Monk/Bard Support?

[cartejos]

Does anything in 3.5, Dragon Magazine, Dragon Compendium, Dungeon, etc. give support for a Bardic Monk?

Occasionally there are complex Variant Chains that can get Ability A on Class B through a subseries of class feature trade-offs, but I don't believe there's a way to ship Bardic Music over to Monk or Unarmed Damage/Flurry of Blows over to Bard.

At the end of the endeavor, I want to spend as few levels as possible, but end up with Greater Flurry and +2 Inspire Courage without the effects of items/feats that simply add to the bonus directly or give you bonus "effective" levels, save for feats that stack levels because I believe those are still labeled effective levels

And yes, I understand that Bard 8/Monk 11 gets Greater Flurry and +2 Inspire Courage, but wow is that build sucksville

Edit: No alignment restrictions

[A.A.King]

I don't think there are any first party ways to get Flurry of Blows and Inspire Courage +2 before level 19 (without artificially boosting Inspire Courage which you said you didn't want). The problem is wanting Greater Flurry, even if there was an Ascetic Performer feat to support a bardic monk multiclass it would probably not give you flurry. Ascetic Knight, Ascetic Hunter, Ascetic Rogue and Ascetic Stalker all only help improve the unarmed damage of the monk side without improving flurry. Similarly, Enlightened Fist (a prestige class that is decided to help a Monks with Arcane Casters multiclass) does not improve Flurry.

If you just wanted (near) Max Unarmed Damage and Bardic Music, the multi-class combo would have been possible by adding Paladin into the middle. A Bard / Paladin with Devoted Performer and Initiate of Milil has the Bardic Music Ability (including uses per day) of a straight Bard. Replace one level with Monk and the Ascetic Knight feat and you'd get Unarmed Strike damage equal to your Paladin + Monk levels and Bardic Music equal to your Bard + Paladin Levels. However, no Greater Flurry.

If you do want Greater Flurry and Max Inspire Courage, there is an option, but it is not 1st Party. Dreamscarred Press wrote up a 'Psionic Bard' called the Thoughtsinger for 3.5 which you can find here (http://dsp-d20-srd.wikidot.com/thoughtsinger#ES). If you combine that with at least on level of Monk and the Tashalatora feat you'll get Greater Flurry at character level 11 and Inspire Courage +2 at 9 or 10 (depending on if you take one or two monk levels). However, while it does the same it's abilities are not called Bardic Music so technically it won't qualify for most bard support and because it's Psionic instead of Arcane you can't use Ascetic Mage to have the monk armor bonus be based on charisma

[Zaq]

I assume you’re handwaving the alignment restrictions away, right?

Can you go into a little bit more detail about why it’s more important to you to get, for example, Inspire Courage as an 8th level Bard (meaning a +2 bonus) than it would be to just get Inspire Courage at a +2 bonus? The latter is easily achieved with Song of the Heart, Inspirational Boost, Words of Creation, and so on, while the former is, y’know, very restrictive.

Basically, unless there’s something in Dragon that I’m unfamiliar with (which is very possible), WotC wouldn’t have been likely to make too much material combining the two classes because of the alignment problem. I don’t have my books open, but I think that a Bard/Monk with enough Bard levels to cast 2nd level spells can qualify for that feat from CAdv that’s intended for Monk/Sorcerers (Ascetic Mage?), but I forget if it would actually do anything. Probably not.

I think your best bet is to figure out what material you’ll allow yourself to use to actually achieve the desired result, because if you’re tied up with the idea of pure class levels, I think that “sucksville” stub you came up with might be about it.

(Also, is there anything special about Greater Flurry that makes it distinct from just getting extra attacks? Because we can probably find ways to get you extra attacks that don’t involve taking 11 levels in Monk.)

[CharonsHelper]

You might see if your DM will allow Pathfinder's monk with the Sensei archetype. They lose Flurry for bardic music (the fluff being that they give advice etc.) and lost Evasion to be able to use their Wisdom for accuracy.

Eventually they can use their Ki abilities for the other players (which is especially potent for a Drunken Master/Sensei combo since you have infinite Ki). Eventually you can give everyone True Strike for your turn with Inspire Courage still going.

[Telonius]

Well... if you're dead set on Monk specifically I don't think I can be much more help than the others have been. But if you just want a bunch of extra attacks? Something like a modified Bardblade build could do it. Something like...

Bard 4 / Warblade4 / Unarmed Swordsage 1 / Warblade 5-15

The level of Unarmed Swordsage would put your initiator level at 5 (for Swordsage), allowing you to pick out up to 3rd-level maneuvers when you get your pile of 6 known. Take Melodic Casting at 1st, Song of the White Raven 6th. That lets your Warblade and Bard levels stack for Inspire Courage. There are plenty of Tiger Claw and Setting Sun maneuvers that emulate some of the features of the Monk, including Flurry of Blows. Monk's Belt and (possibly, if you have room) Superior Unarmed Strike will improve your unarmed damage.

[Darrin]

Does anything in 3.5, Dragon Magazine, Dragon Compendium, Dungeon, etc. give support for a Bardic Monk?

Heartfire Fanner (Dragon #314) doesn't have an alignment restriction, so monks can take it for bardic music. Warrior Skald (Races of Faerun) can also be used to add bardic music to a monk.

Ask your DM if the Ordered Chaos feat (Fiendish Codex) allows him to be a lawful bard. ("Effects" isn't really defined explicitly as a game term, so it could include class restrictions.)

If you're looking for a subset of bardic music, then there are a variety of PrCs that add Inspire Courage, or variations thereof (Divine Prankster, Purple Dragon Knight, Dread Pirate, etc.).

There's also the Chaos Monk (Dragon #355), which fixes the alignment problem, but replaces Flurry of Blows with Flailing Strike, which gives you a somewhat random number of attacks.



Occasionally there are complex Variant Chains that can get Ability A on Class B through a subseries of class feature trade-offs, but I don't believe there's a way to ship Bardic Music over to Monk or Unarmed Damage/Flurry of Blows over to Bard.


There is more overlap between Paladin and Bard, notably the Devoted Performer feat. If you can get a paladin's smite onto a monk chassis, such as with Holy Monk (Dragon #310), then you can join the Harmonious Order and pick up From Smite to Song (Champions of Valor). This gives you Inspire Courage, but not the rest of bardic music. If you can work in 4 levels of cleric or paladin, you can add Initiate of Milil as well (same book).

If you want a monk's unarmed damage on a bard, then there are several ways to do that: Battle Dancer (Dragon Compendium), Fist of the Forest, and/or Superior Unarmed Strike (Tome of Battle) will give you some unarmed damage progression.

For Flurry of Blows, check out Shou Disciple (Unapproachable East) or brood monkey (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fw/20041126a). However, as Zaq points out, if all you want is extra attacks, there are easier ways to do that than trying to get Greater Flurry.

[gorfnab]

If you just wanted (near) Max Unarmed Damage and Bardic Music, the multi-class combo would have been possible by adding Paladin into the middle. A Bard / Paladin with Devoted Performer and Initiate of Milil has the Bardic Music Ability (including uses per day) of a straight Bard. Replace one level with Monk and the Ascetic Knight feat and you'd get Unarmed Strike damage equal to your Paladin + Monk levels and Bardic Music equal to your Bard + Paladin Levels. However, no Greater Flurry.


Bard 1/ Paladin 4/ Monk 2/ Paladin 13

Possible ACF: Harmonious Knight Substition
Feats needed: Devoted Performer, Initiate of Milil, Ascetic Knight,
Other feats to consider: Able Learner, Melodic Casting, Snowflake Wardance, Extra Smiting, Song of the Heart, Words of Creation, From Smite to Song, Improved Natural Attack, Dragonfire Inspiration

Unarmed Strike of a 19th level Monk
Bardic Music of an 18th level Bard
Smite Evil damage of a 20th level Paladin, Smite Evil at 3/day

[cartejos]

Heartfire Fanner (Dragon #314) doesn't have an alignment restriction, so monks can take it for bardic music. Warrior Skald (Races of Faerun) can also be used to add bardic music to a monk.

Heartfire Fanner seems really really close, at least, to what I want. Alignment restrictions are typically waved for our DM so I'll make sure to edit the OP to reflect that. But Heartfire Fanner says that it's levels stack for the Bardic Music calculations, but do not give the normal advancement for effects. So that means a 4th level Heartfire Fanner has 8th level Inspire Courage (+2) correct?

Warrior Skald would be good for adding all the bardic music effects for trading for feats like Song of the Heart

[Troacctid]

The answer is no, there is no official support for this particular combination, but there are ways to kludge a build that includes both.

[animewatcha]

Just a lil clarification request. You be bard 1 then later on pick up warrior scald 1. And through warrior scald 1, bypass all the bard level requirements for the music just so long as you meet perform skill requirements?

Also would bard/warrior scald make for duplicate abilities? Allowing for trading them away.

[daremetoidareyo]

Ascetic mage allows cha to AC and the ability to blow spell slots to increase to hit and damage = spell slot sacrificed "as if you were casting a spell" Talifiran song might allow you to blow heightened illusion spells by eating up bardic music uses to get up to a +9 to hit and damage.

There are two 1st level bard spells that boost inspire courage by +1.

So bard 4/ monk X with extra bardic music feats might be serviceable.

Throw in a level of battle dancer for cha to AC twice.

Unseelie fey template opens up charming the arrow feat, which is cha to hit on a bow. Unorthodox flurry on that elven bow that counts as a light melee weapon gets you an extra attack. Make the bow skillful and ki focused so that you can stunning fist through it, and to avoid an exotic weapon proficiency tax (if necessary, i forget).