So, nobody wants to talk about my theoretical build then?
Dont want to be discouraging but I dont see how its better than standard bard, you could get the same by taking craft scroll as a feat
That's fair, but it leaves a feat open for Agile Maneuvers, and the free Monk weapon proficiency gives access to some nice reach weapons like the double-chain kama or Kusarigama.
Yes, you could easily build a bard that uses a Kusarigama to trip/disarm/grapple from the safety of "reach" distance *and* crafts scrolls, but this is about finding usefulness in the Geisha archetype, and it allows you to do this at level 1 without having to be a human. And in this case, going Half-Elf is giving you a bonus round of bardic performance every level, so it's not that bad of a trade.
Tea Ceremony is obviously bad for any kind of ambush situation, and is a stretch for dungeon delving groups (I mean, you *could* bring your tea set along...), but for urban groups and groups that are more planning-heavy, you get more bang for your performance buck (you spend 4 rounds and get 600 rounds). Is it ideal? No. And frankly, it could use some revision.
But I think there's some fun to be had in discussing how to make the most out of sub-optimal archetypes. Certainly more fun than having yet another argument about whether optimizers are having fun the wrong way.
Yeah, bards are not feat-intensive classes, so sparing one for Scribe Scroll is far from out there
I disagree with you about Bard not being feat intensive. If you want to get the most out of Bardic Performance you are looking at Lingering Performance, Master Performer, Grand Master Performer, Extra Performance (prerequisite for Master/Grand Master Performer), and Discordant Voice. That doesn't leave you a lot of leeway for a class without bonus feats.
Now lets say you don't want to focus on maxing out your buffing abilities and instead want to fight... if you want to do anything besides two handing (power attack being the only feat required there), good luck. God forbid you want some misc utility feats or metamagics too.
I've never even heard of Master Performer/Grand Master Performer... Discordant Voice is nice but I wouldn't call it a must have, and only Archaeologists are really desperate for Lingering Performance. Your standard "Inspire and Forget" Bard really just needs one iteration of Extra Performance to get by.
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Yeah, bards are not feat-intensive classes, so sparing one for Scribe Scroll is far from out thereI disagree with you about Bard not being feat intensive. If you want to get the most out of Bardic Performance you are looking at Lingering Performance, Master Performer, Grand Master Performer, Extra Performance (prerequisite for Master/Grand Master Performer), and Discordant Voice. That doesn't leave you a lot of leeway for a class without bonus feats.
Now lets say you don't want to focus on maxing out your buffing abilities and instead want to fight... if you want to do anything besides two handing (power attack being the only feat required there), good luck. God forbid you want some misc utility feats or metamagics too.
Eh, I look at it from the perspective that they don't need feats to get off the ground as desperately as other builds. There are some builds that will just suck up feats for levels on end before they "Come Online". A bard can start investing feats to get good at what they want to be good at right out of the gate, plus bards have archetypes and features that help out with getting to a different specialization (Archaeologist, Pageant of the Peacock, Arcane Duelist come to mind).
@Ms. Pleiades
I can see your point about Bard not necessarily needing feats to function well unlike some classes. That doesn't mean that Bard builds can really afford to take what I'd consider luxury feats, which was the claim I disagreed with.
@Arachnofiend
Master/Grand Master Performer: They are technically factions, but each adds +1 to all bonuses from Bardic Performance. Extra Performance is a prerequisite for both and Grand Master Performer requires Bard 9. Giving your Inspire Courage an extra +2 hit/dam is pretty awesome.
I can see your perspective on Lingering Performance, but I would consider it worthwhile in most circumstances. It has a nice synergy with the Finale spells and is situationaly useful if you would be impeded and cannot continue to perform. Plus it essentially triples your bardic performance rounds, which may be overkill but puts you into "I can now stop tracking rounds" territory; how much that matters really depends on the game, but I like contingency plans for if the adventuring day goes on longer than expected. That does make it less or a "must have" feat and more of a "if you can find the space" feat though.
Discordant Voice: Bards really shine if they have a lot of weapon users to buff; that is the assumption I have for most Bard builds. With that in mind, Discordant Voice is a must have to me. For a single feat you are essentially able to deal a s%!# ton of d6s per round of a damage type that most things cannot resist and all of this costs you nothing beyond the use of an awesome ability you were going to be using anyway. It's just a straight up buff to one of the best buffing abilities in the game.
Pageant of the Peacock lets you use bluff for int-based skills, not whatever versatile performance you are using to replace bluff, so I hardly see how Geisha Knowledge helps with PotP.
Honestly, it's kind of the same argument if you do allow it, which it doesn't seem you should RAW. If Pageant of the Peacock can use perform - act to roll for int-based skills through use of versatile performance despite it being not actually bluff, then why can't standard bardic knowledge boost knowledge skills gained an alternate manner, such as through Pageant of the Peacock, despite it not actually being a knowledge skill?
I don't see how there can be a dispute that Geisha Knowledge works with Pageant.
1. Pageant says use Bluff in place of Int skills.
2. Versatile Performance says use Perform in place of Bluff.
3. Therefore when you use the two together you are making an intelligence based skill check using Bluff using Perform. It all chains together.
Even simpler than that actually. Versatile performance lets you use your perform modifier when you bluff (or use whatever other skills you can apply VP to), it doesn't replace the bluff skill itself.
I.e. it's the modifier being replaced, not the skill. You're still using the bluff skill, which is totally legal for Pageant of the Peacock.
Well, does the Geisha Bard really suck that much? Sure, they loose some armor... wich mean 3 ac less than a normal bard only. Not great if you want to fight in close combat, but not that bad either. They loose their ''know it all'' aspect, but become really great at social skills (half-level to a performance). They loose the bard weapon, but get one of the monk (wich contain some good weapon). And, they get an alternative bard performance that can be really usefull in some situation and one craft feat.
Sure, you can probably make a normal bard stronger, but he will not be that stronger, and a Geisha will still be quite usefull in quest.
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Sure, they loose some armor... wich mean 3 ac less than a normal bard only. Not great if you want to fight in close combat, but not that bad either.
It's a much larger AC deficient then you are thinking. Chain shirt gives 4 armor AC plus enhancement and normally bards can use shields as well for 1 or 2 shield AC plus enhancement. Compared to a bard with a heavy shield and chain shirt, the Geisha is down 6 AC to start and in the long run that deficient can grow to up to 11 AC (or 16 if the Geisha doesn't invest in +5 Bracers of Armor).
Sure, they loose some armor... wich mean 3 ac less than a normal bard only. Not great if you want to fight in close combat, but not that bad either.It's a much larger AC deficient then you are thinking. Chain shirt gives 4 armor AC plus enhancement and normally bards can use shields as well for 1 or 2 shield AC plus enhancement. Compared to a bard with a heavy shield and chain shirt, the Geisha is down 6 AC to start and in the long run that deficient can grow to up to 11 AC (or 16 if the Geisha doesn't invest in +5 Bracers of Armor).
Sure, there is the shield. But without a shield the Geisha still get a Haramaki or a silken ceremonial armor, for +1. And, since the Geisha will probably go for the ranged bard, the shield difference is not that important in my opinion (and even without a shield, Bard can max Use Magic Device quite easily to use a wand of shield)
True not every build is suited to a shield and I always forget about the Eastern armors, so thank you for the correction.
You also mention going ranged build for a Geisha. That seems problematic for low-mid levels as you are not proficient with longbow/shortbow barring a racial proficiency. Archery is very feat intensive, especially for a class without bonus feats and now you require another feat just to be able to use your weapon.
True not every build is suited to a shield and I always forget about the Eastern armors, so thank you for the correction.
You also mention going ranged build for a Geisha. That seems problematic for low-mid levels as you are not proficient with longbow/shortbow barring a racial proficiency. Archery is very feat intensive, especially for a class without bonus feats and now you require another feat just to be able to use your weapon.
It's kind of hard to make it work at low level, true. But it is possible with, like you said, racial traits or a one level dip in Gunslinger, Zen Archer, Fighter or Ranger. Or you could even go less martial with only a crossbow, since by mid-level you should cast quite a few spell with your scroll.
It's not an easy archetype to build, but it's not that bad, and it's far from beiing the worse one out (I'm looking at you, True Primitive)
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A combat bard can be quite effective.
1.Get enough CHA to cast the spells you expect to get(If you only expect to get to level 13-14 in a typical AP, you can stop at 16)
2.Go human for the 2 extra skill points(race and class)
4.The Chelish Diva archetype allows for heavier armor at later levels.
5. Str/Con belt for extra damage and hp
6.Two-hand a longsword and use Arcane Strike
A Diva bard in a campaign I was in, at level 12 was doing a respectable +14/+9 1d8+12 (+12/+7 1d8+18 with power attack) with a +3 longsword
As for a ranged Geisha? A blowgun is a simple weapon and depending on how the DM feels about knockout poison for more ethical types, you can ping away.
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I sometimes wonder how they judge whether something should be nerfed or not. To me at least it's very strange. Another example of a bad nerf is the Archaeologist luck ability. If you think the Tea Ceremony duration is short. The luck ability is even worse imo. A 15th level Archaeologist who say only has a 16 cha. Never takes any feats to get more rounds has 7 rounds of ability at 15th level. Seeing how one loses from the standard Bard it's simply too little. Some of the extra abilites are great. Yet cosnidering how poor many of the rogue Talents are I feel like it's a dwongrade rather than a upgrade imo. I can't take talents that enhance sneak attack. As I don't have sneak attack. Other talents are too weak or too situational. I enjoy playing and running the Archaeologist. i sometimes wonder if I should have just taken a level dip in Rogue.
My DM houseruled that I get a extra performance per level. He is thinking maybe two. The only difference is that it's quicker to use and can only inspire one person. That is somehow more powerful than the standard Bard ability. That can affect a entire group. I well played Bard with the right feats and spells can make a group almost unstoppable. Take Gnome as a class and the racial ability of a extra performance per level and one is never going to run out of rounds.
I know they may have wanted to go with a Indiana Jones vibe and feel Except unlike Harrison Ford my pc does not get script and plot immunity guarenting that my character will always survive.
The link to the archtype: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/bard/archetypes/paizo---bard-a rchetypes/archaeologist
Compared to what? Like, a potato? Yeah it is a lot better than a potato if you had to pick between the twoI've seen the Strangler Brawler, so I've seen some crappy archetypes.I hope you realize that the Snakebite Strangler Brawler combo is extremely OP, right?
Potatoes have wizard-like flexibility bruh, don't be dissing the potato
I still don't understand why everyone hates the Strangler Brawler so much.
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I still don't understand why everyone hates the Strangler Brawler so much.
It loses Brawler's unarmed combat stuff and thus Improved Unarmed Strike, so unless human you actually can't have Improved Grapple at 1st level, which rather defeats the point of the Archetype in many ways.
I still don't understand why everyone hates the Strangler Brawler so much.It loses Brawler's unarmed combat stuff and thus Improved Unarmed Strike, so unless human you actually can't have Improved Grapple at 1st level, which rather defeats the point of the Archetype in many ways.
I see that as an annoyance but also fairly minor. A lot of things are awful at super low levels. Beyond that you are losing a bit of AC to keep dex and threatening while grappling, get extra damage on a grapple check, and trade out a couple bad abilities for a couple other bad abilities. It doesn't seem bad overall, especially if Snakebite Striker's sneak attack would apply with Strangler's Strangle ability, though that seems ambiguous.
I still don't understand why everyone hates the Strangler Brawler so much.It loses Brawler's unarmed combat stuff and thus Improved Unarmed Strike, so unless human you actually can't have Improved Grapple at 1st level, which rather defeats the point of the Archetype in many ways.
I hate to keep harping on the Kusarigama, but once again...you could spend one feat (Exotic Weapon Proficiency, in this case) and be able to strangle from 10 feet away. All of the Strangler's abilities require grappling, but none of them require you to be using your own bare hands.
You could dip it with knife-master Rogue and do some pretty awesome damage once you've pinnned the target.
Granted, that cuts down the amount of strangling you'd be doing, but it'd still be an interesting build IMO.
Worse-case scenario, dip into Unarmed Fighter to get your unarmed proficiency back, and pick up a Style Feat while you're at it.
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I sometimes wonder how they judge whether something should be nerfed or not. To me at least it's very strange. Another example of a bad nerf is the Archaeologist luck ability. If you think the Tea Ceremony duration is short. The luck ability is even worse imo. A 15th level Archaeologist who say only has a 16 cha. Never takes any feats to get more rounds has 7 rounds of ability at 15th level. Seeing how one loses from the standard Bard it's simply too little. Some of the extra abilites are great. Yet cosnidering how poor many of the rogue Talents are I feel like it's a dwongrade rather than a upgrade imo. I can't take talents that enhance sneak attack. As I don't have sneak attack. Other talents are too weak or too situational. I enjoy playing and running the Archaeologist. i sometimes wonder if I should have just taken a level dip in Rogue.
My DM houseruled that I get a extra performance per level. He is thinking maybe two. The only difference is that it's quicker to use and can only inspire one person. That is somehow more powerful than the standard Bard ability. That can affect a entire group. I well played Bard with the right feats and spells can make a group almost unstoppable. Take Gnome as a class and the racial ability of a extra performance per level and one is never going to run out of rounds.
I know they may have wanted to go with a Indiana Jones vibe and feel Except unlike Harrison Ford my pc does not get script and plot immunity guarenting that my character will always survive.
The link to the archtype: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/bard/archetypes/paizo---bard-a rchetypes/archaeologist
Archaeologist as an archetype is one of those bards that actually works better with other bards, because their luck ability stacks with inspire courage. You can also take the Fate's Favored trait for a permanent +1 bonus to your luck ability, and the Extended Performance effectively triples your rounds of use, making it a necessary feat, imo.
Don't underestimate evasion. It's a really nice ability. Plus, you can use those rogue talents for doing cool things like getting bonus combat feats, ki pool, ninja talents (greater invisibility/vanish, anyone?), gaining a familiar (improved familiar, too), improved evasion, not to mention the great Redirect Attack and Opportunist abilities for melee archaeologists.
I've been aching to make one for a while now. :P
The Lotus Geisha is where it is at. I made one to 'soften' up my group. Lots of enchantment magic and a cool fan blade. I had a DC21 or 22 for a first level spell. Sadly she went in to a pit then had mad monkeys drop on her because freaking wizards.
And now I want to play a archeologist/geisha bard. It needs to happen.
The Lotus Geisha is where it is at. I made one to 'soften' up my group. Lots of enchantment magic and a cool fan blade. I had a DC21 or 22 for a first level spell. Sadly she went in to a pit then had mad monkeys drop on her because freaking wizards.
And now I want to play a archeologist/geisha bard. It needs to happen.
Lotus Geisha?
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Lotus Geisha?The Lotus Geisha is where it is at. I made one to 'soften' up my group. Lots of enchantment magic and a cool fan blade. I had a DC21 or 22 for a first level spell. Sadly she went in to a pit then had mad monkeys drop on her because freaking wizards.
And now I want to play a archeologist/geisha bard. It needs to happen.
A White Haired Witch/Ninja would make for an excellent Geisha. Imagine her infiltrating a castle where the lord has commanded that no weapons be brought into his presence.
A White Haired Witch/Ninja would make for an excellent Geisha. Imagine her infiltrating a castle where the lord has commanded that no weapons be brought into his presence.
I don't really see it as a geisha: it's more like a ninja using the Geisha cover to enter a castle.
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Compared to what? Like, a potato? Yeah it is a lot better than a potato if you had to pick between the twoI've seen the Strangler Brawler, so I've seen some crappy archetypes.I hope you realize that the Snakebite Strangler Brawler combo is extremely OP, right?
Compared to the fact that you can get a +2d6 Sneak Attack at 1st level...
Snakebite Striker and Strangler both alter the class skills, so they should be incompatible.
Hmm, I consider the geisha archetype to be a dedicated non-combatant, but in that niche it strikes me as a pretty decent one. The only thing holding it back is the low duration (or high preparation time) of the tea ceremony. If it was either 1 hour or 10 minutes/level, it would be a pretty solid pre-engagement buffs. The rest are quite solid, possibly great, for a non-combat bard:
- proficiencies: you get a big hit but as noted, you do not expect to see combat. You are a courtier, not a warrior.
- geisha knowledge: you don't absorb a lot of lore about everything, but get impressive bonuses to several skills you will use a lot. 1/2 your level to diplomacy makes you pretty awesome at diplomancing or rumormongering, and you also get your bonus to a single perform check - which, with versatile performer, means two other useful abilities. Oh, and you can use your very high calligraphy instead of spellcraft to craft scrolls to give your friends who DO go out in the dungeons, forests, and so on while you are scheming how to take the thro.. I mean practicing with your lute. You have your core knowledge (nobility) there as well. Sure, I'd love it to contain linguistics as well so you can fake the imperial seal, but it is quite decent for the role as it is.
Craft scroll: I admit, it isn't quite as good as it would be for a prepared caster or if you were planning to go out and about much, but for a NPC it is a great way to stock up on useful tricks for the day they do need to go all out or, much more likely, some of their friends need some bardic mojo in a can.
So granted, it's mostly a NPC archetype, but it can be pretty decent in a GoT-esque intrigue setting. And for a NPC, it has a pretty solid niche as a courtier or a diva - sort of like a court bard, but retaining the core "buff" abilities of the bard instead of the court bard's debuffs, and keeping some of the lore/jack of all trades focus. Giving a bardic knowledge bonus to a perform skill and extending its uses with versatile performer is a big thing for a socialite bard imo.
Its issues as I see them are:
- Tea ceremony has a bad preparation to active time ratio. If it required less time or was active more time it would get a lot more use. Extending its duration with 10 extra minutes per level or 1/2 level would definitely be a plus imo - 10 minutes preparation for 10 minutes bonus is quite clunky and unsuitable.
- The geisha retains some bard ceremonies that are atypical for a non-combat bard and that other socialite bards trade off: dirge of doom and especially frightening tune. For a an infiltrator or an agent these can be useful, but I doubt most characters going for this archetype would want to scare people that often. Then again, it is one of the geisha's ways to get unwanted people away from her/him. Still, more subtle tricks would definitely work.
- Craft (calligraphy)'s uses are very niche outside of substituting it for spellcraft for a scroll's creation (and a lot of other craft skills can be used for item creation as well). The DM should consider its uses for part of what linguistics covers, such as understanding obscure forms of a language you know and the ability create/detect forgeries for the type of documents where calligraphy would be used. It is still far from a common skill, but it will be valuable to the right characters.
So overall, if you want a non-combat NPC bard the geisha is a solid archetype imo. It competes with the definitely good court bard and a few other archetypes such as the negotiator, but I can definitely see it work. If you want an adventurous version that is closer to the typical way D&D parties run, the Lotus Geisha is probably better, but it will be a different kind of character.
A 10 minute buff duration is plenty if your group uses SWAT-style tactics. (Though my brain does struggle a little to combine the traditional imagery of a geisha with kicking down doors and slaughtering monsters in rapid succession.)
Xia Lee's Angels, coming soon to a theater near you :P .
In that case, though, the "activation" period of the performance should be shorter, maybe a minute. Spending 10 minutes for a 10 minutes bonus is just a clunky mechanic imo. It cold be hilarious - like the geisha performing the ceremony in a swiftly moving carriage carrying several heavily armed warriors to the battlefield - but as a modus operandi of an entire archetype it strains credibility. Purely from a logical perspective, in a culture refined to the point where you can take 10 minutes for a cup of tea, you will probably take a lot more than that for a ceremonial duel, state negotiations and the like.
I just noticed that the tea ceremony is simply an additional option for performance and a geisha bard is fully capable of using the same performance in the usual way. I am still not sold on how it is implemented, though.
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Dont want to be discouraging but I dont see how its better than standard bard, you could get the same by taking craft scroll as a featThat's fair, but it leaves a feat open for Agile Maneuvers, and the free Monk weapon proficiency gives access to some nice reach weapons like the double-chain kama or Kusarigama.
Yes, you could easily build a bard that uses a Kusarigama to trip/disarm/grapple from the safety of "reach" distance *and* crafts scrolls, but this is about finding usefulness in the Geisha archetype, and it allows you to do this at level 1 without having to be a human. And in this case, going Half-Elf is giving you a bonus round of bardic performance every level, so it's not that bad of a trade.
Tea Ceremony is obviously bad for any kind of ambush situation, and is a stretch for dungeon delving groups (I mean, you *could* bring your tea set along...), but for urban groups and groups that are more planning-heavy, you get more bang for your performance buck (you spend 4 rounds and get 600 rounds). Is it ideal? No. And frankly, it could use some revision.
But I think there's some fun to be had in discussing how to make the most out of sub-optimal archetypes. Certainly more fun than having yet another argument about whether optimizers are having fun the wrong way.
Agile Maneuvers and similar feats that you describe are of questionable value when every other post it's noted that the geisha-bard doesn't belong in combat. Every time I hear "casting bard" in this thread, I want to facepalm. Scribe scroll doesn't even do much for a bard (you're limited to your spells known, so the biggest use for scribe scroll is lost on you) and bards are not good casters (they are support casters, they buff, they wreck face with weaponry) and they never will be (they're just too stunted in their magical ability).
As others pointed out, bards are far from feat starved. Arcane Strike, maybe a performance-enhancing feat, everything else is style-gravy (the most feat intensive route is archery as usual). You're giving up all your best weapon proficiencies plus armor proficiencies and shield proficiencies for what amounts to 1 exotic weapon feat. If you wrote each of these things on cards and laid them out before a five year old so they could visualize this trade they could tell you that you're getting ripped off hard.
Tea Ceremony is effectively useless in most of the situations you'd actually want to use Inspire Courage with as its time requirement makes it functionally useless in any sort of organic adventuring situation (ambushes nothing, unless you know you're getting into a fight in the next 10 minutes you're just a joke. That includes urban adventures, and is probably most friendly to dungeon-crawlers which is hilariously odd for the archetype). Its lack of flexibility is a hard blow here.
There is tragically little that you can do with the geishard that you can't with the bard better, and what little you can is bad.
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Archaeologist as an archetype is one of those bards that actually works better with other bards, because their luck ability stacks with inspire courage. You can also take the Fate's Favored trait for a permanent +1 bonus to your luck ability, and the Extended Performance effectively triples your rounds of use, making it a necessary feat, imo.
A friend of mine and I have commented on what an amusing party a skald, bard, and archaeologist would make for. :P