Feat Advice 3.5 Druid/Bard

[Starrydance]

Hello!

Im so lost in feats, I can never pick them! My character is:

Level 13
Strength: 9 (-1)
Dexterity : 10
Constitution: 10
Intelligence: 14 (+2)
Wisdom: 18 (+4)
Charisma: 20 (+5)

Bard - 4 levels
Rogue - 2 levels
Druid - 4 levels
Fochlucan Lyrist - 3 levels (Seen here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20050107a&page=2)

Current Feats:
Melodic Casting (Make Perform Checks instead of Concentration Checks)
Hymnist (Perform is always a Class Skill for you. Receive your Wisdom Mod as a bonus to all Perform Checks)
Natural Spell

I tend toward casting, healing and occasional blasting away. Rarely ever melee, but now that I have wild-ish shape - in a very homebrew way - I might start slinging some paws.

I only have one wild shape I have access to - so any of those 'more shape' feats dont apply.

I was eyeing either the (with DM approval) the very-off core "Fey Blood" feat that allowed CHA to be your spell-based casting stat. So bard and druid would both cast off CHA.

Maybe Nymphs Kiss? Also with approval.

Or go ahead and get Augment Summoning/Greenbound Summoning.

Or something Im totally missing that Im 'supposed to have'.

Thank you for any help!

[Fouredged Sword]

I would take gain familiar, then go Arcane Herophant. Now you can pull out the druid and bard casting even further. Also your animal companion and familiar become one creature and stack benifits. This turns out to be a good thing, as your animal companion is a big powerful monster, and now it is smart and thus knows as many tricks as you want it to.

[TooManyBadgers]

I'd avoid summoning with that build. You're already 6 levels behind with your summons, and they're often pretty squishy in the first place.

What sources can you use?

Since you're dumpster-diving pretty deep for Fey Blood, I'm going to assume you have a bit of leeway in materials.

One way to make a Bard especially useful is to boost Inspire Courage for all you're worth. It's actually fairly easy to do, and fairly independent of actual class levels.

I'm just going to take the relevant portions out of a thread on the topic (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19869994/Bard_Inspire_Courage_Optimization):

Feats

Direct Improvements to Inspire Courage

Song of the Heart (ECS, pg. 60): Bonus granted by your music increases by +1.

Dragonfire Inspiration (Dragon Magic). Convert inspire courage bonuses to elemental damage depending on dragon type.

Words of Creation (BoED, pg. 48). Get DM approval. Doubles bonus from bardic music effects, but you take subdual damage.

Other feats for bardic music
...
Melodic Casting (CM, pg. 44): Replace Concentration with Perform. Cast spells/use items while maintaining bardic music.
...

Lingering Song (CA, pg. 111): Bardic Music lasts 1 minute after you stop playing.

...

Spells

Inspirational Boost (Spell Compendium, pg. 124): +1 to inspire courage. Can be used during the start of bardic music for longer lasting effect.

Equipment

Vest of Legends (DMG II, pg. 272). Bonus to Diplomacy and Perform. Treated as a bard of higher level for bardic music bonuses.

Badge of Valor (MIC, pg. 208). Bonus on Charm or Fear saves. Or +1 to inspire courage. Either 3/day.

...

Harmonizing Weapon (MIC). Bonus on Perform checks and the weapon maintains the bardic music, allowing you to cast spells or activate items.
...


You might also want Practiced Spellcaster (CArcane) for CL-reliant spells like the ever-fantastic Improvisation from the Spell Compendium

Depending on how much melee you do and how high your knowledge skills are (or how high they can be, once spell and item bonuses are accounted for), you might be able to get some use out of Knowledge Devotion, from Complete Champion. It gives scaling insight bonuses to attack and damage, which can get pretty scary in forms like big cats and certain dinosaurs.

Many similar builds do well to either:
1.Take the Feat Rogue (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#rogue) variant from Unearthed Arcana that replaces the Rogue's sneak attack with Fighter bonus feat progression.
=or=
2.Take the Craven feat from Champions of Ruin. It adds your class level to sneak attack damage [but it gives a penalty v. fear effects and disappears if you sit at a Heroes Feast. With optimized Inspire Courage and a good Will Save, that's not a very big tradeoff]. It typically generates quite a bit of damage.

[Starrydance]

Ah, Song of the Heart is very nice.

Im a fan of the group-buff type spells the bard has access to - Thats a majority of my 'struggle' with this multiclass option is there are just not enough combat rounds to set everything up.

I didnt even use Summoning til the last game and while yes, they are mostly fodder it was better than us taking those hits!

[Zaq]

Have you actually made this character yet? If not, you could take Shape Soulmeld (Impulse Boots) and Open Least Chakra (Feet), both from the excellent Magic of Incarnum. Doing so would mean that your feet slot is now accounted for (so no boots of haste, for example), but you would get uncanny dodge and, more importantly, evasion, which is a prerequisite for FL. Doing this means that you could drop Rogue from your build entirely, freeing up two crucial levels that are kind of holding you back. Seems worth it to me.

[Starrydance]

Have you actually made this character yet? If not, you could take Shape Soulmeld (Impulse Boots) and Open Least Chakra (Feet), both from the excellent Magic of Incarnum. Doing so would mean that your feet slot is now accounted for (so no boots of haste, for example), but you would get uncanny dodge and, more importantly, evasion, which is a prerequisite for FL. Doing this means that you could drop Rogue from your build entirely, freeing up two crucial levels that are kind of holding you back. Seems worth it to me.

Yes, been playin her for over a year now =3 Too late to go back sadly!

[Sinfonian]

Edit: Didn't read as thoroughly as I thought in the first place.

[Demons_eye]

I was eyeing either the (with DM approval) the very-off core "Fey Blood" feat that allowed CHA to be your spell-based casting stat. So bard and druid would both cast off CHA.



Here's the link. (http://www.giantitp.com/articles/3CsX278ZDGQQ62al3RP.html)

I think she knows.

I suggest Animal bond or what ever it is called that gives you 3 bonus levels of druids for your animal companion. Restricted to your HD.

[Sinfonian]

My mistake, I skipped over that in the original post.

[Starrydance]

No worries, I know lots of people roll high level characters.

Im thinking of going with Song of the Heart (that just rocks!) and maybe Craven if my new Wild Shape stats are up to actually hitting things. =3

[Roc Ness]

Song of Growth: Gain a new usage for your bard song. All plants and animals that can hear this song gain a +4 enhancement bonus to Str and Con. With Song of the Heart, this becomes +6. Now combine with the Leader of the Pack feat, if you have an animal companion and Fey Blood was allowed. >_>

Also, what race are you? Half-elves get some ever useful social feats, and other races definitely get their own useful feats.

Also, could I suggest an animal companion? Chordevoc. Little birdie with blindsense. Always useful even without a bumper-load of hit-die. :smallbiggrin:

[Starrydance]

Song of Growth: Gain a new usage for your bard song. All plants and animals that can hear this song gain a +4 enhancement bonus to Str and Con. With Song of the Heart, this becomes +6. Now combine with the Leader of the Pack feat, if you have an animal companion and Fey Blood was allowed. >_>

Also, what race are you? Half-elves get some ever useful social feats, and other races definitely get their own useful feats.

Also, could I suggest an animal companion? Chordevoc. Little birdie with blindsense. Always useful even without a bumper-load of hit-die. :smallbiggrin:

Im a full elf, but its a DM-made world so a lot of those elf/region feats would take some fancy footwork to convince him. Of course I was gonna ask for Fey Blood SO... *grins*

I will go look both of those feats up now, thank you! Due to the made world and other destiny things Im 'stuck' with my current awesome animal companion.

Of course now I gotta figure out how Grapple works, and learn more about melee combat. Im almost always a pure caster that just blasts from the back =3

-- I found Music of Growth. Does that count toward animal summons? Thats basically the same as Augment summoning with maybe more bonus without the lost Spell focus feat.

No luck at google'fuing Leader of the Pack. *keeps looking*

[Leon]

I would take gain familiar, then go Arcane Herophant.

You don't actually Need a Familiar, just the arcane casting capability (and thus the potential to have one if you so chose)

[Roc Ness]

Im a full elf, but its a DM-made world so a lot of those elf/region feats would take some fancy footwork to convince him. Of course I was gonna ask for Fey Blood SO... *grins*

I'm not sure about region feats, but elf feats should be the right of all elves out there...


I will go look both of those feats up now, thank you! Due to the made world and other destiny things Im 'stuck' with my current awesome animal companion.

Of course now I gotta figure out how Grapple works, and learn more about melee combat. Im almost always a pure caster that just blasts from the back =3

Your current companion is awesome? Then that's good enough. XD Grapple is pretty easy once you've tried it a bit.


-- I found Music of Growth. Does that count toward animal summons? Thats basically the same as Augment summoning with maybe more bonus without the lost Spell focus feat.

Yes it does! And to plant summons too, if you manage to summon a treant or a shambler.


No luck at google'fuing Leader of the Pack. *keeps looking*

It's in the the same place you found Fey Blood. (I.E. In the Fey Druids page in the Gaming Section of this Site. :smallbiggrin:)

[Rad]

I'm surprised nobody already suggested Natural Spell? EDIT: Rolled a natural 1 on my untrained spot check.
I am partial for the Arcane Hierophant anyway; you would only lose bardic music uses, but gain a lot on the wildshape and companion side.
By the way, if your DM was giving some wildshape for free anyway, if you take a class that advances it, would he advance the bardic music uses instead?

[DanReiv]

Maybe because she took it already ? :p

Annddd a word on that. Why take it ?

1st technically you can't, it has wildshape as a prerequesite, which you don't have yet being only druid 4.

Also, Fochlucan Lyrist doesn't advance wildshape, meaning you'll never get to wildshape anyway, so it's basically an useless feat and I'm surprised nobody catched that yet :smallwink:

+1 to Animal bond otherwise your companion will be next to useless. Also maybe redo the build entirely :p

edit : oups didn't saw the homebrew shape, but even with that, not sure it's worth it. I like the idea of getting this pesky evasion prereq through incarnum feat, I feel bard4/druid5/FL4 will be a bit better.

Also, you don't get a lot for the druidic side with this PrC, you might want to play with the UA Divine Bard (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#bardVariantDivineBard) (spells are divine) and CHA-based arcane caster.

Divine Bard3/Sorc6/FL4 with Shape Soulmeld (Impulse Boots), Open Least Chakra (Feet) and the Fey Heritage line of feats. 5th level sorc spells, 3rd level bard spells, 7th level bardic music, not too bad.