HI,
New player here so apologies if this is a really obvious question.
I am trying to get my head round building a bard for Age of Ashes campaign and cannot get my head round what performance is useful for. I see that a number of the focus spells for maestro muse require peformance checks and it synergises with versatile performance but beyond this (and earning income) I can't see how investing in this skill pays off. Espcially as I am considering building an enigma bard. I like the idea of performance being part of my character but atm a maestro/polymath build is the only one that makes sense to me. What am I missing??
Indeed maestro/Polymath are the only one that really benefits from performance in terms of abilities, but keep also in mind you can get an additional muse, resulting in being able to pick feats from either maestro or polymath, making performance an excellent choice.
If you want to just stick with your enigma bard, you might indeed consider a more specific char skill ( diplomacy, deception or intimidation ) in place of performance.
Mechanically speaking, performance will work for you as earn income, so you can just avoid it by picking additional lore ( you are going to have a high int value being an enigma, to make a proper use of bardic lore, so you won't be that much behind performance in terms of earn income ).
I suggest you to pick it anyway, getting maestro as additional muse ( it is gamechaning ), making you a great performer too.
Every Bard can use counterperformance, which uses the Performance skill.
HumbleGamer wrote: Indeed maestro/Polymath are the only one that really benefits from performance in terms of abilities, but keep also in mind you can get an additional muse, resulting in being able to pick feats from either maestro or polymath, making performance an excellent choice.
If you want to just stick with your enigma bard, you might indeed consider a more specific char skill ( diplomacy, deception or intimidation ) in place of performance.
Mechanically speaking, performance will work for you as earn income, so you can just avoid it by picking additional lore ( you are going to have a high int value being an enigma, to make a proper use of bardic lore, so you won't be that much behind performance in terms of earn income ).
I suggest you to pick it anyway, getting maestro as additional muse ( it is gamechaning ), making you a great performer too.
This is great. Thanks so much. Everyone says maestro is the best one but for sone reason it’s the one that appeals to me least. What do you think of a enigma/polymath combo? Not sure how I should build it?
Finally, what is a high INT you mentioned? My character atm has:
Str 8 Con 12 Dex 16 Int 14 Wis 10 Cha 18
FLanasaurasRex wrote:
This is great. Thanks so much. Everyone says maestro is the best one but for sone reason it’s the one that appeals to me least. What do you think of a enigma/polymath combo? Not sure how I should build it?
Polymath is pretty cool because it makes you somehow efficient with skills ( not being a rogue or investigator, you are going to have a low amount of skill points ), but you have to keep in consideration that you may also require the original skills to entirely cover.
For example, let's say you want to impersonate a merchant who's going to meet the ruffians your group thinks are behind the recent robberies within the town.
You'll be able to make a pretty solid imitation of the merchant with as well as a good impression versatile performance ( from polymath ), but if you were to lie or make them a request, you'd have to roll respectively on deception or diplomacy.
The same goes for the access to feats requiring a specific degree on intimidation, deception and performance. That seems great... until you realize that several feats require you to use the specific skill.
For example, taking diplomacy as skill:
- Bon mot
- Bargain hunter
- Discreet Inquiry
- Evangelize
- Shameless request
Require a generic diplomacy check.
Note that I am not saying it's bad, but rather tha you have to think about the character you want to do ( and, eventually, consider to also expend some skill points on skills you will partially cover with versatile performance ). It's a pretty solid feat.
FLanasaurasRex wrote:
Finally, what is a high INT you mentioned? My character atm has:
Str 8 Con 12 Int 15 Wis 20 Cha 18
Enigma is the based on bardic lore, a knowledge skill you can use on any subject, that also relies on:
- Occultism ( you need to hit legendary occultism to hit expert bardic lore )
- Intelligence ( being a lore skill, it would require intelligence to work )
That's the reason I mentioned intelligence ( having a lower DC, usually -2, is good, but it requires a generous intelligence modifier to compete with master arcane used by a wizard, just to say one ).
The system will punish you for not boosting your saves at every opportunity. The only realistic stat build a bard has is cha/dex/con/wis. Also, given that any skill you don't take to legendary is effectively worthless, bardic lore is among the least useful things in the game. If you want to be the all-in-one knowledge guy, Thaumaturge is your only real option.
The reason everyone says maestro is the best is because of how impactful buffs and debuffs can be. Lingering dirge in particular is a 3-4 round AoE no-save fear which is extremely good in the context of pf2e.
For performance, you haven't missed anything. Unless you're maestro or polymath, you'll have little mechanical use for it. It's always a fun flavor skill though.
Lingering composition is 3/4 rounds when you can do something and cast a spell. Since you're a caster, that is huge, and worth investing everything in performance for the additional round on a crit success.
It should be noted that in addition to the bard-specific stuff of Performance, it also comes up in play.
Things like:
Putting on a show (happens in more than one AP)
Knowing about famous plays/works of music
Following along in a dance (or leading one!)
Storytelling
Performing in a circus
I've seen all of these things in officially published scenarios (I've never played age of ashes, so I can't speak to that), but it is a skill that shows up from time to time.
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gesalt wrote: The system will punish you for not boosting your saves at every opportunity. The only realistic stat build a bard has is cha/dex/con/wis. Also, given that any skill you don't take to legendary is effectively worthless, bardic lore is among the least useful things in the game. If you want to be the all-in-one knowledge guy, Thaumaturge is your only real option.
The reason everyone says maestro is the best is because of how impactful buffs and debuffs can be. Lingering dirge in particular is a 3-4 round AoE no-save fear which is extremely good in the context of pf2e.
For performance, you haven't missed anything. Unless you're maestro or polymath, you'll have little mechanical use for it. It's always a fun flavor skill though.
Why do you think skills not raised to legendary are effectively worthless? I understand as game progresses rolls this is needed to keep making rolls but surely at the lower levels this is still useful? If so at what point does trained skill become too underpowered?
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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber
Trained skills lose relevance for 'on level' tasks, but remain a useful consideration for tasks that aren't level-based, which should still be fairly common in most campaigns.
IME, combat actions tend to be the ones that rely the most on keeping your proficiency up, but outside of that there's a greater degree of flexibility. Trained athletics for dealing with common hazards, trained diplomacy for interacting with people around a town, that kind of thing.
Performace, again just from my experience, does kind of feel a little bit like an odd-skill out, compared to other skills.
Squiggit wrote: Trained skills lose relevance for 'on level' tasks, but remain a useful consideration for tasks that aren't level-based, which should still be fairly common in most campaigns.
IME, combat actions tend to be the ones that rely the most on keeping your proficiency up, but outside of that there's a greater degree of flexibility. Trained athletics for dealing with common hazards, trained diplomacy for interacting with people around a town, that kind of thing.
Performace, again just from my experience, does kind of feel a little bit like an odd-skill out, compared to other skills.
In this light then how do you feel about bardic knowledge. Just trying to get a feel for how useful it we I’ll be having never done a AP before
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Bardic Knowledge depends mostly how much the DM allows the bard to exploit the system or not.
Here's the tab which explains checks and DC.
Lores benefits from -2 to -5 DC depends the lore.
Let's say you are facing a Vampire Count.
Recall Knowledge - Undead (Religion): DC 22
Unspecific Lore: DC 20
Specific Lore: DC 17
Unspecific lore, in this very case, would be Undead lore, which covers a specific part of religion, resulting in a -2 DC.
Specific Lore would obviously be Vampire Lore, which comvers a specific part of undead lore, resulting in a -5 DC.
As you can see, it's all about groups and subgroups, which get more specific.
Bardic lore is generic, and depends your DM it may benefit from different DC.
For example, your DM may say "the lore covers everything, more than arcana or religion, for example, and because so it doesn't benefit from any DC reduction ).
Or it may say "I allow you a standard -2 DC for your lore check, because bardic lore is generic but still a lore"
Finally, it could be "you can use the bardic lore to specifically recall knowledge about any specific topic, getting a -5 on every possibile Recall knowledge check"
14 INT + Bardic lore is excellent at low levels.
The main issue from AP is that Paizo put gated checks that require a specific rank or higher to be performed.
At first it seemed it was just thievery ( and perception ) alone, but then it turned out it was almost every single skill, depends the AP and the situation.
This means that a lvl 20 character with a +32 on athletics ( trained ) won't be able to deal with stuff requiring expert athletics and with 26DC.
So, hitting expert/master ASAP in a skill, would allow you to "try" dealing with specific mechanics. But not knowing what skill would be required, it's hard to guess.
I can tell you for sure that in some AP, performance checks requiring a specific degree or higher do exist.
If I were you I'd probably hit either performance and occultism to legendary, and as for last one, I'd take something your group is going to lack ( but you are going to increase this one as last skill, so it won't impact your game in any possible way because of progression. So it can be anything you like ).
HumbleGamer wrote: ... Thanks for such a detailed reply. It was really helpful info. Just one question: I’ve read a few places that occultism interacts is a good one to develop because it influences quite a few bardic feats. The only one I’m aware of is the interaction with levelling up bardic lore. What else is beneficial about this.?
Also isn’t using skill increases on occultism a waste as bards get a boost (at around level 7 i think). It it simply a case of getting it online earlier?
FLanasaurasRex wrote: HumbleGamer wrote: ... Thanks for such a detailed reply. It was really helpful info. Just one question: I’ve read a few places that occultism interacts is a good one to develop because it influences quite a few bardic feats. The only one I’m aware of is the interaction with levelling up bardic lore. What else is beneficial about this.?
Also isn’t using skill increases on occultism a waste as bards get a boost (at around level 7 i think). It it simply a case of getting it online earlier? I think I agree with you.
You'd be relying on bardic lore for all recall knowledge checks.
This means you may just uprage occultism just before you hit lvl 15 ( so, by lvl 11,13 and 15 ), getting your boost to bardic lore.
Apart from that, I admit I don't know which bard feat goes with occultism but, in my opinion, occultism skill feats are really meh.
FLanasaurasRex wrote: HumbleGamer wrote: ... Thanks for such a detailed reply. It was really helpful info. Just one question: I’ve read a few places that occultism interacts is a good one to develop because it influences quite a few bardic feats. The only one I’m aware of is the interaction with levelling up bardic lore. What else is beneficial about this.?
Also isn’t using skill increases on occultism a waste as bards get a boost (at around level 7 i think). It it simply a case of getting it online earlier? If you're going Enigma, then you want legendary occultism by the end of the game to pick up Studious Capacity (16) and Deep Lore (18) which have it as a prerequisite
Occultism is also needed if you take the combat reading (4) or eclectic skill (8) feats, but I don't find these to be particularly useful.
There's also no free occultism skill boost. You're thinking of the boost to occult spell DCs.
gesalt wrote: FLanasaurasRex wrote: HumbleGamer wrote: ... Thanks for such a detailed reply. It was really helpful info. Just one question: I’ve read a few places that occultism interacts is a good one to develop because it influences quite a few bardic feats. The only one I’m aware of is the interaction with levelling up bardic lore. What else is beneficial about this.?
Also isn’t using skill increases on occultism a waste as bards get a boost (at around level 7 i think). It it simply a case of getting it online earlier? If you're going Enigma, then you want legendary occultism by the end of the game to pick up Studious Capacity (16) and Deep Lore (18) which have it as a prerequisite
Occultism is also needed if you take the combat reading (4) or eclectic skill (8) feats, but I don't find these to be particularly useful.
There's also no free occultism skill boost. You're thinking of the boost to occult spell DCs. Polymath Bards who take the Esoteric Polymath feat also want to boost up their Occultism Skill, since it helps them learn spells to add to their Occult spell book.
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Worth pointing out that while trained proficiency scales slower than on level DCs, as you level up you gain more access to bonuses which can push your total odds of success higher than it was at level 1.
Aid
Heroism
Mutagens
More affordable hand me down item bonuses
Ability score boosts
Follow the Expert
Bards in particular are really good for this with their support casting. Inspire Competence means your allies will wind up with a +4 circumstance bonus to just about any out of combat skill check.
Also, while proficiency gating is a thing it is almost entirely limited to hazards. Outside of hazards, you'll almost never run into a check you can't attempt trained.
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