Help, create a high damage bard?

[Corbia]

The GM thinks bards are useless, one of the players decided to take the role for diplomacy and the mage decided that "to make your bard useless" he would create a Loremaster. Then I bit the bait, but I believe I'm not experienced enough to create a high damage "bee" bard, sting hard and disappear quickly.

From what I've seen, I decided to create a Deepwyrm Half-Drow that uses a rapier and dragonfire inspiration.I'm not a experienced player, I've mostly just read a lot of things around lots of places, so I don't really know how to properly build it.
At first I thought about an illusionist bard, but what I really want is to be an invisible/untouchable killer bee.

Thank you all very much for any kind of help. It would be very interesting to see them acknowledging a bard's true worth. :smalltongue:

[Hamste]

Song of the heart is good for dragonfire but you need to be 6th level

[Red Fel]

First off, here is Dictum Mortuum's Bard Handbook (http://dictummortuum.blogspot.com/2011/08/bards-handbook.html). (Here it is again, with color coding (http://community.wizards.com/forum/previous-editions-character-optimization/threads/1145396).)

Now, you're going to have to be more specific - when you say "high damage," do you mean melee? Blasting? Sonic damage? There are ways to do many things with the Bard, but you have to be specific. Further, are you using Bard exclusively? Or are you allowing dips? PrCs?

For example, if you wanted to get high-level spellcasting, Sublime Chord (Complete Arcane) is your bread and butter. If you want to be the most feared fearmonster ever feared, Nightmare Spinner (Complete Mage) and Dread Witch (Heroes of Horror) are great options. Want to use Bardic Music to make things explode? Stormsinger (Frostburn) can cast Storm of Vengeance using Bardic Music. That's right. The 9th-level "sky falls, everybody dies" spell can be yours, for the cost of four uses of Bardic Music.

Or are you trying to melee? You could take levels in Warblade or Crusader, and grab Song of the White Raven, and get useful melee abilities while boosting Inspire Courage. You could grab Snowflake Wardance and gain your Cha-to-attack.

Then again, one of the best uses of Bard is as a "force multiplier" - basically, rather than being made of pure awesome on your own, you turn the rest of the party into vehicles for your concentrated awesomeness, making them better at what they do. It's a natural extension of a Bard's abilities.

These are just a few options. It all depends on what you're trying to do.

As an aside, I should note that primary casters can make pretty much anybody redundant, not just Bards; it's the sad truth. That said, when players decide to explicitly make you useless, it's a pretty good time to take them aside, sit them down, remind them of your friendship, and shake the crap out of them ask them why they feel that's necessary. Talk to the players.

[erok0809]

You might find this build (http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Sublime_Singer_(3.5e_Optimized_Character_Build)) useful, although I'm not sure how much it fits your character concept of being invisible and stuff. You should be able to do the stuff even though your race is different and stuff. Even if you don't take it all the way to 20 (or can't because Deepwyrm Half-Drow has an LA, I don't know that), it can still help. It gives you stuff to do to maximize your Inspire Courage, and thus your damage from Dragonfire Inspiration. Despite it being on the D&D Wiki, I'm fairly certain it all works. Look at it yourself, and of course check with your DM.

[Sith_Happens]

Despite it being on the D&D Wiki, I'm fairly certain it all works.

I just looked it over, it's more or less the bog-standard "Awesome Bard of Maximum Awesome" build you'll see all over the Internet.

If you'd rather build for melee, take as much of the Dragonfire Inspiration improvement as your group will tolerate but skip the prestige classes. Since your race is already Dragonblooded you can save two feats by dipping Dragonblood Sorcerer (Races of the Dragon) for free Draconic Heritage instead of a familiar.

Take the Snowflake Wardance feat from Frostburn, which lets you spend a music attempt to get Charisma to attack with light and one-handed slashing weapons for effectively an entire combat. Once you can afford them, a Crystal Echoblade (MIC) will deal additional sonic damage equal to half your Bard level, and Slippers of Battledancing (DMGII) will give you Charisma-to-damage any turn that you move at least ten feet before attacking (protip: Cloistered Cleric dip for Travel Devotion).

For yet more attack and damage, either max out your Knowledge skills or get one rank in each and swap Bardic Knowledge for Bardic Knack (PHBII), get the Collector of Stories skill trick, and top it off with Knowledge Devotion (available for free via the same Cloistered Cleric dip as above).

[Corbia]

Red Fel, thank you. I'm actually pretty much ok with the situation, I'm accepting this as a healthy challenge for a beginner. No one is really trying to screw with me and if I talked with them directly about this it would all be more than ok. :smalltongue:
As I said I was planning a melee "stinger" but I'm actually open to some nice creativity. Your suggestion about the Nightmare Spinner was very interesting, thank you, awesome post!

Merok0809, the "invisible and stuff" was not actually literal :smallbiggrin: it was just my way of saying (along with untouchable) that I was planning towards "broken" without actually saying it. I actually remember that build, I saw it some time ago. I'd prefer something more... creative, although my request may seem fairly simple. But thanks a lot.

Sith_Happens, your post was highly informative, thanks! But I can't be a Dragonblood Sorcerer if I'm already half-dragon?

[Sith_Happens]

Sith_Happens, your post was highly informative, thanks! But I can't be a Dragonblood Sorcerer if I'm already half-dragon?

According to the OP you're making a Deepwyrm Half-Drow; I see no mention of Half-Dragon. But to actually answer your questions, Dragon-type creatures count as Dragonblooded.

[Corbia]

Do you guys think it's viable to go for fear debuffing AND a good and quick attack?

[Sith_Happens]

Last I checked the fastest you can reduce demoralizing to as a bard is a move action, so without Manyshot you're stuck at one attack per round.

Speaking of Manyshot, how does it interact with DFI?

[Optimator]

Most likely; fear debuffing doesn't have to be particularly build-resource-intensive. It's more reliable with a better Cha, Spell Focus, Nightmare Spinner, etc. but plain ol' stacking Fear, Intimidate/Never Outnumbered/Imperious Command and/or Inspire Awe followed by Haunting Melody works well enough. Actually, a melee Bard could never have Inspire Awe so scratch that.

As for DFI and Manyshot, I'm pretty sure they stack very favorably :)