Haunting Melody question

[cartejos]

The Haunting Melody feat provides a rider effect when you "Sing or use some other perform skill"

The Arcane Performer flaw requires you to make a perform check to cast a spell.

Would the rider effect of Haunting Melody apply to Arcane Performer?

[Telonius]

Seems like it would. If you have the Melodic Casting feat (and if you're a Bard, you really, really should) you'd probably going to be getting the rider effect anyway if you decide to cast defensively (which you always should, as soon as you can automatically succeed on the Perform check, since there's really no penalty not to).

EDIT: Note that it does require the use of a Bardic Music, so you can decide not to apply it if you don't want to. (Like, if you're fighting Undead or Constructs or Paladins or something).

Personally, as DM, I wouldn't allow that flaw on a Bard, since it would be getting a free feat for something that barely hurts you. Say you're a level-1 Bard. You have 18 Cha, and 4 ranks in Perform. That's a +8. You need to roll a 2 to cast your zero-level spell. Level 2, you're fine for level-zero spells, since you put another rank into Perform, and you can't roll less than a 1. You do still have to roll a 2 to cast your level-1 spell. Rolling ends there. Level-3 Bard, you keep putting skill points into Perform (like every Bard in existence). You'll have +10. Minimum you can roll is a 1, so you automatically make the DC 11 for casting your Level-1 spell. Level-4, +11, you automatically make the check on level-2 spells.

Even if you start with a Charisma lower than 18, you're almost certainly going to have a Circlet of Persuasion (or if all else fails, a Masterwork instrument to scrape up another+2) pretty early on.

So yeah, for a Bard, this is not a flaw. It's a minor inconvenience that might not ever apply if you happen to roll well for two levels (or start higher than 2nd-level). I love Bards, and I know exactly how feat-starved they can be, but that's not something I'd let past.