Metamagic Song Rainbow Servant

[Zetapup]

I came across metamagic song (races of stone) earlier today, and noticed that you can use it with any spontaneous arcane spell, not just bard spells. Let's use extend spell and persistent spell for the two metamagic feats required for metamagic song, so we can persist up to 3rd level spells. Combine that with beguiler + rainbow servant, and you have a ridiculous amount of spells to choose from, as long as they're also on the wizard/sorc list or the bard list. Finally, throw on practical metamagic for spells up to 4th level, and maybe metamagic school focus for spells up to 5th level.

However, this is limited by bardic music uses, which you're going to go through ridiculously quickly at a rate of 6 per persistent casting, and we only want a 1 level bard dip so we can focus on beguiler/rainbow servant casting. Enter the Firre, from Manual of the Planes. One of its special qualities is unlimited bardic music, which you can use on persistent spells (NOTE: the wording of the Firre's Song is ambiguous, as it could either mean you get one bardic music use that is unlimited, or it could mean that you get as many bardic music uses as you want. If your DM rules that it's the first, this trick won't work). You need to grab assume supernatural ability to use it, and need some way of casting polymorph as a beguiler (arcane disciple, maybe?), but that effectively persists most of your spells up to 4th level (metamagic school focus is a bit too limited for my tastes, but you can throw it on too if you want).

Overall the build should be something like Bard 1/Beguiler 6/Rainbow Servant 10/Whatever 3, taking extend spell, persistent spell, and metamagic song at 1st level, (probably) Arcane Disciple at 3rd level (for polymorph), Dragontouched at 6th level (to qualify for practical metamagic), Practical metamagic at 9th level, and Assume Supernatural Ability whenever you can fit it in.

Any suggestions on how to improve the build or recommendations for spells to be persisted? Also, please let me know if I'm missing something RAW-wise that prevents this from working. I don't think the unlimited bardic music from the Firre is going to fly at most tables, but as best as I can tell, everything else works.

[Cruiser1]

Enter the Firre, from Manual of the Planes. One of its special qualities is unlimited bardic music, which you can use on persistent spells. Also, please let me know if I'm missing something RAW-wise that prevents this from working. I don't think the unlimited bardic music from the Firre is going to fly at most tables, but as best as I can tell, everything else works.
Potential problems with this:

1: The Firre doesn't have bardic music. It has the "Song (Su)" ability, which only works LIKE bardic music. In other words, the Firre "can use bardic music just as a bard can", but it doesn't actually have the bardic music class feature. This is like the difference between an option that actually grants you a feat, versus gives you the abilities of a feat. The former can be used to quality for PrC's and other things that depend on the feat, but not the latter.

2: The Firre's "Song (Su)" ability doesn't give infinite bardic music uses. All it says is that "Unlike a bard, however, a Firre can sing as often as it likes." That could mean that the Firre only has one bardic music use, that regenerates itself whenever the Firre sings to expend it. There's nothing that explicitly says the Firre actually has a stack of infinite uses, allowing multiple uses to be expended at once. Since the text is ambiguous, you should indeed ask your DM which potential interpretation applies at their table.

[ben-zayb]

You could do this earlier via Bardzilla (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?154326-3-5-quot-Bardzilla-quot)*, using Extra Music, Heighten Spell, and Talfirian Song. You'd have to take the Divine Minion Template (LA+1 minimum) to get Outsider type for Polymorph, because you are locked into taking Human. A Bard 1 / Beguiler 1 / Rainbow Servant 10 should be doable.



* AFAIK this was also posted on the bow-defunct wizards boards, with Firre Eladrin (actually updated in BoED) being mentioned without much issue/counter-arguments for it not to work.

[Zetapup]

Potential problems with this:

1: The Firre doesn't have bardic music. It has the "Song (Su)" ability, which only works LIKE bardic music. In other words, the Firre "can use bardic music just as a bard can", but it doesn't actually have the bardic music class feature. This is like the difference between an option that actually grants you a feat, versus gives you the abilities of a feat. The former can be used to quality for PrC's and other things that depend on the feat, but not the latter.

2: The Firre's "Song (Su)" ability doesn't give infinite bardic music uses. All it says is that "Unlike a bard, however, a Firre can sing as often as it likes." That could mean that the Firre only has one bardic music use, that regenerates itself whenever the Firre sings to expend it. There's nothing that explicitly says the Firre actually has a stack of infinite uses, allowing multiple uses to be expended at once. Since the text is ambiguous, you should indeed ask your DM which potential interpretation applies at their table.

Hm true. I was interpreting it as "a firre can use bardic music in any way a bard can, and if a feat runs off of bardic music uses, a firre can do that too", but I can definitely see how there'd be other readings. I'll add a note in the original post about the firre needing DM ruling and try to find another way to get infinite bardic music (I doubt I'll find anything better than the firre, but doesn't hurt to look).


You could do this earlier via Bardzilla (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?154326-3-5-quot-Bardzilla-quot)*, using Extra Music, Heighten Spell, and Talfirian Song. You'd have to take the Divine Minion Template (LA+1 minimum) to get Outsider type for Polymorph, because you are locked into taking Human. A Bard 1 / Beguiler 1 / Rainbow Servant 10 should be doable.



* AFAIK this was also posted on the bow-defunct wizards boards, with Firre Eladrin (actually updated in BoED) being mentioned without much issue/counter-arguments for it not to work.

Ooh, that would help get the build up to speed more quickly. It's a bit annoying that you have to take more feats on a somewhat feat heavy build, but I suppose those can be retrained/DCFSed away once you meet the prereqs for Rainbow Servant.

Do you know if there's any change to the Song ability in BoED? I only have access to the Manual of the Planes version, but hopefully there's no difference there.


On another note, Southern Magician lets you use Metamagic Song on Cleric spells which don't appear on wizard/sorc/bard lists, which normally stay divine with the Rainbow Servant rules, plus a penalty to dispel checks most of the time, which is handy for persistent buffs. Unfortunately, I don't think you can combine it with Talfirian Song, as that requires you to be a Tethyrian human and Southern Magician requires you to be a Mulan human.

[ben-zayb]

Do you know if there's any change to the Song ability in BoED? I only have access to the Manual of the Planes version, but hopefully there's no difference there.Here's the ability
Song (Su): A firre has a captivating voice and can use bardic music just as a bard can, inspiring courage, fascinating, inspiring competence, or giving suggestions to those who hear it (see Bardic Music in Chapter 3 of the Player’s Handbook). Unlike a bard, however, a firre can sing as often as it likes.If you take the following text as not exhaustive, the emphasized line suggests anything a bard can do with Bardic Music, a Firre can too, which would include BM uses from Bard PrCs like Sublime Chord's Song of Power and BM uses from feats such as Talfirian Song.

You might also want to check out Lyric Spell from Complete Adventurer and Doomspeak from Champions of Ruin, for other delicious usage of unlimited Bardic Music.

[Zetapup]

Here's the ability

Song (Su): A firre has a captivating voice and can use bardic music just as a bard can, inspiring courage, fascinating, inspiring competence, or giving suggestions to those who hear it (see Bardic Music in Chapter 3 of the Player’s Handbook). Unlike a bard, however, a firre can sing as often as it likes.
If you take the following text as not exhaustive, the emphasized line suggests anything a bard can do with Bardic Music, a Firre can too, which would include BM uses from Bard PrCs like Sublime Chord's Song of Power and BM uses from feats such as Talfirian Song.

You might also want to check out Lyric Spell from Complete Adventurer and Doomspeak from Champions of Ruin, for other delicious usage of unlimited Bardic Music.

Alright good, that's pretty much the same wording as in the manual of the planes. Let's look at the more notable feats/classes that you can expend bardic music to gain bonuses from:

Captivating Melody (plus some other feats that do more or less the same thing): Somewhat handy, but definitely not for this build, since it only applies to spells gained from the same class you gain bardic music from.

Chord of Distraction: Useful if one of your allies has sneak attack or something similar, but I don't think it's worth spending a feat on.

Doomspeak: Now this is great. -10 to a significant amount of things, and it works even if the DM rules that Firres only get 1 use of bardic music that regenerates after you use it. The DC to resist it is pretty solid too. This is a feat I'd definitely try to use in the build.

Epic of the Lost King: Remove fatigue or exhaustion. It's useful (and combos nicely with snowflake wardance), but I'm iffy about spending a feat on it.

Ironskin Chant: Spend a swift action for DR 5 for one turn. Decent if you don't have anything else to do with your swift actions, otherwise, eh.

Lyric Spell: Wow. Just wow. Infinite spontaneous arcane spells? Heck yeah. Who needs a warlock when you have a rainbow servant polymorphed into a Firre? I'm not sure whether you can use metamagic on the spell though. Even without metamagic, it's amazing.

Snowflake Wardance: Eh. It's decent, but it's competing with stuff like Doomspeak and Lyric Spell. Gaining cha bonus to attack isn't that great in comparison.

Sound of Silence: I'm not sure it's worth a standard action, but the DC should be high as long as you optimize your perform check.

Subsonics: It doesn't use bardic music, but it could be hilarious if combined with the right songs. Useful if you're the sneaky stype.

Warning Shout: This is pretty nice, although it requires evasion. Not a first pick, feat wise, but it's very team friendly.

Dirgesinger: Nothing stands out too much, but it gives you some nifty new things to do with bardic music uses.

Heartfire Fanner: Crappy prereq feats, but Inspired Fight and Magic Flare seem pretty handy. It works well with a team, and also advances spellcasting, which is nice.

Seeker of the Song: Loads of new bardic music uses, but the lack of spellcasting advancement is a bummer. The bardic music works even if your DM rules that the Firre's Song is a "1 regenerating bardic music use" kind of thing, which is nifty.

Stormsinger: Crappy prereq feats, but it gives new bardic music uses and advances your spellcasting. It isn't as much of a team player as the heartfire fanner, but you can turn music into storms, so that's pretty cool.

Sublime Chord: Better casting than a straight bard, which gives you some more options. Also, Song of Arcane Power is handy. Besides those two, I'm kinda eh about the class.

Overall, Doomspeak and Lyric Spell are amazing. The prestige classes are fairly interchangeable, but Sublime Chord, Heartfire Fanner, and Stormsinger seem to be the best (mostly because they give or advance casting). Lyric Spell gets ridiculous pretty quickly: let's say the character takes a day off from adventuring when they're 13th level and decides to sell their spellcasting services in a metropolis. Assuming most of the spells you cast are 6th level, and you receive a customer every 5 minutes, that's a profit of around 100,000gp for 12 hours of work. That's probably one of the tamer things you can do with it.

I'm going to have to look over the cleric spell list at some point to see where it overlaps with the wizard/sorc/bard spell lists, just so I can figure out how ridiculous lyric spell gets.

[ben-zayb]

I forgot to mention due to being cross settings, but the Haunting Melody feat from Eberron Campaign Setting also works off of bardic music (1 use per trigger). It's a save or shaken every time you cast a spell or perform. Combining this with Lyric spell on the first part, and Undersong on the second part, and you have an action-free debuff that could escalate itself quickly.

Now, I don't think that the free action Doomspeak can be considered as, or done in conjunction with, Perform (Oratory), but there's that line of thought...:smallamused:

[Zetapup]

I forgot to mention due to being cross settings, but the Haunting Melody feat from Eberron Campaign Setting also works off of bardic music (1 use per trigger). It's a save or shaken every time you cast a spell or perform. Combining this with Lyric spell on the first part, and Undersong on the second part, and you have an action-free debuff that could escalate itself quickly.

Now, I don't think that the free action Doomspeak can be considered as, or done in conjunction with, Perform (Oratory), but there's that line of thought...:smallamused:

Haunting Melody is also in Heroes of Horror, so that's no problem. One problem with it is that it only triggers when you sing or use some other perform skill, so I'm not quite sure where you're getting the save or shaken every time you cast a spell part. Still very useful though, and it should last for quite a while since the duration goes off of your ranks in perform.

Wow, at first I thought doomspeak was a standard action to activate, but reading over it again, it implies it's a free action. That bumps its usefulness up quite a bit.

I've been looking over ways to gain more spells known since this character knows all their spells and can cast them as many times as they want with lyric spell. The three things that stood out most were Sand Shaper, Unseen Seer, and Mother Cyst, although I'm unsure how useful Unseen Seer's advanced learning is, and Mother Cyst has some very tough competition with other feats. Alternatively, Nightmare Spinner would work fairly well with Haunting Melody and Doomspeak, to make a dangerous debuffer.

I'll start looking over the lists of commonly persisted spells later tonight to see some of the spells the Bard Rainbow has access to.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

If you can UMD your race as "grig" reliably, the master fiddle from Savage Species (p58) gives at-will bardic music as a 9th level bard.

[Zetapup]

If you can UMD your race as "grig" reliably, the master fiddle from Savage Species (p58) gives at-will bardic music as a 9th level bard.

Thanks for letting me know! I'll check it out once I get home tonight. It would be nice to have an alternative to being polymorphed into a Firre 24/7

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Thanks for letting me know! I'll check it out once I get home tonight. It would be nice to have an alternative to being polymorphed into a Firre 24/7There are a lot of neat racial items out there if you can UMD them. Horseshoes of various stripes (such as -of speed, -of the zephyr, and -of flame) have some really good effects, for cheap. Add the effects onto your boots, UMD yourself as "horse" once per hour, and you're golden. Nighthag heartstones are also really good to UMD, since etherealness is a fantastic effect for 1,800 gp, and adding a +2 resistance bonus to saves is a damned nice rider effect.

This doesn't have anything to do with the thread, but it's related to the master fiddle. Also, Savage Species has some excellent items in it.

Also, the warrior skald grants bardic music based on your Performance check, and all you need is one level.

[ATHATH]

If you're short on feats but want more spells, check out Cerebrosis. If you take 1 point of permanent CON damage and pay 1,200 GP, you can get it for free. It gives you some extra Far-Realm themed spells.

I recall there being a runic sword in a Dragon Magazine that, if you were a Bard, allowed you to replace some of your spells known with those within the sword. The thing is, although the sword had to have Bard spells, it never specified which spell list it interacted with- just that you had to be a Bard. Trade away some of your redundant Cleric spells for any and all of the Bard spells you can afford.

I can't recall the number of the magazine, but I remember that the article was about a Bardic College. I'll report back if I find it.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

If you're short on feats but want more spells, check out Cerebrosis. If you take 1 point of permanent CON damage and pay 1,200 GP, you can get it for free. It gives you some extra Far-Realm themed spells.Unless you plan on using your level-ups to boost your Con score, this is a pretty good deal.

...until you end up like this (http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/animevice/images/e/e8/Saitama_defeats_Crablante_(One-Punch_Man_Ep01).jpg/revision/latest?cb=20151008073536). Then, maybe not so much.

[Zetapup]

If you can UMD your race as "grig" reliably, the master fiddle from Savage Species (p58) gives at-will bardic music as a 9th level bard.

Alright, I read the description for Master Fiddle and I don't think it'll work for metamagic song/lyric spell/etc, since it specifically states the bardic music abilities it lets you use. That's a shame, since the requirement of being polymorphed into a Firre for most of the uses talked about is somewhat annoying.


There are a lot of neat racial items out there if you can UMD them. Horseshoes of various stripes (such as -of speed, -of the zephyr, and -of flame) have some really good effects, for cheap. Add the effects onto your boots, UMD yourself as "horse" once per hour, and you're golden. Nighthag heartstones are also really good to UMD, since etherealness is a fantastic effect for 1,800 gp, and adding a +2 resistance bonus to saves is a damned nice rider effect.

This doesn't have anything to do with the thread, but it's related to the master fiddle. Also, Savage Species has some excellent items in it.

Also, the warrior skald grants bardic music based on your Performance check, and all you need is one level.

Yeah, I don't think WotC really thought through the combination of UMD and magic items meant for mounts. Wouldn't be the first time they overlooked something like that :smalltongue: . I'll try to check out some of the items when I have time, although I just looked over one of the horseshoe items in Savage Species (+10 to intelligence and +6 to charisma? What the heck WotC.)

I believe I looked over warrior skald earlier when I was looking through potential prestige classes after rainbow servant for this character, and I decided power attack and cleave were too much of an investment featwise when you can just dip a level in bard and polymorph into a Firre. Plus, taking bard at first level is ideal so that you can grab the necessary feats requiring bardic music as quickly as possible.


If you're short on feats but want more spells, check out Cerebrosis. If you take 1 point of permanent CON damage and pay 1,200 GP, you can get it for free. It gives you some extra Far-Realm themed spells.

I recall there being a runic sword in a Dragon Magazine that, if you were a Bard, allowed you to replace some of your spells known with those within the sword. The thing is, although the sword had to have Bard spells, it never specified which spell list it interacted with- just that you had to be a Bard. Trade away some of your redundant Cleric spells for any and all of the Bard spells you can afford.

I can't recall the number of the magazine, but I remember that the article was about a Bardic College. I'll report back if I find it.

Ooh, nice find. I don't have any Dragon articles, but a quick browse of the web turns up some interesting stuff about Cerebrosis. Seems like the kind of thing that a Bardic Rainbow/Nightmare Spinner character using Doomspeak would love. 1200 GP is p cheap for a bunch of extra spells. The escalation mechanic is interesting, and this char could dip a level in a TOB class/grab one of the diamond mind items for the concentration-replaces-save maneuver, and then use Undersong to turn that into a perform check (and of course, then use haunting melody to add a save or shaken effect to that).

Let me know if you find the runic sword thing. This build has a somewhat ridiculous amount of spells known as is, but I'm always up for adding more.

As promised earlier, I went through the list of persistable spells by level (here (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=12372.0)) to find most of the cleric spells this build can persist (Rainbow Servant requires that the spell also be on the wiz/sorc/bard list in order for it to be arcane, and it needs to be arcane to use lyric spell/metamagic song on it (although of course there's always southern magician), hence why it's only most of the spells that can be persisted).

Detect Magic
Read Magic

Necrotic Awareness
Detect Dragonmark
Detect Incarnum
Comprehend Languages
Detect Undead
Obscuring Mist
Scholar’s Touch
Nightshield
Spell Flower
Detect Vestige
Sacrificial Skill

Shadow Shroud
Blade of Pain and Fear
Detect Aberration
Expose the Dead
Cloud of Knives
Stretch Weapon
Local Tremor
Balor Nimbus
Extend Tentacles
Shroud of Undeath
Veil of Shadow
Wave of Grief

Grace
Masochism
Sadism
Elation
Adoration of the Frightful
Vision of the Omniscient Eye
Devil’s Eye
Battlemagic Perception
Inspired Aim
Sonorous Hum


Assay Spell Resistance
Freedom of Movement
Mark of the Enlightened Soul
Watchful Ancestors


The list is missing beguiler spells, domain spells (the ones you get from rainbow servant), and probably a decent amount of cleric spells that I missed or weren't on the list. Looking over the descriptions briefly, Battlemagic Perception is incredibly useful to keep people from just dispelling all your buffs, Adoration of the Frightful is a nice addition to the debuffer aspect, Sonorous Hum is probably handy for something or another, and then you've got a ridiculous amount of detection spells and minor buffs (you can detect magic, dragonmarks, incarnum, vestiges, undead, and aberrations. No idea why you'd want all that, but hey, you can do it). And then of course, there's Scholar's Touch combined with Lyric Spell so you can read an entire library within an hour.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

[ATHATH]

I found it: Song Sabers, from Dragon #335.

[Zetapup]

I found it: Song Sabers, from Dragon #335.

Alright, nice. Looking through the list of persistable spells again, I'd probably add Improvisation, Swift Fly or Alter Self, Hymn of Praise (or maybe glibness), Greater Invisibility or Lingering Chorus, Greater Blink, and Empyreal Ecstasy with the song saber. I'd say that's a decent deal for 12,000gp. Of course, there isn't anything that says you have to keep the song saber to keep the spells, so you could rent the saber for a couple weeks to learn the spells in it more cheaply.