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There's no reason that assistance has to be all you bring to the table. Take an order of the dragon cavalier with swift aid and bodyguard, for example. You pass out aid other like candy, but that doesn't stop you from challenging monsters and beating them senseless.
Or take my Cav 1/Bard 4/Battle Herald for example. He brings nearly full bardic inspiration to the table, some social skills, and (increasingly) minor magic, can hand out teamwork feats, and has battle herald buffing as well. And he can stand up front in fullplate and keep monsters off his party while crushing their skulls with his Lucerne hammer and 19 strength.
There are lots of characters that can make other players better in combat without making much of a sacrifice in their personal combat potential.
I'd recommend one of them. Not only do you not have a problem if you show up at a table and there is another team player build there, if the party is having a rough battle and it's up to you to save the day, you have a good shot at saving the day--unlike the "sing and disappear" style bard who just rolls over and says, "TPK happens."
If you can run a successful rogue, you can run a bard.
It will be about buffing rather than debuffing. Song will almost always be your first action. The longspear is for the flag to hang off and for the occasional AoO. You had other reasonable things you were spending your feats on, so I didn't bother mentioning combat reflexes.
That said, Intimidate skill is a ranged single target debuff with no SR or saving throw. As a bard, lots of people like Dazzling Display or the spell Blistering Invective as an advanced way of doing an area of effect intimidate.
Bards can be an extremely effective force multiplier.
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An Evangelist Cleric can be a monster in combat while also buffing allies as a Bard does and having tons of spells. Take the Heroism Domain and you get both Heroism as a Domain spell and a Domain Power that grants Heroism to the whole party as an aura. Take a level of Urban Barbarian or Urban Bloodrager and you can use Inspire Courage and Rage at the same time (like perhaps on a Ragathiel Evangelist with the Rage Subdomain). Take a level of Unchained Monk or Sohei, and you can flurry your deity's favored weapon with Crusader's Flurry. You could even have a dex-based Evangelist of Sarenrae with the Heroism subdomain that uses Dervish Dance with Flurry of Blows by 5 (with one retrained feat), and that deals a ton of damage even though it's one-handed dex-to-damage.
Really, the combat bonuses from Evangelist + Cleric buff + X are so absurdly high that you could dual wield one-handed weapons with Power Attack and still maintain a solid hit-chance. Which is a pretty awesome Cleric theme.
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If you want to do a gnome bard, check out the Prankster archetype in the Advanced Race Guide. You get most of the typical bard stuff (Inspire Courage, Inspire Competence, Bardic Knowledge), but give up some of the lesser used stuff (Fascinate). The main thing you get is the Mock bardic performance, which lets you debuff enemies by mocking them.
On my Prankster Bard, I took Skill Focus: Perform Comedy as my first feat, and used Comedy as my first Versatile Performance. That let me debuff enemies through intimidation using my perform skill, starting at second level, while ignoring the size penalty to intimidate larger creatures. So you can inflict -2 debuffs on enemies all day, with no limit on how often you can use it. Only works on things with minds, but unlike the Mock performance, it's NOT language dependent. And for those things you can talk to, those two debuffs do stack, so BBEGs who aren't casters end up with -4 on all their attack rolls, starting from the 2nd round of combat.
Mine is up to level 5, and I think I've used a traditional weapon (crossbow) exactly once in his entire career. His only killing blow was with a wand of Cure Light against a skeleton at low level. He also carries some basic splash weapons (acid flasks, alchemist's fire), but saves them for swarms. His main offense is just debuffing, between intimidation, mocking, Hideous Laughter, Blistering Invective, etc.
His main roll is skill monkey, but he's a pretty good buffer and debuff in battle, and backup healer with a wand of CLW.
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I have a lvl 13 buffing based Bard for PFS and thought I would share my build with you.
I started as a Human with Str 16(18), Dex 14, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 7, Cha 15. I took the Arcane Duelist archetype. Int 10 + Human bonus was enough points to take the social skills I wanted.
The reason I wanted to use a Polearm was Banner of the Ancient Kings. It does 3 important things if it is attached to a Polearm.
1. If you are a bard and start combat holding the polearm you get +4 to your initiative roll. Going first means you can inspire your allies faster and/or cast spells faster.
2. You are treated as 4 levels higher for your Inspire Courage bonus.
3. If you have the Flagbearer feat it doubles the bonus.
18,000 is a lot of gold but if you are careful with what you buy and get 2 Fame per adventure you should be able to buy it partway through 7th level.
Early on you have 18 Str and take Combat Reflexes. You Inspire Courage as a standard action and still deal damage with your reach weapon.
At 3rd or 5th level you take Lingering Performance. And at 7th level you take Flagbearer.
So at 7th level with the banner you are getting +4 to Initiative and I strongly recommend the Improved Initiative feat. A wand of Anticipate Peril for 2 PP gets heavily used as well.
You will be providing a constant +2 Competence bonus to hit and damage to all allies within 30 feet.
As a move action you provide a +3 Morale bonus to hit and damage.
And as a standard action you can cast haste.
Your Polearm is your bonded item so you'll get an extra haste per day. And if you bump your charisma to 16 that is another haste.
Spells I found to be very useful are.
1st Liberating Command, Saving Finale, Feather Fall (A way to bypass some obstacles as a group, save falling objects, and of course save people from falling.)
2nd Heroism (Mostly for the skill and save bonuses for myself since the att bonus doesn't stack with flagbearer), Glitterdust, Gallant Inspiration, Mirror Image (You won't have a great AC.)
3rd Haste, Dispel Magic, Arcane Concordance (This actually never came up because I didn't play with other arcane casters much.) Tiny Hut (You and your allies see the enemy but it breaks line of sight for them. Great combat spell vs archers or casters.)
4th Improved Invisibility (Not just for rogues. It is a big accuracy boost for any attacker.), Dimension Door
So early on you are strong, You inspire, You have useful spells, and you have good charisma so can be the party face.
At 7th level you get Flagbearer, Get Haste as a spell, and buy the Banner before 8th level. Every combat starts out with you giving all of your nearby allies +5 to hit and damage, That is before you cast haste.
I played a module at 12th level with 3 ranged attackers. It was a bloodbath. Most combats ended before the enemies even got to act.
There are 2 drawbacks.
1. If they take or destroy your weapon you are hosed. Making your polearm adamantium helps with the latter. You can also make it impervious and since it is your bonded weapon you can just increase it's base bonuses at half cost.
2. At higher levels your AC can't keep up with enemy attacks. But by this level you are adding far more damage to the group then you can personally provide so stay out of combat. (Though at 13th level my usual attack routine is +22/+22/+17 for 1d8 +27 so melee is tempting.
Even if you don't go this route I hope some of it helps.
Arcane Duelist is awesome. Among other things, it makes it easy to go rapier-and-light-shield while holding a Banner of the Ancient Kings in the light shield hand, and then use Amateur Swashbuckler and Blue Scarf to play reach-rapier panache-dodging.
There's also Dawnflower Dervish Bard to make a very dangerous combatant, though that defeats most of the 'helping allies' side of things.
Right. My wand is Heightened Awareness, I have Anticipate Peril as a spell. Not that I ever used it. And yes I looked at Inspire Courage before typing that and forgot that the first listed bonus is the morale bonus to some saves.
Note that Arcane Duelist does give up the bonus to knowledges and the versatile performance ability.
Also you don't actually need 15 charisma until 7th level so you can start with 14 and bump it at 4th level.
Also the stats are off. My starting Con was 12. If I were to do it over I would have gone
Str 16 (18)
Dex 14
Con 14
Int 9
Wis 7
Cha 14 (15 at lvl 4)
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My favorite Bard/Skald spell is Arcane Concordance. It's great for pre-buffing, with the free extend spell. But it can also allow your party to keep trucking in other unforeseen circumstances.
Oh.... That's beautiful.
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I am wanting to make a secondary character to bring along for when my main character ends up overlapping too much with other players who show up for games.
I am wanting to build a character that is pretty much welcome in any group...I was thinking some sort of team buffer, enemy de-buffer, maybe toss some heals in there. Preferably something that won't just die the second something attacks it.
I was thinking maybe bard or oracle? I prefer the ability to choose spells on the fly instead of having to pre-choose every morning.
I am open to anything PFS legal...especially if it is something I can work an interesting and fun to play concept around. It does not have to be ultra-optimized...I am open to playing a sub-optimal race/class combo as long as it does not utterly break the build.
Post your favorite team player builds here
Bard, oracle, shaman, and even skald are good for this. An investigator is often welcome as well for crushing skill checks of any kind.