How do you play as a Bard?

[Hawkfrost000]

having played the 3.5 starter set for quite some years and only recently discovered the full 3.5e (which i love) i underwent the process of converting one of my old 3rd level charecters to a bard. but this begs the question: how do you play as a bard?

seriously, how do you play as a bard? its a great class and has lots of fun options but i have no ideas what kind of spells to take or what feats to take.

my charecter is level 3

Spoiler

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Class: Bard
Race: Human
Str: 15
Dex: 15
Con: 14
Int: 10
Wis: 8
Cha: 18

he caries a shortsword, Crossbow and 2 daggers

Wears Studded Leather armour and has a bucler

Feats: Dodge, Combat Reflexes, (need one more)

Spells: 0th level: Read Magic, Detect Magic, Light, Message, Lullaby and Daze 1st level: Feather Fall, Charm Person, Cure Light Wounds

Any and all advice would be usefull.

P.S. we could turn this into a general resource for bard players

Thanks

DM

[WarKitty]

http://community.wizards.com/go/thre...Bards_Handbook have fun

[Jack_Simth]

Depends on the party, the DM, and the campaign. Bards are fairly decent at buffing the rest of the party up - so that works out quite well. There's no real target limit, so that works much better in larger parties.

Umm... what power spectrum are we looking at? Are you playing with a Batman Wizard, a CodZilla, and an Ubercharger? Do you need to actually take the roll of skillmonkey?

[Tyger]

having played the 3.5 starter set for quite some years and only recently discovered the full 3.5e (which i love) i underwent the process of converting one of my old 3rd level charecters to a bard. but this begs the question: how do you play as a bard?

seriously, how do you play as a bard? its a great class and has lots of fun options but i have no ideas what kind of spells to take or what feats to take.

my charecter is level 3

Spoiler

Show

Class: Bard
Race: Human
Str: 15
Dex: 15
Con: 14
Int: 10
Wis: 8
Cha: 18

he caries a shortsword, Crossbow and 2 daggers

Wears Studded Leather armour and has a bucler

Feats: Dodge, Combat Reflexes, (need one more)

Spells: 0th level: Read Magic, Detect Magic, Light, Message, Lullaby and Daze 1st level: Feather Fall, Charm Person, Cure Light Wounds

Any and all advice would be usefull.

P.S. we could turn this into a general resource for bard players

Thanks

DM

Already done... check out The Bard's Handbook.

That said, what sort of bard are you wanting to play? The awesome charming warrior? The spell slinger with a lute? The "I turn my allies into an unstoppable force of destruction" bard? The "I turn the enemies into weeping piles of XP for the rest of my team to finish off"?

What's your goal?

Also, what books/sources do you have available to you? Core bard is rather limited in options to truly kick butt, but some of the splats out there turn bards into monsters!

What I can say is that you have two, rather substandard feats there, pretty much regardless of what you are aiming at. But I can't give you a better idea on the feats until we know more information.

[Squally!]

ahh the bard, such a fun class :)

but yeah, without knowing what kind of bard you want to play, its hard to say xD

Im currently playing a dual wielding-snowflake wardancing-inspirational singing-self buffing-size changing bard.

[Vladislav]

Grease and Silent Image and probably the best level 1 Bard spells. Feather Fall is too situational to learn until you have way more slots, and I'd leave Cure Light Wounds to the Cleric.

Dodge is a very bad feat, and Combat Reflexes is only justified in combination with a reach weapon, which you don't have.

Look into Melodic Casting, Knowledge Devotion, Obtain Familiar, Force of Personality, or Song of the Heart as replacements.

[nedz]

+1 to Silent Image and Grease.
Inspirational Burst [SpC] is also pretty cool.
As is Ironthunder Horn [SpC]
I'd dump cure light wounds too.

Take Cure Mod as a 2nd level spell (though not as your first choice) since this will get someone up (eg the Cleric), whilst CLW may not.

Good 3rd level spells: Haste, Magic Weapon-Grt

Do you want to wade into combat singing ? If so you need some melle feats.
Weapon Finess perhaps ?

Do you want to stand at the back, buffing and solving problems with spells.
If so you'll probably need some archery feats, though by mid level you'll be too busy casting spells so don't over do these.



It depends upon what sort of Bard you wish to play ?

[2-HeadedGiraffe]

I got some good mileage out of the Extra Music feat, but it depends on how much you plan to use your music. If your group tends to have one encounter and then rest, don't take it, but if you're involved in large numbers of fights during a single day, it could come in handy. I found Inspire Courage to be a very useful buff, and Bardic Knowledge was responsible for roughly 90% of what my party ever learned in character (I might be exaggerating).

[Hawkfrost000]

That said, what sort of bard are you wanting to play? The awesome charming warrior? The spell slinger with a lute? The "I turn my allies into an unstoppable force of destruction" bard? The "I turn the enemies into weeping piles of XP for the rest of my team to finish off"?

Awesome Charming Warrior definitely, i want to be pretty good at fighting and be able to use my spells to buff myself and my allies and debuff my opponents.

DM

[Hawkfrost000]

some of the stuff in the bards handbook isnt in the players handbook, do you know were i can find it?

[Greenish]

some of the stuff in the bards handbook isnt in the players handbook, do you know were i can find it?

Superscript behind the things name is the source. The spells lack it, but the rest seems sourced.

[JonRG]

List of 3.X book abbreviations

[FMArthur]

Just start singing during the game. You don't even have to pick up the D&D class. Also it might help if you were obese and really filthy as a countermeasure against being thrown bodily from the premises.

[Hawkfrost000]

ust start singing during the game. You don't even have to pick up the D&D class. Also it might help if you were obese and really filthy as a countermeasure against being thrown bodily from the premises.

No spam please, contributions only

[Tael]

No spam please, contributions only

No spam, just truth!

On topic, Once you're high enough level, Crystal Echoblades are awesome!