Brainstorming for a Greater Steed bard

[Quoz]

So yet another character death this week, time to roll up a new PC

Coming in at level 10, I would like to make a bard that uses and abuses Find Greater Steed. To keep it usable in all/most situations I'm going with a medium size mount, which means a small character. I've recently played Kobolds and Halflings, and we have multiple gnomes already so I am looking at either Goblin or Grung.

Stats rolled 17, 16, 15, 14, 12, 8. One rare and one uncommon item.
Our table tends to go with one encounter per day, but an extremely deadly one.

I haven't played much Bard before, and never with access to 4th and 5th level spells. I'm thinking Lore bard for more magical secrets and cutting words.

What spells should I pick, both as a Bard and from Magical Secrets? I want a few that I can abuse shared spells with, and reliable options for both blasting and battlefield control.

[Corran]

This (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?506610-The-College-of-Legendary-Steeds-A-Bard-Guide-by-StarStuff&highlight=college+legendary) might be useful.

Regarding blasting, one option is synaptic static. The good thing is that it is a bard spell, so you don't have to expend any magical secrets for it, and it also hits pretty hard. The drawback is that at this level, it will use one of your two 5th level spell slots, so you should be cautious with when you are going to blast, cause you wont be able to do it too many times per day. Other options are fireball and spirit guardians, though both require using a magical secret, plus spirit guardians is concentration and is not exactly a blast spell (in a sense that it lacks the upfront damage), but both are good spells. I'd probably go with synaptic static.

For control, bards get hypnotic pattern and fear as far as I remember. Spending a magical secret on sth like wall of force is still probably a good idea.

[NatureKing]

So yet another character death this week, time to roll up a new PC

Coming in at level 10, I would like to make a bard that uses and abuses Find Greater Steed. To keep it usable in all/most situations I'm going with a medium size mount, which means a small character. I've recently played Kobolds and Halflings, and we have multiple gnomes already so I am looking at either Goblin or Grung.

Stats rolled 17, 16, 15, 14, 12, 8. One rare and one uncommon item.
Our table tends to go with one encounter per day, but an extremely deadly one.

I haven't played much Bard before, and never with access to 4th and 5th level spells. I'm thinking Lore bard for more magical secrets and cutting words.

What spells should I pick, both as a Bard and from Magical Secrets? I want a few that I can abuse shared spells with, and reliable options for both blasting and battlefield control.

The race for this is largely irrelevant, however Kobold -2 Strength is completely ignored, and so you can completely sack strength, putting your 8 in it. Belt of Hill Giant Strength. If you want, I like Ghostwise Halfling - the Telepathy with Shared Language is a pretty cool thing.

Build is Swords Bard 10, Mounted Combatant Feat, Duelling Fighting Style, Lance (plus back up non Heavy weapon) , Shield
Rare: Belt of Hill Giant Strength
Uncommon: (well, common), Ruby of the War Mage
Mount: Peryton

Peryton flies, understands common, has Fly by attack, and it can fly up 30ft then dive 30ft as well, for a continual +2d8 damage every turn, as well as multi attack.

To take advantage of Mounted Combatant against medium foes, Enlarge is good option. Reduce can be used to sneak into even smaller places, but given that most areas are designed for medium by the nature of the game and its short duration, reduce is less useful.

AoA gives your Mount additional Resilience, and you can force a creature attacking your Temp HP depleted mount to target you instead.

If you want a nuke spell, Synapntic Static is Int Save Psychic Fireball for 5th level applying non Concentration Super Bane, vastly improving your chances in combats against lesser foes, and potentially giving you the edge against boss monsters.

Polymorph can be fun to give your Greater Steed emergency hit points in a fight and you don't need to ride it.

Compulsion gives you a few turns of low Wis brutes assisting in fights, plus Jon Combat Shenanigans (the Princess will marry me). Greater Invis is an excellent Greater Steed spell.

If you go to higher levels, and get to 14, consider looking for a Ring of Spell Storing and pick up Warding Bond, and give that to another tough front liner, non Concentration guy to cast on you to double effective HP and potentially damage from AoA.