I was looking at the Speaker of the Palatine Eye archetype for the Bard. It offers you mesermist spells in place of bard, and psychic in place of arcane.
Is it worth it? What would it be good at compared to an ordinary bard? What would you miss if you traded in your bard spells?
If i dont go Speaker of the Palatine Eye, are the Stonesinger or Studious Librarian archetypes any good for a casting focused bard?
Im planning on high charisma as my main stat and relying on spells a lot, so id like to know ive made a good choice.
Mesmerist spells have a lot more attack & stealth spells than a bard (and psychic means an easier time casting spells stealthily), and have very few buffs. Save DC matters a lot more for them in general. As a bard you don't get spell DC bonuses/enemy save penalties as easily as a mesmerist. Taking the sandman archetype as well as speaker' offers a patch. Of course number of spell slots will also be an issue.
Stonesinger changes a lot less. Most of your spells are the usual bard ones, save DC is much less of an issue. Similarly with studious librarian.
I was worried without the full mesmerist toolkit the Speaker of the Palatine Eye wouldn't be able to make effective use of the list.
The Stonesinger reducing ac seemed tempting to make me more useful in combat, so my allies could hit more and damage more, making up for my lack of damage, but i didnt know if it did enough to make it worthwhile compared to the other two archetypes.
The Studious Librarian offers me use of wizard and witch spells but i dont know if it adds enough to be a meaningful difference.
I could also combine the first two with Sound Striker, but again i dont know if it's good enough to rely on.
Any thoughts on which archetype is the most useful considering i'll be putting everything into charisma and i wont have much weapon damage to fall back on in combat? (I dont plan on worshipping desna)
Normally i'd have a search and read through guides but the ones I'm finding aren't at all up to date and dont have all the archetypes.
Yeah, the stonesinger and studious librarian are nice, sometimes useful but don't change the basic bard that much. A stonesinger's tremor is almost always worse than inspire courage and you will normally take the archetype for its other abilities. Sound striker is useful when you've got rounds of bardic performance to burn, if you aren't taking anything conflicting it's probably worth it.
Between the two of those stonesinger + sound striker has less potential than studious librarian but will be easier to play.
I was suggesting sandman to stack with Speaker of the Palatine Eye because it offers sneakspell to raise spell save DCs (replacing hypnotic stare which you don't get as a bard). It also has a little sneak attack to add to damage, and stealspell to do odd things. It doesn't aid others in the party the way a bard with inspire courage does though.
Edit: Here's a comprehensive but not deep look at all the bard archetypes. Some of the entries were mine but others had no input from me.
Thanks for the link! I'll look into those archetypes. I never looked much into sandman so I'll seriously consider it.
I am tempted to look more into psychic spells because the more about them i see the more i like them.
Vox mesmerist?
Avr, why is the sandman bard a -1 in power on that link you posted?
I mean, they get 4d6 sneak attack, +3 to DCs and +4 to spell penetration and as far as i see, in terms of real combat power they only lose inspire courage? Is inspire courage worth that much or did I skip over something?
Seems like other archetypes give a lot less for trading out inspire courage yet have a much better rating, like dwarven scholar (which is rated as +1) who'd really struggle to get anything as good as 4d6SA, +3DC and Greater Spell Penetration with the few extra combat feats it grants, especially as the bard has plenty of feats to grab the most meaningful combat feats already. (And the ability to grant a couple of combat feats to allies doesn't add up to much for most allies that probably arent built around those feats.) Not that im bashing the dwarven scholar specifically, im sure there are a lot of archetypes worse on that than it. Im just surprised there are so many archetypes on the list with such generous ratings compared to the sandman which honestly seems stronger than a -1 power rating.
If its just a case of different people having greatly different standards then so be it, I just want to know if I'm wrong in my opinions on what's strong.
It's 4d6 sneak attack by level 20 but rather less at any likely level, up to +3 spell save DCs/+4 penetration by L20 (& less at likely levels) only situationally, and loses inspire courage and versatile performance. IC is worth considerably more than the sneak attack even just for your own purposes, VP is a solid amount of non-combat power and you can trade levels of it for masterpieces or weapon proficiency + weapon focus if combat strength is the only way you measure power.
Stealspell is a neat trick for borrowing spell knowledge from your friends but risky at best against enemies.
Just to emphasise the actual levels - at level 5 a vanilla bard can get +2 attack & +2 damage to themselves and all their friends with inspire courage. A sandman gets +1d6 damage to just their own damage, and only if flanking/enemies denied dex, and a +1 save DC against enemies denied dex. The latter is better only if you are really dependent on save DCs. You will spend more time at around level 5 than at level 20.
The dwarven scholar loses IC but gets to give a feat or two to all their friends. Build for this and your allies will treat you like solid gold. The scholar loses VP but gets a combat feat for each level of it - a fair trade if one that pushes combat power over non-combat power. And it all comes online by level 6, you don't have to wait forever for it to get good.
& yeah I wrote both those entries. That I suggested the -1 power option above reflects that even power is dependent on other choices made.
Thanks for the explanation. I guess that the sandman takes a while to get all its stuff and inspire courage is probably better in most cases as it has the potential to benefit allies more, but choosing to focus on level 5 as an example seems a bit unfair. We could equally choose level 10, where sandman gets:
+2 to spell DCs
+2 spell penetration
+7 average Sneak Attack Damage (and opens up accomplished sneak attacker as an obvious feat to make this +10.5 damage)
Compared to the regular bards +2 attack and damage.
Now I'll admit that's when the builds have their biggest gap and its looking at just the bard in a vacuum. I 100% concede that if you have a big party of pcs that can make use of inspire courage then sandman falls laughably short.
That being said, the dwarven scholar archetype still doesn't seem that great. Two probably not greatly beneficial combat feats for half the number of rounds as inspire courage are a poor substitute for the bonuses granted by inspire courage for most allies (before factoring in items to boost inspire courage), and the bonus combat feats the bard gets probably wont add up to much more than what inspire courage can give in most cases either. Which I'd say means the "power" of the dwarven scholar is (in my opinion) almost as situational and build dependant as sandman.
Overall i dont think the assessment of sandman is inaccurate at -1 (based on it not benefitting allies as much), but +1 for dwarven scholar seems generous. I'd say they're +0 at best. If bards had poor will saves and needed wisdom they'd maybe be halfway to +1, but as it stands i'd say they just fall short of default bards. Dwarven scholars, like the sandman, can be better if you have a specific type of party and party members that appreciate what you can give them, though in the majority of cases inspire courage is probably better as most martial characters will already have the combat feats they need and that benefit their builds the most.
At level 10 a vanilla bard probably has +3 inspire courage via a dervish sikke, the gold cost is acceptable by then. And with their 3rd versatile performance @L10 they almost certainly don't need it and can trade it for a masterpiece or a weapon focus via advanced versatile performance. It's a relative low point to the sandman, but not quite as low as you suggest.
Clearly the dwarven scholar needs to tailor their feats to their party. In PFS they may not be impressive (I don't rate for that situation), but if you know your party you can do some great stuff even for non-martial characters. I've yet to see a character that couldn't use the perfect +2 feats for them. If you're assuming a random PFS party, yeah OK rate the dwarven scholar down.
Sandman does alright VMC Cavalier for Order of the Blossom... Tactician helps your friends in the absence of Inspire Courage, the Challenge helps your spells and SLA's, you get more Sneak Attack that stacks, and some fun SLA's later on.
@avr Thats the point, unless you're controlling how others build their characters you wont be able to pick "the perfect" two combat feats to grant every party member. What's good for a greataxe barbarian isnt always good for a archery rogue or a two weapon fighting cavalier or a cleric with a crossbow. Inspire courage is good for all of them, all the time.
Even if you did somehow find the perfect two feats that always applied to all of the above cases in every type of combat encounter in the same way inspire courage does (which to my knowledge such two feats dont exist) would the two feats really come close to a +5 bonus to all attack and damage rolls? (Assuming sikke)
Marking down sandman for being too situational/specialized then marking up dwarven scholar despite you needing to control the builds of other players and to have picked "the perfect" feats for every pc in every combat situation you come across is contradictory. Especially when there's a high chance inspire courage will be more beneficial anyway without designing your build and every other player's build around it.
Dwarven Scholar a cool archetype, but i dont think its consistently better or more powerful than the default bard.
Well, you cooperate. Controlling isn't the point, working together is. And you choose the right two feats for a given situation and party, hopefully. I guess if you're stuck with those four characters and little cooperation in a party, two feats you might earmark are broken wing gambit and wounded paw gambit.
Dunno why people focus on level 20. No, it can't compete then, but most campaigns don't get there and the few that do don't spend long there.
Agree to disagree?
I agree with that.
I think Dwarven Scholar is fine. Teamwork feats are often Combat feats, you can hand those out just as a Cavalier if you can't pick feats that help everyone equally. Dwarven Scholar VMC Cavalier can really double down on the whole sharing is caring thing... now you can share Combat feats AND Teamwork feats... at the same time.
Just hand out Barroom Brawler to everyone, let them decide on their own...
If teamwork feats are what you're wanting to give out then the dwarven scholar is trading out a bards best abilities for something that has a shorter duration and that grants fewer feats to allies than the level 2 bard spell "Shared Training".
So for a single level 2 spell slot a default bard can do the same thing, granting the same broken wing feats you mentioned (plus two more at higher levels), while also maintaining inspire courage to give themselves and allies sizable bonuses to attack and damage. Im not seeing how dwarven scholar is an upgrade to that. It is a neat little archetype for flavor and being wisdom based, especially you're making a combat feat intensive bard build, but if you're investing that heavily in being martial you'd probably regret not having the attack and damage from inspire courage. It has a small niche if you're low level and have a large enough number of allies all building their own characters around you, but only because the shared training spell cant target larger groups all at once at low levels. At caster level 6-9 all the allies that could meaningfully benefit from your teamwork feats can be targeted by shared training. Unless you have a party of summoners or a lot of animal companions and similar perhaps? But even then, those summons and companions are going to need the higher hit and damage bonuses from inspire courage more.
Anyway, yes I think its power is highly situational/reliant on build, just like the other archetypes and not at all better than default bard, so I guess we will have to agree to disagree. And thanks again for the link and the advice on casting archetypes.