first time bard here looking for help

[plaugebearer]

So I have a question about how this works this will be my first non-human character to make and not sure how it works. I am going to make a bard and was looking at the Satyr for the race.(I have include a link to the D&D wiki on Satyrs which is my reference point) As I understand it my level 1 satyr bard would be equivalent to a level 3 human bard and would earn xp slower due to the LA+2. However I have some question about the setup. When you make a new character you get 1 feat for making them; this also states that for racial feats “A satyr’s fey levels give it two feats. A satyr receives Alertness as a bonus feat.” Does this mean that a level 1 satyr bard would have a total of 4 feats? 1 from creation 2 from racial and the fourth being Alertness as a bonus. Also along these same lines how would I calculate my BAB, Health, and Saves based on this:

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Racial Hit Dice:*A satyr begins with five levels of fey, which provide 5d6 Hit Dice, a base attack bonus of +2, and base saving throw bonuses of Fort +1, Ref +4, and Will +4.

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If I am reading this right that means that this toon would start with a +2BAB(since bard has 0), Health of 6d6 +Con mod(5d6 from satyr and 1d6 from bard), and saves of Fort +1, Ref +6, and Will +6(which is just adding the racial and the bards saves together).

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http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Satyrs_(Race)

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So with all that said I was hoping you could confirm or correct the above information.

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Part2:

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For those of you that have the time and are willing to help me I would like any and all advice on how to make this work I am making a level 15 Bard whatever race I want this is just the one that made since to me.(With this race it would only be a level 13 the equivalent level needs to be 15). All wizards of the coast books and rules for 3.5 are available with the exception of flaws. I would like advice on Items, feats, spells, or anything else you can think of including name. I have 200,000 gold to use. I have not rolled stats yet sorry about that. Also leaning more towards a spell caster but melee would be ok if it is better.

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Thanks for all the help you provide.

[danzibr]

Default advice:

Don't use dandwiki as it contains homebrew and doesn't mark what is homebrew and what isn't (by the way that link doesn't work). Use d20srd.org instead.
Don't play a race with a level adjustment and/or racial hit dice. To make an example similar to yours, a level 1 Satyr Bard (total ECL 8, 1 from Bard, 5 from RHD and 2 from LA) would start off as a level 8 human Bard. Level 8!

Anyway, assuming the Satyr you're looking at has 5 RHD, a Satyr with 1 level of Bard would indeed get 3 feats: 1 for level 1, 1 for level 3 and 1 for level 6, and you get Alertness as well, so 4 total. Then you just add up the BAB's and saves.

For Bard-specific advice, check these out:
Link 1. (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19870498/The_Bards_Handbook)
Link 2. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=8284)

[plaugebearer]

Ok thanks for that advice this is my first time using things other than hardcopy books. Also I have fixed the link.

Also what is ecl and how does it work? It seems crazy that a la+2males a level 1 into a level 8

[Barsoom]

ECL = Effective Character Level. This takes into account actual level, LA, and racial hit dice (RHD). Anything with RHD is usually bad, since you're trading levels in the class you really wanted to take for racial levels with mediocre abilities.

[gorfnab]

First off: dandwiki should not be trusted. Some of the stuff on there is pulled from the books, however a good chunk of it is homebrew (sometimes really bad homebrew).

I recommend using either of these two sites when needing to source OGL D&D 3.5 core material.
http://www.d20srd.org/
http://www.systemreferencedocuments.org/resources/systems/pennpaper/dnd35/soveliorsage/



As I understand it my level 1 satyr bard would be equivalent to a level 3 human bard and would earn xp slower due to the LA+2.

False. Your 1st level Satyr Bard is equivalent to a level 8 character. 5 racial hit dice + 2 LA + 1 level of bard = Equivalent Character Level (ECL) 8.


However I have some question about the setup. When you make a new character you get 1 feat for making them; this also states that for racial feats “A satyr’s fey levels give it two feats. A satyr receives Alertness as a bonus feat.” Does this mean that a level 1 satyr bard would have a total of 4 feats? 1 from creation 2 from racial and the fourth being Alertness as a bonus.
The number of feats is determined by the number of hit dice. So your 1st level Satyr Bard would get feats at: its first racial hit die (HD), its third racial hit die, and its first level of Bard (5 racial hit die + 1 level of bard = 6 hit die). Alertness is given as a bonus (basically free) feat. So this character would have 3 feats + Alertness.


Racial Hit Dice:*A satyr begins with five levels of fey, which provide 5d6 Hit Dice, a base attack bonus of +2, and base saving throw bonuses of Fort +1, Ref +4, and Will +4.

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If I am reading this right that means that this toon would start with a +2BAB(since bard has 0), Health of 6d6 +Con mod(5d6 from satyr and 1d6 from bard), and saves of Fort +1, Ref +6, and Will +6(which is just adding the racial and the bards saves together).
This is correct.

I recommend you read through the following handbook if you really want to play a Satyr:
Urpriest's Monstrous Monster Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=207928)



For those of you that have the time and are willing to help me I would like any and all advice on how to make this work I am making a level 15 Bard whatever race I want this is just the one that made since to me.(With this race it would only be a level 13 the equivalent level needs to be 15). All wizards of the coast books and rules for 3.5 are available with the exception of flaws. I would like advice on Items, feats, spells, or anything else you can think of including name. I have 200,000 gold to use. I have not rolled stats yet sorry about that. Also leaning more towards a spell caster but melee would be ok if it is better.
Caster based characters + monstrous/racial HD do not usually work well together. An 8th level Satyr Bard is a 15th level character (5 racial HD + 2 LA + 8 levels of Bard). So with that you're not bringing much casting to the table. For a caster based Bard I usually recommend: Human (or something similar: Silverbrow Human, Illuman, maybe an Elf of some kind) Bard 8/ Virtuoso (Complete Adventurer) 2/ Sublime Chord (Complete Arcane) 2/ Virtuoso 8 (these 8 levels of Virtuoso will advance Sublime Chord casting).

Here are some useful Bard Handbooks:
Bard Handbook (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=8686)
Inspire Courage Optimization Handbook (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=8936)

[plaugebearer]

Thanks for all the help reading through the links now

[danzibr]

So you said you'd rather lean more toward caster but melee is okay too.

What kind of party are you joining? Is there already a dedicated caster? Do you need to be more skill monkey-esque?

Regardless, I played a Bard in a recent campaign and I would suggest the following:

For race I'd suggest Silverbrow Human.

For class I'd suggest Bard 10/Sublime Chord (http://dndtools.eu/classes/sublime-chord/) 10 (well, since you're starting at 15 it'd be Bard 10/Sublime Chord 5). If you want to make it fancier you can throw in Virtuoso, but personally I wouldn't bother.

For feats I'd suggest Dragonfire Inspiration (human bonus) and Lingering Song (level 1), then Melodic Casting (level 3), Words of Creation (level 6), Versatile Spellcaster (level 9), whatever you want from there. Honestly the feats are pretty flexible. Also there's a way to trade in the Suggestion song ability for the Song of the Heart feat (this should be detailed in the optimizing IC link).

For items pick up Badge of Valor and Vest of Legends and a masterwork mandolin.

For spells make sure you have Inspirational Boost.

At your level with the above setup you can give all your allies an absurd amount of bonus fire damage (you can change the type at the cost of a feat), which varies on how your DM rules Words of Creation.

Least favorable: base +3, WoC doubles to +6, +1 each from Badge of Valor, Inspirational Boost, Song of the Heart and masterwork mandolin for +10d6 fire damage. Then you can cease your casting and redo the process for +8 damage/+10 attack.

Most favorable: WoC doubles at the end, +14d6 fire damage, +12 damage/+14 attack.

[Thrudd]

A Satyr bard isn't a bad idea, at least as far as character concepts and fluff go. It may not be the most optimized, but then most monster PC's aren't. But you get awesome ability adjustments (+2 on everything except strength), DR 5/cold iron, 3d6 more hit points than a normal 15th lvl bard, +4 natural AC, faster movement than most other PCs will have (40), and some skills higher than a character of your level could normally achieve. Also casting sleep, charm person or fear at will with your pipes as a 10th level caster on everything in a 60ft radius (could posibly come in handy if you encounter a big group of humanoids with low will saves).

Actually, the ECL for a monster character is only used to determine the XP necessary to get to the next level, not the class abilities, so you will take longer to level up than normal PC's. Your ECL is monster HD +LA +CL, which for you would be 20 (5HD+2LA+13Bard). You will need 210,000 XP to get to lvl 16, instead of 120,000.
The LA plus class levels equals the character level. So with LA+2, a 15th level Satyr bard would be the same as a 13th level normal bard in terms of spellcasting and bard abilities, which isn't so bad given some of the special abilities the Satyr gets. It is possible to create a more powerful character, but this one would have a cool flavor. I wouldn't give up on it so fast, unless you are really determined to make the most powerful character possible.

This is really what you need to read: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monstersAsRaces.htm#startingLevelofaMonsterPC

[danzibr]

A Satyr bard isn't a bad idea, at least as far as character concepts and fluff go. It may not be the most optimized, but then most monster PC's aren't. But you get awesome ability adjustments (+2 on everything except strength), DR 5/cold iron, 3d6 more hit points than a normal 15th lvl bard, +4 natural AC, faster movement than most other PCs will have (40), and some skills higher than a character of your level could normally achieve. Also casting sleep, charm person or fear at will with your pipes as a 10th level caster on everything in a 60ft radius (could posibly come in handy if you encounter a big group of humanoids with low will saves).

Actually, the ECL for a monster character is only used to determine the XP necessary to get to the next level, not the class abilities, so you will take longer to level up than normal PC's. Your ECL is monster HD +LA +CL, which for you would be 20 (5HD+2LA+13Bard). You will need 210,000 XP to get to lvl 16, instead of 120,000.
The LA plus class levels equals the character level. So with LA+2, a 15th level Satyr bard would be the same as a 13th level normal bard in terms of spellcasting and bard abilities, which isn't so bad given some of the special abilities the Satyr gets. It is possible to create a more powerful character, but this one would have a cool flavor. I wouldn't give up on it so fast, unless you are really determined to make the most powerful character possible.

This is really what you need to read: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monstersAsRaces.htm#startingLevelofaMonsterPC
I believe there is some confusion here.

It appears the OP said he was making a level 15 Bard. He correctly counted the +2 LA as making him start at level 13 (well, 13 HD), but neglected the 5 RHD, bringing him down to a level 8 Bard (I might be misreading something).

If you look at Bard 8 versus Bard 10/Sublime Chord 5, there is absolutely no contest. Going Satyr will totally neuter your character. The bonuses are garbage compared to the class levels (the bonuses aren't *worthless*, but just can't compare).

I do agree playing as Mr. Tumnus would be flavorful though.

[Thrudd]

I believe there is some confusion here.

It appears the OP said he was making a level 15 Bard. He correctly counted the +2 LA as making him start at level 13 (well, 13 HD), but neglected the 5 RHD, bringing him down to a level 8 Bard (I might be misreading something).

If you look at Bard 8 versus Bard 10/Sublime Chord 5, there is absolutely no contest. Going Satyr will totally neuter your character. The bonuses are garbage compared to the class levels (the bonuses aren't *worthless*, but just can't compare).

I do agree playing as Mr. Tumnus would be flavorful though.


Yeah, I think you're right. When I read "Use ECL instead of character level to determine how many experience points a monster character needs to reach its next level.", I interpreted that as meaning the Class levels plus the LA. But it does not make sense to let someone play as a 6hd creature that has special abilities with a level 3 party. Even though by 15th level, the advantages of the Satyr have been far overtaken. It feels like +2LA is too steep, but even if there was no LA, a 10th level caster is well behind 15th level power.
I remember now why I never allowed Monster PC's in my games. lol

[plaugebearer]

Thank you all for the help I think I am going to use the links provided to go with what danzibr suggested in order to make the best I can.

[danzibr]

Thank you all for the help I think I am going to use the links provided to go with what danzibr suggested in order to make the best I can.
I'm glad to be of service!

If you have any questions feel free to ask.

[hoverfrog]

You can certainly take monster levels even though the cost is pretty nasty and don't forget that you can buy off that cost (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/reducingLevelAdjustments.htm) is the DM agrees. That +2 LA is gone by 15th level and you'll hardly notice it. The 5 monster levels aren't as good as PC class levels but you can live with that, right.

At 15th you'd be 5th Satyr\10th Bard and you'd have paid off 16,000xp for that +2 LA. That may put you at 5th Satyr\9th Bard but you'll soon catch up. This is better than being 5th Satyr\8th Bard, I'm sure you'll agree.

When you've created the sheet I'm sure we'd love to see what it looks like.