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theMycon
2009-05-01, 11:28 AM
Crunch wise, 32 Point, CG (modern, real-world good. He might make exalted people feel guilty), no given level. I'd prefer "full orc", but if it'd be significantly harder to be a party face (even as a nobleman), I'm willing to go half-orc.
Roles/Modus Operandi, in order of importance: leader, buffer, charmer*, co-party-face, maybe co-skillmonkey. You can ignore the last one if it doesn't fit in. Hopefully the rest of the roles synergize well. Aims to be wildly charismatic, and at least reasonably bright.

I'm obviously not aiming to optimize him to hell and back. But I'd like him competitive, despite all the setbacks given by race & morality.
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The idea came while reading the "darned elf racism" thread in one tab, a Straight Dope thread on Platypodes on another, and a wikipedia article on squid reproduction a while ago. Specifically, I got to the "Orc not talk dumb. Orc language have no pronouns. Common talk dumb." post in the former, while I got to a discussion about the plural of other odd words, like Rhinoceros**, in the latter.

This gave me a mental image of an orc, disdainfully explaining to some wizard, in his deep, gruff full-orc voice:
Rhinocerotes. Rhinoceros patterned after third declension noun, so Pointy Hat Man is mixing Rhinocerotes and Squid, not Rhinoceri and Squids. Point Hat Man talk funny and try to breed across Phylum without correcting for XY/infection sex-determination system. Krunk think Pointy Hat Man not too bright.
Then I imagined my DM's face and reaction as I made him go off-script.

Then the conversation continued in my head, in a fairly boring direction. The best part was Wizard not speak orc? Orc not have pronouns, articles, or conjugations of is/are. Silly wastes of breath. Orc tongue have much better verbs. Circumstances of Krunk birth single word in Orc. And his eventual announcement that Krunk... That is, I warming up to pronouns. You still not learning.

As the idea spiralled out of control, I decided he was son of a Duke in his orcish homelands (as no-one would respect Orc houses, it didn't matter how high he was). However, before ascending the throne, Gnomes convinced his regent to install a constitutional Monarchy, and proceeded rig the vote. He then decided ruling at home wasn't fun, so he'd "rule abroad" while, unbeknownst to him, the more violent factions of Orcish rule would "fix" things back home. He's going to diplomatically make people respect orcs as a civilized race, until they decide that yes, he really is rightful heir to the kingdom and people should be allowed to own land, even if their skin is green.

He won't be charming someone into liking him and then slitting their throats, or robbing them blind post-coitus, or getting them hooked on Meth and leaving 'em dependent on him for sanity, safety, or well-being. He's a Good character. Not "unwilling to kill", but "only if they're a pro-active threat and can't be reasoned with." If "being good" doesn't imply willingness to make sacrifices, you're only "acting good" in my mind. When push comes to shove, and it's no longer the easiest path, abandoning the good path strikes me as either the coward's way out, or showing your true colors.



*Not as in the "I mindrape you into liking me", but the "I'll calm you down however, then legitimately make you like me, often by making you think I like you" brand.

***Along the lines of "It'd be Rhinocerotes, if Rhinoceros were a third declension latin noun. But, because this is America and we speak English, Rhinoceros is an English word, and the plural is Rhinos, because Rhinoceroses is too many syllables." Being the Straight Dope, this of course included lots of swearing, a few casual drug references, and probably a swipe at the Republican party.

The Gilded Duke
2009-05-01, 12:36 PM
What level are you going to make him?
That can make a big difference, plenty of bardic music buffing is actually based on the skill rank as opposed to the total skill modifier, so your charisma might not actually need to be that high even at upper levels.

I'd say your best build overall would be a Bard / War Chanter. War Chanter's have some powerful bardic music effects and can start and maintain two different bardic music effects at the same time. Unlike inspire courage and so on none of the War Chanter's abilities are considered mind effecting so you can use them just fine on undead, plants, and so on.

You are going to want some weapons that continue your bard songs. With a level 10 Bard and 10 level War Chanter you get for buffs:
Inspire Courage, Inspire Greatness, Inspire Toughness, Inspire Recklessness, Inspire Legion.

Inspire Toughness is a decent source of temporary hitpoints.
Inspire Recklessness lets the target sacrifice AC to add to melee attack rolls.
Inspire Legion takes the highest base attack bonus of all allies within 60 feet, all allies within 60 feet act as if that is their base attack bonus. (Works great with Summon Monster 9)

For disabling enemies without killing them you have Inspire Awe. They get a will save unfortunatly, so you will want to pump charisma for this one. If they are less then 6 HD tougher then you they are frightened if they fail. AOE, not a mind effecting ability, Supernatural. Immunity to fear will still stop it though.

If you successfully hit someone with that then use diplomacy on them next round to try to get them to like you.

Feats that I would suggest:
Song of the Heart, gives bonuses to most bardic music.
Soothe the Beast, lets you make a perform check to influence the attitudes of animals and magical beasts.
Undead Empathy, lets you use diplomacy on mindless undead. Diplomacy bonus against intelligent undead.

So most things you should be able to freak out or make peace with. If you were going with this build I'd try and start with a 18 in charisma, lowered to 16 after racial mods.

If you don't want to even give enemies the chance to make a save you could go with a CW Samaurai/Ronin/Scarlet Corsair build with the feat Imperious Command. CW Samaurai lets you demoralize everything in 30 feet as a standard or a move action. Ronin lets you keep Samaurai abilities while being chaotic. Scarlet Corsair keeps enemies demoralized for a number of rounds equal to your charisma bonus. Pick up the feat Imperious Command so everything is cowering in fear when it first gets demoralized.

If you want to be able to affect even paladins with this build put a few ranks cross class into Use Psionic Device, just enough so you can hit DC 20 with ease. Then carry around a Dorje of Null Psionics Field. This cancels the Paladin's supernatural immunity to fear.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-05-01, 01:01 PM
What do you mean by leader?

Buffing is simple. Go Inspire Courage, snag a pair of drums, Song of the Heart, and then just decide how much more investment you want to make(Dragonfire Inspiration, Legendary Captian, the SpC spell that adds 1, the MIC item that does the same). You can end up with anywhere from +8 at level 8(with just the Drums and Song of the Heart) to something like +20d6 Sonic damage to everyone's weapons at level 20. Activating Inspire Courage is your first action. With either Lingering Song, Melodic Casting, or a Crystal Echoblade, you can then cast the next turn. Either drop a second buff(like Haste, if the battle is with a boss), a battlefield control spell like Solid Fog, flank with the Rogue, or make tea.

Skill monkey is just a matter of putting ranks in the right skills(as is charmer and party face). Jack of all Trades+Bardic Knack means you can do anything.

Keld Denar
2009-05-01, 01:43 PM
Yea, definitely go drums. With a +1 Drumstick (club) of DOOOOOOM. Alternate beats between your quadtoms and your opponents heads. Optimized Inspire Courage is the way to go to be a leader. Everything else is ok...but IC is amazing. Take Dragonfire Inspiration (Dragon Magic) if you can swing it as a Dragonblooded Orc, otherwise regular IC is good enough. Song of the Heart (Ebberon Campaign Setting), Badge of Valor (MIC), Inspirational Boost (SpC), MW Drums (Song and Silence) and a Vest of Legends (DMGII) are all things to look into. Words of Creation (Book of Exalted Cheese) is kinda silly, and is kinda overkill, not to mention the fact that you need a 13 wisdom (as a full orc, that'll be HARD!) and you have to be Exalted with all the stigmatas that brings.

Really, you could stay as straight bard, although if you want to multiclass, Warchanter wouldn't be a bad direction. Otherwise, you could go Warblade with Song of the White Raven to keep progressing your Inspire Courage and pick up some sweet martial maneuvers. Tiger Claw maneuvers are fun for a TWFing Bardblade, while some spells like Improvisation make Insightful Strike rather silly in their effectiveness.

That should give you just about everything you need. Best of luck!

Darrin
2009-05-01, 01:44 PM
I'm obviously not aiming to optimize him to hell and back. But I'd like him competitive, despite all the setbacks given by race & morality.


What books are available? Does your DM allow Dragon Magazine material? Because there are two things in Dragon you're going to want:

Dragon #306: Magic-Blooded template. This can be applied to any base race for +2 Cha, -2 Wis. It also changes your favored class to Sorcerer.

Dragon #311: Battle Howler of Gruumsh. This 5-level bard PRC has full BAB, full bard caster levels, rage 2/day, and full martial weapon/armor/shield proficiency.

If you're going full-blooded, then Water Orc (UA p. 18) has the best stats: +4 Str, +2 Con, -2 Int, -2 Wis, -2 Cha. Adding Magic-Blooded cancels the Cha penalty, but drops Wis down to -4.

If you're going half-blooded, then Desert Half-Orc (UA p. 12) has the best stats: +2 Con, -2 Int. Adding Magic-Blooded actually gives him a Cha bonus: +2 Con, -2 Int, -2 Wis, +2 Cha.

Another good option are Frostblood Orcs/Half-Orcs (Dragon Magic p. 10). Dragonblood subtype, cold resistance 10, and Endurance as a bonus feat. Vulnerable to fire, but there's an interesting quirk if you pick up Endurance as a bonus feat later (Ranger 3, for example)... you can pick up any other feat you qualify for instead.

I was going to suggest a Gish/Sublime Chord build, but it sounds like you want more of a leader-type... and that just screams for a CG Paladin of Freedom (UA p. 53) or Avenger (Dragon #310 p. 49) with the Devoted Performer feat (CAdv).

Bard 4/Crusader 16 with Song of the White Raven and Dragonfire Inspiration is also a very, very strong build, with or without the "death by infinite flaming chickens" schtick.

Bluebeard
2009-05-01, 05:01 PM
This idea makes me happy.
I would definitely stick with straight Bard for this.
Use PHB2's Bardic Knack ACF and CAdv's Jack of All Trades feat.
Depending how you're approaching this, either crank Knowledge skills or Synergy skills
Check out CAdv's skill section. It has huge boosts for a skillful leader.
Use spells for skill-boosters like Improvisation (SpC) and Share Talents (PHB2) to make up for weak ability scores.

If combat is important, CCha's Knowledge Devotion generates some attack and damage bonuses.
The MIC's Crystal Echoblade does an extra point of damage per Bard level at a surprisingly low cost.

[edit:]
And I know Song of the White Raven builds are popular on these boards, usually going into Tiger Claw and TWF.
For this character, I'd recommend more of a White Raven focus with Diamond Mind or Devoted Spirit taking a back seat.

theMycon
2009-05-01, 06:01 PM
Ideas I like so far: Max the heck out of I Courage
Melodic casting
Inspire Legion/Recklessness

Stuff I'm curious about: Why drums?
How to max out Inspire Courage
Where is warchanter?
Is "Magic Blooded" in UA? Is it just "-2 wis, +2 cha"?

Stuff I disagree with:
Charmer/face, with a bard, is not just having skill points. At the bare minimum, there's glibness. He's gotta have some way of getting around having a finite number of skills for social occasions. Like... a take-10 in any situation mechanic?


Answers to questions brought up:
Oh, yes- books.

Core, completes, PHB2, and MIC are all "darn near always" accepted. Spell conpedium is "usually accepted". The rest is right out. Had that in first edition of posts, but... the server ate it.

Level is... unknown. Intuition tells me "going from 5 to 12", as the DM acknowledges the sweet-spot.

"Leader" basically means "fixer". He sees what problems the group has, or analyzes the situation to see what's coming up, and takes care of them, so they don't have to deviate from their normal plans. Which is... basically what a wizard is, except they have more & better spells for it. So he needs to do this by making them able to simply ignore strategies that won't work, or buff to high-heaven when one could work, but they just don't have the power. Probably requires a very special spell selection.

Yes, he does go for the Leadership feat, with only a little begging.

The Gilded Duke
2009-05-01, 08:23 PM
War Chanter is complete warrior.

I generally think it is best to make a bard when working with what the other players are doing. War Chanter doesn't progress your spell casting however it can give other players more options with their builds. If you can pick up War Chanter level 10 the other players in your party no longer need to worry about getting full BAB which helps your various rogues, touch spell magic users and fighters who want to pick up a class that sacrifices bab for other abilities.

If you have an ubercharger in a party, 3rd level warchanter with inspire recklessness insures that their massive attacks hit.

No spell casting progression however.
I'd say if you want some spells as well go with the above mentioned inspire courage builds with the option of switching to damage.

If you want to go with more spell casting check out the Sublime Chord in Complete Arcane. Lets you get up to 9th level sorc/wizard spell casting with access to the bard spell list as well. There is also a bardic music ability you gain that lets you increase your spell level based on a perform check.

Some neat feats to pick up if you are focusing on spellcasting as a bard:
Disguise Spell: Make your spellcasting look like part of a performance (Love using that with Perform Oratory)

Metamagic Song: Lets you spend bardic music uses to apply metamagic. Can be used for persistant metamagic cheese.

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-05-01, 10:46 PM
[Stuff I'm curious about: Why drums?
How to max out Inspire Courage?IC generally only has things that give +1. That's fine, because you can get a few other things that benefit it a lot, so those +1s count a lot. Legendary Captain advances IC faster than straight Bard, Song of the HeartWords of Creation doubles your bonus, Dragonfire Inspiration changes the benefit from +1/+1 to adding d6s of fire damage, and IIRC Masterwork Drums(CWar) add +2. :smallbiggrin:
Charmer/face, with a bard, is not just having skill points. At the bare minimum, there's glibness. He's gotta have some way of getting around having a finite number of skills for social occasions. Like... a take-10 in any situation mechanic?That's why I recommended the Bardic Knack variant(PHBII). You lose Bardic Knowledge(which hurts) but replace your skill ranks with half your bard level for any skill check where it would be better than the skill ranks you've put in the skill. Combine that with Glibness, Charm Person and a Cha-focus and you should be able to talk anyone into doing what you want.
Yes, he does go for the Leadership feat, with only a little begging.Then I really recommend Legendary Captain. It requires a ship and crew, which Leadership should help you with, and makes for great flavor.

tyckspoon
2009-05-01, 10:56 PM
IC generally only has things that give +1. That's fine, because you can get a few other things that benefit it a lot, so those +1s count a lot. Legendary Captain advances IC faster than straight Bard, Song of the Heart doubles your bonus, Dragonfire Inspiration changes the benefit from +1/+1 to adding d6s of fire damage, and IIRC Masterwork Drums(CWar) add +2.

Song of the Heart is another +1; Words of Creation is the doubler (one of the few Exalted feats that is seriously worthwhile.) Although the normal IC advancement is only +1/4 levels, so +1 for a feat is still pretty good.

theMycon
2009-05-02, 12:25 AM
I really have to say, I'm frightened that no-one has questioned why I was reading an article on how squid reproduce. Is it a normal thing to do, for people who play bards?


...
If you want to go with more spell casting check out the Sublime Chord in Complete Arcane. Lets you get up to 9th level sorc/wizard spell casting with access to the bard spell list as well.

So... one level would give me access to "fly", as it's a sorc/wizard spell at a level I'd already have?

This is for an mostly unrelated "how to make VoP bard work" idea. It seems like the answer is "exalted anyway, so words of creation and sublime-chord yourself into great spells."

Sstoopidtallkid
2009-05-02, 12:31 AM
I really have to say, I'm frightened that no-one has questioned why I was reading an article on how squid reproduce. Is it a normal thing to do, for people who play bards? Considering I'm reading the XKCD archives right now, I'd say it's a normal thing for the internet.
This is for an mostly unrelated "how to make VoP bard work" idea. It seems like the answer is "exalted anyway, so words of creation and sublime-chord yourself into great spells."Words of creation is for buffing, but yes. In fact, depending on the character and party, Bard may work fairly well with Vows of NV/P.

I mean, if you're already going Poverty, might as well. By 8th level, what other feats would you take?