Bard in a tough campaign

[Varis]

Having gone through the boards here, I have found some great info on builds. The devil does lie in the details however and I'm a lil bard in a campaign run by a DM disturbingly talented at combat. He tones down tactics with ogres for example, but if we fight something with an above average int, we fight for our lives... vs low CR stuff in mundane gear...

He is also taking it easy on us until we get to 9th level, so we have some time to work on our party tactics. We are getting close to 8th level so I'm looking to get ready.

A Bards power is his versatility so I wanted to make a compromise between a Sublime Chord and a Warblade. That settled me on a Lyric Thaumaturge.

I picked out spells but I'm stuck on the final choice in feats. Do I focus on Sonic Might? Or build on raising the DC for crowd control spells?

I'm a chaotic good human
base stats are str:10, dex:18, con:14, int:10, wis:10, cha:18
skills: mundane and prereq stuff. Of note is a good Hide, MS and UMD
feats so far:
1st: Point blank shot
1st: Rapid shot
3rd: Retributive Spell
6th: Melodic Casting
9th: ?
12th: ?
15th ?
18th: ?

Spells: (last one on the list is always the bonus wizard/sorcerer spell)

level 1
- Improvisation
- Inspirational Boost
- Expeditious Retreat
- Invis, Swift
- Accelerate movement
- Shield

level 2
- Soundburst
- Hold Person
- Sonic Weapon
- Invisibility
- Cure Moderate Wounds
- Wings of cover

level 3
- Creaking Cacophony
- Wounding Whispers
- Ray of Dizziness
- Glibness
- Fly
- Sound Lance

level 4
- Ray Deflection
- Celerity
- Spell Enhancer
- Greater Mirror Image
- Sirene's Grace
- Ruin Delvers Fortune

level 5
- Greater Heroism
- Boreal Wind
- Dragonsight
- Cacophonic burst
- Incite Riot
- Moonbow

level 6
- Snowsong
- Otto's Irresistable Dance
- Animate Objects
- Charm Monster – Mass
- Freezing Glance


I need to stand up to a very large variety of tough encounters. The DM won't hesitate to use stuff like stun ray and avasculate at higher levels.

The rest of the party consists of a druid, a ranger, a barbarian and a rogue/wiz


feel free to critique the build and suggest feats for me to round off the bard.

Some thoughts I had were rapid metamagic->energy sub:elec->born of 3 thunders to play with sonic might...

or perhaps more along the lines of spell focus, greater spell focus and enchanting song?

mess around with improved familiar and related feats?

even taking spell thesis + easy metamagic came to mind for a stronger cacophonic burst spell?

gah... perhaps I'm overthinking things =(

[Flickerdart]

Cheesing out Inspire Courage with Dragonfire Inspiration will be to your benefit here - the Druid can Wildshape and the Wizard can Polymorph into beasties with a ton of attacks, and get Dragonfire dice on each one. If the Ranger is TWF, he will have a good amount of attacks with no bonus damage, too, and the Barbarian, provided that he took Spirit Lion Totem, will be hitting with full attacks on a charge, so he'll be multiplying those dice as well.

[ZeroNumerous]

Cheesing out Inspire Courage with Dragonfire Inspiration will be to your benefit here ...

And on top of that, using Heightened to 6th level Chained(via rod) Sonic Weapon will grant everyone an additional 7d6 damage that stacks with the Fire damage from DFI. Nick Heighten, Weapon Finesse, Dragonfire Inspiration and Snowflake Wardance and you can provide buffs on top of fighting very well. I would also suggest retraining Point Blank/Precise Shot if you go this route.

Alternatively, if you'd prefer to be more caster in nature: Get Heighten, Rapid Metamagic and any two other metamagic feats you like. Throw around buffs, shoot people with Sound Lance and the like.

As for familiars: Don't bother. Your familiar is going to be terrible unless you go full Sublime Chord(Bard 6/Lyric Thaumaturge 3/Virtuoso 1/Sublime Chord 1/Virtuoso +9 or Bard 6/Lyric Thaumaturge 5/Sublime Chord 9). Familiars only really become awesome if you can nick some way of giving them spells.

[Pluto]

Familiars only really become awesome if you can nick some way of giving them spells.
That's crazy. He could get a friendly toad that could both out-scout and out-diplomance just about anything.
And that would just be nifty.

But given the circumstances, I'd probably go with either Words of Creation from BoED (which is just ridiculous and Exalted, but fantastic if you can both use and stomach it) or Darkstalker from LoM (kind of boring, but if stealth is what you do, you should probably do it really well).