Alternate Forms of Bardic Music?

[Doctor Despair]

I am currently playing an epic bard that just hit level 21! My feat of choice was Music of the Gods (after bloodline and Inspire Greatness shenanigans to increase max ranks of skills at level-up), but I was wondering if there are any PrCs to dip into that provide *different* types of bardic music that might still play nice with the Music of the Gods feat? Right now I can fascinate without fail and even cast mass suggestion, along with various other skills and bardic spells, which is fun, but I am curious if there are any other forms of bardic music out there.

[Troacctid]

There are certainly prestige classes that offer different forms of bardic music, such as Dirgesinger (cuz this is thriller, thriller night) and Seeker of the Song (goodness gracious, great balls of fire), but they're normally designed for PCs of lower levels. I'm not sure how useful they'd be to an epic character--they don't even stack up well against the 5th and 6th level spells of a high-level Bard, let alone the stuff you could get from Sublime Chord levels.

[Doctor Despair]

There are certainly prestige classes that offer different forms of bardic music, such as Dirgesinger (cuz this is thriller, thriller night) and Seeker of the Song (goodness gracious, great balls of fire), but they're normally designed for PCs of lower levels. I'm not sure how useful they'd be to an epic character--they don't even stack up well against the 5th and 6th level spells of a high-level Bard, let alone the stuff you could get from Sublime Chord levels.

It's the bardic music element that interests me since Music of the Gods lets bardic music work even on things normally immune to mind-affecting effects. :) Thanks for the name-drops! Sublime Chord only offers casting progression, right? Not actual new bardic music?

Edit: Seems you're right about Dirgesinger and Seeker of the Song at least. Not much in terms of late-game scaling there. I'm unsure if the Virtuoso's "Virtuoso Performance" would function with music of the gods, either. :/

[ATHATH]

Divine Prankster gets a few, and one of them is especially good- it taunts a group of enemies, and forces them to try to attack you IN MELEE. If they can't get to you, they'll try to get as close as they can. After that, they'll stand still in frustration and rage (this is explicitly stated) until they can get closer to you or the duration of the effect runs out (Ottiluke's Resilient Sphere, anyone?). The best part of this is that the Will Save DC to resist the taunt is equal to the result of a Perform (Comedy) check made by you, which can easily be boosted to ludicrous levels. A creature can use a standard action to snap their its out of this, but the friend has to succeed on another Will Save against the same DC with a +2 bonus on his roll for it to work. The only negative part about this ability is that it's broken on a target if you or your allies attack it, but it's still very useful.

[Troacctid]

Sublime Chord is mostly for enhanced high-level casting, but it does offer the Song of Arcane Power, Song of Timelessness, and Song of Cosmic Fire.

Other prestige classes for bardic music, off the top of my head, include Stormsinger, Dawncaller, Virtuoso, Troubadour of Stars, War Chanter, Warrior Skald, Dwarven Chanter...I'm sure I'm forgetting a couple.

You can also get new bardic music from feats. Doomspeak is probably the best of them, not counting Lyric Spell and Metamagic Song. There are some in Eberron Campaign Setting, a few in Complete Adventurer and Complete Scoundrel, a couple in Stormwrack and Frostburn, something in Races of Stone...


Divine Prankster gets a few, and one of them is especially good- it taunts a group of enemies, and forces them to try to attack you IN MELEE. If they can't get to you, they'll try to get as close as they can. After that, they'll stand still in frustration and rage (this is explicitly stated) until they can get closer to you or the duration of the effect runs out (Ottiluke's Resilient Sphere, anyone?). The best part of this is that the Will Save DC to resist the taunt is equal to the result of a Perform (Comedy) check made by you, which can easily be boosted to ludicrous levels. A creature can use a standard action to snap their its out of this, but the friend has to succeed on another Will Save against the same DC with a +2 bonus on his roll for it to work. The only negative part about this ability is that it's broken on a target if you or your allies attack it, but it's still very useful.

Divine Prankster's abilities aren't technically bardic music, so they wouldn't work with Music of the Gods.

[DrMotives]

There is a bard variant called harrier that replaces all the "buff" effects of bardic music with "debuff" effects instead, otherwise is a normal bard, and the effects are still considered bardic music. I can't find what issue of Dragon it was in, but it was in the back section, part of the "Class Acts" series of articles.

[ATHATH]

Heartfire Fanner gives you some unique effects.

[Doctor Despair]

There is a bard variant called harrier that replaces all the "buff" effects of bardic music with "debuff" effects instead, otherwise is a normal bard, and the effects are still considered bardic music. I can't find what issue of Dragon it was in, but it was in the back section, part of the "Class Acts" series of articles.

I can only seem to find the Consecrated Harrier, which doesn't seem to be what you're talking about. That debuff idea sounds really interesting though. :/ Anyone more familiar with the PrC?


Heartfire Fanner gives you some unique effects.

The feat granting is really interesting, and it's a fairly short progression as well. :)