Seeker of the Song

[Kizara]

So, I'm going to be using a (slightly) modified version of this class for my next character.

The question I have is how does seeker music interact with bardic music? Does it stack, can you use both at once?

On a side note, where are Words of Creation found again? Any other advice for a bardic character going this route (if it matters, it's gestalt with warlock on the other side)?

[Gorbash]

Words of Creation is in Book of Exalted Deeds. Beware, though, they're quite cheesy.

[Kizara]

Words of Creation is in Book of Exalted Deeds. Beware, though, they're quite cheesy.

What is cheesy about them?

Overpowered? Silly? Poorly-written mechanics?

[Recaiden]

Seeker of the song mostly replaces bardic music. You can use one or the other at a time, but seeker hives you improved bardic music abilities. And I'm pretty sure that the words of creation are in BOED.

EDIT: Ninjaed. And it does matter that you'll be warlock gestalt. You might want to use music to support the party, and warlock abilities to attack.

[Kizara]

Seeker of the song mostly replaces bardic music. You can use one or the other at a time, but seeker hives you improved bardic music abilities. And I'm pretty sure that the words of creation are in BOED.

Seeker abilities aren't like regular bardic music at all, and are closer in function to IotSFV veils then bardic music. None of their abilities give bonuses to allies except energy resistance, for instance.

[Rei_Jin]

The Words of Creation allow you to take subdual damage (5d4, I believe) to double the bonus granted by Bardic Music.

Which is absolutely insane. At level 8 as a bard you give +2 with your bard song. There's an Eberron feat that adds +1 to this, and there's also a level 1 bard spell that adds another +1.

So, depending on how your DM works out the maths, you either give +6 or +8 to everyone with it active, all in return for 2 feats, a level 1 spell, and a standard action.

Yes, it's cheesy. Very, very cheesy.

And oh so much fun (if your DM is dumb enough to allow it)

[Recaiden]

Seeker abilities aren't like regular bardic music at all, and are closer in function to IotSFV veils then bardic music. None of their abilities give bonuses to allies except energy resistance, for instance.

Hmmm. I seem to have remembered wrong. But what I meant is that seeker stacks with bard for daily uses of music and seeker abilities use up bardic music uses for the day.

[Kizara]

Hmmm. I seem to have remembered wrong. But what I meant is that seeker stacks with bard for daily uses of music and seeker abilities use up bardic music uses for the day.

This is certinally true, and the class spells out as much, but what it doesn't address is whether you can use seeker songs and bardic music abilities at the same time; which is the nature of my question.

Logically, my first impulse is to say "no", kind of like you can't use two types of spellcasting at once, but it specifically allows you to use seeker music as a swift action, and it doesn't talk about not being able to also cast spells as you do it like it does with bardic music. Also, its not hard to imagine your powerful seeker singing also having the inspirational effects of bardic music.

[holywhippet]

If your DM says no, polymorph into an Ettin. Two heads = two mouth so you can use both at once.

[Ranis]

Bardic and Seeker levels stack for purposes of determining how many uses of bardic music you have per day, and you spend uses of bardic music to activate your seeker levels. I play a Seeker in a game that has lasted for quite a while, and my number one advice to you is to take Extra Music for every feat.

Your Seeker abilities burn out quickly at high levels without this feat, and with the added ability to use that many more bardic music abilities, things get silly. You use a harmonizing weapon and with the 2nd level Subvocalize, you can dance three seeker and/or bardic music songs at once. At that point, things get crazy awesome.

It's a swift action to activate the refrain of a seeker ability you have going. If you juggle three, it takes a standard action to keep them going as per the Bardic Music class feature, but that still leaves you three swift actions if you don't move or do anything else in the round, which means 3 lines of lightning, 3 healing blasts, or the like. Regardless, things get fun when you have 40+ uses of bardic music to blow on your class features.

[Kizara]

Ok, but do you have any idea if you can use things like Inspire Courage and seeker music at the same time?

That's some good advice on playing the character though, thanks.


On another note, is there a feat that lets you use bardic music (and thus also seeker music) at the same time as spellcasting? (aside from Silent Spell)

[holywhippet]

On another note, is there a feat that lets you use bardic music (and thus also seeker music) at the same time as spellcasting? (aside from Silent Spell)

Melodic Casting for 3.5.

For 3.0 there was a feat which let you disguise casting a spell as part of a performance IIRC.

[Kizara]

Melodic Casting for 3.5.

For 3.0 there was a feat which let you disguise casting a spell as part of a performance IIRC.

Thank you very much, that is exactly what I was looking for.

[Keld Denar]

On another note, is there a feat that lets you use bardic music (and thus also seeker music) at the same time as spellcasting? (aside from Silent Spell)

Melodic Casting, and it also gives you the ability to make Perform checks in place of Concentration checks. Between the 2, its crazy good. Requires 4 ranks in Perform to take.

And concerning Words of Creation, they deal xd4 nonleathal damage when you activate a song, which x is the number of ranks in perform you need to perform the song. Check out bardic music in the PHB for these values.

The brokeness comes depending on where the multiplier comes into play. I'm one to believe that it only multiplies the base bonus of IC, and all of the other stuff gets added on seperate. Thus, with Inspirational Boost and a Song of the Heart, an 8th level bard would Inspire (2 x 2 + 2 = 6) insead of (2 x 4 = 8) if you add first, then multiply, which is just rediculous.

[Ranis]

Ok, but do you have any idea if you can use things like Inspire Courage and seeker music at the same time?

Yeah, just sing your Inspire Courage and have your Harmonizing (MIC) weapon grab your Inspire Courage as a free action and then begin to sing your Seeker songs with Subvocalize.

[Temp.]

Ok, but do you have any idea if you can use things like Inspire Courage and seeker music at the same time?This might sound a little crazy but hear me out. Get your book, open it to page with the Seeker of the Song prestige class. Then, bear with me, turn forward three pages. See that little blurb about the Seeker's second-level class ability? Check it out. See, that part about activating two kinds of music? At the same time? It'll do the trick for ya. Really.

Is there any chance you can just refluff Sublime Chord? Take the Melodic casting feat and Bard/Virtuoso/SC/Virtuoso is a better Bardic Music user and does the thing Seeker does best (shutting down enemy spellcasters while replicating spell effects) even better than the Seeker does (Virtuoso music lets your allies cast spells and gives you real 9th-level spell access; compare Moonbow and Maw of Chaos's damage output to anything the Seeker can do). You probably knew this, but I cringe whenever I hear a player intending to enter SotS when SC is just a page turn away.

[Kizara]

This might sound a little crazy but hear me out. Get your book, open it to page with the Seeker of the Song prestige class. Then, bear with me, turn forward three pages. See that little blurb about the Seeker's second-level class ability? Check it out. See, that part about activating two kinds of music? At the same time? It'll do the trick for ya. Really.

Is there any chance you can just refluff Sublime Chord? Take the Melodic casting feat and Bard/Virtuoso/SC/Virtuoso is a better Bardic Music user and does the thing Seeker does best (shutting down enemy spellcasters while replicating spell effects) even better than the Seeker does (Virtuoso music lets your allies cast spells and gives you real 9th-level spell access; compare Moonbow and Maw of Chaos's damage output to anything the Seeker can do). You probably knew this, but I cringe whenever I hear a player intending to enter SotS when SC is just a page turn away.

Don't be patronizing with me.

And I was intending to do both with gestalt and melodic casting, although I'm still unsure whether it works out with conservation of actions. My current build looks like this:

Swash 1/ half-fey 2/swash 2/warlock 5/sublime cord 10

Bard 10/seeker 10

Feats: Skill Focus (perform) (1st), Melodic Casting (3rd), Words of Creation (6th), Extra Music (9th), Extra Music (12th), Quicken Spell (15th), Extra Music (18th).

Assuming my DM will let me ignore the 1 PrC at a time gestalt rule, which may not fly, but its still a WIP.

EDIT: Virtuoso isn't bad and yes it does have the whole +1 casting class thing going on, but the seeker concept combined with words of creation are just waaaay too perfect for this character. It's really not meant to be powerful, as the campaign takes place in a low-magic pseudo-modern (think Hellboy) setting anyways. I could squeeze in 3 levels of it with its pre-reqs, but it gets me almost nothing and loses a caster level and 2 4th level spells known and a bunch of per-days.

[Kizara]

Assuming I'm not blind (possible), the capstone ability is not defined at all. One would assume it grants True Seeing, although I have no idea what the refrain would be.

I can homebrew it if I have to, but I was wondering if there's erratta or something that clears this up.

Reminds me of the Deepwood Sniper (MotW), which had a similarly non-defined ability.

[Douglas]

If you mean the Hymn of Revealing, it appears that got changed at some point and whoever changed it forgot to update the table. The actual 10th level Seeker music is Note of Solitude, which is present in the text exactly where you'd expect it, but is not mentioned in the table at all.

[Kizara]

If you mean the Hymn of Revealing, it appears that got changed at some point and whoever changed it forgot to update the table. The actual 10th level Seeker music is Note of Solitude, which is present in the text exactly where you'd expect it, but is not mentioned in the table at all.

Ah. Thank you.

It's wroth noting that as-written Note of Solitude is almost wrothless.

The DC is 10 + ranks in perform skill. So, 33 by this point.

However, they also get their HD in ADDITION to making a save, thus essentially counting their HD twice. Really, I really doubt that anything that's remotely threatening is going to fail that.


I think I'll just homebrew Hymn of Revealing to give Foresight, with an amped-up True Seeing as the refrain and skip the craptacular Note of Solitude.


Edit: As a (for now) final note, here's my update/houseruling of the class:

Seeker of the Song:

-Gain all types of bonuses for Rapture of the Song (including Freedom of Movement) at 1st level.
-Bonuses for Rapture of the Song improve by +2 at levels 4, 7 and 10. In addition, at level 10 the Freedom of Movement effect improves to Freedom.
-Saves are calculated for seeker music effects solely by the Perform check result, instead of as-written.
-Song of Unmaking deals damage equal to seeker class level + bard class level, but allows a Fortitude save for half damage.
-Note of Solitude is removed.
-Hymn of Revealing grants the benefits of the Foresight spell while it is active. Its refrain grants the use of True Seeing that lasts until the Hymn of Revealing is concluded. In addition, this form of True Seeing can pierce concealment and see through fog and the like.
-Gain Decipher Script, Escape Artist, Forgery, Gather Information, Intimidate, Knowledge (history), and Speak Language as class skills.

[Ranis]

Personally, I think Seeker is fine just the way it is. I don't think there's a reason to change it. I suggest you play one before making changes.

[Kizara]

Personally, I think Seeker is fine just the way it is. I don't think there's a reason to change it. I suggest you play one before making changes.

Like many things, seeker bonuses are too minor and too late to be of use.

Getting FoM at level 20 is a joke. Getting it at level 11 isn't bad though. +8 to AC and Saves at level 20 is good but not that special.

Consider that the class gives up its normal role (utility) to become a respectable blaster that is still not comparable to any decent blaster build (like IotSFV, warmage, hellfire warlock, etc), and that's not accounting for silly stuff.

And while Note of Solitude may be a bit more in-line with its other abilities, the one I gave is both better flavorwise and far more useful mechanically.


That all being said, I have revised my alterations a bit:



Seeker of the Song:

-Gain all types of bonuses for Rapture of the Song (including Freedom of Movement) at 1st level.
-Bonuses for Rapture of the Song improve by +2 at levels 4, 7 and 10. In addition, at level 10 the Freedom of Movement effect improves to Freedom.
-Saves for seeker music effects are 10 + ½ Perform ranks + Cha modifier, instead of as-written.
-Song of Unmaking deals damage equal to seeker class level + bard class level, but allows a Fortitude save for half damage.
-Note of Solitude is removed.
-Hymn of Revealing grants the benefits of the Foresight spell while it is active. Its refrain grants the use of True Seeing that lasts until the Hymn of Revealing is concluded. In addition, this form of True Seeing can pierce concealment and see through fog and the like.
-Gain Decipher Script, Escape Artist, Forgery, Gather Information, Intimidate, Knowledge (history), and Speak Language as class skills.


The main difference is I took out Saves = Perform check and made it more mechanically consistant with similar things and a bit more reasonable and balanced.