PF Bard

[Talentless]

Yo Playground, how's it going?

I'm going to be joining a group that is going to be starting off with one of the PF Adventure Path campaigns (Jade Regent), and I'd like to make a Party Face, with a dash of some combat capability Bard.

I have never made a Bard before, in either 3.5 or PF. So some help from you all would be much appreciated.

Other party members have already decided on Oracle, Paladin, Sorc, and Inquisitor.

(No tier 1 btw, so please don't offer suggestions on how to turn one of them into a party face.)

25 point buy, All races that have CRs defined by class levels available, Thinking of going Human though, that extra skill point and feat just seems so damn good.

So, please help?

[DueceEsMachine]

Well, I guess the first question would have to be what level you're going to start at and if any of the material from the PFSRD is available.

There's a really cool feat that lets you add your charisma to hit instead of strength. That would help his combat abilities.

[Talentless]

Right. Starting at level 1, I believe it goes to 14, but we may go longer depending on what happens.

And any material Pathfinder related is available. No 3.5

[DueceEsMachine]

Well, Weapon Trickery (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/3rd-party-feats/super-genius-games/combat-feats/weapon-trickery-combat) is a good feat if you're going for a melee - type, though to be warned, bards are not always the best at melee unless you really stack them up for it.

Pander (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/3rd-party-feats/4-winds-fantasy-gaming/general-feats/pander) is another good one that keeps getting better as you level up, since each new ability can be doubled up with it.

If your Dm allows it to be changed a bit for flavor, the geisha ACF can be pretty handy, though to make best use of it, you'll probably need to be able to prepare for your battles well ahead of time - the 10 minute requirement for the Tea Ceremony is worth it if you HAVE 10 minutes to spend.

Are you looking for advice on the class abilities or other things? I mean, if you're going for a skilled character, a human bard with high intelligence gets an insane number of skills with Versatile Performance - just be sure not to doulbe up on the skills you get for free.

Edit:
Human Bards also get the awesome ability to learn extra spells for their favored class ability too - so a lot more spells known as you level up. Always a win

[Talentless]

Well, Weapon Trickery (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/3rd-party-feats/super-genius-games/combat-feats/weapon-trickery-combat) is a good feat if you're going for a melee - type, though to be warned, bards are not always the best at melee unless you really stack them up for it.

Pander (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/3rd-party-feats/4-winds-fantasy-gaming/general-feats/pander) is another good one that keeps getting better as you level up, since each new ability can be doubled up with it.

If your Dm allows it to be changed a bit for flavor, the geisha ACF can be pretty handy, though to make best use of it, you'll probably need to be able to prepare for your battles well ahead of time - the 10 minute requirement for the Tea Ceremony is worth it if you HAVE 10 minutes to spend.

Are you looking for advice on the class abilities or other things? I mean, if you're going for a skilled character, a human bard with high intelligence gets an insane number of skills with Versatile Performance - just be sure not to doulbe up on the skills you get for free.

Edit:
Human Bards also get the awesome ability to learn extra spells for their favored class ability too - so a lot more spells known as you level up. Always a win

Sorry, should of clarified a bit more.

I'm mostly looking for a good stat and feat build to work with towards being the resident skill monkey, but not being utterly useless in combat beyond buffing everyone else.

Don't get me wrong, i understand just how good standing around buffing everyone else can be, but I don't want to have to rely on the rest of my party being around to actually kill something.

I have a good idea about what skills i'm going to use, and what Performs to get to make use of the Bard ability, I'm mostly stumped on good feats, stats, and spell selection to make this character.

[Paul H]

Hi

Couple of Archetypes from APG might be useful - Arcane Duellist & Savage Skald.

Warrior gains Arcane Strike feat at 1st lvl, plus other feats later on. SAvage Skald can incite Rage in party front line.

As for feats - depends just how much you're going to concentrate on melee.

A NG follower of Sarenrae could take Wpn Finesse at 1st lvl, then Dervish Dance at 3rd. (Also needs 2 ranks Perform: Dance). This allows you to add your dex to damage with a Scimitar, instead of strength. (Scimitar now does Piercing damage). Sets you up for Duellist later on.

As for feats:

Toughness: Extra HP
Dodge: Dodge bonus to AC vs everything
Extra Performance: As it says
Peersuasive: +2 Diplomacy & Intimidate
Arcane Strike: Your attacks are counted as magical for DR, and add extra damage (CL based)
Lingering Performace: Your Bard Song lasts longer
Voice of the Sybil: Bonus to Bluff, Diplomacy & Perform (Oratory)

And don't forget you only need 5 ranks Know Arcana (& speak Draconic) to go Dragon Disciple!

Thanks
Paul H
PS How you going to deal with traps?

[Talentless]

Hi

Couple of Archetypes from APG might be useful - Arcane Duellist & Savage Skald.

Warrior gains Arcane Strike feat at 1st lvl, plus other feats later on. SAvage Skald can incite Rage in party front line.

As for feats - depends just how much you're going to concentrate on melee.

A NG follower of Sarenrae could take Wpn Finesse at 1st lvl, then Dervish Dance at 3rd. (Also needs 2 ranks Perform: Dance). This allows you to add your dex to damage with a Scimitar, instead of strength. (Scimitar now does Piercing damage). Sets you up for Duellist later on.

As for feats:

Toughness: Extra HP
Dodge: Dodge bonus to AC vs everything
Extra Performance: As it says
Peersuasive: +2 Diplomacy & Intimidate
Arcane Strike: Your attacks are counted as magical for DR, and add extra damage (CL based)
Lingering Performace: Your Bard Song lasts longer
Voice of the Sybil: Bonus to Bluff, Diplomacy & Perform (Oratory)

And don't forget you only need 5 ranks Know Arcana (& speak Draconic) to go Dragon Disciple!

Thanks
Paul H
PS How you going to deal with traps?

I'll keep your suggestions in mind should the rest of the group decide to change their classes, because that does look interesting, but that is focusing far more on fighting than I'm looking for.

As for traps... um... i think we're just gonna let the paladin take them for the team and heal him afterwards... long as he doesn't get gibbed. :smallfrown:

[gorfnab]

One amusing trick to pull with a Pathfinder Bard is to take the feat Catch Off Guard and the cantrip Summon Instrument. This lets you use a Guitar as a melee weapon kind of like El Kabong.
http://blogs.herald.com/.a/6a00d83451587d69e2014e875087e7970d-800wi

[Volos]

Well, Weapon Trickery (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/3rd-party-feats/super-genius-games/combat-feats/weapon-trickery-combat) is a good feat if you're going for a melee - type, though to be warned, bards are not always the best at melee unless you really stack them up for it.

Pander (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/3rd-party-feats/4-winds-fantasy-gaming/general-feats/pander) is another good one that keeps getting better as you level up, since each new ability can be doubled up with it.

If your Dm allows it to be changed a bit for flavor, the geisha ACF can be pretty handy, though to make best use of it, you'll probably need to be able to prepare for your battles well ahead of time - the 10 minute requirement for the Tea Ceremony is worth it if you HAVE 10 minutes to spend.

Are you looking for advice on the class abilities or other things? I mean, if you're going for a skilled character, a human bard with high intelligence gets an insane number of skills with Versatile Performance - just be sure not to doulbe up on the skills you get for free.

Edit:
Human Bards also get the awesome ability to learn extra spells for their favored class ability too - so a lot more spells known as you level up. Always a win

A warning to the OP, a good deal of what was offered as advice in the quoted post is Third Party material and not official Pathfinder. There is a tendency for posters in the playground to direct seekers of Pathfinder material to the Pathfinder SRD without any warning about the heavy amount of homebrew found there. Your DM may not allow this material and very well may become confused if you present it to him as if it were the real deal. I personally had a hard time starting a new Pathfinder campaign with my old 3.5 players due to confusion between the homebrew on the SRD and the official published materials.

My advice to becoming the party face would simply be to play a Half-Elf Bard. If you are looking for specific options to help improve upon your Party Face roll as well as to be a good Bard for your party, then I would suggest the following. You will need access to the Pathfinder Advanced Player's Guide for many of these options. It is an official Pathfinder source book that allows for many interesting and useful customization options for the base races and classes.

Trade the Half-Elf racial trait Adaptability for Sociable, which allows you another chance to use Diplomacy to change a NPC's mind without having to wait a day to do so. Very useful for a Party Face.
Trade the Half-Elf racial trait Multitalented for Arcane Training, since you will not be multiclassing and since bards need magic items to supplement their smaller spell-per-day pools this is an obvious choice.
Optional: Instead of +1 HP or +1 Skill Point each level, take the Half-Elf only favored class bonus each time you level up, adding one round to your total daily allotment of Bardic Performance rounds.

[subject42]

One combat feat to which I've recently taken a real shine is Piranha Strike (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/piranha-strike-combat). It's power attack for light weapons. If you're using a finesseable weapon and have a high dexterity, it's actually a lot of fun.

[Paul H]

Hi

NONE of the stuff I quoted is 3rd party, not even 3.5!

Thing with PF is that you really don't need more than just the core rulebook for powerful characters. Even Arcane Strike is core.

The archetypes I quoted are PF, but are just there for 'fluff'. The only really useful non-core stuff was the Wpn Finesse/Dervish dance combo. (Dervish Dance from Qadira book).

Thanks
Paul H

[magusoftheCore]

The feats are... it says so on the pages you linked...
Edit: nvm, i should read better

[Paul H]

Hi

I'm prone to a bit of that myself! LOL :P

Thanks
Paul H

[WarKitty]

If you take the right spells, you can make yourself a real pain in combat.

Cantrips: daze, flare, unwitting ally
Level 1: beguiling gift (use your imagination), grease, hideous laughter, touch of gracelessness
Level 2: blindness/deafness, compassionate ally, distracting cacaphony, hold person, oppressive boredom, unadulterated loathing

You get the idea. If it's just being useful in combat that you want, you can skip trying to melee and spend your efforts on confusing and messing up your enemies.

Also, note that you are no longer required to have the trapfinding class ability to find traps - it just provides a bonus. Fill out perception and you'll be just fine at finding traps.

[Paul H]

Hi

All the previous is true, buth with limited spells/day.

Thanks
Paul H