Optimized Bardbarian

[Sharigen95]

In all my sessions of d&d I have played a social characters, mostly bards. My follow party members have constantly voiced their annoyances about my trend in characters. So i decided to create a character that can make everyone happy, a bardbarian. My DM told me it was possible but he did not explain how. What would be a good build?

[Kazudo]

What do you want to focus on, the social aspect of things or the combat aspect of things? I could see, for example, being human with 1 level of bard with Able Learner, a 2 level dip in Barbarian, and then just taking some other full BAB class, maybe something from ToB with the maneuvers and stances and such.

Your bottleneck there though is that it's pretty MAD. CHA for attribute bonuses to skills, INT for more skill points (Typically high BAB classes don't have a lot of skill points), CON for Rage, STR for damage, DEX for AC since a lot of the good abilities Barbarian gets would be armor dependent (except for totems, for some reason).

[Inevitability]

Maybe a bard/fighter would be better? If you go down the intimidation alley, at least your charisma has multiple uses. Most of the bards buffs can be used on himself also.

[Kazudo]

That option would be less MAD. DEX and CON could be mitigated out with significant armor since I don't think bardsong has an armor prerequisite, unless I'm stumbling blind drunk again.

That'll make it a CHA+STR+INT heavy build, which isn't TOO bad. Bard/Swashbuckler though would give you INT to damage and Weapon Finesse, shifting it to CHA,INT,DEX which would help with AC. It could also be synergized in with the Battle Dancer feat (if I remember the name of the feat correctly) and Scout to give you a highly mobile dances-while-attacking buff-giving beast of a thing that gets additional damage die when he dances 10 feet or more in a build. Maybe a 1 level dip in Barbarian for Pounce and hey! Look at that!

So something like Bard 1/Barbarian 1/Swashbuckler 4/Scout X with Battle Dancer and Able Learner so that you never lose the skills.

EDIT: Oh, and you could take the Arcane Stunt ACF to get spider climb in place of that cruddy Grace +1 so that you can dance UP WALLS.

[OverdrivePrime]

You'll need to take Perform: Heavy Metal. This is not up for debate.

This old thread has a lot of helpful ideas for 3.5. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=115965)

If you're playing Pathfinder, the options change a bit, and you can do a lot more with those bard levels. There are several great archetypes that can help you spread lyrical death everywhere you go. It depends on how much you want to focus on boosting your party's combat ability, and how much you want to hoard all the face-crushing action to yourself.

[Doc_Maynot]

It's 3.0 but Warrior Skald would probably help immensely.
Also, consider being an illumian, so you can get the str to bonus spells ability.
And finally Rage Mage may help as well.

[Rebel7284]

Bard 1/Whirling Frenzy Lion Totem Barbarian 1/Bard+6/Warblade 12 ?

[amalcon]

The reason this works is that the Barbarian class is only one level long (maybe two). The first level of Barbarian is one of the strongest in the game. The second level is OK. After that, it's a contender for weakest class in the PHB, getting 2.5 feats worth of Rage uses, a little DR, and total benefits comparable to the first two levels over the next 18. Straight Barbarians stay effective (as melee types go) mainly on the strength of that first level.

Bard, on the other hand, is one of the classes with the most staying power around. You do need to take some special consideration to merge the abilities, because Rage shuts off most of the Bard's class features: the two major ones are spellcasting (obvious) and Bardic Music (relies on Perform, a Cha-based skill). The former is best handled by choosing spells with an eye for things that are useful outside of combat. The latter is best handled by singing first, then raging. Also, note that you don't actually need that much Charsima on a non-face Bard: once you have 16, it only adds to Perform checks and bonus spells. Assuming magic mart availability, you can probably get by with 12 starting Charisma and no level-up points.

Feats you may want include:

Extra Rage (One of these is a must; a second is worthwhile if the campaign tends toward dungeon crawls).
Power Attack (Between Bardic Music and Rage, you'll have attack bonus to burn; plus, you can cast Improvisation before combat to shore up your bad attacks)
Song of the White Raven (This one's a little more esoteric, and requires Warblade or Crusader levels or multiple feats, but the ability to sing, rage, and charge all in round one should not be underestimated)
Words of Creation (For the usual reasons, this is good on a Bard)
Extend Spell (Though it may be better to buy rods of this instead, Extending your spells makes it a lot easier to combine them with Rage).

Beyond that, the usual melee feats are fine. As an example (this is off the top of my head, may contain errors, and can likely be done better depending on available sources), you might do something like this:
Human Barbarian 1/Crusader 1 (Taken at level 9)/Bard 18
Str>Con>Dex>Cha>Int>Wis
ACFs: Lion Totem Barbarian (CCh), Spellbreaker Song Bard (CMag)
Feats: (1)Extra Rage, (HB)Melodic Casting, (3)Power Attack, (6)Words of Creation, (9)Song of the White Raven, (12)Leap Attack, (15)Improved Bull Rush, (18)Shock Trooper

[The Troubadour]

If it's just a matter of fluff, how about just taking the Savage Bard (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#bardVariantSavageBard) variant?