Asperger's Synthetic Bard

[Flavel]

I've always wanted to try a Bard-Wizard in 3.5 and finally tinkered something together. The results were not exactly what I had originally envisioned but the character would be amusing from a role-playing perspective.

Take a Gray Elf with stats of str6 dex10 con12 int20 wis9 cha10 (25 pt. build)
The first 5 levels as wizard with one of the feats being Skill focus; knowledge:wisdom.
At level 6 and 7 progress as a Divine Oracle for evasion.

At levels 8 through 10 progress as a loremaster and max out a perform skill. Loremaster gives you bardic lore. One of the amusing things about going from Divine Oracle to Loremaster is you use the feat know;religon as a prerequiste in both classes. Its a useless feat but at least you use it twice.

At levels 11-20 progress as a Virtuoso for bardic music. You lose one level of Arcane casting but acquire better skill progression, hit die, and some esoteric class features.

Your left with a Bard that has almost no BAB but 19th level arcane casting as a wizard. The BAB doesn't really matter as having a strength of only six doesn't lend itself to any sort of physical combat anyhow.

All stat improvements go to Intelligence which leaves the Asperger's Bard with Int25.

For feats I chose: skill focus; know: religion, craft wonderous item, empower spell, extend spell, quicken spell, insightful reflexes, versatile performer, improved toughness, with a bonus feat from Loremaster secrets to place wherever makes sense. Perhaps improved initiative.

Speaking of loremaster bonuses, I took the other secret as +2 saves on fortitude. Saves look like Fort:8 Reflex:12 Will:16

Hitpoints average out at 103, which is not bad for a Wizard.
Bardic knowledge at 1d20+10 and Bardic Music 10 times per day.

The Asperger's Synthetic Bard has a skill of 23 in 8 separate perform categories thanks to Versatile Performer and Int25. His glaring weakness is not having a cha bonus. What he lacks in style & passion he makes up with broad technical ability.

Having the craft wonderous item feat is necessary to make a headband of intellect, and cloak of charisma. The first item would be nice to have, the second is pretty much mandatory. For flavour, invest some skill points in Craft; musical instruments and crank out some magical accordians. :smallsmile:

Using a 32 point build would give the option of a better charisma.

[Socratov]

I'd advise you to take a 2 lvl dip in sublime chord, so you get the song of arcane power... if you take that you can follow up with virtuoso and go full bard with wizard spellcasting (at least, from lvl 4 spells on)

[Optimator]

Wizard casting is superior to diminished, Sorcerer-lite casting. Intelligence is a superior casting stat to Charisma. Then again, Charisma is the stat that determines how cool your character is:smallcool:

[TurtleKing]

Interesting interesting. What inspired you to make an Asperger's Bard?

Edit: Partly curious because I have Asperger's.

[Slipperychicken]

What he lacks in style & passion he makes up with broad technical ability.


Hold on there dude, aspies can have all kinds of style :smallcool:. They have passion(s) just like anyone else, they just tend not to express it in "normal" ways like changes in vocal tone or facial expressions. There are some really good books out there which can give you more about the Syndrome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome). (Also, asperger's actually provides a good RP reason for dumping CHA and pumping INT... whether people in the setting have diagnosed it or not).



I would know, as I have Asperger's myself and am an instrumental musician. My music teachers have praised my passion/skill while performing. They don't know that I'm an aspie, but they do sometimes complain about my voice being a monotone :smalltongue:.

[Callista]

Interesting interesting. What inspired you to make an Asperger's Bard?

Edit: Partly curious because I have Asperger's.Yup. I'm autistic myself; that's why I clicked on it. And as far as I can tell, low charisma is probably how autism would play out in D&D. A 10 Charisma is average, but with most point-buy systems, 8 is as low as you go. I like point buy for its reliability, so I use it preferentially, but the randomness of rolling for stats does give you some interesting possibilities for weaknesses.

Is a bard without Charisma actually feasible? It's an intriguing character concept. Could you do pure bard by substituting something, or would you need to mix in the wizard to make it work? Right now what you've got is sort of a magic-focused bard that technically isn't a bard, but has a lot of the abilities of one.

I always kinda thought the low-CHA went best with the Wizard class, so you could have a wizard who's way more focused on knowledge and spells than people; the kind of guy who just kind of ignores you because he's got his nose in a book. If you wanted to have really low charisma, you could even have an autistic savant. I mean, you'd have to research autism to do it right; but I already have, for obvious reasons. :) Charisma really isn't necessary for wizards in the first place. But you'd think it would be absolutely indispensable for bards...

Magical accordions? Is that a Weird Al reference?

[Flavel]

Okay, yes. Aspergers can have passions and feeling too.

I agree.

>>group hug<<

Callista, I don't know if inspired is the right word, but I enjoy playing characters with tragic flaws, or who come off 7 degrees left of center.

The idea of a bard with a hohum cha was irresistable. The character doesn't need Cha as he runs everything off of INT! Well, most everything.

Not a bard you say? If a character has bardic music, and bardic lore then the character is a bard.

What really ROCKS is, unlike bards, he can perform his virtuoso songs while
SIMULTANEOUSLY spellcasting!

The lack of CHA does hobble his abilities somewhat but this is a wizard with better hit dice, Evasion, better skill selection, more skill points, and a boat load of class features he employs WHILE spellcasting.

Because he/she/it has so many different performance skills maxed out the character will routinely receive the +2 synergy for doubling up his performances, i.e. "sing & dance"

Most true bards can't max that many performance skills.

The only thing this character can't do as a bard is fight. Sad but true, until he remembers he can shapechange using one of his 9th level spells....

Bards get a ton of skills (CLASS), Wizards get a ton of skills (INT), asperger bards get more skills then they know what to do with (12pts/level toward the end).

[Dexam]

What really ROCKS is, unlike bards, he can perform his virtuoso songs while
SIMULTANEOUSLY spellcasting!


Melodic Casting feat from Complete Mage - it allows a character to cast spells and use spell trigger and spell completion items (i.e. wands, staffs, scrolls) while using Bardic Music.

[Coidzor]

Is a bard without Charisma actually feasible? It's an intriguing character concept. Could you do pure bard by substituting something, or would you need to mix in the wizard to make it work? Right now what you've got is sort of a magic-focused bard that technically isn't a bard, but has a lot of the abilities of one.

Charisma, actually, is only really important for the bard's casting, and they only really need a 16, so long as they're not sublime chording it up. Only certain, situational bardic musics have saves based upon a perform check, and after a certain point, skill ranks are vastly of more importance than charisma to those checks.

And since there's no levels of bard, if you dip heartfire fanner (Dragon 314) before virtuoso, it'll cost 2 feats, but get you effectively Bard level 5 for bardic music & all bard songs that you'd be eligible for learning based on your perform ranks up to that point.

Combined with a vest of legends (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=9830.0) and a masterwork... I think Lute, you'd be able to count as, effectively a level 15 or so Bard.