Suggest a class, please.

[BlackRabbit]

So far we have a Warforged Warblade, a psychic warrior, an evil cleric, and a wizard (with a sword). So they seem to have a good setup of armor and spells. What might be a good addition? Rogue seems kinda boring and I'm playing a druid in another campaign. Suggestions?

[StreamOfTheSky]

Beguiler or Factotum. Or a Druid to cover nature stuff. And really, short of trapfinding, druid can basically sub. for a rogue anyway, using wildshape and later on thousand faces to do the stealth thing.

[Mystral]

Although not as powerfull as the ones mantioned, a spell thief might be interesting for you, too. Or a scout for mobility, stealth, nature stuff and ranged support.

[Socratov]

I second the beguiler/factotum, and add bard. A party can never have enough bards :smallbiggrin:

[JeminiZero]

Between the Warblade, PsyWar and the Cleric (evil usually means army of the dead), I would say the frontline role is pretty well covered. I would probably go for a ranged or caster skill monkey. Probably Beguiler.

[BlackRabbit]

The wizard is specializing in Illusion and Summoning, though. Banned Evocation and Necromancy :( Originally I was thinking duskblade (I seem to really like the idea for some reason) but as you guys said, they seem set on armor and magic.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Bard, buff all that melee and be the party face.

[BlackRabbit]

Hmm, I confess I don't know much about playing a bard.

[Dr.Epic]

Could always go barbarian to add another meatsheild. Can never have too many of those.

[BlackRabbit]

*Sigh.* I'm just too damned indecisive sometimes. Grrr. :smallmad:I want to be helpful.

[Feralventas]

Bard is a support class in combat and a skill-monkey out of it. Your high charisma requirement for your spells means that you have a lot of synergy leaning toward your interaction skills like Diplomacy, Intimidation, Gather Information and Bluff, as well as UMD for additional spellcasting beyond your own.

Most of your spells lend themselves to subtlety or aiding others; lots of buffs and enchantments, so while you Can make them work in combat as a melee or ranged combatant, they work better making the primary combatants better at their job. Bull's Strength on the barbarian, Bear's endurance or Owl's wisdom on the warblade, and Cat's Grace on the 'Caster/Archer. Maybe things like Haste later on. Your healing won't be up to par on the Cleric's, but it's not a bad idea to pick at least one for your spells known or a few Wands of Cure spells.

The Class features of a bard also do this; Inspire Courage grants bonuses to hit and damage to all allies in range as long as you keep singing/performing/w/e. Inspire Competence grants bonuses to skill rolls, and so is a little better for Crafting or Skill-test support rather than combat.

There are several ways to Role-play a bard. The default is the role of a charming, talented individual who practices their music both as a profession and as a passion, but that's hardly the only option. Some play them as more of a scoundrel's sorcerer; someone who has their magic inherently, but prefers to rely on trickery and guile as much as their powers. You could attempt to forgo your arcane powers, mainly trying to use your class features and skills in order to emphasize your character's mundane abilities.

Backgrounds are usually from one of two options, though they're not the be-all-end-all; self-trained or school-educated. Music is Not a simple thing to understand, and while bard's magic is inherent, their art takes years of practice to perfect. Dancing bards might have picked up their skills in a backwater burlesque house or in a local dance-hall as part of their up-bringing. Even bards that prefer story-telling and speech-craft could spend a decade collecting tales of adventure, romance, comedy and be working toward writing a masterpiece tale of their own as a legacy.

As far as builds go, there are plenty of PrC's for bards of which can help you decide what kind of character you want to flesh out the mechanics.
Dirge-singer of Libris Mortis is a bard who has experienced some trauma, and their depression affected their magical capacity, turning their powers and music to the dead rather than the living.
Sublime Chords and Lyric Thaumaterges focus on the spell-casting aspects of their abilities, becoming a peer of the archmages and red wizards (though they would likely never admit it).
Warchanters bring out the more violent associations of art, using their talents to drive their allies in combat into a frenzy (handing out barbarian Rage effects.)
And the virtuoso perfects their bardic music to bring a crowd under their sway like a serpent-charmer.

[sonofzeal]

The following come from my Random Character Generator



Thus Spake the Dice Gods:

Anthropomorphic Monkey Binder who worships Time, and admires Argent Savants

Alternatively, a Stonehunter Gnome Noble (from the Dragonlance Campaign Setting) who worships Selen the Demigoddess of Outcasts, and admires Horizon Walkers.

The Dice Gods Have Spoken

[Bloodgruve]

Looks like you need a skill monkey and maybe some healing capability.

Bard could be good here. I've wanted to try a build where you get a bunch of natural attacks from Totemist2 and race, boost Inspire Courage to help out melee capability.

If you don't want to run melee then I would suggest Beguiler too. Maybe grab Archivist1 with a good spellcraft and Versatile Spellcaster for divine spells and some healing. Beguiler has a good number of spells per day to take advantage of VS and if your cleric can scribe scrolls he can feed you a ton of spells.

Both classes have good face skills and spells.

If you really want to keep your role versatile you could check out Binder. There are some recent threads on the subject here.

GL
Blood~

[BlackRabbit]

That does sound pretty interesting. The wizard guy wants to play the "traveling conjuror" type, so I'll have to find another "hook", but the rest sounds good. I'm not a great singer, though :smallamused:. I'll consider it.

[Rapidghoul]

Bard is always a fantastic fifth party member. You buff, act as a skill monkey / face, and cast spells that let you buff, act as a skill monkey, and be a face.

Beguiler is basically that but switching out the buffing portion for sneaky bastard skills and being more spell based than face-based.

Honestly though, I have to go with the option of Spellthief sa suggested above. Normally, they're somewhat subpar; half the sneak of rogues and weak casting... However, while a bard's power scales somewhat linearly with the number of allies he has to buff, a spellthief's power scales exponentially with the number of spellcaster allies. They have the ability to - as a standard action - simply borrow a spell from an ally which you can hold onto for an hour I believe. They lose the spell prepared, but then you cast it for them using their stats. It's basically acting as a more mobile, sneaky, bonus turns for spells to get cast from the primary casters. On top of that? You get trapfinding, spells of your own, and the ability to turn sneak attacks into spell syphoning.
The game I'm currently GMing has three casters, a tank, and a spellthief. The spellthief essentially has all their spells at his disposal, meaning he can blast, heal, buff, debuff, or anything in between. They're also evil, so when the BSF knocks out an enemy spellcaster (with his "Merciful" weapon), the spellthief just stabs them, steals their spells, waits for the Touch of Healing to refill their hp, and repeats.

[SSGoW]

Crusader + Bard = You're going to have a good time.


Be a Lawful Chaotic Neutral Crusader who owes a life debt or something to the wizard. Sing songs of praise (most likely lies) as you buff your allies. If anyone is stupid enough to come near your wizard buddy then well a Crusader is known for being death on a stick for a reason.

Actually Crusader should be renamed Franklinator

Oh and when you use bardic music... Sing for real >:D which is always fun.


EDIT: Just saw I put Lawful and Not Chaotic ... Oopse haha

[BlackRabbit]

Hah, I'll play a gnoll bard who just howls his spells. Everyone just puts up with it because it works. :)

[Feralventas]

Crusader + Bard = You're going to have a good time.


Be a Lawful Neutral Crusader who......

Bard cannot into lawful alignment because arglebargleblargishness.

Dang alignment restrictions. I do support Bard/Crusader if you want to step it up in Melee a little more; lots of good healing and support options in the Devoted Soul and White Raven maneuvers schools, as well as some decent direct combat options and the fact that your Bard levels scale at a 1/2 level for your Initiator level.

[SSGoW]

There was a build I saw once that made a Bard/Crusader essentially be Dark Vader.

[Airanath]

Be a bard/crusader with snowflake wardance. You will buff your group trought the stars with your swift action bardic music, and snowsong. You will be a god in melee, who hampers enemies, while buffing allies, and granting fast healing. You get Cha to hit in addition to Str due to snowflake wardance for as many rounds as you got ranks in perform. If you get some dragonfire inspiration, you, and your allies, will have an overload of elemental damage too.

[BlackRabbit]

Oh, and it's Planescape, if that matters.

[Socratov]

if you really want to bard well, go silverbrow human, bard8/virtuoso2/sublime chord 2/virtuoso 8 with DFI, and sling wizard spells, take up healing hymn from complete champion, eberron substitution for song of the heart and sling spells like it's none of their beeswax...

[Sheogoroth]

Jotun Paragon!
If you've got the book.