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Zen Master
2010-02-13, 06:33 AM
Actually, by design and so on, I'm game mastering. However, I player has waylaid me, and I'm not playing a fairly solid barbarian damage dealer.

I built my barbarian in part to show the group how a few simple tricks can push damage quite a bit higher than we usually go.

Well. I'm toying with making a bard instead. Not that I don't enjoy the barbarian, and next level he gets Sweeping Strike (he's a warmind too) pushing his damage even higher (provided he can position two enemies next to each other).

But trying out new stuff is fun. So ... at 9th level, what sort of goodies can a bard achieve?

My concept is a moustache-twirling villain. Sort of a musketeer who crossed over to the Dark Side. I don't plan on any in-group backstabbery, but he should be dripping poison and overall wickedness towards anyone else that gets in his way.

I want him to be a great manipulator outside of combat - and however it is achieved, I want him to work in combat. Buffer seems obvious, but a few tricks in melee would be nice.

Is such a thing possible? With core, SRD and Eberron to chose from?

Btw I usually play humans, but this being Eberron, a gnome might be fun.

Glimbur
2010-02-13, 11:26 AM
Song of the Heart is nice for a bard. It's a feat from the main Eberron book. Glibness is entirely too good with how the rules on Bluff are written. With your limited sources, it's not a terrible idea to build to use a whip and trip/disarm... probably trip due to your 3/4 BAB. Then UMD for tough fights.

It's unfortunate that you don't have more sources available; most of the ways for bards to really shine come from splatbooks: Dragonfire Inspiration from Dragon Magic, Words of Creation from Book of Exalted Deeds, and Inspirational Boost from Spell Compendium make your Inspire Courage Scary. Complete Arcane and two more levels could get you Sublime Chord for real spellcasting power.

Zen Master
2010-02-13, 01:26 PM
Song of the Heart is nice for a bard. It's a feat from the main Eberron book. Glibness is entirely too good with how the rules on Bluff are written. With your limited sources, it's not a terrible idea to build to use a whip and trip/disarm... probably trip due to your 3/4 BAB. Then UMD for tough fights.

It's unfortunate that you don't have more sources available; most of the ways for bards to really shine come from splatbooks: Dragonfire Inspiration from Dragon Magic, Words of Creation from Book of Exalted Deeds, and Inspirational Boost from Spell Compendium make your Inspire Courage Scary. Complete Arcane and two more levels could get you Sublime Chord for real spellcasting power.

Hm yea ... the real art is in making something good without resorting to books that just hand it out.

Bards are quite decent buffers as it stands - however, the group I play with just isn't into using however many rounds of preparation before combat. And to my knowledge, no one has any spells at all that last the whole day.

So with only a few rounds (0-2 at most) of buffing, bard song is actually not bad. It doesn't drown in other buffs, so to speak.

So bard song gets everyone +2/+2 to attack and damage, and +2 to charm/fear saves. On top of that, I could grant my own character a further +2 to attack, 2 bonus hitdice, and a further +1 to fortitude saves.

Not bad, but not versatile. Those are the bonuses you get, in all situations.

I don't have access to song of the heart right now - someone made off with my Eberron book! :)

Anyways it'll work, but I'd like some more bang for my buck. It's a solid step down from my barbarians 7d6+33 (x2) damage on a charge.

Soranar
2010-02-13, 01:34 PM
As mentioned above, the main problem is the books you allowed. The best bardic feats and PrCs are just not present in the books you mentioned.

Compared to a Barbarian who gets access to a race that ignores fatigue, sure a bard seems subpar.

That leaves straight Bard with a few tricks to melee or to deliver ranged damage with limited spellcasting options.

lsfreak
2010-02-13, 01:44 PM
Is such a thing possible? With core, SRD and Eberron to chose from?

Not really, no. You simply don't have enough to work with.

You need Lyric Thaumaturge (Complete Mage) or Sublime Chord (Complete Arcane) for better casting, plus Medolic Casting (CMage again) or a harmonizing weapon (MIC) in order to allow casting alongside bardic music.

Dragonfire Inspiration, Inspirational Boost, and Badge of Valor are fairly necessary whether you're focusing on the casting aspect or the melee aspect.

For melee, you need Frostburn (Snowflake Wardance), MIC (crystal songblade), and DMG2 (slippers of battledancing). Tome of Battle and going Bard1 plus Warblde of Crusader all the rest is nice too.

Eldariel
2010-02-13, 02:01 PM
The principal issue is your class, really; just about anything else can gain fairly substantial boost with just little work, but to really pimp out a Bard to focus on...anything, you need a variety of sources. You can make a basic-good Bard but not really a focused one; Song of the Heart is a no-brainer and Haunting Melody [ECS] is a fine debuff bonus to your Bardic Music.

Inspire Greatness is a fine ability with some nice associated tricks (Polymorph + CL boosters, for example), but Inspire Courage is probably more efficient; with Song of the Heart, your Inspire Courage is +3/+3 and Haunting Melody adds a save vs. penalties to opponents.


Obviously you'll want to max out Use Magic Device and fool around with items of things you can't cast, especially later on; Scroll of Time Stop or Disjunction in the backpocket for when things really go south can be a lifesaver (and Beads of Karma are a good reason, of course; flying Phantom Steeds on level 10!). Your own spells are fine, of course; Confusion, Glitterdust, Slow, Haste, Alter Self, Displacement, Mirror Image, Grease, Silent Image, etc. are all very good. Bard's primary weakness though is inability to target saves other than Will-save; sure, you can get past Mind-Affecting with stuff like Slow and Glitterdust, but if you run into something with good Will-saves, you'll be down to buffs, Silent Image & Grease and if it has good Ref-saves, flight and True Seeing, none of those are very useful either (outside buffs).

Glibness is obviously a must (though a tad abusable; careful with it) and while you can't fly with spell of that name, Alter Self and eventually Phantom Steed give you flight-like abilities; Phantom Steed can also be shared.

Melee, well, you have Whip-proficiency naturally; if you can fit Combat Expertise and Improved Trip into your build, you can have fun with that. Unfortunately, Bardic proficiencies outside the Whip are rarely very exciting (and the Whip doesn't threaten cutting greatly into its usefulness).

Soranar
2010-02-13, 03:50 PM
Alright, I tried to find some kind of loophole using your restrictions to improve the bard somewhat. Here's something.

1rst Savage Bard variant (from SRD) : must be chaotic, lose literacy, lose Decipher Script and Speak Language skills, Ref saves become low, lose a few mostly useless spells

gain: High Fort saves, survival skill, summon nature's ally (much better than summon monster) and gain a few other spells

2nd Divine Bard variant (from SRD) : spells become spontaneous divine spells, dual progression for casting (like a favored soul) so since you only do buff spells and summons you won't need much Charisma

gain: many useful spells, eventually raise dead, restoration and divination are probably the best ones

You now qualify for the feat Ashbound (it also fits roleplay wise despite not being a druid). Your summons last twice as long and gain +3 luck bonus to attack (on top of your music). You also qualify for the Moonspeaker prestige class.

So with all of that in mind

Race: Shifter
Alignment: any Chaotic

STATS (32 pts buy)

STR 8 (depends on your fighting style)
DEX 16 (depends on your fighting style, I'm assuming a ranged type)
CON 16 (as usual, important for anyone)
INT 6 (dump, you get plenty of skillpoints even with a penalty)
WIS 16 (somewhat important, you need 16 to get all your spellcasting)
CHA 12 (no too important, but you can't completely dump it for spellslots)


1 Bard Ashbound
2 Bard
3 Bard Song of the heart
4 Bard
5 Bard
6 Bard Music of Making (spend a song, conjuration time is doubled)
7 Bard
8 Bard inspire courage +2
9 Moonspeaker Wild cohort bonus feat: augment summoning

As for the last feat, I'm not certain what to take if wild cohort isn't allowed.

Basically you summon nature's ally, although with a slower progression than a druid, but you get to use Music of Making to double the time it lasts (basically a free extend spell) on top of Ashbound. You also gain augment summoning without wasting a feat on spell focus.

Your inspire courage gives +3 (with song of the heart) to all your allies (including your cohort and your summons) so you maximise it's effectiveness.

And your basic bard spell list is improved overall.

Zen Master
2010-02-13, 04:13 PM
Alright, I tried to find some kind of loophole using your restrictions to improve the bard somewhat. Here's something.

1rst Savage Bard variant (from SRD) : must be chaotic, lose literacy, lose Decipher Script and Speak Language skills, Ref saves become low, lose a few mostly useless spells

gain: High Fort saves, survival skill, summon nature's ally (much better than summon monster) and gain a few other spells

2nd Divine Bard variant (from SRD) : spells become spontaneous divine spells, dual progression for casting (like a favored soul) so since you only do buff spells and summons you won't need much Charisma

gain: many useful spells, eventually raise dead, restoration and divination are probably the best ones

You now qualify for the feat Ashbound (it also fits roleplay wise despite not being a druid). Your summons last twice as long and gain +3 luck bonus to attack (on top of your music). You also qualify for the Moonspeaker prestige class.

So with all of that in mind

Race: Shifter
Alignment: any Chaotic

STATS (32 pts buy)

STR 8 (depends on your fighting style)
DEX 16 (depends on your fighting style, I'm assuming a ranged type)
CON 16 (as usual, important for anyone)
INT 6 (dump, you get plenty of skillpoints even with a penalty)
WIS 16 (somewhat important, you need 16 to get all your spellcasting)
CHA 12 (no too important, but you can't completely dump it for spellslots)


1 Bard Ashbound
2 Bard
3 Bard Song of the heart
4 Bard
5 Bard
6 Bard Music of Making (spend a song, conjuration time is doubled)
7 Bard
8 Bard inspire courage +2
9 Moonspeaker Wild cohort bonus feat: augment summoning

As for the last feat, I'm not certain what to take if wild cohort isn't allowed.

Basically you summon nature's ally, although with a slower progression than a druid, but you get to use Music of Making to double the time it lasts (basically a free extend spell) on top of Ashbound. You also gain augment summoning without wasting a feat on spell focus.

Your inspire courage gives +3 (with song of the heart) to all your allies (including your cohort and your summons) so you maximise it's effectiveness.

And your basic bard spell list is improved overall.

I knew it was quite a challenge, but this is an astonishingly nice piece of work. There's a whole stew of options in there no one would really expect from a bard - I like that a lot, thanks :)

Btw my barbarian is human, and quite concerned about fatigue. Not quite as concerned as he is about con loss at the end of rage tho, heh.

Not too sure about Survival tho. I was considering the Savage Bard myself, but the Rogue Musketeer concept isn't really too outdoorsy. Is survival required for Ashbound? I suppose it could well be.

Also, where is Moonspeaker from?

Zen Master
2010-02-13, 04:15 PM
Oh, I just remembered.

Are there any ways to get, say, poison use and maybe some SA dice in the mix? It would likely ruin the Ashbound build, but maybe a different approach?

Soranar
2010-02-13, 04:22 PM
I knew it was quite a challenge, but this is an astonishingly nice piece of work. There's a whole stew of options in there no one would really expect from a bard - I like that a lot, thanks :)

Btw my barbarian is human, and quite concerned about fatigue. Not quite as concerned as he is about con loss at the end of rage tho, heh.

Not too sure about Survival tho. I was considering the Savage Bard myself, but the Rogue Musketeer concept isn't really too outdoorsy. Is survival required for Ashbound? I suppose it could well be.

Also, where is Moonspeaker from?

You don't to actually need to spend points in survival, ashbound's only requirement is to be able to spontaneously cast summon nature's ally. It's an Eberron feat.

Moonspeaker is a shifter only PrC that you can find in Race of Eberron

It also makes any metamagic feat, item creation feat and Wild feats count as shifter feats, should you care about those things. Not sure if you need more than 1 level in it, although I think it gives you a fullspellcasting progression.

Bibliomancer
2010-02-13, 04:41 PM
You don't to actually need to spend points in survival, ashbound's only requirement is to be able to spontaneously cast summon nature's ally. It's an Eberron feat.

Moonspeaker is a shifter only PrC that you can find in Race of Eberron

It also makes any metamagic feat, item creation feat and Wild feats count as shifter feats, should you care about those things. Not sure if you need more than 1 level in it, although I think it gives you a fullspellcasting progression.

Shifter feats extend the duration of shifting, which is rarely an issue anyways, since it lasts for far long than combat (average combat length is approximately four rounds in D&D) but is too short for most out of combat applications.

Are you sure that making your spellcasting advancement Wisdom based is a good idea? Its fairly far removed from the Bard fluff and most of the important Bard skills (UMD, Diplomacy, Bluff) depend on Charisma, not Wisdom.

Greenish
2010-02-13, 04:51 PM
Oh, I just remembered.

Are there any ways to get, say, poison use and maybe some SA dice in the mix? It would likely ruin the Ashbound build, but maybe a different approach?You can get Poison Use from the feat Master of Poisons, from Drow of The Underdark (I think). Anyhow, if you want to toy with poisons, this handbook might help you: http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=4854.0

Splendor
2010-02-13, 10:52 PM
You need Lyric Thaumaturge (Complete Mage) or Sublime Chord (Complete Arcane) for better casting, plus Medolic Casting (CMage again) or a harmonizing weapon (MIC) in order to allow casting alongside bardic music.

I always thought the complete books were core, after all they aren't setting specific (any more then the PHB is). As well as non-setting specific stuff from the dragon magazines.


Eberron Bard

Bard are always great, I don't care what anyone says.

If you're not going to be a member of a house aberrant dragon mark is good.
If you're going to chose a House chose Orien. Orien's teleportation powers are always good ways for villains to get out of trouble.

Feats all depend on build
1st Least/Aberrant dragonmark
Human Mark of madness or Heroic Destiny (it's like a free action point 1/day) or Favored in house
3rd Weapon Finesse or Mark of Xoriat or Favored in House
6th Lesser Dragon Mark or Mark of Xoriat
Lose Suggestion and take song of heart
9th Dragon Mark Adept or Leadership

If any prestige class you should shoot for Sublime Cord (for magic), Evangelist (for role-playing), Blade of Orien (for house)

Don't worry about about taking combat feats, besides weapon finesse if you need it. And your favorite pal is the plain ole whip, if trip doesn't work you can always drop it (carry two just in case). Alchemical items always help. Wands always help. Make sure you grab one of those feather fall tokens from the Sharn book incase you need to jump off anything.

Spells: Depends on what you like.
0: Detect Magic, Light, Mending, Presti, Locate City, Mage Hand
1: Cure Light, ID, Comp Lang, Undetectable Alignment, Charm person,
2: Alter Self, Dark Way, Glitterdust, Unseen Crafter,
3: Charm Monster, Glibness, Dispel Magic, Scrying,

Magic items (cheap)
Feather Fall token, Healing Belt, Quaal's Feather token (Tree) and the always favorite Hat of Disguise.

Roleplaying
He may be a villain but that doesn't mean people don't like him. Have him be friends with everyone; laborers, beat cops, bouncers, pick pockets, street urchins, etc.. No matter where he is, he knows someone who's willing to help him out.

deuxhero
2010-02-13, 11:13 PM
Is the stuff from this list (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=1109.0) allowed?

Zen Master
2010-02-14, 04:32 AM
Hm - lots of good suggestions, thanks all.

I think he will be a gnome. Nah, I know he will. Recruited at a young age into the Zilargo intelligence service - what's it called again, The Trust?!

Anyways, he was a rising star until he got into a quarrel with a noble house. Subsequently a number of these nobles were found dead, poisoned. No link was ever established, but our young villain was curtly dismissed.

Since then he has done work as a lawyer in Zilargo and Sharn, while also working up an impressive network of contacts.

Damn I wish I had my books. Darn rp group, bring back my books!

I'm toying with the thought of taking only a single level of bard. Of course I'll lose all the nice spells, but it does seem a lot of effort just to get Inspire Greatness.

Bard1/rogue4/assasin4 ?! Hmmm ....

Eldariel
2010-02-14, 04:38 AM
Bard1/rogue4/assasin4 ?! Hmmm ....

Might as well go straight Rogue at this point; more skill points, extra SA, etc. Bard 1 is really not-an-amazing dip; you have one Bardic Music per day that amounts to +1/+1 all career (you're better off just attacking) and some level 0 spells to show for your troubles. Oh, and Whip-proficiency, but that's not that useful unless it's a BoEF game.

Bard really rewards you for sticking through; all Bardic abilities (Bardic Music, specific Bardic Music-boosts, Bardic Knowledge) are derived off your Bard-level and it gains spellcasting too. And honestly, +3/+3 Inspire Courage isn't all that bad anymore if you have a lot of people doing attacks.


The principal issue with Ashbound is that Summon Nature's Ally...well, Bard's stunted spell level progression doesn't go well with that. Summons really fall behind even if you have the highest level Summon-available, let alone if you gotta use lower level Summons. Flavorful, but not all that efficient.

Zen Master
2010-02-14, 04:51 AM
Might as well go straight Rogue at this point; more skill points, extra SA, etc. Bard 1 is really not-an-amazing dip; you have one Bardic Music per day that amounts to +1/+1 all career (you're better off just attacking) and some level 0 spells to show for your troubles. Oh, and Whip-proficiency, but that's not that useful unless it's a BoEF game.

Bard really rewards you for sticking through; all Bardic abilities (Bardic Music, specific Bardic Music-boosts, Bardic Knowledge) are derived off your Bard-level and it gains spellcasting too. And honestly, +3/+3 Inspire Courage isn't all that bad anymore if you have a lot of people doing attacks.


The principal issue with Ashbound is that Summon Nature's Ally...well, Bard's stunted spell progression doesn't go well with that. Summons really fall behind even if you have the highest level Summon-available, let alone if you gotta use lower level Summons. Flavorful, but not all that efficient.

Um - yea, I know. I know ....

If I did the one level dip, it would be for RP. As someone already said, the problem here is the bard class - it meshes well with the concept I want, but less so with the mechanics I aim for.

He has to use poisons. Of course, he can do that without Poison Use. Also, the GM is almost sure to give me that if I ask him, so never mind.

I also want him to be able to hold his own in combat. That's trickier. Especially since melee is my thing. And d4+2 just doesn't cut it =)

Eldariel
2010-02-14, 04:59 AM
Um - yea, I know. I know ....

If I did the one level dip, it would be for RP. As someone already said, the problem here is the bard class - it meshes well with the concept I want, but less so with the mechanics I aim for.

He has to use poisons. Of course, he can do that without Poison Use. Also, the GM is almost sure to give me that if I ask him, so never mind.

I also want him to be able to hold his own in combat. That's trickier. Especially since melee is my thing. And d4+2 just doesn't cut it =)

Just be a straight Rogue. What's there in Bard's fluff you couldn't just as easily describe as Rogue? Melee Rogue isn't impossible, and if you want some spells, Assassin to the rescue.

Though Bard with some melee combat prowess isn't impossible either, but very hard with your book allotment. You'd basically want a two-hander which just doesn't seem to fit the style you're going for; two-handed fighting is excessively feat intensive.

Splendor
2010-02-14, 08:17 PM
Also if you want to have a good base attack take a look at the Scarlet Corsair prestige class in the Stormwrack book. It has a fighter base attack, 4 skill points/level, sneak attack and gets other abilities.