Inspire Awe Bard

[Leekos]

Howdy all. Wanted to see if I could get some help on a build idea.

I love bards and have played a few variations. Mainly DFI and then and archer bard. I may be joining a group that has at least two bards already, and the DM is keen on making this a bard heavy group.

The rest of the group are not really big optimizers, and I doubt any of the bards have gone with the DFI route, but I already have one of those bards in a different group and I would like to negate the non-stacking Inspire Courage, so I started looking closer at the Inspire Awe ACF and the demoralizing/fear stacking tactics.

Does anybody have any suggestions for a build for one of these?

All core and splats are available (except ToB.. Don't shoot the messenger). I don't think the Eberron or Forgotten Realms are available, though I have gotten Song of the Heart in before. Dragon magazines are acceptable, along with the 3.0 feat compendium by AEG.

I try not to be too overpowered and try not to take too many dips into PrCs. Just want to get an interesting, viable build.

Edit: Forgot to mention that this would need to be a good or neutral character. Evil isn't really an option in his groups.

[Flickerdart]

Haunting Melody is your friend, but it's Eberron. There's also Gnome sub levels in Races of Stone that you will be very interested in.

[eggs]

If Feats is in play, Command Undead is awesome for Charisma-based casters, both for the Undead mooks and for Divine Feats.

[Greyfeld85]

Frightful Presence from the Draconomicon is solid if you plan on being a frontline fighter (snowflake wardance, blah blah blah), as it's an area fear effect (much like Inspire Awe), lasts several rounds, and DC scales on character level. Unfortunately, it also doesn't effect anything of higher HD than you.

If you want to go the demoralize route, Imperious Command from Drow of the Underdark is a must.

Haunting Melody, as mentioned, is a viable alternative. However, if you want it and Inspire Awe running at the same time, you'll need to pick up a Harmonizing weapon (Lingering Song doesn't effect Inspire Awe, though you might be able to convince your DM to allow it if you want to go that route), or take 5 levels in Warchanter for the Combine Songs ability. It also only scales with Bard levels, so it discourages multiclassing.

As an honorable mention, Doomspeak from Champions of Ruin isn't a fear effect, but it's a hefty -10 to attacks, saves, ability checks and skill checks for one round, which is a great feat to lead off a nova round.

For an exhausted rundown of Fear and how to abuse the hell out of it, check out this fantastic handbook. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3809.0)

[Leekos]

Thanks for the suggestions, all.

@Flickerdart: I probably would try to swing Haunting Melody. I figure it's similar enough (as far as location and information) to Song of the Heart that I could get it by the DM.

@eggs: That does look like a nice feat, and I keep forgetting to go through the last half of the book (Spellcaster feats). I can't guarantee that we would be fighting too many undead, and raising/summoning/bringing my own starts to smell a bit evil. A great idea, but probably not for this character in this group.

@Greyfeld85: I don't think I had seen the frightful presence yet. I would definitely consider that. All of your other suggestions are great and things that I have looked into. I had even seen the fear handbook. The trouble I'm having is trying to fit all of that (or rather, pick and choose) into one coherent build with some synergies, hopefully.



Tl;dr: Great ideas, I definitely don't want to stop the brainstorming. Does anybody have any coherent, synergistic build ideas using these concepts with the Inspire Awe ACF?

[Saintheart]

For a GITP-based build suggestion on bard builds, Person Man knocked a fear bard together: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=67232 Might give you some ideas.

For nice synergies, I can't recommend Fugue and Sirine's Grace (both from the Spell Compendium) cast together enough. Note the +8 to Perform checks that S.G. gives you, and the variety of effects created by Fugue depends on a Perform check. Also synergises with inspiring awe as some of the conditions impose penalties to Will checks, which is what you want to smack hard if you're hitting fear.

Personally, if you're open to fear cheese, I think the road of the Dread Witch (Heroes of Horror, p. 98) is a potent five level addition if you can shoehorn it in and you're planning to mostly backline. Dread Witch is AFAIK the only PrC that allows you to burn through fear immunity, which is an invaluable capstone --never mind all the other goodies it gives to a fear-based caster in only five levels.

[Piggy Knowles]

Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=12365869&postcount=233) is a link to a debuffing/diplomancer-focused build I put together for an Iron Chef competition (Mindbender).

The basic deal was that it used Inspire Awe, Inspire Dread and Doomspeak, plus some other minor debuffs and the ability to force re-rolls, to ensure that people lost their save versus the Mindbender's Eternal Charm ability.

Once they lost their save, he used epic diplomacy to convert them from Friendly to Fanatic, turning Eternal Charm into "Eternally convert you into a fanatic follower who would gladly lay down his life and liberty to serve me."

(As an aside, more than one judge asked why I used the Bardic Sage variant rather than just straight Bard. The answer was that I already had the Intelligence to benefit from it, and since I dropped Inspire Courage and didn't have any bardic music with an ongoing duration, it was basically a bunch of free spells known with no drawbacks.)

[Leekos]

@Saintheart and Piggy Knowles: wow.. I hadn't come across either of those in my searches. Thanks, those are definitely good places to start!