Dancing sword fighter

[j_spencer93]

ok we decided to rebuild my player's maztercian pc into someone more focused on dancing. i could use some feat/class suggestions to increase what he can do with perform dance. We have a fencer in the party, and he liked the maztecian armor dance feats, which went well with snowflake wardance and dervish dance.
Anything else that is started by dancing or gives his dance more abilities would be greatly appreciated.

He is level two at the moment bard. But plans on dipping dervish for dervish dance, and maybe battle dancer but is unsure of how it would increase his build.

feats
snowflake wardance
Maztercian armor dance (thinking of saying he was trained by them, and making him an Amn citizen).

[j_spencer93]

Really, no suggestions?

[Darrin]

i could use some feat/class suggestions to increase what he can do with perform dance.


I like the Elusive Dance feat (Dragon #333), particularly on orcish-types using Headlong Rush, but there aren't a lot of dance-related abilities. Dervish Dance is one of the few abilities where you want a lot of ranks in it. Spelldancer uses it, and I think there's a bard spell that involves some kind of fire dance/volcano thing.



We have a fencer in the party, and he liked the maztecian armor dance feats, which went well with snowflake wardance and dervish dance.


I looked at the Eagle Warrior and Jaguar Warrior from Dragon #315, and I think Jaguar looked more interesting. It gets Pounce at ECL 13ish, but I think I'd prefer to have one level of SLT Barbarian than wait that long. If you take 8 levels of Jaguar Warrior, you can't finish Dervish pre-epic.



He is level two at the moment bard. But plans on dipping dervish for dervish dance, and maybe battle dancer but is unsure of how it would increase his build.


Battle Dancer gets you the monk's unarmed strike without taking monk levels, so you can use Superior Unarmed Strike (Tome of Battle) to get unarmed damage that scales up with your character level. But it doesn't work well with Snowflake Wardance unless you take Versatile Unarmed Strike (PHBII) to make your unarmed strikes slashing weapons. But I'm not really seeing a lot of synergy there.

I consider Snowflake Wardance to be a trap, as it doesn't give you any bonus damage. I'd take Arcane Strike first, as you get both an attack bonus and Xd4 bonus damage.


Maztercian armor dance (thinking of saving he was trained by them, and making him an Amn citizen).

I'm looking at the two Armor Dance feats, and... ok, for two feats you can get a +4 AC bonus, but it only works if you make a full attack. I think I'd rather have Shape Soulmeld: Wormtail Belt + Bonus Essentia, +4 AC that's always on regardless of how I spend my turn.

[j_spencer93]

We decided to drop jaguar warrior, we going to work that into another character. Instead we want this character to use the perform (dance) skill as much as he can (not optimal i know, but he wants to focus on a fighting style).
Spelldancer might work, isn't there a bladedancer (sword dancer?) and some other dancer based PRC?
Thinking of having a dancing shield and sword also.

[Seerow]

If you don't mind the fluff, there's a low level Binder vestige (like obtainable with 3-5 levels iirc) that gives a form of dervish dance that's usable with a turn based cooldown, instead of limited times per day, as well as a bunch of other stuff useful to the archetype.


Also there's the Kalashtar feat Dancing with Shadows that requires ranks in perform dance and gives a some really handy benefits while fighting defensively. It's really a niche thing, but if you decide to build for it it is pretty awesome.

[j_spencer93]

sounds interesting. Expecially since it requires the dance skill, which is what he wants to focus this character around.

[j_spencer93]

So far we are looking at BardX, blade dancer X, dervish 1, cloaked dancer 5.

Bard and blade dancer are listed as X because i am not sure how far we wanted to go in them, Blade Dancer gives little actually, but maybe 2-6 levels. Bard isn't a bad first class but he does like battle dancer dances.
If he wants the more magical dancer, it will look morel like Bard X, Blade dancer 2, dervish 1, spelldancer 5 (why doesn't this increase casting again?)

Feats: path of shadows, dancing with shadows, snowflake wardance, dodge, mobility, weapon focus, combat expertise, endurance (freaking hate this worthless thing), elusive dance.

[mvpmack]

Why not go bardblade?

Bard 4/Warblade 16 with Song of the White Raven and various improvements to boost your inspiration power while you run around cutting things?

[j_spencer93]

WOW i see why elusive dance on a charge would be nice lol.

[j_spencer93]

Why not go bardblade?

Bard 4/Warblade 16 with Song of the White Raven and various improvements to boost your inspiration power while you run around cutting things?

i will look into that honestly, we usually shy away from ToB (only because it does eclipse other classes), but we already have a maneuver user in the game.
EDIT: after looking at white raven its more about singing and shouts to distract people. still good, but not really fitting the theme (i understand change fluff, blah blah but avoid doing it).

[Seerow]

Isn't there some trick that will get Perform(Dance) in place of Concentration?


Because if so, the Bardblade with a focus on Diamond Mind maneuvers would be fantastic here. Use your dance skill in place of attack rolls, damage rolls, saving throws, and so on.


Yep, found it. Bard 1 spell in the Spell Compendium, Undersong. Use perform in place of concentration for 10 minutes per level.

So either dedicate your first level bard spells to keeping that up, or get an always on custom magic item with it (cost of around 4k gold), and have fun.

[j_spencer93]

ok now that fits. I will look into that, but with a dip in dervish.
Now, can i use maneuvers with any weapon or only those the discipline list...he wanted a longsword.
And...whats an always on custom item that fits here, can i have example.
EDIT: can drop dervish, diamond mind has a strike that is very similar.

[Seerow]

If I were building the character I'd go something like:

Bard3/Binder3/Warblade14

Important Feats: Improved Binding, Snowflake Wardance
Important Items: Ring of Undersong. Slippers of Battledancing

With Binder/Improved Binding, you bind Paimon. Paimon gives you +4 dexterity, free weapon finesse, Uncanny Dodge, Whirlwind Attack (whithout the prerequisites!), and every 5 rounds you can move up to your move speed and attack every enemy you pass along the way.

With Warblade 14 you end with a IL of 17, meaning you just barely qualify for 9th level maneuvers at level 20. This lets you grab basically every Diamond Mind maneuver you care about. So you dance as your primary offense and defense for basically all maneuvers.

Bard 3 of course gives you bardic music, which you use for Snowflake Wardance because you are a combat dancer, and this is important.


If you want to push the dancing thing even further, go Kalashtar as race, pick up Path of Shadows/Dancing with Shadows I mentioned earlier, and then look at the Fighting Defensively Handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=178445) for ways to boost up Defensive Fighting. Each round alternate between lingering defense and graceful lunge, so you always keep your fighting defensively AC bonus, and on half the rounds you get a bonus to hit equal to the bonus you normally gain to AC from fighting defensively (which should be at least 8-10 if you try). Mix with power attack to taste.

The other (honestly more powerful) alternative is to pick up Song of the White Raven, stick around in a white raven stance of choice, grab Extra Music and then look at the Inspire Courage Handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=9830) to boost your Inspire Courage up to the stratosphere. Now you're dancing so well that you make yourself and everyone else around you fight better. This method has the advantage of not require Kalashtar, and providing potentially much higher bonuses, in exchange for being a much more commonly used optimization tactic. Personally I'm bored of heavy inspire courage optimization builds, but it is definitely a potent option.



ok now that fits. I will look into that, but with a dip in dervish.
Now, can i use maneuvers with any weapon or only those the discipline list...he wanted a longsword.
And...whats an always on custom item that fits here, can i have example.
EDIT: can drop dervish, diamond mind has a strike that is very similar.

You can use maneuvers with any weapon you want. Discipline weapons only matter for a few specific things that get called out when they are required. For example, the Shadow Blade feat.

[j_spencer93]

i will be honest, i am basically going to use the build you posted. I like it, i think it fits really well and is close enough to my original idea.
Thank you seerow and MVPmack.

SO kalastar, bard 3, binder 3, Warblade 14 (use white raven and diamond mind). mix a little of both ideas.

[j_spencer93]

can undersong be made permanent?

[Seerow]

can undersong be made permanent?

If you allow custom magic item creation, yes. Otherwise, no but with a 10 min/level duration you can use all of your 1st level bard slots on it and have it up for most of an adventuring day.


Making a custom item of it would cost 1(spell level) * 2 (minimum caster level) * 2000 (cost of an at will or permanent magic item) * 1.5 (cost increase for permanent item with a 10min/level duration) = 6,000gp.

[j_spencer93]

Ok atleast thats an option