Help me build a core only Bard

[Mongrel]

Hi guys! I've recently joined a new game (starting at level 1) which is intended to introduce the wonderful world of DnD to a few new players. For this reason only core rulebooks are allowed (for simplicity).

I am one of two players (that I know of at any rate, I haven't yet met all the players) that have significant experience with RPGs that will be playing in the game. The DM tells me that the other (largely new) players are not playing spellcasting classes (though I don't know much beyond that). The other experienced player will be playing a wizard (though he's not a charopper and actually doesn't like wizards very much, so I don't expect him to be overpowering) so we will at least have some spellcasting. I wanted to play a class that has some access to healing magic, and I've never played a Bard before so that's what I'm choosing since I'd like to try something new and this isn't likely to be a very difficult campaign (what with all the new players and all).

The thing is, I've actually never played in a game that had a Bard, and have only used one once as a DM (a villain), but that was in 3.0 where Bards were significantly different. I'm wondering if you guys might be able to help me get my bearings with this new class. Specifically with regard to spells, feats, and prestige classes (keeping in mind this is core only). I'm hoping to make this character primarily a buffer/debuffer with some healing for the party. I will probably be human, but I'm open to other suggestions for race (given that the human's feat bonus is significantly less powerful with the limited feat selection in core only, I'd imagine)

Looking through the PhB, these are the spells that stick out for me:

Level 0: Detect Magic, Ghost Sound, Light, Mage Hand, Message, Prestidigitation, Read Magic, Resistance

Level 1: Cause Fear, Charm Person, Cure Light Wounds, Disguise Self, Expeditious Retreat, Feather Fall, Grease, Nystul's Magic Aura, Silent Image, Sleep, Tasha's Hideous Laughter, Unseen Servant

Level 2: Alter Self, Blindness/Deafness, Blur, Cat's Grace, Cure Moderate Wounds, Darkness, Daze Monster, Eagle's Splendor, Glitterdust, Heroism, Hold Person, Invisibility, Minor Image, Mirror Image, Rage, Scare, Silence, Suggestion, Summon Swarm

Level 3: Blink, Charm Monster, Crushing Despair, Cure Serious Wounds, Deep Slumber, Dispel Magic, Displacement, Fear, Gaseous Form, Lesser Geas, Good Hope, Haste, Invisibility Sphere, Slow

Level 4: Break Enchantment, Cure Critical Wounds, Dimension Door, Dominate Person, Freedom of Movement, Hold Monster, Greater Invisibility, Shadow Conjuration

Level 5: Mass Cure Light Wounds, Greater Dispel Magic, Greater Heroism, Mind Fog, Mislead, Persistent Image, Shadow Walk, Song of Discord, Mass Suggestion

Level 6: Animate Objects, Mass Cat's Grace, Mass Charm Monster, Mass Cure Moderate Wounds, Eyebite, Geas/Quest, Otto's Irresistible Dance, Permanent Image, Programmed Image, Project Image

You'll note I didn't include any "Summon Monster" spells. It's not that I don't want them, I just don't know when they start getting good. I would expect Summon Monster III, but I'm not sure.

Are any of the spells I included not as good as I think they are? Are there any hidden gems I've forgotten? I don't really want to pick my whole spell list now since I expect to consult with the Wizard so I don't pick any spells he takes, but I would like to know in general which ones are worth taking.

For PrCs we are only allowed the ones in the DMG. This means Dragon Disciple or Duelist are the ones that seem most appropriate for a bard. Are either of these worth it in core? It seems like getting the additional bonuses to bardsong and keeping the bardic casting progression might be surperior, even with the additional spells you get. If I take this PrC, what is the best time to do so? I can proly take it at lvl 6 at the earliest, but if I take Bard level 6 I get the Suggestion power. And if I wait one more level I get 3rd level spells. Thoughts?

The Duelist seems kind of lackluster as well. I figure that bardic casting is better, is there something I've missed about this class?

As for feats, what is good for a Bard from core feats anyway? Martial feats (weapon focus, power attack, dodge, etc.)? Magic focused feats (metamagic, spell focus, combat casting, etc.)?

[Eugenides]

Just popping in to say that the summon monster spells are never "bad" per se. Having another HP sponge/action economy/attack every round is always useful.

[Juntao112]

I recommend looking closer at the bolded spells.

Level 1: Cause Fear, Charm Person, Cure Light Wounds, Disguise Self, Expeditious Retreat, Feather Fall, Grease, Nystul's Magic Aura, Silent Image, Sleep, Tasha's Hideous Laughter, Unseen Servant

Level 2: Alter Self, Blindness/Deafness, Blur, Cat's Grace, Cure Moderate Wounds, Darkness, Daze Monster, Eagle's Splendor, Glitterdust, Heroism, Hold Person, Invisibility, Minor Image, Mirror Image, Rage, Scare, Silence, Suggestion, Summon Swarm

Level 3: Blink, Charm Monster, Crushing Despair, Cure Serious Wounds, Deep Slumber, Dispel Magic, Displacement, Fear, Gaseous Form, Lesser Geas, Good Hope, Haste, Invisibility Sphere, Slow

Level 4: Break Enchantment, Cure Critical Wounds, Dimension Door, Dominate Person, Freedom of Movement, Hold Monster, Greater Invisibility, Shadow Conjuration

Level 5: Mass Cure Light Wounds, Greater Dispel Magic, Greater Heroism, Mind Fog, Mislead, Persistent Image, Shadow Walk, Song of Discord, Mass Suggestion

Level 6: Animate Objects, Mass Cat's Grace, Mass Charm Monster, Mass Cure Moderate Wounds, Eyebite, Geas/Quest, Otto's Irresistible Dance, Permanent Image, Programmed Image, Project Image

[Answerer]

And even then, cure light wounds is the only one you really want. You're not likely to get anywhere otherwise.

Core-only is rough, since there aren't really any feats or items you can take that are going to directly improve your abilities. Feats are probably going to go towards martial abilities – maybe archery, maybe tripping – while items are probably going to be +Cha and then the rest in normal fighter-y stuff. Not because those are super-important things for a Bard, so much as there's not a lot of other Core feats or items that are that useful to a Bard after you have a masterwork instrument. Metamagic feats cost too much, item creation is a bad idea when you have very-limited spells known, the skill feats in Core suck.

Though it's probably worth mentioning that 1. you don't need your feats as badly as others, 2. you have a high Charisma, and 3. Leadership is probably the most powerful feat in Core. So definitely consider that.

[Flickerdart]

Dragon Disciple is very good on a martial character that dips one level of Bard or Sorcerer, but otherwise, not really. Duelist is incredibly awful and you should pretend it doesn't even exist. If you really want to get a PrC, Bard 7/Assassin 3/Arcane Trickster 10 has the following trade-offs by 20th:

Lose:
1 spell known from levels 4-6, 3 6th level spells per day, 1 5th and 4th level spell per day
26 skill points
Inspire Courage beyond +1, Inspire Greatness, Song of Freedom, Inspire Heroics, Mass Suggestion
Bardic Lore stops scaling after level 7
3 points of BAB
~10 HP

Gain:
+7d6 Sneak Attack
Impromptu Sneak Attack 2/day
Ranged Legerdemain 3/day
Poison Use
Uncanny Dodge
3 1st level and 2 2nd level spells from the Assassin list (several of which are not normally accessible by Bards)
+1 on saves vs poisons

Granted, a Wizard is better off doing this (since they still get 9th level spells and lose practically nothing) but hey, Bards are cool too.

[StreamOfTheSky]

No prestige classes in core are good for the bard. Maybe a small dip into Archmage, but even then I doubt it and that would be super-late game. Just go straight class.

Since it is core only, I strongly suggest Leadership. It's the best feat in the game, your feat options in core are very limited, and as a bard you have both the charisma and group buffing to benefit from a cohort more than probably any other class.

For other feats... Monster Manual is core. If you get a means of flight, fly by attack always rocks. Ability Focus could be used to boost the save DC of your Suggestion performance. In the PHB, Improved Initiative is good... spell focus on enchantment is worthwhile, too. Not much else is truly impressive, so just pick what you want. Your 6 level spells cap makes using metamagic difficult, and since you can't use Quicken or Silence, the only ones really even appealing are Extend and Still. The former is a cheap rod, the latter is oddly not offered as a rod but is pretty situational anyway.

Spells that look good to me (favorites bolded):
Level 0: Detect Magic, Ghost Sound, Light, Mage Hand, Mending, Message, Open/Close, Prestidigitation

Level 1: Charm Person, Comprehend Languages, Cure Light Wounds, Disguise Self, Grease, Nystul's Magic Aura, Silent Image, Sleep (swap out later), Tasha's Hideous Laughter
Get on wands: CLW, Expeditious Retreat, Silent Image, Unseen Servant

Level 2: Alter Self, Blindness/Deafness, Blur, Eagle's Splendor (swap out later), Glitterdust, Heroism, Hold Person, Invisibility, Minor Image, Mirror Image, Pyrotechnics, Shatter, Silence, Sound Burst, Suggestion, Tongues

Level 3: Blink, Charm Monster, Confusion, Displacement, Fear, Lesser Geas, Glibness, Good Hope, Haste, Major Image, Sculpt Sound, Slow

Level 4: Dimension Door, Dominate Person, Freedom of Movement, Hold Monster, Greater Invisibility, Modify Memory, Rainbow Pattern, Shadow Conjuration

Level 5: Mass Cure Light Wounds, Greater Dispel Magic, Mirage Arcana, Mislead, Persistent Image, Shadow Evocation, Mass Suggestion

Level 6: Animate Objects, Mass Charm Monster, Find the Path, Geas/Quest, Heroes' Feast, Otto's Irresistible Dance, Programmed Image, Project Image, Sympathetic Vibration

Some spells are only there or bolded because you made it sound like there's no cleric in the party.
I kind of went over board w/ the bolding on level 4, it seems. :smallsmile:
Song of Discord is barely better than Confusion, 2 levels lower.
Shadow Evocation I assume is useful just due to you not really having any.
Sculpt Sound is just really cool, and is actually a multi-target will save or lose against many spellcasters.
Don't bother with the summon spells, you get them too late to keep up with the NPC monsters, let the wizard handle this.

[Flickerdart]

No prestige classes in core are good for the bard. Maybe a small dip into Archmage, but even then I doubt it and that would be super-late game.
Archmage requires 7th level spells. A Bard could never get in.

[OverdrivePrime]

I love the bard class, even in Core. You can do most things OK. As an experienced player, you have the ability to let the other (newbie) players shine and feel like they're contributing a lot, while your bardic abilities make sure that their attacks connect and their skills work out how they intended.

It sounds like your wizard is going to be a blasty wizard, or at best a field-controller. With a newbie party, that's just fine. You can handle the party buffs and the utility spells. As a bard, you're the most useful player in the party, and are the guy who can make sure that there's a contingency for everything.

For attributes - go with Charisma highest, Intelligence secondary and probably Constitution tertiary (great bards are always having their endurance tested). Dex is fine, Strength is nice, but you're not a primary combatant, and probably not even a secondary combatant. Dump wisdom like last week's tuna salad.

As for skills - focus your Perform on Oratory or Singing (maybe epic ballads?) to make sure that you've got your hands free whenever you need.
Don't feel bad about abusing skill synergies. You're a bard and after spells and class abilities, skills are your meat and drink. Diplomacy, Perform and Use Magic Device are really the only skills you ever need to maximize. Spread the rest around so that you can do anything and everything pretty well. As soon as you can, get 5 skill ranks in just about everything you can - particularly the knowledges, bluff, and sense motive. You'd do well to keep Bluff and Sense Motive as high as you can - they'll save your butt in negotiations, particularly if you have your wisdom score in the basement.

For feats, Improved Initiative is almost never wasted. You may want to pick up Spell Focus: Enchantment and Greater Spell Focus: Enchantment, as your spell DCs will otherwise be a bit lower. The spell penetration feats aren't bad either. Consider Skill Focus: Use Magic Device or Skill Focus: Diplomacy. I don't run into many DMs who allow the Leadership feat, but if yours does, by all means go for it. Try not to exploit it too badly.

Your friends will see you as the jack of all trades. Not really amazing at everything, but always useful, and always helping others be better at their own role. ... Except for one thing:
You. Are. The Diplomancer. With skill synergies, an absurd charisma score, feats and magic items, your diplomacy score will mean that push never has to come to shove unless you want it to. You are a more dangerous negotiator than Kevin Spacey. As long as you get a minute of someone's ear, you can probably turn them into an ally.
Don't do this so often that your friends never get to fight anyone. That makes your party sad and gets the diplomacy rules (rightly) nerfed. But do turn it to your advantage. Talk that quest-giving king into offering you a barony instead of his daughter's hand. She's yours already anyway. Talk that archmage into giving your group a discount on wands, or get free resurrections from the local temple.

Being a bard means you always win, and it's up to you if you want your companions to know the truth.

[StreamOfTheSky]

For race, unfortunately in the PHB Human and Dwarf are the only good races. Bonus feat is largely useless, though not bad if going archer bard. And dwarf hurts charisma, so it's a no-go. Half-Elf is bland as hell, but lets you acquire a pretty big diplomacy modifier if nothing else.

If you can use the Monster Manual 0 LA variants of the PHB races, Forest Gnome is decent, Wild Elf is pretty good, Wood and Aquatic Elf are passable (wood is decent for an archer bard).

[tiercel]

Cure light wounds is kind of a tossup -- a cleric can spontaneously heal better than you can and you can just use a wand anyway. OTOH, knowing cure light wounds means that any non-0-level spell slots unused at the end of the day can be converted into healing.

If your party is OK for the amount of melee it has, archery isn't a bad path to take bard on, and it solves the problem of "what do I spend my feats on." If you are going to go full-bore Diplomancer, Improved Initiative (so you can talk everyone down before louts start swinging pieces of metal at each other) is handy, but be careful with trying to use the Diplomacy RAW too hard.

Note that Perform (oratory) or Perform (sing) are common choices for bards, since it lets you keep bardsong going while swinging a sword/firing a bow.

Spells (not comprehensive, but a few notes):

0: If you are starting from 1st level, daze is actually useful in combat at low levels. You can swap it out when you hit 5th level. Prestidigitation is too cool, a "minor wish" spell that is certainly fun at least from RP considerations. I actually prefer dancing lights to light because of the range and their utility as distraction/signal; the party will all have light sources anyway (and continual flames as budget allows). Detect magic is one of the most generically useful 0-levels, but it's possible that your cleric AND wizard might have that covered (plus your wizard is likely to be packing Spellcraft ranks anyway). Ghost sound is handy for standard illusiony things or just giving yourself an awesome soundtrack, hah.

1: Silent image and grease will always be useful. Hideous laughter is very strong if you face a lot of humanoids, but weaker when you don't -- so definitely campaign dependent.

2: Your spell selection here will depend a lot on whether you want to move into melee -- alter self, mirror image, blur all give you great defenses, but you don't need to invest so heavily if you aren't on the front line. I'd say the big standouts are glitterdust (AoE blindness AND invis-defeating) and silence (did I cast silence on a tanglefoot bag? did I just nail you with it as a ranged touch attack, as a readied action to disrupt your spellcasting? does your life suck?), as well as mirror image (protects you from any kind of targeted attack, if you draw fire at all). Heroism is actually quite a tasty little buff, with decent duration; it's a pity that its attack bonus won't stack with inspire courage, but the skill/save bonuses are handy.

3: Awesome sauce. Charm monster? Yes please. (Nigh-permanent thralls for you, since it lasts day/level and you can just recast it before it wears off. "Hold still, I need to protect you with my magic, friend." You did have ranks in Bluff, right?) Glibness? Are you kidding -- do you know what +30 to Bluff will let you get away with? "Way out there, almost too incredible to consider" only gives your sap of a victim +20 to Sense Motive -- you really CAN sell him the Brooklyn Bridge. Twice. Confusion, haste, slow, major image, fear, dispel magic are all excellent
(depending what your party has).

I won't go above this for now since you're starting at 1st level and it will probably be a while until you get to 10th level.

Items: you want a circlet of persuasion. Bad. +3 to all Charisma-based checks? So that's Diplomacy, Bluff, Gather Information, Disguise, Perform, and Use Magic Device, not to mention opposed Charisma checks for charm person or charm monster. This is right up there with wanting a cloak of Charisma +2.

Possible cheese: Core lists the generic "masterwork tool" as giving +2 circumstance bonus to a skill. If you and your DM have sufficient lactose tolerance and you can fasttalk your DM into allowing some kind of "magic focusing crystal" as a MW tool for UMD, bringing UMD online ASAP is a good thing.

Other items: you can use scrolls or wands of spells on your class list with no problem, so definitely a wand of cure light wounds, and potentially scrolls of handy utility spells like detect secret doors, expeditious retreat, (nystul's) magic aura, remove fear, unseen servant. Once your UMD gets high enough, every random scroll or wand that your party is on the fence about keeping, you can claim and use, plus you can buy even more random useful scrolls from other class lists.