No Love for the Jester

[ComaVision]

A little background: The vast majority of my main IRL group was killed by bodaks last night. My group is generally very low optimization (as in, I'm really the only person that knows what I'm doing asides from the DM), and two of the deceased now want to roll up Jesters from the Dragon Compendium. They haven't really figured out that "you define how the class plays, not the class defines how you play" part of 3.5 yet. At the least, I'd like to be able to help them be relevant.

I'm a big fan of the class handbooks that people have made for the various classes but none exist for the Jester. Does anyone have any builds or general tips for optimizing the jester? I'm all for multi-classing/prestiging but Jester needs to play a pivotal role in the class. I tried Googling but didn't find anything particularly relevant.

They're coming in at level 10, standard WBL. For reference, the most powerful members of the group (or what remains of it) are a Kobold Dragonfire Adept (myself) and a ranged Human Fighter/Scout. Yeah.

[Sian]

Jesters are basicly bards in a new suit.

Prehaps look at the recently finished Iron Chef (LVIII) in which a Jester won :smallbiggrin:

[ComaVision]

Jesters are basicly bards in a new suit.

Prehaps look at the recently finished Iron Chef (LVIII) in which a Jester won :smallbiggrin:

I was certain there would be something out there! My apologies for not even thinking to check those.

[Piggy Knowles]

The jester is a fine class. Its main failing is that its performances and its spell list did not receive the splat attention and support that bardic music and bard spells did. As a DM, I'd probably allow most feats and abilities that influence bardic music to apply to jester quips as well, and I'd open up their spell list to include most of the bard spells in Spell Compendium.

[Vaz]

"did not recieve attention" - saying quite a lot that according to the DMC, it was written firstly in Apr 1982, and brought in the DMC in line with 3.5.

However, as above, although a Bard can probably do better. I've not gone through it indepth to see what is different about its spell list or skill list, although they briefly look fairly similar. There are a few Bard ACF's however, which can fulfil a similar role as a debuffer.

[atemu1234]

I like it, but in most campaigns of mine I give them access to full bardic spell lists (makes it easier and makes sense).

[Cranthis]

If Jester themed characters could survive in one of my groups games, we would probably slap the bard spell list on them.

[Fouredged Sword]

I would really be tempted just to make it an ACF set for the bard. Just have it trade the bardic music for the quips.