Bardic Music+Wildshape

[Grynning]

Discussion continued from 3.5 RAW thread:

Q 199:
When Wild Shaped, you lose your ability to speak and cast spells, but can still make animal sounds. Could you still make Perform: Sing checks and use Bardic Music abilities? If not, would Natural Spell allow you to do so?[/QUOTE]

A 199
Natural Spell would not allow you to do it, as it only allows one to use animal spells in Druid spellcasting, not any other kind of ability. As for whether or not you could use Preform: sing, Raw is silent on the matter, and arguements could be made either way. On the other hand, if you turn into a bear, you actaully gain a +4 bonus on Preform: Dance checks.

Natural Spell does not specify Druid spells.

I suppose that Bardic Music remains nebulous, though, as it is not technically a spell.

A 199 Additional

Bardic Music - "While these abilities fall under the category of bardic music and the descriptions discuss singing or playing instruments, they can all be activated by reciting poetry, chanting, singing lyrical songs, singing melodies, whistling, playing an instrument, or playing an instrument in combination with some spoken performance."

Fascinate - "Each creature to be fascinated must be within 90 feet, able to see and hear the bard, and able to pay attention to him."

Inspire Courage - "To be affected, an ally must be able to hear the bard sing."

No limit appears to exist on Perform, except this must be a performance involving sound (slight problem with Perform: Dance for Dervish, obviously). However, you would not be able to sing when Wildshaped, because - "A druid loses her ability to speak while in animal form because she is limited to the sounds that a normal, untrained animal can make, but she can communicate normally with other animals of the same general grouping as her new form." The workaround would be a Perform skill specific to a certain animal type, such as Perform: Birdsong. Note, a bear could not perform a Birdsong due to being in a different general grouping, and would need a specific skill here.

Natural Spell would appear to do nothing for Bardic Music since this isn't casting spells.

I like this idea (Perform: Wolfhowl sounds like fun) but strictly by RAW, there are only 10 perform skills, the 9 listed in Core and Weapon Drill from CWar. It'd have to be houseruled.

Edit: Discussion on this is going on too long for this thread I guess. Reposting in a new thread.

So, continued, anyone know if there is any way to combine the two by RAW? Or have a good houserule on it?

[Vangor]

"The DM is free to expand any of these categories with additional methods, instruments, or techniques, as appropriate for his or her campaign."

I should have edited my previous comment, since I realized after posting this was not the RAW. Instead, we can use the above, and merely include, by RAW, any animals capable of singing in any regard as being able to perform Bardic Music with the Perform: Song skill, whereas in bear or wolf form you might need, and I mean this seriously, Perform: Oratory to perform Bardic Music.

[Grynning]

Well, the idea I had was to Gestalt a Wildshape Ranger with a Savage Bard (both are variants from the SRD) to basically make a Druid that's not as broken as a regular Druid without going outside of Core/SRD material. Of course if you're doing this you'd want to be able to use your music abilities. I guess ranks in Perform: Animal noises of whatever sort would work as long as the DM was willing, maybe pick up the Versatile Performer feat from CAdv. (or is it CScoundrel?).

[Vangor]

I guess ranks in Perform: Animal noises of whatever sort would work as long as the DM was willing, maybe pick up the Versatile Performer feat from CAdv. (or is it CScoundrel?).

VP is from CAdv. As noted, I don't believe you'd actually need separate Perform skills as much as the animal form chosen needs to be able to, in some manner, be able to complete whatever the Perform action requires. This would be subject to the interpretations of the DM, but additional, specific ones aren't necessary. The DM may want to houserule this, htough, since you are gestalt anyway.

[Grynning]

I'm not actually playing atm. It's more of a combination thought exercise/brainstorm for a potential 3.5 game that may happen if one of our 4th ed games goes belly up. I just wanted to try and figure out the RAW on the matter in case whoever does end up DM'ing would be a stickler about it (if I end up DM'ing, it's no problem, obviously, but then I probably wouldn't be playing, would I...)