Hey all,
In a game where I am a PC, there is another player who is not very enamored with his bard character. The character is great outside of combat, but in combat he inspires us and occasionally casts some spells, but mostly shoots (and misses) with his short bow, doing minimal damage when he hits compared to the archer fighter or two-handed barbarian. He's been given the option to revamp his character by the DM and I'm assisting.
During a one-off adventure I ran, he played an Alchemist and seemed to really enjoy the bombs aspect. To that end, I was looking for a way to give alchemist bombs to a bard and am coming up short. Alternatively, he may be willing to go alchemist if he could still do inspire courage, but that seems harder to do and I'm not sure he'd want to stray that far from bard.
So to that end, any ideas on how to give bards alchemist-style bombs? Or if not, what do you think a fair trade of bard abilities would be as I'm pretty sure the DM would be willing to allow some house-ruling to ensure he's having more fun.
Thanks in advance, all.
Both are pretty easy by level seven, if the GM is willing to let him change some stuff up.
Alchemist, then take Variant Multiclass for Bard. At seventh level, you get Inspire Courage and Inspire Competence. (Level - 4 for the effect, Cha + level for the rounds.)
Alternatively, you can take Bard with Alchemist Variant Multiclass. At seventh level, you get bombs. (Level for the effects but with no Int bonus to damage, Int + half level for the number of bombs per day.)
Thanks for the quick reply. I was unaware of variant multiclassing. I stat'd out a build today and was pretty shocked at how abjectly worse bard with vmc alchemist is compared to a thundercaller bard.
When playing a bard, I just stocked up on Pellet Grenades. They're only 3d6, but when you take quick draw you can hurl a bunch of them in a round. There's also tanglefoot bags as well...
Basically grab a handy haversack, go through the alchemical weapons, and grab some of everything.
Use the soundstriker archetype.
You can use bardic music attempts to do 4d6+charisma sonic damage that increases by 4d6 every 4 levels.
If you take this along with the archetype that gives you a familiar it can also use this ability.
At higher level you can then cast shadowbard to also have it in on the action.
Use the soundstriker archetype.
You can use bardic music attempts to do 4d6+charisma sonic damage that increases by 4d6 every 4 levels.
If you take this along with the archetype that gives you a familiar it can also use this ability.
At higher level you can then cast shadowbard to also have it in on the action.
Huh. Soundstriker + Duettist seems like an interesting combination.
Thanks for the quick reply. I was unaware of variant multiclassing. I stat'd out a build today and was pretty shocked at how abjectly worse bard with vmc alchemist is compared to a thundercaller bard.
That's because the Thundercaller Bard is very, very broken. I believe the creator even said so (Sean K Reynolds, IIRC). Being able to spam a scaling Area of Effect sonic attack fueled by Bardic Performance that gets past Spell Resistance is absolutely broken.
Sound Striker is much more balanced and trades out less Bardic-ness, too. Some of the feats one would take for an Archer Bard can also apply to this archetype's Weird Words Performance! Very nice, IMO and my favorite archetype for my favorite class.
And yes, it does stack with Duettist.