Snowflake Wardance + Melee Bard

[JKTrickster]

I know the Snowflake Wardance feat gets thrown around a lot for melee bards, but the feat burns Bardic music attempts that I would rather spend to pump out a Dragonfire Inspiration. Assuming 4 combats per day, that would mean I would have to be at least a level 8 Bard (1 for Dragonfire Inspiration and 1 for Snowflake Wardance) before this feat really becomes useful.

Or is it worth it to take Extra Music just to power this feat? It seems rather expensive then to use this....

EDIT: Or am I making a mountain out of a molehill here? For me, I consider level 8 high enough to be initially inaccessible for a lot of the games I play (which start more about 2-4). I just wanted to ask, really is Snowflake Wardance as useful as everyone is claiming it to be?

[Yuki Akuma]

You are making a mountain out of a molehill here. To take all the feats you need to be an effective melee bard is going to take you until level six or so anyway.

At lower levels it really doesn't matter - the enemies are weak enough that you can just use one or the other.

And yes, Snowflake Wardance is very useful.

[Vulaas]

In a word? Yes. Getting that main stat bonus on attacks is huge, when even at low levels it can be north of +4 to attacks.

[FMArthur]

In an all-combat day (like a dungeon) the Bard can sing the whole day using 1 use of Bardic Music.

[Person_Man]

Yes, things will be tight at levels 2-4ish for a Bard. If that's the ECL you play at most of the time and you're worried about running out of resources, consider a Binder, Crusader, Warblade, Swordsage, Incarnate, or Totemist.

But in general, from a metagame point of view, it's a good thing that the melee Bard is that his massive bonuses are limited. (Just as CoDzilla's spells are limited). You only turn them on when you really need them, and in other fights you use your spells, Skills, magic items, and un-buffed attacks. If they were "always on" and increased your general combat effectiveness by X%. then your DM would just increase the difficulty of your encounters by X%.