[PF] Bard help + Party help!

[blackseven]

So, there's a new campaign starting, level 2, Pathfinder (don't know which books for sure, other than Core and Adv. Player's Guide.)

The rest of the party is a Cleric, Monk, and Fighter (and maybe a Druid.) Most of them are new players, one person with some 2nd Ed experience. I'm by far the most experienced.

I am making the Fighter for my wife (focused on damage - basic Greatsword build, need to keep it simple!) I know the skills of the Cleric and Monk, but nothing else about their builds.

The Cleric has some Diplomacy and sense motive, but it looks like we could use a party Face. The Monk has no Stealth, and also we're lacking an Arcane Caster.

I was thinking of using the Bard to cover most of these areas as best I can. I was looking at the Detective variant from the Adv. Player's Guide - this gives the ability to Disable magical traps, and some other bonuses. Here. (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/advanced/coreClasses/bard.html) I think the bonuses to Perception would be critical, and Sense Motive would help too, especially given I'll have to "dump" WIS.

However, I do lose Versatile Performance. With that loss in mind, I was thinking I could drop Perform skills altogether - the only Bard abilites based on Perform are the lackluster Countersong and Distraction.

What do people think?

My other option is to go Wizard, and leave the Face stuff to the Cleric, and pray as far as "scouting" goes.

[maysarahs]

My opinion is always go with wizard. Take charm person, and you can help the cleric with the diplomacy. Eventually take some of the scoutier divinations (the one that lets have floating eyes that fly everywhere (arcane eye?)) but until then your familiar (they can communicate "danger" and a general sense of time can indicate "distance") should work sufficiently (for a nice DM). In a level you can pick up invisibility and give your monk(or anyone who wants to scout) +20 to stealth, until you get arcane eye

[CapnVan]

Wizard does have the "I can do anything better than you" thing going for it, but...

I believe there's a PF trait which will give you access to all of the classic trapmonkey skills as class skills, which isn't bad...

But, dump Versatile Performance? As the face? Say hello to wasting points in the social skills which are supposed to be your forte.

[Othniel Edden]

Rogues get social and scouting skills.:smallwink: Multi-class into sorcerer and become an arcane trickster later on. This is a little MAD, but it will work well with a charisma based rogue. As long as you don't dump INT you'll be fine. Shadow bloodline can let you skulk ahead of the group.

In fact the shadow bloodline played straight isn't bad for covering scouting, face aid and arcane casting.