Two Feats + Gear for a Bard 2 / Paladin 3

[Frozen_Feet]

You can see the preliminary sheet for her here. (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=296129) Books that are in use include all of SRD, Completes, Chainmail Bikini and Book of Erotic Fantasy.

Long story short, I'm struggling to find two, usable 1st level feats. I want her to play a supporting role, so something that'd key from Bardic music and boost her allies would be good.

I'm also stumped at my least favorite part of D&D char creation, namely picking equipment. (Also known as Managing Your Bank Account: the Game.) I'm only settled on Wand of Cure Light Wounds for keeping mah party in shape. Standard WBL is in use - that's 9000 GP, 8250 left if my memory serves me right.

[Keld Denar]

I'm assuming you'll have Devoted Performer on there at some point?

Do you plan on casting spells? Melodic Casting is VERY useful, as you don't have to drop your bard song to use magic items or cast spells.

Snowflake Wardance is also useful if you plan on doing fighty stuff, even disarming with a whip. Makes up for your low Str. Devoted Performer stacks Pally and Bard levels for uses/day, so you'll have plenty of uses to power your Wardances.

For gear, a Badge of Valor is pretty awesome. A +2 Cha cloak eats up a goodly portion of your wealth, but gives you +1 to all saves, +1 to most of your skills, and +1 to hit with SFWD.

[Frozen_Feet]

I'm assuming you'll have Devoted Performer on there at some point?
No. These are all Bard and Paladin levels this character will ever take. The boost from Devoted Performer is thus so small as to be insignificant. I'm confident there are better feats out there.


Do you plan on casting spells? Melodic Casting is VERY useful, as you don't have to drop your bard song to use magic items or cast spells.

This is solid gold, I must say. Though the actual caster part of the build would come so late that I don't think it'll be hugely influential for the coming game, I can definitely see it being useful. Thanks.


Snowflake Wardance is also useful if you plan on doing fighty stuff, even disarming with a whip. Makes up for your low Str.

Alas, due to its prerequisites I don't think the Wardance will be usable for this character. Overall, I don't see her doing enough close combat for it to be worth it.


For gear, a Badge of Valor is pretty awesome. A +2 Cha cloak eats up a goodly portion of your wealth, but gives you +1 to all saves, +1 to most of your skills, and +1 to hit with SFWD.
Where is Badge of Valor from? Cloak of Charisma is something to consider, I'll put it down in my notes.

[Keld Denar]

Badge of Valor is from the Magic Item Compendium.

I don't have a whole lot of other suggestions atm, sorry.

[Vangor]

Unfortunately, little exists to actually supplement bardic music early on aside from additional uses, maximizing perform checks, or dragonfire inspiration. DFI, though, is rather useful, giving your party, with a badge and the spell inspirational boost, +3d6 fire damage on all attacks. Combine with knowledge devotion to receive a nice bonus to your own attack abilities with little effort.

If you are not using those initial feats, do you need to be a human?

[Frozen_Feet]

Those 8 bonus skillpoints a human gets amount to one more maxed skill, so I'm not keen on switching. I've not thought much about it, however, so if you can think of solid 0 LA, 0 RHD choices that'd outdo a feat and 8 skillpoints, feel free to point me at it.

[CapnVan]

Re: Devoted Performer


No. These are all Bard and Paladin levels this character will ever take. The boost from Devoted Performer is thus so small as to be insignificant. I'm confident there are better feats out there.

Can you give us an idea of where you're headed next? Devoted Performer is sort of the basic bardadin feat, so a better idea of the concept would be helpful. It looks like you may be heading the sexy stealthy skill-monkey route, which leaves me wondering what the point of the pally levels is...

[Frozen_Feet]

Sacred Prostitute 5 ---> Sublime Chord 10. Mechanically, point of the Pally levels is a) Cha to saves, b) immunity to disease and c) immunity to Fear. Otherwise, it's there to explain the religious background for the following Prestige Class.

[holywhippet]

That build is kind of questionable - am I to assume your character started as a bard then changed alignments? Bards cannot be of a lawful alignment. On the flipside you could be chaotic good and be a bard/paladin of freedom.

[Frozen_Feet]

Bards don't lose class features for being Lawful, they just can't advance more as Bards - which is a moot point, since the character won't be taking any more levels of Bard. Sublime Chord has no such clause, so staying Lawful Good is not a problem either.

It should be noted that Devoted Performer, the feat that allows multi-classing between Bard and Paladin, requires both Smite and Bardic music. So even for that feat, you have to start as Neutral Good Bard and later become a Lawful Good Paladin, barring some ridiculously complicated shenanigans.

[Keld Denar]

I'd at least get Pal4. It gives turn undead, a very useful ability. You can use it to power all kinds of useful feats and abilities. You aren't ever gonna actually turn an undead, but the ability to do so has tons of other uses.

[Rei_Jin]

Two handy feats for your PC to gain at level one, that work off Bardsong?

Perhaps Extra Music (Complete Adventurer) and Warning Shout (Complete Scoundrel) so that you can give an ally of your choice +5 to Reflex Saves and Evasion as an immediate action, when you burn 2 Bardsong uses. Could be very handy.

Alternatively, for your first Prestige Class, Epic of the Lost King allows you to remove Fatigue or Exhaustion from yourself and allies... could be useful.

[Optimator]

Disguise Spellcasting is cool if you think it will come up. Most people couldn't make the spot check if they tried. Actually, it's a 6th level feat, not first.

[Diarmuid]

I dont remember the reqs so this may not be viable, but Words of Creation works nicely with Bard Song, though I dont know if the boost will be big enough with only a few Bard levels under your belt.

[Tyndmyr]

Badge of Valor is from the Magic Item Compendium.

I don't have a whole lot of other suggestions atm, sorry.

It's a solid one.

The chars LG, so words of creation is viable. Be aware that utilizing it deals you non-lethal damage. If you use certain song boosts, this can be a very significant amount of damage.

Lingering Song is solid. Ensure that you only ever need to spend a single round playing.

Subsonics is interesting...stealthy music. Play the song of stealth.

I note you have paladin levels in there. Unusual, but hey, From Smite to Song(champions of valor) lets you convert smites to Inspire courage uses. And also makes paladin levels count as bard levels for inspire courage. This is probably a pretty solid feat for your build.

Check out Initiates of Milil, same book if you want those levels to stack for determining what bard songs you can use. Taking both essentially means you can continue taking pally/other levels instead of bard....while still singing as a straight classed bard. The only down side is no bard casting. Oh, look, Sublime Chord. Downsides?

Song of the Heart from Eberron Campaign setting gives you +1 to your Inspire courage. Combined with the badge of valor, Inspirational Boost and words of creation, it is fantastic.

Vest of Legends will soak pretty much all yer gold(DMG 2), but it lets you count as +5 bard levels for music. This usually means another +1 to inspire courage.

Complete Adventurer has a variety of masterwork instruments that are fairly inexpensive.

From dragon magic, DFI is a classic. It requires you be dragonborn, though. Typically, Dragontouched or Draconic heritage are the ways to get this.

I feel like there was a feat for +5 bardic levels for music too..but from dragon. Can't for the life of me remember it.

[Keld Denar]

Songs of the Heart, while amazing, requires 3 Bard levels which the OP does not have. You need to have Inspire Competance, which comes at Bard3. Unless you take 3 bard levels or find some way to fake it REALLY hard, its out of the question.