I'm preparing for a Hell's Rebels campaign and planning to play an aasimar bard (Chelish Diva)/cleric (hidden priest).
I've been doing some research on how to pull off such a multiclass character and apparently conventional wisdom on bard/cleric builds usually involves the Evangelist archetype.
But for roleplaying reasons, I definitely want to go with hidden priest. So I'm not looking for optimal build advice, because I know that is not what I am getting with these kind of constraints.
What I am looking for are options that are well-suited for bard/cleric multiclass characters. I've stumbled across Divine Expression, but nothing else, really.
Is anyone here aware of some more thematically fitting options of any kind?
When multiclassing 3/4 BAB classes, I like to grab 4 levels at a time. So a Bard/Cleric multiclass would look like this:
Bard 1-4,
Cleric 5-8,
Bard 9-12,
Cleric 13+
Pick up that Divine Expression feat at level 5, and you should be golden. Grab a Dervish Sikke to boost your Bard stuffs. Don't forget to take Divine Interference when you qualify (level 17?), because Cleric. Reflavor Heavenly Radiance to shoot colorful ribbons and $#!+ to go with the Shelyn theme/worship. Take Deific Obedience at level 11... or level 7 if you also want Diverse Obedience.
At 8:
BAB +6
Base Saves +5/+5/+8
CL 4, 2nd level Bard spells
CL 4, 2nd level Cleric spells
At 16:
BAB +12
Base Saves +8/+8/+12
CL 8, 3rd level Bard spells
CL 8, 4th level Cleric spells
Dropping out of Cleric at level 15, and taking Mystic Theurge from 16-20 would allow you to combine up to 3rd level spells from both classes... or, more realistically, going into Mystic Theurge from 9-18 would be the best way to do that if Mystic Theurge was the ultimate goal. Using it as a capstone to the build from 16-20 gives you way more Bard and Cleric stuffs to play with. Not taking Mystic Theurge at all obviously allows for the most Bard and Cleric stuffs possible.
Do you want to focus more on being a Bard, or on being a Cleric? That would definitely influence your stat scores. And, even more specific: do you want to buff, or wade into melee yourself? The combination of Bard buffs and Cleric spells can lead to some nice boosts.
Since you're multiclassing, your spell DCs will probably not be great, so try things that don't need a save, or just focus on buffing. Low-level spells that work well:
- Divine Favor, even though your caster level will lag behind.
- Lucky Number (great if you can get it on a wand)
- Shield of Faith
- Align Weapon
- Burst of Radiance is a favourite of mine, since it always does damage, the save is just for a rider effect.
- Grace, to get out of tight spots.
I know you said you wanted Cleric, but if you want to go in melee yourself, maybe taking Warpriest instead would work better? Maybe you can ask your GM if you can houserule the Hidden Priest to work with that class.
Thanks for the response so far!
I'm thinking of her as a buffer, first and foremost. No melee, really.
Mystic Theurge does seem very cool.
Well, you could take a single level of one class and put the rest into the other. Both archetypes kick in at level 1, so your PC might already feel like a Chelish Diva respective Hidden Priest.
8 levels of Bard conveniently acquires everything the Diva archetype offers, as well as allowing your Bardic Performance to be started as a move action. Wearing a Dervish Sikke, your Inspire Courage would be a +3, which certainly isn't terrible. Flagbearer and the Banner of Ancient Kings could improve upin this further. If you take the Magical Knack trait for your Bard casting, you would end up with a CL 10 in an arcane spellcasting class... Arcane Strike would be a +3, as well. The Gloves of Arcane Striking add your Arcane Strike bonus to your Aid Another bonus...
Cloistered Cleric's Verbal Instruction would benefit from the combination of Arcane Strike and the gloves thereof, even though your Cleric business is divine in origin. Taking the Helpful trait for a +3 Aid Another bonus would boost these bonuses even further. Rings of Tactical Precision loaded with Harrying Partners would increase the bonus and make it last longer.
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Usual question: What do you actually want? What part of Bard (or what part of Chelish Diva), what part of Cleric, and what part of Hidden Priest do you want? Without knowing that, we can't really help you.
I've been doing some research on how to pull off such a multiclass character and apparently conventional wisdom on bard/cleric builds usually involves the Evangelist archetype.
I don't think Evangelist is really a recommendation for a Bard/Cleric multiclass character, but rather for a character that combines Bard and Cleric aspects. Basically, the archetype removes the need for the multiclass in the first place.
Going by the Qinggong Monk FAQ, Hidden priest and Evangelist should actually be compatible, that's something you might want to look into and/or query the GM about.
Mystic Theurge does seem very cool.
Maybe it sounds cool, but it's horrible in practice. Even in the best of circumstances is the prestige class's benefit questiknable, and these are far from the best circumstances. MT advances nothing but spellcasting, which makes a class reliant on other class features like Bard a very bad choice, but to make things worse, unless your GM lets you cheat on the requirements, MT isn't actually good at advancing spellcasting.
My advice would probably be to ask the GM if you can try the Variant Multiclass rules.
Play a Hidden Priest Cleric with VMC Bard. It'll be less Bard-y than an Evanglist, but it doesn't conflict with Hidden Priest. I also think your bard abilities will end up stronger this way than they would with all that multiclassing, and your Cleric abilities certainly will.
The Chelish Diva is very flavourful, but ultimately doesn't offer much that can't be duplicated with roleplay or Cleric spells (Lashing Words is fun, but you'd have 6th level Cleric spells by then)
How does that sound?
Usual question: What do you actually want? What part of Bard (or what part of Chelish Diva), what part of Cleric, and what part of Hidden Priest do you want? Without knowing that, we can't really help you.
I've been doing some research on how to pull off such a multiclass character and apparently conventional wisdom on bard/cleric builds usually involves the Evangelist archetype.I don't think Evangelist is really a recommendation for a Bard/Cleric multiclass character, but rather for a character that combines Bard and Cleric aspects. Basically, the archetype removes the need for the multiclass in the first place.
Going by the Qinggong Monk FAQ, Hidden priest and Evangelist should actually be compatible, that's something you might want to look into and/or query the GM about.
Well, I'm not looking for build advice, in just trying to hear about more options that are specifically designed for bard/divine caster multiclass characters (like Divine Expression) or are in some other way helpful to multiclass bards or clerics (like the Dervish Silke).
Thanks for your insights on the mystic theurge, though. I'm hesitant with prestige classes in general because they often seem like traps and your misgivings confirm my suspicions.
My advice would probably be to ask the GM if you can try the Variant Multiclass rules.
Play a Hidden Priest Cleric with VMC Bard. It'll be less Bard-y than an Evanglist, but it doesn't conflict with Hidden Priest. I also think your bard abilities will end up stronger this way than they would with all that multiclassing, and your Cleric abilities certainly will.
That's a great idea, but I'm afraid VMC will not be allowed.
On prestige classes, there's the odd one which advances bardic performance and spellcasting. If you advance cleric spellcasting and bardic performance that should cover the most important elements of each class.
e.g. argent dramaturge, ashavic dancer (9/10 spellcasting), dawnflower anchorite (9/10 spellcasting) and sphere singer (9/10 again). Most of these change the direction of bardic performance a bit. There are several classes which advance these on much fewer levels.
Well, I'm not looking for build advice, in just trying to hear about more options that are specifically designed for bard/divine caster multiclass characters (like Divine Expression) or are in some other way helpful to multiclass bards or clerics (like the Dervish Silke).
How are we supposed to know what would be helpful if you don't tell us for what? You asked for "options that are well-suited for bard/cleric multiclass characters", but don't want to tell us what sort of multiclassing you want (Bard with a Cleric dip, Cleric with a Bard dip, even split, etc.). You ask for "thematically fitting options", but don't want to tell us what the theme is.
You say you aren't looking for build advice, but at the same time you ask for options for your build. That doesn't make any sense.
You said you weren't looking for build advice "because I know that is not what I am getting with these kind of constraints" - are you so afraid of being wrong that you don't even want to chance it? Or do you just not understand that in Pathfinder, there's always more than one way to fill out a character concept?
Chill Derklord.
If it's too broad a category for you don't feel like you need to contribute.
But here's how I'll interpret it for you: How would you build a Bard/Cleric without using the Evanglist archetype? You can give as many examples as you like.
I'm with derklord on this, they said they aren't looking for build advice, but they are asking on the advice forum about options for their build. They say they are "hesitant with prestige classes in general because they often seem like traps" so they are clearly factoring in playability / power level, but they are also trying to multiclass a 6th arcane caster with a 9th divine caster (arguably a bigger trap).
Given any character concept and roleplay can be filled in a whole load of different ways using any number of other classes and archetypes, the only reason i can think that they would be so strictly against other options and having a more usable character would be because there's something specific they want out of the bard/cleric non-roleplay options.
If they're asking how others would make their bard/cleric... avr covered the best options; prestige classes.
I dont think others would really bother trying without prestige classes because afaik multiclassing those two doesn't leave you with anything good compared to even a poorly built single class character and by multiclassing you're losing caster levels/class feature levels on both classes so your buffs and heals will be weaker and any offensive options wont pass spell resistance. You wont ever get higher level spells (which is where everything good is) and the classes dont even share a casting stat so you'd be MAD with low spells a day and trivial DCs when you have to cast offensive spells (which chances are, you will have to at some point even if its not something you're focusing on).
Divine expression itself seems like a largely wasted feat, because a primarily bard character with a dip into cleric gets no meaningful benefit and a primarily cleric character with a dip into bard ends up delaying their casting only for inspire courage +1 attack and damage (because the feat doesnt scale effect, only rounds). Doing more than a dip would be even worse.
Mystic Theurge isn't a super strong option, but it is a versatile one. Its power assumes two 9th level characters though, and wont scale your class features, making divine expression even more redundant.
Sometimes oddball multiclassing choices have some workable options without prestige classes, but I'm not seeing much to connect these two. Its like combining turds and soup then asking for options to improve the taste. Some things just dont work well no matter what you try to add.
are you so afraid of being wrong that you don't even want to chance it? Or do you just not understand that in Pathfinder, there's always more than one way to fill out a character concept?
Wow, I had no idea my question was so poorly worded that it would cause this much frustration. I honestly have no idea how I've earned this much vitriol so quickly, but whatever. I'll try to give some more context.
What I mean by "not looking for build advice" is that I am not interested in fully planned roadmap from level 1 to 20. This character is for an AP, which in my group takes between 2 and 5 years to complete and I like to stay flexible with character development so I can react to what is happening in the story and what choices make sense from a roleplaying perspective.
What I do like to do when planning a new character is getting a good overview of all the options that are available to support the themes of the campaign in general and for my character specifically. But since it is difficult to search for "bard items" or "feats that are good when your divine caster level is lower than your character level" or "bardic performance enhancing drugs" I thought it might be a good idea to ask for advice here from people who may have a more encyclopedic knowledge of what is out there. I'm sorry if I'm in the wrong place for that here.
To answer your question regarding what I want:
The campaign touches on themes of rebellion in a city of art and culture (with a world-reknown opera house), where few religions are legal and many are explicitly suppressed. My concept involves a diva-in-training from the opera house, who gets swept up in the revolution and sees "the light" of either Shelyn or Milani by watching her followers do noble things, discovering her distant azata heritage in the process (she's a musetouched aasimar who never realized she was an elf). So those are the themes I would like to cover: Art, song, music, opera, hidden worship, rebellion, The People, the city, diva-ness, a celestial heritage.
From a mechanics perspective, I want her to be able to do act as the party's healer out of combat and a buffer/debuffer in combat. It's also important in this campaign to have a good amount of social skills, so the more abilities can be based off of Charisma, the better.
I honestly don't know if that is the kind of detail you needed and I apologize if I'm going the wrong way about again, but that's all I got.
I honestly don't know if that is the kind of detail you needed and I apologize if I'm going the wrong way about again, but that's all I got.
It's really comprehensive. Don't worry, it's completely normal that there are follow-up questions. And Derklord is knowledgable but grumpy, it's not specifically about you.
Personally I'd cover the themes you mention mostly with roleplay. Even a mundane fighter can spend a lot of time on art or care about the people of "his" town. You just have to show it to the other people at the table.
Reading through the roles (heal, buff, debuff), I think you are better off with keeping the multiclassing to a minimum - if you do it at all. A cleric becomes way superior on the healing part later, so at least your fellow players might be happier with it.
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It's difficult to advance both bardic abilities and healing, without gimping yourself. I think you will likely have to compromise, and decide which aspect is most important to you. Hell's Rebels is a great adventure path for a bard, so I would personally lean into that. You could invest heavily in use magic device for scroll use.
An alternative to bard is a skald, which keeps versatile performance and gives healing ability through spell kenning.
Another option is to be a Life Oracle. That would make you charisma-based, and give you strong healing, but your skills would be greatly limited.
I really think that multiclassing is likely to be a very disappointing experience.
Quick question or two. Other than role playing reasons what are you hoping to get from the cleric class? Is it just healing?
Also, what class features are you looking to get from the bard?
Also, I will point out from a role playing perspective you can get the same flavor being a worshipper that needs to conceal their beliefs as you can a cleric that needs too. With the bard’s charisma and use magic device it will be easier for him to fill the healing role (or any other role). I know this isn’t what you are looking for but is the best advice I can give. I will try to be more helpful once I know the answers to the questions above.
What I mean by "not looking for build advice" is that I am not interested in fully planned roadmap from level 1 to 20.
There seems to have been a misunderstanding on both sides. I misunderstood what you meant with "build advice", because the term isn't usually used exclusively for complete builds, but for any advice on parts of the build, too. Meanwhile, you apparently misunderstood the goal behind my questions.
There was no vitriol in my post, but there was some annoyance, because you started the thread to get help, and when I asked some questions to properly help you, you refused to answer, acting defensively instead.
What I do like to do when planning a new character is getting a good overview of all the options that are available to support the themes of the campaign in general and for my character specifically.
Giving you exactly that was my intend all along. The issue is that you painted your character in such broad strokes that listing all options would've taken days, and most of it would've been worthless for you. Which is why I asked for more information.
I wasn't kidding when I said "Usual question" - it's very common for players, even those with plenty of experience, to grossly overrate the amount of information in a class or archetype name. Players also very often presume that a character concept can only be done in one specific way.
Pathfinder is an extremely flexible and modular system. Classes can be played in literally dozens of different ways, and combining different classes can be done in a truly huge amount of permutations.
In addition, there're basically two schools of character building process, and plus a mixture of both, and knowing which way you want your character to build dramatically changes what is and what isn't an actually helpful answer.
I apologize if my question "Or do you just not understand that in Pathfinder, there's always more than one way to fill out a character concept?" came across as an insult or attack, it wasn't meant that way. It was a lack of knowledge (about something that I don't expect everyone to know about), not your intelligence, that I was putting in question.
My concept involves a diva-in-training from the opera house, who gets swept up in the revolution and sees "the light" of either Shelyn or Milani by watching her followers do noble things
Backstory is not done via classes. PC classes aren't about mundane activities, they're about adventuring (with a big focus on fighting), everything not relevant to adventuring should not be represented by class levels.
You don't need to have an archetype with the word "diva" in it to play a diva. The Chelish Diva archetype is really for characters that are about applying the opera stuff to combat, and indeed the flavor is for an established diva, not a diva-in-training (the first level ability is literally about being already famous!). You didn't yet answer my initial question of "what part of Bard (or what part of Chelish Diva) do you want?", but I think your opera backstory would be better suited with a rank in Perform (song) and if you like the Talented trait. Your backstory requires no Bard levels at all. That does not mean your character couldn't have Bard levels or later pick up on bardish stuff (e.g. via a prestige class). Just because backstory isn't doen via classes doesn't mean backstory can't influence class selection. The character making use of their diva training for combat purposes, represented in Bard levels, is possible, and you could even have the character stay in-class by having them imitate what divine healers can do, using the Arcane Healer archetype. The character could still worship the respective deity, naturally.
I'll post some more ideas on how you could blend your desired mechanics and flavor tomorrow.
From your explanation of backstory and how you want to play the character i think charisma is going to be the key thing. Perhaps rather than them finding their faith, their faith can find them (be an oracle)? I'd advise getting all the flavor out of that one class, using mystery and the perform skill to fill in the "bard-like" diva qualities.
Not only would the class be capable of doing everything you want, its also good for adaptability as you level, allowing to to potentially pick up thematic story appropriate revelations as you go. It also multiclasses surprisingly well with a few different classes - barbarian into rage prophet, sorcerer (maestro bloodline for your theme?) into mystic theurge - so if you find your character's story taking an unexpected turn you may be able to follow the new paths without gimping yourself.
If you're dead set on bardic performances, talk to your gm about lifting the race restriction on the ocean's echo oracle archetype. Alternately, assuming you are a musetouched aasimar, take the scion of humanity trait and the "racial heritage: Merfolk" feat at 1st level to qualify legally. (You could swap out having elf as your distant ancestry in your backstory for merfolk, as both are comparably artsy)
I briefly mentioned maestro bloodline sorcerer as a multiclass option, but it also works as a straight alternative. If you feel it's too diva/bardic with not enough divinity, you could be a crossblooded celestial/maestro bloodline sorcerer. Sorcerers, even more so than oracles, can be reactive with story prompted class swaps because they have options like rogue into arcane trickster, any martial into eldritch knight, arcane archer, dipping paladin for divine grace etc, oracle into mystic theurge etc etc. Though the sorcerer's healing leaves much to be desired.
Another less mechanically fitting but unusual option (that works particularly well in the setting) you might consider is the vigilante class, which is well suited to hiding their faith and celebrity, even having the zealot archetype to emphasise faith in regions where religion = persecution. Unfortunately the zealot is largely wisdom based, though it has enough reasons to keep charisma halfway decent. It also is less geared towards buffing and healing than other options.
If you can convince your GM that PF1 is horribly deficient in its egregious and unforgivable lack of a Music domain which Shelyn should obviously have, you might perhaps be able to convince said GM that something like this would fit the bill:
Music Domain:
Perform (any musical instrument) is a class skill. You may use your Wisdom modifier instead of your Charisma modifier for Perform checks.
Bardic Music (Sp): You can use the Bardic Music ability as a bard of your class level, a number of rounds per day equal to 3 + your Wisdom modifier. This number increases by 1 at 3rd level, and every other level thereafter (3, 5, 7, etc).
Your cleric levels stack with other classes that provide Bardic Music abilities.
Angelic [Diabolic, etc] Choir (Sp): At 8th level, (something: sing in the background for x rounds, and/or in addition for extra range & DC? I haven't worked this out)
Spells:
0 Ghost Sound
1 Hypnotism
2 Suggestion
3 Emotion
4 Shout
5 Sending
6 Mass Suggestion
7 Power word, Stun
8 Otto's Irresistible Dance
9 Wail of the Banshee
So you can start with 1 level of Bard, then multiclass to some manner of cleric of Shelyn; your Bardic Music is still meaningful.
If your GM doesn't accept this generous offer, he/she is clearly a base philistine with no soul.
False Priest Sorcerer with the Maestro Bloodline would be a hilarious alternative.
Thank you all for these great suggestions, it's given me much to consider.
I am going to heed what seems to be the majority opinion here and drop the multiclass cleric levels.
I would like to keep the Chelish Diva archetype, though, because it just fits so nicely. Yes, she is famous at level 1, but only in a relatively small community of less than 1000 people, which could be the district that she comes from: "Everyone in Redroof knows Isabella is going to make it big one time!"
I really dig the rest of the archetype's abilities so I would like to keep all that.
I agree that the hidden worship and the turn towards the religious could be covered by roleplay, but I would like to back that up with mechanics somehow. It looks like the group (5 PCs) does not have any kind of healer, yet, which is why getting some healing ability (channel? spontaneous cure?) would be helpful, I think. Or is that just always going to end up half-baked?
Besides classes and archetypes, does anyone know any opera/diva-themed magic items that would be a good fit?
Hell's rebels implies you might fight the odd devil. The argent dramaturge PrC probably isn't underpowered in that situation - it's got a few abilities specifically aimed at devils. Bard 1 / cleric 5 / argent dramaturge 10 should work just fine for the purposes you listed, though it wants to focus on Wis as much as Cha.
The ocean's echo archetype for the oracle is PFS-legal for anyone whose race gives them a swim speed. It combines being Cha-based, full spontaneous spellcasting from the cleric list and bardic performance. You could use it straight or replace cleric in the multiclass above.
It's not impossible for a bard to do the out-of-combat healing without a multiclass. They get a number of healing spells on their spell list, the use magic device skill in-class and possibly the Symphony of Sylandurla’s Ascent masterpiece.
There are a couple of traits which can switch social skills to Wis - cunning liar for bluff, empathic diplomat for diplomacy. Or if you want to take advantage of a sky-high Cha there are several feats which use that in various ways.
It looks like the group (5 PCs) does not have any kind of healer, yet, which is why getting some healing ability (channel? spontaneous cure?) would be helpful, I think. Or is that just always going to end up half-baked?
In Pathfinder, infight healing is not required, and actually a poor use of actions most of the time. A full progression channel energy with further feat investment is reasonably good, but you couldn't really pull that off as a Bard, not even with with Arcane Healer.
Most HP healing is done after a fight, and with wands (of Cure Light Wonds or Infernal Healing), meaning any given bard already qualifies for that (and probably other characters in the group, too).
The other element of healing is condition removal. Bard has access to Remove Curse and Neutralize Poison, as well as Purging Finale for paralysis and exhaustion. I'm not sure how much NPC help you can get in the AP, you might want to buy scrolls of Remove Blindness/Deafness, Remove Disease, and Lesser Restoration, and use them with UMD, if no one else in the party has access.
I agree that the hidden worship and the turn towards the religious could be covered by roleplay, but I would like to back that up with mechanics somehow.
How about taking Deific Obedience? Shelyn's obedience bonus works pretts well for a Bard (it buffs all your Versatile Performances), and performing the obedience could totally be masqueraded as a street performance or something, with some hidden, subversive lyrics strewn in.
That's true, a bard can use wands and with a decent UMD scrolls of divine spells, too.
The Deific Obedience looks awesome, especially Shelyn's. If the campaign leads me on a path to Milani instead, that one looks also very fitting. It can even involve singing.
So that's definitely something I'll pick up in some form or another.
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One thing to keep in mind for planning you character is the rebellion boons listed in the free Hells Rebels Player's Guide from Table 1: Rebellion Advancement:
Title: At rank 4, then again at ranks 9, 14, and 19, the
PCs earn a title as befits their growing power in the
rebellion. While the title itself is largely just an honorific,
it also coincides with the acquisition of a bonus feat or
other benefit each PC has earned through a combination
of training with rebellion members and self-confidence
gained from the rebellion’s growing strength.
With the title of Guardian at rank 4, each PC gains
one of the following as a bonus feat: Alertness, Deceitful,
Persuasive, or Stealthy.
With the title of Sentinel at rank 9, each PC gains one
of the following as a bonus feat: Great Fortitude, Iron
Will, or Lightning Reflexes.
With the title of Warden at rank 14, each PC gains
one of the following as a bonus feat: Fleet, Improved
Initiative, or Toughness.
With the title of Savior at rank 19, each PC gains any
feat for which he otherwise qualifies as a bonus feat.