Bardic Flag Bearer


Advice


So my group has just started a new journey. We are all doing 15 point buy, ouch. We have been doing either 20 points of rolls and all nice rolling. Party consists of a Nature Fang druid with bear and Bow. A Brawler and one of the new Bolt Ace Gunslingers. I picked last, so I picked a bard. We had zero party face or real spell caster or healer or buffer. So bard really fit the bill. I used the guide to buffer guide because it really captured what I am aiming for. I took the Flag Bearer feat and I am going for FotAk. I don't plan on taking the Master performer feats, I want the wondrous item feat. My question is I think I saw a feat that lets me protect my flag if it is ever attacked. Does anyone know that feats i'm talking about? I saw them somewhere and I would like to ponder on them but I forgot their names and I can't seem to find them. Help :D

Silver Crusade

What is 'FotAk'?

I'm not aware of any feats specifically to help you protect the flag, but there are lots of tactical things you can do to protect the flag:

* I've never actually seen a foe go after the Flagbearer in a Pathfinder fight. I'm sure it happens, I just haven't seen it. It's a very reasonable concern!

* Don't put yourself where a big fug-ugly can tear you in half and thereby drop the flag. I.e. be very aware of your tactical positioning. You must do this anyway, with Flagbearer, as you want to remain within 30' of all your attacking allies.

* Presumably you will mount the flag on your longspear (like this). That's your most effective approach, and the standard historical way it was done. As a bonus you'll wield a very effective [Youtube: 2 on 1 sparring vs spear] primary battlefield melee weapon. Your spear remains perfectly serviceable. This gives you the usual defensive screen that goes with a reach weapon and reach tactics. I.e. You force foes to either stay away or provoke your AoO. You also have the option to trip foes at reach with your AoO. Foes who lack reach won't be able to take the AoO you provoke because, well, they can't reach you. All this adds up to quite a lot of defense. This sort of bard can even make a very good front rank fighter, if that's what you want.

* Probably your best feat to defend the flag is Combat Reflexes, as this gives you multiple AoOs, which may mean multiple trip attempts. This will be especially useful if you face multiple opponents.

* The presence of the flag may sometimes let you take your longspear into places where it might otherwise not be allowed. Not all GMs draw a distinction between Primary Battlefield Weapons (polearm, longbow, longspear, greataxe, greatsword, etc) and Sidearms (sword, dagger, buckler, etc), but some do. Historically, sidearms were often allowed in situations where a primary battlefield weapon would be out of place. Like a fancy dinner, or the Queen's Ball.

* The Grease spell is a great way to put a barrier between you and some foe who would tear down your flag. It's a 1st level Bard spell.

Scarab Sages

Always always always wear spiked gauntlets (unless you take improved unarmed strike).

Don't forget a weapon cord for your longspear.

At some point you should get the dueling enchantment (the one from ultimate equipment on your longspear too.


FotAK I think is Banner of the Ancient Kings.


Beware of Sunder. Rare mats on that longspear, if at all possible. Greenwood's nice, as you can have a self-repairing weapon. But it might not save you from having it chopped in half by an opponent who's irritated with your reach.

Likewise living steel, if you have a metal longspear. It's light, it self-repairs, and hey, it's got a hardness 15 / 35hp per inch of thickness.

Anyway, I honestly think you'll run into some sunder guy with a hate-on for the least threatening combatant, maybe 1 in 300 scenarios. Most of the time they're more concerned with the two handed berserker decimating the enemy or that healer oracle who's keeping everyone in tippy-top. The dude in the back "tralalala-in'" and waving his flag is the least scary target.

Totally on the same page as Magda here, make it difficult to get to you.
Get some kind of spell that can create difficult ground, and cast it around you, so you can't be charged, then attack people at reach. Get some item/spell that allows you to move through difficult ground, and move around the field, keeping enemies at bay and making it harder for you to be swarmed in the event a large group of cowardly types breaks through the line (gnolls, for example, love to go after perceived weakness, and they like to gang up)

Consider Trip maneuvers, combat reflexes. When enemies try to come at you, AoO -> trip. You don't need to be the off-damage dealer with the flag up. Let your party help you out with that. Or trip the heck out of folks, then AoO them when they try to get up, then trip them if once they're up and trying once again to close the distance.

If you're using that tactic; high dex if possible, agile maneuvers feat.
I know, it hurts to go that route when a high cha is so necessary, but bard aren't *too* MAD - dex cha, and you can easy afford to spread the advancement/enchancement amongst those two stats.

With the bonuses you're droppn on your team (inspire/flag/buffs), they'll crush the opposition, and if you do come under the heat by a bunch of gnolls, you'll be mvp for all the trippiness and buffs you pulled.


LzardE wrote:
So my group has just started a new journey. We are all doing 15 point buy, ouch. We have been doing either 20 points of rolls and all nice rolling. Party consists of a Nature Fang druid with bear and Bow. A Brawler and one of the new Bolt Ace Gunslingers. I picked last, so I picked a bard. We had zero party face or real spell caster or healer or buffer. So bard really fit the bill. I used the guide to buffer guide because it really captured what I am aiming for. I took the Flag Bearer feat and I am going for FotAk. I don't plan on taking the Master performer feats, I want the wondrous item feat. My question is I think I saw a feat that lets me protect my flag if it is ever attacked. Does anyone know that feats i'm talking about? I saw them somewhere and I would like to ponder on them but I forgot their names and I can't seem to find them. Help :D

Just noticed the feat description -

" As long as you hold your clan, house, or party’s flag, members of that allegiance within 30 feet who can see the flag (including yourself ) gain a +1 morale bonus on attack rolls, weapon damage rolls, and saving throws against fear and charm effects. You must hold the flag in one hand in order to grant this bonus. If the standard is taken by the enemy or destroyed, this bonus becomes a penalty, affecting all creatures that the bonus previously affected for 1 hour (or until you reclaim the lost flag)."

"Must hold the flag in one hand"

I'm assuming they meant that you couldn't just stick it like an antenna out of your backpack, that you have to carry it so people can see it, but does it also mean you *can'T* hold it in TWO hands (such as when you're wielding it as a longspear)?

I doubt that's the case, but that's just my perception. I think the point of the feat is that you need to be waving it around, so these semantics are a bit nitpicky.

Silver Crusade

Here my rant on the topic of why Flagbearer and Longspear go together. The rant starts by pointing out that, RAW, holding with two hands is also holding with one hand, then includes links to assorted historical and in-game references, and ends by pointing out that even the traditional shape of modern portable wooden flagpoles is derived from a spear. :-)

Also, I've encountered lots of Flagbearer PCs in PFS play, and most of them use a longspear.

Silver Crusade Contributor

I had Flagbearer on my Dawnflower Dervish (bard) pirate captain in Skull & Shackles.


The OP seems to be talking about a home game so it should be easy to talk the GM into putting the flag on a Longspear. As for PFS the RAW is that you must hold the flag in your hand to grant to Flagbearer bonus. Luckily the Banner of the Ancient Kings explicitly references the Flagbearer feat so once you get it there shouldn't be any trouble.
As for protecting your flag you can add Gloves of Dueling for a bonus vs disarm or sunder attempts.

Oh and you can't add Dueling to a Longspear because it is not a Finesseable weapon.


To add on to what Magda is saying: If you can't use it in two hands then it doesn't work with BotAK which specifically says it has to be two hands. It also specifically says that Flagbearer works with it. So... you do the math. ;)

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