Wanting to build a bard that can read the thoughts of enemies and mock their insecurities...but Vicious Mockery isn't a thing.


Advice


So yeah, I'm not sure where to start trying to build this even after looking at most if not all of the archetypes and not really finding anything there that seems to fit this criteria.

So I decided to hop over here and see what the masters of PF1 could cook up. I found some general spells in the bard list that get close, but not quite close enough.

Dark Archive

Look at the archtypes Chelish Diva, prankster, sound striker, and wit for "similar" abilities


That actually sounds a bit like the mesmerist class

Dark Archive

Does it have to be a bard? Because the mesmerist class would probably work a lot better for this than a bard.


Do you use skill unlocks? If so, the skill unlock for sense motive will give you the ability to read minds. Take the Negotiator archetype to gain a bonus on bluff, diplomacy, intimidate, knowledge local and sense motive. Take skill focus (sense motive) and Alertness and your sense motive will be sky high and you can take 10 with it and even take 20 a few times a day. The standard bardic performances of allow you manipulate people and can easily be you using their insecurities to get them to react the way you want.

You also get access to a few rogue talents. Some of those would work well for what you want. Coax Information and convincing lie seem like they would be useful.

The feat Antagonize would also fit the character.

Negotiator’s bonus to diplomacy, intimidate and sense motive and the ability to take 10 and occasionally 20 is what really makes the build work.

Dark Archive

Eh, I wouldn't suggest using the sense motive skill unlock as your source of reading minds. You have to be a minimum of level 10 for it to even start reading minds and even then it takes 1 minute of being in conversation with the person for it to work and you get a whopping -20 to your roll. There are much better ways of mind-reading that you can do long before level 10 and don't require you to jump through so many hoops. It's a fun gimmick, and something worth getting still as a supplement but definitely not as yor primary means of mind-reading, since it'll rarely land even in the best of circumstances.


The skill unlock may come one line late but has the advantage of being able to be used an unlimited number of times. It primary purpose is using it out of combat. Besides sense motive can already be used to gain information about a target so it is a useful skill without the skill unlock. Depending on how high the campaign is going the time to use it can be reduced to 1 round.

Bards get access to detect thoughts and can trade out some spells at higher level. All the character has to do is to take detect thoughts as a spell known and trade it out when they no longer need it. Detect thoughts takes 3 rounds, so the skill unlock at 10th level is not that much longer. At 15th level the skill unlock actually becomes better than the spell.

Dark Archive

The problem isn't the time, thats just an inconvenience, the problem is the -20 to the check. It requires a truly gouda-infused build to offset a -20, and even if you do want a build like that you are having to devote most of your character resources to it. And that's just offsetting the -20. You're still going to need even more than that in order to make sure you can reliably beat enemy bluff checks consistently. Which means you want to have your sense motive an average of +15 higher than your enemies bluff, so with the -20 thats a total of +35 higher than your enemies bluff youll need in order to have an average of 75% chance of landing. It's just not a viable option.

Detect thoughts is a good way to go, but while a good option in early levels, doesn't scale well because of the low level spell DC, especially in the hands of a bard. Mesmerists and their Hypnotic Stare do a good job of helping with the DC scaling due to being able to stack Will save penalties with minimal effort or investment, as well as having one of the only ways in the game of bypassing mind-affecting immunity which is a major problem for any enchantment-based caster. As long as he isn't married to being specifically a Bard, a Mesmerist is by far the best way to accomplish what he's doing without any need to build it a specific way or utilizing any cheesy builds to make it work.


The bard can also use spells to boost his skills. Heroism is a great bard spell that gives a +2 to just about anything including skills.

When I did a quick test of the build I ended up with a +28 sense motive at 10th level. I did put 10 ranks and took skill focus sense motive and alertness. The bonus from the negotiator archetype at 10th level is +5. The archetype also gives you the ability to take 10 with sense motive and even take 20 a few times per day. That does not include any magic items that give a bonus to sense motive. Pick up Seducers Bane to boost it up to 33. Take 10 on sense motive and you can still read the thoughts of anyone who does not roll higher than 23 on their bluff roll. Once a day you can take 20 which is enough to read anyone with less than a 33 bluff roll. By 15th level the bonus is +40. This is why I suggested a negotiator bard.

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