[4e] King of All Trades: Worth Playing?

[raitalin]

So I managed to create a 4e Bard with all skills trained by 14th level, the question is: Is it worth playing?
I've got a lot of nifty abilities, but I'm having a little trouble seeing where they fit together, especially since I've only got access to the Character Generator right now.

I know the ability scores aren't optimal, but they're where I needed them to be in order to qualify for the necessary multiclass feats, so I don't have much wiggle room there. And I can't change the feats/path unless it for a different feat/path that provides a trained skill.

The powers are best guess taking advantage of the fact that I can use a long sword as an implement (assuming I'm reading Heart of the Blade in its entirety), so they're where I'm looking for the most suggestions.
jack, level 14
Human, Bard, Malec-Keth Janissary
Bardic Virtue: Virtue of Prescience
Pact Initiate: Pact Initiate (fey pact)
Devshirme Training: Gain Training in a skill
Background: Breland (+2 to Diplomacy)

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 15, Con 14, Dex 12, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 22.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 13, Con 11, Dex 11, Int 13, Wis 13, Cha 16.


AC: 24 Fort: 22 Reflex: 24 Will: 27
HP: 91 Surges: 9 Surge Value: 22

TRAINED SKILLS
Stealth +13, Dungeoneering +14, Arcana +14, Streetwise +18, Bluff +18, Diplomacy +20, Heal +14, Insight +14, Religion +14, Intimidate +18, History +14, Thievery +13, Endurance +14, Nature +14, Perception +14, Acrobatics +13, Athletics +14

UNTRAINED SKILLS


FEATS
Bard: Ritual Caster
Divine Secretkeeper: Alchemist
Human: Cutthroat
Level 1: Pact Initiate
Level 2: Disciple of Divine Wrath
Level 4: Bravo
Level 6: Divine Secretkeeper
Level 8: Poisoner
Level 10: Heart of the Blade
Level 11: Initiate of the Old Faith
Level 12: Berserker's Fury
Level 14: Battle Awareness

POWERS
Bard at-will 1: War Song Strike
Bard at-will 1: Guiding Strike
Bonus At-Will Power: Misdirected Mark
Initiate of the Old Faith: Swarming Locusts
Bard encounter 1: Prophesied Strike
Bard daily 1: Verse of Triumph
Bard utility 2: Moment of Escape
Bard encounter 3: Cunning Ferocity
Bard daily 5: Word of Mystic Warding
Bard utility 6: Haggle
Bard encounter 7: Scorpion's Claw Strike
Bard daily 9: Hideous Laughter
Bard utility 10: Tactician's Measure
Bard encounter 13: Couplet of Deceptive Weakness (replaces Prophesied Strike)

[Kurald Galain]

So I managed to create a 4e Bard with all skills trained by 14th level, the question is: Is it worth playing?
Worth playing? Sure. Powerful, however, it's really not.

As the saying goes, "jack of all trades, master of none". It is better, in 4E at least, to excel at a few things, than to be above average in everything.

In many cases, the party member who is best at the skill is going to make pretty much all the checks: this often applies to e.g. knowledge, thievery, and perception. It generally doesn't matter how high your thievery is as long as there is a party member that does it better.

In many other cases, you can avoid doing things you're not good at by focusing on the things you are good at. In town and no streetwise skill? No problem, try using bluff instead. Got no acrobatics? Try an endurance stunt. Not subtle enough for insight? Use intimidate, or vice versa. And so on.


To be the king of all trades, I'd use another route. Use any intelligence-based arcane class, and take the Arcane Muttering skill power. Now you can use arcana checks instead of social checks. Grab yourself a teleport power (e.g. by being eladrin, crystal thingy, or shadar-kai) and use this whenever you need to climb, jump, or swim something. Go from there.

[LibraryOgre]

I had a similar character. He was hella fun.

[Nightson]

level 14
Human, Bard, Jack-of-All-Trades
Bardic Virtue: Virtue of Cunning

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 11, Con 11, Dex 11, Int 18, Wis 10, Cha 24.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 10, Con 10, Dex 10, Int 14, Wis 9, Cha 18.


AC: 21 Fort: 18 Reflex: 23 Will: 26
HP: 88 Surges: 7 Surge Value: 22

TRAINED SKILLS
Streetwise +23, Arcana +20, Athletics +21, Acrobatics +21, History +20, Nature +16, Stealth +14

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Bluff +20, Diplomacy +20, Dungeoneering +13, Endurance +13, Heal +13, Insight +13, Intimidate +20, Perception +13, Religion +17, Thievery +13

FEATS
Bard: Ritual Caster
Human: Bard of All Trades
Level 1: Bardic Knowledge
Level 2: Twilight Adept
Level 4: Duelist's Panache

POWERS

ITEMS
Ritual Book


No items, powers or background picked and a bunch of feats still left to take. If skills were the primary thing you wanted to get high this build will perform better, but if you liked the idea of dabbling in all the classes then it's obviously worse.

[Kylarra]

As implied in the post above this, with your normal +1 to untrained and bard of all trades, you'd be sitting at +4 all untrained skills, and have all but 1 feat slot free for whatever usage you want.

[Chainsaw Hobbit]

It looks worth playing, you can kinda bee the party's "utility belt".