Doomspeak Feat

[Tyger]

Or, "How long is 1 round?"

If you use Doomspeak (Champions of Ruin) to impose the penalty for one round, does that penalty extend to the end of your next turn?

So on round one, the bard uses Doomspeak, and the target fails it save. Then the rest of the party gets all their advantages. Next round on the bard's turn, is the victim still under the effects, so that the Dominate Person/Charm Monster/Fugue/Whatever effect the bard wants to do still gets the benefit?

[Claudius Maximus]

No, it ends right before you act again. Your allies get to hammer him though.

[Person_Man]

Claudius is correct. If you want to act while Doomspeak is in effect, you basically need to use Celerity, Time Stop, Cunning Surge, etc.

[Tyger]

Dang... that's what I thought.

So, other than Celerity (which I can't use just yet) or Time Stop (which I won't be able to use until 19th level), what options are there???

Cunning Surge? What's this? Where might I find it?

Sources for spells are PHBII, PHB, and SpC. Feats are wide open, save Dragon Magazine stuff. Classes are pretty restricted, by personal choice (character is a Bard 9 / Mindbender 1 / Sublime Chord 2), but open to the same choices as the feats.

Help! Really wanted to take advantage of this.

[Ernir]

Cunning Surge? What's this? Where might I find it?

Factotum class feature, Dungeonscape. Not very useful to your character.

Can you Quicken spells? I suppose you could Doomspeak someone, then cast a quickened spell at them.

But really, this isn't a feat easily used for solo action. =/

[Pechvarry]

The Seeker of the Song Iron Chef tournament showcased some very clever usage. See, the feat doesn't list a usage time, but since it's effectively a bardic music, folk assume it defaults to bardic music usage (a standard action).

Normally, that ruling works against players, but Seeker of the Song gets Subvocalize: the ability to start a song effect as a swift action. Inheritance is fun.

[Akal Saris]

Depending on the item rules in your game, a Belt of Battle from the Magic Item compendium is 12K and could give you another full round (or standard and later a move) 1/day.

[Tyger]

Ah yes, the Belt of Battle, which I have told the DM is a bad idea.... dang.

Celerity could be possible though - I get another 4th level spell in 247 XP... Hmmm.

[herrhauptmann]

Doomspeak- Holy crap, that thing is awesome. And it's just your character level. You don't need more than one level in bard.
http://www.giantitp.com/Images/GuestWeek2005/oots0306.gif

[Person_Man]

The Pounce and Free Movement thread (check my signature) includes most of the ways to get extra actions. You can also use Obtain Familiar to get a Familiar, which can hold the charge of a touch attack spell indefinitely until you cast another spell. Thus you can pre-charge it before combat, cast Doomspeak on your enemy (which is Supernatural Bardic Music, not a spell) and then have your Familiar deliver a touch spell which will usually succeed unless it rolls a 1ish on it's attack roll or the target rolls a 20ish on it's Save. But in most cases, the best tactic is to just partner with another caster.

[herrhauptmann]

Ya know, after all those 'Stat Drizzt/Elminster' threads, I was wondering how to stat some of the characters from the Erevis Cale books.
It seemed most appropriate that many of them were already mid-leveled characters, but that the two main characters, in addition to gaining normal levels, were also becoming gestalt. Say level 12 on one side of their progression, but only Cleric 3 on the other side of their progression. It's really the only thing that made sense, unless they went from level 10 to the high 20s over the course of just 3 novels.

Anyway, one of the things that was bothering me was Riven's "Dark Speech" something with that name exists in the BoVD, but didn't really seem to match Riven's use of it in the books. Now, I think he had gained the Doomspeak feat as a gift from Mask.
I'm still wondering what his other powers were. Like using shadowstuff to enchant his swords, or heal himself and others.