Tomb of Horrors Bard Build

[mechamedusa]

Hey guys.

So my DM runs Tomb of horrors 3.5 every Halloween. I am the newest member to the game group, and as such I have been invited to join. He told me that in the last 10 years, he has never had a party survive, mainly because most of his groups were kick-in-the-door types. That being said, he gave me character creation guild lines and told me to make the most broken/OP Bard I can make.

The guide lines are:
Level 10
Anything published for 3.0/5 is okay
3.5 overrules 3.0 (ie. TWF overrules Ambidextrous)
Character wealth is level 10

I do not have access to/infinite knowledge of all published 3.5 options, so I turn to you folks.

Please aid me in making the most broken level 10 bard possible.
:]

[ZamielVanWeber]

Dragonfire Inspiration is always a great place to start (it is in Draconomicon).

[Gwendol]

Bards are really good at making the team better, so what are the others playing?
For Bard 10 you can start branching out to PrC's. Sublime Chord/Virtuoso is always popular. I usually advise against DFI, simply because the attack roll bonus granted by ordinary IC is too good to pass up, and because elemental resistance is all too common. That said, you can start both songs...

[GreenETC]

For a 10th level Bard, I would personally recommend just a straight Bard with Bardic Knack/Jack of All Trades, provided your DM is okay with this combo. Bards are skill monkeys, but having all the Knowledges without needing ranks is pretty nice. On top of that, Dragonfire Inspiration will add tons of damage to allies provided you build things right.

I've run the Tomb of Horrors before and can recommend being cautious, as the reason kick-in-the-door doesn't work is because the dungeon was designed to punish players who do just that.

[Tokuhara]

My Suggestion?

As someone who has played Bard 100 different ways, here's my build setup:

For Tomb of Horrors, you need to really have a not-stupid 5 man band (Melee, Skills, Arcane, Divine, Wild Card), and with this being Tomb of Horrors (a dungeon I have successfully defeated), I want to propose you do a little of everything well.

Race: Silverbrow Human or Spellscale - For this, you need to weigh the value of 1 feat vs. a +1 modifier to Charisma at -1 modifier to Constitution. Since this is ToH, I'd personally take Silverbrow Human over Spellscale, because while 20 Charisma is awesome (More Bardic Music mostly), the -1m Con equals 1 HP/level (10 in your case) and a weaker Fortitude Save (something you'll need desperately

Class: For this, I want to say that no character of appropriate level can "solo" the Tomb (as published), but let's try and get close, shall we? Bard is the base here, but with the ACFs of bard available, you'd be a fool to not use this. Savage Bard will open up some wonderful spells and Give you Good Fortitude and Will saves (VERY handy in ToH) with the Spellbreaker song (instead of Countersong, which isn't very useful) gives you a bit of survivability and a more useful class feature. Then, get a level in Sublime Chord. This is why Bard is used in a lot of "Dual 9" builds, since Sublime Chord opens up those elusive 9th level spells Bard cannot get, though since you're 10th level, it's the variety we're looking for here. Finish out with Dragonsong Lyrist 2/Virtuoso X to give you a wide swath of Bardic Musics at limited spell levels lost (1)

So it looks like this: Savage Spellbreaker Bard 6/Sublime Chord 1/Dragonsong Lyrist 2/Virtuoso 1

Now for feats. Minus the prerequisite feats, you need the following (and note, if you can take 2 flaws, this opens up for more variety)

Lingering Song
Dragontouched (Something with a "Hard to Resist" energy type)
Dragonfire Inspiration
Melodic Casting
Words of Creation
Snowflake Wardance

My suggestion is to get DFI and Dragontouched (Emerald) ASAP, with the other 3 non-prerequisites being slotted in where you can (with 2 flaws, WoC and 1 of the prerequisite feats here)

and finally gear. Now, Armor is entirely up to you, but my weapon suggestion is a +x Morphing Steel Flute. This is a 1-handed simple weapon that can become something you're proficient in (say a 1-handed slashing weapon, thus kicking your Snowflake Wardance) and doubles as an instrument. This way, you can save room in your inventory for other items you need.


Well, that's my 2c, so Good Luck and I hope this helps!

~Toku~

[Story]

I'd suggest being Necropolitan. A lot of the traps in ToH assume the target is living.

Though if you are properly paranoid, you shouldn't have to worry about that anyway.

[gorfnab]

My Suggestion?
So it looks like this: Savage Spellbreaker Bard 6/Sublime Chord 1/Dragonsong Lyrist 2/Virtuoso 1

How are you meeting the prereqs for Sublime Chord before 10th level?

Bard Handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=8284)
Inspire Courage Handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=9830.0)

[Big Fau]

Dragonfire Inspiration is always a great place to start (it is in Draconomicon).

DFI is in Dragon Magic, not the Draconomicon.

[John Longarrow]

For myself, I'd use a character I had mostly walk through the traps.

Kroner Florin.

Tallfellow Halfling with Dark and Firesouled templates.
Mix Marshall and Rogue in with Bard.

Max out Search and Disable Device. Toss on Nimble Fingers and Tactile Trapsmith. You want to use the aura that lets you add your Charisma to Dex.

Drop 2500 for a +5 to search item or, if you can, 10K for a +10.

Your entire purpose is to identify and disable every trap you run into. Toss in UMD from Bard/Rogue and some singing and you should negate half the threats in there.

If you really want more Bard than Rogue, switch to Gnome to avoid the XP issue.

[Story]

You don't really want to have to rely on manually searching traps. Especially since some traps are not the kind that can be found with Search or disabled with Disable Device.

For a trap defuser, you'll also want some kind of infinite at-will summons (Summon Elemental Reserve or Bind Malphas) as well as a way to avoid touching anything (Amulet of Mage Hand or the Collar of Perpetual Attendance). Though it's probably easier to spread this abilities among the party.

[Manly Man]

Have your first level be Commoner, and take the Chicken-Infested flaw, and the feats Quick Draw and Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Chicken in case your DM decides to try and say that you can't draw a chicken as a free action because it's not a 'weapon'. Make sure to have a large spell component pouch, and lots of really cheap components (bat guano is a popular one). From there, you just keep drawing from your bag until you have a chicken, and then throw it at something whenever you think it looks suspicious. There's your trap problem solved, as well as a few others, considering the many ways in which a nigh-infinite supply of chickens can be abused.

[John Longarrow]

Easier is to get an item that does Mount at will.

Chickens may or may not set off some traps. Horses tend to, especially pit traps.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Having never touched Tomb of Horrors personally and knowing nothing about it, my suggestions will be strong without a metagame advantage apart from being aware that there are tons of traps.

Use Silverbrow Human from Dragon Magic, which gives you the Dragonblood creature type and Feather Fall 3/day at 10th level. You want the Dragonblood creature type for feats you'll be taking, and Feather Fall is useful if pit traps are involved.

Go Savage Bard (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#bardVariantSavageBard) 10, which gives you 4th level spells. Alternate class features to use: Trade Countersong for Spellbreaker Song (CM). Trade your Fascinate song for Healing Hymn (CC). Trade your Suggestion song for the feat Song of the Heart (ECS). Trade Bardic Knowledge for Bardic Knack (PH2).

Ability Scores: You'll need at least Int 15 and Cha 20 with items. I'd get a decent Dex and Con as well, and put Cha as high as possible. Consider starting out middle-aged for -1 to all three physical stats and +1 to all three mental stats.

For your feats, you'll get four for levels, one for being human, and you should get two more feats via flaws (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/characterFlaws.htm), which I'd get Love of Nature and Aligned Devotion (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=258440#30). You'll need to know a Cure Wounds spell to have Aligned Devotion, but it doesn't affect your Healing Hymn bonus on allies' Cure Minor Wounds spells (but Healing Hymn still doesn't affect spells produced from items). Note that flaws must be taken when creating a character, and since you're creating a character at 10th level your flaws can show up at any level including 10th. Feats should be Dragonfire Inspiration (RotD) (H), Melodic Casting (CM) (1), Wild Cohort (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20031118a) (F), Versatile Spellcaster (RotD) (3), Song of the Heart (ECS) (ACF), Words of Creation (BoED) (6), Lyric Spell (CA) (9), and Summon Elemental (CM) (F).

Dragonfire Inspiration allows your Inspire Courage to grant +Xd6 fire damage on weapon attacks (both manufactured and natural weapons but not spells), where X is your normal Inspire Courage bonus. With a Badge of Valor (MIC) your total Inspire Courage bonus will be +9, thus adding +9d6 fire damage to your party's attacks. (Base +2, Song of the Heart +1, Inspiratonal Boost spell (SC) +1, Words of Creation doubles the current value (+4 doubled is +8), Badge of Valor is activated after the song starts right after your turn ends for another +1.) Note that with a Harmonizing weapon (MIC) you can start a Dragonfire Inspiration and have it active for the round you started it, your weapon will take over maintaining the song for you starting the next round and keep it going for 10 rounds, then the song will still affect your party for another 5 rounds. On the turn the Harmonizing weapon picks the song up you can start a new song, either a standard Inspire Courage without Dragonfire Inspiration (at +6 to hit and damage, skipping Inspirational Boost due to action economy and Badge of Valor due to daily uses), or Inspire Greatness for someone who really needs it, or any other song that would be appropriate. Also note that Bardic Music is a supernatural ability, and Dragonfire Inspiration is a noninstantaneous magical fire, so anything flammable that takes damage from it has to make a Reflex save or catch on fire per DMG page 303-304. This includes any flammable objects that you want to set alight, such as locked and possibly trapped doors.

With Melodic Casting you don't need ranks in Concentration, and you can cast spells and activate wands while singing.

Your Wild Cohort should be a Fleshraker dinosaur (MM3), which isn't available until 7th level but still comes in as a 'level -3' companion. You'll have a 7 HD companion with an extra +3 natural armor, +1 Str and Dex, two bonus tricks, and Evasion over what's printed. Most importantly, it gets a pounce attack with five attacks counting the rake, all of which benefit from your Inspire Courage. It's by far the most powerful companion available, and it's still medium size so it shouldn't have any issues fitting into a dungeon. It will have three more skill points and one extra feat from HD, if you can manage to steal one of its printed Jump ranks to put two cross-class ranks into Spellcraft it can have Mage Slayer (CA). If not, I'd just give it Power Attack and buy it Armbands of Might (MIC) for 4,100 gp. In that case it should always Power Attack for -2 to hit (unless it has difficulty hitting), which with the Armbands will add +4 damage to all of its attacks.

Versatile Spellcaster allows you to spend two spell slots of the same level to cast any spell you know of one level higher. It's just plain good. Lyric Spell allows you to spend (spell level +1) bardic music uses to cast a spell instead of using a spell slot. It too is just plain good, and between this and Versatile Spellcaster you should still have a few clutch plays left even if you're extremely low on spell slots.

Summon Elemental is a reserve feat that allows you to create a small elemental of any of the four varieties at will as long as you have a 4th level or higher summoning spell available to cast. This means you need to know Summon Nature's Ally IV as one of your two 4th level spells to take the feat, and including the above two feats, as long as you have a 4th level spell slot remaining, or two 3rd level spell slots remaining, or five daily uses of Bardic Music remaining, you have that spell available to cast and can use this reserve feat. Your elemental should always travel a good distance ahead of the party, open every door and chest, pull every lever, etc. It may get destroyed by a trap, but then you can just make another one. You're basically going to use it to Nodwick all the traps ahead of the party, then get the party Rogue (role) to disarm them (assuming they reset) after you already know they're there. This saves you tons of time going through searching every square of the floor, every door, etc. only to risk failing the search check and setting off a trap anyway. If your party Rogue is unable to disarm a trap, everyone can stand back while your new elemental attacks the trap to destroy it. The elemental's physical damage plus the 9d6 fire (split in half, minus hardness) will eventually destroy the source of the trap's effect and allow your party to pass through safely, regardless of how many elementals you have to throw into it.

Skills: Max ranks in Perform: Sing, Use Magic Device, one cross-class rank in Handle Animal as it can't be used untrained, Bluff and Diplomacy if you think they'll be useful, and Knowledge skills especially the ones that identify creatures of a particular type and architecture/engineering is useful for remodeling/collapsing portions of a dungeon to give your party an advantage. Note that you can treat every skill that can be used untrained and those you have ranks in as though you have 5 ranks in each thanks to Bardic Knack. With UMD 13 ranks and Cha 20, you need to roll a 2 or higher to activate a wand. With Cha 22+ you'll never fail even on a 1, as skill checks don't automatically succeed or fail on a 20 or a 1.

Items, at 49,000 gp WBL:
- Shax's Indispensable Haversack (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148101) is just too useful to skip. It will take a lot of reading if you haven't seen it yet.
- Elvencraft Composite Shortbow (RotW, can function as both a club and a shortbow), Masterwork/Masterwork, two Wand Chambers (Dungeonscape), make the club portion +1 Sudden Stunning (DMG2) Harmonizing (MIC), make the bow portion magic if you can afford it. Get regular arrows and silver arrows and cold iron arrows, some adamantine if you can afford it but even if your physical damage doesn't beat DR the Dragonfire Inspiration damage will go through.
- Glove of the Master Strategist (GW), for 3,600 gp it functions as a Glove of Storing and 1/day you can activate it (standard action) get a True Strike effect.
- Wand of Command Undead (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/commandUndead.htm), put it in the above glove, whenever you encounter mindless undead make it a priority to use this on them before you do anything else.
- Wand of Wings of Cover (RotD) at caster level 6, put it in a wand chamber on your weapon, per Rules Compendium it has the same activation time as the spell (immediate action), as a dragonblooded creature it can protect you and up to two adjacent creatures when you activate it. You can't take an immediate action when you're flat-footed, otherwise use it liberally to help yourself and your party avoid damage.
- Wand of Close Wounds (SC) only if your DM rules that it can completely negate a single instance of damage, put it in your other wand chamber. If you don't get a favorable ruling on that spell, get a partially charged Wand of Knight's Move (SC, Paladin list) or Benign Transposition (SC) instead for your other wand chamber. Note the casting time on those when making your decision.
- Mithralmist Shirt (MIC), +1 mithral chain shirt that can give you concealment as a swift action 7/day.
- +1 Mithral Buckler, more AC for cheap despite the penalty to hit when firing your bow. Using your bow as a club is one-handed so you can keep the AC bonus and avoid the penalty to hit.
- Anklet of Translocation (MIC), can get you out of a grapple as well.
- Third Eye: Freedom (MIC), for if the anklet won't get you out of something.
- Badge of Valor (MIC)
^ (optional) Enhancement bonus to Constitution and Natural Armor added to your neck slot item per MIC page 234.
- Banner of the Storm's Eye (MIC), shoulders slot version.
^ Enhancement bonus to Cha added to your shoulders slot item per MIC page 234.
- Talisman of Undying Fortitude (MIC), keep it handy so you can grab it quickly to activate it, you don't need to keep holding it to maintain the effect.
- Healing Belt (MIC)
- Circlet of Mages (MIC)
- Blank Spellbook (PHB) with a spell trap (CA p141) on a page bearing a single word, anyone who reads the page is subject to both a Cure Light Wounds spell and a Lesser Restoration spell (Paladin list), both at caster level 1. Automatic reset for unlimited uses, 2,015 gp total cost (spell level x caster level x 1,000 gp for each spell).

Bard Spells Known (6/4/4/4/2):
0- Stick (SC), Dancing Lights, Mage Hand, Mending, Message, Ghost Sound
1st- Cure Light Wounds (never cast it), Inspirational Boost (SC), Silent Image, Grease or Resinous Tar (CM)
2nd- Glitterdust, Alter Self, Silence, Master's Touch (PH2)
3rd- Dispel Magic, Haste, Daylight, Ray of Dizziness (SC)
4th- Summon Nature's Ally IV (never cast it), Celerity (PH2, use only when absolutely necessary)

Silence - If facing an enemy spellcaster, ready an action to cast it if they're casting a spell with a verbal component. Target it on a point in space so they're within the area, there's no saving throw and it silences them as they're casting, automatically ruining their spell and it still gets spent as though cast.

Alter Self - There's a handbook for this (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=343.0), too versatile and useful to explain here.

You could go the entire adventure without ever casting either of your 4th level spells and you'll do fine. Just having that 4th level spell slot available to cast SNAIV and power Summon Elemental is reason enough to conserve it. You may find yourself in a situation where you really, really need to use Celerity to get the upper hand on an opponent or otherwise avoid a TPK, so you want to have it available just in case.

This character is built to support a party. The choices in class, items, feats, and spells all reflect that, though he could easily be run as a solo character in an easier adventure supporting his wild cohort and small elemental, plus he benefits from all his own effects. Most of my choices here are for general preparedness, having necessary effects to avoid opponents' attacks/debuffs/status effects, and general usefulness and utility.

[Juntao112]

Unseen Servant. For everything.