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Treguard
2007-07-21, 08:12 PM
Hey, so here's me planning a boss encounter and to give it a bit of a twist I thought about making the npc a high-level bard.. I'm serious! Now before everyone starts, a bit of info about this chap; he has an intelligent magic violin that can play itself through his own talent (I've homebrewed this a bit so don't dwell on it too much- departed lover's soul ensnared in instrument yadda yadda yadda) leaving him hands-free to fight and for flavour, plus given the swashbuckler setting of the campagn, he's going to go down the rapier route for sum' hot fencin' action.

Now given that the party will consist of 5 members around 9th level (a "non-com" warforged artifcer, monk, a pistol-packing archivist, a verminlord druid & a duelist multiclassing whore currently serving as the front line fighter) I'm wondering will my bard need additional support for the encounter or, given the right build, will he have the cojones to pull it off by himself? Any interesting prestige classes or bardic feats I should know about? I'd be interested in hearing your opinions and suggestions on the matter.

edit: speling errurz

Superglucose
2007-07-21, 09:23 PM
Bards have high charisma, so give the dude the leadership feat with a fighter or something. It would make sense that a big, bad, beastly bard who's spent all his life singing and dancing around the world would attract at least a few followers.

Use his leadership score to determine the followers he has, and some of those (obviuosly not the 100 first level warriors, for instance) you could instead change to CR monster... and stick those in. Then if your characters ask your bard "How did you get all these monsters in?" the bard could say something like "Animals are animals, humanoid or not, and all exist to serve me!" or something cheesy like that.

And one final note, you should probably combat him (if he has a high level fighter cohort for instance) like a Mindflayer, using various suggestions and enchantments to beef up his fighter and take over various party members... etc.

PinkysBrain
2007-07-21, 09:38 PM
A bard is still a pretty potent spellcaster ... if you want to mostly ignore that you might as well pick some PrCs from him which trade his spellcasting for something more useful which can be better combined with melee.

A couple come to mind, stormsinger, warchanter and dirgesinger.

Single opponent combat tends to be a bit boring, but sure ... you can make him a challenge. What kind of CR and race (templates?) were you thinking about?

Superglucose, leadership does nothing for NPCs ... anything not summoned has it's own CR and counts towards the EL. If as a DM you want to give a NPC a companion you give him a companion, if you want to give him low level mooks you give him low level mooks. No feats necessary.

Superglucose
2007-07-21, 09:49 PM
Really. I always assumed that an NPC with Leadership basically had someone two levels below him without changing the el. Eh, it's a good way to explain it anyways, and my idea still has merit regardless of how useful the feat is :smallwink:

Neek
2007-07-21, 10:36 PM
That is actually a clever interpretation of the rules. The DMG pretty much states that things like animal companions, summoned monsters, &c. are part of the creatures CR already, and don't need to be accounted for. Likewise, if he wanted to give some lackies, it could all be rolled into the CR for the encounter in terms of calculating experience.

Elana
2007-07-22, 01:09 AM
Assuming that his cohort is 2 levels lower, inspire greatness is enough to beef his cohort up to his own level.

So if he is clever he might be able to pretend to be the sidekick to the cohort, so the PCs don't instantly know what is going on and who the real baddie is.

ZeroNumerous
2007-07-22, 01:54 AM
Bard 6/Lyric Thaumaturge 6(Alternatively, drop this by 2 if you give him a cohort).

He retains full casting, and now can expend bardic music uses(he's only gonna be in one fight, right?) to cause any sonic spell to deal 1d6/uses expended damage. As long as the spell is [Sonic], he can use Sonic Might to make it deal damage. (Sound Burst is a great example. 1d8+xd6 over a 20ft burst with a Fort save VS stun)

PinkysBrain
2007-07-22, 02:07 AM
That is actually a clever interpretation of the rules.
It doesn't make much sense to be a munchkin as a DM.

If you have a normal ~4 man party where all the PCs have leadership then yes ... it makes some sense to give NPCs cohorts too. If you want to play the game like that though I'd just give all the PCs and NPCs a cohort for free and forget about the feat.

It's not a normal feat, there is a good reason for it being by DM prerogative to allow it in the first place.

JaxGaret
2007-07-22, 02:30 AM
It's not a normal feat, there is a good reason for it being by DM prerogative to allow it in the first place.

QFT. Leadership should be carefully looked at by any DM.

And it doesn't make any sense to screw your players out of their rightful XP. You're not playing DM vs. PCs. This is a cooperative game, played for fun.

Skjaldbakka
2007-07-22, 02:47 AM
I've always seen Leadership as a way to shore up a party with three players.

Jack Mann
2007-07-22, 03:44 AM
A cohort does not count for the experience given to the party. To me, this is more than enough reason not to give an NPC leadership. Just give the bard whatever assistance you think he needs, and let the players get experience for that. The only benefit the bard gets from leadership is the ability to qualify for feats or prestige classes. Beyond that, it's just not fair to the players.

The set-up for this encounter is going to matter a lot. If the bard can arrange things to his advantage, he doesn't need quite as much assistance.

I'd go for a fighter type, possibly a warblade or even a swordsage. Someone who can help keep the players occupied and deal some real damage with the bard supporting him with magic and the occasional thrust of his rapier.

For added style, make the bruiser a half-orc duel-wielding light maces and call him a percussionist.

Treguard
2007-07-22, 06:17 AM
Well first of all, thanks for the replies! :smallsmile: So now to the heart of the matter. The more I think about it, the less I like the idea of him sullying his ermine gloves in boorish hand-to-hand combat :smallamused:. Given that the players would've inadvertently marred his "infallible" plans, all he needs to do is reclaim what is rightfully his (a rare treasure that the party should manage to steal, being pirates an' all.. :smallwink:) and then send in his beefy surprise cohort to finish the job. I could see that going down quite well, and it utilises his powers to greater effect; I've got a little breathing room to improvise if it seems like the party is going to roll over the encounter since as the steward of a governor's estate he could easily call for some low-level guards to gum up the works.

However, my only reservations about resorting to lackeys is that at this stage the main goals of the mission would've already been achieved (infiltrate the ball, sift through the idle gossip to obtain the latest news regarding trade routes worth pillaging, lift the loot before its grand unveiling, get out) and this encounter only serves as a roadblock to the party's success. Regardless of how well the party do up to this point, time will still be a big constraint here. The bard's own nefarious plot would've been foiled by the party's actions- I could imagine him being seriously cheesed to a point where he has to resort to dealing with the issue himself.. I'm not looking for a long, drawn out fight with a lot of factors involved; this tends to happen with our group especially when casters are the main force involved (but that could just be because of our original dm's style of npcs..)

Were it not for the flavour of a bard (and the fact I've never played one) the npc would've essentially been a LE beguiler and I plan to play him as such, neutralising the obvious threats using fascinate ("listen to the violin play, children" :smallamused:) reclaiming the gem and then making the players fight amongst each other (charm person, song of discord et all), laughing sinisterly all the while. If all goes wrong he could rely on buffing himself and falling back on his rapier, quickly followed by "ooh, his violin's still floating around playing! WANT", in a climactic duel.

Consider me a stickler but I tend to like boring old humans as races as I tend to be a feat monkey when it comes to making characters, if anyone knows of any fun templates that'll suit the nature of the encounter than I'm all ears; think Wormtongue and you're halfway there :smallbiggrin:.

edit: minor changes

PinkysBrain
2007-07-22, 06:43 AM
Personally I'm of the opinion that fascinate only really works if the listeners are actually expecting a normal performance ... and don't see the fact of the performance itself as a possible offensive act. That's the only way I'd allow it un-nerfed as a DM, the save DC is just too ridiculous otherwise. (He could always try to pull off a high DC bluff check to make them believe he is just randomly playing a tune which will have no negative effects on them.)

nerulean
2007-07-22, 10:46 AM
Fascinate doesn't work so well around combat: in fact, combat entirely breaks the effect. But, yes, if you can trick them into thinking Mr Bard is harmless and just wants to play them a cheery little tune, fascinate can buy him some time before the actual tussle gets going.

I'd say it's worth giving the bard at least one companion, possibly a pair of bodyguards that he'd keep around him at all times. The problem with having a powerful encounter with just one opponent is that in order to present a challenge at all, that single opponent probably has a high chance of one-shotting any individual in the party, which is generally no fun.

It's very possible to play the bard in a similar way to a beguiler, since they have a lot of spell overlap and the flavour works fairly well, but don't overlook the fact that the bard is an effective support character, and if he has no one to support, that entire aspect of his ability is wasted. If you're not bothered about inspire courage then stick with fascinate and suggestion, and pick up Haunting Melody from the Eberron campaign setting to give his music a bit more bite in combat. Lingering Song is also a good choice if you need the bard to be doing other things whilst still benefiting from the music and you think the combat's going to run to more than five rounds.

Spell-wise, maybe look at things like Delusions of grandeur to hurt opponents' will saves before battering them with beguiler-like effects. Disquietude is great to single out whoever is holding that item you want, and Miser's envy is a nicely flavoured spell that can add to the theme of sowing discord amongst the party. Harmonize and it's beefed up version are also useful if you want him to keep using music and doing other things in combat without wasting the feat on Lingering Song, and Bonefiddle or Song of festering death and Sonorous hum are low level win buttons. There's also that spell that makes someone give you an item on a failed throw, but I've entirely forgotten what it's called now. Give the guy that, or at least a couple of scrolls of it.