As mentioned above.
Specifically,I've got this concept of a blind bard who carries some sort of polearm that doubles as their walking stick/performance prop.
Of course,a fighter or monk would suit the "blind swordsman" concept more,but I do want the arcane spells and performances.
I'm specifically thinking about any that have the reach,and maybe the double and/or brace tags,but those latter two aren't mandatory.
While I do not necessarily intend to make the use of the polearm highly optimal,I figure if I'm going to build a concept around the weapon,the character should at least be decent with it.
(And I understand a sword cane would both match the flavor and work with Weapon Finesse,but I want to know if I can make a reach polearm work with it,first.)
How quickly does it need to come online? There are various relevant feats (spear dancing style & successors or bladed brush) but it's a little tricky making it work early on a class with no relevant bonus feats.
Arcane Duelist Bard
Human
Bonus Feat: Blind Fight
1. Arcane Strike
1. Combat Reflexes
2. Combat Casting
3. Power Attack
5. Blinded Blade Style
6. Disruptive
7. Improved Blind Fight
9. Flagbearer
That's not a bad start...
Equipment is a Longspear and the Banner of Ancient Kings when you can get it (around level 8, usually, thus Flagbearer at 9).
If you don't mind a dip, you can get online faster.
Trait - Blind Zeal (gives blind sight as a bonus feat)
1 Unarmed Fighter, Blinded Blade Style (bonus fighter feat)
1 Improved Blind Fight
1 Blinded Competence (human bonus)
avr wrote: How quickly does it need to come online? There are various relevant feats (spear dancing style & successors or bladed brush) but it's a little tricky making it work early on a class with no relevant bonus feats. Other people have given suggestions already,but I would say perhaps at least being able to land hits on your typical low AC humanoid enemy at the start of a typical level 6 start campaign.
If you want a target to suggest to me based on,let's say level 10?
Working by 6th, good by 10th, OK.
Nicholas Storm's fighter dip (or an equivalent master of many styles monk dip) is about the easiest way to defeat blindness short of spending 12 000 gp on a blind man's fold. To use weapon finesse with a reach weapon you could get proficiency with an elven branched spear one way or another, or you could take weapon focus (glaive) and bladed brush. To get the double weapon quality on one of those you want spear dancing style.
Putting that together, something like Master of many styles monk 1 / bard X might go
Blind zeal trait: Blind-fight
Half-elf (ancestral arms): Exotic weapon proficiency (elven branched spear)
1: Improved blind-fight
MoMS monk 1: Blinded blade style, improved unarmed strike, stunning fist
3: Blinded blade competence
5: Weapon finesse
7: Greater blind-fight
9: Blinded master
You could swap those last 2 feats for others - combat expertise and moonlight stalker perhaps, or combat reflexes and intrepid rescuer, or TWF and spear dancing style (using the MoMS monk fuse style ability to use it at the same time as blinded blade style - unarmed fighters don't get that option if you go that way). I think being able to know the location of everything within 30' is best but YMMV.
avr wrote: Working by 6th, good by 10th, OK.
Nicholas Storm's fighter dip (or an equivalent master of many styles monk dip) is about the easiest way to defeat blindness short of spending 12 000 gp on a blind man's fold. To use weapon finesse with a reach weapon you could get proficiency with an elven branched spear one way or another, or you could take weapon focus (glaive) and bladed brush. To get the double weapon quality on one of those you want spear dancing style.
Putting that together, something like Master of many styles monk 1 / bard X might go
Blind zeal trait: Blind-fight
Half-elf (ancestral arms): Exotic weapon proficiency (elven branched spear)
1: Improved blind-fight
MoMS monk 1: Blinded blade style, improved unarmed strike, stunning fist
3: Blinded blade competence
5: Weapon finesse
7: Greater blind-fight
9: Blinded master
You could swap those last 2 feats for others - combat expertise and moonlight stalker perhaps, or combat reflexes and intrepid rescuer, or TWF and spear dancing style (using the MoMS monk fuse style ability to use it at the same time as blinded blade style - unarmed fighters don't get that option if you go that way). I think being able to know the location of everything within 30' is best but YMMV.
Thanks for the suggestion! Just to make it clear,I brought up that a cane sword would work with Weapon Finesse as a melee weapon for this character if I happened to allocate stats to Dex instead of Str.
As it is,I'm fine with a more conventional Str polearm build too.
But I'll keep your suggestions in mind with regards to minimizing blindness penalties.
Going with Str to attack polearms would save 2 feats - the EWP and Weapon Finesse, which could let you have any two of those last two feat options (except for spear dancing which requires weapon finesse). You'd be using a longspear of course.
Or you could go with an Ocean’s Echo Oracle with blinded curse. I would use Gillmen as race (you need a race with swimspeed for this archtype)
A basic 20 pt spread for a str based melee bard would be:
16(14+2)/14/14/10/10/14
This is enough to do well without dumps. 14 cha so you don't really need to worry about casting, 14 dex so you have a decent amount of extra AC and AoOs. 16 is about right for a gish's main melee stat. I avoid dumps, because it is never 'good' to dump wis and bard always lean a bit towards skill monkey, so dumping int isn't great either.
Here is a different option that I have found works well.
Unmonk 1/ arcane healer bard x
Getting channel let's you get crusaders flurry.
With song, heroism/ flag bearer, Haste, flurry extra attack, power attack and combat reflexes you are a terror. Scaled fist works pretty well for stat synergy.
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