Looking to play a Bard. In the past have played a Maestro with multifarious Polymath. Is a Warrior muse good? And if so what feats do you suggest? Does this type of Bard engage in the front lines via invisibility spells or does he stay in the back and buff allies?
Instead of Warrior Muse I would start with a Maestro bard and then put a Marshal or Champion on it.
The marshal could linger dirge of doom and hit inspiring stance, but would suffer from lower AC (probably want to start at 16 dex and use a whip), may need a feat for martial weapon proficiency to qualify for Marshal, and might also want to get shield block.
The champion would be more of a true heavy-armored front liner who can invest in strength instead of dex, and get the champion's reaction at level 6. I think it's a more mechanically sound build than the marshal but divine flavor might not fit a "warrior muse" inspiration.
Our Maestro Muse bard instead took Fighter dedication for proficiency in a Gill Hook, with feats in Power Attack for added damage, AoO for a reaction, and the Expert proficiency in weapons feat for the Gill Hook scaling. They were still able to cast spells and put up songs via Lingering Performance while at the same time going into the frontlines and stabbing people/posing a threat to the enemy.
Warrior Muse doesn't really do a whole lot compared to this build other than maybe save a couple feats, but given that one of them is spent for other options anyway, I don't see a reason why not. Their other options are pretty bad.
Warrior Muse might be better after the Remastered.
When is Remastered suppose to come out?
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November 15, so pretty soon.
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It is really good, but it plays quite similar to Maestro (mostly cause there is no reason to not pick Multifarius Muse for Lingering Composition).
Biggest deal are the Courageous feats as MEATSHED said. Advance allows you to reposition an ally out of a flanking situation, or allow an ally to go in or out when it is relevant. Assault is just an extra Strike with no MAP. Great with most non-Fighter and Champion martials.
So, it is strong and fun to play, but it still plays like a Bard at the end of the day (all Bards are similar to one another, really. Subclasses matter little when Multifarious Muse is around and Maestro is as strong as it is). It is not a proper martial Bard if that is what you were looking for.
All things said, the remaster will change the paradigm a bit most likely. Warrior seems to be the muse that will go through the most changes (The level 1 feat will need to change completely, for example, as all Bards will get full martial weapon proficiency by default).
If it interest you, I wrote a Bard guide quite some time ago. It is up to date and I plan to update it soon after the remaster hits, so feel free to check it out either now or later on.
I read your guide very interesting. You wrote:
Eternal Composition (5/5): Congratulations, you did it. You made it this far. It is an insane feat for Maestro Bards, but I would go as far as saying that this is beyond mandatory, straight up 6/5 for Warrior Bards. Now they can Cast a Spell and use Courageous Onslaught in the same turn. Rejoice.
I thought you can only use Courageous Onslaught only if your next action is to cast inspire courage?
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Eternal Composition makes you quickened and allows you to spend that extra action on a composition cantrip. So you can do Courageous Onslaught > Inspire Courage > 2-action spell.
This doesn't work with other quickened effects like haste as those usually limit the extra action to things like Strike or Stride.
If you combine that with Lingering Composition, you can probably get away with only casting inspire courage (or whatever its new name is) only once per combat. That's pretty good. And I think it should also activate on Strikes made as a reaction, potentially freeing up actions more often than is immediately apparent.
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and now we know what warrior bard got instead of waepon prof, and it's a really nice bonus for this kind of gameplay (basically giving you 1 free action/2 rounds as long as you hit)Bard gets martial weapons in remasterthen i assume warrior muse gets something else, so it's kinda a moot point since in 15 days we will have a different bonus to compare
What they get?
Edit: Martial Performance now, instead of granting proficiency like it used to with martial weapons (which comes with the chassis), now simply extends the duration of Inspire Courage Courageous Anthem by 1 round per cast when the bard successfully Strikes their foe.
=)
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and now we know what warrior bard got instead of waepon prof, and it's a really nice bonus for this kind of gameplay (basically giving you 1 free action/2 rounds as long as you hit)Bard gets martial weapons in remasterthen i assume warrior muse gets something else, so it's kinda a moot point since in 15 days we will have a different bonus to compareWhat they get?
Edit: Martial Performance now, instead of granting proficiency like it used to with martial weapons (which comes with the chassis), now simply extends the duration of
Inspire CourageCourageous Anthem by 1 round per cast when the bard successfully Strikes their foe.=)
Sounds like the Warrior Bard can have some synergies with the Battle Oracle MC.
I hope Spiritual Weapon still counts as a Strike from the caster.
and now we know what warrior bard got instead of waepon prof, and it's a really nice bonus for this kind of gameplay (basically giving you 1 free action/2 rounds as long as you hit)Bard gets martial weapons in remasterthen i assume warrior muse gets something else, so it's kinda a moot point since in 15 days we will have a different bonus to compareWhat they get?
Edit: Martial Performance now, instead of granting proficiency like it used to with martial weapons (which comes with the chassis), now simply extends the duration of
Inspire CourageCourageous Anthem by 1 round per cast when the bard successfully Strikes their foe.=)
Cool, doesn't Lingering Composition already extend it? What's the draw?
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Cool, doesn't Lingering Composition already extend it? What's the draw?and now we know what warrior bard got instead of waepon prof, and it's a really nice bonus for this kind of gameplay (basically giving you 1 free action/2 rounds as long as you hit)Bard gets martial weapons in remasterthen i assume warrior muse gets something else, so it's kinda a moot point since in 15 days we will have a different bonus to compareWhat they get?
Edit: Martial Performance now, instead of granting proficiency like it used to with martial weapons (which comes with the chassis), now simply extends the duration of
Inspire CourageCourageous Anthem by 1 round per cast when the bard successfully Strikes their foe.=)
1. It stacks with Lingering Composition.
2. Lingering Composition costs an additional feat and a focus point. And you can always fail the Performance Check.3. Many of the Warrior Muse specific feats like Couragous Assault are metamagic feats which you can't combine with Lingering Compostion.
4. If you want to make frequent use of those warrior muse metamagic feats, you need to recast your compositions frequently anyway. Having your composition last 3 rounds can simply be unnecessary so you might not pick up Lingering at all. Then it's nice to still have a way to extend the duration a bit.
Thanks thats awesome. As I was going through Nethys I realized you cant use Courageous Opportunity while Dirge of Doom is active :(
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1. It stacks with Lingering Composition.
2. Lingering Composition costs an additional feat and a focus point. And you can always fail the Performance Check.
3. Many of the Warrior Muse specific feats like Couragous Assault are metamagic feats which you can't combine with Lingering Compostion.
4. If you want to make frequent use of those warrior muse metamagic feats, you need to recast your compositions frequently anyway. Having your composition last 3 rounds can simply be unnecessary so you might not pick up Lingering at all. Then it's nice to still have a way to extend the duration a bit.
It gives you a viable option not to bother with Lingering Composition at all. Which opens up Bard designs a lot. Especially if you want to do something else with your focus point and skills. Most of the Bards I've seen have been very similar.
It will add variety to the Bards routine each round.
It will likely be popular with the archetpe Bards who have better to hit chances than performance skill.
make inspire heroic last for 2 round are far more valuable
That's a strong synergy I hadn't even considered yet! Heroic + Warrior Muse seems very strong.
Martial Performance now, instead of granting proficiency like it used to with martial weapons (which comes with the chassis), now simply extends the duration of
Inspire CourageCourageous Anthem by 1 round per cast when the bard successfully Strikes their foe.=)
Shame they will never hit anything. At most levels they are at least -2 to hit compared to non-fighter martials.
Not getting past Expert weapon proficiency and not being able to max attack attribute is really going to hold this ability back.
Maybe battle bards can focus on the weaker enemies to keep it going.
Martial Performance now, instead of granting proficiency like it used to with martial weapons (which comes with the chassis), now simply extends the duration of
Inspire CourageCourageous Anthem by 1 round per cast when the bard successfully Strikes their foe.=)
Shame they will never hit anything. At most levels they are at least -2 to hit compared to non-fighter martials.
Not getting past Expert weapon proficiency and not being able to max attack attribute is really going to hold this ability back.
Maybe battle bards can focus on the weaker enemies to keep it going.
Give it Wave Casting, optional Strength/Dexterity attribute boost, and Full Martial progression, and then it's fixed.
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Caster weapon proficiency is fine if you limit yourself to one Strike per turn and don't try to hit level+3 bosses. You should absolutely cast spells in that kind of fight.
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Martial Performance now, instead of granting proficiency like it used to with martial weapons (which comes with the chassis), now simply extends the duration of
Inspire CourageCourageous Anthem by 1 round per cast when the bard successfully Strikes their foe.=)
Shame they will never hit anything. At most levels they are at least -2 to hit compared to non-fighter martials.
Not getting past Expert weapon proficiency and not being able to max attack attribute is really going to hold this ability back.
Maybe battle bards can focus on the weaker enemies to keep it going.
Normally I'd agree. In this case though, you can very conceivably open with heroics +3, true target and strike to extend before moving into synesthesia+strike and so on. There's a very real possibility that you can extend this for quite some time.
Can you keep extending it by one round as long as you keep hitting?
No, it's limited to once per cast.
Normally I'd agree. In this case though, you can very conceivably open with heroics +3, true target and strike to extend before moving into synesthesia+strike and so on. There's a very real possibility that you can extend this for quite some time.
Takes a bit more setup, but a good point nonetheless.
No, it's limited to once per cast.
Oh? Must have missed that. Well, one-two rounds (maybe) of heroics vs three-four rounds (almost definitely) of regular is certainly something to consider.
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When what we care about is just hitting, every +1 on top of another starts having diminishing returns at some point. Being -2 or -3 is not that big of a deal for a class with massive buffs and debuffs when trying to trigger this level 1 feat is the only goal.
Like, if you quicken a Synesthesia, Inspire Heroics (will take a while for me to remember the new name) and then Strike you will extend that IH more often than not (or True Target instead of quickened Synesthesia as gesalt said earlier).
I'm genuinely curious about what kind of shenanigans a Resentment Witch and a Warrior Bard can pull of now when working in tandem. Guess we will get some table talk about these at some point.
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Don't get me wrong, I understand that this ability is still working with a melee strike, but I am getting really sick and tired of True Strike being proposed as a "fix" for bad accuracy scaling.
Other bards can be bad with accuracy because they are still full spellcasters, why isn't a Warrior Muse bard more martial than spellcaster?
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Other bards can be bad with accuracy because they are still full spellcasters, why isn't a Warrior Muse bard more martial than spellcaster?
A bounded bard (which I think it would be the only satisfactory way of doing this, a warpriest kind of deal would not work well) would be a martial first and a caster second. That's not the case with Warrior. According to most of its mechanics, Warrior bards are commander-like figures, the caster equivalent of what most people think when they talk about a potential Warlord class. It has its own merits, so I don't think losing it for a proper martial bard would be a good deal.
Biggest problem warrior bards always had is the Warrior part in its name. I wish they were called Battle Bards or something else.
With just inspire, you're just 1 behind a marital either way. That's not bad.
That really isn't true though, since bards can't max their attack attributes like, say, a barbarian, monk, or ranger can.
You need much more than inspire to close the gap. Not that it matters, because many if the things the bard benefits from, martials do too, so nothing has really changed all that much.
Does the melee bard have enough actions in combat to demoralize? Is it worth investing in? What's a typical round look like without demoralize? Cast spell/Strike? Against lesser enemies where you want to conserve some of your spells, would inspire/demoralize/strike be viable?
Does he ever MAP2 or is it basically just one attack a round?
I'm confused about Martial Performance. It says that
Your muse has taught you how to handle a wider variety of weapons than most bards, empowering you to effortlessly blend your performance into combat tools.
but I don't see which additional weapon proficiencies are granted.
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Does he ever MAP2 or is it basically just one attack a round?
There's no one right answer to that. It depends completely on the situation.
In general, it's recommended to limit casters to one attack per turn since their lower attack bonus makes even MAP -5 attacks risky.
However, there can absolutely be situations in which a second attack is worth the risk. If you've just spend a Focus point on Inspire Heroics (or Fortissimo as I believe it is called now) to boost your whole party and then miss on your first attack, going for a second Strike can be worthwhile in an attempt to extend the duration of the buffed composition.
Against Oozes specifically it can be a really good strat to strike twice as a bard.
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Does he ever MAP2 or is it basically just one attack a round?There's no one right answer to that. It depends completely on the situation.
In general, it's recommended to limit casters to one attack per turn since their lower attack bonus makes even MAP -5 attacks risky.
However, there can absolutely be situations in which a second attack is worth the risk. If you've just spend a Focus point on Inspire Heroics (or Fortissimo as I believe it is called now) to boost your whole party and then miss on your first attack, going for a second Strike can be worthwhile in an attempt to extend the duration of the buffed composition.
This proved most devastating indeed. Used Fortissimo and it was a thing of beauty. I hope I played it right, casted inspire + heroics, then attacked twice (one landed) then next round attacked twice again. The following round cast inspire courage again with inspire heroics and did the same routine slaying the beast. So we were getting 4 rounds of heroics.