IIRC, the two bard builds that let you front line (ish) are the archaeologist with Fate's favored (and probably you can be a half orc with sacred tattoos and a jingasa of the fortunate soldier to really maximize the luck bonuses).
Or the Dawnflower Dervish, which basically grants himself insane bonuses due to bardic performances.
Drawback, both of these archetypes are incredibly selfish (buffing only affects you).
prototype00
Whip-trip. Well, you're already disarming, and trip is only a bit less situational.
Get your illusion on for other situations. Control the battlefield.
With all those disarm buffs, though, I'm not sure how you're only getting foes with 20 points higher CMD than your CMB. I mean, it can be done, but it shouldn't be very common.
I would like to see your stats and feats. I tend to think Bards belong at the back and make excellent archers but there's more than one way to skin a cat...
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Bards are great combatants. You just need to know how to build 'em. They make solid reach-weapon users and even decent two-weapon fighters, even if they are a little feat starved, because the inspire courage bonuses make up for the lower accuracy and damage that usually accompanies dual-wielding.
Or you can just build for archery. But that's the EASY way.
Try the Rockstar class from the Gonzo PDF. Not a Skald but pretty cool in how their "Performance" is a chain of damage dealing and debuffs.
Well Greendragon, this isn't a hostile GM situation. He's struggling to find things to throw at us that the pole-arm based fighter won't just curb-stomp. And groups of things are severely less threatening since he can do Whirlwind Attack as a large creature with a three square reach. So it's either an unmanageable swarm, or very few and very tough enemies.
The monster's CMD is what it is. Most of the things we fight are straight out of the Bestiaries.
In fact, my GM was the one who suggested I try to look up some house-rules to help with the situation.
fighters are supposed to curb stomp and wade through battles with high AC.
You can't set up every encounter as 'how do I challenge the fighter' , because then every encounter would have an enchanter with mind control.
d8 hit dice and 3/4 bab are supposed to be the flat line middle ground, where most combatants meet.
d10 full bab is technically supposed to be rare, just like full casters… there isn't one in every tavern slogging down a bowl of fish soup.
In most of my games, 3/4 BAB types (clerics, oracles, inquisitors, some bards, etc) are the front liners.
Full BAB characters do happen and they are the juggernauts… Barbarians surrounded by enemies who have to trip over the bodies of fallen brethren just to reach him… fighters who wade into battle like Dracula Untold only to come out with a on their hard head and a sore sword arm.
If you don't play like this, then it's just a mage battle where everyone whips out charm monster, and lightening bolt. and then all the fighters make sandwiches, while the bard uses all his actions to dispel mind control and keep the Full BABers in the negatives from dying with his heal spells.
I agree with all that stats need to be seen. It sounds like Con is pretty low to be 'one shotted'.
When I built a bard for Rune Lords, I decided on the Arcane Duelist. Of coarse we are using rolled stats instead of point buy like I am guessing what is here. But the first feat I took was toughness knowing that I would be up close and personal and needing HP. I don't make optimized characters, but they do pretty well.
Try the Rockstar class from the Gonzo PDF. Not a Skald but pretty cool in how their "Performance" is a chain of damage dealing and debuffs.
OR just retrain as a skald! muahaha!
alternatively if you want to join the fun of how the campaign is being run, grab a few levels of cavalier and then PrC into Battle Herald.
alternatively see if your DM will let you retrain feats and go into the Dervish Dancer Archetype Here.
make sure to get weapon finesse and slashing grace is a goodie too.
and take the whole whip mastery feat chain, too much fun!
What is a good bard build that lets you feel like you participate in combat?
Bards can be reasonably useful melee fighters; though they won’t ever be able to match pure fighters and in Pathfinder they can never attain the heights that they could in 3.5 (e.g. there isn’t a Snowflake Wardance feat in Pathfinder). But to do this they need a reasonable STR, DEX and CON (nothing below 12) as well as a few magic items.
Get a Mithral Chain Shirt and a magical shield and you’re looking at an armour class of something like 15 + level which is what a second-line fighter should aspire towards.
Consider a 5th level Bard with STR 14, DEX 14, the feat Arcane Strike and the following magic items: Longsword +1, Heavy Shield +1, Ring of Protection +1, Amulet of Natural Armour +1 and Mithral Chain Shirt +1. They have an armour class of 22 and with Inspire Courage are getting +8 to hit doing D8+7 damage.
These magic items are well within the limits of what you should have at 5th level if you are going by the conventional wealth by level chart. Later on make your weapon Keen to get a critical range of 17-20 (an alternative is to use a Rapier which when Keen gets critical hits on 15-20).
Where the fighters’ primary attacks are made with reach weapons, you might consider using a reach weapon (Longspear).
Another contribution you can make is to move into position to help the other party members gain flanking.
At 7th level your actions in round 1 should typically be Inspire Courage and casting Haste or Good Hope.
We have a saying at our table: Thanks to the bard. Just say that every time one of the other PCs makes a hit or a save or whatever thanks to the buff and bonuses the bard provides and you'll see just how important your role in the group really is.
If you are willing to skimp INT some and just get by on your base HP, you can build a beefy frontline bard who fights with the fighter/etc. Aim for a Belt of STR/CON, double-hand a longsword+arcane strike and you can be a pretty effective combatant with Heroism.
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The only mistake I can pin point for now is the high focus you placed on your character Charisma. If you are mainly built around disarming and buffing, there is no reason to place Charisma as your highest stat. In fact, a bard can start with Charisma 13 at 1st level and be very playable, increasing his Charisma score as he gains level. At mid and high level, the Charisma doesn't make any difference for performance rounds and your spell DCs can't follow the curve of full-caster anyway.
I DMed a game once where one of my player was a frontliner half-orc bard with a greataxe. She was one of the biggest threat in the party, outplaying the party magus in most melee fight, thanks to her two-handed build and wise spell selection. You can avoid most of the AC problem with mirror image, blur and displacement. True seeing and blast attacks are your only true nemesis with this kind of defense.
Once you reach 7th level, you can start a performance as a move action, cast your primary combat buff, then launch yourself in the melee the next round. If you have long duration spells like heroism, us them before the battle, like when entering the dungeon. With this kind of approach, playing a bard can be extremely funny and effective. It is the same with a trip build, a disarm build or an archer build. You just have to slack on the casting, be a little more selfish with your buffs, and focus more on your physical stats. No need to select a focused archetype, this can be done with a vanilla bard, and you don't loose much on the support aspect of the class.
The only true problem of the fighting bard is that he needs more stats than the average fighter, because he needs at least a good dexterity for the AC, a moderate Constitution to survive melee, a moderate Charisma, and a good Strength for most melee build. In my home game, we use a high point buy to help these kin of character to shine. If you have low stats, nothing here can help you. You could however suggest to your DM to gives you some kind of boost, like a fortunate tome of dexterity just for you or something like that.
Kelazan has good advice. I ran a similar bard and had few problems with accuracy.
Remember to have good hope up pre combat. Song, Haste, enter melee.
Alternatively bards are amazing archers. Level 11 Bard Archer Build
You'll have to put some FEATS into play to make your bard more effective in combat situations. The great thing about bards is that they fill in the gaps between so many other classes. Use that to your advantage.
Instead of looking to be a tank, try to help defend the characters that are worse at combat than yourself such as the wizard or cleric. Use creativity in combat not just attacks. Start stocking useful potions, scrolls or wands that you can use in most situations. Summon an animal companion when you can to give you an extra body on the battlefield.
Your stats will have to serve as the guide to which combat tactics will work best for you. If you don't have IMPROVED DISARM, I wouldn't advise making that your main tactic.
I Think i need to know more about your PC to give meningfull advice. The bard is a class that Can do a number of things.
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What level are you talking? And how good at optimization is your group?
In my experience, at the higher levels (say 8+) a bard just cannot keep up with highly optimized characters in any direct combat roles (tank, archer, DPs, maneuver specialists, etc). They can only keep up if the bard player has far more system mastery. This even includes "selfish" bards like the Dawnflower Dervish although the latter delay things a bit.
Given their versatility and the way that they can totally dominate other situations this is probably a GOOD thing.
But my advice (totally useless to the OP but maybe of use to others) is to NOT play a bard unless you LIKE the support/buff/face/etc role and are willing to be very much an after thought in direct combat.
Hmm.
Actually, I'd be more interested in seeing the warriors' builds than your build. Even then, your current stats might be nice.
Seeing what bench-mark we're aiming for would be a great help, as that mark seems to be pretty high, for some reason. Be aware that if you only have one foe in a battle, it needs to be crazy tough to present a challenge to a team of warriors: it'd be easy to end up in a scenario where the enemy can one-shot anyone that hasn't a high con and a d12.
And contrary to what other people in the thread are saying, you're not wrong for wanting to contribute to combat even though you're not a full-bab god.
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One thing of note - if you're using your spells mostly just to buff - you don't really need a Charisma higher than 14 or so.
My bard (PFS) always has the highest AC in the party since he picked up his breastplate. His damage is nothing to write home about, but he does his bit with arcane strike etc. (If I had a consistent power-attacking buddy, I'd probably have gotten butterfly sting.) His main job though, is to inspire courage, tank, and have utility spells.
I play my bard as a front-liner, and every GM I've ever met can't help but have baddies take a swing at the 'silly' front-lining bard. :P (the main complaint of 'tanky' fighter types is that baddies ignore them)
I suppose that I mainly play him similar to an arcane duelist, I just didn't like the idea of giving up bardic knowledge.
So - as others have said - we need to know your current build and what you want to do with it b4 advice can be given.
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My bard (PFS) always has the highest AC in the party since he picked up his breastplate.
While a bard can devote enough resources to have a decent AC I find it hard to imagine a build that is remotely competitive with a high AC tower shield dude or an AC optimized monk or some of the other very tanky builds.
Pretty much anything a bard can do to raise their AC somebody else can do better.
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My bard (PFS) always has the highest AC in the party since he picked up his breastplate.
While a bard can devote enough resources to have a decent AC I find it hard to imagine a build that is remotely competitive with a high AC tower shield dude or an AC optimized monk or some of the other very tanky builds.
Pretty much anything a bard can do to raise their AC somebody else can do better.
I agree. Heck - I could have gotten another couple AC points out of my bard if I'd really aimed at it. I just haven't played with anyone with my bard who is power-gaming in that direction.
Most fighters / monks focus more on offense than defense. As I pointed out, a turtling fighter isn't accomplishing much. On the other hand, a turtling bard is.
Though I would point out - while it's not straight AC, unlike a fighter/monk, a bard can use spell defenses. (heck yeah mirror image) And unlike blur etc, mirror image does benefit from a high AC. (You have to get close to their AC to even take out an image.)
Exotic Weapon Proficency : Net
Trust me!
Ranged touch attack, and entangled condition.
The more party focused you are and buffing you do, the more likely combat is done. More selfish means you're ready to fight sooner, means you fight, and party isn't as buffed.
The most surprising bit of advice I've gotten is that charisma doesn't need to be high. I mained it because it was my spellcasting stat, but now that I think about it none of the spells I cast on a regular basis actually benefit from it. I suppose some non-combat spells do, but very few of those have ever really been challenged.
As for disarming, with a variety of feats, buffs and so forth I can get up to a +30 CMB or so. But then we fight things like a balor with a CMD of 54. So yeah, it seems that the issue there is that a majority of our fights are single boss monsters.
Sure, you may be saying that expecting to disarm a balor is unreasonable. But when your entire build is based on disarming and it's the first thing you've seen carry a sword in months of play... you'd want to at least try.
I almost did it too. I had a wand of true strike ready, but by the time I was done casting buffs the fight was over.
A net is a nice idea, but given that its effects don't scale it would be less useful the higher level you got, and my character is already lvl 15. Even if I use a mithral net, it's still just going to cause them to be "entangled" and a -2 to AC and attack doesn't mean as much when those stats are crazy high.
If your whole build is based around disarming then bard is pehaps not the way to go.
I still think a look at your character is needed if you want other advice than, read a bard guide. But i am interesser in hering how it works out for you.
I suggest you just think about it from a different perspective.
I am playing in a group through the Skull and Shackles Campaign. We have a Wizard, a Brawler, a Swashbuckler, a Ranger (archer, myself), and a Bard.
The Bard rarely ever makes an attack. If he does, it is with his reach weapon. But the bard has the highest DPR among anyone at the table. How?
Perspective. Every attack that succeeds, that bonus damage you grant? That's your DPR. Every attack that connects when it would have failed? That's your DPR.
My archer can do 1d8+ 2 Strength +8 Deadly Aim +6 Favored Enemy&Instant Enemey + 8 from Inspire Courage. That's 28.5 points of damage per arrow. But ~30% of that is the Bard's inspire courage. I make 5 attacks per round. Now the bard buffed me with haste! Yeah, count all that as your DPR too.
You just need a different perspective. Now, I will admit that it does leave combat options a little....repetitive. Sing your inspiring song, caste haste, and you're pretty much done for the day. Maybe you need to caste Dispel Magic or something like that every once in a while. Oh and Knowledges. Bardic Knowledge is beautiful.
Your combat actions may be limited, but you're contributing so much even without needing to take actual actions that it doesn't matter.
Bards rock! I love having one in the party, even if all they do is sit there and sing.
how are you getting a +8 from inspire courage?
Well, if you fight a single opponent most of the time it's no wonder you have to have such dangerous opposition.
When it's just two sides beating away at each other, the enemy has to have mountains of hitpoints not to just die in the space of one round.
The answer is usually to use more enemies.
Consider that the balor is a CR 20 opponent. That means it yields sodding 307200xp.
That's a lot of xp. It's enough to make a single character level from 15-16, meaning that four of these babies will make a 4person party go ding.
It would be prudent to make them work for that sort of reward.
The best way to accomplish that is not to hide 370 hp behind an AC of 36. That sort of thing will die in the space of two or three rounds or so. Also, it has to deal all its damage on its own, so it doesn't really get a good chance to summon or use its SLAs, which means that you aren't getting enough mileage out of the creature.
A budget of 307200xp could mean a trio of mariliths. Or it could mean a duo of mariliths, with each their Seraptis bodyguard.
If you do that you can have 628hp behind ac 32(AC 36 if the pc is good) and 434hp behind ac 30(+4 if good).
Beyond this they will have time to summom. That could result in a glabrezu popping up, as well as 1-2 nafleshnees. The nafleshnees have 204hp each and an ac of 33vs good, and on their first round they force an aoe dc 22 will or be dazed for 1d10 rounds. The glabrezu's stats are bad, but they have at will SLAs that cause slow if they fail, as well as dispel magic. The Glabrezu also has power word stun; this is huge, as a pc probably only has 250hp at max. It can probably be used on bards or casters out straight from the first round. Have everything that has veil disguise itself as another marilith to cause general confusion.
Also, if what the pc's are hitting at the time has unholy aura, remember to make them take their fort save to avoid strength damage.
Suppose half the summons go through: the party now has to content with dealing around 1400damage, up from the measly 370 they had to do to drop the balor. All the while they're being hammered by 6 sets of actions worth of full-attacks and SLAs, probably translating into having to make multiple saves per turn. This is much more dangerous than a balor who has to split his time between bashing skulls and using SLAs.
TL;DR: If your foes are so tough that only the dedicated beatsticks can touch them, you can allocate that encounter xp in such a way as to a) stand a fair chance of totally murderkilling your party if you want to, and b) give everyone something that is both dangerous and relevant to the encounter, and within their ability to fight.
I.E. if the paladin has to fight the maraliths, then the bard can take out the glebrezu to make sure it doesn't no-save-just stun the paladin as soon as he hits 150hp.
how are you getting a +8 from inspire courage?
It's not all actually from inspire courage, but i just lumped it together.
So, he's an Aasimar bard, and used the favored class bonuns to increase his effective bard level for the purpose of determining the bonus that that song provides. So he picks up the full +4 from Inspire Courage. He also has the Lord's Banner of Victory. Which gets us up to +6. I forget where the last +2 come from, as it's not my character.
Our bard is definitely playing a buffer/debuffer/battlefield control. But a lot of our fights are over in 4 rounds at most, so he uses his performance and then waits to react to the enemy instead of using spell slots for extra buffs that we don't really need.
However, there was a combat with a tetori grappler in which is spend almost all his time casting liberating command at every opportunity and another spell to try to buff our escape artist check to get out of the grapple. That was an...interesting combat. Not a threat to the whole party, but keeping the person who got caught from dying was not an easy task.
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I used Gallant Inspiration to provide focused buffs (our perpetually low-rolling ranger LOVED that +2d4 bonus on the occasionally to-hit roll)
I always liked the vibe of the inspriation spells - but sadly, they don't stack with Inspire Courage. I'd probably use them more if I was playing an Archivist or Court bard so that it'd mesh with my primary performance.