Amazing Bard?

[zeboss]

I am currently in a campaign where almost everyone is running a tier one character, we have a wizard and cleric already. So basically i'm trying to make the best bard possible. So I want to do a straight bard, nothing like sublime chord. I know the best tactic seems to be snowflake wardance and dragonfire inspiration. But what else should I use?

[QuickLyRaiNbow]

Are you committed to Bard 20?

[zeboss]

Are you committed to Bard 20?

Yeah I think so.

[Bloodgruve]

If you wanna run melee...

Dip Warblade or Crusader1 for Song of the White Raven which gives you swift action Inspire Courage. You can stack IC and Dragonfire Inspiration easily with this. You can qualify for SotWR by taking Martial Study and Martial Stance feats if you don't want to stray from Bard20

For Inspire Courage look at Words of Creation and Song of the Heart feats, Inspirational Boost spell and Badge of Valor item.

For attack modes TWF is nice, possibly with Crescent Knives (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=249145) or you could go with Natural Attacks gained with race, template, Totemist2 or Alter Self. Crystal Echoblades and Slippers of Battledancing are helpful items.

Knowledge Devotion feat with Collector of Stories gives you +hit and +dmg to attacks.

Look at Tiefling or another Outsider if you want to take advantage of Alter Self. Or Half-fiend progression with Silverbrow Human and hope for LA buyoff.

GL
Blood~

[Daftendirekt]

First off, I read the thread title as "Amazing Beard?" for a second.

That out of the way, keep in mind that Song of the White Raven only gives you swift action IC if you're in a White Raven stance.

If you're going to go TWF with Crystal Echoblades, you might as well have Dance be your Perform skill and get Snowflake Wardance to get CHA to attack.

[zeboss]

First off, I read the thread title as "Amazing Beard?" for a second.

That's getting sigged

[Tim Proctor]

Well you get a Bard with 20 Cha, the Snowflake Wardance and Slippers of Battledancing and you PWN everything.

Snowflake adds in addition while the Slippers replaces so you're getting +10/+10 from Charisma. I do suggest running Swashbuckler for the Int bonus too, and duel wielding Songblades from CoAdv so for the +1, but +2 Perform and the additional Bardic Music.

What level are you starting at?

[eggs]

Crystal Echoblade + Bardic Knack can make straight bard decent (add half the class level to damage and rankless skills).

One of the most useful unique features the Bard brings to the table is Inspire Courage. This thread (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?PHPSESSID=l0aijfo1j7big5an0ir8ga8fr2&topic=9830.0) should give you an idea of how to use it effectively.

On slippers of battledancing, without being a Swiftblade or a Wilder, just about the only way to use them effectively is to abuse Lesser Celerity. And that needs Daze Immunity, typically meaning a Mark of the Dauntless.

[Bloodgruve]

Can Ironheart Surge take away Fatigued from Snowflake Wardance?

TY
Blood~

[Tim Proctor]

Usually you just get the Tireless feat ( Player's Guide to Faerûn, p. 46), which negates it.

As far as abusing the Slippers as a Bard there are a ton of ways to abuse that, #1 is riding an animal. Handle Animal is a CHA based skill and easy enough to get. #2 is getting access to Pounce which is a little harder but also able to get.

[eggs]

The slippers specify a "move action," so that pretty much means:

Hustle
The Celerity series
Quicksilver motion
Swiftblade
Shapechange/Assume Supernatural Ability abuse
Shadow Pounce
Force lots of AoOs.

And probably a few others, but the most common ways of moving and full attacking make trouble.

[hiryuu]

Is it a good party? Song of the Heart, Words of Creation, Dragonfire Inspiration, and the 1st-level spell Inspirational Boost and you could be having everyone in your party getting +6d6 damage to all their attacks at around level 6 if you're human, and at level 8 it becomes +8d8. If you feel like taking Lingering Song, you could drop +8 to attacks on them, too.

[zeboss]

So I should do one level of warblade or crusader, and the rest as bard.

I should focus on inspire courage

As items I should get: Crystal Echoblades, Badge of Valor, Slippers of Wardancing

As feats I should be sure to pick up: TWF, Snowflake Wardance, Dragonfire Inspiration, Draconic Heritage, Song of the White Raven, Words of Power, Leadership

Are there any notable spells that the bard gets?

[QuidEst]

Are there any notable spells that the bard gets?

Glibness. Never have to tell the truth again. :smallwink:

[eggs]

Improvisation is awesome. Sirine's Grace is nice, but gets nicer if you scrounge up a way to persist it. Some of the reduced-level enchantments are fun (but you probably don't want to know too many of them, on account of resistances). Alter Self isn't Bard-unique, but it's almost always a shoe-in slot. Ruin Delver's fortune is useful when you have spell slots to afford it. Silence is way too powerful on its level (especially if you can slap it on one of your team's battlefield control beatsticks).

Nixie's grace is okay at very high levels (but the duration keeps it from replacing a +Charisma item, and the high level spell slot isn't always worth the +6->+8 increase).

[lunar2]

So I should do one level of warblade or crusader, and the rest as bard.

I should focus on inspire courage

As items I should get: Crystal Echoblades, Badge of Valor, Slippers of Wardancing

As feats I should be sure to pick up: TWF, Snowflake Wardance, Dragonfire Inspiration, Draconic Heritage, Song of the White Raven, Words of Power, Leadership

Are there any notable spells that the bard gets?

unless you just really want the followers, dragon cohort is better than leadership, because you treat the creature as 3 levels lower for qualifying as a cohort. also, there's no max level on a dragon cohort, so it'll stay at 2 levels behind you, whereas a leadership cohort caps at 17, until you hit epic, whch causes it to lag behind if you ever get that high. not usually a big considerwtion, but worth thinking about.

[kestrel404]

You may also want to consider a Marshal dip (along with your ToB dip) and then taking a few levels (4-5) of Mythic Exemplar - this will get you Marshal Auras as a level 3 marshal (1 major at +1 and 2 minor, probably the Charging aura and a save of your choice) while still advancing casting and inspire courage.

Silverbrow Human or the Dragonborn template gets you the Dragonblood subtype (since you're already considdering Dragonfire inspiration) - which is very nice in combination with the Draconic Aura feat (Dragon Magic). With 1 feat you can get any Dragon Shaman aura (like the fast healing one) that scales with your character level. Also, if you can get a con score of 19 or better, a Dragonborn with the Quicken Breath metabreath feat (Draconomicon) is very very nice.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

A word of caution:

Bards are a T3 class for a reason. They're a heck of a lot of fun, and can be built to be quite powerful with the right setup, but they're still going to get upstaged every time by a full ClericZilla or Batman Wizard.

For a slightly different take on Bards, check my sig for the Joker Bard... and some of the tricks he uses to make even a Batman Wizard... at least be forced to expend resources to deal with him. He becomes an extreme nuisance to be able to find with Divination, making Scry n Die tactics... less effective.

Note: There is no such thing as immunity to Scry n Die, and there is absolutely nothing a Bard can do to prevent a Batman Wizard from WTFPWNING him... eventually. But he can make it a grueling, tedious, highly annoying task rather than a trivial flick of a thought process.

The Joker Bard is set up as a 'party face' diplomancer with the ability to literally convince random mooks that they are (through insane bluff checks, including judicious use of Glibness), in fact, him. This makes it exceedingly difficult to find him with divination, because of all the 'false positives' you get. He also not only nearly impossible to find with anything short of Discern Location, but he also provides the party with a high resistance to scry n die tactics, since he picks up Detect Scry, False Vision, and Anticipate Teleport.

He's not as powerful in combat as a full DFI Snowflake Dervish Dance or Bardblade build, but he has the bluff mods to be able to literally go to the High Priest of Pelor and convince him that the BBEG is a major threat that the entire church needs to stop. So yea... sending dozens of high-level Clerics at a problem is an effective solution for nearly any BBEG.

Just remember, in combat, he's not that powerful. Joker always does get his head handed to him. But give him ten minutes of RP and a bluff check, and he can turn a Harvey Dent into Two Face. It's about the only way a Bard can contribute to a bunch of T1 classes being played to their fullest, and it does employ modest cheese, but hey... at least you're not the Elan of the party.