[PF]Bard Archetypes

[Rhaegar14]

A friend of mine wants to play a Bard in Pathfinder Society, which we're trying to get geared up for. I'm playing some kind of melee horror with solid (6- or 9-level) support spellcasting, though I haven't quite decided how I want to go about it yet. If you guys want more specific information on the builds I'm considering, I'll provide them.

At any rate, he wants to complement my character in combat, but not be overshadowed. Out of combat, I imagine he wants some different utility, but the fact that he's a Bard and I'm a gish of some sort pretty effectively covers that.

So my essential question, Playground, is this; what are some of the better Bard archetypes? Particularly those that don't try to make it into a form of gish.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Dawnflower Dervish makes bard into a "selfish" class where inspire only buffs himself, but gives 2x the bonus. This, combined w/ free Dervish Dance at level 1 to safely dump str, make it the best pure fighting bard archetype. If that's what you meant by "gish", I suppose that's not what he wants, though.

Chelish Deva is quite strong. The higher armor proficiencies and ability to cast in them is nice, you can burn perform rounds to boost DC of some performances by +2, and you replace the no save area shaken performance (dirge of doom) with a no-save single target frightened effect. That last one, combined with the fact the archetype doesn't take much away, is the major selling point of it, IMO. I think this is the strongest bard archetype, overall.

Dirge Bard is good if fighting a lot of undead. The level 10 "Thriller music video" performance can be great in the middle of a large scale battle, or at the start of any battle if the bard carries bones around with him. He gets a very nice save bonus replacement for well versed. And best of all - can affect undead with mind affecting spells and can add a few necromancy spells from the wizard list to his spells known. For stuff like Command Undead or Enervation.

Archaeologist is also a self-only performance buffer, but plays less like a gish because that's the only combat-oriented thing they get. Archetype basically turns bard into a rogue replacement, you get pseudo (in the long run, superior) trapfinding, evasion, uncanny dodge, and rogue talents. The performance per day is an abysmal 4 + cha rounds (NO bonus from class levels!), but on the plus side is only a swift action to activate, and Lingering Performance still works, so you can (and should!) take it to effectively triple your perform rounds per day (by using 1 round w/ a swift, then letting it linger for 2 more; activate as a swift, rinse, repeat).


I think these are the best bard archetypes.

[Rhaegar14]

Dawnflower Dervish makes bard into a "selfish" class where inspire only buffs himself, but gives 2x the bonus. This, combined w/ free Dervish Dance at level 1 to safely dump str, make it the best pure fighting bard archetype. If that's what you meant by "gish", I suppose that's not what he wants, though.

Chelish Deva is quite strong. The higher armor proficiencies and ability to cast in them is nice, you can burn perform rounds to boost DC of some performances by +2, and you replace the no save area shaken performance (dirge of doom) with a no-save single target frightened effect. That last one, combined with the fact the archetype doesn't take much away, is the major selling point of it, IMO. I think this is the strongest bard archetype, overall.

Dirge Bard is good if fighting a lot of undead. The level 10 "Thriller music video" performance can be great in the middle of a large scale battle, or at the start of any battle if the bard carries bones around with him. He gets a very nice save bonus replacement for well versed. And best of all - can affect undead with mind affecting spells and can add a few necromancy spells from the wizard list to his spells known. For stuff like Command Undead or Enervation.

Archaeologist is also a self-only performance buffer, but plays less like a gish because that's the only combat-oriented thing they get. Archetype basically turns bard into a rogue replacement, you get pseudo (in the long run, superior) trapfinding, evasion, uncanny dodge, and rogue talents. The performance per day is an abysmal 4 + cha rounds (NO bonus from class levels!), but on the plus side is only a swift action to activate, and Lingering Performance still works, so you can (and should!) take it to effectively triple your perform rounds per day (by using 1 round w/ a swift, then letting it linger for 2 more; activate as a swift, rinse, repeat).


I think these are the best bard archetypes.

Awesome, thanks for your input. Dawnflower is one of my favorites, actually. A build I was thinking of suggesting to him was a Dawnflower Dervish Bard specialized in throwing knives or shuriken; they can amass enough flat bonuses to ranged damage to make it work pretty well, and it'd complement a melee-focused character too. What are your thoughts?

[StreamOfTheSky]

I think a Dawnflower Dervish not mostly sticking to scimitar use is throwing away a major part of their class features, honestly.

You're either not taking full advantage of the singular dex focus in your ability array, or you're doing non-scimitar attacks quite feebily, and possibly wasting a feat on weapon finesse (dervish dance, which normally requires finesse, actualyl says it applies dex to attacks and damage, so getting it for free lets you bypass finesse entirely if you stick to scimitars for melee).

Throwing, you'd have dex to hit, but you'd lose out on the str to damage, again unless you balance the stats more than is normally necessary for a DD.