Gothic Musician (3.0)

[BrokenChord]

Hey, was hoping for some help making a concept better, without destroying the concept as many optimizers seem to try to do here. Sorry if the previous statement came off as offensive, I just wanted to make sure people weren't suggesting other concepts for more power.

So basically, I was wanting to play a blood magic-focused gothic-styled singer character for an upcoming 3.0 seafaring campaign. So far, I don't have much decided by way of feats, but for build I was thinking Human Bard 7/Blood Magus 4/Virtuoso 9; enough Blood Magus for the cool abilities without losing too many caster levels, and everything else focused on enhancing Bardic Music and maintaining spellcasting. Needless to say, this isn't a melee-based Bard by any means.

What do you guys think would be some good feats, spells known, and alternative classes for this?

[BrokenChord]

Nothing? Nothing at all?

[Kennisiou]

For feats... a lot of the feats that really let bardic music get bigger are 3.5, not 3.0 sadly, so you're not really going to be doing stuff to make your bardic music stronger or do more things.

Except for a few. Subsonics and Lingering song are both in song and silence and not bad feats to take. You're focusing a bit on spellcasting, so some of the standard metamagic stuff (quicken, empower, etc) is probably not too bad of an idea to give yourself a bit more versatility.

Beyond that I'm honestly not sure where to go. I'm not too familiar with working within 3.0 even though I played it for a lot longer than 3.5, because I just never explored the tools outside of core there very much. I'd suggest taking a look at the book Song and Silence because there were probably some good feats and some good gear in there I missed. Look into profession: sailor as a skill since it can become really useful in seafaring campaigns depending on where they're pulling their sailing rules from (and since you're a bard you're one of the most likely party members to have the skill points to spare for it).

Hope I could help some.

[BrokenChord]

Thanks a bunch! I have Song and Silence (it's where I got Virtuoso) but I never looked at the feats! Very much appreciated for pointing me towards those. As for metamagic... Well, I guess I know where the rest of my feats are going then, since there's not a whole lot else I seem able to do with em.

EDIT: I also found Disguise Spell while looking through the feats here. Hooray for two metamagics condensed into one feat and a one level increase!

[Kennisiou]

Oh! One thing I totally did forget, actually. Remember that in 3.0 bards don't get to trade old spells for new ones as they level. This means you should avoid any spells that have limitations on the amount of hit dice of creatures it can effect, since those spells will become useless later.

[BrokenChord]

No worries! I haven't used the splats until three days ago, but core-wise, 3.0 is my system; I was aware of that limitation on the Bards. Thanks for the heads-up, though.

[TiaC]

I would drop to 2 levels of blood Magus, as it doesn't help your bardic abilities at all. Unfortunately, one of the only ways to boost Bardic Music in 3.0 is with masterwork instruments(Song and Silence p41). If you can get into it, Siren from Savage Species has some really powerful abilities. If Dragon Magazine is allowed, the Meter and Measure article from Dragon 301 has some magic items that boost bardic music if you invest skill ranks in them.