Bard building help

[Rapidgator]

My first character died in the last session I had and we can't revive him, so I need to make a new one, so I thought of making a Hengeyokai(Fox)/Bard, and I need some help with it.My party is Dwarf/Warrior(defensive build), Goliath/Barbarian and Drow/Scout, so a Bard complementing it would be nice, we're playing in Eberron.

[Sparkzlight]

Bard/cleric/mystic theurge.

Very, very good.

[eggynack]

So, standard inspire courage stuff? Here's a handbook of sorts (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=9830.0). That might help out some. If you want to do more spellcastery stuff, or some third thing like diplomancy, there's whole other sets of advice. Bards can do a lot of different things, and usually benefit from picking one of them.

[Waker]

My first character died in the last session I had and we can't revive him, so I need to make a new one, so I thought of making a Hengeyokai(Fox)/Bard, and I need some help with it.My party is Dwarf/Warrior(defensive build), Goliath/Barbarian and Drow/Scout, so a Bard complementing it would be nice, we're playing in Eberron.

I don't have the stats in front of me for Hengeyokai, but I could offer some suggestions. What level are you starting at and what exactly do you want to do with this character?

[eggynack]

Bard/cleric/mystic theurge.

Very, very good.
What? Why? That wouldn't be good at all. Do not do this if success is what you seek. For one thing, mystic theurges are terrible, and for a second, you'd need four bard levels, unless you're using early entry, and for a third you're not advancing or complimenting bard abilities at all. It's just not good at stuff, or at least it's not that much better than a cleric 3/ commoner 4/ cleric X. You still get cleric advancement, which is nice, so you're probably better than the lower end of the tier list by that metric alone.

[Waker]

What? Why? That wouldn't be good at all. Do not do this if success is what you seek. For one thing, mystic theurges are terrible, and for a second, you'd need four bard levels, unless you're using early entry, and for a third you're not advancing or complimenting bard abilities at all. It's just not good at stuff, or at least it's not that much better than a cleric 3/ commoner 4/ cleric X. You still get cleric advancement, which is nice, so you're probably better than the lower end of the tier list by that metric alone.

And let us not forget the MADness that such a thing would entail. Honestly if I had decided to be a Bard/Divine Caster I would think about maybe something like Bard/Shugenja or Bard/Sha'ir.

[eggynack]

And let us not forget the MADness that such a thing would entail. Honestly if I had decided to be a Bard/Divine Caster I would think about maybe something like Bard/Shugenja or Bard/Sha'ir.
I was planning to put that one in, but I decided that it could be considered a subset of "general mystic theurge crappiness." Still, I guess that doesn't quite work out, because you could always stick together a wizard/archivist, or one of your bard options, so MADness isn't an absolute component of the mystic theurge. If you want a buffer, just stick with a DFI build, or use a variant on the standard sublime chord build, but use war weaver instead of virtuoso. I think that you can finagle it such that you skip both the dead casting level of war weaver, and also skip the dead level of uncanny trickster, so that you can advance war weaver past its normal cap without dead levels. It's slightly on the dubious side, as all things involving uncanny trickster are, but it looks like it could work.

[Rapidgator]

Well, I'm beggining at 7th level, and I'm and I'm thinking of a Healer/Support set, Hengeyokai gets +2 Dex and -2 Wis

[Sparkzlight]

What? Why? That wouldn't be good at all. Do not do this if success is what you seek. For one thing, mystic theurges are terrible, and for a second, you'd need four bard levels, unless you're using early entry, and for a third you're not advancing or complimenting bard abilities at all. It's just not good at stuff, or at least it's not that much better than a cleric 3/ commoner 4/ cleric X. You still get cleric advancement, which is nice, so you're probably better than the lower end of the tier list by that metric alone.

Ok, in all seriousness, if your going to multiclass bard I'd go with rogue or something, I did a bard/swashbuckler and that worked out well.

[eggynack]

Ok, in all seriousness, if your going to multiclass bard I'd go with rogue or something, I did a bard/swashbuckler and that worked out well.
I don't really see the synergy. I'd probably either go straight bard, or with a crazy sublime chord build. The big swashbuckler thing is the int bonus to damage, and that's only at all useful if you naturally want intelligence, and it's barely useful then. I'm missing the advantage of these multi-class options over just being a bard.

[Waker]

Well, support-wise a Bard is fine. You've got your usual methods of boosting Inspire Courage like Song of the Heart, Dragonfire Inspiration, Words of Creation and a few others. Healing is trickier, simply because in-combat healing is rather ineffective, while out of combat you can simply rely on a Wand of Cure Light Wounds.
eggynack's suggestion of War Weaver is a good one, as it lets you use your lower level spells to greater effect as well as give you some decent action economy options. Sadly you won't be able to take your first level in it until level 8.
If you want to be Heal/Support, you might consider going Bard/Crusader and making use of White Raven and Devoted Spirit in tandem with Bardic Music. Song of the White Raven is a good feat should you go this path. Bonus points if you can wheedle your DM into allowing Devoted Performer to apply to Crusader instead of Paladin.
Lyric Thamauturge and Sublime Chord are two PrCs you may want to look at to expand on your spellcasting options.

[eggynack]

eggynack's suggestion of War Weaver is a good one, as it lets you use your lower level spells to greater effect as well as give you some decent action economy options. Sadly you won't be able to take your first level in it until level 8.
You don't necessarily want it before level 8 anyways. The build goes something like bard 8/war weaver 1/uncanny trickster 1/sublime chord 1/ war weaver 4/ uncanny trickster 2. You use war weaver to advance sublime chord casting, and uncanny trickster to advance war weaver's advancement of sublime chord casting. After that, I guess you want more sublime chord. It's been awhile since I've put this together, so I might not have the build mapped out properly, but the base principles of it seem sound, and there's certainly some kind of construct that will achieve my goal. It's basically the regular bard/virtuoso/sublime chord/virtuoso build, with war weaver and uncanny trickster where virtuoso would otherwise be.

[Waker]

bard 8/war weaver 1/uncanny trickster 1/sublime chord 1/ war weaver 4/ uncanny trickster 2.
Hmm, I could see that working a bit. I'd probably go something like
Bard 8/War Weaver 1/ Uncanny Trickster 1/Sublime Chord 1/WW 2/Uncanny Trickster 2/Virtuoso 5
The War Weaver is only five levels long, so you could take three levels of it and have the other two progressed by Trickster. After you take a dip in Sublime Chord, the class is then progressed by WW and by extension UT, finally finished by using Virtuoso. End result would be 8th level Bard Casting and 17th level Sublime Chord casting, just netting you 9th level spells. Hardly the most amazing build, but you would have plenty of skill points and some handy performances. Fortunately you would still have feats to spend on your perfomances or spellcasting, since most of the PrCs don't have a feat tax.

[eggynack]

I'd probably skip the virtuoso finish. The reason they're used a lot is because sublime chord skips the dead casting level, which doesn't happen in that build. However, if it's theoretically possible to cook up something like bard 7/uncanny trickster 1/war weaver 1/sublime chord 1/war weaver 4/uncanny trickster 2/virtuoso 4, that'd be cool. You'd probably need to put some of your points into intelligence though, cause those skill requirements look crazy. In any case, everything after you start taking sublime chord should perfectly advance sublime chord, so you'd pick up 9th's at level 19 or so. It's a bit tricky in general, so I should probably work out the specifics at some point. I put it together once, but that was awhile ago. The real advantage of it, from my perspective, is that you're getting the extra war weaver advancement from uncanny trickster for free. A normal wizard/war weaver/uncanny trickster build would have two dead caster levels, so you're only getting 9th's at level 19 anyway. Of course, you can just skip the uncanny trickster and be perfectly viable, but this way seems kinda cool.

[Gwendol]

The bard can choose the healing hymn ACF to boost healing out of combat, but that requires healing spells to be cast natively and not from a wand or other device.
Straight bard is extremely versatile though, go for it!

[Darrin]

Straight bard is extremely versatile though, go for it!

Core bard is a bit rough, though. Sourcebooks are where you find the best power-ups for bards (particularly Complete Arcane, Dragon Magic, Spell Compendium, and Frostburn).

What sourcebooks are available? Do you want to optimize spellcasting (9th level spells), DPS (via Dragonfire Inspiration), social engineering (Diplomancer/Exemplar), or utilty (Factotum/Chameleon)?

[Rapidgator]

We have: Complete Arcane, Book of Exalted Deeds, Complete Adventurer, Dragon Magic, Complete Adventurer, Player's Handbook II, Eberron Campaign Setting, Oriental Adventures, I want to have a more controling/diplomacy support abilities, because our party lacks Char based skills so we always end up in fight because we fail the Diplomacy checks or not being able to persuade somebody.

[Gwendol]

Yes, I meant to say with ample support. Anything that trades away inspire competence is good, and I recommend spellbreaker song instead of countersong.

Edit: with those books I think you should be able to pick up melodic casting, song of the heart, and words of creation. That's really all you need for a competent bard. Get a badge of valor early on, and pick some spells to help with your diplomancing (bards get a few).

[GreenETC]

The War Weaver is only five levels long, so you could take three levels of it and have the other two progressed by Trickster.
As eggynack already said, the entire point is to advance the level of spels you can use in your Eldritch Tapestry, since the cap for the ability is directly tied to class levels, which Uncanny Trickster counts as, allowing you an extra 2 levels of spells in there.

[eggynack]

As eggynack already said, the entire point is to advance the level of spels you can use in your Eldritch Tapestry, since the cap for the ability is directly tied to class levels, which Uncanny Trickster counts as, allowing you an extra 2 levels of spells in there.
That is indeed the plan. I didn't really understand what he was getting at. The effects of uncanny trickster on prestige classes that are capping out are rather dubious, but as long as your only goal is raising the level of spells in your weave, it should work out fine.

[Sparkzlight]

I don't really see the synergy. I'd probably either go straight bard, or with a crazy sublime chord build. The big swashbuckler thing is the int bonus to damage, and that's only at all useful if you naturally want intelligence, and it's barely useful then. I'm missing the advantage of these multi-class options over just being a bard.

It wasn't optimized, but it was just fun to play. :)

All the bardic illusion spells were great for crowd control, and with my enchanted masterwork rapier I did tons of damage.

[eggynack]

It wasn't optimized, but it was just fun to play. :)

All the bardic illusion spells were great for crowd control, and with my enchanted masterwork rapier I did tons of damage.
Fair enough. I just usually like justifications for why something works out in a build. You might have had fun, but it's doubtful that that's connected to your class selection. Realistically, if I want to use a single rapier as a weapon, the best option is a straight bard using snowflake wardance, and backing that up with dragonfire inspiration. Swashbuckler and rogue would probably never enter into it. Come to think of it, bards are probably the best option for using a one handed weapon with no shield, so I should probably start suggesting it when people ask. I find that people tend to suggest snowflake wardance for bards, but rarely suggest bards for snowflake wardance, if that makes any sense.

[Saintheart]

We have: Complete Arcane, Book of Exalted Deeds, Complete Adventurer, Dragon Magic, Complete Adventurer, Player's Handbook II, Eberron Campaign Setting, Oriental Adventures, I want to have a more controling/diplomacy support abilities, because our party lacks Char based skills so we always end up in fight because we fail the Diplomacy checks or not being able to persuade somebody.

Glibness, Circlet of Persuasion, and Sirine's Grace/Fugue later on. You'll never fail a Diplomacy check again, and you'll literally have 'em falling in the aisles.

[kulosle]

So umm, how much cheese is usually allowed at your table? Mainly early entry shenanigans and feat shuffling.

For now i'll assume it's not allowed. Then I'd suggest

Bard 8/War Weaver 1/Legacy Champion 1/Sublime chord 1/War Weaver 4/ Legacy Champion 5

With the last level of Legacy Champion advancing Sublime chord. or take a level of crusader anywhere in there. But the main problem with this is that you are only a level 9 bard. Now chaos music can fix that but that dragon mag and a lot of people are against it. Also some people don't like legacy champion for what ever reason, but i think that it's the best option here considering you want to be able to put 9th level spells into it.

[eggynack]

I think that the reason why folks don't like legacy champion as much as, say, uncanny trickster, is because legacy champion requires that you have a legacy weapon. Legacy weapons tend to range from bad, to really bad, so unless you have a depthy understanding of how to optimally customize a legacy weapon, it's not a good thing to have. Uncanny trickster, by contrast, uses skill tricks. Folks like skill tricks, because skill tricks are pretty cool. Bards are also pretty good at qualifying for uncanny trickster, because of their good number of skill points. I suppose that if there's a way to make it not suck, legacy champion might be better, but I do not know that way.

[kulosle]

That's a fair point, I would never pick legacy champion if i had to do it in game. So unless you want your first level of legacy champ to be your 6th or 7th level I wouldn't take it. Especially because it's a huge detouring side quest that you gm might not want to do. So i guess you can only have 7th level spells in you weave. That's not the worst thing. IT also raises you effective bard level by letting you take more levels of Virtuoso. So maybe something like

Bard 7/Virtuoso 2/War Weaver 1/Sublime chord 1/War Weaver 4/Uncanny Trickster 3/Virtuoso 2

That nets you a bard level of 11 and you still end up with 9th level spells.

[eggynack]

That's closer, but I think that my way works better. Your method is taking on a lost spell level due to uncanny trickster, so you should probably replace one of those virtuoso levels with uncanny trickster. Otherwise you've got about what I proposed, so I obviously think the build is neat. Using sublime chord to cheat your way past dead casting levels is a cool thing.