Am I shooting myself in the foot? [PF]

[Honest Tiefling]

As a spare character in case my current bites it (A rather flimsy melee rogue), I was thinking of making a sandman bard character as a back up. I wonder if the SR thing will become an issue and make the sandman join the rogue in the great big adventurer retirement home in the sky.

The party has 1 cleric who sorta got forced into the role (Not by me, BTW) and thus not expecting him to go buffer anytime soon and 1 blaster sorceress. I also imagine that if the cleric does buff, the barbarian and the sorceress are better priorities then a bard.

Technically, the party does have another sneak, but one that does not play well with others and is currently covered in various bodily fluids of monsters (no, not like that) and the DM doesn't expect him to last very long. I'd prefer to be able to handle some skills and sneaking, and since this is low-op I shouldn't have to worry about uselessness and I am sure the DM will throw things at me for trying to disarm traps with summons/other characters, even if they do fall for it.

I only have the APG and the core rulebook to play with, so if there are super special feat or ability in another book, I will be super sad face.

[Duncan_Ruadrik]

Sandman bard is definitely a step up from Rogue. You aren't getting shot in the foot. HOWEVER: The sandman does give up Inspire Courage, a main strength of the bard around level 8, when the bard an use it as a move action.

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure about how I feel about the Sandman's spell stealing ability: for every round you "hold" the spell, its a round of performance you must spend. I feel inspire courage is definitely better.

Like i said though, much better than a Rogue. With careful spell and feat selection, you should do just fine.

[Hylas]

Link to Sandman (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/bard/archetypes/paizo---bard-archetypes/sandman)

While bards can make good sneaks, especially with magical buffs, they don't have trapfinding and are limited to how difficult of a trap they can disarm. That'll teach me to skim over an archetype.

Buffing people and stealing magic can be fun, though I've never played a spell stealing class personally. I'm not aware of any "must haves" for bardic performance. Some popular feats to grab for a bard are weapon focus, dazzling display, and improved trip for crowd control (using the whip). If you want to do damage as a bard then arcane strike is very good.

As a rogue replacement you'll have fewer skills (though slightly more incentive to have higher INT what with knowledge and other INT based skills) and less sneak attack, but you'll hit more often with arcane strike, have spells, probably be a stronger party face. If you're fine with battlefield control then you can do a pretty good job with it using dazzling display and trip.

[Honest Tiefling]

Alright, good to know. In a low op game, I think I can get away with no Inspire Courage, even if its fairly good and Stealspell is weird. Oh well!

Next question: Is drow a bad idea to take?

[Hylas]

Next question: Is drow a bad idea to take?
Depends on your setting. If you're an "evil race" then you could be chased out of towns out of racism.

From a crunch perspective, +2 CHA, +2 DEX, and -2 CON are fine for a bard, but the CON penalty can hurt if you're planning on melee, so you may want to pick up toughness or use your favored class bonus to compensate. Weapon finesse would be good to capitalize on higher DEX but you could become feat starved. Lastly, I'm personally not a fan of races with light blindness which makes you dazzled (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/conditions#TOC-Dazzled) when you're outside, but for some campaigns you spend all of your time underground, inside, or on another plane without a sun so it wouldn't be a problem.

[Honest Tiefling]

Given the description, I believe drow are less 'Oh no, they are here to kill us' and more 'Oh no, they're here to steal our jobs' sorta deal. The light blindness is yes, likely an issue because I don't know if the group has the attention span to stay in a single dungeon very long. But wouldn't the spell resistance also be an issue?

The Half-Elf bonus seems to work with Sandman since I can sub in extra performances to touch people to steal their magic. I guess I could also stand near the cleric or the sorcerer to steal their magic, (Especially the sorcerer since it goes back to her list known, if I am reading this right) but I don't know if they would appreciate that. Hey, cleric, going to steal your divine blessings, hug me.

[Duncan_Ruadrik]

Given the description, I believe drow are less 'Oh no, they are here to kill us' and more 'Oh no, they're here to steal our jobs' sorta deal. The light blindness is yes, likely an issue because I don't know if the group has the attention span to stay in a single dungeon very long. But wouldn't the spell resistance also be an issue?

The Half-Elf bonus seems to work with Sandman since I can sub in extra performances to touch people to steal their magic. I guess I could also stand near the cleric or the sorcerer to steal their magic, (Especially the sorcerer since it goes back to her list known, if I am reading this right) but I don't know if they would appreciate that. Hey, cleric, going to steal your divine blessings, hug me.

Im not sure what you mean about the spell resistance being an issue. Half Elf is AWESOME for any bard, as long as you take the alternate favored class bonus. For a Sandman, I suggest swapping the Half Elf Skill Focus for Ancestral Arms, which gives weapon prof. in any martial or exotic weapon. i suggest scimitar, grab Finesse first level, and third level grab Dervish Dance. This allows Finesse with scimitars and DEX to damage. this also leaves a hand open for your Stealspell ability, which you can also use Finesse for.

[Hylas]

But wouldn't the spell resistance also be an issue?.

Eh, it's only 6+your level VS 1d20+their level. It'll block at most 25% of spells that allow for SR (which isn't all of them) but also applies to friendly spells. Typically you'll encounter casters one or two levels higher than you are, so during an encounter you're more likely to block the cleric's cure spell than the bad guy's ray of hurt damage.

[Corlindale]

Sandman is quite a fun archetype. You can be a pretty potent offensive spellcaster focused on enchantment spells, thanks to Dirge of Doom + Sneak spellcasting you'll eventually be able to effectively get +5 to your save dcs if you catch enemies without dex to ac.

Stealspell may be hard to use in practice in combat (it's touch, it's a will save, and targets people with high will saves), but I think it really shines out of combat, when you can use it to "steal" the powerful, personal-only buff spells from your caster allies (Overland Flight!), at the cost of a few rounds of performance. They don't even lose the spell!
Could also be used on your allies in battle, though it usually won't be worth sacrificing a turn for it, expect in unusual situations (say, you're fighting swarms immune to most of your regular tricks, so you borrow fireball from the sorceror).

Slumber Song could be fun, but depending on how your GM rules fascinate it may be hard or impossible to use in combat. Still good for putting that pesky guard to sleep, of course.

Consider the Eldritch Heritage feat. I like Fey for a Sandman - it's thematic, and the access to greater invisibility later on lets you get sneak attacks easily and saves you a few spell slots. Laughing Touch is also a nice debuff with no save.

Finally, remember that Sandman can qualify for Arcane Trickster without ever multiclassing (at level 10). So if you want AT class features more than the later sandman ones, as well as a better sneak attack, this might be a decent choice.

[Arbane]

I haven't played a PF bard much, but the Lingering Performance (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/lingering-performance) feat looks good - triple your performance rounds per day!

[Honest Tiefling]

Thanks for the help everyone! Sadly, while those feats look awesome, they are in other books I cannot access. I at least have ideas on what to get the DM for his birthday!

Lingering Performance is a good suggestion, and I did notice the half-elf bonus. Seems like Drow as a race is just going to be annoying if the cleric has to heal me or the sorcerer has to put a spell on me, and the DM likely wants me to stop picking races from the Bestiary.