Thinking about making a melee bard, as out of all the casters they get the best weapon proficiencies out of the gate and get light armor. Assuming Dex based, which of these three would work best?
Sorcerer offers additional spells (and additional slots for True Strike) as well as the option of Bespell Weapon, which again synergizes well with True Strike.
Rogue offers sneak attack and the ability to really lean into being a skill monkey. Dread Striker also synergizes great with Dirge of Doom.
Champion offers more defensive capabilities with additional hit points, shield feats, and their reaction (which could also mean more damage if I'm LG).
Which of these is the most advisable?
Woah. I never even thought about rogue, dread stalker, and dirge of doom.
My go to was always fighter for power attack + true strike shenanigans. But i suppsose thats not dex based.
Fighters do have a similar feat to dread stalker... Shatter defenses?
Does rogue MC let you get dex to damage? I dont think so right?
No, rogue MC doesn't let you add Dex to damage.
Also, looking at the dedications again, Champion requires 14 strength so let's assume if I go Champion it would be a strength build.
I like the idea of the Champion. Because now you can get in the fray of combat, while providing the Bards Utility and the Champs defense.
I dont think any of the other MCs are going to greatly improve your offense as much as the Champ will improve your (and the parties) defense.
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Ultimately it depends on what your goal is.
Do you want to have more spells and general utility? Multiclassing with another spell casting class isn't going to make you better at anything you can already do, but it will give you a lot more versatility in the form of access to spells you don't already have.
The skill part of a rogue is great, assuming you don't already have one in your party. Then you might start to overlap a little much. I don't know your party composition to know if it would be a problem. The dirge of doom and dread striker combo could be good, what is your Muse? I feel like your going to have some action economy problems trying to move, potentially cast a spell, do any sort of cantrips like Dirge of Doom, and make an attack.
You kind of need to decide what you really want to focus on.
for STR build, If you don't want to be a holy man, there is also an option for a fear instilling hellknight bard. Versatile human gets you heavy armor prof for 2 general feats, 2nd level armiger dedication, 4th mortification, 6th hellknight dedication, 8th dirge of doom, 10th level order training, 12th level expert heavy armor and order weapon.
Hellknight feats get you DR to mental piercing and slashing for increased melee durability. You can go with whip + shield and trip/disarm as an extra debuff, or go with longspear for reach + d8 die weapon.
throat singing, fear instilling, law enforcing badass :)
My go to was always fighter for power attack + true strike shenanigans. But i suppsose thats not dex based.
Power Attack works fine with DEX based attacks. Besides the name, there is nothing requiring strength.
Also for casters MCing into fighter it might be worth it, since Power Attack is more effective (compared to two strikes) the higher the opponents AC is. And with caster attack proficiency, every AC is high.
Rogue Dedication seems most useful to me, given that Heavy Armour only really improves AC by 1 at the cost of your movement speed, and it'd cost you a class feat to make it relevant later down the line.
By comparison, a Maestro Bard can potentially extend their Dirge of Doom through Lingering Performance, thus avoiding paying the action economy cost. You can also get some action enhancers through Rogue, such as (the somewhat unreliable) Nimble Dodge (you'd need Basic Trickery to qualify for Dread Striker anyway), Skirmish Strike at level 12, as well as the potential for Master Reflex saves at level 12 too, thus helping with your squishiness.
Adding to all this, you have access to Heroism, which can provide a long lasting boost in important battles, meaning that you would comparatively end up hitting someone at -3 AC (-1 Status, -2 Flat-footed) with anywhere from a +1 to +3 Status bonus to attack and damage.
Given that critical hits are more likely, it is a pity that most Bard weapons offer a redundant critical specialization. I'd probably use a Rapier most of the time due to Deadly, but using a Light Mace might also be fun for the forced movement.
My go to was always fighter for power attack + true strike shenanigans. But i suppsose thats not dex based.Power Attack works fine with DEX based attacks. Besides the name, there is nothing requiring strength.
Also for casters MCing into fighter it might be worth it, since Power Attack is more effective (compared to two strikes) the higher the opponents AC is. And with caster attack proficiency, every AC is high.
The incompatibility is indirect:
Power Attack needs a higher die weapon to be worthwhile.Dex-based combatants usually use Finesse weapons, which are lower die weapons.
That said, non-martial PCs should use higher die weapons to make up for lack of other damage sources, and it's generally best to get that weapon via an Ancestry feat.
As long as you realize your Bard's primary attack is about equivalent to a martial's secondary attack and that you'll be going into battle "wounded" (since you'll be behind a martial on h.p. & defense), then you can match your expectations fine.
When the Boss hits the battlemat...Magic Missiles.
Thinking about making a melee bard, as out of all the casters they get the best weapon proficiencies out of the gate and get light armor. Assuming Dex based, which of these three would work best?
Sorcerer offers additional spells (and additional slots for True Strike) as well as the option of Bespell Weapon, which again synergizes well with True Strike.
Rogue offers sneak attack and the ability to really lean into being a skill monkey. Dread Striker also synergizes great with Dirge of Doom.
Champion offers more defensive capabilities with additional hit points, shield feats, and their reaction (which could also mean more damage if I'm LG).
Which of these is the most advisable?
Sorcerer gives more spells and it can make whatever damage spells you do possess more devastating with feats like Dangerous Sorcery. But, Bards don't have a great blasting spell list. They have a couple, but nothing extremely noteworthy to warrant a Sorcerer specialization. Plus you'll have spells at differing DCs since the DCs from your Sorcerer dedication will always be different/lower than your actual casting, meaning offensive spells are immediately out the window. And Bards don't have any problems with buffing/debuffing, so selecting additional spells in this case isn't doing you many favors.
Rogue is very nice simply because of the skill stuff it offers. Skill Mastery alone giving you free skill feats and two skill increases to Master/Expert from two Expert/Trained skills helps out a lot in maintaining skill relevance across the board, and can be taken up to 5 times total. Not a great use of class feats, but if you have levels where there are dead feats, or have other means of acquiring Expert-tier skills, it's a great option. Combined with Mobility to avoid potentially threatening melee enemies, and as you noted, Dread Striker with Dirge of Doom for any melee you do plan to implement, makes it a potentially good combination. I'd recommend this if your party is behind in the skills department.
Champion is a little redundant in my personal opinion. Champions work best with classes who don't have much in the way of boosting Dexterity, and short of other melee classes who have acceptable defensive scaling, Champions aren't great on this front. They might provide some neat roleplaying elements to draw from, as well as maybe a couple niche abilities like Lay On Hands or the Reaction (depending on your cause, can be really really good). But as far as base benefits are concerned (such as armor proficiencies potentially going to Expert, training in a skill you may or may not use, and straight-jacketing other potential roleplaying options), it's not worth it. Unless you take the Reaction feat, or even the Lay On Hands feat if you want additional non-spell-slot healing, it's not worth it. It has great synergistic use, but it's not the best as it stands.
One avenue to consider is Fighter, which gives you access to all Martial weapons at Trained, and getting to Expert level with certain weapons can be pretty strong. Our Bard is running a Reach weapon, now having Attacks of Opportunity, while doing his buffing. He's not the most effective with it, but can hold his own against mooks and better utilize his own buffs. Buffing the weapon proficiencies to Expert with a later feat takes a while, but may be worth it considering the versatility he gets with it. And he gets access to neat combat feats like Power Attack or Lunge (super-strong one-hit attacks if he wants to save spell slots, can't use cantrips, or needs to utilize 15 feet distance to his advantage to trigger Attacks of Opportunity), among other things. I'd recommend this if your party needs help on the front lines.