Evil Bard For a non-optimized tier 3 party

[Darius Rae]

So i am in a tier 3 sandbox campaign and have decided to re-roll my character. My party has a Psychic Warrior and a Factotum. We decided collectively that we were going to pick tier 3 classes and just play them for fun instead of power gaming. I have been playing as a Dread Necromancer, but as I have just made it to level 8 I feel that I have become too powerful in that I have and undead army to do my bidding. (we got lucky and killed a hydra, who is now a hydra zombie)

My plan now is to make a bard. I am trying to decide between bard 10/sublime chord 10 or bard 5/dirgesinger 5/seeker of the song 10. I will would like to be a necropolitan human as I plan to have some undead to hang out with (via animate dead scrolls and a high umd if necessary) and take the feats that let me scare ppl with my songs and effect undead.

My question is, will the sublime cord levels effectively push my bard past the imaginary tier 3 threshold? and can I even have an effective character if i go the dirgesinger/seeker of the song route? I want to be at a reasonable power level compared to the rest of my party, but mostly i want to have a cool character. (like that evil bard violinist)

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Sublime Chord makes you Tier 2. Your basically a Sorcerer.

If you want the violinist, I recommend going Snowflake Wardance and Bard 4/Paladin, Crusader, or Warblade 16 with the appropriate feats. You can also snag Dragonfire Insiration to boost damage or just stick to Inspire Courage.

[Darius Rae]

I will look into Bard / UA chaotic evil paladin. I want to avoid ToB, those builds aren't really what I am after as I would like to keep upping my musical ability. As for the necromancy, it looks like I am going to invest in the scrolls.

For items I will have the crystal echoblade, house ruled to be the bow for the violin, strings of spell storing (from song and silence, unless there is a more up to date version of them) and a cloak of charisma

[Sstoopidtallkid]

The Song of the White Raven feat allows you to stack your ToB levels and Bard for determining your IC bonus, as well as making it a Swift Action to activate.

[Aldizog]

The Dirgesinger/Seeker of the Song (dirgeseeker?) looks good. Dirgesinger abilities are based on Perform ranks or character level, not class level, so they scale well. Seeker lets you combine songs, and the abilties are pretty useful though not overpowering. The abilities are mostly (Su) and ignore SR. I imagine Hymn of Spelldeath could be devastating, though I've only seen the class in action as far as level 4. I'd say Dirgeseeker is a solid choice that could be a LOT of fun. For coolness, you get an ability called ANTHEM OF THUNDER AND PAIN, as well as the Song of Awakening.

Interestingly, Dirgesong is a single (Su) ability with multiple uses, so Ability Focus might be a good choice.

[Darius Rae]

The Song of the White Raven feat allows you to stack your ToB levels and Bard for determining your IC bonus, as well as making it a Swift Action to activate.

Oh, Inspire Confidence not Inspire Competence. That makes these classes worth multiclassing in.

The thing that I like the most about Diergeseeker is the flavor. It reminds me of this picture that has been floating around the forum.

Spoiler

Show

Keeping in mind that we are restricted to tier 3, do the abilities of super music from the diergeseeker + seeker of the song outweighs the pure melee might of the crusader bard? I think that the psychic warrior does his job of smashing things quite well and am thus inclined to favor the seeker of the song.

Also, I remember seeing an incorporeal undead that plays a flute or something like that. Seeing as my bard is already undead, will have a high UMD, and the feat that lets bard music effect undead, is there any way that I can convince/force one of these to tag along? or any other musically inclined undead.

edit: A potential issue with bard 5/dirgeseeker5/seeker of the song 10 is the loss of suggestion at level 6.

[Aldizog]

Also, I remember seeing an incorporeal undead that plays a flute or something like that. Seeing as my bard is already undead, will have a high UMD, and the feat that lets bard music effect undead, is there any way that I can convince/force one of these to tag along? or any other musically inclined undead.

Crypt Chanter. Just RPing it with your DM might be the best way. It sounds cool for the character and has story potential, you know?

Other than that, you don't have Rebuke/Command Undead, and although your Bardic Music can affect undead I don't think there's an "enslave" song. Diplomacy to make it Friendly or even Fanatic? Leadership? Magic item of some kind? Scroll of Create Greater Undead with some variation?

And the other thing you might want to ask your DM about is a custom feat to increase the HD cap on Song of Awakening (maybe your level +4). I imagine that would be a staple power for the mid-to-high levels. As soon as a party member drops one of the enemy, you bring them back to fight for your side.