Seerow
2013-12-29, 12:36 AM
So, relatively recently I got inspired. My brother showed me this video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p39ciSHKwo), and I instantly decided it had to be a thing. Yep, the Tesla Coil playing Bard. A little more googling resulted in finding this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQgO18qk1_k) with a slightly more practical idea of how the bard interacts with it (basically having two sticks that get used to 'play' the tesla coils). Thus we have the Bard's perform skill as Perform (Tesla Coil), and he performs by first summoning two tesla coils (either through summon instrument cantrip or a custom magic item for the purpose of "Rule of Cool"), and then conducting them with a pair of rods that he holds.
From there, we work on the Bard himself. Obviously an electric/sonic theme, which makes Dragonfire Inspiration (electric), and Energy Sub(Electric) + Born of Three Thunders practically mandatory. He also very likely wants to have Quick Recovery (to shake off that Daze from Born of Three Thunders relatively frequently).
Basically these all manifest as the bard using his supernatural abilities/spells to manipulate the tesla coil energy field into various buffs and attacks. He can encompass his ally's weapons to boost their damage. He can create armor around himself, causing him to damage and stun anyone who attacks him. He can create a 10ft radius dome around the coils dealing damage to anyone walking through. He can create lines and blasts of sonic/electric energy with a stun component. All pretty cool stuff, and visually really awesome when you think about it.
Other feats I was looking at:
-Rapid Metamagic (likely also considered mandatory for energy subbing/born of three thunders)
-Explosive Spell (all those area attacks now get to literally blow enemies away, dealing some extra damage and being even more awesome)
-Spell Thematics (honestly a bull**** feat but lots of flavor that is perfect for the character. Worth picking up if there's feats to spare)
-Energy Gestalt: This one's actually pretty cool. As far as I can tell, to make it work right, you need either some shenanigans to grab a Cold blasty spell off another class's list, or pick up Energy Sub (cold). But you open up with a cold spell, then follow with an BotT spell, and it triggers two of the three effects of Energy Gestalt, causing Fatigue to the target and making them take 50% extra damage, which is pretty nice since it's on top of stunning them. But it's also somewhat out of theme so not sure how I feel about it for this particular build.
So, the build's got a lot of flavor, but that's tapping out what I'm able to find for a bard. I could probably do something like just dip Bard, and duck out to Sorcerer for full casting and get a lot more spells per day and options, but then lose out on awesome levels of dragonfire inspiration, and really just bardic music and some of the bard unique sonic spells from spell compendium in general.
I was thinking that jumping into Sublime Chord at level 11 would be a good call to beef up the casting and spell access (still with a focus mostly on sonic spells, but I'm not sure how many of those show up past 6th level), but I'm wondering if there's another prestige class out there that keeps with the whole electric bard theme better, even if it's less optimal. Also if there's any feats that help out with electric/sonic damage that I've missed in my searching.
Anybody got any cool ideas to expand on this I haven't hit on yet?
From there, we work on the Bard himself. Obviously an electric/sonic theme, which makes Dragonfire Inspiration (electric), and Energy Sub(Electric) + Born of Three Thunders practically mandatory. He also very likely wants to have Quick Recovery (to shake off that Daze from Born of Three Thunders relatively frequently).
Basically these all manifest as the bard using his supernatural abilities/spells to manipulate the tesla coil energy field into various buffs and attacks. He can encompass his ally's weapons to boost their damage. He can create armor around himself, causing him to damage and stun anyone who attacks him. He can create a 10ft radius dome around the coils dealing damage to anyone walking through. He can create lines and blasts of sonic/electric energy with a stun component. All pretty cool stuff, and visually really awesome when you think about it.
Other feats I was looking at:
-Rapid Metamagic (likely also considered mandatory for energy subbing/born of three thunders)
-Explosive Spell (all those area attacks now get to literally blow enemies away, dealing some extra damage and being even more awesome)
-Spell Thematics (honestly a bull**** feat but lots of flavor that is perfect for the character. Worth picking up if there's feats to spare)
-Energy Gestalt: This one's actually pretty cool. As far as I can tell, to make it work right, you need either some shenanigans to grab a Cold blasty spell off another class's list, or pick up Energy Sub (cold). But you open up with a cold spell, then follow with an BotT spell, and it triggers two of the three effects of Energy Gestalt, causing Fatigue to the target and making them take 50% extra damage, which is pretty nice since it's on top of stunning them. But it's also somewhat out of theme so not sure how I feel about it for this particular build.
So, the build's got a lot of flavor, but that's tapping out what I'm able to find for a bard. I could probably do something like just dip Bard, and duck out to Sorcerer for full casting and get a lot more spells per day and options, but then lose out on awesome levels of dragonfire inspiration, and really just bardic music and some of the bard unique sonic spells from spell compendium in general.
I was thinking that jumping into Sublime Chord at level 11 would be a good call to beef up the casting and spell access (still with a focus mostly on sonic spells, but I'm not sure how many of those show up past 6th level), but I'm wondering if there's another prestige class out there that keeps with the whole electric bard theme better, even if it's less optimal. Also if there's any feats that help out with electric/sonic damage that I've missed in my searching.
Anybody got any cool ideas to expand on this I haven't hit on yet?