[3.5e]Too much thought. (War Skald)

[SanusCompleo]

Fourth(?) Build help searching stint in a month. I'm having trouble consolidating everything that I want to do all in one build... I'll throw everything up against the wall here, and hopefully something can stick.

I think... that the major inspiration for this character is just about everything seen so far out of Skyrim. Dragontouched, and thus DFI bard build; looking for both Song of the White Raven, AND Snowflake Wardancer. And to make matters -even worse- I'm looking for TWF. Too much thought going into it? Too little thought? Obviously too many feats to fit all into one build, may have to take advantage of flaws somehow to work it all through!

I'd like to clarify, that I want a primarily martial character; relying mostly on Bardic Music; over Manuevers and Spellcasting.


TL;DR: TWF SotWR & Snowflake Wardancer & Dragonfire Inspiration Skald-like character ahead.

You have been warned.

Classes considered:
Bard (Obvious)
Warblade (Tome of Battle nastiness)
Crusader (Warblade is preferable, but in a build not focusing on casting; two-three levels of this will be handy)

Prestige Classes considered:
Jade Phoenix Mage (Definitely doesn't stack Inspire Courage. Access to a lot more maneuvers. Worth it?)
Sublime Chord (9th level spells? Definitely. Losing out in Inspire Courage though.)
Abjurant Champion (For Sublime Chord tastiness)

Necessary Feats:

Dragontouched
Dragonfire Inspiration
Song of the Heart
Words of Creation
Song of the White Raven
Two-Weapon Fighting
Improved Two-Weapon Fighting
Greater Two-Weapon Fighting (?)

God help me. All of this can theoretically fit into a 20th level build. The good stuff just comes way too late.

Theoretical Progressions:

Bard 8
Warblade 2
JPM 10

Simple, Elegant, casting as 16 bard, IL 16. Not bad. Only problem being same +2 Inspire Courage. +3 with Song of the Heart, +6 with Words of Creation, +7 with Vest of Legend, +8 with Badge of Valor, +9 with Inspirational Boost, +10 with Masterwork Horn, Natural for a total of +10d6 fire damage, which is sub-optimal, but it's still nice.


Bard 4
Warblade 2
JPM 4
Sublime Chord 1
Abjurant Champion 5
JPM 4

This build is seen elsewhere on the forums... Cause it's where I picked it up from.

This introduces 9th level casting, which allows Arcane Strike to be really nice; along with all of the goodies from Abjurant Champion. Has a wonderful BaB of +18, good saves, except Reflex; and a good deal of goodies. Here's the breakdown:

Inspire Courage +1. Oh... God...

Please note, that this build should be used majorly for Gish purposes. It loses out a -lot- when it comes to bardic flavor. But it gains 9th level casting, has an IL of 15, has stupid good buffs that it can activate as immediate actions... but for the purposes of this character; the build is lacking. That said, it's pretty awesome in every other aspect. Just missing that Inspire Courage.

Bard 2
Warblade 15
Crusader 3

Wow. Not bad. Full Inspire Courage, of +4, +5 with Song of the Heart, +10 with Words of Creation, (Vest of Legends doesn't actually manage to push it to +11, so that's 16,000 GP you can keep) +11 from Inspirational Boost, +12 from Badge of Valor, +13 from the Masterwork Horn... All in all, really good for Dragonfire Inspiration, as well as enough goodies to work with to maybe be able to pull off TWF chain on top. Problem? No casting at all. Casting... isn't strictly necessary; but for the flavor of the character, it's preferrable over all these maneuvers which imply more discipline than say, the natural magic of a Bard.

Bard 8
Warblade 2
Sublime Chord 2
JPM 8

Pretty basic, more maneuvers and Casting. Same as Build #2, except lacking Abjurant Champion. Too much like Build #1, but with 9th level casting. An improvement regardless. Inspire Courage is still lacking.

Maybe something lacking entirely in Tome of Battle? Some kind of Foluchian Lyricist? Prestige Bard? Entry into Bard would be best, in terms of flavor. Initiate of Milil is out, as there aren't any suitable deities to swap out in the setting. For that matter, Paladins and Clerics aren't common at all. Devotion to Deities requires actual deities, and at this point in time in the setting, deities are all deceased dragon spirits from the area the character's going to be around. Others are going to be starting up Fey-based churches, which would have fledgeling paladins/clerics. Older things would be based off of Draconic Deities, which don't include Bahamut/Tiamat and are more expansive than a couple of them.

Conclusion: Haven't reached one yet. Need help.

[Morph Bark]

In Races of Faerun there is a PrC called Warrior Skald that grants all the bardic music abilities of a 1st-level Bard. Might be worth checking out.

[Keld Denar]

You are going to be really feat starved. DFI with an energy type change requires 3 feats. IC optimization generally involves 2-4 feats. TWFing requires 2-3 feats, sometimes 4. SFWD requires 1-2 feats, depending.

Thats upwards of 13 feats. Bard doesn't get any bonus feats. Warblade does, but not any of the ones you need. That means you need to cut something out. You either need to deal with underpar Inspire Courage, settle for default [Fire] DFI, drop the casting, drop the initiator levels, drop the TWFing, or something.

One big issue I see with a lot of your builds is that you'll be using 2 BM uses every combat. One for DFI, the other for SFWD. That means you need ~8 BM uses per day to cover at least 4 combats (I wouldn't plan for less than that, you don't want to be under-prepared). That means you'll need 8 "effective" bard levels, or 4 "effective" bard levels + Extra Music. Note that Song of the White Raven does NOT give you extra uses/day, nor do you get extra uses from a high Cha score.

Another thing is that it seems like you want to factor in a lot of casting. If so, Melodic Casting is pretty vital. Otherwise you have to stop singing to cast spells. You could circumvent this with Lingering Song (so your songs linger for 5 extra rounds, on top of the normal 5 rounds), but if you are gonna drop a feat, Melodic Casting is better than Lingering Song in nearly all situations.

Basically, what I'm getting at is: You can't do EVERYTHING you want to do with this character. You don't have enough resources. You have to limit your scope down so that it fits within normal budgets. You can do melee with IC, you can do casting with IC, but you'll have a hard time doing melee with casting AND IC.


In Races of Faerun there is a PrC called Warrior Skald that grants all the bardic music abilities of a 1st-level Bard. Might be worth checking out.

Its also a 3.0 source. 3.5 dynamically changed the way you aquire Bardic Music (based on bard levels, rather than just the Perform skill). Normally you can use 3.0 stuff freely between systems, but thats integrating 2 pretty different rulesets in a way that doesn't really mesh well. The 3.5 books suggest that alterations may need to be made in 3.0 material to be compatable with 3.5 material, and this is one of those cases.

[Morph Bark]

Also, for easy Dragonfire Inspiration, take a Silverbrow Human as your race (I didn't see any mentioned, so there ya go). You don't need to take Dragontouched then, as you are already a dragonblooded character, plus you get a bonus feat!

EDIT:


Its also a 3.0 source. 3.5 dynamically changed the way you aquire Bardic Music (based on bard levels, rather than just the Perform skill). Normally you can use 3.0 stuff freely between systems, but thats integrating 2 pretty different rulesets in a way that doesn't really mesh well. The 3.5 books suggest that alterations may need to be made in 3.0 material to be compatable with 3.5 material, and this is one of those cases.

I don't know how 3.0 did it with Bardic Music, but I couldn't find 3.5 updates for Races of Faerun. There is no FAQ at least, but that's all I came across.

[SanusCompleo]

For now going to play around with the 2nd build. Drop off 1 bard level for a Sublime Chord level; swap around some JPM... and... come up with something like this.

Bard 6
Crusader 2
JPM 2
Sublime Chord 2
Abjurant Champion 5
JPM 3.

Casting:
Sublime Chord = 9
Bard = 7

Maneuvers and Stances
Stances Known: 3
Manuevers Available: 8
Manuevers Readied: 6(2)

Cons:
Misses out on goodies like Quickening Strike
Only 11 IL, and thus 6th level maneuvers and stances.
Only 13 CL, and can't afford Practiced Spellcaster! D:!
Missing out on Snowflake Wardancer.
Relatively low amount of Manuevers Known.
Only 6 uses of Bardic Music per Day.
FEAT STARVED
Pros:
Can still hit really nice DFI bonuses.
Two-Weapon Fighting.
Abjurant Champion goodness.
Pretty Great AC all the way around. Could only really get better if I could add another stat to it somehow. 18 with Shield & Mage Armor, plus 14 for 32, not including deflection bonuses. Not terrible, but also not great. Greater Mage Armor can help rather than regular Mage Armor for another +2 bonus, bringing it to 34. Regular Inspire Heroics would give +4 AC, IIRC... which ultimately could/should be much better.

1 Dragontouched
1 Dragonfire Inspiration
3 Song of the Heart
6 Two-Weapon Fighting
9 Song of the White Raven
12 Improved Two-Weapon Fighting
15 Words of Creation
18 Greater Two-Weapon Fighting


Conclusion: Considering skipping Manuevers all together. I'd rather not throw in Paladin Levels, and 10 levels in Bard get dangerously close to taking BaB down to 3 iterative attacks.

[Keld Denar]

Bards don't get Mage Armor or Shield on their class list. Are you casting from a wand?

EDIT: Also, Crusader (especially at low levels) doesn't synergize with TWFing. All of the 1st level crusader manevuers are strikes. You don't get anything you can use as a swift action with until you get to 3rd level maneuvers, IIRC.

Thus, every round you spend casting something or using a strike, you are not benefitting from all of those TWFing feats you are taking.

[rypt]

For now going to play around with the 2nd build. Drop off 1 bard level for a Sublime Chord level; swap around some JPM... and... come up with something like this.

Bard 6
Crusader 2
JPM 2
Sublime Chord 2
Abjurant Champion 5
JPM 3.

Casting:
Sublime Chord = 9
Bard = 7

Maneuvers and Stances
Stances Known: 3
Manuevers Available: 8
Manuevers Readied: 6(2)

Cons:
Misses out on goodies like Quickening Strike
Only 11 IL, and thus 6th level maneuvers and stances.
Only 13 CL, and can't afford Practiced Spellcaster! D:!
Missing out on Snowflake Wardancer.
Relatively low amount of Manuevers Known.
Only 6 uses of Bardic Music per Day.
FEAT STARVED
Pros:
Can still hit really nice DFI bonuses.
Two-Weapon Fighting.
Abjurant Champion goodness.
Pretty Great AC all the way around. Could only really get better if I could add another stat to it somehow. 18 with Shield & Mage Armor, plus 14 for 32, not including deflection bonuses. Not terrible, but also not great. Greater Mage Armor can help rather than regular Mage Armor for another +2 bonus, bringing it to 34. Regular Inspire Heroics would give +4 AC, IIRC... which ultimately could/should be much better.

1 Dragontouched
1 Dragonfire Inspiration
3 Song of the Heart
6 Two-Weapon Fighting
9 Song of the White Raven
12 Improved Two-Weapon Fighting
15 Words of Creation
18 Greater Two-Weapon Fighting


Conclusion: Considering skipping Manuevers all together. I'd rather not throw in Paladin Levels, and 10 levels in Bard get dangerously close to taking BaB down to 3 iterative attacks.

Isn't Combat Casting a prerequisite for Abjurant Champion?

[SanusCompleo]

Basically, what I'm getting at is: You can't do EVERYTHING you want to do with this character. You don't have enough resources. You have to limit your scope down so that it fits within normal budgets. You can do melee with IC, you can do casting with IC, but you'll have a hard time doing melee with casting AND IC.

You've a point. Taking out Initiator business entirely. Wasn't even aware of Melodic Casting. Wondering what would happen if I don't need Dragontouched or Song of the White Raven. Probably will settle for Fire type for Fire. Magic would be minimal Anyway. Pondering what I could/should do with more Bard Levels, mixed with Abjurant Champion and Eldritch Knight to get the most out of what casting is available regardless.


Also, for easy Dragonfire Inspiration, take a Silverbrow Human as your race (I didn't see any mentioned, so there ya go). You don't need to take Dragontouched then, as you are already a dragonblooded character, plus you get a bonus feat!

Where is Silverbrow Human again, Races of Dragon or Draconomicon, or another I'm forgetting?


I think I want to go something with more straight bard levels.

If I stop after 9, I can still get +3 Inspire Courage with Vest of Legends. Tome of Battle is what had made the build particularly interesting to me, to be honest. Maybe this...

Bard 7
Eldritch Knight 2
Bard 1
Sublime Chord 2
Abjurant Champion 5
Eldritch Knight 3

Still some very nice IC, that full casting if at all possible, a bonus feat to help out with the TWF tree...

1 Dragonfire Inspiration
1 Melodic Casting
3 Two-Weapon Fighting
6 Song of the Heart
8 Improved Two-Weapon Fighting
9 Words of Creation
12 Combat Casting
15
18

Edit for Combat Casting, although there are -much- better uses out there.

And now I have three feats to throw around willy nilly! What would be useful here? Metamagic? With items, there's still a -lot- of great Inspire Courage going on. Should I get Leadership at 18? I'd have to have high CHA, so it would be worth it, I think.

[SanusCompleo]

Isn't Combat Casting a prerequisite for Abjurant Champion?

...Yes. Yes it is.

Am I allowed to say Balls?

So, Combat Casting... I thought Sublime Chord allowed swapping around from Sorcerer/Wizard spell lists into bard spells known. If not, then there's some fiddling to be done here!

Note: Sublime Chord -definitely- does not do this.

I can still treat them as available spells for wands etc.

Edit: Trying to find some way to let bards learn from wizard/sorcerer spell lists.

[Keld Denar]

Silverbrow Humans are in Dragon Magic.

You can do a really nice Bardblade with just Bard4/Warblade16. Gets 4 musics/day (8 with Extra Music), gets 9th level maneuvers, full 20 levels of IC. Its simple, yet elegant.

Or, you can do a bardic caster, something like Bard8/Virtuoso2/SublimeChord2/Virtuoso+8.

You'd be really hard pressed to get Sublime Chord into a gishy build without majorly losing Inspire Courage, which is one of the main reasons to go with a Bard chassis vs a Wizard or Sorcerer chassis.

[rypt]

Well, there is a bard variant in the Eberron Campaign Setting that would you allow you to swap your suggestion bardic music ability for Song of the Heart as a bonus feat at level 6. That would free up one of your feats.

Sublime Chord does let you learn spells from either the bard list or the sorcerer/wizard spell list, but you would have to learn shield and/or mage armor in place of a higher level spell (since Sublime Chord casting starts at 4th level spells).

I'd have to double check the wording (I'm AFB right now) but I think the Abjurant Champion's capstone ability might interact in some interesting ways with Sublime Chord and the way it calculates your caster level. Sublime Chord stacks your caster levels of all arcane casting classes to determine your effective caster level for all arcane spells. Abjurant Champion will set the caster level of one of your casting classes to your BAB. Assuming you apply the Abjurant Champion capstone to your Sublime Chord casting, you would add your BAB to your bard caster level to determine your effective caster level for all arcane spells. That could easily get you to the mid-20s (16 BAB + 9 levels of bard casting).

[SanusCompleo]

Silverbrow Humans are in Dragon Magic.

You can do a really nice Bardblade with just Bard4/Warblade16. Gets 4 musics/day (8 with Extra Music), gets 9th level maneuvers, full 20 levels of IC. Its simple, yet elegant.

Or, you can do a bardic caster, something like Bard8/Virtuoso2/SublimeChord2/Virtuoso+8.

You'd be really hard pressed to get Sublime Chord into a gishy build without majorly losing Inspire Courage, which is one of the main reasons to go with a Bard chassis vs a Wizard or Sorcerer chassis.

You have a point. I've always just loved the crap out of Sublime Chord. It's one of my very favorites.

Anyway, let's look at some bard/warblade stuff.

Warblade's bonus feats don't mesh very well with the bardic things. If we were to stack that, I think I'd like to get a few things like Extra Music, and Lingering Song... Shame those Bonus Feats don't grant TWF boosts. Ah well. Song of the White Raven comes back into the build, making music a swift action.


Thinking of doing something like this, instead:

Bard 6
Warblade 13
Crusader 2 (At the very end)

Still makes +18 BaB, no/low spellcasting,
6 Bardic Musics a day, 10 with Extra Music
Crusader adds a whole bunch of >6 Maneuvers and 2 stances.
Can do both Dragonfire Inspiration and Inspire Courage in the same round by activating Song of the White Raven at once (While staying in a White Raven stance all day), and then using a standard action for the other; they'd both be dropped but with Lingering Music they will last for 10 rounds a piece.
Epic Levels are spent attaining more Bard Levels, Sublime Chord, and Jade Pheonix Mage, probably...
Still get 9th level Manuevers, 10 available, 5 readied, 3 stances, using Crusader to add another 5 available (From lower than 6th level), and 5(2) readied, with 1 more stance for a total of 15 available, 10(2) readied, and 6 stances known.
Crusader would hit 18th and 19th levels, while Warblade gets 20th.

Will probably find some way at capstone to move around known maneuvers if anything. I think that Warblade only manages 8th level. If it does, then I'll have to put the 2 crusader lower... which isn't really a big deal, or any kind of problem.

[SanusCompleo]

I'd have to double check the wording (I'm AFB right now) but I think the Abjurant Champion's capstone ability might interact in some interesting ways with Sublime Chord and the way it calculates your caster level. Sublime Chord stacks your caster levels of all arcane casting classes to determine your effective caster level for all arcane spells. Abjurant Champion will set the caster level of one of your casting classes to your BAB. Assuming you apply the Abjurant Champion capstone to your Sublime Chord casting, you would add your BAB to your bard caster level to determine your effective caster level for all arcane spells. That could easily get you to the mid-20s (16 BAB + 9 levels of bard casting).

I've seen the bard variant, also OooOooOooO. That sounds very interesting.

[Keld Denar]

You don't actually want to activate IC as a swift action. You need that swift action to cast Inspirational Boost first. THEN you activate your BM as a standard action. THEN, after your turn is over, you immediately activate your Badge of Valor as an immediate action (using your next round's swift action) to increase your IC by another point. Those two things give you +2 to your IC, which is another 2 dice on DFI.

You have to wait a round to start with the melee murder, but its worth it for the extra bonus, IMO.

[SanusCompleo]

You don't actually want to activate IC as a swift action. You need that swift action to cast Inspirational Boost first. THEN you activate your BM as a standard action. THEN, after your turn is over, you immediately activate your Badge of Valor as an immediate action (using your next round's swift action) to increase your IC by another point. Those two things give you +2 to your IC, which is another 2 dice on DFI.

You have to wait a round to start with the melee murder, but its worth it for the extra bonus, IMO.

Ah right. Where's that Swift action to Move action thing I read about this morning...? Unless the Badge and Inspirational Boost don't affect all musics done in the round...



EDIT:

Ack! Words of Creation are killing me. Needs 15 Intelligence. Not mad enough, are we? Bah.


Looking at str 12, dex 16, con 10, int 15, wis 8, cha 15 now. Level bonuses go to Dex, and Int, and at least 1 to Charisma, works with 32 point buy. 36 point buy sees STR up to 14, and con up to 12. Maybe dump STR down to 10 and put Con up to 15, then put Dex to 18, Con to 16, Int to 16, and Cha to 16. Skill points can be attained retroactively, by permanent bonuses to intelligence. Intelligence damage instigates a -.5 (Or 1?) penalty to each skill for each negative modifier.

[Keld Denar]

Swift action to move action? D&D 3.5 does not support "trading down" like 4e does. You can't trade your move action for another swift action.

You can trade your swift action for a move action through various means though. A Belt of Battle would allow its wielder to trade up to a move action 3/day (one charge each). Quicksilver Motion would allow you to MOVE as a swift action (move being different from a move action), as would Travel Devotion.

And Inspirational Boost only affects BM started in the round you cast it. Badge of Valor can be used at any time after you start the music, though. Its just commonly used right away after the music starts so that allies who's turns are immediately after yours can benefit from the fully buffed IC.

[SanusCompleo]

Swift action to move action? D&D 3.5 does not support "trading down" like 4e does. You can't trade your move action for another swift action.

You can trade your swift action for a move action through various means though. A Belt of Battle would allow its wielder to trade up to a move action 3/day (one charge each). Quicksilver Motion would allow you to MOVE as a swift action (move being different from a move action), as would Travel Devotion.

:I I do not play 4e.

That said, I was thinking along the lines of belt of battle, etc. Thank you.

[Morph Bark]

Ack! Words of Creation are killing me. Needs 15 Intelligence. Not mad enough, are we? Bah.

If you are willing to give up some casting, just having 15 Cha will do. You don't need a high Cha for Bardic Music after all.

When making a Bard, you should decide on what you want to do best:
- Bardic Music?
- Casting?
- Melee combat?
- Skills?

Bardic Music means you just need to keep up your Perform skill and take some PrCs that give additional abilities, like Seeker of the Song, Virtuoso and War Chanter.

Casting means you need Sublime Chord, period. Unless you multiclass with Cleric, but those builds are more Cleric-focused. This prettymuch requires you giving up on melee combat unless you buff yourself up a lot beforehand and then get into melee, trying to end the fight before your buffs expire.

Melee combat means you multiclass with Paladin (of Freedom), Warblade or Crusader, which prettymuch requires you giving up on casting.

Skills doesn't require you giving up on the others, but generally means you will stick to Bard and some PrCs that don't much advance any of the others if you want it to be your Numero Uno Shtick.

[Optimator]

You could always ask your DM to houserule trading down actions.