Class Help

[Rapidgator]

Hi, our group decided to start playing after some time without playing, and we are creating new characters, I was planning on support Bard(cause Bards are my favorites), however two of our players are deciding on new character types, they plan to play Druid and Sorcerer(they do not have experience as primary spellcasters), and our other member is going to be a Dwarf Crusader, so now I`m in doubt if I should continue as a Bard, and if not which class to play. If somebody can help, thanks

[Blackhawk748]

Bard still is a great choice as that group is seriously lacking in the skill department, so you just shift you focus from Super Buff Monkey to Master of All Trades. (Bardic Knack + Jack of all Trades if you dont know how that works) The up side of this is that you can still go and be a buff monkey as this takes little feat investment.

[eggynack]

Bard should be reasonable. Between the druid, with their animal companion, summons, and wild shape'd self, and the crusader, with their mighty thews, you'll have a really solid scope for inspire courage based buffing. Meanwhile, while the sorcerer will likely have a lot of that arcane spell ground covered, they can't possibly cover everything on their own, and that might even remain true with the druid filling in a lot of magic holes. Coordinating your spell selection with that of the sorcerer, perhaps focusing more on utility effects, could grant some effectiveness. In the meantime, here's the inspire courage handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=9830), which should help quite a bit with the first part of the plan.

Edit: Yeah, the skill thing is also nice. The magic part of the class is probably the least critical for your party, but I'm sure you can construct a list such that the other party members aren't just constantly stepping on your magic toes.

[Rapidgator]

I was told today that the guy who's creating a Druid is taking some Rogue levels, as he wants a stealth based Druid, maybe this can help me to decide

[(Un)Inspired]

That's certainly an... interesting choice for a druid. I honestly think that a Bard would be great in the party you described. While bot ha bard and a sorcerer are spontaneous Cha casters they're spells tend to cover very different ground. Just coordinate which Cha skills you guys choose to advance and you should be A-Ok.

The Crusader should love your buff unless he's going song of the white raven and as has previously been stated a druid and his dog will benefit greatly from extra attack and damage boosts.

[eggynack]

That's certainly an... interesting choice for a druid.
Dagger spellshaper can at least make it a thing, though it's still a bad thing. Kinda pushes things away from bard, as the druid/rogue benefits a bit less from inspire courage, and fills the skill monkey role a bit more, but I don't know if it's a big enough push that bard isn't still fine. Point is, to the OP, if you want to play a bard, it should work fine. Bards tend to fit in parties pretty well, almost regardless of party power level or composition, though not completely. If you don't want to play a bard, then you might want to give more indication of what you do want to play.

[Petrocorus]

Why are you in doubt?
Are you afraid that you'll cover an already covered role?
Or that you'll be underpowered compared to other party members?

In fight, there are 5 main roles:
Big Stupid Fighter, Glass Canon, BattleField Control, Buffer, Debuffer

Out-of-fight, there are 5 roles too:
The Face, the sneak (trapfinder), the tracker, the healer, the utility caster.

A Bard can be built to fill almost any of those roles to a degree. Just not all of them at once. And it's the best class for the social role.

In Combat, with the Crusader and the Druid, you already have 3 BSF/GC, so that's covered. So, just coordinate with them and the Sorcerer to see how the other roles are covered. And build your spell selection and feats choice concordingly. With your spells and bardic music (notably DFI) you can be a very good buffer, and you can handle yourself in a fight too. If you can, grab some draconic blood stuff (like with the Draconic template that also improves Charisma) to get DFI to do Force or Sonic damage instead of Fire damage.

OOC, the Druid can cover the tracker (with his Animal Companion) and the healer, and he will be the trapfinder too, apparently. So focus on Social (Diplomacy is often considered as the second most useful/powerful skill of the game) and share the utilities with the sorcerer and the druid. And i second Bardic Knack + Jack of All Trades.

Remember, of course, to go for Sublime Chord. That will make you almost on par with the Sorcerer in term of raw power, with much more skills, so, you don't need to fear being redundant or useless to your party.

Here (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=skifnivd54dv5g3ll4j1n3rqb4&topic=399.0)is the Handbook Index, with 4 Bard handbooks.