Fear-Based Bard Question

[sebastianlucre]

Hey guys,
My friends and I are playing 3.5 and I am playing a spoony bard named Sebastian Lucre. I was create a fear-based bard, which would use illusionary magic and bardic music to scare the enemy, hopefully decreasing their abilities, making them lose turns, that sort of thing. A few questions:
1. Are there any prestige classes that would facilitate that sort of thing?
2. What feats would you recommend?
3. Should I multiclass?

Would love to hear your thoughts!

[Boci]

Diresinger is an undead themed bard PrC from libris mortis, it has some fear abilities. I forget if its +0 or -1 tier. I would recomend against multiclassing, but thats just me.

[ffone]

I believe there is a "fear handbook" or "intimidation handbook" you could google for - it's based much more on the Intimidate skill and things that enhance it, as opposed to spells or BM, but it might have some things.

There might be a variant bard somewhere that has Intimidate as a class skill, and one of the main ingredients of an Intimidate build is Zhent Fighter, but it may still be useful. Sometimes fear effects stack for nice results, if your fighter buddy also wants to make use of this - or if bard was only a means to an end, you might consider it.

[Flickerdart]

Diresinger is an undead themed bard PrC from libris mortis, it has some fear abilities. I forget if its +0 or -1 tier. I would recomend against multiclassing, but thats just me.
Dirgesinger is awful. -1? More like -2.

[Lateral]

Fear build? Take Imperious Command and the skill trick Never Outnumbered. Win the game.

[Bang!]

Feats:
Doomspeach from Champions of Ruin that gives a massive (-10) single-target penalty to just about everything for a short time. It's not fear, but it can help your fear effects land.
Haunting Melody from Heroes of Horror Shakens targets with Bardic Music.
Dreadful Wrath from Player's Guide to Faerun is a Regional feat (so it has special restrictions), but it gives an area fear effect when you do pretty much anything near enemies.

Melodic Casting from Complete Mage deserves mention for any bard. It lets you use Bardic Music while casting spells. That means double-dipping in debuff effects.

Variants/Sub Levels:
Gnome Bard Substitution levels from Races of Stone give, among other things, an area fear effect as a Bard song (level 6).
The Harbinger Bard in Dragon #337 replaces its buff songs with debuffs that can help fear effects to land (as well as just generally debuffing).

Prestige Classes:
Dirgesinger from Libris Mortis is made to do what you want, but if you take it, don't expect a power boost. If your group worries about character builds or 'contributions' or any of that noise, you might ask your DM whether you can tack casting progression on at levels 2, 4 and 5. It's still a fun class either way.
Dread Witch from Heroes of Horror is quirky and not really designed for Bards, but it deals with the biggest problem Fear-based characters face: Mind Resistance.
Sublime Chord from Complete Arcane is good for pretty much any Bard archetype. This is no exception. You can grab all sorts of extra spells to do what you want from the Sorcerer list.

Edit:
I looked over at the Fear Handbook, and it has most of the salient parts of what I said and more.
I'm just going to put this link (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3809.0) here for convenience.

[Treblain]

Also Inspire Awe (from Dragon Magic, maybe?), Nightmare Spinner (CM).

All the fear handbook stuff, too. And the metamagic that makes enemies shaken. I'd recommend Dread Witch above all other choices because at 4th level it can use fear effects on fear-immune subjects.

Does Imperious Command work when you're not demoralizing via Intimidate? Bards are probably going to use songs or spells instead, given that Intimidate isn't a class skill.

[ILM]

I think I ran into a level 4 bard spell in HoB the other day, mind-affecting, no save/no SR/no roll, AoE -2 debuff to saves and perhaps other stull. Lemme see if I can find it.

edit: There we go, Drums of War. It does allow SR, but it's also -2 to enemies' attack rolls.

[Feytalist]

Maybe focus on necromancy spells? Spells like scare and fear does what you want.

Also, there are some bard PrC's that play around with fear effect bardic music. I seem to remember the Virtuoso has one such song, but I might be wrong. There's also the Bardic Skald (Skaldic Bard? I always mix that one up) that has like 3 fear-based war chants, in Races of Faerun.