Dawnfower Dervish - need build

[Frosty]

Okay, so I wish to try to build a Dawnflower Dervish Bard for a game starting at level 2. I haven't decided whether I'm going Himam, tiefling, or aasimar yet.

25 pt buy allowed, and I can have 2 traits. 3 with a drawback.

So, I know that dervish dance forces me to use only a single One handed weapon (scimitar), and since I'm dumping Str, I can't quality for Power Attaxm. It's not ideal, but I'm hoping the double-the-normal bonuses from the modified bardic performance can make up for it. I'll probably take Blade if Mercy trait and the Enforcer feat as well.

Do you just think Dawnflower Dervish is worth it? What is a good build for this concept? I do like the idea of having a high intimidate bonus so I can constantly make people shaken.

[Geddy2112]

Bards are not a full BAB class, so they don't get as much in higher levels from power attack as a full BAB class. You are also looking at power attack at level 3. At full steam, your power attack is -4 to hit for +8 damage, but your battle dance inspire courage adds an additional 5 to hit and damage(as opposed to a normal bard inspire courage) so I would say it works out fine. If you really wanted, you have a large point buy and you could get 13 in strength to qualify for power attack as well.-not optimal, but you could. Taking arcane strike will also steadily increase your damage, and with that, double inspire and dex to damage you should not have a problem. To my knowledge, the only other dex to damage builds that activate at level 1 are human rogue or swashbuckler (finesse, weapon focus, fencing/slashing grace). With your performance, you are doing the same damage as the power attacker at level 1, but with a bonus to hit instead of a penalty. The other important thing is that dervish dance only prevents a weapon or shield in the off hand, freeing it up for anything else.

The big sell is the double bonuses from inspire courage, +4 caster level from inspire greatness,dex to damage at level 1, and 3 levels early entry to swift action start performance.

Even with your performance not buffing your allies, you can still be a buff caster. You lose out on knowledge and loremaster so you won't be the party textbook, but the archtype keeps versatile performance so you can have plenty of skill ranks to throw around. The meditative whirl is a trap-never waste knowing anything more than CLW- it comes in handy in the instance you need to stabilize/revive a fallen party member or stop bleed damage without trashing your whole turn, but not worth wasting spell slots on. Getting a +4 to cast defensively is decent, as casting on the defensive is not always a sure bet.

Max Dex, and you need a 12-14 in con to offset the weak fort save and the d8 HD for a melee character. You can max charisma, but if you are not going to focus on spells that give saves(buffs, etc) then you can get away with a 16 all campaign. Wis and strength are dump stats; strength is safer so long as the DM is not a stickler about encumbrance, but even then that is only a few levels. You can totally dump wis as will is a strong save, but failing will saves is really bad so be careful. You can dump intelligence and still power a lot of skills from versatile performance, boost it to be a skillmonkey, or just leave it at 10.

Overall I think the archetype is worth it, and the blade of mercy/enforcer thing works well, particularly since you can nab intimidate from a couple different versatile performances and easily max it. Enforcer is basically the cornagun smash of the power attack build, but it comes online from the start.

[Frosty]

Hmm, do you think I should go for a lot of debuff magic? This is a relatively low magic campaign. Full casters are one in a million, and bards are rare.

I'm planning this character to be able to infiltrate thieves guilds and such, so being stealthy and having a silver tongue is important. Luckily, Stealth and social skills are all class skills, and I can use Background Skills for my two perform skills (Act and Dance) What do you recommend for my second trait?

[Firest Kathon]

As an alternative to Power Attack, you can grab an Effortless Lace (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/magic-weapons/specific-magic-weapons/effortless-lace) to qualify your scimitar for Piranha Strike (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/piranha-strike-combat). Don't forget Slashing Grace (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/slashing-grace-combat) for Dex to damage.

For additional bluffing prowess, you could grab the Rakshasa Bloodline (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/sorcerer/bloodlines/bloodlines-from-paizo/rakshasa-bloodline) through the Eldritch Heritage (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/general-feats/eldritch-heritage) feat or Variant Multiclassing (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/character-advancement#TOC-Core-Classes), but this will quickly get feat-intensive.

[Frosty]

Dervish Dance (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/combat-feats/dervish-dance-combat) already gives Dex to damage. But thanks for the Effortless Lace idea.

[Geddy2112]

Hmm, do you think I should go for a lot of debuff magic? This is a relatively low magic campaign. Full casters are one in a million, and bards are rare.

I'm planning this character to be able to infiltrate thieves guilds and such, so being stealthy and having a silver tongue is important. Luckily, Stealth and social skills are all class skills, and I can use Background Skills for my two perform skills (Act and Dance) What do you recommend for my second trait?

Bards have some really good debuff spells like slow, silence, confusion, and irresistible dance, and it is certainly a route you can go. If you do, make sure you max charisma, but you could also just go with primarily buff spells. Confusion is good if you expect to need to mook control, as even a DC15/DC16 will save is going to hurt a lot of mooks with a +2/+4 will save at best. You can use your fascinate/suggestion at higher levels to copy a lot of the spells like charm person, daze, anytime you need to out of combat and nonmagically solve problems. The DC's of these scale with your bard level which helps.

I would focus on buffing magic to buff yourself and your party. Haste is far and away the most important spell you can get to buff the party.

If you want to be a silver tongued devil, grab bracers of the glib entertainer, which let you use glibness 1/day and boost all your performances by 5(so a lot of skills from perform). If you really expect to be lying a lot, then you want to just know the spell glibness.

A trait to sure up your will(maybe fort) save is never bad. Two world magic is a good trait so you can get create water as a cantrip. If you go the assimar route, the innocent trait, you get a +5 to any bluff check so long as the lie is believable or unlikely. If you go tiefling and you choose an alt race that has a good SLA, prolonged magic might be a good trait-A divspawn would be a good alt heritage and doubling misdirection is very nice. Rakshasa is also good but the SLA won't qualify for extend magic. If you go human, masterful demanor will give you a major bonus to intimidate non human humanoids. If you are not charisma heavy, mastero of the society is an extra 3 rounds of bardic performance. Your deity also gives a trait called strength of the sun, giving a +1 to all CHA checks during the day, which includes caster level checks and a good majority of stuff happens during the day.

Reactionary and rich parents are two of the best traits if nothing else catches your eye.

[Frosty]

I think I'm sticking with human in order to blend in. Most of the city is human. As for traits, what do you think of Desperate Focus? Getting +2 concentration can't be bad for a melee bard right?

[Geddy2112]

Desperate focus is a great trait for any caster, even better since you are a frontline caster. It stacks with your +4 to defensive casting check you get at level 5. Keep in mind that desperate focus applies to all concentration checks, not just the defensive ones.

[Frosty]

Which perform skills do you recommend? I obviously need Sance for his archetype.

[Geddy2112]

Dance first obviously. You are building around intimidate and bluffing, so get comedy next as it covers both of those. I would grab oratory after that, to get diplomacy and more importantly, a CHA based sense motive. Then act for disguise, and if you get far enough to have another wind/percussion for handle animal.

Ask your DM if you can retrain skill ranks, otherwise versatile performance is not all that good.

[Frosty]

Since I have background skills, I can max out dance AND Comedy hehe. After that it's probably oratory as you said. I'll just max out disguise separately.

I dunno how far we will get in this PBP game. We are starting at level 2. Hey, what do you think of the new PrC that just came out in Paths if the Righteous? There's one called Dawnflower Anchorite.