Wandering Minstrel Prestige Class (WIP)

[lylsyly]

One of the players in our group has always expressed interest in a Bard/Ranger hybrid. I have some time to kill presently so I figured I would drum something up. It’s really just a quickie, if I pursue it I’ll have to do full tables and a much better write up.

I would love to hear opinions, questions, comments, and critiques.

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The Wandering Minstrel Prestige Class

A lot of Bards are wanderers. While always willing to entertain for their transport it often occurs that no one is going their way. This leads to having to learn some wilderness skills along the way. Many of these wanderers spend enough time doing it that the begin to learn the ways of a Ranger.

Requirements: Bardic Music, Inspire Courage +1, Animal Companion, Ability to cast 1st level Arcane Spells and 1st level Divine Spells, Knowledge: Arcana 5, Knowledge: Nature 5.

Example 32 point buy = STR 10 DEX 12 CON 14 INT 12 WIS 14, CHA 16

Easiest Entry = Bard 2 (CHA min. 12), Ranger 4 (WIS min. 12)

HD d8Skill Points 6, Full BAB, All Good Saves

Wandering Minstrel levels stack with Bard levels for determining the number of Bardic Music uses per day.
Wandering Minstrel levels stack with Bard levels for determining the Inspire Courage Bonus.
Wandering Minstrel levels stack with Bard levels for determining the types of Bardic Music that you can use provided that you meet the perform skill requirements.
Wandering Minstrel levels stack with Bard levels for determining the number of Bard Spells Known.

Wandering Minstrel levels stack with Ranger levels for determining Animal Companion Bonuses.
Wandering Minstrel levels stack with Ranger levels for determining Favored Enemy Attainment and bonuses.
Wandering Minstrel levels stack with Ranger levels for determining the attainment of the Combat Style Bonus Feats.

Each level of the Wandering Minstrel Prestige Class grants +1 level of Bard Spellcasting and +1 Level of Ranger Spellcasting

The Wandering Minstrel Prestige Class would be 14 levels long.

Yeah, it’s about one step short of just playing a gestalt Bard/Ranger but you do miss out on some things:
4 levels of Bard casting (and unless your charisma is high enough to have bonus 6th level spells you're not going to have any), 2 levels of Ranger casting, Mass Suggestion and Inspire Courage +4. On the Ranger side you lose all the class features except favored enemy (you do lose the 5th favored enemy), animal companion and combat style feats.

It is in no way overpowered. I mean it’s a Bard and Ranger after all ;-)

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[Silva Stormrage]

I would really rather some actual class features rather than just generic dual progression classes. Some kind of either boosting bardic music against favored enemies or like animal companion getting familiar bonuses from bard buffs/music.

Perhaps a couple special songs that let them charm animals or soothe them?

Maybe a bonus on attacks when attacking from illusions? Not really in theme with the prc title but bard and rangee don't have that much synergy.

One thing to ease spellcasting complications might also be to just add all ranger spells to the bard list and have the prc just progress bardic casting. Perhaps add a single bonus spell of each level to compensate for the lack of ranger spells.

Make the prc progress all animal companions as well and make it progress at druid rate. Ranger AC is already so bad throw them a bone. Also right now bard 2 druid 1 is the easiest entry into the class, you might want to make it require a combat style or other ranger class feature if you want to avoid that.

[lylsyly]

I missed that, now added favored enemy, track and endurance to requirements ;-)

All levels of the class count towards both animal companion and familiar upgrades.

I actually quit looking at this after day 3 of no responses, lol.

[Silva Stormrage]

I missed that, now added favored enemy, track and endurance to requirements ;-)

All levels of the class count towards both animal companion and familiar upgrades.

I actually quit looking at this after day 3 of no responses, lol.

Ya, that is certainly a problem with homebrew, especially 3.5 homebrew. Lack of responses on this subforum.

My comment on AC progression was that stacking Minstral with Ranger results in a weak animal companion. A level 4 ranger level 6 Minstrel will have an animal companion of a level 5 druid. I was suggesting making it so that the same Minstrel would have an animal companion of a level 8 druid (2 for ranger levels + 6 from Minstrel levels)

Any comments on the idea of having additional class features though?

[lylsyly]

other than just sticking in the ranger class features at the approp. level no.

i've got to table it up and that won't be for a couple of weeks unless i just googledoc it. kinda busy for the next couple of weeks.