A full party of Bards. A band, if you will.

[tadkins]

Some friends and I are talking about putting together a 3.5 game and set up a FB group for it for the planning stages. I made a post asking what kind of character everyone's thinking about (and mentioned my penchant for arcane casters). One person mentioned Bard. Another person also later mentioned Bard. I jokingly suggested we should all be Bards and defeat our enemies with the power of rock!

I got to wondering though, can that actually work?

Could be fun from a RP perspective; a traveling band that gets sucked into adventure and saving the world while playing concerts in between. It'd be like if the Beatles were turned into the Beat-les. Like if Dragonforce became Dragonslayers.

Just being weird here but what do you guys think?

[Celestia]

It would probably work decently well as bards are the jack of all trades class. Just make sure that each player specializes in a different aspect of being a hard so that you don't step on each other's toes. I feel like that will be the hardest part of playing it.

Idea: have each player be a different member of the band based on party roll. The face could be the singer. The melee fighter could be the drummer. The caster could be the keyboardist. Etc.

Edit: A better Beatles pun would be the Beat Alls.

[tadkins]

Idea: have each player be a different member of the band based on party roll. The face could be the singer. The melee fighter could be the drummer. The caster could be the keyboardist. Etc.


Yes, love it!

[DeTess]

Also, for literally killing an enemy with the power of rock: combine the undersong spell (spell compendium) which allows you to replace all concentration checks with performance checks, with the insightful strike maneuver (Tome of battle), which replaces the normal damage roll with a concentration check.

But yes, this sounds like a great idea.

[Mordaedil]

Yes, it can work, you can do some interesting twist on traveling the country and you don't feature combat that is resolved by fighting, you make it about the music itself and base the challenges around the abilities of bards.

You don't travel to slay the red dragon in his lair, your band travel there to offer him music and entertain him so that he will leave the local populace alone.

And, this is absolutely necessary; you need to make it silly. Absolutely off the rails ludicrous. A necromancer is reviving skeletons and zombies from the local graveyard? Your bards play thriller and the entire horde dances to their rythm and the necromancer flees in confusion.

[tadkins]

Edit: A better Beatles pun would be the Beat Alls.

That's true. xD


Also, for literally killing an enemy with the power of rock: combine the undersong spell (spell compendium) which allows you to replace all concentration checks with performance checks, with the insightful strike maneuver (Tome of battle), which replaces the normal damage roll with a concentration check.


That sounds amazing. One question though, is it possible to get Insightful Strike on non-ToB classes?


Yes, it can work, you can do some interesting twist on traveling the country and you don't feature combat that is resolved by fighting, you make it about the music itself and base the challenges around the abilities of bards.

You don't travel to slay the red dragon in his lair, your band travel there to offer him music and entertain him so that he will leave the local populace alone.

And, this is absolutely necessary; you need to make it silly. Absolutely off the rails ludicrous. A necromancer is reviving skeletons and zombies from the local graveyard? Your bards play thriller and the entire horde dances to their rythm and the necromancer flees in confusion.

As awesome as this all sounds sadly it probably won't happen. Mostly suggested as a joke to the group, even though the more I think about it and read these threads I kind of want to play a game like that one day. xD

[DeTess]

That sounds amazing. One question though, is it possible to get Insightful Strike on non-ToB classes?


Yep, It's a level 3 maneuver with no prerequisites, so you can pick it up with a feat (Martial study) starting at level 10. There's another feat in Tome of Battle (song of the white raven), that allows bard and crusader or Warblade levels to stack for inspire courage and the like, so whoever plays the melee bard could take a a small dip into Warblade to get it as well with a better recharge than once per encounter.

[tadkins]

Yep, It's a level 3 maneuver with no prerequisites, so you can pick it up with a feat (Martial study) starting at level 10. There's another feat in Tome of Battle (song of the white raven), that allows bard and crusader or Warblade levels to stack for inspire courage and the like, so whoever plays the melee bard could take a a small dip into Warblade to get it as well with a better recharge than once per encounter.

Gotcha, thanks. I'm not too familiar with ToB. I looked it up and it said Swordsage 3, Warblade 3.

[DeTess]

Gotcha, thanks. I'm not too familiar with ToB. I looked it up and it said Swordsage 3, Warblade 3.

Right, that means that it is a maneuver normally available to swordsage and warblade of the third level. Levels work just like those for (wizard) spells, so Swordsages and Warblades could get it at level 5. However, levels in other classes count for half for 'initatior levels' (basically caster levels but for maneuvers), so a level 10 bard could use a feat that gives a maneuver to pick up any amneuever of 3rd elvel or lower, or a level 6 bard with two levels in Warblade could also pick it up as if he/she was a level 5 warblade (bard 6/2+warblade 2).

[Shocksrivers]

And, this is absolutely necessary; you need to make it silly. Absolutely off the rails ludicrous. A necromancer is reviving skeletons and zombies from the local graveyard? Your bards play thriller and the entire horde dances to their rythm and the necromancer flees in confusion.

I don't think it needs to be silly, I think the humour could come from a more or less regular DnD campaign, but with Bards in stead of "real" heroes :)

[DrMotives]

The bass player could have draconic heritage [howling dragon]. Then dragonfire inspiration becomes dragonsong inspiration, and they can add sonic damage to everyone's attack with their heavy baseline.

Plus, the howling dragon looks like it belongs in an 80s hair band anyway.

[Eldariel]

Get a Stormsinger for massive AOE effects, a couple of Sublime Chords to carry you later and perhaps some combaty Snowflake Wardancer to benefit of all the buff stacks (could even make one Sublime Chord a Bardcher or something; stacked buffs are brutal). Dragonfire Inspiration with 4 different elements and anything that can attack wrecks face.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Dragonfire Inspiration with 4 different elements and anything that can attack wrecks face.
This. Each member of the band picks an element to specialize in; the quadruple +10d6 elemental damage to all attacks takes care of the rest. Who needs Power Attack when a single dart deals 40d6 damage?

When looking at Inspire Courage optimization, look at the following:
Feats: Dragonfire Inspiration, Song of the Heart, Song of the White Raven, Words of Creation
Items: masterwork war horn (Arms and Equipment guide--this is 3.0), vest of legends
Prestige classes: Battle Howler of Gruumsh (probably not compatible with Words of Creation, due to Gruumsh' mild infatuation with evil), Heartfire Fanner

[Falontani]

And remember that you do not have to take an instrument to be a bard, you can do Perform Dance, Perform Oratory, Perform Interpretive Dance (I did this to create an acrobat that did some flips to inspire courage)

Another type of bard that I enjoy is Dread Necromancer that goes into the prestige bard from Unearthed Arcana and then into Dirgesinger to sing people into unlife.

[gorfnab]

They're on a mission from Pelor.
https://www.billboard.com/files/styles/article_main_image/public/media/blues-brothers-dan_aykroyd-john_belushi-1979-billboard-650.jpg
P.S. Don't forget the Sundark Goggles

[King of Nowhere]

Idea: have each player be a different member of the band based on party roll. The face could be the singer. The melee fighter could be the drummer. The caster could be the keyboardist. Etc.

Edit: A better Beatles pun would be the Beat Alls.

Oh, my. Now I have to turn this concept into a party of npc for my world. I only need to figure out how to actually optimize bards.

[Telonius]

Sublime Chord can certainly handle the arcane duties. White Raven BardBlade or BardSader could be melee. Divine Bard for divine stuff. One could take a dip of Incarnum (or even just a Feat) to get Thief Gloves and Trapfinding; since they're Bards, they're already skillmonkeys as it is. And for the fifth wheel, Bard20. :smallbiggrin:

You wouldn't need to worry nearly as much about getting your various individual songs. As long as anybody else in the party has it, you could swap it out for something else without losing anything collectively. (Two bard songs going at once won't stack). There's a ton of ACFs that swap out one or more songs for other stuff, and a ton of prestige classes that you no longer need to worry about missing out on your songs.

[Ramza00]

This idea can work.

But also remember you can do things with other classes but reflavor them as bard. Perhaps a person who does summon monster / summon nature ally and you are "opening a portal" to hell with your music? See reflavoring :smallcool::smallwink:

[Aipaca]

Or you could gestalt everyone as a Bard X//Something else X. Allows for more variation while still keeping the all bard flavour.

[Deadline]

Gotcha, thanks. I'm not too familiar with ToB. I looked it up and it said Swordsage 3, Warblade 3.

I built an entry for Iron Chef that used the Undersong/Insightful Strike combo. It also used Undersong to enable using Perform for the various save replacement maneuvers, so not only could you kill people with Perform checks, you could also save vs. spells with Perform checks.

Here's the link to it: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16084344&postcount=270

[vasilidor]

try looking at archetypes from pathfinder, or if that is not an option you should look at different spell selections for each character. Bards actually gt some pretty decent ones if you know what to look for as far as battle field control goes. prestige classes help, but only if you can last that long, unless you are starting at a higher level than first. also you can make a decent melee character or archer as a bard.

[Lemonblu]

Like if Dragonforce became Dragonslayers.


When looking at Inspire Courage optimization, look at the following:
Feats: Dragonfire Inspiration, Song of the Heart, Song of the White Raven, Words of Creation
Items: masterwork war horn, vest of legends
Prestige classes: Battle Howler of Gruumsh, Heartfire Fanner

This is clearly the tracklist for their next album.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Yep, It's a level 3 maneuver with no prerequisites, so you can pick it up with a feat (Martial study) starting at level 10. There's another feat in Tome of Battle (song of the white raven), that allows bard and crusader or Warblade levels to stack for inspire courage and the like, so whoever plays the melee bard could take a a small dip into Warblade to get it as well with a better recharge than once per encounter.

Feats are rare, gold is not. Get a diamond mind ring for it. Check the "Crown of White Ravens" entry on ToB 149 under the variants section on 150.

As for the all bard party; the characters will feel a -little- samey in the early levels but as long as you're all shooting for different prestige classes they should differentiate quite nicely. There's a bard PrC for everything so it shouldn't be difficult to fill the classic four archetypes.

[DeTess]

I built an entry for Iron Chef that used the Undersong/Insightful Strike combo. It also used Undersong to enable using Perform for the various save replacement maneuvers, so not only could you kill people with Perform checks, you could also save vs. spells with Perform checks.

Here's the link to it: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16084344&postcount=270

That's the build I learned that particular trick from in the first place, so listen to this guy. He knows his stuff.

[Sam K]

It's low-OP as hell, but punalicious if everyone picks :elan: for race!

[Lapak]

I knew this was ringing a bell for a reason. I read a book last year set in a fantasy world with a spin on this as the premise: all the adventuring groups who braved the Wyld outside civilization were referred to as ‘bands’ and society reacted to them kind of like rock stars. Plot revolves around a retired character getting the band back together for one last tour to save the daughter who followed in his footsteps and ended up in a city under siege.

Thread-relevant only in that it may spark an idea or two for you.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30841984-kings-of-the-wyld#

[Telonius]

It's low-OP as hell, but punalicious if everyone picks :elan: for race!

They need a Warforged. Gotta bring some heavy metal.

The band won't be complete without some Blues (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/monsters/blue.htm), and maybe a Rock Gnome.

[Deadline]

They need a Warforged. Gotta bring some heavy metal.

The band won't be complete without some Blues (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/monsters/blue.htm), and maybe a Rock Gnome.

This post made my morning. Bravo! *tips hat*

[Ukimoni]

Gotta have that Dwarf for the Underground scene

[gorfnab]

Soul Music by Terry Pratchett
Human - Voice, guitar, harp
Dwarf - Saxophone
Troll - Drums
Orangutan (~magically permanently Polymorphed human) - Piano, organ
https://78.media.tumblr.com/56d0f658368afc98c8841a4f37da243d/tumblr_n3qjmxtUTy1qkbpibo5_r1_400.gif

[gorfnab]

Here is a build list that has several Bard builds for different roles
Bard 8/ Virutoso 2/ Sublime Chord 2/ Virtuoso 8 - Utility Caster
Bard 5/ Combat Medic 3/ War Weaver 2/ Sublime Chord 1/ War Weaver 3/ Combat Medic 2/ Spellguard of Silverymoon 4 - Support Caster
Bard 8/ Arcane Archer 2/ Sublime Chord 2/ Abjurant Champion 5/ Ruathar 3 - Archer
Bard 8/ Paladin of Freedom 2/ Sublime Chord 2/ Abjurant Champion 5/ Sacred Exorcist 3 - Melee
Bard 6/ Warbalde or Crusader 2/ Jade Phoenix Mage 2/ Sublime Chord 2/ Jade Phoenix Mage 8 - Melee
Bard 1/Druid 4/Green Whisperer 3/Spelldancer 2/Fochlucan Lyrist 10 - Nature Bard (Druid 9th level spells)
Bard 2/ Druid 3/ Green Whisperer 3/ Spelldancer 2/ Sublime Chord 1/ Fochlucan Lyrist 9 - Nature Bard (SC 9th level spells)
Bard 3/ Barbarian (Spirit Totem: Lion ACF -CC, Wolf Totem ACF - UA, Whirling Frenzy ACF - UA, City Brawler - Drag#349, Skilled City Dweller (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a) {Ride for Tumble}) 2/ Battle Howler of Gruumsh 5/ Sublime Chord 2/ Abjurant Champion 5/ Heartfire Fanner 3 - Raging Bard

"Bards"
Marshal 2/ Barbarian (Spirit Totem: Lion ACF -CC, Wolf Totem ACF - UA, Whirling Frenzy ACF - UA, City Brawler - Drag#349, Skilled City Dweller (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a) {Ride for Tumble}) 2/ Paladin of Freedom 3/ Warrior Skald 3/ Warchanter 10 - Melee Leader
A Game Paladin (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?445134-Weekly-Optimization-Showcase-quot-A-quot-Game-Paladin) - Melee Leader, Healer
Beguiler 6/ Prestige Bard 2/ Beguiler 1/ Virtuoso 2/ Mindbender 1/ Virtuoso 8 - Int based utility caster

Necromancer Bards
Bard 8/ Pale Master 2/ Sublime Chord 2/ Pale Master 8*
Bard 7/ Diresinger 2/ Pale Master 1/ Sublime Chord 2/ Pale Master 8*
Bard 7/ Diresinger 2/ Pale Master 1/ Sublime Chord 1/ Pale Master 9*
*Requires the feat Arcane Disciple (CD): Necromancer Domain (ECS page 107)
Dread Necromancer 8/ Heartfire Fanner (Drg #314) 1/ Vitruoso 1/ Sublime Chord 2/ Virtuoso 8 - Requires the Apprentice: Entertainer (DMG II) feat
Dread Necromancer 9/ Prestige Bard 1/ Virtuoso 10 - Requires Apprentice: Entertainer and Arcane Disciple: Illusion Domain