Player Advice for a Bard?

[Gale]

I'm a level 10 Bard in a campaign I'm in. I think I have a decent handle of things. I'm helping out the party quite a bit actually with Dragonfire Inspiration and somehow I end up out-damaging everyone half the time. (I don't particularly know why to be honest.) But I'm still looking for advice on how to not only be a better Bard but a better player in general. If anyone has any advice on how to generally improve one's game play in any aspect or specific Bard tips it would greatly be appreciated. I'm still fairly new to D&D.

[Metahuman1]

Bard is an extremely flexible class, and you can build to do almost any one or two things you fancy, though there is a limit to the number of things a lone bard can be good at, and spreading yourself too thin is a bad plan.

So the question is, what do you want to do well?

[Gale]

I think it will be best to focus on melee combat. My party isn't too proficient in that aspect to be honest.

[Metahuman1]

Alright, what's your race, and what's the rest of the party composed of? And do you have access to what the DMG says is standard Wealth for your level?

And finally, what books are open too you at this time?

[Gwendol]

If you want to branch out into melee combat, I suggest taking a more fighting class.
Bardadin using the devoted performer feat is one route, though at this level I'd recommend the Bardsader instead. Add on crusader levels, take the Song of the White raven feat, etc.

[Red Fel]

Are you willing to multiclass? There are many options for a melee-oriented multiclass Bard, but one of my favorites is Warblade. Warblade gives you full BAB, and more importantly, it gives you maneuvers. Of specific interest to a Bard are White Raven maneuvers, which not only make your character more effective in melee, but - much like various Bardic Music effects - make your party more effective in melee as well. There is also a feat - Song of the White Raven - which allows you to activate Inspire Courage as a swift action; with this feat, Warblade levels stack with Bard levels for purposes of Inspire Courage.

Warblade then adds to this maneuvers from other disciplines, such as Iron Heart (helpful for getting you out of difficult conditions), Stone Dragon (useful for overcoming DR), and Diamond Mind (exceptional for converting your saving throws into Concentration checks).

Admittedly, the drawback is that you don't progress Bard level (except for the Song of the White Raven feat) or caster level. But if your goal is melee, this is an excellent option for multiclassing.

[Vetril]

Go Swiftblade if you have Haste. Get yourself some slippers of battledancing from DMG2.

I played a Bard/Sublime Chord/Swiftblade all the way to epic levels and he was good in melee.

[Gwendol]

Go Swiftblade if you have Haste. Get yourself some slippers of battledancing from DMG2.

I played a Bard/Sublime Chord/Swiftblade all the way to epic levels and he was good in melee.

Also very good advice. Swiftblades are cool.

[Gale]

Alright, what's your race, and what's the rest of the party composed of? And do you have access to what the DMG says is standard Wealth for your level?

And finally, what books are open too you at this time?

My DM has never brought up Character Wealth by Level so I'm presuming the rules for that are irrelevant.
My race is a Dragonborn Gnome of Bahamut. It's kind of a weird choice for a race. It's not exactly what I would have chosen if I was more experienced going into this campaign, but there you go.
The rest of my party is a Cleric, Sorceress, Rogue, and some sort of Fighter who specializes in magic. (For some reason the idea of asking him what class he was playing never came to mind until last session when he wasn't there.)
Also, I have access to pretty much all the books.

I'm willing to multiclass if it will be a good choice.

[Red Fel]

My DM has never brought up Character Wealth by Level so I'm presuming the rules for that are irrelevant.
My race is a Dragonborn Gnome of Bahamut. It's kind of a weird choice for a race. It's not exactly what I would have chosen if I was more experienced going into this campaign, but there you go.
The rest of my party is a Cleric, Sorceress, Rogue, and some sort of Fighter who specializes in magic. (For some reason the idea of asking him what class he was playing never came to mind until last session when he wasn't there.)
Also, I have access to pretty much all the books.

I'm willing to multiclass if it will be a good choice.

Ooh, Dragonborn! There are some options open to you, then. Consider adding more dragon flavor.

For instance, as a Bard, you expect to have solid Cha. Consider taking Frightful Presence (or similar) as a feat. Since you plan to be in melee, and your Cha will raise the save, it's a great debuff for your first attack in combat.

[gorfnab]

Bard Handbook (http://dictummortuum.blogspot.com/2011/08/bards-handbook.html)
Inspire Courage Handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=9830.0)

What does your build look like so far (feats, spells, gear, skills, etc.)?

[Gale]

@gorfnab

Feats:
Weapon Finesse
Snowflake Wardance
Dragonfire Inspiration
Doomspeak
Draconic Heritage

Spells:
Lv. 0 Message
Lv. 0 Read Magic
Lv. 0 Detect Magic
Lv. 0 Light
Lv. 0 Prestigation
Lv. 0 Mage Hand
Lv. 1 Inspirational Bonus
Lv. 1 Charm Person
Lv. 1 Cure Light Wounds
Lv. 1 Tasha's Hideous Laughter
Lv. 2 Painful Echoes
Lv. 2 Alter Self
Lv. 2 Glitterdust
Lv. 2 Whirling Weapon
Lv. 3 Glibness
Lv. 3 Summon Monster III
Lv. 3 Haste

Gear:
Mithral Buckler
Elven Courtblade
Spiked Chain (With Sudden Stunning Enhancement)
Repeating Crossbow
Anklet of Translocation
Cloak of Charisma
Badge of Valor
Headband of the Lorebringer

I'm going to leave out skills for now as I don't see why it's relevant. I'll glady post them if you're need them though.

[illyahr]

I would recommend multiclassing to be a Bard-barian. Throw Keen and Speed (if possible) on the courtblade.

A personal favorite of mine is Arcane Strike from Complete Arcane (I think. Definately one of the four original Complete books). If you sacrifice a spell-per-day as a swift action, you get +X on your attack rolls and +Xd4 on damage for 1 round.

The PrC Seeker of the Song will also give you party energy resistance 15 songs, as well as the ability to sing multiple songs at the same time. A lot of the Seeker songs also have refrains that will throw out direct-damage effects, such as Burning Melody providing fire resistance 15 and the refrain producing a 6d6 cone of flame Ref DC (Perform Check) for half. :smallbiggrin:

[Metahuman1]

Ok, so,


Song of the White Raven and a dip into either Crusader and/or Warblade are both very good suggestions. As would be investing in the swift blade prestige class.

When you can afford them Slippers of Battle Dancing are excellent.

Tip for Alter Self, you can use it to get the unearthly grace Racial ability for the duration of the casting of the spell, which get's you Cha to all saves as well as AC and Touch AC.

Now, let's talk skills. Skills can help you, the following are particularly good examples.

Knowledge Skills: With the feat knowledge devotion, a rank or two, decent Int score and Bardic Knack AFC, these can add a fair bit of damage through knowledge devotion for surprisingly little investment.

Bluff: Feinting isn't a horrible option, and going "Look a distraction" is situationally useful. Where this shines though, is with the feat Combat Panache (I probably spelled it wrong, it's a tactical feat in the players handbook II), which lets you use a move action to make a bluff check, and if your opponent can't beat it on sense motive, it get's added to your AC for the round. Synergies really well with a crusader and/or warblade dip and song of the white raven as it very quickly allows you to make a standard action attack that matters with a maneuver + Dragonfire inspiration, use your swift action to maintain your bardic music, and then your move action to make yourself much harder to hit next round.

Intimidate: Is a nice way to demoralize your foes, which inflicts Debuffs. Also has Cha synergy.



That said, you don't need Dragonic Heritage unless you were building toward something that explicitly lists that feat as a per-requisite. Being Dragonborn covers it for Dragonfire Inspiration. Also, is your DM letting weapons Finesse and Snowflake Wardance stack? Cause he's not, I'd pick one and use that, and free up another feat.

Song of the White Raven and either Jack of All Trades, Combat Panache, or Underfoot Combatant would all be good options to fill the freed up slots.

[Bruenin]

Your DM house ruled Draconic heritage for you?

If you get animate instrument which is a bard level 2 spell you can have inspire courage and dragonfire inspiration up at the same time. So you have a higher to hit and some more damage that isn't dice based so it'll go well with multipliers from charging and such if you have any.

I don't know how your boosting your inspire courage but you should have at minimum +3, I really recommend picking up words of creation if you have the wisdom for it because it DOUBLE your bonus. So you can now have at minimum +6 or 6d6 dragonfire damage added. You should get a badge of valor if you can to increase the inspire courage again and you could also try a vest of legends and even a masterwork horn if you use wind instruments.

Add all that together and you have... +12 to hit and damage for a normal inspire courage and then 12d6 for dragonfire and you can combine them : P. Song of heart feat will add +1 to inspire courage but that's a whole feat you might want somewhere else. That'd raise it to +14 and 14d6 if you're using words of creation.

Words of creation does do 3d4 nonlethal damage if you use it with your song though so using both is 6d4. Since you already have draconic heritage you could also pick up draconic aura and get fast healing or damage resistance or something else for your group.

[Gale]

@Bruenin: I actually took a level in Dragonblood Sorcerer to get the feat for free. I wanted Dragonfire Inspiration to have Force damage to make it harder to resist. It might sound silly but my DM was kind of shocked when I mentioned the feat was giving the party 6d6 Force damage last session. It makes me suspect that if I had chosen the vanilla fire then suddenly we would only be fighting monsters who resist fire.
My DM is pretty lenient though so if you guys don't think it's a great idea I can always recon it and take a level in a more useful class.

[Socratov]

Cool, I second the advice for Swiftblade, after taking a level or 2 in Sublime Chord. It will increase your versitality, granting some spells (and thus coices), and the swiftblade to progress it (not too far) increasing your martial prowess.

I'd also advice on getting a vest of legends [DMG] and the feat Chaos Music[dragon something or other] (if you are of chaotic alignment), and thus increase your DFI and IC mastery. If you are good and willing to play the goody two-shoes you can take Words of Creation (although your sublime damamge in fights leads me to think you allready have this). More options and choices can be found in the handbooks Grofnab already linked.

Regarding to being a better player, remember that bards are teamplayers. I wrote a treatise somewhere about how the bard is the quintessential adventurer and simultaneously the most modest adventurer. If you really want to play a bard well that means you buff first (improving your team, SC will help here with the casterlevel increasing song) and then you join the fray doing whatever you want to do, be it being a dashing swordsman, or arcane god of the battlefield. All in all however, grant the spotlight to someone else, only briefly coming up, when you can increase his stuff. then again, you can play a abard pretty much however you want. They are like rolplaying Play-Doh.

[Sith_Happens]

Tip for Alter Self, you can use it to get the unearthly grace Racial ability for the duration of the casting of the spell, which get's you Cha to all saves as well as AC and Touch AC.

Even if there were a Humanoid with Unearthly Grace, Alter Self doesn't give supernatural abilities.

[Bruenin]

@tech

I'm not the best optimizer : P I was just curious how you got the feat, I had to take dragontouched for my bard even though it would have been a lot more fun to get something outside of fire damage. It's already the most resisted.

I'd just buff the crap out of inspire courage and maybe take some of the other peoples class suggestions. Most of the bonuses I mentioned don't need more bard levels to up it, so you can just pick up the magic items and rock out.

[Socratov]

sonic is generally considered the strongest elemental type (force is not a type of element in DnD), it's even funnier when you have picked a dragon that does 2 types of elemental damage with it's breath, thus allowin gyou to choose iether (and thusnot be stumped by the DM picking something immune).

[illyahr]

Words of creation does do 3d4 nonlethal damage if you use it with your song though so using both is 6d4. Since you already have draconic heritage you could also pick up draconic aura and get fast healing or damage resistance or something else for your group.

Actually, Words of Creation only double the effectiveness of songs that provide a static bonus, not variable bonuses (anything that uses dice rolls) so it would work on Inspire Courage but wouldn't work when using Dragonfire Inspiration since it only references IC, it doesn't modify it.

As an aside, when used to buff a perform ability, WoC deals Xd4 non-lethal damage to the user where X is the minimum ranks in a Perform skill required to use the ability. You could, theoretically, use it with the SotS PrC and double the fire resistance from Burning Melody, but you would deal 13d4 non-lethal damage to yourself.

[Metahuman1]

sonic is generally considered the strongest elemental type (force is not a type of element in DnD), it's even funnier when you have picked a dragon that does 2 types of elemental damage with it's breath, thus allowin gyou to choose iether (and thusnot be stumped by the DM picking something immune).

Yes, but force is still allowed for Dragonfire inspiration. Just need a dragon, like an amethyst one, that allows it as a breath weapon option. It's also the strongest option, since force resistance and immunity are functionally unheard of in printed monsters, Items and spells.

[Bruenin]

Actually, Words of Creation only double the effectiveness of songs that provide a static bonus, not variable bonuses (anything that uses dice rolls) so it would work on Inspire Courage but wouldn't work when using Dragonfire Inspiration since it only references IC, it doesn't modify it.

As an aside, when used to buff a perform ability, WoC deals Xd4 non-lethal damage to the user where X is the minimum ranks in a Perform skill required to use the ability. You could, theoretically, use it with the SotS PrC and double the fire resistance from Burning Melody, but you would deal 13d4 non-lethal damage to yourself.

Dragonfire inspiration is based off of inspire courage, it says right in the description that it you lose the bonus inspire courage would have given you and get a d6 of damage at a 1:1 ratio. So if your inspire courage gives +10 to hit and damage and then you dragonfire you'd get 10d6 fire damage.

"Each ally so inspired loses the standard morale bonus on weapon attack rolls and damage rolls. Instead, he deals an extra 1d6 points of fire damage with his weapons for every point of morale bonus that your inspire courage ability would normally add to the attack roll. "

If my inspire courage would normally give me +12 if I use words of creations then I could get the +12d6 damage too, no? Or is that interpretation a bit too much?

[Sith_Happens]

Yes, but force is still allowed for Dragonfire inspiration. Just need a dragon, like an amethyst one, that allows it as a breath weapon option. It's also the strongest option, since force resistance and immunity are functionally unheard of in printed monsters, Items and spells.


If you have the Draconic Heritage feat or if you are a half-dragon, the extra damage is of the energy type (acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic) that corresponds to your heritage or your draconic parent instead. If your feat or your parent is not associated with one of these energy types, this feat has no effect for you.

Not only can you not get force-damage Dragonfire Inspiration, but if you try then the entire feat stops functioning.

[Metahuman1]

Not only can you not get force-damage Dragonfire Inspiration, but if you try then the entire feat stops functioning.

Um, wait, I've had more then one character who's had that feat, with Amithest Dragon heritage, get force damage form that feat.

[JaronK]

Then you got away with something not actually allowed.

JaronK

[Gale]

For some reason my DM considered Force damage to be Sonic. I said it wasn't but I suppose he inevitably has the final word. Either way I don't see why getting Force damage from Dragonfire Inspiration is a problem. Sure, it's not technically allowed but you can always bend the rules a bit to allow it. It's not like it's any stronger than picking a Dragon with two different energy types like Sonic and Fire.

[Kuulvheysoon]

If you chose the Draconic Heritage (Pyroclastic), you'd be given the choice of Fire or Sonic, not Fire and Sonic.

[Bruenin]

If you chose the Draconic Heritage (Pyroclastic), you'd be given the choice of Fire or Sonic, not Fire and Sonic.

unless you double up dragonfire inspiration and choose sonic for the first one, fire for the second : P

[Bruenin]

For some reason my DM considered Force damage to be Sonic. I said it wasn't but I suppose he inevitably has the final word. Either way I don't see why getting Force damage from Dragonfire Inspiration is a problem. Sure, it's not technically allowed but you can always bend the rules a bit to allow it. It's not like it's any stronger than picking a Dragon with two different energy types like Sonic and Fire.

I don't know if it's a problem but it makes it a lot more powerful : P since force damage bypasses a ton of DR and is the least resisted. So it's a straight upgrade from Fire damage, but I don't know how much that'd impact the game.

If you can't notice it being a problem, then it probably isn't for your particular group.

[Kuulvheysoon]

unless you double up dragonfire inspiration and choose sonic for the first one, fire for the second : P

You can't take Dragonfire Inspiration more than once. The general rule is that you can't take a feat more than once, unless a specific notation in the feat overrides that. There's no language in the feat that allows it, so you cannot "double up" on it.

[Bruenin]

You can't take Dragonfire Inspiration more than once. The general rule is that you can't take a feat more than once, unless a specific notation in the feat overrides that. There's no language in the feat that allows it, so you cannot "double up" on it.

I thought you meant you get to choose the energy type when you use the feat :/ and you couldn't choose to have it do both fire and sonic split, kinda like other dual damage things do.

the feat only says "If you have the Draconic Heritage feat or if you are a half-dragon, the extra damage is of the energy type (acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic) that corresponds to your heritage or your draconic parent instead."

So I'm all confused. I meant casting dragonfire inspiration twice, first time choosing fire, second time choosing sonic if you had a multi elemental parent.

[illyahr]

Dragonfire inspiration is based off of inspire courage, it says right in the description that it you lose the bonus inspire courage would have given you and get a d6 of damage at a 1:1 ratio. So if your inspire courage gives +10 to hit and damage and then you dragonfire you'd get 10d6 fire damage.

"Each ally so inspired loses the standard morale bonus on weapon attack rolls and damage rolls. Instead, he deals an extra 1d6 points of fire damage with his weapons for every point of morale bonus that your inspire courage ability would normally add to the attack roll. "

If my inspire courage would normally give me +12 if I use words of creations then I could get the +12d6 damage too, no? Or is that interpretation a bit too much?

Sorry, I wasn't very clear. The dragonfire inspiration may/may no work that way, I don't know. I'm not very familiar with that particular feat (sounds cool as hell, though :smallcool: ). The problem is: Words of Creation won't boost it. You only get the doubling effect on a static boost. As soon as you stop giving yourself the +2 or whatever from Inspire Courage, the Words of Creation effect stops working. You would get +4 to Atk/Dam, but only 2d6 if you switched to Dragonfire Inspiration because it doesn't provide a static bonus, it provides a variable bonus (hence, the die roll).

If Dragonfire Inspriation provided a static +2 bonus for every +1 you would have received from Inspire Courage, then it would double. Does that make sense?

[Bruenin]

Sorry, I wasn't very clear. The dragonfire inspiration may/may no work that way, I don't know. I'm not very familiar with that particular feat (sounds cool as hell, though :smallcool: ). The problem is: Words of Creation won't boost it. You only get the doubling effect on a static boost. As soon as you stop giving yourself the +2 or whatever from Inspire Courage, the Words of Creation effect stops working. You would get +4 to Atk/Dam, but only 2d6 if you switched to Dragonfire Inspiration because it doesn't provide a static bonus, it provides a variable bonus (hence, the die roll).

If Dragonfire Inspriation provided a static +2 bonus for every +1 you would have received from Inspire Courage, then it would double. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I didn't notice that : P You could still get a decently high Dragonfire plus though, just not THAT insane.