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Dwarves make less than ideal bards because of the subtraction to their charisma, which affects spellcasting and bardic performance. But if her concept is a dwarf who plays hurtful bagpipe music, I have a workaround.
Have her play an Empyreal bloodline Dwarf Sorcerer, and load her up with sonic evocations. (Ear-Piercing Scream, Shatter, Sonic Scream, Distracting Cacophony, Shout, Aggressive Thundercloud, Greater Sonic Thrust, Wall of Sound, Runic Overload). She can skin her spellcasting as bagpipe playing, her spell damage and DCs will key off of dwarf-friendly Wisdom, and she'll be wrecking people with music several times a day, starting at level 1. (Thundercaller doesn't get its sonic attack until level 3, and bards don't get as many spells a day as sorcerers do.) Beyond those spells you can flesh out her spell list thematically (Ghost Sound, Banshee Blast) and pragmatically (Grease, Glitterdust, Haste, Stinking Cloud)
If she wants to play a smooth, charming dwarf musician, this is not the way to go. But if she wants to play an earthy bagpiper who doesn't care what other people think of her music, this is a winner.
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So she must be playing the bagpipes in combat. Hmm... That does use up both hands and thus severely limits your combat options. If she's okay singing/preaching during combat and playing bagpipes out of combat it would be easier to make them okay in combat.
Personally I dislike the thundercaller because it gets rid of inspire courage for the party. So as long as you're okay with that though it a decent archetype.
Being a dwarf isn't that bad. Just point buy a 14 and start with a 12 cha, it's enough to get through. If you want more, buy a 16 and start with 14.
The idea is to play to other strengths and not rely on cha like normal.
Thundercaller loses inspire competence, not inspire courage so that is a much less difficult trade. That said, I prefer soundstriker to thundercaller for sonic damage performance.
As others have said, Dwarves and Bards are not a great mix. You can certainly live with low DCs, especially if you focus on a support role where DCs don't matter, but you are definately going to have issues with how you contribute each round (beyond inspire courage.) A bagpipe using two hands pretty much means you are just down to spells and a bard won't have enough of those to be casting all the time.
(technically you can inspire courage without actually performing, but that would of course ruin the entire concept).
One possible solution is to go with the dazzling display feat. You still have to be wielding a weapon, which is a bit of a problem, but taking weapon focus unarmed strike for dazzling display would work. A dwarven boulder helm would be thematically awesome, but needing to spend a feat on it and the arcane spell failure makes it probably no good. The other thing you need to get is a good intimidate skill. Usually bards get this with versatile performance (Comedy, Keyboard and Percussion all provide this) only Comedy doesn't already have a skill that is used with perform (wind) so it is probably the best choice. The character would probably want to max out both of these perform skills, taking and take comedy as their first versatile perform skill (even though bagpipes are the characters focus).
The advantage here is being able to inspire courage to give a nice plus to your side while intimidating all the bad guys within 30. That is a pretty effective combat round and you can be pretty sure of contributing. When you need to, you of course skip the dazzling display and cast a spell. The other big advantage is that since you are not actually planning on really fighting anything directly you don't need to spend a lot of your point buy on str or dex, meaning even as a dwarf you should be able to get a respectable CHR, probably 14 to start.
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Well then, perhaps a skald? You still have the cha problem, but martial weapons+weapon familiarity allows her proficiency in the boulder helmet to attack and play. Raging Song is appropriate for bagpipes, or you could go spell warrior to enchant everyone's weapons instead of rage if you're worried about people not accepting the song.
Thundercaller loses inspire competence, not inspire courage so that is a much less difficult trade. That said, I prefer soundstriker to thundercaller for sonic damage performance.
Sorry, I didn't explain well. "Get rids of inspire courage" was not meaning that you're incapable of inspiring courage aka traded it out. But that any round you use your thundercalling is turning off your inspire courage, and thus getting rid of the buff for your team. So if you're inspiring courage your not using your thundercaller abilities, and if you use those abilities you're not inspiring courage in a fight. And since you traded OoC use for and IC use if you never use it why did you take it?
Make the sensei monk, and tell her it's a bard. Like it'll play very much like a bard (minus spells)
but as mentioned, being a weaponless bard with reduced casting makes it really hard to have useful options.
Give her throw anything, summon instrument, and a bad attitude.
Summons a bagpipe. Throws it in combat at the opponent. Summons a new one.
Thundercaller loses inspire competence, not inspire courage so that is a much less difficult trade. That said, I prefer soundstriker to thundercaller for sonic damage performance.Sorry, I didn't explain well. "Get rids of inspire courage" was not meaning that you're incapable of inspiring courage aka traded it out. But that any round you use your thundercalling is turning off your inspire courage, and thus getting rid of the buff for your team. So if you're inspiring courage your not using your thundercaller abilities, and if you use those abilities you're not inspiring courage in a fight. And since you traded OoC use for and IC use if you never use it why did you take it?
True you can only do one at a time.
I find more options is better than less options, especially if it is trading out something I wouldn't have used anyway. In most situations the utility of Inspire Courage is so great that any other performance can't compare.
Once in a while though things go sideways. When all of your friends are down or you are alone for some other reason then being able to throw out some damage with a performance (like soundstriker or thundercaller) can be pretty nice, especially if you have a bard that isn't directly combat effective.