Time-Manipulating Bard?

[Lorkan]

I had this Idea for a Bard who focuses on time-altering spells and takes the Time mage archetype. Is that a Bad Idea, how would I go about that?

[Perpdepog]

I'm not actually sure what you'd get out of that archetype at a casual glance. The focus spells maybe? I believe all the spells you can learn from it are already on your spell list, and the occult list hasn't got all that many summoning spells to make alternate selves with.

There are also the high-level metamagic feats but by that time they're competing with your top-notch bard feats too.

[25speedforseaweedleshy]

occult have all the spell time mage grant anyway

a bard focus on those spell can be easily build

stasis and timeline splitting spell are possibly the most a bard get out of time mage

and timeline splitting spell are just once per day

[gesalt]

The archetype does extremely little for you outside of the potential to use into the future+time beacon and time splitting spell to fish for a failed save.

[roquepo]

If you want an archetype that messes with time shenanigans, I recommend Chronoskimmer instead. It has Guide the Timeline and Steal Time, which are pretty good.

Is that character going to be played in a FA game? If that's the case, you can go for both archetypes and not loose much in the process. Bard base feats are really good, so it is a bit difficult to archetype into stuff if you are not in a FA game.