Bard that can buff, heal and tank for (sneak attacking) rookies

[Shin]

Hey everyone!

So playing starts soon, the rest are rather P&P rookies and first time D&D players, probably going to sneak attack, and I intended to play a bard.
I thought about either going the Sublime Chord +other casting advacing PrC route, or leaving it at bard spellcasting, since the rest won't be on spellcaster power niveau, and taking Lyric Thaumaturge to the end.
Feats I've barely any room for, since Nymph's Kiss, Dragonfire Inspiration, Dragontouched, Melodic Casting, Lingering Song and Leadership are already a given. Well, I might replace one of these for a really worthwile alternate suggestion, but you know, not many feats to give anymore.

- I intend on taking bard to lvl 9, for Inspire Hatred, so that I can tank (at least non mind-affecting immune) enemies for the (squishy) others, but not sure on that. Is there another easy way to let my bard keep the enemy attention?
- Any way to bypass the mind-affecting immunity with undead, plants, constructs etc? I heard of a few bypass spells for one type specifically each, but only found PF stuff so far.
- How can I increase my survivability without using up many a resource? Paths considered are tacking a sh... ton of Charisma on the bard and applying it to AC and saves and whatnot, could be too resource expensive. Maybe spells, greater blink, greater invisibility, maybe undead shenanigans, or bypassing immunities with spells
- I'll also probably switch Fascinate for Healing Hymn, the question is how can I also be a reliable main group healer then. Just lots of wands of CLW? Get cleric spells onto my list?

Thanks for advice in advance!

[iTreeby]

If you are playing with rookies you should probably just keep it simple and be. Cleric, you can do everything you want with it. You should probably not use leadership with newbies in your group.

[Shin]

I still want to play what I like, and I don't want to play a cleric, simple as that. Also, leadership is purely for fluff with that character, won't see the cohort and followers do much, and the followers will stay 'at home' anyway.

[tricktroller]

A few questions for you;

1) Do you intend to be straight Bard up to 9th or do you mind multiclassing? I love Bardblades, personally.

2) How optimized does this guy need to be?

3) Are there specific types of enemies you'd rather affect with your music?

4) How do you feel about commanding undead in some way?

#4 is important because the feat Requiem allows you to affect undead with your songs. So you could have a small legion of skeletons that benefit from your dragonfire inspiration on two claw attacks each round......

[tyckspoon]

I'd look to drop Lingering Song, probably for Song of the Heart (originally found in the Eberron campaign guide, increases the numerical bonus from your bard songs by +1.) Your song effects already last for 5 rounds from when you stop singing them which should be enough to cover the important parts of most fights, and if you really need it extended to 10 you can get that pretty cheaply with the Harmonizing weapon property in Magic Item Compendium.

Healing Hymn would be difficult to get really good use of without having a Favored Soul or Cleric around who doesn't mind dumping a ton of slots into casting Cures. The difficulty is it only applies to spells the characters cast - wands and other Spell Triggers don't qualify, because it's not the character casting, and items that just heal you usually don't qualify, both because it's the item doing it and because most of them don't actually cast spells to do it (the Healing Belt, for example, doesn't cast various levels of Cure Wounds, it just restores HP.) Potions would work, interestingly, since the drinker of a potion is explicitly considered to be the caster, and I think scrolls would also work. So that might be a way to get better usage out of otherwise overly expensive/inefficient healing potions.


Also, leadership is purely for fluff with that character, won't see the cohort and followers do much, and the followers will stay 'at home' anyway.

You're asking your build to do an awful lot of things to be spending a valuable feat selection on fluff. If you just want to be considered a leading personality or be well-regarded in some organization, that is the kind of thing you should work out in backstory or in-game roleplay with your DM. You can still be a respected alumnus of a Bardic College, have an apprentice Bard who isn't yet ready to come on adventures with you, or whatever you were envisioning being represented by the Leadership feat without having the actual feat.

[sleepyphoenixx]

You should be careful not to overshadow the other players.
If the rest of your group are newbies playing straight rogues an optimized DFI bard will make them look like chumps, and that's a good way to turn new players off from the game.

That said, on to your questions:
The feats for your music to bypass the mind-affecting immunity for plants and undead are Green Ear (CAdv) and Requiem (LM).
Green Ear gives them a +5 to their will saves though and plants are relatively rare as a type, so it's only really worth taking if someone in your party has the plant type or you're playing with a Greenbound Summoning druid.
Requiem halves durations, but it's otherwise decent if you plan on using music offensively or have undead party members. Though i wouldn't take it on a DFI build.

The best way to "tank" in D&D is using BFC, either via tripping or spells. Which bards get a few of, so you can do that if you want.
There are ways to get enemies to focus on attacking you, but they're generally not very good. They also all allow saving throws, so you get no benefit using them over BFC.
You also don't really need a tank. D&D isn't an MMORPG. Every character needs to be able to survive an enemies attention.

Healing is indeed most efficiently done with wands. Someone in your party will have to get ranks in UMD to use scrolls of Restoration, Remove Disease and so on, but it's not really necessary to have an actual cleric in your group to succeed.

In general i think you're trying to spread yourself to thin.
First is the fact that while a bard can do all those things they can't really do them all at once, at least not efficiently.
Then comes the problem of spotlight-stealing - if you're the healing, BFCing, party-buffing gish your unoptimized rogues probably won't be having much fun.
I'd suggest focusing on just the buffing and BFC (healing isn't really a focus) and letting the other guys have fun stabbing things.

[PunBlake]

... taking Lyric Thaumaturge to the end.
When doing this, you need to plan out which Wizard spells you're learning with Spell Secrets. This is the most powerful bit of LT.


Feats I've barely any room for, since Nymph's Kiss, Dragonfire Inspiration, Dragontouched, Melodic Casting, Lingering Song and Leadership are already a given. Well, I might replace one of these for a really worthwile alternate suggestion, but you know, not many feats to give anymore.
I'll second ditching Leadership. You didn't mention it, so I will: I hope you're using the Eberron Bard substitution for Song of the Heart (ECS) at 6th; since you're dropping Fascinate, Suggestion is worthless anyway, as it requires Fascinate to function. If you can fit it in, go for Snowflake War Dance (Frost).


- I intend on taking bard to lvl 9, for Inspire Hatred, so that I can tank (at least non mind-affecting immune) enemies for the (squishy) others, but not sure on that. Is there another easy way to let my bard keep the enemy attention?
Be as annoying/threatening as possible. Get a Harmonizing (MIC) or Sudden Stunning (MIC) Crystal Echoblade (MIC) for melee. I don't know if I'd advocate taking Bard to 9; I'd jump to LT after 6, personally.


- Any way to bypass the mind-affecting immunity with undead, plants, constructs etc? I heard of a few bypass spells for one type specifically each, but only found PF stuff so far.
The ways to do this usually involve feats, and are thus not recommended. Requiem (LM) allows music to effect Undead but at half duration. Green Ear (CAdv) allows music to effect plants, but they get a +5 bonus on saves, so it's even worse. I don't immediately remember feats or bard spells for making music effect constructs or oozes. For some constructs, use Shatter (PHB).


- How can I increase my survivability without using up many a resource? Paths considered are tacking a sh... ton of Charisma on the bard and applying it to AC and saves and whatnot, could be too resource expensive. Maybe spells, greater blink, greater invisibility, maybe undead shenanigans, or bypassing immunities with spells.
Your go-to for this should be Sirine's Grace (Bard 4, SpC) and a mithral chain shirt and darkwood shield/buckler (or take the Shield spell with Spell Secret from LT). Sirine's Grace grants +4 Dex and Cha, while also granting Cha-Mod to AC and other fringe benefits.


- I'll also probably switch Fascinate for Healing Hymn, the question is how can I also be a reliable main group healer then. Just lots of wands of CLW? Get cleric spells onto my list?
Stick to wands for this. The party should help pitch in to buy them, since they're used to keep the party alive.

[Shin]

I'd take bard to 9th lvl for Inspire Hatred, to be able to keep the enemies' attention away from the sneaky backstabby guys.
Not that optimized, since it's mostly mundanes otherwise, and a sorcerer that only takes up the class starting with lvl 7. Something like bard and Lyric Thaumaturge would be just fine, also one of the main paths I consider. Leaving it at bard spellcasting instead of Sublime Chord. Or the latter.
No specific enemies in mind, probably due to how most of the abilities work things that aren't mind-affect immune, also we're hitting the Underdark and lots of dungeons.
Chaotic good character, also an exalted feat, and I'd say I'll see aside of commanding any undead anytime soon, so that's a no (sorry).

I intended on taking Song of the Heart as an ACF rather than a feat. Also I thought about picking up bardic sage (the ACF) so only 3 rounds after discontinuing the music eventually. That's what let me think about Lingering Song, Dragonfire Inspiration along with Inspire Hatred. Still rather something else?
I thought about picking up some healing spells somehow, would have to see how I'd do that, overall to have at least somebody in the group that can patch the folks together sounds like a good idea. Don't see anybody else be able to do that.

I'll consider dropping Leadership, yet if a feat remains that doesn't need to be filled by anything considered mandatory I'd be in favor of Leadership still.
Will of course be careful not to overshadow, mostly I can just give them normal IC instead of Dragonfire Inspiration, hitting stuff instead of missing feels good.
My worries are about the backstabby guys getting their bits served, I don't think they'll be ready with good defensive options really. So if it only takes that ACF and some defensive measures...
Alright, I guess Healing Hymn gets dropped then, and wands picked up.

I did consider Snowflake Wardance, but I guess it'd come only at fairly late levels, what with the other feats in the list.
Inspire Hatred dropped then, too, will either stick with Lyric Thaumaturge or take it from 7-10 or so.
Convenient, Inspire Courage is already in the spell list, if that's enough for now, all the better. Just a bit worried about getting smacked too much.


Small update/summary:
Char doesn't need to be very optimized, the rest of the groups are rogues and rangers and a X 6 / Sorcerer 4 / Arcane Trickster X
Bard 6 / Lyric Thaumaturge (4/X) (/Sublime Chord 2/) ... then
Healing Hymn dropped, healing needs covered by the group as a whole then, wands and stuff
Song of the Heart via ACF not feat
Will see if the others can hold their ground in melee or if I need to step in to keep the enemy attention off of them

[PunBlake]

Inspire Hatred
This isn't really worth it, as it's very situational. You need the right target, a situation that requires its use (like a low-HP ally), and an open, uncontrolled battlefield for it to be a useful action. Otherwise, you're better served hitting a thing with a weapon or spell to kill it.


I intended on taking Song of the Heart as an ACF rather than a feat. Also I thought about picking up bardic sage (the ACF) so only 3 rounds after discontinuing the music eventually. That's what let me think about Lingering Song, Dragonfire Inspiration along with Inspire Hatred. Still rather something else?
Nothing wrong with Bardic Sage; you can just replicate Lingering Song with a Harmonizing weapon. If your DM will allow you to stack Inspire Courage with Dragonfire, then the feat has value; otherwise, not so much.


I thought about picking up some healing spells somehow, would have to see how I'd do that, overall to have at least somebody in the group that can patch the folks together sounds like a good idea. Don't see anybody else be able to do that.
Healing Hymn is mostly useful as a gain back double HP when resting effect (which is useful more often than Fascinate, so a good trade), which can be stacked with similar effects to save healing item charges. Any rogue with UMD could also use wands; it doesn't have to be you, so both of you should have wands.

[Shin]

Dropped Inspire Hatred, good advice. I'll go into Lyric Thaumaturge after lvl 6 then (except a better suggestion comes along the way).
I think the DM will pretty much let them stack but will ask them to be sure, otherwise Dragonfire Inspiration and Dragontouched dropped and just letting the others feel good by reliably hitting stuff
Harmonizing weapon is friggin amazing, thanks for the tip!
I'll decide between Fascinate and Healing Hymn then, if purely for the resting bonus for the latter, not the most important decision regarding the build and probably fine to leave as is without additional resourced down that path. Nice.

Edit: Does stacking IC and DFI mean that I don't just get the IC bonus converted to dmg dice but rather both IC bonus and dmg dice are added together for a new higher total of DFI dice?

[Troacctid]

The problem with "Attack me!" effects is that they're all mind-affecting compulsions with Will saves to negate. And if you can get an enemy to fail a Will save against a mind-affecting compulsion, why are you using that opportunity to make them attack you when instead you could just make them attack the other enemies?

[Shin]

My first thought was that they don't get additional saves if attacking me, but I dropped bard 7-9 for LT now anyway. Taking the good ol' GOD Wizard path, BC it is.

[ExLibrisMortis]

I would suggest a bardsader. You'd get more tanky and party-defending stuff that way, including such useful abilities as Iron Guard's Glare and Covering Strike.

Here's a barsader build I made a while back. It assumes a few non-standard rules are in effect, most importantly LA buyoff and lack of alignment restrictions for bards/Chaos Music (or RKVs drop the Wee Jas requirement, then you can be CG). The build starts at ECL 4 minimum, ideally 6+ (due to the LA), unless you use template classes with LA buyoff (which is more cheesy than it already is). The custom magic items aren't required, but that masterwork natural horn is pretty neat (Song & Silence, 3.0 content). And I might've forgotten some other details, just let me know if that's the case.

LG half-battle dragon human
divine bard 4/crusader 1/knight of the raven 5/ruby knight vindicator 10
29/10/16/16/10/16 (32-point-buy, increases in strength)

1) Dragonfire Inspiration
h) Extra Music
3) Song of the Heart
6) Words of Creation
9) Chaos Music
12) Song of the White Raven
15) Lingering Song
18) Extra Granted Maneuver


Equipment
Masterwork natural horn of use-activated inspirational boost and harmonize

Custom item (1 × 1 × 1.5 + 2 × 4) × 2 × 2000 + 100 = 38 100 gp
3 pounds
Vest of legends and +5 resistance

25 000 + 16 000 = 41 000 gp
1 pound
Nightstick

7500 gp
5 pounds
+1 ornate restful lightweight heavy fortification reinforced segmented mithral full plate

6 × 6 × 1000 + 500 + 500 + 1200 + 300 + 9000 + 600 + 1500 = 49 600 gp
20 pounds
+1 ornate swarmstrike white raven razor sharp adamantine greatsword

3 × 3 × 2000 + 1000 + 3000 + 500 + 50 = 22550 gp
8 pounds
+1 soulfire tiger claw (pouncing charge) bracers of armour and +4 dexterity

25 000 + 16 000 + 15 000 × 1.5 = 63 500 gp
1 pound


Inspire Courage
+3 from 14 effective bard levels (4bard + 1crusader, Song of the White Raven + 4Chaos Music + 5vest of legends)
+1 from Song of the Heart
+1 from masterwork natural horn
+1 from inspirational boost
×2 from Words of Creation
+12 total
+12 Dragonfire Inspiration

3d4 nonlethal damage per use from Words of Creation.


Tactics


Round 0
swift
standard
move
Cast inspirational boost
Cast haste
Move into position and draw weapon


Round 1
swift
swift
full-round
Inspire Courage
Divine Impetus: Dragonfire Inspiration
Fight, or cast creaking cacophony and move


Round 2
swift
swift
full-round
Command raven
Divine Impetus: initiate boost
Fight


Round 3
full-round
Fight



I hope it's got some ideas you can use for your character.

[tyckspoon]

Edit: Does stacking IC and DFI mean that I don't just get the IC bonus converted to dmg dice but rather both IC bonus and dmg dice are added together for a new higher total of DFI dice?

I've generally just handled it as both effects running side-by-side; they don't interact with each other, but you would get, for example, + 3 to hit/+ 3 damage / +3d6 bonus damage dice if your IC value is +3. I don't see why they wouldn't 'stack' in this fashion, but then I see 'Dragonfire Inspiration' as a separate song/performance type to 'Inspire Courage'. I suppose your DM could read it as all being the same song and not allowing 'Inspire Courage' to stack with 'Inspire Courage', even if it is being used in two different ways for completely different kinds of bonuses.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Healing Hymn is mostly useful as a gain back double HP when resting effect (which is useful more often than Fascinate, so a good trade), which can be stacked with similar effects to save healing item charges.
Meh, hp are cheap. It's far more valuable because it also affects ability damage.
Those Lesser Restoration scrolls/wands get expensive really fast if your entire party has a couple points of ability damage.
Especially if you combine it with someone with the Heal skill providing long-term care and/or the spells Healthful Rest & Summon Elysian Trush.

[Shin]

I rather wanted to be more of a caster in the background than a melee combatant, will leave that to the sneak attacking group members (probably everybody else), and I also wanted to pick up bardic sage as said, and not take Snowflake Wardance. Also I doubt ToB stuff will be well-received by the DM, was generally frowned upon years ago in a group with me, the DM and others. Also, we do have alignment restrictions in effect.
I might take your build as inspiration should I ever land in another 3.5 group and get the urge to take ToB classes, unlikely but who knows :smallbiggrin: Thanks still for the build!


I've generally just handled it as both effects running side-by-side; they don't interact with each other, but you would get, for example, + 3 to hit/+ 3 damage / +3d6 bonus damage dice if your IC value is +3. I don't see why they wouldn't 'stack' in this fashion, but then I see 'Dragonfire Inspiration' as a separate song/performance type to 'Inspire Courage'. I suppose your DM could read it as all being the same song and not allowing 'Inspire Courage' to stack with 'Inspire Courage', even if it is being used in two different ways for completely different kinds of bonuses.
I see, so that's what stacking them means. Will have to ask the DM about it.

[tricktroller]

You could do a couple of different things, but being a chaotic good character, or even a Sanctified character shouldn't prevent you from using Bone Knight to command undead!

That way you could tank when you need to by sending in your undead minons to soak damage and provide flankers for your friends, buff people, heal your allies and your undead, as well as fight on your own right.

A divine bard doesn;t suffer from ASF so you could wear full plate bonecraft armor and run around slinging dragonfire inspiration with words of creationa nd song of the heart making your allies blast out tons of damage and make your skeletons/zombies painful even when they are little guys.

The easiest way to not overshadow the party is to use a couple beater zombies to tank and allow your friends to dish out the damage.

Nothing makes a friend's face light up like telling them they ge to add +8d6 fire damage to all of their attacks for this combat.

[PunBlake]

Meh, hp are cheap. It's far more valuable because it also affects ability damage.
Those Lesser Restoration scrolls/wands get expensive really fast if your entire party has a couple points of ability damage.
Especially if you combine it with someone with the Heal skill providing long-term care and/or the spells Healthful Rest & Summon Elysian Trush.

I completely agree with this, but the HP healing is more often used than the Lesser Restoration effect. As an example, let's talk level 9 here. When you rest, you gain back you HD (9) in HP. Double from Healing Hymn is 18, double from Thrush is 27, double from Healthful Rest is 36. Granted, this assumes 8 hours of uninterrupted rest (so leaving that much HP unhealed to save money is risky), but it will save you money every time you use it when more than one person needs topping off. It's more of a mid-game and later optimization of resources than anything else.

[RaiKirah]

I'm assuming you're taking Dragontouched to qualify for Dragonfire Inspiration. If that's the case then I would recommend using a Silverbrow Human (Dragon Magic p6) to get the Dragonblood subtype without burning the feat. If you want a different race there are other dragon descended in the same book. If you're taking it to qualify for Draconic Heritage to change your DFI damage element then more power to you, otherwise probably not worth the feat.

[tricktroller]

I second Silverbrow human for DFI access.

For the Undead build I'd go with something like;

Divine Bardic Sage 5/Death Delver 1/Bone Knight 10

Feats
Human Dragonfire Inspiration
1st Nymph's Kiss
3rd Lingering Song
6th Requiem
9th Leadership
ACF Swap Fascinate for Song of the Heart

You don't need melodic spellcasting because when you stop singing the effect lasts for 10 rounds for your allies and 5 rounds for your undead.
If you have a harmonizing weapon it will sing for you for Cha mod rounds after you stop singing and you can pick the song back up without having to waste another use of bardic music allowing you to keep the song up over and over again.

If you get a crystal echoblade of harmonizing you'll also get +1/2 bard level while singing songs (but +3 damage isn't that big of a deal)

Conversely if you don't like the idea of being the bard that makes people get up and dance in their bones,

Consider a Divine Bardic Sage/Warblade
-Swap Requiem for Song of the White Raven and make use of the crystal echoblade by focusing more on Bard than Warblade.
-With this is you focus mainly on white raven manuevers and

Or consider a Divine Bardic Sage/Crusader/Ruby Knight Vindicator.
-Swap Requiem for Snowflake Wardance with a crystal echoblade and lots of swift action abuse.

in any case picking items from the Raiment of the Four will give you access to some extra spell abilities.

With every build here you can do your party a favor by taking a step back and allowing them to do most of the work while you buff and support and shore up weaknesses.
- Tossing out a fireball to keep the party from being overrun is a good plan.
- Using manuevers to give out bonuses like Leading the Attack is fantastic.
- Using undead mooks to provide flanking bonueses and back stab opportunities to rogues is a great plan
- Doing all of that while also giving you allies bonuses to hit and damage is an amazing plan.

You also have the ability to use divine wands to heal/etc and the Divine Bard ACF doesn't state that they have no ASF but since ASF is arcane spell failure, the Divine Bard can cast in fullplate.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

If you want to Buff, Heal, and Tank, you can’t go wrong with a Bard/Crusader build