Best feats for a party face?

[Solarium]

So Bards, Also known as the jack of all trades master of none, only good as a secondary melee, caster or much like that, and is pretty much second rate at everything in combat other than buffing.

Out of combat he's probably the ideal party face, since he scaled with charisma anyway.
So what would be good for a diplomat?

[Thurbane]

Sociable Personality (RoD): downside - must be a half-elf.
Master Manipulator & Wanderer's Diplomacy (PHB2).
Practiced Binder (ToM) for Naberius' Silver Tongue ability: feat chain required.

[Troacctid]

Nymph's Kiss is quite strong. Gives a lot of bonuses and is just generally efficient.

Celestial Familiar for a coure eladrin is very good on CG Bards. Planar Familiar for a lantern archon is equally good for the NG or TN ones. (Obviously requires Obtain Familiar first.) In either case, the familiar shares all your skill ranks and can speak and understand every language, making it invaluable for defeating language barriers. (This is, of course, on top of having a buttload of powerful spell-like and supernatural abilities.)

Epic Reputation is good for dragonwrought kobolds.

[BowStreetRunner]

Illumian (Vaulkrau) with Nymph's Kiss and a 1 level dip in Dragon Devotee. Use the spell Inner Beauty from FC1.

[Solarium]

Illumian (Vaulkrau) with Nymph's Kiss and a 1 level dip in Dragon Devotee. Use the spell Inner Beauty from FC1.

Oh I like that spell.

[sleepyphoenixx]

If you're serious about your face role you should consider either the Changeling Rogue 1 sub level (if you qualify) or a dip into Exemplar, for Skill Mastery on your social skills.

[Sian]

Sociable Personality (RoD): downside - must be a half-elf.

Given that Half-elf Bard 1 Substitution level is stupidly strong as party face (Calm Emotions as Bardic Music with DC = Diplocheck?), i'm actually leaning towards saying that from the position of being the face, half-elf is not all that much of a downside

[nedz]

1 level Marshal dip for Skill Focus (Diplomacy) and Motivate Charisma — which adds cha to cha skills again.

Half elf Bard 1 / Marshal 1 can get diplomacy ~23 and the ability to diplomance people in 1 round.

A Warlock 1 dip can get you a +6 to 3 social skills too.
so
Half elf Bard 1 / Marshal 1 / Warlock 1 could net you around 30 diplomacy

[ShurikVch]

Dragon #315 have bunch of [Ancestor] feats for the Kara-Tur.

Feat "Renowned Courtesan" allow to:
Change an NPC's attitude toward a person other than yourself.
Inspire love and devotion.
Inspire hope or despair.Prerequisites - Nation: Shou Lung (Sheng Ti), Wa

Feat "Smooth Talk" allow to make Diplomacy check at -5 as a full-round action
Normal: Diplomacy check take at least 1 minute
Nation: Shou Lung (Wa K'an), Kozakura

[IcarusWulfe]

If I remember correctly, there's a Dragonfire Adept invocation that grants +6 to all of the social skills for 24hours and should stack with the Warlock invocation that does the same.

[Solarium]

Ok nice very nice....um what about prestige classes?

[Mrs Kat]

Ok nice very nice....um what about prestige classes?

Try Evangelist.

Fast Talk (Ex): At 2nd level, the evangelist knows the right thing to say at the right time. He may make a rushed Diplomacy check as a full-round action at only a —5 penalty.

At later levels you can also convert people to your cause temporarily.

[Solarium]

Try Evangelist.

Fast Talk (Ex): At 2nd level, the evangelist knows the right thing to say at the right time. He may make a rushed Diplomacy check as a full-round action at only a —5 penalty.

At later levels you can also convert people to your cause temporarily.

Anything a little more shifty and advances spellcasting?

[Troacctid]

Mindbender is a decent option if you want spellcasting advancement; usually you just go for the first level to get telepathy without losing casting.

Probably the best option is Sublime Chord so you can get access to higher-level social spells. In fact, Sublime Chord is pretty much always the best option, really. A thing you could do could be to take some levels of Psion, then go into Cerebremancer as a Psion/Sublime Chord. There are a lot of Telepathy powers that are great for a face, like Conceal Thoughts, Detect Hostile Intent, and Empathy.


If I remember correctly, there's a Dragonfire Adept invocation that grants +6 to all of the social skills for 24hours and should stack with the Warlock invocation that does the same.

No, it's the same invocation, so they don't stack. You may be thinking of the one that gives +6 to Knowledge skills.

[Sian]

If you have access to Essentia, also prehaps viable would be Shape Soulmeld (Silvertounge Mask) for an insight bonus to Diplomacy and Bluff and prehaps Shape Soulmeld (Trueseeker Goggles) for Insight bonuses for Gather Infomation, Sense Motive and Search.

Or prehaps even better throw a level into Incarnate to have access to both of them, together with some essentia

[TimeWizard]

Probably the best option is Sublime Chord so you can get access to higher-level social spells. In fact, Sublime Chord is pretty much always the best option, really. A thing you could do could be to take some levels of Psion, then go into Cerebremancer as a Psion/Sublime Chord. There are a lot of Telepathy powers that are great for a face, like Conceal Thoughts, Detect Hostile Intent, and Empathy.

Wouldn't Wilder synergize better with the Bard's CHA?

[Sian]

Wouldn't Wilder synergize better with the Bard's CHA?

well... given that the real meat is in Telepath discipline, which Wilder doesn't have access to ...

[Troacctid]

well... given that the real meat is in Telepath discipline, which Wilder doesn't have access to ...

No, the powers you're after are mostly general Psion powers. The reason you don't use Wilder is because you need 2nd level powers for Cerebremancer. Wilder doesn't get them until level four, and you only have three levels to spare if you want to enter Sublime Chord on time.

That, and Wilder is just generally a pile of crap. :smalltongue:

[sleepyphoenixx]

well... given that the real meat is in Telepath discipline, which Wilder doesn't have access to ...

Mostly it's the fact that they get their powers later, as already mentioned. They also get only one power per level, no bonus feat and the Cha to touch AC is limited by level which makes it pointless if you want to go into Cerebremancer.
Given that as a face you'll likely have at least moderate intelligence psion is a far better pick, even if you're losing a few pp and probably a bit on your power DCs.