the three cabarrelos but we are all multiclassing bards

[sxpaiscia]

hello everyone, i need some advice for a new characther, and hope you all can help me ^^

we are starting a new campaign and we decided as players (we are just three) to play a traveling band on the ispiration of "the three cabarrelos" (the mexican band with donald duck, Josè and Pachito from walt disney).Every characther is an arakokra (that the master modified a bit because we needed arms to hold istruments and such lol) and for flavor and to differenciate between us, we decided to play all bard/x multiclas, even to justify what we were doing before joining toghether.

the other two will play a rogue/bard and a barbarian/bard leaving me with the role of being the main face/diplomat/leader of the group and also the one that started the whole band. i was thinking to keep it full spellcaster and play a warlock/bard (i have in mind a cool backstory for this, and we are really into roleplay with a master that is good at implementing all backgrounds into the story)

problem is i never played a multiclassed characther before, i usually do only linear build so... what better way to put this two classes toghether, keeping the bard as the main one? i don't care that much for optimal performance, but having some strongher hits would be nice ^^ we starts at level 7
what build would you make or suggest? witch talets to take? subclass or variant classes?
there is even a good combination for this two classes? or is maybe better to play a sorcerer or wizard with the bard?

thanks in advance!

[Palanan]

First, what sources are you allowed to use?

[sxpaiscia]

First, what sources are you allowed to use?

they never specificated but i guess if it's written on a manual it should not be a problem... if it's something homebrew i should pass it throught them first but they usually don't say no ^^

[Maat Mons]

Huh, I hadn't even realized aarakocras were a playable race in 3.5. Well, "playable" may be an overstatement. LA +2? Yeesh.

Do your DM's modifications remove the LA? If not, raptoran would be a much better choice for feathery, flying race. Raptorans don't fly quite as fast as aarakocras. But they also are permanently 2 levels behind like aarakocras are. And they don't take a -4 penalty on skills and attacks just for being indoors like aarakocras do.

I guess, if your DM allows you to use the LA buyoff variant, aarakocra wouldn't suck too much unless you have to walk into a building at some point.

Man, who thought that race deserved so many penalties?



If you're starting at level 10, you're tantalizingly close to being able to take levels in Sublime Chord, the best Bard prestige class of all time. It singlehandedly turns Bard into a casting class. I mean, a real casting class. With 9th-level spells and everything.

If you like Bardic Music, you'll want to fit a couple levels into Virtuoso by 10th level. At least, if you're going to go into Sublime Chord. Which you should.

I'll suggest Bard 1 / Paladin of Freedom 2 / Bard +5 / Virtuoso 2 / Sublime Chord 2 / Virtuoso +8. Unless your DM enforces multiclass xp penalties. Which he should not do because they're dumb.

I don't have a lot to say on ACFs. Loresong is probably a solid trade if you're not going to be single-classing Bard. And you shouldn't single-class Bard. I've already mentioned the Paladin of Freedom variant, which I love because Chaotic Good strikes me as a much more fun alignment to RP than Lawful Good. Though in this case it's flat-out necessary to use that variant, on account of Bards being forbidden to be Lawful. Savage Bard is a nice way to bump up your Fort save a bit. You'll lose a little on your Ref save in exchange. But Fort is the more important of the two by a wide margin.

[sxpaiscia]

Huh, I hadn't even realized aarakocras were a playable race in 3.5. Well, "playable" may be an overstatement. LA +2? Yeesh.

Do your DM's modifications remove the LA? If not, raptoran would be a much better choice for feathery, flying race. Raptorans don't fly quite as fast as aarakocras. But they also are permanently 2 levels behind like aarakocras are. And they don't take a -4 penalty on skills and attacks just for being indoors like aarakocras do.

I guess, if your DM allows you to use the LA buyoff variant, aarakocra wouldn't suck too much unless you have to walk into a building at some point.

Man, who thought that race deserved so many penalties?



If you're starting at level 10, you're tantalizingly close to being able to take levels in Sublime Chord, the best Bard prestige class of all time. It singlehandedly turns Bard into a casting class. I mean, a real casting class. With 9th-level spells and everything.

If you like Bardic Music, you'll want to fit a couple levels into Virtuoso by 10th level. At least, if you're going to go into Sublime Chord. Which you should.

I'll suggest Bard 1 / Paladin of Freedom 2 / Bard +5 / Virtuoso 2 / Sublime Chord 2 / Virtuoso +8. Unless your DM enforces multiclass xp penalties. Which he should not do because they're dumb.

I don't have a lot to say on ACFs. Loresong is probably a solid trade if you're not going to be single-classing Bard. And you shouldn't single-class Bard. I've already mentioned the Paladin of Freedom variant, which I love because Chaotic Good strikes me as a much more fun alignment to RP than Lawful Good. Though in this case it's flat-out necessary to use that variant, on account of Bards being forbidden to be Lawful. Savage Bard is a nice way to bump up your Fort save a bit. You'll lose a little on your Ref save in exchange. But Fort is the more important of the two by a wide margin.

thats i think one reason why the master is changing it a bit to be more playable i guess ^^


thank you for the suggestions! so i should totally forget the warlock way and go with a pally and then keep n bard right? i will go look into this, thank you! :)

[Godofallu]

My biggest piece of advice if possible is to run Battle Howler of Gruumsh if possible for the barbarian split.

Bard/Warblade or Bard/Crusader are great with Song of White Raven feat.

Bard/Druid is great with Green Whisperer PRC.

Chaos Music feat will be nice for gaining back some Bard singing levels for your bard splits.

For songs maybe DM will allow Dragonfire Inspiration and Inspire Courage to stack. Even then only 2 Bards will be useful. Maybe soothing voice or something like that as an elf would make a third IC like song for the final Bard.

[JoeNapalm]

Kudos for the theme...

...have you considered Kenku instead?

No LA, and they get Great Ally (EX).

(I believe unless you're of the winged variety, they can still speak...)


-Jn-