A friend wants to build a melee bard for an upcoming campaign. I'm helping him do it, but I'm not sure how effective he will be.
After thinking it through, I sadly think a Maestro Bard is a better melee fighter than a warrior bard.
Maestro has a better spell (though Fear is good, Soothe is almost a must-have). It also has lingering composition to lighten the load on actions. I'm not sold on Harmonize and Inspire Defense since he'll want to raise his shield a lot, so he won't be able to use too many actions on cantrips. What he'll have, though, is Inspire Heroics, and that's a tough one to lose if I don't take this path.
Warrior has, well, not that much actually. Being able to take martial weapons is good, but some weapons, like the rapier, are already great in the selection. Also, ancestries can always help here. So the good things come a bit later with Courageous Opportunity and Courageous Assault. However, Courageous Assault is kind of annoying since it takes one action... and needs us to use Inspire Courage when Dirge of Doom is most often the better choice.
I'm focusing here on the first ten levels since we're playing slow and it'll take a long time to get there.
MAESTRO BARD
STR 16
DEX 10
CON 12
INT 10
WIS 12
CHA 18
I know I could tank CHA, but a high CHA will allow him to use his spells when he's not in the thick of things, and also help him be the Face of the group.
Skills: Athletics, Diplomacy, Intimidation, Deception, Medicine, Occultism, Performance
FEATS
1 - Lingering Composition
2 - Champion Dedication
4 - Inspire Competence
6 - Dirge of Doom
8 - Inspire Heroics
10 - Champion Reaction
SPELLS
0: Detect Magic, Ghost Sound, Light, Mage Hand, Telekinetic Projectile
1: Soothe*, Fear, Liberating Command, True strike
2: Restoration*, Hideous Laughter, Mirror Image
3: Haste, Slow, Vampiric Touch*
4: Blink, Fly, Phantasmal Killer*
5: Synesthesia, Shadow Blast
Basically, once in melee range, a typical round would go Dirge of Doom/Strike/Raise Shield, with spells as backup. On nova rounds, it would go Inspire heroics/Inspire Courage/Strike/Strike.
What do you think ? How could you tweak this build ?
If he want to go melee I suggest:
STR 10
DEX 16
CON 12
INT 10
WIS 12
CHA 18
Take whip as weapon, get good on atheltics and use his whip and spells for battle control (he can use DEX for it). He can also rise the shield if need.
So he can:
Attack
Spell
Attack
Cantrip
Rise shield
Spell
Rise shiled
I agree that the warrior muse's focus on metamagiced Composition Cantrips is a weird choice for a martial character. It's hard to do much in melee with only one action left.
I'd personally stick with Dirge of Doom most of the time. Its only downside is the smaller range compared to Inspire Courage, but if this is a melee bard, it should hardly matter. Since it makes enemies frightened, it's basically the best effects of Inspire Courage and Inspire Defense in one. And the lowered Saves are sure to come in handy.
If Dirge is your main cantrip, you might even want to skip Inspire Heroics since it doesn't work with Dirge.
You didn't specify an ancestry, but assuming the 12 Wis is from free boosts, I'd put that boost into Dex, personally. And go with Sentinel Dedication instead of Champion since it gets you up to Expert Medium Armor for only one feat. Works well with Dex 12.
I'd also pick up Shield Block and go for Bastion Dedication. You can get to 3 Sentinel feats easily by picking up Steel Skin and Armor Specialist (which are both "cheaper" than normal feats as they are skill feats). Bastion gives you Reactive Shield which is a great feat as it allows you to raise your shield only when it really counts - and without spending an action on your turn.
If you want to go strength, why not monk/martial artist for mountain stance and unarmed attacks. Kick them where it hurts with true strike/greivous blow.
Personally I'd go dex, and use dual weapon master. Doesn't cost much for feats, leather armor for max AC at 5 and two shortswords.
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A bard in melee is the same as any caster in this edition. Bad. You increase your weapon and armor proficiency at a slower rate and it caps at a lower level, you have zero ways to circumvent these things.
So you will function as a caster base the vast majority of your game play. When the possibility presents itself you will make about 1 attack per round optimally and that weapon will eat into your wealth level.
It can work, is fine, but it's not really good.
I find Bard to be a very bad chassis for a gish. The main strength of gishes is to use their third action for an attack. But the Bard already have a built-in excellent third action. So, either you use a composition and Strike and as such don't cast spells and you should go Fighter with Bard Dedication. Or you Strike + Cast a Spell and you lose the strength of your compositions.
Also, one-handed melee weapon gishes deal negligeable damage (40% of a martial attack). Either you go for a two-hander (and deal 50% of a martial attack) either you just forget about attacking as damage will be laughable.
And you won't have an action to Raise your Shield during 80% of your rounds, so it's not useful to have one.
I think the longsword is much better than the rapier if you are going str based. Also, I think the champions reaction is better than dirge of doom when you already have a good cantrip in inspire courage, so I would switch the levels. I think Cha 18 is the right way to go for a str bard, you lose a little Wis and Con in exchange for a huge boost to your casting.
IMO no, not really. You'll have an easier time if you use a shortbow.
You don't have the HP or AC to be on the front lines, and increasing strength means sacrificing dex (AC) or charisma. Neither is great.
A bard can focus on dex and charisma if you use a bow. Even with the propulsive trait you wont gain much damage if you did have strength, to the point that I don't really find it worth it (instead focus on dex, charisma, con, and wisdom).
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I find Bard to be a very bad chassis for a gish. The main strength of gishes is to use their third action for an attack. But the Bard already have a built-in excellent third action. So, either you use a composition and Strike and as such don't cast spells and you should go Fighter with Bard Dedication. Or you Strike + Cast a Spell and you lose the strength of your compositions.
That's why the warrior muse has so many one action metamagic feats. They focus on impactful use of composition cantrips for two actions and Strike for third. Bards are much more flexible as a class for getting opportunities to enter melee and be effective once they are there.
I find Bard to be a very bad chassis for a gish. The main strength of gishes is to use their third action for an attack. But the Bard already have a built-in excellent third action. So, either you use a composition and Strike and as such don't cast spells and you should go Fighter with Bard Dedication. Or you Strike + Cast a Spell and you lose the strength of your compositions.
Also, one-handed melee weapon gishes deal negligeable damage (40% of a martial attack). Either you go for a two-hander (and deal 50% of a martial attack) either you just forget about attacking as damage will be laughable.
And you won't have an action to Raise your Shield during 80% of your rounds, so it's not useful to have one.
Well for low levels with lingering composition at least it's great. Adopted cantrip electric arc + strike if an enemy is next to you, shield raise if not.
At higher levels it's really good too with the champion reaction, striking, raising a shield, and inspire courage all in one round when you aren't casting a spell.
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Bard have the same HP and AC as a Rogue, the Rogue only have better AC at lvl 19.
If you are close to the enemy you will can use one of the Warrior metamagic then a composition and with the third action do a strike.
If you want to be more tanky in the frontline then the Bastion Archetype is nice, you manage to get Shield Raise as a reaction and later can get an extra reaction to shield block, basically giving you +2 AC and temporary HP each round at the cost of your reactions.
Going Bastion instead of Champion would make him less of a team player, but it's doable.
Basically, this means he'd go with DEX instead of STR.
So the tradeoff for going Bastion is:
- 1 less AC (from not having heavy armor)
- Less damage from lower STR
- No Champion's reaction (that hurts since it's so awesome)
- Restricted to finesse weapon
+ Free Raise Shield
+ Free Shield block at level 10
+ +5 feet movement from not being in heavy armor
I don't know how good a trade-off it is. The annoying part is, before level 10, you lose your ability to block - and that can save your life, especially with a sturdy shield, especially with bard HPs.
I think your original build was really nice blue frog. Champions reaction is really nice! And you lose a lot of damage from the weapon swap, I think it's definitely better to go champion.
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That's why the warrior muse has so many one action metamagic feats. They focus on impactful use of composition cantrips for two actions and Strike for third. Bards are much more flexible as a class for getting opportunities to enter melee and be effective once they are there.
The solution to action economy issues is not to have more potential actions to make. And Warrior Muse feats don't seem to improve a gish Bard (outside the first level one).
Well for low levels with lingering composition at least it's great. Adopted cantrip electric arc + strike if an enemy is next to you, shield raise if not.
At higher levels it's really good too with the champion reaction, striking, raising a shield, and inspire courage all in one round when you aren't casting a spell.
Striking with a Longsword does less damage than a Telekinetic Projectile. And you have the Shield cantrip for free.
Also, you forgot Stride, because being a melee character implies many Strides.I really have hard time finding that nice. It looks like a headache to not get much out of it. Doing Cantrip level damage isn't sexy to me.
But it looks like I'm the only one. So, I've given my point of view, I don't have much to add.
My basic opinion is you should have a shortbow as a backup weapon when your buff spells are already out and you don't have other things to really do.
Maybe you're casting Inspire Courage as an action, and then need to get closer to the enemy to setup Sleep on the next turn, and so you find yourself with a single action left that you don't quite know what to do with...except shoot them with your bow.
Maybe you missed but at least you tried.
There is so much added in the APG that really works for bards, there isn't much time for strikes indeed. Bon Mot adds options (how to lower will on enemies so others can go for those crit failures on will saves). Celebrity adds options, bards can always intimidate after inspiring courage or defense. Oh, and they can cast spells if they have time left.
Tried to make a Dandy Celebrity Bard with all sorts of amusing skills. A lot of options during and out of combat.
That's why the warrior muse has so many one action metamagic feats. They focus on impactful use of composition cantrips for two actions and Strike for third. Bards are much more flexible as a class for getting opportunities to enter melee and be effective once they are there.The solution to action economy issues is not to have more potential actions to make. And Warrior Muse feats don't seem to improve a gish Bard (outside the first level one).
Well for low levels with lingering composition at least it's great. Adopted cantrip electric arc + strike if an enemy is next to you, shield raise if not.
At higher levels it's really good too with the champion reaction, striking, raising a shield, and inspire courage all in one round when you aren't casting a spell.
Striking with a Longsword does less damage than a Telekinetic Projectile. And you have the Shield cantrip for free.
Also, you forgot Stride, because being a melee character implies many Strides.I really have hard time finding that nice. It looks like a headache to not get much out of it. Doing Cantrip level damage isn't sexy to me.
But it looks like I'm the only one. So, I've given my point of view, I don't have much to add.
While I agree casters make for poor melee I strongly feel the comment on tp and longsword is very short sighted.
Yes tp does more damage. It's also less efficient with your action economy. One action with the sword means you can do 2 other actions or cast a spell (true strike is an obvious higher level choice)
Tp means you can't cast the vast majority of spells or make actions.
Luckily since your are a bard. And can get tp for free and it Auto scales. You don't have to choose if you so choose to build up any melee prowess.
TP might be 10d6+6
Longsword is 4d8+3d6+5+proficiency.
16-66 vs 16-51.
Nearly the same, by half the cost in actions (with much more cost in other places like player wealth)
While I agree casters make for poor melee I strongly feel the comment on tp and longsword is very short sighted.
Yes tp does more damage. It's also less efficient with your action economy. One action with the sword means you can do 2 other actions or cast a spell (true strike is an obvious higher level choice)
Tp means you can't cast the vast majority of spells or make actions.
Luckily since your are a bard. And can get tp for free and it Auto scales. You don't have to choose if you so choose to build up any melee prowess.
TP might be 10d6+6
Longsword is 4d8+3d6+5+proficiency.
16-66 vs 16-51.
Nearly the same, by half the cost in actions (with much more cost in other places like player wealth)
I think you missed my point. I was not saying that Telekinetic Projectile was better or worse than Longsword. I was saying that dealing cantrip level damage is bad. If you can compare Longsword to Telekinetic Projectile, then Longsword is bad.
At least, with a Greatsword, you can get closer to a real spell (20% more damage is not crazy higher, but at that stage, anything is better than nothing).
Agreed for one action that damage is imo ok. For 2 it's bad.
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It's not particularly a melee bard, but if I was building a damage dealing bard I'd go with the wyrmkin domain spell Draconic Barrage (easily obtainable via Champion Dedication for a bard).
It takes a 2 action setup but after that you've got a scaling 1 action attack that does quite good damage (and you can easily change the damage type as necessary). It adds to your MAP so it combines very badly with weapon attacks but bards have LOTS of things to do with their actions do that isn't an issue.
It sucks at level 1, is ok at level 3, and is quite good at level 5+.
Combine with a paladins reaction for done melee damage if you want.
Even has a couple of reasonable deity choices for roleplaying.
I think I'd need to know what the original player meant by "melee bard" since that comes in many flavors.
Do they know that Bards are now full casters w/ all the limits on martial prowess that implies? (As in their primary melee attack will max out as a secondary ability.)
Do they know buffs are much more temporary nowadays?
Or are they working from an image of a singing warrior, with spells as backup, maybe even unnecessary? Maybe they don't know that in PF2 a martial PC begins where a caster can only hope to buff themselves up to, and that's if the caster has adequate prep time and remaining spell slots.
Or maybe they're thinking of a more roguish hero w/ a lute in the tavern and a blade in the battle.
So what are their expectations/hopes and are they feasible?
Being a primary caster & primary melee combatant isn't an option, though if they'll settle for secondary in each, then there are routes.
When push comes to shove and the boss has dropped one's allies, do they want to resort to a melee attack or a spell attack? (That should help us with class selection.)
Personally, I don't think an 8 h.p. class w/ mediocre defenses should be in the front row, especially if their stats are strained covering all the possible roles. As noted, there are options to beef up the defense, yet their h.p., saves, & martial offense will still lag. Meanwhile their spells will remain top notch, even if overlooked, hopefully not wasted patching up a broken build.
Choosing blind to their full wishes, I'd recommend Fighter/MCD Bard or even Rogue/MCD Bard if they want to max out being a Face too.
I plan to make an Orc Melee Battle Bard in PFS, and see how he plays. Will he be an “optimal” build? Certainly not. But I suspect it will be playable and fun. It’ll probably be a while, since I’ve got other unplayed characters higher in my queue.
If he want to go melee I suggest:
STR 10
DEX 16
CON 12
INT 10
WIS 12
CHA 18Take whip as weapon, get good on atheltics and use his whip and spells for battle control (he can use DEX for it). He can also rise the shield if need.
So he can:
Attack
SpellAttack
Cantrip
Rise shieldSpell
Rise shiled
This works but also if you go martial muse from APG you get access to martial weapons so those will be pretty tempting to get a nice d10 or d12 weapon so any melee you get a chance to make really smacks your target.
That's why the warrior muse has so many one action metamagic feats. They focus on impactful use of composition cantrips for two actions and Strike for third. Bards are much more flexible as a class for getting opportunities to enter melee and be effective once they are there.The solution to action economy issues is not to have more potential actions to make. And Warrior Muse feats don't seem to improve a gish Bard (outside the first level one).
Bards are team players. Spending an action to give your rogue or fighter or barbarian a free Stride or Strike is excellent. The warrior muse's flexible action economy helps the action efficiency of the whole team.
Granted, the warrior muse won't likely do the gish thing to Cast a Spell and Strike until they take Call and Response, but they'll be plenty effective with their compositions until then.
It's true that taking a 2H weapon would help action economy, since there's no more shield to be raised (or the cantrip in a pinch). Damage would also be higher.
But I'm not sure a d8 hp bard could survive on the frontline, even in heavy armor. The shield was there to make sure he would soften a blow or three.
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I made a combat bard, but I went the other route. I didn't make a bard who can fight, I made (using the bard chassis) a combatant who happened to be a bard.
I wanted a full caster (but not a war priest as I didn't want anathemas and such) and bard was the only spellcaster class that gave armor proficiency.
So I built a combat-capable (to the extent a PC limited to Expert Weapon and Armor proficiency, and 8 hp/level can be) character who happened to be able to cast Occult spells and has some bardic abilities. He has no intention of standing around buffing and debuffing... he's simply NOT a support character. Any support he provides will be incidental - he may use Inspire Courage to boost his attacks and if it helps his allies within 60', great.
Is he the greatest bard of the age, NO... he starts with CHA 14 and I don't think I'm going to raise it past 18.
And I do realize he's never going to be able to truly compete with the real martials in melee combat, but I think he'll be useful and fun to play.
Etiira, I love your build!
I've always liked mounted casters, and this one has very nice bones .
I think I'd choose the hyena and lean into the creepy occult vibe, with castings of Animate Dead and such.
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Thanks for your posts, a lot of great ideas there.
One thing that wasn't explored was the impact of buff spells. The occult list gets some staple ones, specifically Mirror Image, Blur, Invisibility, Circle of Protection, Haste...
The bard also gets spells that work only at melee range and seem pretty powerful, like Blood Vendetta or Vampiric Touch.
So, while we wait for the magus, the option of going Strike + Spell (while on lingering composition) is nothing to scoff at.
One thing that wasn't explored was the impact of buff spells. The occult list gets some staple ones, specifically Mirror Image, Blur, Invisibility, Circle of Protection, Haste...
The problem, in my mind, with the bard buffing themselves is that is relatively less effective than buffing (for example) the fighter.
Spells that can affect multiple characters are going to be the best, like Haste. Or Heroism.
By the time you've thrown an inspire courage, a haste, and a heroism you're not going to have a lot of time left to buff yourself and get into combat.
And if you focus on buffing yourself instead...well it's less effective than buffing the fighter.
I'm not an expert at all on PF2 bards yet. But it seems like a jacked CHA is a good thing for Intimidation. The more you can crit intimidate, the more you can lower all their stats with a Frightened 2, and so on.
I just like all the different build combos. Sure, a melee fighter is going to be king. But you can still get it done with other classes. Super fun.
I'm not an expert at all on PF2 bards yet. But it seems like a jacked CHA is a good thing for Intimidation. The more you can crit intimidate, the more you can lower all their stats with a Frightened 2, and so on.
I just like all the different build combos. Sure, a melee fighter is going to be king. But you can still get it done with other classes. Super fun.
Intimidate really has a problem of only lasting 1 (sometimes 2) rounds and then that enemy is immune to your intimidate (until after they're dead in all practical terms but 10 minute in reality).
There are some specific things you can to cause the frightened condition without using the demoralize action, but that's harder to come by.
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I'm personally about to start a campaign with a "bard" implemented as a Swashbuckler. There are peels of charisma-based abilities to buff/debuff, allowing him to serve in a support roll while also standing on the front lines with reasonable survivability. I'll probably add the Bard dedication by about level six so that he can demoralize with Performance via Versatile Performance. He may or may not ever get any composition focus spells or cantrips.
Well, the point of my friend's char won't be to deal insane damage, he knows he can't do it with a bard chassis.
But with heavy armor and a shield, he'll be able to go in the thick of things without fearing for his life like a wizard would.
Since our game will be low on melee (caster druid, arcane sorcerer, warpriest), he'll be happy to tank a bit while providing various buffs and debuffs.
Well, the point of my friend's char won't be to deal insane damage, he knows he can't do it with a bard chassis.
But with heavy armor and a shield, he'll be able to go in the thick of things without fearing for his life like a wizard would.
Since our game will be low on melee (caster druid, arcane sorcerer, warpriest), he'll be happy to tank a bit while providing various buffs and debuffs.
Issue. That only helps at low to mid level. Soon as other martials reach Master in AC you will suffer. Up to you if that matters.
Plus with 3 buff types. And that many casters. Prepare for very short adventuring days at low level and a lot of wasted buffs unless you pay attention. Status. Circumstance. Item. Don't stack with other buffs of the same type.
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Issue. That only helps at low to mid level. Soon as other martials reach Master in AC you will suffer. Up to you if that matters.
Most martials only reach Master in AC at 19th level (only Fighters, Champions, and Monks manage it sooner). And even then, you're only 1 AC behind most of them since they're in Medium or Light armor and you're in Heavy.
Being 1 AC behind for two levels seems like it's workable.