How good is the seeker of the song for a singer bard build?

[NecroDancer]

Assuming the build is Bard 10/Seeker of the Song 10.

I'm not trying to build something game breaking but I do want it to be able to keep up with other tier 3 classes.

The race is desert Half-Orc because I rolled a 16 for charisma and a constitution bonus was greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your help.:smallbiggrin:

[Fizban]

Seeker of the Song is all but required for anyone that actually wants to focus on bardic music, simply because it's the cheapest way to get two songs at once. The songs/refrains it gives are usable (no SR and very high save DCs/no saves), but resource management could be a problem if your fights last more than a couple rounds. It has a significant problem in that like almost all bardic prestige classes, it fails to actually progress the basic bardic music abilities: Inspire Courage and Inspire Greatness just stop. I would say it works best if you cram in another bard prestige class for extra songs before taking seeker, but most "bardic music" classes use their own slightly different variations on the wordings so they aren't actually compatible with anything else except uses per day, if that. Even if you're allowed to mix them together all you're really got is Dragonsong Lyrist or Dirgesinger.

I expect most people would say it's not tier 3 because it loses bard spells and the seeker music is mostly energy resistance and blasting. Weather or not it can "keep up with tier 3" depends on what that means to your group. If you're worried about performance, see if you can get your DM to reduce entry requirements: there's almost no actual reason for it to have 10th level entry. Even at standard 5th level entry the only standouts would be 10d6 at ECL 9, 10d6+10d6 one round later at ECL 12, abnormally high save DCs, and apparent "quickened" refrain effects- which one might consider well paid for by being stuck to a specific progression of energy damage and cumbersome wind-up mechanics while giving up actual spells and and offensive buffing music. An 7th or 8th level entry to split the different is entirely reasonable. Remember the standard bard trick of starting a song and never stopping to avoid wasting resources.

[Xethik]

Seeker of the Song is all but required for anyone that actually wants to focus on bardic music, simply because it's the cheapest way to get two songs at once.
If you allow Dragon magazine content, Focused Performance is a 2 feat expenditure for two songs at once. It's one mostly useless feat (Skill Focus[Perform]) and 2 levels vs two feats in that case.

[Troacctid]

Seeker of the Song would probably be a better choice if it weren't literally right next to Sublime Chord, which is a vastly superior class in more or less every way?

But even then, it's kinda meh. While the abilities you get are admittedly kinda cool, they're also not actually that strong for the level you're getting them. If you're looking for a prestige class with new and exciting uses for bardic music, you'd do much better with Heartfire Fanner or Stormsinger or even Troubadour of Stars.


If you allow Dragon magazine content, Focused Performance is a 2 feat expenditure for two songs at once. It's one mostly useless feat (Skill Focus[Perform]) and 2 levels vs two feats in that case.
There's a magical location that gives you Skill Focus (Perform) as a bonus feat for a couple thousand gp. That's what I'd use.