8-9 for a Bard that thinks a 16 is as high as their Charisma needs to go.
2-3 for a Bard that plans on having at least a 22 Charisma.
Also, depends if you are super focused on doing Bard stuff, or if Bard happens to be a chassis you are using to do other things. If you are not worried about buffing your allies for as long as possible, then it becomes less important.
If you are going for Grand Master Performer, and have to take Extra Performance... then just burn the rounds instead of worrying about the effects of your Performance lingering after you stop.
If you are an archer with a Tuned Bowstring, then you definitely do not need it.
If you have the Memorable trait, you get half the effect of Lingering Performance so long as your Performance lasts at least two rounds... making the feat, itself, much less necessary.
I would say, more than anything else, it depends on the nature of the campaign and the style of the GM. How needed Lingering Performance is depends foremost on how many rounds of combat you'll generally need to support in any given day. After that, it depends on how much weight is given to the combat when it occurs. If a Bard with 16 Charisma already has enough rounds of performance to get through any day, they obviously don't need Lingering Performance. If combat is easy or isn't high-stakes, running out of rounds or not using rounds against easier encounters also lifts the burden.
In most cases, I would say that Lingering Performance provides so much additional availability that even in the most taxing of circumstances the notion of running out of rounds (without spending them in other ways) borders on the absurd except in the most extreme of combat marathons without rest. You'll continue to have rounds available long after any caster has burned themselves out and makes a plea that they can no longer carry on unless the stakes are truly unbearable.
So the questions you should focus on first to answer the question here are: Do you know the campaign you'd be using this character in, and do you have a good feeling for the amount of combat that will occur between rests?
Even for a GM that intends to run something like 30-40 rounds of combat per day, though, I wouldn't put Lingering Performance higher than a 7 for being needed for resource management. Sensible decisions on when to use your rounds mean that you realistically don't need a round of performance to correspond to every round of combat in a day. It would be nice, but not necessary.
If you fight for somewhere in the 10-20 round range, then I'd drop it to a 2.
But even in cases where you don't fight for many rounds per day and usually have more than enough, I find that Lingering Performance is still very nice to have from a convenience standpoint. It also provides benefits well outside of just having better resource management, which is what my previous evaluations were based on. All of the "Finale" spells improve considerably with Lingering Performance.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Archaeologist 11, others somewhere in the 6-9 range depending on level and campaign.
This, though I'd probably rate it even lower for non-Archaeologists, maybe around the 3-4 mark.
At low levels (1-4) you'll run out of rounds all the time if you try to have it up all day. However at those levels it's only a +1/+1, and your allies are likely only making 1 attack per round each, so it's really not the end of the world if you run out.
Levels 5-10 you get +2/+2, and your party will start to do more attacks per round. This is where you see it making a much bigger difference, but also where you should be able to manage all day without running out too often.
Levels 11+ you're looking at huge bonuses, +3/+3 at a minumum and your allies should be making 3-6 attacks each every round, so you're affecting a huge number of rolls. By this level you'd have 28+ rounds per day with a 14 CHA , so you should start using your bardic performance for other things. You'll end most days with half your rounds left unspent, so you'll be wasting resources if you don't .
So you really don't need it ever. Having said that, archers don't need Rapid Shot and Manyshot, but they're certainly worth having.
If you're feat-starved and want something else then don't stress about it. It's a nice-to-have quality of life feat, but it doesn't change the balance of the game in any special ways.
Until 13th level most bards need to use either a standard or move action to start a performance. Archeologist can start their Archeologist Luck as a swift action from level 1. This means that lingering performance allows an archeologist to effectively triple his number of rounds. Combined with the fact that the archeologist does not get extra rounds or luck as he levels up makes lingering performance a must have feat for the archeologist.
Most other bards usually have enough rounds of performance to get the job done especially at high level. This makes the feat a lot less useful for other bards. Until 7th level the trying to get the most out of it is sacrificing a standard action every 3 rounds, after 7th level it becomes of move action. So instead of tripling the rounds of performance it ends up simply giving 2 extra rounds. By the time a bard can really make use of the feat they have enough rounds of performance that they don’t need it.
So unless you are playing an archeologist bard this is a fairly useless feat. For a non-archeologist bard this feat would be a 1.
1. You don't need it. This isn't like Precise Shot or Natural Spell where you need the feat to have a functional character in your chosen path. Starting at mid levels (~6th) you should have enough daily rounds for most campaigns, and before that, the effect is so small and the action cost so high that not starting a performance is a better course of action often enough that you also have enough rounds, and even if not, it likely won't make a difference.
Here's a thing many people don't get: Spencing recources to make easy fights even easier is bad investment. Now, you don't usually know what other fiths are to come that day, and you might not recognize the difficulty of a fight until you're a round or two into the fight. But if you're fighting a group of 4 enemies, you probably don't need to maintain our performance after three of them were already killed. Dito for fights that prove to be easy.
A Bard has enough rounds for the tough fights starting pretty early, which means you're really taking the feat to help on fights (or portions of fights) where you'd probably breeze through anyway. That's called a "win more".
Lingering Performance is honestly one of the most overrated feats in the game. What makes it especially problematic is that you need to guess when to use it. If you stop performing after the first round, but the fight lasts four or more rounds, you may have saves daily rounds, but didn't have the performance up the entire fight (or you waste a precious action). If you play it save at stop performing after the thrird round, but the fight only lasts for another round, you only got +33% rounds for that fight, far from the advertised "triple your rounds" (i.e. +200%).
It's a really easy way to stretch your daily resources.
I think it's a good feat, worth the spend but how valuable it is depends on how quickly you go through your rounds of performance and whether you're running out or having to go through significant portions of fights without it to conserve for later fights.
The biggest issue happens at low levels.
I think it's worth picking up at low levels, and potentially retraining it at high levels when you would never use up all your rounds anyways.
Community-Minded is also similar in allowing Morale bonuses to stick around 2 extra rounds. Though it is more effective on a Skald whose Inspired Rage also comes with penalties, which won't stick around with Community-minded but will with Lingering Performance.
Though it's also worth keeping in mind that most of the buffs a Bard provides via performance aren't morale -- the attack and damage bonus of Inspire Courage are both competence.
I hadn't actually seen that feat before, though. That's incredible for Skalds.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
In juxtapose to the Community-Minded feat, the Memorable trait simply allows mind-affecting effects (like Inspire Courage, and most other Performances) to continue for an extra round... it be but one round, however you get the whole effect of the Performance for that extra round. Or at least that is my understanding of what the trait does.
Not saying it is better or worse than Community-Minded, or Lingering Performance, but it is just a trait compared to a feat... a feat that Bards are not known to have a surplus of to begin with. I would, however, probably rather take Additional Traits to grab Memorable, and a Fort save trait or Initiative trait before taking either Community-Minded or Lingering Performance...
I literally did exactly that on my Noble Drow Arcane Duelist Bard. I wanted Lingering Performance at the lower levels, but I needed some help with surivivability, too. Retraining was relatively restricted because the campaign was on a timeline, so we didn't have time to take a break for me to be retraining my old feats... nor were we anywhere I could reliably retrieve the required training.
Additional Traits is one of my favorite feats in the game, anyways, so it wasn't a hard choice for me to make with Vash. I knew I would eventually have plenty of rounds of Performance. And I already knew my action ecomomy would improve. I took Memorable to simply help my team for longer, and mess with some Finale spells (like mentioned earlier, they are a lot more fun to toy with when you aren't screwing your team out of their buffs)... although, the few times I used those spells were clutch, and the rerolling a failed save was worth more than the buff to attack/damage.
So even without anything to continue the effects of your Performance, there are often more important things to worry about... making a feat like Lingering Performance even less important for your average Bard. Flagbearer and the Banner of Ancient Kings provides a constant buff, and would probably be a better use of a feat 99% of the time.
Let’s examine how this would play out. At 1st -4th level you use a standard action on round 1 to start inspire courage. All you allies get a +1 to attack and damage as well as to saves vs fear. Round 2 you let inspire courage end to trigger lingering performance so you get to act in round 2 and round 3 and the performance continues. The performance ends at the end of your round 3. Round 4 starts and when your initiative comes up you use a standard action to restart inspire courage. Anyone who goes between the time you go on 3 till your turn on 4 does not get the benefits of your performance. So you waste a standard action every 4 turns to give a +1 to hit and damage. At 5th level your bonus goes up to +2, but you are still wasting a standard action. At 7th level the action drops down to a move actions so that is not as painful. At 13th level the action is further reduced to a swift action. At this point the penalty on actions is actually not that bad.
A 1st level bard is going to have 6 rounds of performances (assuming a 14 CHA). By 5th level they will have 14 rounds, by 7th they have 18 and by the time they hit 13th they have a minimum of 30 rounds of performance. Beyond the first few levels the bard usually has enough rounds of performance to last the combat. By the time lingering performance is not hampering his action economy the bard has more than enough rounds to do what is needed. If you are worried about running out of rounds or performance the feat extra performance gives you 6 additional rounds.
Lingering performance is also likely to lead to rounds where your performance is active when combat is over. Let’s say that the combat in the first part of the post lasts 5 rounds. The second round of the lingering performance does absolutely nothing. Or worse yet let’s say it lasts for 4 rounds. Maybe the barbarian gets a lucky critical and finishes off the boss early. Not only does your performance stick around for 2 rounds doing nothing you wasted an action in 4 to start it up again. A lot of this is speculative, but the point is that don’t count on lingering performance to triple your rounds of performance chances are it will add one to two rounds per combat usually at the cost of an action.
Let’s examine how this would play out. At 1st -4th level you use a standard action on round 1 to start inspire courage. All you allies get a +1 to attack and damage as well as to saves vs fear. Round 2 you let inspire courage end to trigger lingering performance so you get to act in round 2 and round 3 and the performance continues. The performance ends at the end of your round 3. Round 4 starts and when your initiative comes up you use a standard action to restart inspire courage.
I don’t think I have ever seen a bard play it like that. More often it’s Round 1 start singing, round 2 continue singing, round 3 continue singing, round 4 conclude that the fight is almost over, so stop singing but allow the song to linger. In effect it gives a couple of extra rounds per combat, or one round of singing for three rounds of inspire competence if ongoing skill uses (I know, no self respecting bard ever uses the other uses of performance…)
Let’s examine how this would play out. At 1st -4th level you use a standard action on round 1 to start inspire courage. All you allies get a +1 to attack and damage as well as to saves vs fear. Round 2 you let inspire courage end to trigger lingering performance so you get to act in round 2 and round 3 and the performance continues. The performance ends at the end of your round 3. Round 4 starts and when your initiative comes up you use a standard action to restart inspire courage. Anyone who goes between the time you go on 3 till your turn on 4 does not get the benefits of your performance.
I don't think I've ever played at a table that has parsed Lingering Performance this way.
The bonuses and penalties from your bardic performance continue for 2 rounds after you cease performing. Any other requirement, such as range or specific conditions, must still be met for the effect to continue. If you begin a new bardic performance during this time, the effects of the previous performance immediately cease.
Lingering Performance states that it lasts for 2 rounds after you cease performing. You're stopping your performance, in the example you give, at the start of your turn on round 2 -- the stopping point for the benefits of the performance would logically be at the start of your turn on round 4. I've never seen anyone else argue that people don't receive the benefit after the end of your turn on round 3.
Is this not the normal interpretation of Lingering Performance, or are my tables the odd ones out?
More often it’s Round 1 start singing, round 2 continue singing, round 3 continue singing, round 4 conclude that the fight is almost over, so stop singing but allow the song to linger.
Yes, but that's very far from the "triple your rounds" that people love to say, it's +33% to +66% rounds. Which actually makes it worse than Extra Performance at 1st and 2nd level.
And it's spending recources to help only in situations where the fight is already pretty much over. That's the biggest issue - the feat doesn't help in tough fights.
Imagine there was a, say, discus that flies farther than a normal one but requires a slightly different throw, and it's forbidden for the Olympics. An athlete could train with the new discus, and have an advantage at lower level sports competitions. But lack of training with the olympic discus would have them be worse at the Olympics and the qualifying events. Lingering Performance is this theoretical new discus - investing into it makes you stronger at the easy competitions, but for the tough ones it makes you weaker due to the investment not spend on improving for them.
It's the same thing as why Arcane Strike is a bad feat for a Magus - sure, in easy fights it's free damage, but in tough fights you need the swift actions for arcanae and quickened spells, and thus you're a feat behind in those fights if you took Arcane Strike.
The feat only does something if you have multiple fights a day, and definitely want to start a performance in all of them, and don't have the starting 15 Cha for Flagbearer.
How many fights do you even have at low level? At 1st and maybe 2nd level (possibly even later, depending on when you can get a healing wand), the group usually runs out of HPs before the Skald runs out of performance rounds. Depending on the group, the caster's spell slots also might be more of a limiting factor than the Bard's performance rounds, and at low level players usually have a good say about how many fights to have in a day.
And all that's at low levels where the feat isn't utterly useless yet.
I hadn't actually seen that feat before, though. That's incredible for Skalds.
It's a trait, not a feat (which makes it better, albeit un-retrainable unless taken with Extra Traits). Beware that Community-Minded doesn't apply Rage Powers or Skald's Vigor (dito for Lingering Performance), which severly reduces the usefulness.
Let’s examine how this would play out. At 1st -4th level you use a standard action on round 1 to start inspire courage. All you allies get a +1 to attack and damage as well as to saves vs fear. Round 2 you let inspire courage end to trigger lingering performance so you get to act in round 2 and round 3 and the performance continues. The performance ends at the end of your round 3. Round 4 starts and when your initiative comes up you use a standard action to restart inspire courage. Anyone who goes between the time you go on 3 till your turn on 4 does not get the benefits of your performance. So you waste a standard action every 4 turns to give a +1 to hit and damage. At 5th level your bonus goes up to +2, but you are still wasting a standard action. At 7th level the action drops down to a move actions so that is not as painful. At 13th level the action is further reduced to a swift action. At this point the penalty on actions is actually not that bad.
A 1st level bard is going to have 6 rounds of performances (assuming a 14 CHA). By 5th level they will have 14 rounds, by 7th they have 18 and by the time they hit 13th they have a minimum of 30 rounds of performance. Beyond the first few levels the bard usually has enough rounds of performance to last the combat. By the time lingering performance is not hampering his action economy the bard has more than enough rounds to do what is needed. If you are worried about running out of rounds or performance the feat extra performance gives you 6 additional rounds.
Lingering performance is also likely to lead to rounds where your performance is active when combat is over. Let’s say that the combat in the first part of the post lasts 5 rounds. The second round of the lingering performance does absolutely nothing. Or worse yet let’s say it lasts for 4 rounds. Maybe the barbarian gets a lucky critical and finishes off the boss early. Not only does your performance stick around for 2 rounds doing nothing you wasted an action in 4...
Mysterious Stranger, I think your analysis here is a bit flawed because you seem to be under the impression that a bard needs to spend actions continue their performance or to use lingering performance, but that's not the case. Starting a performance is a standard action, but maintaining it is free, and lingering performance has no action economy requirement in and of itself. So either you spend your actual rounds of bardic performance and have no action economy impact after the initial start. Or you start, allow the performance to end but have lingering performance and then would need to start performing again on round 4 if combat isn't over.
"Wasting" a standard action every few rounds to get the bonus doesn't seem so bad to me. It's more that at low levels the bonus isn't sizeable enough to make a big impact.
All that said, taking some of the trait options that produce similar effects to lingering performance are probably better, as is certainly the flagbearer feat if your GM will allow you to affix the flag to a spear.
Here's something that strangely hasn't been mentioned : Lingering Performance helps with the hardest fights of all, the fights where you go down.
Lingering Performance is a resource-saver, letting you double, tripple, or even 1.3-able your performance rounds per day. It's secondary function is that your allies retain the benefits of your performance when you're disabled. If you're hit with a Sleep/Paralysis/Fear/etc effect, or if you just take an unlucky crit and go down then the party loses a PC AND your buffs go down. With Lingering Performance they only lose the PC.
I can't tell you how devastating the Confusion spell has been to my party in our current campaign. Losing half the party for 4 rounds sucks, knowing that you have to end the fight quickly to save the other PCs from each other adds a ticking clock to that. Having the Inspire Courage bonuses stay up while you're at your worst can really make a dofference when the chips are down.
Again, I don't think this feat is needed, but I also don't think it's a bad feat.
My assumption is that if a bard is spending a feat on lingering performance than they are trying to get as much benefit as they can out of it. Spending 4 of your 6 rounds at first level to gain 2 rounds of performance when the combat is likely over is not getting much for your investment. For the feat to even come close to tripling your rounds of performance you pretty much have to use it like I suggested. If you take the feat and just use it to tack on 2 extra rounds of performance more than likely more than half those rounds are wasted as combat is likely over or at least winding down.
Lingering performance looks good on paper, but for any bard but an archeologist it is a trap feat. If you are worried about running out of rounds of performance at low level take extra performance instead and retrain it when it is no longer needed. That is going to be a lot more useful than lingering performance. Sure there are occasional circumstances that it might be useful for, but overall I don’t think it is worth a feat on a class that does not get a lot of feats and has a lot better things to spend them on.
More often it’s Round 1 start singing, round 2 continue singing, round 3 continue singing, round 4 conclude that the fight is almost over, so stop singing but allow the song to linger.Yes, but that's very far from the "triple your rounds" that people love to say, it's +33% to +66% rounds. Which actually makes it worse than Extra Performance at 1st and 2nd level.
And it's spending recources to help only in situations where the fight is already pretty much over. That's the biggest issue - the feat doesn't help in tough fights.
I would say that continuing to benefit from performance after using a Finale spell counts as "helping in tough fights." This allows you to, in "easy" fights, use the "stutter song" option where you start and then immediately stop the next round, but in "hard" fights you use your rounds inefficiently (which means choosing to use your action economy efficiently. This does make the assumption that you at least have Saving Finale available to make use of Lingering Performance, which requires a piece of your build outside of Lingering Performance to be committed to it, but I have yet to play a Bard that I did not think Saving Finale felt good on. Note that this gain actively increases in difficult fights the farther on you are, too -- long after you've crossed the threshold of having more rounds than you'll ever need, you can still benefit from Lingering Performance, because the opportunity cost of using Saving Finale (and losing Inspire Courage) keeps increasing, especially in builds committed to Inspire Courage that are using Flagbearer and Banner.