Feat or PrC which boost bard and rogue together?

[Sir_Chivalry]

In the process of building a cohort which was originally either a Swashbuckler/Dread Commando or a Bard, and the DM chose Bard for her preference. With the loss of our rogue player to scheduling problems, my DM has asked if I can tweak the build slightly to include a little more rogue stuff, and I'm inclined to oblige as helping the first-time DM as a long-time DM myself is alright by me.

Rolls aren't stellar so as little MAD as possible helps, but I can work with it.

Current best idea is Bard 5/Spellthief 1 taking Master Spellthief

But I'm wondering if my google-fu is simply too weak. I get there might not be any feats like Devoted Tracker or Daring Outlaw which incentivize multiclassing between bard and rogue (or rogue substitute), and prestige classes likely don't give both sneak attack and bardic music but I'm wondering if the forum hivemind has some suggestions or knows something I missed.

Current party
Beguiler (has trapfinding)
Rogue (fighter feats)/Crusader (me, also has trapfinding)
Druid
Cleric going Prestige Paladin going Halfling Outrider

And the campaign is the Age of Worms, so sneak attacking is at best a delightful ribbon without either penetrating strike from rogue 3, death's ruin from the same, or a truedeath weapon crystal. Worth investing in if I am going to have a decent amount of it though!

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

You already have two characters that can fill the role of party Rogue, and you're at a sufficient level to hire an NPC Psion to use Psychic Reformation so one of those characters can re-allocate their skill ranks to get the skills needed to do that. A cohort isn't going to have skill ranks as high as a PC, and shouldn't be relied upon to make crucial skill checks anyway.

[Biggus]

Unseen Seer (Complete Mage) progresses both Bard casting and Sneak Attack.

[Sir_Chivalry]

Unseen Seer (Complete Mage) progresses both Bard casting and Sneak Attack.

Boom, it was there the whole time! Thank you very much

Biffoniacus_Furiou: Sadly I don't think Psychic Reformation's going to fly but I'll see if the DM will allow a redistribution of skill points if the Beguiler's lacking (as I've got a couple levels of rogue at most)

[ciopo]

What role would the rogue cover? trapsmithing?

what I mean is, what out of combat necessities are in need of being covered? Because the in combat role is relatively irrilevant.

"trap things" is the Rogue shtick, but you can do it without necessarily having a rogue in the party, it just have to be something rogueish and you can stay closer to your concept.

It is my understanding this cohort was here before too, so what was lost in "unique capalities" by losing this player?

[nedz]

Unseen Seer (Complete Mage) progresses both Bard casting and Sneak Attack.

This, also pick up Hunter's Eye via Advanced Learning to weaponise Divination Spell Power into more sneak.

[Sir_Chivalry]

The cohort hasn't joined the party yet. Currently the beguiler is doing the trapfinding with me assisting the rogue never actually ended up attending

[ciopo]

Ok.

Why is there a feeling that a rogue is needed then? I'm just confused why this future cohort build need to be changed to include rogue.

because "we don't have a source of sneak attack" doesn't much make sense to me, the cohort will bring more player actions anyway.

is it for more skill points dedicated to traps/spot/listen/scouting?

I'm just confused is all.

[Sir_Chivalry]

Ok.

Why is there a feeling that a rogue is needed then? I'm just confused why this future cohort build need to be changed to include rogue.

because "we don't have a source of sneak attack" doesn't much make sense to me, the cohort will bring more player actions anyway.

is it for more skill points dedicated to traps/spot/listen/scouting?

I'm just confused is all.

I checked with my DM and she was similarly confused, other than to feel we needed one with the loss of our rogue player. However in between the time she said this and the time I posted this thread the beguiler proved very willing to search for traps and I am of course (with my limited rogue skills) willing to help him with an aid action or look myself as a double-check (love the big armoured guy being the backup rogue, so fun)

From what I can surmise she's worried about the loss of sneak attack damage otherwise, the big punchy kind (assisted with truedeath weapon crystals I'd imagine, in Age of Worms). As the types of enemies are mixed between aberrations and undead there's no one way to ensure precision damage though . . . save 3 levels of rogue and some flanking?

Current ideas I'm mocking up to shop to my DM (note: any of these builds can optionally have a level of marshal for some armour and boosting everyone's initiative):

#1 Bard/Spellthief/Unseen Seer:get a little sneak attack, get the important early bardic musics which can be boosted with spells and items, use a spellthief dip to be able to steal some magic off the late game villains
#2 Lyric Thaumaturge: just buckle down on bardic casting to help us out though some concern as our beguiler overlaps a lot with what a bard can do save sonic. Luckily Lyric Thaumaturge gives a little boost to that at 5th (ECL 11)
#3 Warchanter: Abandon the casting and focus instead on the inspiring and getting as many bonuses as possible for the party so they get more average damage than a few sneak attacks over the course of the fight
#4 Crossbow damage: Focusing on some precision damage with a few feats and a dip in Targeteer (variant Fighter Dragon Magazine 310) putting highest score in Dex and Cha second to provide a little more combat damage support (Deadeye Shot, Targeteer, Crossbow Sniper and Hit and Run Tactics Fighter (Targeteer still gets heavy armour to trade away) nets Dex bonus*3.5 added damage on flat-footed enemies within 30ft)
#5 Rogue 3: Sacrificing a little forward momentum to get Penetrating Strike (and taking a feat that allows ranged flanking if using the crossbow above) so that Unseen Seer's sneak attack will work on undead and critical immune aberrations. If only undead are necessary then a truedeath crystal or spell from Unseen Seer will likely do the trick

Things I'll likely avoid:

Sublime Chord: As this is a cohort I'd imagine the party is going to get annoyed if I'm tossing around high level wizard spells by the end, though the Lyric Thaumaturge above might work with it and Unseen Seer could be used to advance it if I held off.

[ciopo]

my experience with 3.5 sneak attack is that it very rarely is actually applied. It's just "iffy" being positioned for being able to do precision damage unless optimized to do just that, but then you'd give up much more bardic things.

If it's to apply copious amount of damage to things, honestly a 2handed barbarian beatstick outperforms precision damage fairly easily at low optimization,"just max strength, add 2hander, rage" puts your minimum damage to something like 10ish without even power attack and with much better to hit bonuses. But you want someone bardish, so that's not really a option I guess.

If you fancy a marshal, there is a 3rd party class called commander on the war of the burning sky campaign book, it can be summed up as "like marshal, but better"

it's my understanding the cohort would be under your control?

I don't really know bard things all that well, last one I made was for a one shot dungoen dive in the abovementioned campaign, using that campaign fey playable race, so I could use that charming the arrow (http://web.archive.org/web/20160123064340/http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fey/20030815a) feat to lowkey optimize, very lowkey :D

[Psyren]

Instead of a PrC, I would consider backporting a PF archetype like the Sandman Bard (using the 3.5 Bard chassis if you prefer that) that gets sneak attack and trapfinding alongside bardic magic. It plays more like a spellthief than a bard however. so you may want some additional tweaks if you have your heart set on the group buff aspect of being a bard.