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I'm interested in trying out a Skald for PFS. I want him to rock hard and hit harder (archer builds need not apply). Here are a couple of ideas I have to add to the Skald's power and sustainability.
Half-Orc Bloodrager (Aberrant) 1/Skald (Totemic: Bull) 10
Str 14+2: 16
Dex 14
Con 14
Int 10
Wis 10
Cha 14
Traits:
Does Berserker of the Society work here?
Sacred Tattoo
Fate's Favored
Feats:
Aberrant Tumor (1st)
Amplified Rage (3rd)
Power Attack (5th)
Die for Your Master (7th)
Skald's Vigor (9th)
Greater Skald's Vigor (11th)
The plan is to give my familiar the valet archetype in order to share teamwork feats. My inspired rage should activate amplified rage via the familiar. By 11th lv, my strength score will go: 16 (base) + 8 morale (inspired rage) + 4 enhancement (animal focus: bull) for total 28 str. My con will only trail behind at 22. This doesn't count in any lv adjustments or items. I will likely use a falchion to work with the aberrant bloodline ability and for a possible bloodsong enchantment.
For sustainability, my con will bump up to 22 while using inspired rage. I will also have the benefit of Die for Your Master, allowing me to divide damage between myself and my familiar. Moreover, Greater Skald's Vigor will at least be granting me fast healing 4 from my inspired rage bonus. I would argue that my animal focus ability bumps this up to fast healing 8.
I haven't figured out the two rage powers to take for 6th and 9th lv of Skald. Guarded life seems helpful for more defense, but it doesn't stop me from falling out of rage. Spirit Totem would add some offense and defense.
I still don't have ideas for wildshape yet.
Anything I'm overlooking? Are these the feats and the order you would go in? I'm interested in Raging Vitality instead of Die for Your Master, but I don't think it would help since I need to keep singing to keep raging. I could take Shaman's Apprentice for Endurance and then Die Hard.
Thanks for any suggestions you can make!
I think you are going through too many hoops to make something that you can easily make with less complications.
While you are getting a bigger boost from totemic skald to your strength, skalds vigor says you gain fast healing equal to the strenght bonus your song provides.
Unfortunately, your song provides two different bonuses that advance at the same rate, and from my interpretation you could choose which one was triggering skalds vigor, you still only get one to determine its value.
Also, I don't think that die for your master is that good of a choice, I know you want to boost that strenght with valet and amplified rage, but you would get way more survivability from giving it the protector archetype instead.
It essentially would give you an additional +50% HP from its shiled other affect that would regenerate from the familiars fast healing 5. It would also save you two feats.
I suggest going draconic bloodline and going into Dragon Disciple. You miss out on a little str on your song's rage power but you're picking up 4 str that's always on while increasing your AC and HP.
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@ Secret Wizard: Which feature are you talking about? Making the Skald more sustainable? Reaching a high strength? I'm open to your suggestions.
@ Deadkitten: I see where you are coming from about the fast healing. I think it's a little unclear how Skald's Vigor should work. I would point out that it refers to your "raging song," not your inspired rage. The same goes for Totemic Skald. In this light, my raging song would be providing a total of +8 bonus (4 from Totemic and 4 from inspired rage). Does that make sense?
Thanks.
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You can save yourself a feat bloodragers can give up their bloodline ability for a familiar, see Familiar Folio. Take Amplified Rage at level 1. Power Attack at 3 and Skald's Vigor at 5.
I like either Savant or Historian for traits.They give a lot skill points. Savant is 6 total Historian in 10 but two in one skill is more valuable then then 1 in 2 skills.
Str 15+2: 17
Dex 12
Con 14
Int 10
Wis 11
Cha 14
I allocated my stats a little differently.
@ Secret Wizard: Which feature are you talking about? Making the Skald more sustainable? Reaching a high strength? I'm open to your suggestions.
How about simply going straight Skald? With Skald's Vigor, more spells, rage powers and free feat slots for the likes of Toughness, you should be better off than some abomination that most GMs would deem illegal (the Skald's Vigor + some other class' rage part in particular).
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How about simply going straight Skald? With Skald's Vigor, more spells, rage powers and free feat slots for the likes of Toughness, you should be better off than some abomination that most GMs would deem illegal (the Skald's Vigor + some other class' rage part in particular).@ Secret Wizard: Which feature are you talking about? Making the Skald more sustainable? Reaching a high strength? I'm open to your suggestions.
I will agree with this. Though I did look at this build I quickly bailed on it because I did not want to have a discussion with every GM about the legality of it. Skalds are a fun and powerful class and don't require this build to be really useful.
One of your abilities is to cast basically any spell. Why delay that.
That is not to say this does not work but I avoid builds that raise to many questions.
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How about simply going straight Skald? With Skald's Vigor, more spells, rage powers and free feat slots for the likes of Toughness, you should be better off than some abomination that most GMs would deem illegal (the Skald's Vigor + some other class' rage part in particular).@ Secret Wizard: Which feature are you talking about? Making the Skald more sustainable? Reaching a high strength? I'm open to your suggestions.
I have a lot of respect for your opinions on the boards so I'm glad that you are providing feedback. However, I could use more concrete examples. I would love to go straight Skald if it seemed like it could last in combat. I'm trying to compensate for the d8 hit die, medium armor, and taking a negative to AC while raging. My solution was to use a tumor familiar to assist with that, while also bumping my damage. I agree that Toughness would help, but it only seems like a start for getting over a low(er) armor class. If you think certain rage powers will help, I'm open to hearing them as well.
You refer to this as an "abomination" but I don't know what you are talking about. Do you have an issue with the tumor familiar in general or with using it to set up amplified rage? You call out a problem with Skald's Vigor and another classes rage ability. However, I am building Skald's Vigor around the Totemic archetype of the Skald. Bumping the fast healing has nothing to do with Bloodrager or the familiar. Thanks.
If you're looking at bloodrager for the straight strength bonus, another thread has been talking about how a single lever of id rager with the anger focus would add +2 to your strength (though it also lowers your dex and would possibly hurt your survivability...)
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Community-Minded Trait: Keeps Str/Con/Will bonuses from inspired rage (but not AC penalty and other effects) up for two rounds after you stop performing. Play every third round. Give allies rounds with Str/Con bonuses, but no restriction on spell-casting. Et cetera.
Tuned bowstring: You said no archery, but grab a bow and this item anyway once you have the GP. Fire off an arrow every round to continue a performance without using up your daily allotment of rounds. Combine with Skald's Vigor (and Greater) for effectively unlimited healing.
You refer to this as an "abomination" but I don't know what you are talking about
Oh, it was mostly a pun re: aberrant bloodline + tiptoeing on that Skald's Vigor with another class' rage part.
Honestly, I get it. We all want to find combinations that let us add something new and exciting to the game. I think Mark Rosewater calls this the "Johnny" mindset. I usually played that way too, until I ended up getting bored of all my one-trick pony characters.
So my thing right now is to advice people to just go with less overt metagaming on top of the character (in the sense that you take combinations of classes/feats that may seem unnatural just to obtain a dividend of power), and just go with the flow.
Except in a couple of cases (Rogues, for example, who damn need Twist Away if they want to get to higher levels), there's no real need to find a way to "break" the expected power progression the game demands.
And in my own experience, every time I pulled some trick to get ahead of the curve (my Goblin gunslinger comes to mind), my GM pushed the difficulty way up high, so I ended up with a character with too many weird things for me to actually relate to but no discernible power boost.
You refer to this as an "abomination" but I don't know what you are talking aboutOh, it was mostly a pun re: aberrant bloodline + tiptoeing on that Skald's Vigor with another class' rage part.
Honestly, I get it. We all want to find combinations that let us add something new and exciting to the game. I think Mark Rosewater calls this the "Johnny" mindset. I usually played that way too, until I ended up getting bored of all my one-trick pony characters.
So my thing right now is to advice people to just go with less overt metagaming on top of the character (in the sense that you take combinations of classes/feats that may seem unnatural just to obtain a dividend of power), and just go with the flow.
Except in a couple of cases (Rogues, for example, who damn need Twist Away if they want to get to higher levels), there's no real need to find a way to "break" the expected power progression the game demands.
And in my own experience, every time I pulled some trick to get ahead of the curve (my Goblin gunslinger comes to mind), my GM pushed the difficulty way up high, so I ended up with a character with too many weird things for me to actually relate to but no discernible power boost.
That's why the true trick to optimization is making characters that are good at EVERYTHING !!!
But remember good is enough...being based around Bard and Barbarian actually means Skald is in a nice spot to be good at a lot of things.
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Honestly, my main complaint about the Skald is that I still think that Versatile Performance should come with a "retrain other skill ranks" option built in and that I really wished there was a way to cast with a heavy shield other than by using a cestus.
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@ Sedoriku: I don't have Occult Adventures and that archetype won't come up on the pfsrd right now. Thanks for the tip though.
@ CBDunkerson: What a wonderful trait! Thanks for pointing that out. I'll also keep the tuned bowstring in mind. I mostly said no bow to fend off any archer suggestions, but I'll have a bow as backup.
@Secret Wizard: I confess that I am an optimizer and get excited about cool combinations. I will say that I don't always use an optimized build; I like to find the limits of what I can do and then take a step back towards normality. I appreciate your current playstyle of just enjoying a straightforward build and I'm tempted to go that route. I'm aiming for a tougher character because the games I play in tend to focus more on combat. I often play characters focused on melee so I want to branch out. The Skald seems like a nice step from melee focus to support and some spellcasting. The goal isn't to make a one-trick pony, seeing as I still have spell casting and social skills. I even have a lot of ideas for roleplaying but haven't brought them up yet.
Say I did go "vanilla" Skald. Is this the kind of build you would recommend?
Str 14
Dex 14
Con 14
Int 10
Wis 10
Cha 14+2: 16
Feats:
Skald's Vigor (1st)
Extra Performance (Bonus)
Endurance (Bonus)
Power Attack (3rd)
Die Hard (5th)
Arcane Strike (7th)
Deathless Initiate (9th)
Greater Skald's Vigor (11th)
Rage Powers:
Lesser Spirit Totem
Guarded Life
Greater Guarded Life
I'm very tempted to take Good For What Ail's You and had out lots of booze before every fight :)
That looks nice, I'd probably tank WIS in order to get an odd number in STR and INT 12. Since I use shields on my Skalds (since I'm assuming I'm more valuable as a buffer than a fighter), I take DEX to 12. Not ideal, and I always feel bad when I don't have my armor's MAX DEX topped out, but on Bards and Skalds, I make an exception.
I'd get Arcane Strike before Power Attack too, because having shield + weapon is so good on Skalds. I could take or leave PA for this build - Riving Strike can be very useful and so can
Rest looks pretty great - I love the interaction of Skald's Vigor with Diehard, I was about to recommend it myself.
For Rage Powers, you have so many fun options. Guarded Life works really well, but I'd consider combining it with Greater Undead Bloodline -- all the prerequisite feats are pretty great, free ghost touch, no-save shaken whenever anyone charges, but the Greater one outright gives you DR 10/- vs nonlethal, which comboes fairly well with Guarded Life.
Spending some feats on Extra Rage Power to get that earlier is not a bad call.
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@ Secret Wizard: The shield route seems legitimate. If I did take up a shield instead, I would probably grab Riving Strike over Power Attack. The other casters would love me and not feel so left out of the Inspired Rage :) I would probably opt for a buckler so I can still cast spells with a weapon in my hand.
Undead bloodline looks great, but it's a Bloodrager power. Are those open to Skalds as well?
There's a line of X Blood rage powers that are available to Barbs and Skalds, they are in the ACG.
Search for the Undead Blood rage power line.
For defense I've always found Mirror Image to be very helpful for Bards (and Skalds have the same spell list). I'd be interested to hear how all the Die Hard related stuff works out though I wonder if spending 3 feats and a couple of rage powers to do better when you're at below 0hp might not be as efficient as spending them to avoid getting down to 0hp.
If you go with Riving Strike you might want to consider getting deeper into debuffing. I'm a big fan of demoralizing foes to make them shaken and then hitting them with a Cruel weapon to make them sickened too. With the full set your victim would have -2 to damage, -4 on attack, and -6 to saving throws. Lowering enemy attack bonuses can often be even better than raising your AC.
The tumor familiar is necessary. You use any of a number of spells, hexes, or other effects to pass damage to it which it heals with fast healing 5.
Beast totem line helps with your AC a bit.
Regarding Beast Totem, an AC boost for everybody accepting Raging Song is nice. The Lesser Beast Totem prereq is kind of costly though unless you have somebody around who might benefit from gaining Claws. I've found that they can be a nice buff for animal companions, familiars, summoned monsters, etc which don't normally have them (plus the idea of a mastodon clawing people to death is kind of amusing)