good kind of Bard). However, not many of the bloodlines are good for a Bard except for the Maestro bloodline; a Daze SLA which scales on your HD instead of the otherwise set amount allows you to consistently lock down a single foe, a (limited) constant Comprehend Languages spell active on you (and +1 CL to language-dependant spells), as well as a multi-use/day Greater Heroism SLA (which helps your spell situation quite a bit) makes it very valuable. It is feat intensive, and will take up about 40% of your feats, but can be worth it.
The Maestro bloodline looks interesting. Shame your sorcerer level is level - 2 although dazing mooks can be useful at any level. As far as the greater haste SLA, I've never been high enough level for that to matter in any campaign.