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Hello I am Shagohod Volkov, lisa chelovek (fox person aka Kitsune), Savage Skald Bard. I like reciting poetry in the rain and inspiring others to great victory! Born in Cettigne, Molthune, and proud Pathfinder. (Sovereign Court faction)
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Okay introduction out of the way this is my first attempt at a PFS character, and are group is starting up in the first or second week of September...sooo I have time but as soon as the new guide came out I went to work. I figured our group tends to forget to bring a healer, or buffer for that matter, and tend to go for barbarians, fighters or outright blaster wizards and sorcerers, and the occasional summoner. So without going the cleric route, I still wanted to roll up a character that is always useful in some part. So Bard struck me best, with the +1 Enchant DC, (Pally being the next since they too make a nice use of charisma.)
I'm kinda wanting to be a close range archer since again I'm pretty sure there will be a meat shield and eidolon at minimum up front before I even GET there. So primarily I want to buff the party, patch up wounds where they happen and then work on charming, holding, and otherwise enchanting any poor saps, and the rest get arrows to the face.
The other thing is and where I really need the advice is
1. I'm not 100% sold on the faction choice. I like the dedication to nobility and honor though. And this character would have 'ambitions' on becoming nobility anywhere he could get recognized as such. That said I have a hard time playing evil (or even devious) so the only faction I've ruled out is Dark Archives.
and 2. Traits, again nothing really seemed 'Crazy yet noble warrior poet bent on acquiring fame and fortune'
ANY advice at all is appreciated. Books I have to use are: Bestiary 1-4, Inner Sea World Guide, UE, Inner Sea Combat, and APG, and of course Core.
And yes the name and Russian accent (in my head) comes from where you think it comes from.
The crunchy stuff is in the profile
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Trait wise domineering is a solid trait that can help make a 1st level enchantment get stronger.
As far as advice. Abuse the level 2 rework. I never set my character till then. I roll with a power house 1st level that will get through first level with ease.
Faction wise I like the trade minded guys. You can become a noble many different ways. Who needs a crown when the crown begs you for help.
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So without going the cleric route, I still wanted to roll up a character that is always useful in some part.
Then you have two options: a damage beast (preferably melee with some form of pounce) or a crowd control arcane caster. Everything else is useless if your party has well-built characters. If you want to be a noble, I'd suggest playing a sorcerer with the extremely fashionable trait, magical lineage trait(glitterdust or fireball) and the noble scion (war) feat. It's a perfect build, it's always useful (mostly crowd control, but can buff and blast as the situation requires), and can heal (infernal healing - the only healing wand you'll ever need) after combat is over.
The other option that would suit you is a saurian druid. Turn into a pouncing dinosaur, kill everything, then use a cure light wounds wand after combat.
It's also worth noting that focusing on enchantment magic is extremely horrible (almost as bad as focusing on healing). There are FAR too many things immune to mind affecting magic for it to work often.
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Enchantment is actually not a terrible thing to specalize in providing you have a class feature that let's you get around some of the rampant immunities. Sorcerer has the most options for this with the undead bloodline letting your enchantments hit undead and the serpentine bloodline letting you hit some animals and such. If you are dead set on bard however fear not! The dirge bard archtype lets you hit undead with enchantment spells as well as giving you a host if other abilities with a necromantic flavor. So if you want to stick to bard and enchantment I'd honestly go with a dirge instead of a savage skald. Being able to hit undead with enchantments is a very valuable power to have as undead tend to be a common enemy that has immunity. If you want to go with a sorcerer choose either serpentine, undead or crossblooded fey/undead, fey/serpentine or undead/serpentine if you want to hit even more things.
Also while it may not be the most optimal build an Arcanist can pick up the bloodline arcana(and thus the abilities of the undead and serpentine bloodlines that lets enchantments bypass certain creatures' immunities) of multiple bloodlines without taking the massive spells-known hit a crossblooded sorcerer does. They are primarily an int class, yes, but they actually use cha for some things unlike wizards and if you want healing they have an archtype that lets them convert their prepared spells to heals in the same manner as a cleric. So it's an option to consider if crossblooded's penalties turn you off.
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Well this Bardic Performance is really what interested me:
Song of the Fallen (Sp): At 10th level, a savage skald can duplicate the effect of a Horn of Valhalla. This effect requires 10 continuous rounds of performance and summons barbarians as a silver horn at 10th level, as a brass horn at 13th level, as a bronze horn at 16th level, and as an iron horn at 19th level. The warriors remain only as long as the bard continues his performance. This ability requires audible components.
You dont have to take a faction trait.
If you do it locks you to it. But you do get a free faction change so I would assume a trait change with it if you took a faction trait.
Ah well that's cool and good to know.
Then you have two options: a damage beast (preferably melee with some form of pounce) or a crowd control arcane caster. Everything else is useless if your party has well-built characters. If you want to be a noble, I'd suggest playing a sorcerer with the extremely fashionable trait, magical lineage trait(glitterdust or fireball) and the noble scion (war) feat. It's a perfect build, it's always useful (mostly crowd control, but can buff and blast as the situation requires), and can heal (infernal healing - the only healing wand you'll ever need) after combat is over.The other option that would suit you is a saurian druid. Turn into a pouncing dinosaur, kill everything, then use a cure light wounds wand after combat.
It's also worth noting that focusing on enchantment magic is extremely horrible (almost as bad as focusing on healing). There are FAR too many things immune to mind affecting magic for it to work often.
I really play too many melee orientated characters, and I'm sure others will show up with melee beasts.
Though sorcerer I guess wouldn't be bad, I really dig what you are suggesting, just no arcane bloodline it's too vanilla for me. :P
My big thought on enchantment as far as Bard goes is it's focus is recommended by j b 200's Bard guide since Bard has so many enchant spells. AND Kitsune get a +1 to using them.
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I could see that in a non-pfs game since d20pfsrd has it up but I don't have UC or UM books or .pdf (I know the person that is DMing our group does have them, but if I used this character somewhere else or with another DM I still want to be legal.) to make use of tattooed or crossblooded characters for PFS. If a DM asked to see what books I used to build the character according to the rules these are all I can show him ATM:
Bestiary 1-4, Inner Sea World Guide, UE, Inner Sea Combat, APG,Core.
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Yeah, either way Enchantment still isn't that terrible with the right bloodline/archtype. As stated, a crossblooded undead/serpentine sorcerer can hit a decent amount of things with their enchantment spells, and either one on it's own or crossblooded with fey is still a -solid- option. Remember "specializing" in enchantment dosen't mean thats all you do. In my current playgroup I am playing a vanilla Kitsune Fey sorcerer, no crossblooded in play. My character is "specialized" in enchantment, but only one of his spells known of each level is actually an enchantment spell. Most of his spells are -generally useful- effects such as defenses, buffs and battlefield control spells, and right now we are in an undead heavy area and he is far from useless. While his enchantments are all but pointless in this area, he's gotten a lot of mileage out of all his buffs, especially haste since we're a melee heavy party, and also has had fun abusing entangle(A bloodline spell for him) and glitterdust. Also, via use magic device, he plays the role of the "backup healer" for the party and has managed to save lives with a well-placed use of his cure wands on more then one occasion.
In my mind, the key to specializing in enchantment as a sorcerer is A) not to OVER-specialize in it/devote only one spell known per-spell level to it and B)to always, always have ranks in UMD. It's a class skill, after all, and can greatly increase your capabilities. In fact, I'd highly recommend looking into the false priest archtype if you think you'll make it to high levels, as it allows you to use your spell slots to fuel divine wands, essentially adding every divine spell to your spells known. If you really want to abuse magic items, take levels of ciphermage to abuse scrolls just as bad as you can wands. Ciphermage is, in fact, the direction I plan on going with my own enchanter Kitsune, since he just has started his scroll collection by obtaining a Paladin scroll of restoration.(We figured we'd need it in undead-land so our cleric/paladin has one scroll of restoration and two lesser resto scrolls, all cleric version while I'm holding the backup scroll of restoration which happens to be the Paladin version because my wisdom is bleh.)
You dont have to take a faction trait.
If you do it locks you to it. But you do get a free faction change so I would assume a trait change with it if you took a faction trait.
No, you don't get a free trait change with a faction change; you'd need to actually retrain the trait per Ultimate Campaign.
... he just has started his scroll collection by obtaining a Paladin scroll of restoration.(We figured we'd need it in undead-land so our cleric/paladin has...
Remember that in PFS, you have to buy scrolls of the highest-level version of a given spell, so you can't buy scrolls of paladin versions to get a lower level (and cheaper) scroll.
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David,
You can't retrain traits in Ultimate Campaign. There isn't an option for that.
Also, you're completely wrong about your wording of scroll purchasing. You don't have to buy the highest level. You have to buy the BASE level. Meaning that you always take scrolls from the cleric and wizard lists if they exist, then druid scrolls, then paladin and ranger scrolls in that order.
David,
You can't retrain traits in Ultimate Campaign. There isn't an option for that.
Well then, you're "stuck" with the trait (which is reasonable since it reflects your origins and background). Fortunately, if you want some *new* traits there's a feat for that, so you could retrain out of a feat for that, or take it upon a gained level.
Also, you're completely wrong about your wording of scroll purchasing. You don't have to buy the highest level. You have to buy the BASE level. Meaning that you always take scrolls from the cleric and wizard lists if they exist, then druid scrolls, then paladin and ranger scrolls in that order.
Yes, I could have phrased it better - the base level. Which in almost all cases IS higher level, so I'd hardly characterize the answer as "completely wrong". The key point to remember is that when you see that the cleric version is 2nd level, and the paladin version is 1st... you still have to spring for the cleric version (150gp versus 25gp, in the case of, say, lesser restoration) Likewise, wands, which is financially significant in the case of 1st vs. 2nd level spells.
In our PFS region (other regions may vary)...
1) Buffer casters are always welcome, and knowledge skills are always useful.
2) Someone who can heal is helpful, but at higher levels, dedicated healers tend to get bored. (At some point around 10th level, every dedicated healer I've seen has threatened to start healing the enemies just to have something to do, at least once.)
3) Party "faces" (Diplomacy, Bluff, etc.) are always needed in PFS, and they are often overlooked (lots of players dump Charisma). There are several scenarios where a good "Diplomancer" can just about solo the entire adventure while the melee beasts complain about being bored. And since Season 4, a lot of the secondary success conditions depend on changing people's attitudes.
In general...
A) If you want to be at all useful at range, you need to have Precise Shot. This goes double if you have melee fighters you expect to stand behind. Normally, you have to burn two feats (Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot) for this, but the Paladin Divine Hunter archetype and the Monk Zen Archer archetype can both get it at first level without the prerequisites.
B) Don't be afraid to change your direction or just start a new character if things aren't going the way you want. Remember that each season has a storyline that will focus on different enemies, so in Season 5 (Year of the Demon), we saw a whole lot of evil outsiders who were immune to fire. (My flame Oracle and my husband's Ifrit sorcerer just took Season 5 off.) If your GM is planning to run the current season, take a look at the blurbs and faction goals for Season 6 before you decide to specialize.
C) Hyper-specialists will have nothing to do in about one in four scenarios. The scenarios are too varied to focus on any single thing. Have your primary shtick, and then have at least one, maybe two other things you can do when your primary shtick doesn't work.
D) Remember that "being useful" does not mean "completely dominating every scenario". A lot of advice you'll see on the messageboards is targeted at completely optimizing your character, and you'll see a lot comments that kind of sound like "If you aren't putting out maximum DPR, your character is a complete failure." PFS is a cooperative game, and everyone likes to be able to contribute. Sometimes, even if you can completely dominate the scenario, it doesn't mean you should.
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In our PFS region (other regions may vary)...
1) Buffer casters are always welcome, and knowledge skills are always useful.2) Someone who can heal is helpful, but at higher levels, dedicated healers tend to get bored. (At some point around 10th level, every dedicated healer I've seen has threatened to start healing the enemies just to have something to do, at least once.)
3) Party "faces" (Diplomacy, Bluff, etc.) are always needed in PFS, and they are often overlooked (lots of players dump Charisma). There are several scenarios where a good "Diplomancer" can just about solo the entire adventure while the melee beasts complain about being bored. And since Season 4, a lot of the secondary success conditions depend on changing people's attitudes.
In general...
A) If you want to be at all useful at range, you need to have Precise Shot. This goes double if you have melee fighters you expect to stand behind. Normally, you have to burn two feats (Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot) for this, but the Paladin Divine Hunter archetype and the Monk Zen Archer archetype can both get it at first level without the prerequisites.B) Don't be afraid to change your direction or just start a new character if things aren't going the way you want. Remember that each season has a storyline that will focus on different enemies, so in Season 5 (Year of the Demon), we saw a whole lot of evil outsiders who were immune to fire. (My flame Oracle and my husband's Ifrit sorcerer just took Season 5 off.) If your GM is planning to run the current season, take a look at the blurbs and faction goals for Season 6 before you decide to specialize.
C) Hyper-specialists will have nothing to do in about one in four scenarios. The scenarios are too varied to focus on any single thing. Have your primary shtick, and then have at least one, maybe two other things you can do when your primary shtick doesn't work.
D) Remember that "being useful" does not mean "completely dominating every scenario". A lot of advice you'll see on...
1. Yeah I will probably buff more then anything else, Hold Person and enchant stuff like that would be the next spells off the bat.
2. Agreed ^-^, though I've never been bored as a healer. (Played a half orc cleric in an Eberron 3.5 game with all strength and wisdom, and very little 'people' skills. He ended up like a mace wielding cross between Andre the Giant and Dr. House. :P
3. Exactly why I went for Charisma based caster, and thought Bard being best to roll with.
A. Yeah I thought about multiclassing at level 2 into fighter just to get it, otherwise it's the next feat taken regardless. I had thought about going Sorceror/Pally/EK route for a bit as an alternative.
B. Yeah it looks like high tech stuff is coming, Numeria probably, gathering the artwork in the new guide.
C. Well again enchant is what I'm looking at primarily as Kitsunes get a bonus to it, and that 'charming' personality to win people over is what appeals to me. But being good at buffing, saving the Leeroy Jenkins from himself.
D. Yeah being good but not great at everything is another reason I looked to bard, I think it's good without possibly being overtly powerful.
The horn of Valhalla is mechanically a horrible, horrible, haggar the horrible ability. They have no hit points, do no damage, and can't get through the damage reduction thats neigh inevitable on anything you're fighting there. PFS groups also tend to be melee heavy, and you don't want those mooks taking up valuable real estate next to the big boss.
I know it looks really cool, but when you actually use it its going to be a huge disapointment. Reflavor another spell as doing the same thing: danger will robinson! avoid.
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That doesn't seem right, they are supposed to be constructs sure but it says on the Horn of Valhalla: Summoned barbarians are constructs, not actual people (though they seem to be); they arrive with the starting equipment for barbarians. They attack anyone the possessor of the horn commands them to fight until they or their opponents are slain or until 1 hour has elapsed, whichever comes first.
Despite not giving their actual stats it seems like you can equip them anyway you want like a starting level gold barbarian.
But if this was FAQed or I'm missing something please let me know.