So I want a soundtrack, but in character! And without involving bards!

[TalonOfAnathrax]

I'm making a PC who's flashy. He's vain, he's showy, and he likes grandstanding. He'll probably be some sort of sorcerer, or some other spontaneous spellcasting class with big showy spells (some AoE explosions and AoE control will do nicely). I expect to start around level 8 or 10.

And everyone knows that they main part of winning is winning while looking great!
So I'm trying to make sure the character will always have that "my clothes go nicely with the background" and "I have epic music running when I fight" vibe that you'll find in movies. But the idea here isn't to have it all be an OOC thing: the character himself wants to have the music when he fights!

Is there a spell, feat or item that could allow for that? I expect that it would carry penalties (to Disguise and Move Silently at the very least) and require skill investment in Perform and Bluff to pull off. But are there any spells, objects or races that could help with this?

Here's what I have so far: get energy substitution (sonic) and (fire) and illusion spells to make light and sound effects that are also useful in combat (and a sonic fireball means blasting enemies with the power of dubstep :) ).
Cast spells with a full-round action casting time and RP them as being cast by an understandable song that comes with musical accompaniment (because magic) culminating when the spell resolves. But the only full-round casting time spells I can think of are rhe Summon Monster X ones which I dislike (I want AoE stuff, not really summoning) and the ever-awesome but far too high-level Storm of Vengeance (which I fear may be cleric only, and that's a prepared caster).
Get a reserve feat that could have incidental visual and auditory effects I like and use it a lot.
Actually spend gold researching a "soundtrack" spell that lasts while the fights lasts and that gives minor AoE buffs to allies and slight penalties to enemies (and probably grants bonuses to Intimidate and major penalties to Move Silently and Disguise).
I can ask my GM to rule that stuff like "Acid Fog" actually deal sonic damage and are a lightshow vivid enough to provide concealment.

I was under the impression that bards got a bunch of sonic spells, but I dislike the fluff of a bard and fear that bards don't really work as AoE blasters/controllers. Am I wrong? Or is there a bard variant with bardic music more suited for a direct attacker (AoE buffing shouldn't be the entire point!) or with good AiE abilities?

[Nifft]

But the idea here isn't to have it all be an OOC thing: the character himself wants to have the music when he fights!

Dragon Magazine #336 has Fanfare for Sorcerers, which gives you an explicitly flashy entrance (and a social skill bonus) in trade for 2 known cantrips.

For a [Reserve] feat, there's Clap of Thunder for a melee touch attack every round ("Your face is my beat-box."). Or, you can get Sonic Weapon at relatively low levels, or Resounding Thunder / Ironhorn Thunder / Great Thunderclap. All make for excellent percussion.


For continuous battle background music, there's Sonorous Hum and Dissonant Chant, both of which provide a concrete benefit to build upon.

[Bronk]

I think what you're looking for is the 'spell thematics' feat. Take the feat, choose to make your spells come with theme music, cast a spell that lasts all day... done!

[Feantar]

You need a custom intelligent magic item. I am assuming your soundtrack doesn't need intelligible language, otherwise the item becomes prohibitively expensive. I am using a lot of ad hoc rules, but nothing game breaking.

Base item : Command Word: Ghost Sound(Music Only) - CL 5th: (Ad Hoc 20% reduction due to music only limitation) 0.5*5*1800*0.8=3600;
Intelligent Item:

Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 12, 30 ft vision and hearing - 1000 gp
Lesser Power: Item has 10 ranks in Craft(Composition) - 5000 gp

Market Price: 9600 gp, double if slot less.

This way, you can have a constant soundtrack that changes on your mood, as the intelligent item has an empathetic connection with you and fires off the effects by itself. To have lyrics, at best, you'd need to make the intelligent item able to speak (3000 gp extra) and have an extra lesser power (10 Ranks in Perform(Song) - 5000 gp extra) for a price tag of 17600 - but by that point you have your own personal bard.

Now I have an image of a pretty but vain and mildly stupid character with an literal artistic soul(as in, a soulgem with the soul of a stuck in a pendant by their neck which tells them how to act; a D&D rendition of Cyrano de Bergerac maybe? :smalltongue:

[Thurbane]

Here's a few more spell options:


Ghostharp (Brd 0) SC p.104
Animate Instrument (Brd 2) CS p.94
Haunting Tune (Brd 3) Sc p.110
Heaven's Trumpet (EoB 4, Brd 5, Clr 7) BoED p.99

...the higher level ones come with rider effects, so they are probably overkill for a soundtrack. If you put the lower level ones into an eternal wand, a Sorcerer could use them without needing UMD.

[Zaq]

I know that you don't want to be a Bard, but you only need one level of Bard (or something else that lets you qualify as having "Bardic Music class feature") to take the feat Melodic Casting (CM), which seems completely perfect.

Hell, you might even ask your GM to let you take it without having Bardic Music, given that half the feat's benefit only applies to Bardic Music (and therefore you're giving up half the benefit by taking it without having Bardic Music).

Incidentally, if you're just worried about Bards not having enough oomph (not to say oompah—tuba Bards are hilarious, if suboptimal) with AoE sonic spells, you might look at Lyric Thaumaturge (CM), which gains extra spell slots, extra spells known (and the ability to pull from the Sor/Wiz list), and the ability to burn Bardic Music uses to add extra dice of sonic damage to "any spell with the sonic descriptor," which definitely has potential.

Lyric Thaumaturge actually sounds about perfect for you, truth be told. It's not hard at all to enter, and it seems to solve the majority of the problems that you were worried about.

[Metahuman1]

There's like a 0 level bard spell in spell compendium or one of the mage books. Get an item of that and slap Glamor Property on your characters robes.


IC theme music, not a bard, clothes always mesh with the back ground. Boom. =)