I am currently leveling a bodyguard flag bearer bard. I enjoy optimizing but I also don't like to be that guy who takes all the attention and makes every one else feel useless. When I first started this character concept the idea was to not do a single point of damage myself but to put my effort into buffing the party as much as I could with inspire courage, buff spells, and aid another. At this point the character doesn't isn't overwhelming the game mechanics. However, at level 7-8 hrs will start to add quite a bit punch to the party. In s single round he could be adding +7 to hit, +6 to damage, +30 ft movement, and an extra attack (inspire courage, banner of kings, and haste).
Would this kind of skewing break the scenario?
As a GM or player would you want fair warning?
Should I try to keep another character in the same level range in case the table doesn't want the buffs?
Its good in the right group, but hardly game breaking unless you're the only buffer in a field full of martials. Remember the opportunity cost for having a player there
Yeah. I have no doubt that everyone will want all the buffs I can dish out. That is just the standard player mentality. My big worry is making it too easy and removing the challenge.
I think it really comes down to party composition. The character does best at buffing a melee character since the banner has a range of 30ft. I usually try to find the under leveled melee character at the table and make them my aid another target. This way I can bump their AC and To Hit even more and bring them up to a point that they feel competitive.
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Yeah. I have no doubt that everyone will want all the buffs I can dish out. That is just the standard player mentality. My big worry is making it too easy and removing the challenge.
I think it really comes down to party composition. The character does best at buffing a melee character since the banner has a range of 30ft. I usually try to find the under leveled melee character at the table and make them my aid another target. This way I can bump their AC and To Hit even more and bring them up to a point that they feel competitive.
The others have made some good points (opportunity cost of a player, buff only until necessary).
I'm working on a loyal-oath paladin into mystery cultist - I might not be worth a whole PC. ^_^
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Well, the Banner of Ancient Kings is an 18 000 GP item, it is very much supposed to be good. At the level where you will first be able to afford it, buffing the entire party with heroism isn't that unexpected.
As always your group composition might vary, in some groups this will be great, in others pretty insignificant.
Just make sure you talk to your GM. Give him/her a copy of your character sheet. That way if your party starts to really curb-stomp the encounters s/he can bump up the challenge. You'll all feel pretty powerful if you can massacre all the invading orcs without taking a single hit, but when the orc shaman summons a Balor and you still come out on top, that's a day you'll remember.
(orcs & balor just random examples, possibly terrible ones)
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Did Bonekeep with a Skald heavily focused on getting the party raging and handing out massive Strength buffs. Unfortunately the party consisted of 2 Dex Magi, a Wizard, a Rogue and a Paladin Archer.
He was very sad.
My current character is a Shaman focused primarily on support (only caster in the party, somehow). As long as you don't mind not doing that much on your turns and being happy with the party succeeding it's well worth it, and helping people hit and pass saves makes everyone feel more awesome. As others have said, the trade off is that the damage you are expected to do is being channelled through others, so if the GM starts to feel like they're being a bit too effective try explain that theory to him and see if it helps.
My Age of Worms group consists of a ranger, fighter, inquisitor and a npc arcane duelist bard. Good Hope, Inspire Courage and Haste(+7 hit, +6 damage) makes it pretty rare that they have a hard time hitting anything, but i wouldn't say they are overpowered.
Honestly i would worry more from the side of the DM, if the DM cant adjust the challenge level after his group then thats the problem.
For your character i dont think you are overpowered by any means its just standard setup that makes bards useful in the first place, but the point is that tossing all of the buffs at once is a bit of a "nova" gameplay for short adventure days where you dont have to save your resources.
The DM dont neccesary need to up the diffeculity, but maybe drag on longer days with more encounters so that your buffs will actually run dry and you have to consider if its worth buffing right now or later.
Sounds awesome, as a GM I would love to see this level of helping others. As a player, I would work with you to take advantage of it.
You aren't playing a blaster/caster, so you aren't stealing the show.
So this is specifically for PFS. I originally posted this thread in the PFS GM section yo see how other GMs felt but an admin moved the thread here.
Calculating the potential loss of not doing damage vs the potential gain of buffing is hard to calculate. I did do a theoretical dpr calc on my lvl 12 barbarian alone or with a lvl 12 version of this bard buffing him. The bard nearly doubles the dpr potential. This is an extreme case but shows that buffing others can yield more than you think.
I agree. I really do try to find the right type of table for this character. At low levels this has been the lvl 2 melee character at a table of lvl 5's. The level 2 is going to obviously play out of tier but my buffs and help can usually prevent that from ending in frustration and death.
It also helps that at low lvls the buffs are not yet ridiculous. He is pretty taim befor lvl 8. At lvl 8 though is when all the feats and abilities come together and make for a bad ass buffer bard. I am definitely going to try and use a GM star to replay Waking Rune hard mode with this character.
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Too much buffing, what's that mean? It's like too much money, there's no such thing.
Those numbers don't seem too high to me. I would expect most parties to be getting something close, at least for major fights, by about that level. Often it would be from different sources, and usually the buffing characters would be also dealing damage on later rounds, so all in all, I would not consider this overpowered.
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Calculating the potential loss of not doing damage vs the potential gain of buffing is hard to calculate. I did do a theoretical dpr calc on my lvl 12 barbarian alone or with a lvl 12 version of this bard buffing him. The bard nearly doubles the dpr potential. This is an extreme case but shows that buffing others can yield more than you think.
Actually - I've found that barbarians gain less from buffing than most other combat classes. I have a PFS bard - though not quite as buff heavy as yours - he's also a tanky secondary combatant.
The characters that benefit the most are the ones with lots of lesser swings. The only buff for which that isn't true is Haste as it adds +1 swing.
For example - think of a level 12 monk instead of your barbarian. What's his likely weakness? Offense - especially accuracy. Guess what a +7 to hit & +6 damage per swing fixes? With Haste - he can get 7 attacks/round pretty consistently. All this while having amazing monk defenses.
The same is true to a slightly lesser degree for TWF ranger/slayers, and all archers (though as you pointed out - you have limited range with some buffs).
Claxon speaks from experience. I was his GM in a SnS run that had a buffer bard life the one proposed above. They were hitting almost every attack and hitting hard every time. It was kinda sick. Fun though. :)
Honestly, it was strong but it was really only particularly effective because we had a 5 person party and 3 were martial characters.
That's what you have to watch out for. In larger parties with lots of martials, that dedicated buffer can make a huge difference. In a 4 man party, he's basically just making up for his character being support instead of a direct damage dealer.
My serious advice is, it might be problematic in larger parties (for the GM). However, if he knows what he's going to have to deal with, adding mannnyyyyy extra minions to combats could go a long way to having appropriately challenging fights.
Against melee based characters, it can be as simple as having highly mobile characters who refuse to trade full attacks. That buff doesn't mean nearly as much if the opponent only gets a single attack.
In fact, in general I think combat in this game would be a lot better if it didn't turn into stand-about full-attacking slog fests.
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I led many pathfinder groups including through eyes of the ten, Gorum be praised.
I am a banner of the ancient kings carrying evangelist cleric of Gorum. I make sure everyone on my side can fight effectively, including myself. My first round of combat is usually Inspire+Blessing of Fervor, or Prayer (especially if someone else casted haste). The following round I usually wade into combat with my longspear, if I have further time to buff, then I usually will have bull's strength on myself, maybe righteous might. I didn't keep up damage wise with the barbarians I played eyes with, but certainly held my own, plus all the bonuses they gained, missing was a very rare thing indeed.
+6 hit and dmg with a swift action, +7 if prayer or other benefits with Fervor.
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I believe there is a thing called too much buffing and every character should have a small contribution to damage.
With a bard like the OP has the banner of kings + bardic performance + haste is more than enough for most encouters. Other buffs like resist energy, protection from x are more situational and not needed every fight. The rest of your spell list should be utility like invisiblity.
A good way for a bard like yours to get some good damage is a wand of scorching ray or abmonishing ray. Rays are considered weapons and you get bardic performance+ banner + haste bonuses to hit and damage on the ray. 4d6+_ is still good damage up to level 11 at which point discordiant voice kicks in another 1d6 to the ray.
I sat at the year of the shadowlodge special with one of these.
Humorously, The party consisted of a witch, another bard, a monk, and my wild empathy focused druid. There was no one to buff except the monk :)
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I sat at the year of the shadowlodge special with one of these.
Humorously, The party consisted of a witch, another bard, a monk, and my wild empathy focused druid. There was no one to buff except the monk :)
Double bard is always sad. No stacking inspire courage.
Though I did have my bard sit with an archivist bard once. So much buffing!
(I think I did Year of the Shadowlodge double bard - but we were really low level so it was kind of nice to have enough performance rounds to last the day.)
I'm not sure how buffing the other PCs could make them feel useless. The kind of buffs you're offering shouldn't blow through encounters so quickly that some players never even get a turn. People who need to have their PC nearly get dropped every session to have fun can still charge ahead in Leeroy Jenkins mode if they'd like.
Double bards are awesome. Archivist is great, but so is Inspire Courage plus Dirge of Doom. The Cruel weapon enchantment makes it even better.
@Fruian - Are wands with higher caster levels available in PFS? If so Scorching or Admonishing Rays can become very powerful indeed though the OP is actually worried about being too powerful rather than not powerful enough.
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@ devilkiller
In pfs no only the lowest possible wands are allowed. But that keeps it from being too strong.
In home games I had a friend who had one made with all 3 rays...hit like a Mac truck cause each ray is effected by most buffs. I believe he was hitting like 4d6+8*3 was pretty solid. He took point blank, precise shot and arcane strike and was switching between bane arrows and the wand depending on range increments and foes.
@Fruian - Yeah, 3 rays with full buffs can start to get pretty strong. I wish touch attacks were a little easier to defend against, but at least a lot of monsters have SR. If you want to go completely over the top bring in 1d4+1 Lantern Archons. We did that a couple of times, and I felt kind of guilty afterwards.
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I believe there is a thing called too much buffing and every character should have a small contribution to damage.
With a bard like the OP has the banner of kings + bardic performance + haste is more than enough for most encouters. Other buffs like resist energy, protection from x are more situational and not needed every fight. The rest of your spell list should be utility like invisiblity.
A good way for a bard like yours to get some good damage is a wand of scorching ray or abmonishing ray. Rays are considered weapons and you get bardic performance+ banner + haste bonuses to hit and damage on the ray. 4d6+_ is still good damage up to level 11 at which point discordiant voice kicks in another 1d6 to the ray.
Too much buffing? Is that even possible?
Seriously, however, this bard would be contributing, indirectly, to damage.
Every time someone hit because of his bonus to hit, he contributes to damage.
Every time someone who hits gets the extra damage on their attack, he contributes to damage.
Remember, too, that the damage he contributes also gets multiplied on a critical, so yet more damage.
Have him worship Desna, use a high crit range weapon, and take Butterfly's Sting, and pass the crits on to your ally with an x4 critical weapon...
Oh, my. Had a new thought. Coordinate that Butterfly Sting PC with a mounted charging build PC, and watch the one-shots... "Yeah, your first attack that hits is automatically goijng to be a crit. Yeah, charge, lance, yadda yadda. x5 or 6? Nice."