What is better,Battle Sorcerer, or Bard? [Archive]

death390

2017-12-22, 02:53 PM

between the two of them? battle sorcerer. hands down. you would get better casting, earlier access to spells, and more spells.

if you know what style of play you want to do there are some armored casters out there already that i would suggest looking at. these all have armored casting.

enchantment/ illusion: beguiler, get free light armor casting, trapfinding, skill monkey, fixed list though.

evocation: duskblade, up to medium armor casting (can get heavy with 1 feat by lvl 7?), 6s caster, channel touch spells though weapon, massive # of lower level slots (10 each?)

evocation: warmage, medium armor casting, int to evocation damage, sudden metamagics.

if none of those work then i suggest looking at the sorcerer handbook and finding what else for alternate class features would be useful as well.

noob

2017-12-22, 03:01 PM

Did you try sublime chord as a bard?
it gets you ninth level spells.

death390

2017-12-22, 03:12 PM

noob

2017-12-22, 03:30 PM

it gets 2 9th level spells and honestly you HAVE to go sublime chord if you play bard purely for that reason. i honestly don't get why everyone actually likes the bard to be honest. it is one of the weakest casting classes on its own, the few times i tried it i ended up playing as whatever minion i picked up with a bard cohort.

literally ended up with an improved familliar which was better than the actual character.

You can manage to get ninth level spells and sing while casting(the same action allows to cast a spell and sing) giving one boost to all team per turn(which then lasts 5 turns) and with some gold and one or two feats your bonuses from bardic music can be quite gigantic.
Of course your team will overshadow you but that will be in part due to the amount of boost you give them.
Most of the time one single ninth level spell is enough to break most things(such as shape-change) having more is not necessarily going to make you better at breaking the game.

Seriously one important thing in this game is making lower tier player feel useful and by playing an optimized sublime chord you will do that better than by playing an optimized sorcerer.

Kayblis

2017-12-22, 03:46 PM

Sorcerer is a full caster. It'll cast like a wizard, and with some feats/money it'll work in good armor(which you don't need thanks to Mage Armor and upgrades). Bard is a gish-y character with spellcasting as its secondary thing, the main one being music and specific buffs no one else can get - you won't be as strong as a Sorcerer by a long shot, but your buffs have mileage proportional to your party size, so while a Bard is kinda decent in a 3-man party, it's a gigantic boost to a 6-man party with cohorts, helpers and hired NPCs.
Overall, Sorcerer is better for your idea. An alternative to Bard would be the Duskblade, which brings Armored Mage as a class feature so you can wear armor and shields without further investment, along with full BAB and good Fort save. Sorcerer is still stronger as a pure caster.

Mithril and armor properties are your friends when working with Medium and Heavy armor. You can make a Masterwork Mithral Buckler(-0 penalty for nonproficiency) that has no ASF too, you can enchant it and still have the free hand as it's not a wielded shield.

Menzath

2017-12-22, 03:52 PM

Bard is a nice class, and full bard while not as straight forward powerful from only getting 6ths, makes up for it slightly with neat class features and a mass of skill points and a wider variety of class skills, namely UMD.
Add in sublime chord and it pulls ahead imho.

jedikiller

2017-12-22, 04:49 PM

This is mostly for fun because I think bards are fun to play and an armored sorcerer would just be cool, but all of your suggestions are very helpful

Deophaun

2017-12-22, 05:09 PM

i honestly don't get why everyone actually likes the bard to be honest. it is one of the weakest casting classes on its own
You don't understand, and yet you cite the reason.

It's also the easiest casting class to balance for, because an awesome Bard is an awesome party. I don't think anyone ever complained that the DFI Bard was outshining their Fighter or Paladin.

jmax

2017-12-22, 09:33 PM

it gets 2 9th level spells and honestly you HAVE to go sublime chord if you play bard purely for that reason.

As a wholly Charisma-based caster with full caster levels, a free +4 to caster level, and access to both bard and sorcerer/wizard buffs, Sublime Chord is arguably the best class for shapechange when focusing on non-beatstick abilities. Pick up time stop for your other 9th-level spell if you want to be able to buff up very quickly - abusing gate is expensive enough that you might as well just get scrolls to use here and there.

While there are absolutely other 9th-level spells worth having, a single casting of shapechange will give you such an incredible array of power and flexibility at absurd save DCs that I don't think you'd miss them much. (For a full dissertation on abusing using shapechange, check out my handbook linked from my signature.) Going off of Treantmonklvl20's wizard guide (http://bg-archive.minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=394), the only other 9th-level sorcerer/wizard spell* worth getting super excited about is maw of chaos.

Also, if your game allows runestaffs, spells known becomes a much smaller problem - although granted you can only use one runestaff per day.

All that to say I'd take Sublime Chord over Battle Sorcerer any day of the week if I think the game is going to have much time at ECL 19+ :smallbiggrin:

*Personally, even with druids getting it a level earlier, I'd also strongly consider frostfell from Frostburn for a seriously high-powered 9th-level spell - it's a mass save-or-lose with a huge, shapeable area (like fire storm (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/fireStorm.htm) but with 20-ft cubes instead of 10-ft) and medium range. If your DM insists that time stop's duration must be rolled secretly (which is technically correct but super-lame), I'd go so far as to ditch time stop for frostfell.

Nifft

2017-12-22, 09:41 PM

Battle Sorcerer is better at "armored Wizard" because you're casting from the Sorc/Wiz list.

Bard is better overall because it's got some casting, plus a lot of other stuff.

Dragonwrought Kobold Stalwart Battle Sorcerer Loredrake (with the Spellhoarding psychosis) is even better, of course, but that's a lot of mozzarella.

Hiro Quester

2017-12-22, 10:48 PM

Bard/SC also gets access to the wizard/sorcerer list from 4th level spells onwards. And can UMD wands of runestaves for the good lower ones.

Plus they get the excellent bard spells (incl. healing).

And at bard levels. So they are still casting Irresistable Dance as a 6th level Spell (available to a 13 th level PC). Also hindsight at 6th level instead of 8th edit: 9th.

Plus better ability to spend skill points, esp. as the party face.

Plus class abilities that specialize in making everyone else better.

A sorcerer can concentrate on one role (e.g. Blaster) and excel at that narrow role.

A bard can do everything else. And make everyone else better at their roles.

tiercel

2017-12-23, 12:37 AM

and honestly you HAVE to go sublime chord if you play bard

I... *makes frustrated noise*.

Look, if you are judging purely by “tier,” I suppose you can say that, but that kind of criterion taken to its logical extension seems to imply that you HAVE to play Tier 1 only, and even then with even-further-tier improving PrCs. That’s fine for TO, or for a high-PO group where all the other players and the DM enjoy playing that way.

But as someone whose actual playing experience has never included such high degrees of lactose tolerance that people would sneer at anything “worse” than T2, it really grates my ear to see online discussions so often claim that bard “has” to be Sublime Chord.

Hiro Quester has already said a fair bit of this, but I feel it bears emphasizing:

Bard is a solid class. It has useful spellcasting without being completely defined by dumpster-diving through books for the latest “I win” spell solution to every encounter. It has decent skillmonkeying, which provokes eyerolling from some playstyles, but there are skills which can actually be useful without replacing every skill roll with a spell.

Bard has relatively unique and useful class abilities (notably bardic music) which are well supported by a significant selection of ACFs and supporting feats.

Bard also makes a fairly-decent gish-in-a-can, all WHILE having party support abilities.

If your benchmark for a “good” character is “casts 9th level spells,” then by all means play one of those classes. But not every character and not every player has to go that way, and bards do not “have to be” Sublime Chords. Bard is an awesome and fun class in itself!

Jormengand

2017-12-23, 01:03 AM

Battle sorcerer is like sorcerer, only less so. It's still better than bard. Both are "Good enough" unless you're fending off well-played full casters; neither is the first thing I think of when I think of an armoured caster. If you want to go for an armoured spellcaster, play a cleric with the serial numbers filed off - they can actually wear full armour and still cast, for a start! If you just care about the armour and not the hitting things, psion is good too (you'll need to blow three feats on getting heavy armour proficiency, unlike cleric, though nonproficiency doesn't make a lick of difference if you're not making attack rolls), and it's even better than a sorcerer in some respects.

FocusWolf413

2017-12-23, 01:56 AM

Technically, the battle sorcerer, because better spells are king in optimization. Realistically, the bard is generally much more fun to play. That's what really matters.

Jormengand

2017-12-23, 02:24 AM

Technically, the battle sorcerer, because better spells are king in optimization. Realistically, the bard is generally much more fun to play. That's what really matters.

I would usually prefer to have a long list of different abilities that I can access rather than singing at people to give them +numbers and occasionally firing off the odd enchantment or illusion, but to each their own.

noob

2017-12-23, 02:42 AM

I would usually prefer to have a long list of different abilities that I can access rather than singing at people to give them +numbers and occasionally firing off the odd enchantment or illusion, but to each their own.

You can get a lot of abilities as a bard especially if you have no levels in bard and only levels in wizard,that prc who gave bardic music (without caster level loss),sublime chord and ultimate magus(You can manage to lose only one caster level in wizard)
Or if you qualify for sublime chord through assume supernatural ability shenanigans.
Taking levels in bard is not the only way to be a bard.

Bavarian itP

2017-12-23, 03:14 AM

I... *makes frustrated noise*.

Look, if you are judging purely by “tier,” I suppose you can say that, but that kind of criterion taken to its logical extension seems to imply that you HAVE to play Tier 1 only, and even then with even-further-tier improving PrCs. That’s fine for TO, or for a high-PO group where all the other players and the DM enjoy playing that way.

But as someone whose actual playing experience has never included such high degrees of lactose tolerance that people would sneer at anything “worse” than T2, it really grates my ear to see online discussions so often claim that bard “has” to be Sublime Chord.

Hiro Quester has already said a fair bit of this, but I feel it bears emphasizing:

Bard is a solid class. It has useful spellcasting without being completely defined by dumpster-diving through books for the latest “I win” spell solution to every encounter. It has decent skillmonkeying, which provokes eyerolling from some playstyles, but there are skills which can actually be useful without replacing every skill roll with a spell.

Bard has relatively unique and useful class abilities (notably bardic music) which are well supported by a significant selection of ACFs and supporting feats.

Bard also makes a fairly-decent gish-in-a-can, all WHILE having party support abilities.

If your benchmark for a “good” character is “casts 9th level spells,” then by all means play one of those classes. But not every character and not every player has to go that way, and bards do not “have to be” Sublime Chords. Bard is an awesome and fun class in itself!

The full quote is

it gets 2 9th level spells and honestly you HAVE to go sublime chord if you play bard purely for that reason.

And "that reason", as the OP stated, is being an armored wizard. So your frustration is not justified at all, because no one said that every bard has to be sublime chord.

tiercel

2017-12-23, 03:39 AM

I would usually prefer to have a long list of different abilities that I can access

Sorcerer picks off a much bigger list, it’s true, but in terms of how many spells a given battle sorcerer can actually cast, it’s not going to be that long a list.

Battle sorcerer 4 knows three non-cantrip spells. Bard 4 knows five.
Battle sorcerer 8 knows eight. Bard 8 knows eleven.
Battle sorcerer 12 knows fifteen. Bard 12 knows fifteen.
Battle sorcerer 16 knows twenty-one. Bard 16 knows twenty-three.

Granted, at the high levels those higher-level spells will be more telling for the sorcerer, but the bard does get some early access to normally-higher-level spells as well as bard-only spells, and generally has a comparable total number of spells known — number of abilities that a single character actually has at hand — as the battle sorcerer.

rather than singing at people to give them +numbers

Bardsong can do just a little more than “+numbers.”

And yet “+numbers” tends to get all the press because bards can get quite significant numbers, depending on the lactose tolerance of the table: numbers which don’t have to come out of the bard’s spells and—at least for IC—affect the entire party, including the bard. A battle sorcerer will presumably have spend at least some spells known and in-combat actions to get “+numbers” — and largely for self (even if that winds up largely becoming “I polymorph into X and just win”, which says more about polymorph than either class per se).

And "that reason", as the OP stated, is being an armored wizard. So your frustration is not justified at all, because no one said that every bard has to be sublime chord.

It is possible I have misinterpreted “armored wizard” as “gish,” since that is a common goal of the archetype. However, if the goal is merely “wizard wearing armor” then it’s arguable that wizard > sorcerer, that magic > armor, and that even +1 githcraft thistledown mithral lightweight adjective adverb prepositional phrase armor > class ability to ignore ACF. (Alternatively: Runesmith from Races of Stone.)

As for my “frustration not being justified at all,” I’ve seen the general argument “bards HAVE to take Sublime Chord” way too often to not be frustrated. If I’ve misinterpreted this particular instance, then I apologize that my rant is tangentially rather than directly related — but given that the OP also went on to say that “i dont get why everyone likes the bard”, I think that adding my voice to those defending the bard class is not inappropriate.

Jormengand

2017-12-23, 03:55 AM

Sorcerer picks off a much bigger list, it’s true, but in terms of how many spells a given battle sorcerer can actually cast, it’s not going to be that long a list.

Battle sorcerer 4 knows three non-cantrip spells. Bard 4 knows five.
Battle sorcerer 8 knows eight. Bard 8 knows eleven.
Battle sorcerer 12 knows fifteen. Bard 12 knows fifteen.
Battle sorcerer 16 knows twenty-one. Bard 16 knows twenty-three.

Yeah, but I'd rather have 2 of each school and some change than 11 enchantments, 11 illusions and a healing spell. A battle sorcerer's spells actually do different things, unlike a bard's.

Bardsong can do just a little more than “+numbers.”

Countersong and fascinate, how could I forget?

And yet “+numbers” tends to get all the press because bards can get quite significant numbers, depending on the lactose tolerance of the table: numbers which don’t have to come out of the bard’s spells and—at least for IC—affect the entire party, including the bard. A battle sorcerer will presumably have spend at least some spells known and in-combat actions to get “+numbers” — and largely for self (even if that winds up largely becoming “I polymorph into X and just win”, which says more about polymorph than either class per se).

It's not like the battle sorcerer needs to cast a great many spells to get +numbers, and while the bard can try to use his bard song on himself, it runs out quickly if he stops using his action to sing, and takes a standard action in the first place.

death390

2017-12-23, 05:28 AM

from how OP stated everything i judged that he was looking for a Gish. of those two options Battle Sorcerer is hands down better than Bard w/o Sublime Chord. Even using Metamagic Song to kinda DMM you don't have the # of spells to keep up as a gish. the way around that is to use higher power spells hence SC. NOT TO MENTION the fact that metamagic song is limited by the highest level spell you can cast IE you need higher level spell slots to be even able to MS persist in the first place.

gishing without Persist is bad and wastefull. this is why i said OP should have get Sublime Chord for the 9th level spells. for optimization of a MS persist bard, i would suggest silverbrow human in order to get the extra feat AND get to use practical metamagic.

hell look at this persist for 1 spell level cost
+6: -1 easy metamagic,(Persist)
+5: -1 easy metamagic (easy metamagic (persist))
+4: -1 practical metamagic (persist)
+3: -1 practical metamagic (easy metamagic (persist))
+2: -1 practical metamagic (easy metamagic (easy metamagic (persist)))
+1

please dont do this (or the easy metamagic version) you deserve a book to the face if you do this.

Gnaeus

2017-12-23, 06:34 AM

Yeah, but I'd rather have 2 of each school and some change than 11 enchantments, 11 illusions and a healing spell.

Then you should by all means take some transmutation spells (alter self, haste, slow, phantom steed, gaseous form etc), some divinations (clairvoyance, detect thoughts, tongues, see invisible), some abjuration (dispel magic) conjuration (glitterdust, summon monster, grease), necromancy (blindness, fear), or evocation (sound burst). That’s 16+ by spell level 3 core and stuff I would look at actually taking.

Fizban

2017-12-23, 07:25 AM

Battle Sorc gets higher level spells, more slots to cast them in, more choice in spells, and more hp to boot. Unless you want skills, singing, and bard-exclusive spells, don't be a bard. If you want to actually get the sor/wiz list, be a battle sorc.

Jormengand

2017-12-23, 09:09 AM

Then you should by all means take some transmutation spells (alter self, haste, slow, phantom steed, gaseous form etc), some divinations (clairvoyance, detect thoughts, tongues, see invisible), some abjuration (dispel magic) conjuration (glitterdust, summon monster, grease), necromancy (blindness, fear), or evocation (sound burst). That’s 16+ by spell level 3 core and stuff I would look at actually taking.

Blindness and fear are a transmutation and an enchantment wearing silly hats, and sound burst is a terrible excuse for a spell, just to give examples. To be clear, I'm talking about spells with actual diversity of effects, rather than a bevy of ways to mess nonlethally with people who fail a save.

jmax

2017-12-23, 09:15 AM

Plus they get the excellent bard spells (incl. healing).

The bard healing spells are largely terrible. Just get wands of lesser vigor and UMD them. A sorcerer can do this just as well as a bard.

A bard can do everything else. And make everyone else better at their roles.

This, however, is an excellent point - as long as it's what the player wants.

<snip>such high degrees of lactose tolerance</snip>

With that term, you have totally made my day.

At the end of the day, "better" is all going to come down to what the player wants to do.

Gnaeus

2017-12-23, 12:11 PM

Blindness and fear are a transmutation and an enchantment wearing silly hats, and sound burst is a terrible excuse for a spell, just to give examples. To be clear, I'm talking about spells with actual diversity of effects, rather than a bevy of ways to mess nonlethally with people who fail a save.

That’s one opinion. A better one is that sound burst is hardly terrible compared with other low level core evocations, given that sonic and daze are rarely resisted. Bards do have other, better non core evocations, not that evocation is really a great school anyway. Fear bypasses the low level mind control counters like protection from evil, and stacks well with other fear effects even on a passed save. Who cares if Blindness should be in transmutation, it’s for sure not illusion or enchantment, which is all you claimed bards get.

The other part is just silly. Save or loses, especially when you can target all 3 saves, are generally better than damage effects, which can mostly be done decently by your fighter. But while we are discussing versatility, alter self is one of the most useful and potentially abusable low level spells in the game. Clairvoyance and scrying are the best low level divinations. Dispel magic certainly deserves a spot on everyone’s spells known. Haste is the best low level team buff. Phantom steed is a very solid low level travel spell. All good spells, all core, none illusion or enchantment, none save or suck. Surely plenty to fill the only 11 slots we have at 8/9. And of course, we do have the good illusions and enchantments also. Great spells like mirror image, suggestion, displacement, heroism and invisibility.

Deophaun

2017-12-23, 12:28 PM

And "that reason", as the OP stated, is being an armored wizard. So your frustration is not justified at all, because no one said that every bard has to be sublime chord.
If that were the reason, the clause about getting 9ths would be irrelevant. And in fact "for that reason" you wouldn't play a Bard at all, Sublime Chord or no, but a Wizard, because that's what the OP asked for.

So we have one interpretation that casts half the statement out while the rest is a complete non sequitur, and another that takes hyperbole at face value.

AnimeTheCat

2017-12-23, 02:22 PM

I was coming up with an Armored Wizard Idea and got feedback and decided on either a Battle Sorcerer or Bard with the improved familiar feats and battlecaster [the Bard will take obtain familiar]. I need feedback on which of the two ideas is better. (And yes i know of the option to have a druid animal as a familiar, and no I'm not gonna do that.)

Overall, what is your "armored wizard" idea exactly? Is it simply an arcane spellcastee that does so in armor (assuming medium due to battle caster feat). Do you envision casting spells and swinging blades at the same time? I know you had another post about this but while I was reading I never truly found the answer. What is your vision?

jedikiller

2017-12-25, 05:14 PM

jedikiller

2017-12-25, 05:17 PM

Overall, what is your "armored wizard" idea exactly? Is it simply an arcane spellcastee that does so in armor (assuming medium due to battle caster feat). Do you envision casting spells and swinging blades at the same time? I know you had another post about this but while I was reading I never truly found the answer. What is your vision?

A fun arcane spellcaster with more durability than the average sorcerer/wizard and fun to play

Jormengand

2017-12-25, 05:43 PM

Psion can take 1 level of fighter and get the proficiencies.

I mean, you could do that, or you could not lose the manifestation level. :smalltongue:

A fun arcane spellcaster with more durability than the average sorcerer/wizard and fun to play

Battle sorcerer and bard are both arcane spellcasters with more durability than the average sorcerer/wizard, except that the average sorcerer/wizard has a full allocation of real spells with which to protect themselves. Duskblade is also an arcane spellcaster which can wear anything up to eventually heavy armour and still cast arcane spells. Which is best, then, depends on whether using a bit of the old ultimate arcane power, singing at people until they go away or hitting them with sticks until they go away seems the most fun to you.

Lans

2017-12-26, 06:06 AM

With a psion you could just eat the non proficiency penalty. Your only relevant penalty is to initiative

AnimeTheCat

2017-12-26, 08:05 AM

A fun arcane spellcaster with more durability than the average sorcerer/wizard and fun to play

Right. Then I'm going to be radical and suggest something slightly different because I think its fun to play.

I would suggest a human Battle Sorcerer with the Draconic Heritage and Draconic Claws feats. You'll get two claw attacks (at a very nice 1d6 for medium creatures) that you always have and you can make a swift action attack with one claw after casting any spell. This would (with a concentration check) mean you can cast a defensive spell (like shield) and attack in the same turn (as long as you are adjacent to the enemy you're attacking).

I've wanted to play around with a character like this myself so I guss I may be trying to live vicariously through you.