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Rasman
2011-01-20, 04:43 AM
Being inspired by the new race options in the PF Bestiary 2, I became RATHER interested in making a Dhampir of some sort. With their bonuses to Dex and Cha, my first thought was Sorcerer, but considering how "charming" a Vampire can be, Bard just seemed to fit the bill. Thinking about how dark and foreboding a character of this nature could be, I remembered the Dirgesinger PrC I'd seen in Libris Mortis about a year ago. Seeing as it's only a 5 level PrC, is it worth losing 5 levels of casting, which I know it almost never is, or is there a way to optimize this Dark and Depressing class?

Gabe the Bard
2011-01-20, 05:28 AM
It depends on what kind of concept you're going for. It could make an okay debuffer. Since dirgesinger gives you Intimidate as a class skill, you could pick up Doomspeak much sooner. If you want to have hordes of vampire spawn and undead minions boosted by your bardic music, you could go into Sublime Chord after a few levels of Dirgesinger and pick up Animate Dead and Create Undead as known spells.

Rasman
2011-01-20, 06:02 AM
It depends on what kind of concept you're going for. It could make an okay debuffer. Since dirgesinger gives you Intimidate as a class skill, you could pick up Doomspeak much sooner. If you want to have hordes of vampire spawn and undead minions boosted by your bardic music, you could go into Sublime Chord after a few levels of Dirgesinger and pick up Animate Dead and Create Undead as known spells.

hmm...I'd only toyed with the idea of the race and class...I failed to consider the concept...shame on me...

Sublime Chord seems interesting, I'd never actually looked at the class, but heard about it a lot. Any other suggestions, perhaps?

I'm not sure I want him as a "Necromancer" but the idea of wanting to surpass his Father in terms of being a Vampire when he's only a half blood is interesting.

Gabe the Bard
2011-01-20, 10:21 AM
Sublime chords can get ninth-level spells, so they are a good general choice if you're interested in going for a more arcane character, whether or not you want a necromancer specifically. Even if you want a more melee-focused character, they could still be a good option since they'll have access to higher-level arcane buffs, like the Bite of the X series. Unlike most prestige classes, they have their own spell progression that starts from 4th-level spells rather than just increasing the bard's spellcasting, so you wouldn't necessarily lose too much if you have some levels of Dirgesinger in between.

If you want a more martial character and don't care about spellcasting, you could go with a warchanter instead. They have some nice buffs for your allies, or potentially your vampire spawn. Their Combine Songs ability lets you use two bardic music abilities with a single action. And their final bardic music ability gives all your allies the attack bonus of the person with the highest BAB in your group.

If you would rather not deal with animating or creating undead minions, you could take the undead leadership feat (also from Libris Mortis) and attract a bunch of undead followers. You could even have an undead cohort that you could buff with all your nice bardic inspirations. Actually, that might be more in line with your idea, especially if your character's ambition includes becoming the leader of a mighty vampire cabal to rival that of his father.

Rasman
2011-01-21, 07:41 AM
Sublime chords can get ninth-level spells, so they are a good general choice if you're interested in going for a more arcane character, whether or not you want a necromancer specifically. Even if you want a more melee-focused character, they could still be a good option since they'll have access to higher-level arcane buffs, like the Bite of the X series. Unlike most prestige classes, they have their own spell progression that starts from 4th-level spells rather than just increasing the bard's spellcasting, so you wouldn't necessarily lose too much if you have some levels of Dirgesinger in between.

If you want a more martial character and don't care about spellcasting, you could go with a warchanter instead. They have some nice buffs for your allies, or potentially your vampire spawn. Their Combine Songs ability lets you use two bardic music abilities with a single action. And their final bardic music ability gives all your allies the attack bonus of the person with the highest BAB in your group.

If you would rather not deal with animating or creating undead minions, you could take the undead leadership feat (also from Libris Mortis) and attract a bunch of undead followers. You could even have an undead cohort that you could buff with all your nice bardic inspirations. Actually, that might be more in line with your idea, especially if your character's ambition includes becoming the leader of a mighty vampire cabal to rival that of his father.

Ah. I see what you mean about Sublime Chord now, I never would have picked up on that if you hadn't actually said it D:

I don't really want him to be a melee type, I've done a LOT of those and would prefer a more "finesse over power" type character.

I think I should have been more clear when I said "surpass his father." I don't necessarily want him to be a better Vampire than his father, but he wants to become something that isn't feared, but rather relied upon. The concept class wise would be more inline with Malconvoker, I suppose.

JaronK
2011-01-21, 08:47 AM
Dirgesinger works quite well with the Inspire Awe variant in Dragon Magic, which gives your music a REALLY nasty fear effect (save vs your perform check or be shaken as long as they can hear the music, which when combined with Imperious Command makes enemies cower indefinitely). Add in Haunting Melody and even undead are running away frightened.

You'll want to be undead so that when using Song of Awakening you can keep whatever minion it was up indefinitely. Also, consider Focused Performance (spend three uses of Bardic Music to have two Bardic Musics going simultaneously, allowing you to keep something awakened while using other music. You need to make a really high perform check to keep this going, so you'll want to optimize that... but you were doing that for Inspire Awe anyway), Metamagic Song (spend Bardic Music uses instead of increased spell levels when doing metamagic), and Blasphemous Utterance (enemies with more HD than you are shaken, save DC is Charisma based, stacks with Haunting Melody and Inspire Awe so that you can panic even undead thanks to Requiem).

Some basic fun builds: Inspire Awe Bard 5/Dirgesinger 5/Sublime Chord 10, if you wanted to be a full caster. Inspire Awe Bard/Dirgesinger 5/Dishonorable Dread Pirate 10 if you want to be more fear based, though you only actually need 5 levels of DP to get their really fun fear ability. Inspire Awe Bard 5/Dirgesinger 5/Warchanter 10 if you want to have potent minions, though in that case try to have a Kensai in the group for some serious abuse, and note that since Warchanter requires Inspire Courage you'd have to take the first level of Bard twice (use UA Divine Bard 1 with Inspire Awe for your first level, and your second level will be standard Bard 1. UA allows this when the variants are sufficiently different).

JaronK

gorfnab
2011-01-21, 02:31 PM
Inspire Awe Bard 5/Dirgesinger 5/Sublime Chord 10,

Sublime Chord has a prereq of being able to cast 3rd level spells. So unless you're using Versatile, Heighten, Sanctum or some other mild cheese this build is not legal.

JaronK
2011-01-21, 04:14 PM
Sublime Chord has a prereq of being able to cast 3rd level spells. So unless you're using Versatile, Heighten, Sanctum or some other mild cheese this build is not legal.

Right, you'd need to cheese it a bit to actually get in.

JaronK

gorfnab
2011-01-22, 12:54 AM
A more necromancer themed bard build would be:
Bard 7/ Diresinger 2/ Pale Master 1/ Sublime Chord 1/ Pale Master 9 (or Sublime Chord 2/ Pale Master 8 if you want Song of Arcane Power) - requires Requiem and Arcane Disciple (CD): Necromancer Domain (ECS)

Rasman
2011-01-23, 08:14 PM
Sublime Chord has a prereq of being able to cast 3rd level spells. So unless you're using Versatile, Heighten, Sanctum or some other mild cheese this build is not legal.

I am not opposed to cheese...go ooonnnnnnn