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As for feats, it gives you the one you really need, so you're largely free to do as you please. What else did you have in mind for the character? That might help determine what's best for you, feat-wise.
I'm thinking largely of race here - depending on how long you wait to get going, ifrit might be an option. They're pretty well-set for the Dawnflower dervish, all things considered.
Dawnflower dervish get double inspire courage, but it only works for themselves. From those numbers, you can basically just pretend it is like you traded out inspire courage for a RAGE.
The numbers eventually get good enough that you are fighting like a full BAB character (15+8=23 vs. 20+4=24).
So it is the build you use if you just want a melee guy that has skills , good reflex/will, and bard spells. Not as great as the party buffer (Although you still ahve the bard spell list), but good as a martial guy.
Might be decent for PFS, since you don't know whether you are getting teamed up with a bunch of pure casters that don't want inspire courage. And flexible enough on its own to do well enough.
One piece of advice- don't rely on the dervish dance feat you get. It is 1 weapon/1handed. Not that great. Go TWF or archery if you want to have FANTASTIC damage (the double inspire courage damage is on every hit; these are many hit styles). Even just going 2 handed is better.
First off, your premise is flawed. Bard is an extremely solid class that, while absolutely excellent at party support, also is quite capable in combat themselves, and will get plenty of glory.
The Dawnflower Dervish and Dervish Dancer both basically trade away most of their party support ability for bonuses that apply only to them. They make a fine character to fill the striker role, with good skills and some magic as well, but it is a poor replacement for a regular bard.
Of the two I prefer the Dawnflower Dervish because a) it doesn't lose versatile performance and b) the Dervish Dancer has too many battle dances, you can only use one at any time so having all of them seems like a waste.
As to your requirements, both should be pretty strong and significant in combat right out of the gate. Dawnflower Dervish is probably slightly better at melee, due to getting the dervish dancer feat for free. Neither will be particularly good at party buffing, although their are some spells here and there that can do that. Feats are pretty basic. Both would probably benefit from weapon focus and arcane strike. Dervish Dancer is probably going to need to work toward dex-to-damage, probably with the dervish dancer feat.
Should you look elsewhere? Well, if you want a character that fills the striker role, both of these will do fine. Since you were 'resigned' to being a bard though, it seems like maybe that isn't the role you were planning on filling. I think you might be better served asking how to make a bard that can really support the party also kick ass in combat.
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If your party is full of martials, you might look into the arcane duelist archetype for your "vanilla" bard. Mine could hold her own with most of the group's melee, while also buffing them.
Bear in mind that bards can use shields* - this lets you get a little tankier than you'd expect, especially when elven chain becomes available. The arcane duelist can even use a heavy shield (or tower shield with proficiency) without sacrificing casting, once they get their bonded weapon.
I play a lot of bards. ^_^
*Unless using Dervish Dance, obviously. Even then, the buckler is an option (for complex, FAQ-related reasons, it's not "in your other hand").
The main problem with doing TWF is that you will also need to focus on strength as well to keep your damage up. Unfortunately with halfling, that's going to be an issue. I personsally have found the going with the scimitar route is actually extremely viable damage-wise. Focus on a crit build as all your bonus from Battle Dance multiply on critical hits. Arcane Strike is a good way to get some extra damage and you don't need your Swift Actions for anything early on.
Bladed Dash is a great way to open up combat by the way. Get your Battle Dance activated as a Move Action, Arcane Strike as your Swift, and then Bladed Dash to cross the distance... And now your are up in the enemies face with your Dex damage based scimitar that can crit on a 15-20 with Keen.
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EDIT: Just found this while browsing. I can't see any reason not to take Sound Striker on top of Dawnflower, even if I ditch the rest of the ideas.
This is almost certainly not legal for PFS, due to the archetype stacking FAQ. Since Dawnflower dervish alters the bardic performance class feature, nothing that replaces a subfeature (such as sound striker's replacement of inspire competence) stacks with it.
Sorry. :(
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Look out for that Strength - when I played my Dawnflower dervish, I was hugging the edge of medium encumbrance at almost all times, and that was after ditching unnecessary weight wherever possible. Lamellar cuirass armor will be your friend here.
You don't need to dump that hard unless you have very bad racial modifiers for your class. Your first statline looks fine. ^_^
(You could even drop Cha a little and put it into your other scores - your DCs aren't necessarily the main focus.)
I say drop cha down to a 14, it's high enough to cast all your spells in PFS, and the only thing a 16 gets you is +1 to social skills, 1 round of bardic performance, and +1 to save dc's that you probably wont using since you're a fighting bard.
@ lemeres, perfect, because that's pretty much what I was going for...melee with versatility and some out of combat use.
There isn't a single full caster in our five man group, somehow. What would a feat tree look like if I was to go with TWF? I'm pretty pleased with this news, somehow TWF just seems to fit better flavorwise anyway.
Not too complicated, really. Tight on feats (so..yeah, human), but it works out. So it would be something like:
1: Weapon finesse Human: TWF
3: arcane strike (bonus damage on every hit, with no real cost- love if for TWF)
5: piranha strike, or maybe power attack if you swing 13 str (just the basic damage booster- you get a +4/+4 at this level, so you can swing the penalty).
7: ??? Whatever. Maybe riving strike so you can debuff enemy saves when you arcane strike. The Save or Suck characters will love you.
9: Improved TWF.
Some basic scores:
STR: 13 DEX: 17 (15) CON: 14 INT: 10 WIS: 10 CHA: 14
It about works out with this. No fancy dex to damage, but you are throwing out +6 on every hit at level 5 due to inspire courage and arcane strike. That is about what a 2 hander usually gets from their entire strength score early on.
It is also possible to get stats for strength based TWF, which has its advnatages (imagine going scimitar and cestus, and then 2 handing when charging), but that involves dunmping int HARD and maybe a bit of wis.
As a note: bards love cestus for at least the offhand when doing TWF. It doesn't mess with casting, and you are always armed.
Bear in mind that Two-Weapon Fighting is anti-synergistic with Dervish Dance.
Yep. That is why I advise dumping dervish dance entirely. It is 1 weapon 1 handed- only swashbucklers really pull that off well. You are more compensating for the weak style more than anything. Dawnflowers get HUGE bonuses to damage on every hit- perfect for a many hit style instead.
A barb dip then "requires" you take the extra rage feat once or twice to have enough rage for the day. It's getting you a +2 to attack and a +2/3 to damage.
So if you want a big fighting boost, it's not bad. But if you really care about your spells then it's not a good idea.
@ lemeres, as much sense as that makes (and appeals), going human is a dealbreaker for me. My heart's set on playing a halfling. That alone pushes the feat progression back two levels, and the Str penalty...ouch. I could get it to 10 and remove the negatives, but going any higher would mean dumping int (don't want to, skills + the roleplay angle) and wis even further.
@ Kalindlara, good :3 I'm not a big fan of dipping, didn't want to take it if it didn't look like a really good option.
Fair enough. I was writing from my own comfort zone with scores/feats, and didn't see the discussion about halflings while going on my post.
That looks really good build-wise! I definitely suggest Arcane Strike as your first feat. That little bit of extra damage is always helpful, plus the added benefit of getting through DR/Magic.
Regarding Risky Striker, the only issue I see is that your target must be at least Large or bigger to be able to use it. Other than that... Looks good!
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So right now, Jasevaati Hskori the halfling Dawnflower Dervish looks like this...
Str: 8
Dex: 19
Con: 14
Int: 10
Wis: 10
Cha: 14Level 0 spells: Detect Magic, Ghost Sound, Light, Mage Hand, Read Magic
Level 1: Expeditious Retreat, Moment of Greatness, Feather FallFeat: Arcane Strike. Probably going to take Risky Striker at 3rd. After that, I dunno. Someone in another thread suggested taking the Crane Style tree of feats, but that looks ehhhh. Wouldn't take off til high levels.
I'd try to get that DEX up to 20. It's extremely important for such a build. There's a trait that allows you to treat your STR as 2 higher for carrying capacity (muscle of the society) also remember that gear for small characters weighs 1/3 of regular gear. Also muleback chords are 1k and allow you to treat your STR as 6 higher for carrying capacity.
I'd suggest:
STR 6 DEX 20 CON 14 WIS 10 INT 8 CHA 14
As to feats you can consider one handed weapon Trick, for stylish riposte (although your AC might be too low for this).
Also bodyguard+helpful trait is great for high dex halflings.
I don't think anybody has mentioned this, but small creature's equipment (weapon and armor) is half weight. This might help with your carrying capacity issues.
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I don't think anybody has mentioned this, but small creature's equipment (weapon and armor) is half weight. This might help with your carrying capacity issues.
However:
Bigger and Smaller Creatures: The figures on Table: Carrying Capacity are for Medium bipedal creatures. A larger bipedal creature can carry more weight depending on its size category, as follows: Large ×2, Huge ×4, Gargantuan ×8, Colossal ×16. A smaller creature can carry less weight depending on its size category, as follows: Small ×3/4, Tiny ×1/2, Diminutive ×1/4, Fine ×1/8.
Why they had to over-complicate the most fun-sucking set of rules in the game is beyond me, but there it is.
"Weight figures are for armor sized to fit Medium characters. Armor fitted for Small characters weighs half as much, and armor fitted for Large characters weighs twice as much."
The above is what I pulled from the d20pfsrd site. Is this incorrect information? Where did you get your information from?
EDIT: Never mind, I understand my confusion. We are talking about two different things. You're talking about carrying capacity and I'm talking about equipment weight.
This can actually in some cases work to a Halfling's benefit. Consider a 12 Str human wearing a Chain Shirt. Her light load is 43 pounds or less, and the armor weighs 25 lbs., over half that.
The 10 Str halfling, however, has a light load of 24 lbs. or less, but their chain shirt weights 12 lbs., which is only half of their light load. The halfling can actually carry MORE stuff than their human counterpart in this scenario (this isn't counting that some halfling-sized gear is also half weight).
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Here is my hafling dervish of dawn , she is a blast to play. Note you still can use the standard bard inspire courage instead of the battle dance if the party is marshal heavy.
She's specialize in instanious spell since she doesn't cast a lot of spells when fighting, note casting them will uses up you next swift action which is normally your arcane strike.
The slow movement is a pain getting into combat sometimes, bladed dash would help.
While you have good to hits score and damage with scimitar other non range weapons suffer. Also as pointed out equipment weight has to be watched.
I would personally avoid dropping your Strength down to 6. You can hit 20 Dex at 4th level with your stat increase. If you take ANY strength damage with that 6... you are severely penalized... You will instantly become Encumbered which lowers your Max Dex to +3 or worse. The extra +1 damage is not worth the potential negative effects, in my opinion.
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I would personally avoid dropping your Strength down to 6. You can hit 20 Dex at 4th level with your stat increase. If you take ANY strength damage with that 6... you are severely penalized... You will instantly become Encumbered which lowers your Max Dex to +3 or worse. The extra +1 damage is not worth the potential negative effects, in my opinion.
Strength damage does not reduce carrying capacity. This is all it does:
Diseases, poisons, spells, and other abilities can all deal damage directly to your ability scores. This damage does not actually reduce an ability, but it does apply a penalty to the skills and statistics that are based on that ability.
Strength: Damage to your Strength score causes you to take penalties on Strength-based skill checks, melee attack rolls, and weapon damage rolls (if they rely on Strength). The penalty also applies to your Combat Maneuver Bonus (if you are Small or larger) and your Combat Maneuver Defense. A character with a Strength score of 0 is too weak to move in any way and is unconscious. Some creatures do not possess a Strength score and have no modifier at all to Strength-based skills or checks.
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Risky Striker DOES look good. I was wincing a little at the loss of power attack/piranha strike (can't fit 13str into the build, and PS doesn't work with scimitar :L) but that definitely helps some. Also going to do some casual browsing on Arcane Duelist. Shame I can't stack those, but it was more of a "Oh, maybe I can do that? Cool." than a "YESSS!" anyway.
@ Faelyn, should Arcane Strike be my first level feat then? I don't see anything else jumping out at me. Just looked up Bladed Dash and that is absolutely fantastic...battlefield mobility ftw.
How're my stats looking?
Str: 8
Dex: 18
Con: 14
Int: 10
Wis: 8
Cha: 17 (bumped to 18 at 4)Or...I could dump some more stats and wind up with:
Str: 7
Dex: 19 (bump to 20 at 4)
Con: 14
Int: 10
Wis: 8
Cha: 16A little hesitant to dump wisdom from a roleplaying standpoint but it's not a 4 so I'll just be the happy-go-lucky murderbot who needs a little more common sense. As far as strength...erck...my equip burden is silly low, but I'll find a way to make it work.
I am currently playing a human Dawnflower Dervish. My dex is my high stat at 6 th level and cats grace on it is 22. I use a plus one keen scimitar and am truly loving life. I would never drop my stats to 7 or 8. I got hit with a stat rebuff last week that would have taken me out of the game with a 7 stat. No need to min/max meta game imo. If you are going to play a halfling remember your weapons do less damage and you already are at a handicap only being able to use a scimitar in one hand. But a couple things can help. I upgraded to a plus 2 mithril chain shirt, Dawnflower sash, daredevil boots and a couple wands grease/clw. I would recommend fighting defensively when the opponent ac is in the low 20 s or below. Battle dance as a move and cast cats grace asap. Get a bless asap. You can even charge once in a while. I also use tempestuous combatant to allow me to designate one opponent to disallow aoo s from them. I also always have featherstep on which allows me to move over rough terrain easily and expeditious retreat to move twice as fast. I took agile maneuver instead of combat expertise to all me a bit better combat maneuvers. My versatile performance increases dance to increase both acrobatics/fly and now at sixth I put intimidate into it to allow me to cast Blistering invective to full effect. That is some of the key points to my bard I hope that helps some of you playing one.
Some options that might interest you:
Weapon tricks - such as guarded movement or stylish riposte
2 level dip to daring champion for order of the flame.
I love risky striker in combination with pirana strike.
Prestige Class - halfling opportunist
Halfling Bard with whip; a correctly constructed whip magus can aid create huge buffs for party members - this build is documented in the kensai magus guide.
Masterwork backpacks will help you with weight.
Consider the trait: Intrepid Volunteer (Dex to grapple cmd)
Also, with good dex, keep a missile weapon handy, and look at some of the alternate halfing racial traits.
For example, there is one that allows you to be concealed as long as you are adjacent to someone bigger. Since bards have great skill points, and halflings get both racial and size adjustments to stealth, you might as well open up combat being stealthy.
Consider: Creepy Doll, Human Shadow, Fleet of Foot, Warslinger Fey Magic can be useful to boost your movement via longstrider. Alternately, featherstep
And finally, there is an entire build based on the using halfling luck.