Decent Spells for A Pathfinder Bard?

[Palanan]

I've just started in my first Pathfinder campaign, and I'm learning firsthand what sort of limp, drowned worm the bard has become. My sense is that only careful spell selection will make the bard even faintly useful now.

The DM wanted us to start our characters based on the CRB and APG, but he's open to material from other books on a case-by-case basis. I'm not at all familiar with the Pathfinder supplements, so I could use some experienced advice on whether there are some bard-only gems tucked away in other books. Are there any clever bard spells that would help me out here?

[Spore]

PF bards are anything but not weak. Still classically spellcasting is about 1/3 of your job. 1/3 is inspiring people, the last third is either combat maneuvers, flanking buddy or ranged combat.

1:
Grease: Reflex or loose weapon/fall down, decent area, SR no
Expeditious Retreat: Movement is king.
Charm Person: To ease up those social encounters.
Saving Finale: Drop your performance to reroll a failed save. Potentially life saving.
Timely Inspiration: You failed? Really? No you didn't. (get's worthwhile on 5+).
Invigorate on the barbarian

2:
Invisibility: Yeah you know, good stuff
Glitterdust: Save or blind, counters invisibility
Heroism: Great if you lack inspire courage due to an archetype
Versatile Weapon: You can overcome any DR except DR/alignment
Gallant Inspiration: If you need that crushing attack to connect - badly.

3:
Purging Finale: Combine with Invigorate to remove the exhaustion from the Barbarian. Google rage cycling.
Glibness: Lie to your heart's content.
Haste: Yes.
Confusion: I call it the bard's fireball. Because it removes mooks from the battle, albeit with more paperwork.
Dispel Magic: If your cleric is bound in melee combat or trying to keep people alive, if your wizard is busy dealing with demons and hordes of orcs trying to crush the fighter, you have the capacity to remove a VITAL spell from the enemy spellcaster. Get him down by removing Fly. Soften him by dispelling Stoneskin. Make him squishier by banishing False Life.

4:
Freedom of Movement
Dimension Door
Shadow Conjuration
Greater Invisiblity
Heroic Finale: this one's a standard action but I like the tactical choice given here.

[Palanan]

Thanks for the rundown of the better spells, I appreciate it. Still stuck with first-level spells for now, but I can dream.

As for the merits of the Pathfinder bard, I have to say I don't have much practice with any flavor of bard, so I'll defer to the voice of experience. I do like the fact that pretty much every skill is now a class skill for me...although the skill points seem sparse indeed compared with 3.5.
.

[Diachronos]

Gallant Inspiration is one of the best spells in the game in my opinion. Definitely a solid choice, especially since you cast it as an immediate action when someone fails.

Plus you can always choose cure spells and be an emergency healer.

[QuackParker]

I am quite fond of Masterpieces. They let the bard use the perform skill they so heavily invest in to perform fun tasks.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/bard/masterpieces

Work with your GM to create your own to do whatever cool thing you're wanting to do with your bard.


Here's one of mine:


Dream of the Flumph Far-Away (Bagpipes)
Prerequisite: Perform (bagpipes) 9 ranks
Cost: Feat or 5th Lv spell known
Effect: The haunting melody of the bagpipes summons an Elder Thing to fight on the performer's behalf for a number of rounds equal to the bard's class level. The bard may perform this masterpiece up to an additional 4 rounds with each subsequent round extending the duration of the Elder Thing summons by one round per each additional round performed. The Elder Thing uses the stats in this creature entry: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/aberrations/elder-thing
Use: 3 Bardic performance rounds
Action: standard action

[avr]

As for the merits of the Pathfinder bard, I have to say I don't have much practice with any flavor of bard, so I'll defer to the voice of experience. I do like the fact that pretty much every skill is now a class skill for me...although the skill points seem sparse indeed compared with 3.5.
6+INT is exactly what bards had in 3.5. Also, some skills were combined, e.g. Pathfinder Stealth covers 3.5 Hide and 3.5 Move Silently. And finally, look down the list of class features to Versatile Performance which you get at 2nd level.

Edit: or maybe you're missing the x4 at first level? The way PF class skills work you get the same bonus as if you'd maxed your first level skills. You do lose the freedom of being able to be barely trained in 24 different skills, true.

[Spore]

If you distribute your 6 skills on Bluff, Diplomacy, Perform, Spellcraft, Use Magic Device and Sense Motive, you would are quite effective diplomancing, using various items and so on. You're not the prime on Sense Motive and Spellcraft but you need one for being party face and the other to justify some actions against spells. Also reread item creation rules in Pathfinder. By level 3 or 5 you could look into Create Wondrous Items (item creation doesn't need XP anymore) and by then you're effectively

a) party face
b) party item creator
c) party buffer
(d) emergency healer)

[StreamOfTheSky]

With Versatile Performance letting you use Perform for 2 other skills apiece (though even if you plan carefully, you'll run into overlaps after level 10), Bard actually has potentially the highest amount of skills in the game (barring super min-maxed int-based casters, possibly one w/ more than 2 + int base, surpassing you).

As for spells, here's a list of stand-outs I recorded for planning purposes when designing my Dawnflower Dervish bard. Bolded are the priority ones. Some are less useful than to a normal bard (most notably, Saving Finale is completely useless until level 11 when the Discordant Voice feat -- pretty much a mandatory level 11 choice for any bard -- lets it work by technicality), and some i valued a bit more highly than I should have (I really liked the idea of using Unnatural Lust to "generate aggro" in a fun new way), but they're all still good spells:

0: Dancing Lights, Detect Magic, Ghost Sound, Message, Prestidigitation, Sift, Summon Instrument
1: CLW, Ear-Piercing Scream, Grease, Hideous Laughter, Saving Finale, Silent Image, Unnatural Lust
2: Blistering Invective, Glitterdust, Invisibility, Mirror Image, Piercing Shriek, Pyrotechnics, Suggestion
3: Arcane Concordance, Confusion, Exquisite Accompaniment, Glibness, Haste, Sculpt Sound
4: Hold Monster, Modify Memory, Wall of Sound
5: Resonating Word, Shadowbard, Mass Suggestion
6: Irresistible Dance, Overwhelming Presence

[Der_DWSage]

...Interesting choices, Stream. But I have to ask a few questions. (Mostly because I'm playing a Dervish Dancer myself.)

1.What does Discordant Voice have to do with Saving Finale? The former adds 1d6 sonic damage to your Inspire Courage. Saving Finale lets you have a new saving throw. I'm not seeing the connection.
2.Why Blistering Invective? It's non-scaling 1d10 damage in a burst, alongside an intimidate check. I'm guessing your Dawnflower has some kind of feat chain to go with the intimidation?

[StreamOfTheSky]

...Interesting choices, Stream. But I have to ask a few questions. (Mostly because I'm playing a Dervish Dancer myself.)

1.What does Discordant Voice have to do with Saving Finale? The former adds 1d6 sonic damage to your Inspire Courage. Saving Finale lets you have a new saving throw. I'm not seeing the connection.
2.Why Blistering Invective? It's non-scaling 1d10 damage in a burst, alongside an intimidate check. I'm guessing your Dawnflower has some kind of feat chain to go with the intimidation?

1. Saving Finale only works on allies benefiting from your performance. DD Bard only benefits himself, making Saving Finale much MUCH less useful than to a normal bard (but yeah, "useless" is exaggeration). But! DV feat gives all allies +1d6 sonic damage when you're doing any sort of performance (even one that's only targeting enemies, like Fascinate + Suggestion), so now....by technicality...they are benefiting from your performance, and thus valid targets for Saving Finale.

2. DD Bard requires you to worship Saranrae anyway, so I decided to go with an Intimidation build w/ Blade of Mercy trait, Enforcer feat, and so forth. So it just fit the character, less useful to the average bard. Still, it's a decent debuff for the level and one of the only "area blasts" the bard gets at all, so it's not terrible.
The character idea was basically one who tries to avoid killing and avoid having to fight at all, using a combination of being over-the-top scary and not shying from using her attractiveness (depending on the situation/enemy, which route she goes) to avoid a conflict or get them to give up mid-fight. Like, for example...enemy is a caster, she uses Unnatural Lust to force him to move to her and make out with her. "Well, now you're surrounded, and really...isn't this more fun than fighting anyway?" :smallbiggrin:

[Talya]

PF bards are anything but not weak.


PF bards are not bad. They're somewhat better (at certain things) than core 3.5 bards - though they don't get nearly enough bardic performance (I highly recommend going back to a single unlimited use of bardic music per bard level). They aren't even in the same universe as 3.5-with-splatbook-support bards. Pathfinder did not provide nearly enough bard support in their books. Versatile Performance isn't as good as Bardic Knack. The Unearthed Arcana Savage Bard variant is better than the PF savage skald. (The only reason to switch is the high fortitude save). Feats like Doomspeak, Melodic Casting, Song of the Heart, Snowflake Wardance, and Dragonfire Inspiration are also essential to a decent bard build in 3.5. Worse yet, they can't get flight very easily (unlike 3.5 bards that get it with a 2nd level spell).

[Der_DWSage]

Ah, gotcha. So, situational in this instance.

(That said, you and I have similar tastes, Stream. I'm currently running a Dervish Dancer Tiefling (Kytonborn variant) who uses similar Enforcer tricks, though he's far less...whimsical than your DD. I am putting the Discordant Voice bit into my portfolio for next level.)

[deuxhero]

As I mentioned in this thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?358557-Best-%28ab%29use-of-Summon-Instrument), Summon Instrument is highly underrated on bard guides. Actually playing the instrument is a secondary use compared to the things you can do with an unlimited number of relatively large, relatively sturdy items of various possible materials.

There are some really good Masterpieces, but they tend to get sorrounded by really bad ones. Pageant of the Peacock essentially gives you full ranks in ANY intelligence based skill and makes them charisma based for 10 mins at the cost of one round of performance and a standard action, it's crazy out of combat and great if you traded away bardic knowledge. The Winds of the Five Heavens isn't too great for normal combat, but the spell it emulates is one of the best ways to destroy LARGE areas of something in either 3.5 OR PF, splat included. The Dance of Kindled Desires lets you extract Planar Binding esqe agreements out of ANYONE. Legato Piece on the Infernal Bargain is Planar Ally without inital cost (hell, potentially not even the payment, it only gives you a +0 on an opposed charisma check instead of a bonus, and a Bard shouldn't be failing those) AND not restricted by your deity (who mostly send something stupid like an elemental)


With Versatile Performance letting you use Perform for 2 other skills apiece (though even if you plan carefully, you'll run into overlaps after level 10), Bard actually has potentially the highest amount of skills in the game (barring super min-maxed int-based casters, possibly one w/ more than 2 + int base, surpassing you).


Versatile Performance really needs a rule that says "when you gain this ability you may freely convert ranks in one of the associated skills into the perform skill you have chosen" (but better worded). It would help so much playing a bard at lower levels.

[Serafina]

It would certainly help if you had such an option, but the Retraining-rules (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/basics-ability-scores/more-character-options/retraining) can help there (unless your campaign has no downtime).

[deuxhero]

Yeah, but that costs a lot, plus it's non-core while the bard is core.



5: Shadowbard


Why? Seems useless for a Dawnflower Dervish. Unlike Exquisite Accompaniment the shadowbard plays, not you (so it gets the bonuses and does squat with them), and putting the activation of your performance on the same action as casting it doesn't seem too important when you can start performing as a swift action before you get it. I guess it allows you to fascinate, possibly suggestion. What am I missing? It seems like a great spell for a normal bard, allowing him to stack Inspire Courage and Inspire Competence, but useless to a Dawnflower Dervish.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Why? Seems useless for a Dawnflower Dervish. Unlike Exquisite Accompaniment the shadowbard plays, not you (so it gets the bonuses and does squat with them), and putting the activation of your performance on the same action as casting it doesn't seem too important when you can start performing as a swift action before you get it. I guess it allows you to fascinate, possibly suggestion. What am I missing? It seems like a great spell for a normal bard, allowing him to stack Inspire Courage and Inspire Competence, but useless to a Dawnflower Dervish.

I was assuming that you would still get the benefits of the battle dance, not just the shadow (which would be stupid and worthless), so you'd use it for inspire courage + greatness or whatever (and the spell works the same for normal bards; "combine songs" is the reason to take it; not to pad out perform rounds per day). I mean, that's clearly the intent, and even if you want to argue "utterly moronic strict RAW reading"...


Dervishes of dawn are trained in the use of the Perform skill, especially dance, to create magical effects on himself. This works like bardic performance, except that the performances grant double their normal bonuses, but these bonuses only affect him. He does not need to be able to see or hear his own performance


When a shadowbard comes into being, it immediately begins a bardic performance of your choice—it has access to all of the bardic performances that you do.

Now...if the first quote had explicitly said only the performer benefits, then congrats on screwing over the DD bard by technicality! But, it doesn't say that. It says it affects only "him" [the dervish of dawn]. It even handily says he doesn't need to see or hear it (ie, he doesn't even have to be aware a performance is going on) and he gets the benefit. That's going to be my argument, maybe someone can make it better, I normally don't even try bothering with strict RAW.

It's even better for a normal bard, but still good for DD.

EDIT: Also, this.

When a dervish of dawn uses the inspire courage, inspire greatness, or inspire heroics bardic performance types as battle dances, these performance types only provide benefit to the dervish himself. All other types of bardic performance work normally (affecting the bard and his allies, or the bard’s enemies, as appropriate).

[malonkey1]

Play Half-Elf.
Have the Magician Archetype.
Choose Paragon Surge for your 10th-level Expanded Repetoire.
???
Profit!

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by StreamOfTheSky
As for spells, here's a list of stand-outs I recorded for planning purposes when designing my Dawnflower Dervish bard. Bolded are the priority ones.

Thanks for that list, I hadn't seen some of those before. And Unnatural Lust does seem versatile, in its own awkward way.


Originally Posted by Talya
Pathfinder did not provide nearly enough bard support in their books.

I've been noticing this. Pretty frustrating, at least to someone who's not that experienced with the bard class.



I should mention that my character is actually a Druid 3/Bard 2, which is a concept I'd originally worked up for a 3.5 campaign last December. That ended disastrously after a single session, but I still wanted to play the character, so I reworked him for the new Pathfinder campaign.

All the bard love in the 3.5 supplements meant that my original concept was viable...but in Pathfinder, I'm feeling like it wasn't the wisest choice.




Originally Posted by Diachronos
Plus you can always choose cure spells and be an emergency healer.

I'm thinking of going this route, which will let me power the healing from the bard side and reserve my druid spells for all the more druidical needs. Without access to even second-level bard spells, much less masterpieces, that seems to be the best I can do for now.

: /

[weckar]

The problem with the PF bard in my experience is that you only get so many actions. Too few for your role. The solution? Shrink your role. The Archaeologist archetype can help with this.
Also, the Bard has a good selection of spells that do not require any somatic components. Make use of these, and walk away in heavy armor.

[deuxhero]

snip

OK, that's what I though. Thanks.

[Larkas]

I am quite fond of Masterpieces. They let the bard use the perform skill they so heavily invest in to perform fun tasks.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/bard/masterpieces

Work with your GM to create your own to do whatever cool thing you're wanting to do with your bard.

Wow, I LOVED this masterpiece concept! :smalleek: Here's one that I couldn't help but making:


Ride of the Valkyries (Wind, String)

This instrumental piece has a powerful melody with a strong, martial feel to it. It's harmony emboldens allies and reaches out to the heavens.

Prerequisites: Perform (wind) or Perform (string) 17 ranks.

Cost: Feat or 6th-level bard spell known.

Effect: When played to its potential, this melody reaches out to the Heroic Domains of Ysgard and summon four legendary valkyries who help the performer to the best of their abilities. These battle-maidens look like young and comely, if stern, human women with long, feathery wings, but use the statistics of astral devas. Unlike normal astral devas, each valkyrie wears an ornate +4 mithral breastplate, which improves her AC and flat-footed AC by +10. The valkyries stay to help for as long as the melody is played. Otherwise, this works like a summon monster IX spell.

Furthermore, the performer may inspire courage in his allies (including himself and the four valkyries once they are summoned) by spending an additional round of bardic performance per round, as per the performance of the same name, but only if he has access to it. He may start and end this effect whenever he wants as long as he is performing the masterpiece.

Use: 4 bardic performance rounds, +1 round per additional round of duration, +1 round per inspire courage round.

Action: 4 full rounds.

I mean really, what else could I do? I sought to evoke the four sisters of Brünnhilde who show up when this piece is played in Der Ring des Nibelungen. Also, hear the piece and pay attention to how many seconds it takes to reach the main melody. :smallbiggrin:

[Palanan]

I like the masterpiece concept, and I especially like the Ride of the Valkyries above.

Alas, with only two bard levels, that's a long way out of reach. A kazoo solo is about the best I can do for now.

:smallfrown:

[Psyren]

Most of the masterpieces are jank but there are some good ones:

- Legato Piece gives a bard Planar Ally at the same level a Cleric would get it,
- Clamor of the Heavens is a nice AoE no-save-just-lose, particularly in an undead- or fiend-heavy campaign, though the wind-up time is fairly long.
- Symphony of the Elysian Heart is mass freedom of movement for the party, very useful in certain circumstances (e.g. half the party getting hit by black tentacles or blasphemy.)
- Canticle of Joy gives you bestow curse that ignores SR and has a scaling save DC, albeit only lasting for the duration of the performance, but that should be long enough for you to put down a dangerous foe by e.g. denying half his actions or nerfing his saves.
- The Depths of the Mountain, while not much use in combat, gives you the earthquake spell for demolition purposes.

[Talya]

I have gotten good use out of Dance of Kindled Desires.

[deuxhero]

- The Depths of the Mountain, while not much use in combat, gives you the earthquake spell for demolition purposes.

Not too hot on that one, it keeps Earthquake's TINY 80 foot radius, requires upkeep onto of heavy cost.

The Winds of the Five Heavens is my pick for mass destruction if you aren't underground (and even then earthquake is even possibly worse for YOU) You can set it and teleport away, or stay in the eye and watch the destruction and unlike DotM it actually poses a threat to creatures who can see the sky, plus it has a better perform skill required.

I think Pallavi of Nirvana’s Blossoming the ONLY effect in PF (possibly 3.5 too) that mimics ACTUAL sunlight.