1. Chests being broke open should carry a penalty, since they are probably damaging the goods inside.
2. You are a low level caster, this is nothing to be surprised of.
3. Could we see more stats? Maybe some reswitching of feats or attributes could improve your build.
4. By the way, throwing daggers is hardly a great combat strategy, as it requires a ton of feats that the bard doesn't have... why not refocus to be a whip reach build? It gives you some other niche in combat. If you want to fight from range, try the shortbow.
5. To me it sounds like you spent the session in a dungeon. See how useful the Monk and the Barbarian are once you reach a town and you need to sweet talk the mayor's daughter into giving you the keys to her panty drawer or something like that.
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The Archaeologist Bard is primarily a hammer in combat... the problem is you already have four of those. You would be much better off as a standard bard.
And yeah... the Monk shouldn't be able to sunder the chests without destroying the treasure inside.
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Skills are pretty widespread in Pathfinder, you don't really need a "skill guy" because it's so easy to do that AND be good elsewhere. Building specifically for that is just going to end in boredom for you.
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The monk and barbarian are foolish to charge ahead like that.
Ask the GM to do stuff like.putting viles of acid in trunks to destroy papers if the chest us simply destroyed instead of disarmed.
Point out the smashing of a door would alert others to your arrival but you wuiyly unlocking it might give you all a surprise round.
Be realistic about damaging expectations. If doing massive damage is what you think is fun, don't think throwing daggers as a bard is the way to do it. You also confessed you rolled very poorly, would you have been.satisfied had you rolled more on the bell curve?
Sounds like you were very useful with an illusion if the wizard began copyi you. Though you might want to suggest more illusions thrown out might result in people just choosing to disbelief stuff from assuming things are illusions.
I disapprove of changing PCs unless it us a brand new player. Have you considered multitasking? Maybe asking to convert to a scald would be accepted by your GM as it us similar to bard.aybe have you pc get I. The fave of a bad guy trying to prove how tough he is, hope your GM attacks your measly dagger pc instead of the real threats at th he table. If you let the GM know, maybe they would go along.
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Protip: Rogues are objectively worse than bards in combat. And everything else for that matter.
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If you think you are useless now, then as a Rogue, you will feel dismally useless.
You can always just fire off your shortbow.
Your Archaeologist’s Luck adds to Attack and Damage, so you should use it in combat.
You have access to a number of Buff spells.
You can use your Rogue Talents for combat feats, and you can nab Arcane Strike.
In fact, you could easily go Slashing Grace/Fencing Grace/Dervish Dance, and use Dex for damage.
What is your race, feats, and traits?
Dervish Dance may change things a bit for you.
Were your stats rolled or point-based? If they were point-based then I would have to say you put way too much into INT and probably too much into WIS. I notice you didn't post your CON. I'm guessing from your HP though that it's 10 or 11. I would probably have swapped that with your INT. CON is a very important score for any character. Bards already get 6 skill ranks per level; there is no reason to need 9.
Throwing javelins is better than throwing daggers unless you have class features that do neat things with daggers.
Ironically you are the only character in this party that can cast any healing magic.
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You don't need extra skill feats, to be good at skills.
Also, one, or two feats, is not a "huge investment".
If you don't put something towards combat, this situation will only get worse.
A few spells, and skill points is all you need.
Heck, pick up Pageant of the Peacock, and you will be a skills master.
Well again you have 4 hammers. Quite often 3 melees are more hindering than helpful in my experience. I do like bards, playing 2 and my wive in PFS and you can always do something useful. The normal bard may stink but with lingering performance you should be able to buff the others all day long, use a whip to aid or trip and everything is fine. If you do not do a single point of damage but prevented or helped others so what.... dead is dead. And speak to the gm that the next broken chest has now broken potions and suddenly they will just wait for you to pick it.
Also you can use splash weapons.
It sounds like you have made a character for a different game than the rest of your party. And building for 4 skills is not really a viable build with a guy that gets 6+ skill points. If you change it to normal bard you can buff your friends in combat and still be a fine skill guy. But skill guy is really not a one person job in PF. Both since it will make that guy a spotlight hugger and on one side skills are to diverse for one to cover than all and at the same time not that hard.
i have 10 strength, 16 dexterity, 16 intelligence, 17 wisdom, 20 charisma. i only have 22 hit points at level 4 so i can't go into melee. My big skills were sense motive, bluff, perception, and disable device. I didn't play the bard to be a buffer, i played the bard to be a skill character, and to throw out the odd illusion. My GM suggested giving me some offensive wizard spells but i don't have the castings. I'm just looking at talking to him and seeing if i can play a rogue, something thats better in combat.
My race is human, my feats are Weapon finesse, SKill Focus Bluff, Skill Focus Sense Motive, and extra rogue talent for honeyed words. i have 11 constitution. The character wasn't meant to be combat focused and i dont want to invest a bunch of feats into dervish dance etc. he is built for skills, but it seems the other players can do it without my skills.
As others have said, Rogue would likely be an even worse problem in combat.
If you are maxing out the Sense Motive, Bluff, Perception and Disable Device it is overkill to also have the two Skill Focus feats. See if you're GM will allow you to retrain at least one of them into something that will help you in combat -- maybe Arcane Strike or Spell Focus: Enchantment?
With your Charisma and the social skills, I assume you dominate any social interaction. The rest of the group probably feels pretty useless there. How much social interaction have you had with NPCs?
What spells does your Bard know? Grease can make a huge difference in a combat. You have a great Charisma, so it should be difficult for enemies to resist your magic.
My race is human, my feats are Weapon finesse, SKill Focus Bluff, Skill Focus Sense Motive, and extra rogue talent for honeyed words. i have 11 constitution. The character wasn't meant to be combat focused and i dont want to invest a bunch of feats into dervish dance etc. he is built for skills, but it seems the other players can do it without my skills.
One of the things you have to take into account when creating a character is the game you are joining. Particularly the dm. If the dm isn't known for his social encounters, or his trap filled/sneaky adventures focusing on those aspects isnt going to be helpful. If you are playing a social intrigue game, social skill will shine, if you are playing a pure kick in the door dungeon delver (which it sounds like) you arent going to shine with that focus.
Talk to your dm about the kind of game he intends to run. One of the things that a style choice is to avoid things that are focused on only a single character. It seems to me like he wants to do that. The locked chest and locked door are just little minor obstacles to be rushed past to get to the fights. Where as trap focused or even social focused games often tend to spend alot of time with only one player participating when they are the hands down best at that thing. Its entirely possible your dm intends to avoid those sorts of things.
So talk to the dm, find out what kind of game you are playing in, and make changes accordingly. And have the same kind of conversation for every game you join.
Investing in a skill-focused character is something that involves more than just the PC in question. It also requires an investment by the other party members and the DM. The party members have to realize that skills are your forte and allow you an opportunity to shine doing them. The DM has to agree to provide you with opportunities to do them.
I had a skill-focused character in my latest campaign. It was incredibly difficult for me as DM to give him enough opportunities to shine with the multitude of skills he had (human rogue with good INT). I did the best I could, though. The other party members (6 players in total, just like the OP) were good about letting the skilled rogue do his thing as long as it didn't monopolize too much time.
In our current game I am playing a bard and intended to be good at a variety of skills. However, it turns out that I rarely ever use my skills. Other party members have higher knowledge checks and our rogue handles all trap investigations. We never intimidate npc's or use stealth since those have backfired in previous encounters. So I feel like my skills are worthless. Thankfully, I built a good archer bard so I can contribute in combat.
Talk to your fellow players and your DM and see if you can't come to a satisfactory compromise. If not, you may need to change your character to suit the group. Good luck!
It seems you are happy with your character and not really worried about not being effective in combat. It seems that what you are not happy with it other characters smashing through things that you could use your skills to get by more elegantly, and if they weren't doing that, then you would be happy.
So I suggest talk to the other players.
As others have pointed out, focusing exclusively on skills won't do your character any good in combat. And since combat is a significant part of your campaign, it seems rather odd that you chose to hinder your character in such devastating ways.
Indeed the bard gets a lot of skill points and the class is revolving around that quite a lot. Any further investment may be an overkill (like skill focus feats, with the exception of perception perhaps). Maybe you want to be ''the best'' at it? There is nothing wrong with that. And you will probably succeed at that... but what about the other parts of the game?
The bard is a support character that excels at enhancing and buffing others by default. It's fine again if you don't want to do that. There is many ''selfish'' builds out there. But you chose again to not follow that path. The problem is... what do you want to do? Not only in your social interactions during the game, but also during encounters?
This will continue and gradually get worse and worse as the melee and the archer will level up and grow in power (especially offensively). Don't get me started on the wizard. You will be left out from the fun of contributing in combat. I know it doesn't feel good to have your barbarian doing 100 damage while you struggle to hit and hopefully doing 1/4 of that. Nor competing with the reality bending full-caster. Sooner or later you ll want to find a way to define your character during combat. I know this may not seem as crucial in a heavily social campaign, but since combat plays an important role most of the times -and yours is not an exception- you may need to think your possibilities without gimping such a flavourful character.
Refluffing a lot of your abilities helps a lot. I used to play a knowledge kind of sage sorcerer (he was the buffer of our party) character long ago that invested a lot in skills and support but I was using this whole concept as part of the character. Since he was the know it all guy, I made haste (the most iconic buff spell) as: Unlock Knowledge Within, which he was penetrating his friends psyche to plant knowledge he possessed to his comrades minds, further enhancing their understanding of the enemy and the ''winds of magic'' (as she used to call it). Translating to haste.
I am mentioning this because fluffing stuff can have a tremendous influence on your perception of your character and can lead to amazing commitment to your vision of him/her. That way, you can still choose a more offensive or buffing route while still appear as the character you wanted him to be. Your DM seems very flexible, so give this a thought and see how that work's for you.
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The OP is concerned about feeling useless, especially in combat. Here's a basic Forge of Combat analysis. It's quite revealing in this case.
The three combat roles are:
Hammer - Inflict HP damage
Arm - Support & enhance the hammers
Anvil - Battlefield control
A balanced group contains an Arm, an Anvil, and the rest Hammers.
This group contains a monk, swashbuckler, barbarian, archer, wizard, and me the bard
Monk - Hammer
Swashbuckler - Hammer
Barbarian - Hammer
Archer - Hammer
Wizard - Anvil
This bard - Hammer (but should be an Arm)
This party contains one Anvil, five Hammers, and no Arm.
Groups without Arms: Perhaps the most forgiving of the three major imbalances. These groups usually spend more resources than necessary to finish an encounter. When they don’t they exist on a razor’s edge where an enemies passed save or a characters failed save can mean the difference between failure and victory. This is much worse in groups that lack the means to magically heal themselves and are thus forced into shorter adventuring days or burning wealth on tons of cure light wound wands.
This party clearly needs an Arm style character, to enhance all those martial combatants.
It's possible to build a Bard many different ways. The standard Bard enhances others in combat, which is Arm behavior. The Archaeologist archetype of Bard trades away the ability to enhance others for better self-enhancement. This converts the standard Bard, an Arm, into a Hammer. This was exactly the wrong archetype to choose, in this case.
Unfortunately, you chose to build your character in the least combat-effective way possible. That's not an exageration. Despite very high attributes (that's a 53 point build, by my count!) you chose to have abysmally low Strength and Constitution, which are the main combat attributes. You also traded away your ability to enhance others in combat (very powerful and useful) for the ability to better enhance yourself in combat (not very useful in this case, since you have minimal starting combat ability).
The only way you could make this character less combat effective would be to switch to Rogue. Bards, and especially archaeologists, are more combat effective than Rogues. As someone commented above, it does seem as if you built your character expecting a completely different game from everyone else.
All is not lost! I see several ways you could salvage some rudimentary combat effectiveness with this character:
#1 Ask the GM, very nicely, if you would be allowed to drop the Archeologist archetype and just be a regular bard. Note that archeologists are great, and can do some really cool stuff. It's just not the cool stuff your particular group needs, nor is it cool stuff that fits with how you built your character. Bardsong, aka Inspire Courage, is far and away the best thing you can contribute to this group's combat ability. That alone makes you a worthy combat contributor.
#2 Become an archer. Note that The Forge of Combat essay, linked above, contains 4 sample characters. One of whom is an archaeologist Bard. That character becomes effective in combat by combining archaeologist bonuses with rapid shot archery. However, that PC traded away Inspire Courage because the party cleric took the Evangelist archetype, which adds Inspire Courage. Did you, perchance, take the Fate's Favored trait, which is so good for an Archaeologist that it's almost a requirement?
#3 See if your GM will allow you to change your attributes around a bit. Your stats are 10 strength, 16 dexterity, 11 constitution, 16 intelligence, 17 wisdom, 20 charisma. That's a fantastic, amazing, superlative set of attributes! They just don't do much for a bard. High Wisdom is useless on a Bard. High Int just gets a few more skill ranks, which you don't need. High DEX, while never bad, doesn't get you much unless you are competent with missile weapons. Even the CHA 20 is only useful to give you high DC offensive spells, something most bards don't bother with. Most Bards make do with CHA 14 or so. Those outrageously high attributes are mostly going to waste. For example, if your GM allowed you swap your 17 WIS for your STR 10, and swap your INT 16 for CON 11, you would have a powerful, survivable melee beast and would still be an excellent bard. With good STR and CON you could pick up a longspear and make an excellent reach bard.
#4 Find some tricky way to contribute to combat. Throwing daggers is not the way, as you'll never contribute meaningfully that way. Net is a possibility. Note that one can use a net effectively without being proficient in net, as it targets touch AC. Possibly use Tanglefoot bags or alchemist fire. Possibly get and use a combat wand.
#5 It's vaguely possible you might find room for all the feats required for finesse melee combat. It can be done. Your CON is too low, and it takes too many feats, but it's just barely possible.
You seem to be ignoring the most powerful aspect of the archetype. What makes or breaks the archeologist is his luck. Keep in mind that your archeologist lucks applies to almost everything including skills. Also the spell Heroism is also incredible and should be the first 2nd level spell you pick up. If you take fates favored and cast heroism this gives you +4 on almost all rolls except damage which only gets +2. Take lingering performance to effectively triple your rounds of luck. This is what is going to make you the king of skills not simply skill points. You will never be able to have enough skill points to be good at everything, but using this combination and placing a single point in all class skills will work.
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What do i do?
You seem to ask a question and dismiss the entirety of the responses for some reason or other.
You are pigeonholing yourself unnecessarily by being "The skill guy." There is no skill in the game that can't be overcome by creativity, blunt force trauma, or magic. And you have magic, too.
Combat is a major part of the game. Learn to contribute in it or make sure the other players are fine dragging around a non-contributor. Can't contribute to damage in combat? Cast grease on the badguy's sword, or on the floor. Grab a longspear and make attacks of opportunity, or use the aid another action. Hell, maybe just don't contribute at all. That can be an enjoyable RP decision- maybe your guy is a total coward, or a pacifist, or has some other foible about participating in combat?
It seems like you're really upset that the GM isn't letting you utilize your skills. Talk to him. Maybe see if he won't replace "simple doors" with "strong doors." Work in more social encounters, or traps.
You have ridiculous stats- the equivalent of a 45 point buy. You can find a way to make it work.
"Skill guy" is a bad thing to build your character towards. First off, you've given yourself basically nothing to do in combat, meaning that you don't really get to participate in (or enjoy) a huge portion of the game. Second off, by wanting to be the "skills guy" for your party, you're basically asking everyone else to participate in the out-of-combat game as little as your character does in combat.
The idea of a dedicated skill monkey needs to go away.
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You seem to be ignoring the most powerful aspect of the archetype. What makes or breaks the archeologist is his luck. Keep in mind that your archeologist lucks applies to almost everything including skills. Also the spell Heroism is also incredible and should be the first 2nd level spell you pick up. If you take fates favored and cast heroism this gives you +4 on almost all rolls except damage which only gets +2. Take lingering performance to effectively triple your rounds of luck. This is what is going to make you the king of skills not simply skill points. You will never be able to have enough skill points to be good at everything, but using this combination and placing a single point in all class skills will work.
archeologists luck is no fun when used to gather info or even spending 8 rounds to use diplomacy May seem a bit on the expencive side. It mainly works in combat and not for social skills that seem to be the focus here. But you are rigth about heroism exept he should be casting it on his friends. IMOP.
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Link is broken.
Yeah, basically don't be the skill guy. A party this size should already have all skills covered without needing a specialized skill monkey. Pathfinder doesn't have that much skills and it's easy to take them. Heal, Handle animal, Ride, Fly and others are almost useless for the majority of games. So people tend to put points in the others.
A bard comes to shine in support and control. Also with social interactions, but that's already there. If you will like to be out of combat utility, then retrain and use your spells to compel people to follow you and your business. get more gold. get a house, marry the princess, complot, convince people you're the god's herald.
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So, you ask to change out one feat.
One of the Skill Focus feats, for Dervish Dance, or even Arcane Strike, and you will be fine.
You cannot defeat this uselessness you are experiencing, if you are not willing to change anything.
Heck, if you are able to take the Focused Study alternate Human Racial trait, you will get a free Skill Focus feat at 1st, 8th, and 16th.
Then, you can spend feats to be useful at other things.
Basically, you are going for the "Master Basket Weaver", and you will find this to be increasingly dull, if you refuse to expand you repertoire.
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My big skills were sense motive, bluff, perception, and disable device.
These are actually all pretty good skills. Disable device will become much better when you hit level 6 and can disarm magic traps. It's important you know when to use them.
- Perception is the most important skill in the game, and your other party members might have a high perception as well. When searching rooms, get your party into the habit of having them aid you.
- Sense Motive, when another person is involved, always be on the lookout for something that might seem suspicious, and then interrupt your GM and ask for a sense motive to determine if the source of your suspicion is on the money or not. Be specific with what you're curious about.
- Bluff, this social skill can be tricky, but a good lie is worth two in the bucket, or something. Convincing people of ridiculous things is one of the things that makes Pathfinder, so tell people what you want to get what you want (usually services rather than goods, the easier for the person you're bluffing, the better).
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Also, you say you're not built for combat, but you've got a 16 dex and Weapon Finesse - that's not nothing. You are built for combat.
The problem is you're trying to throw daggers and you're level 4. Forget about that.
You've got Weapon Finesse to add dex on your rolls to hit, so it'll be a huge help if pick up another feat to add dex on your rolls to damage. Slashing Grace or Fencing Grace or Dervish Dance will help you there. That's if you want to capitalise on your melee and Weapon Finesse.
If you'd prefer to take the ranged route, you can do that too. Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Shot and Manyshot are feats you want to look at to help you use a bow. Get a masterwork bow, get some regular arrows, cold iron arrows, silver arrows, adamantine arrows. You have the dex, and once you can get Precise Shot you'll be laughing (take note of how many levels away it will be till you get Precise Shot if you're not retraining feats, because until then, you'll have a -4 to hit).
You have Archaeologist's Luck which you can use as a swift action. Lingering Performance is an excellent skill to supplement that.
With bard spells, you're an excellent buffer, and this won't really require any extra feats. Your high charisma helps but isn't really terribly important. Augment your other party members with Good Hope and Haste when you can cast them. When you can cast Mirror Image, you can even use yourself as a punching bag to soak up some hits and stop your other party members dropping so they can keep dishing out damage. Get into flanking positions with a melee weapon in your hand (or wearing spiked gauntlets).
If there is no re-training, get your character killed ASAP. Then re-roll a character that doesn't suck.
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The PC doesn't really suck.
A slight alteration, and the build would do well.
Shoot, just nab some feats as you level, and then shine.
Dervish Dance, Arcane Strike, Lingering Performance, and so on.
Let your class abilities, and spells pump your skill usage, as that's where the better benefit is.
Bluff? Glibness.
Perception? Focused Scrutiny, Discovery Torch.(Also Sense Motive for both)
Disable Device? Aram Zey's Focus, Revelation.
You already have the tools, to be awesome, at the things you want to be awesome at.
You just need to put some investment, in being able to do things, when those are not as relevant.
The archaeologist bard has a self buffing ability that says "put me in combat". Part of the problem is also that the other players are stepping on your toes. They should at least give you a chance to try and solve the problem. If you go to another class and have the same concept it won't matter if the other players dont let you do anything.
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I built a skills bard that had no skills.
1) Dawnflower Dervish (free Dervish Dance), and Arcane Strike
2) High Cha, High Dex, High Con, don't need the rest, really. Int is best of the three.
3) Put one and only 1 rank in each Int based skill
4) Put every spare rank in Dance and Comedy. Wait for Versatile Performance!
5) When you get to level 2 spells, swap one slot for Pageant of the Peacock.
Combat effective highly fake skilled bard.
Dervish Dance is one solution but it requires you to know how to use a scimitar. You don't, currently. The dervish dancer archetype and the archaeologist archetype are not compatible, so you would have to take it as the feat and get proficiency with scimitar somehow (another feat possibly, or a level dip). Or ask your GM to allow a version that uses rapier.
Another way to go is the scorpion whip. You have a reach of 15' and can hide behind other characters when you do that. You could try to trip things with it as well. The damage is not great but that's life. As your GM if he will allow the slashing grace feat (or a custom version) to work with scorpion whip, and if yes, then definitely take the feat.
If you want to be an archer you could go with that; it will certainly be better than throwing daggers. You need to start putting feats in it to make that work though.
Your CHA of 20 means you will be very good as a spellcaster casting offensive spells. Hideous laughter and grease are both powerful 1st level spells. Glitterdust, hold person, blindness/deafness, and silence are all good 2nd level spells.
Illusions are good too, and if the wizard character is stealing your thunder in that regard, ask him to stop. Why? As a wizard, he can change what spells he chooses to use. You can't. So if you can cast silent image then ask him not to; he's just trampling on your character's thing. You can cast it 5 times a day; there's no need for him to add more.