Bards - Rule or Fool?

[Man With Dog]

Hiya Guys,

There was a post made a little while back about making a Bard that was combat useful, but i cant locate it to scrape idea's from it.

We all have the friends that say Bards are useless, and mine are no exception but i know they can be very useful with the right feats and abilities.

I am hoping the DM will allow me to use a Silverbrow Human (if not i think i need to use the 'Dragontouched' feat.

As i said i dont recall all of what was said so i was hoping someone could maybe give me a run down of what would be useful and how to make thie bard useful.

Most books allowed (v3.5 of course) (MoI and ToB are not allowed) and the party consists of: Cleric - Fighter - Rogue - Mage so far.. Me wanting to take the bard.

Any help greatly received

[Flickerdart]

In Core, Bards are underwhelming if your campaign doesn't involve a lot of talking, but out of core they're awesome. Since you have the four bases covered, Bards are an excellent fifth member because it's trivial to buff the rest of your team. Dragonfire Inspiration swaps the Inspire Courage bonuses to +d6es of fire damage, which can be buffed to insane heights very easily. Snowflake Wardance gives you +CHA to attack, and there are many ways to stack additional CHA to attack or damage so you can be totally awesome at fighting if you want. Sublime Chord makes you a full caster if your mage turns out awful.

[AstralFire]

And let's not forget Words of Creation: The number one reason more Bards get into heaven than Paladins.

[dextercorvia]

If you are going for Dragonfire Inspiration (as opposed to casting, consider dipping DFA instead of taking the Dragontouched feat (they get it for free).

[HunterOfJello]

Bards got quite a bit of love in the splat books, so an optimized Bard can be a fun character in a party. The aspect which makes them seem like a Fool is the fact they they aren't a fighter, wizard, cleric or rogue since they're actually all 4 mixed into one.

I suggest thoroughly reading The Bard Handbook and optimizing your character as much as possibile. There's a Magic-Blooded Red Dragonspawn Venerable Dragonwrought Lore Drake Desert Kobold Bard in my current campaign and none of the characters mind his ridiculousness because of his Bard status.

~

If you want to be a Human I would suggest going for the Draconic template if your DM allows LA buyoff. For +1 LA you get dragonblood subtype, +2 str +2 con +2 cha (PERFECT for bards), darkvision, low light vision, 2 natural weapons, and you get to keep your bonus skill points.

[Morph Bark]

And let's not forget Words of Creation: The number one reason more Bards get into heaven than Paladins.

Note that the Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia is a Lawful Good plane and officially a Bard wouldn't get access to it unless it'd be a "fallen" Bard.

[grimbold]

asides from having sick non-core stuff (may i recommend of song and silence a guide book to bards and rogues?)

bards are the most fun class to play if well optimized and the campaign is rp heavy.

[HunterOfJello]

Note that the Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia is a Lawful Good plane and officially a Bard wouldn't get access to it unless it'd be a "fallen" Bard.

Who wants to go to the LG afterlife anyway? I bet you have to pray 3 hours every day there.

The Chaotic Good afterlife is where it's at. An adventurer's afterlife should be full of beer, clean hookers and partying every night.

~

Also, your avatar just made me crack up loudly in the middle of the computer lab. I hope you're happy.

[Tokuhara]

Note that the Seven Mounting Heavens of Celestia is a Lawful Good plane and officially a Bard wouldn't get access to it unless it'd be a "fallen" Bard.

Or Bard/Paladins who took Devoted Performer...

[Zaakar]

Have a look at Snowflake Wardance (I think it's from frostburn) if you wanna go melee. Knowledge Devotion might also be nice since all knowlede skills are on your skill list.

[Man With Dog]

I dont mind necessarily being Melee or not.

I just wanted to prove Bards can turn their hand to be useful in most groups and knew you were the guys to point out the good points.
I wont be allowed a draconic LA buy off - most i may be allowed is the Silver Brow Human which i believe gives me the Dragon Subtype.

The bits i have noted so far are:
Possible Feats (if Silver Brow is allowed)
Feat Human: Dragonfire Inspiration
1st Level: Melodic Casting
3rd Level: Song of The Heart.

Perhaps anyone have any better idea's?
I also thought a whip as a weapon - perhaps the 1D6 version with the dagger on it

[Keld Denar]

I've had pretty good sucecss with a halfling (use the Glimmerskin and Strongheart varients) bard with Dragonfire Inspiration. Pretty much convinced my whole party of old school gamers that bards can bring the boom. Use a sling and stack up your racial +3 to hit (+1 size, +1 from the +2 dex, +1 racial with thrown or slung weapons) and get all of your damage from DFI. My guy does 1d3 + 3d6, and only because my DM won't let me pick up the other nifty toys that really tweak it into high gear.

That also keeps you in the back, less likely to accidentally eat a full attack from something which is generally the number one leading cause of death amongst adventurers. It also tends to keep you out of the direct spotlight, if you don't want to be seen as showboating.

[Callista]

I like bards. They're walking buffs. And if you get hungry, they're extra rations.

[John_D]

Bards (or more accurately, bluff checks) are crazy broken in 3.5.

A lie that is impossible to believe is only a +20 to the bluff DC. Glibness, castable at bard level 7, is a +30 to bluff checks, so you're still +10 ahead and as a bard your bluff is going to outstrip the sense motive of more or less anyone around.

*bard walks into throne room*
"He's not the king! I'm the real king! Guards, seize that imposter!"

The most beautiful thing about this is everyone will believe it including the king himself.

[Eldariel]

Bards, out of core, can be great:
- Party Buffers
- Spellcasters (offensive or defensive)
- Warriors


The tricks to pimping out Inspire Courage a bit:
- Inspirational Boost [Spell Compendium]
- Song of the Heart [Eberron Campaign Settings]
- Words of Creation [Book of Exalted Deeds]
- Mw. Instrument [Complete Adventurer]
- Badge of Valor [Magic Item Compendium]
- Vest of Legend [Dungeon Master's Guide II]

Off the top of my head. That more or less gives you (Base+5)*2 Inspire Courage. Add to that Dragonfire Inspiration for +Xd6 energy damage instead. Mentioned Silverbrow Human is fine. Even further, Dragonfire Inspiration stacks with normal Inspiration. I bet you can see what that leads to. Though of course, feel free to hold yourself back.

Also, don't forget your other songs; Inspire Greatness is very useful (extra HD yay) and benefits of many of those items, Fascinate/Suggestion has its uses (thanks to the stupidly high DC from Perform), and some Songs you can trade for can be decent. Healing Hymn from Complete Champion is special in that it's "free"; you give up Fascinate which you can later pick up from a Prestige Class again. It's not a terribly efficient one, but it's alright. Spellbreaker Song [Complete Mage] is very probably better than Countersong. If you want a nice debuff to your songs, get Haunting Melody [Eberron Campaign Settings] for a handy AoE debuff.


For spells, the big thing is prestige classes. Notably, Sublime Chord [Complete Arcane] enables you to be a Bard with really high level spells. Virtuoso [Complete Adventurer] advances Sublime Chord casting while also advancing your Bardic Music. The combination I'd suggest for a Bard interested in any higher level casting later on is Bard 9/Virtuoso 1/Sublime Chord 2/Virtuoso +8.

Note that Sublime Chord 2 offers the wonderful Song of Arcane Power so it's worth picking over the Virtuoso-levels. Virtuoso offers quite a few new songs but only few of them are useful (Jarring Song is situationally good, Song of Fury has some uses and Melody of Revelation is actually quite solid; rest are fringe cases you won't mind having but will rarely if ever use). Should be fairly apparent, which ones. This one gets 9th level spells eventually, which is cool. You become more or less a Sorcerer eventually.

The rest comes down to spell list; Bard-list has some really cool exclusives like Improvisation [Spell Compendium], Glibness and company along with some of the Wizard/Sorc all-stars so making a compilation of those (and of course, using spells you get earlier than Wiz/Sorc like Irresistible Dance and Heroisms with Sublime Chord) will take you a long way. Use Magic Device is the finishing touch allowing you to do pretty much everything on this front.


Finally, Snowflake Wardance is a decent offensive use of the Songs for a warrior-type Bard. Get that along with Dragonfire Inspiration on a TWF chassis and you can deal quite impressive damage. Very feat intensive and requires lots of focus though, limiting your casting and buffing options greatly.

[JaronK]

Bards take work to make right... but they're incredibly potent. As a one level dip, consider Inspire Awe. You drop Inspire Courage (OUCH) but gain the ability to make anyone shaken as long as they're within range... save DC equal to your perform check (read: impossibly high). Add in the Requiem feat and it works on undead too despite their normal immunity. With Haunting Melody they go straight to Frightened. And if you can tack on Imperious Command and 5 levels of Dread Pirate or Scarlet Corsair, you can then make everyone within 30' cower. Note that fear effects always stack unless they say otherwise, and you always keep the worst condition for the duration of the longest effect. This means everyone cowers as long as they're in range. Congratulations, everyone who can be feared is totally helpless (and undead are Frightened). Nothing stops you from doing this all day long if you so desire (as long as you don't stop). Base it on perform oratory so you just talk creepily all day long and freak everyone the heck out.

This goes best in a party designed around killing the sort of stuff that's normally immune, like constructs and whatnot.

If not taking that route, then Inspire Courage is absolutely awesome. There's tons of ways to boost the value of it... and remember the only range limit is how far away people can hear it. Note that real life war drums were designed to be across entire battlefields. In a group with a significant number of martial types (either actual party members, or various summoned minions, or undead if you've got requiem) the damage boost from a single bard is extremely large. This only gets more ridiculous if you're playing a military game with actual armies of any kind. Heck, consider an entire party of TWF Bards supporting a single Necromancer, all using different Dragonfire Inspiration energy types. Yowza.

JaronK

[riddles]

you don't even have to take dragonfire inspiration for your bard to be awesome.

I've played a Skald character previously (bard 5/barbarian 1) with optimised inspire courage.

Round 1: inspirational boost + inspire courage + badge of valor (cheap magical item that inspiring bards NEED) = +4/+4 hit/damage
Round 2: charge + Power Attack for 4 = +12 damage (which is the average damage you'd roll on DFI). this gets better later with leap attack.

if your fighter and cleric are power attackers, consider standard inspire courage to save you the feat expenditure.

[Callista]

Bards (or more accurately, bluff checks) are crazy broken in 3.5.

A lie that is impossible to believe is only a +20 to the bluff DC. Glibness, castable at bard level 7, is a +30 to bluff checks, so you're still +10 ahead and as a bard your bluff is going to outstrip the sense motive of more or less anyone around.

*bard walks into throne room*
"He's not the king! I'm the real king! Guards, seize that imposter!"

The most beautiful thing about this is everyone will believe it including the king himself.

Hehe... Well, the hilarity is lovely, sure, but remember the bard can only charm the people who are actually in his presence. Once he's thrown the king out and people start thinking, they'll discover his fast talk. Of course, if he's just doing this to get at the hidden compartment under the throne that's hiding the Artifact of Doom, then it's still pretty epic.

[Tyger]

you don't even have to take dragonfire inspiration for your bard to be awesome.

I've played a Skald character previously (bard 5/barbarian 1) with optimised inspire courage.

Round 1: inspirational boost + inspire courage + badge of valor (cheap magical item that inspiring bards NEED) = +4/+4 hit/damage
Round 2: charge + Power Attack for 4 = +12 damage (which is the average damage you'd roll on DFI). this gets better later with leap attack.

if your fighter and cleric are power attackers, consider standard inspire courage to save you the feat expenditure.

All true, but imagine that same attack with both... :)

That's the true sickness of Inspire Courage. Its effects last for five rounds (ten if you take Lingering Song) after you stop. When you have DFI, you can start singing a standard Inspire Courage (lets say +4/+4 using your numbers) then next round, stop that song and start singing a DFI version. So for the next four (or nine) rounds, those power attackers are doing +12 damage, and +4d6 fire damage at their regular hit bonus.

Of course, the true beauty of DFI shines when we're talking full attacks and TWFers in particular, but that's almost always the truth (except pimped out charge builds of course, though most of them incorporate Pounce anyway).

[Morph Bark]

Who wants to go to the LG afterlife anyway? I bet you have to pray 3 hours every day there.

The Chaotic Good afterlife is where it's at. An adventurer's afterlife should be full of beer, clean hookers and partying every night.

I agree on that. Typical Paladins though... yeesh.

Also, your avatar just made me crack up loudly in the middle of the computer lab. I hope you're happy.

"I have a question, sir! Was everyone wearing their awesome protective shades to prevent damage to the eyes should the computers go haywire with sparks flying?"

The answer is... "yes"!

[LibraryOgre]

The Chaotic Good afterlife is where it's at. An adventurer's afterlife should be full of beer, clean hookers and partying every night.

"When the adventure's done, and ye've solved all the lores, then it is time for ale and whores."

However, even in core, Bards are pretty awesome. Out of combat, they have a wide variety of knowledges and other skills to keep the party on track, to say nothing of their social skills. In combat, they have a variety of buffs and debuffs to make them highly useful. Inspire courage gets mentioned, but their spell list is good for it, too. Even when they're out of spells, though, they can start tripping people effectively with whips... only 2 pounds, and you can stand behind the fighters and trip and disarm to your heart's content (and just drop the whip if countered).

1st level spells:
Grease (perennial favorite debuff; works great with whips)
Charm Person
Hideous Laughter
Remove Fear (great at lower levels, as fear can scatter a party pretty easily, making them easy to grind up)

2nd level:
Alter Self
Blindness/Deafness (the wizard killer; permanent, Fort save, medium range)
Glitterdust
Heroism (better than Inspire courage at low levels, and lasts for 10 minutes/level. You can't sing through the party, but you can make your first hour memorable)
Hold Person
Scare
Silence
Sound Burst (not a horribly awesome spell, but you're making a free longsword attack against everyone in a 10' spread, AND you have a chance to stun them)
Summon Swarm

3rd level:
Charm Monster
Glibness
Haste
Slow
(I don't suggest Good Hope; while it has a damage bonus that Heroism lacks, it also has 1/10th the duration)

4th
Dominate Person
Freedom of Movement
Hold Monster
Shadow Conjuration

5th
Shadow Evocation

6th
Irresistible Dance

Keep in mind this is me browsing the list at work, and is only the SRD spells. It doesn't include a lot of the non-combat buffs (except glibness), and none of the Summon Monster spells.

Bards: They'll be your Huckleberry.

[stainboy]

The one time bards take the spotlight is diplomacy and infiltration, but socialocity specialists in D&D tend to be disruptive. Every class can participate in combat, but if you're magically disguised or infiltrating an enemy camp or trying to talk your way out of a fight any character who isn't built for it is useless. Well, useless at best. Usually they're a liability. If the bard is in the spotlight, the rest of the party is watching TV.

I'm not suggesting that socialocity has no place in D&D but with the core rules it's a one-man show. Bards would be a lot more fun if they had ways to enable other characters to participate in non-combat encounters. Aside from, you know, Inspire Competence: Bluff.

[Tvtyrant]

I always feel sad that Bard doesn't have planar binding; they get Glibness and no room to gallop with it!

[Eldariel]

I always feel sad that Bard doesn't have planar binding; they get Glibness and no room to gallop with it!

Which is why you play Sublime Chord who veritably gets it.

[Tvtyrant]

Which is why you play Sublime Chord who veritably gets it.

Did not know that. Succubus familiar here I come!

Also, for core 3.5 Bards are interesting in that their strengths shift with every benchmark. At low levels you can be a reasonably effective melee combatant (especially using combat reflexes and a whip; you smack any casters in the face to break their concentration and make trip and disarm attempts). At midlevels you buff people, and though you fall behind full-casters at high levels you can run up and Dance people quite well.

[Morph Bark]

(especially using combat reflexes and a whip; you smack any casters in the face to break their concentration and make trip and disarm attempts).

A whip does not threaten though, so you can't make AoOs with them.

[Felhammer]

I've always liked Bards because I've always loved the idea of the Jack-Of-All-Trades style character. My Music is inspiring, my magic enchanting, my skills mystifying and my combat prowess underwhelming. Bards truly are the gods' gift to adventuring parties!

[Mordokai]

This thread is golden I'm learning much and I would like to learn more, so keep 'em coming people!

[ZeroGear]

I'm currently playing a combat bard myself, a traditional sword and board version. We are level 3, and I am a Song-touched human, a variation of the Silverbrow human (having song dragon blood instead of silver dragon blood, getting a bonus to sing instead of disguise, and able to use light instead of feather fall). I am well on my way to become war chanter, and so far have combat expertise, extra music, dodge, and weapon focus (longsword) as feats (and meager fortitude as a flaw).

Form personal experience, I can tell you that even in core, bards can be decent in combat. One commonly overlooked fact is that the bardic music ability affects bards as well, not just the other members of the group. Although try may not hit as hard as the fighter, they can still do a lot, even in core. Just ask those orcs I killed.

[Greenish]

I'm currently playing a combat bard myself, a traditional sword and board version.

Traditional sword & board bard?

What tradition is that?