Optimize my Bard!

[BlackRabite]

My group is starting a new short run campaign, we're starting at level 8 and running to 13 or 14. My compatriots are playing a Rogue, melee cleric and a Fighter/War Hulk, they commanded that I play a bard to provide buffs, social skills and some magic support.

I have never played a bard, aid me playground! How can I make the best buffing/aiding bard around?

[SamTheCleric]

The common responses to optimizing a bard:

Melodic Casting - Perform in place of a concentration check, cast spells while performing.
Song of the Heart - +1 to the benefits of Inspire Courage
Snowflake Wardance - Charisma to Attack rolls on melee attacks
Dragonsong Inspiration - Replaces normal inspire courage with elemental damage.

Get Inspirational Boost as a first level spell. It's a swift spell that increases your inspire courage by +1.

That will give you an inspire courage of +3 to attack, Damage and will saves. Or +3d6 fire damage from Dragonsong, if I remember correctly.

[Magnor Criol]

What books are those in, Sam?

[Avor]

Optimize my Bard!

Saying that is like saying "pimp my 92 Plymouth"

You can do it, but you still fall short.



If buffs are you goal, Clerics or wizzards with the right spell selection. Bard is the class you pick if you a- Lose a bet, b- are drunk or c- playing a joke campain.

[SamTheCleric]

What books are those in, Sam?

Let's see...

Melodic Casting - Complete Mage
Song of the Heart - Eberron Campaign Sourcebook
Snowflake Wardance - Frostburn
Dragonfire Inspiration - Dragon Magic

Inspirational Boost - Spell Compendium

[Kurald Galain]

I have never played a bard, aid me playground! How can I make the best buffing/aiding bard around?

Are you sure you want to focus on buffing/aiding the rest of the group, as opposed to doing something useful yourself? The latter may prove more fun for you.

If you're supposed to be the arcane caster, a decent "bard-ish" build is rogue 1 / wizard 4 / unseen seer. It's not technically a bard, but it has skills and arcane magic, and can aid the rest of the group by sneak attacking.

If you want something actually called "bard", the Unearthed Arcana has some variants worth looking into, in particular the one at the bottom that gets an animal companion, the savage bard, and the bardic sage. You probably want the Bardic Knack from PHB2; also, the Virtuoso prestige class (from C.Adventurer) is a nice aim.

[Tengu]

Saying that is like saying "pimp my 92 Plymouth"

You can do it, but you still fall short.



If buffs are you goal, Clerics or wizzards with the right spell selection. Bard is the class you pick if you a- Lose a bet, b- are drunk or c- playing a joke campain.

Not really, it just requires more effort and cherry-picking from different books. But a properly built bard will be a much better buffer than anyone else.
Unless we're talking self-buffs, in which case clerics win.

[Trizap]

My group is starting a new short run campaign, we're starting at level 8 and running to 13 or 14. My compatriots are playing a Rogue, melee cleric and a Fighter/War Hulk, they commanded that I play a bard to provide buffs, social skills and some magic support.

I have never played a bard, aid me playground! How can I make the best buffing/aiding bard around?

...................huh, you must have lost a bet, become something more useful like a wizard or a backup cleric.

[Keld Denar]

Saying that is like saying "pimp my 92 Plymouth"

You can do it, but you still fall short.



If buffs are you goal, Clerics or wizzards with the right spell selection. Bard is the class you pick if you a- Lose a bet, b- are drunk or c- playing a joke campain.

Blasphemy! As mentioned, Inspire Courage (and its Dragonfire cousin) are actually really amazing. They couple well with things like Power Attack to allow a bard to produce some substantial damage. A Bard/Warblade with Song of the White Raven and using primarily Tiger Claw maneuvers can get damage while TWF that rivals most Daring Outlaw builds. A Bard/Sublime Chord can cast almost as well as a sorcerer, with a different flavor of side benefits that are much stronger than a sorcerer. A bardadin with Devoted Performer can produce some crazy numbers with Inspire Courage, Snowflake Wardance, Slippers of Battledancing, Divine Might, and good ol' 2handed PA. Bardic spellcasting gets some of the decent wiz/sorc disables and crowd controls like Glitterdust and Solid Fog.

Bards can do just the same as any other character, if you know how to look. Sure, its possible to play a crappy bard, but its also possible to play a crappy cleric or wizard, which are considered the most powerful classes in the game. (I think its impossible to play a bad druid though...that class just oozes win so much its difficult to contain!).

Basically, what do you want your bard to do? Primary caster? Primary melee? Archer? Disabler? Its your call. Don't let anyone dictate what your bard should do, but pretty much no mater what you do, if you do it well, your whole party will reap the benefits.

[Paul H]

Hi

Horses for courses.....

There are a number of 'unusual' PrC's in the basic splat books. Sublime Chord (CA pg 60) allows you to cast Wiz spells, even grants extra spell slots & faster spell progression!

Only problem is you need to be 10th lvl just to meet prereq's:

Know (Arcana) 13 Ranks, Listen 13 Ranks, Perform (any) 10 Ranks, Profession (Astrologer) 6 Ranks, Spellcraft 6 Ranks.
3rd Lvl Arcane spells
Bardic Music ability.

Bard 10/Sublime Chord 1

Spells Known: 6,4,4,4,5,1 (Of which 3x4th, 1x5th can be Bard or Wiz spells)
Spells/Day: 3,3,3,2,2,1 (Plus stat bonus spells)

Nice when your Bard suddenly opens up with Evocation spells.

Cheers
Paul H

[Signmaker]

For damage dealing, try Stormsinger. Their Stormstrike ability does massive damage through Perform(Sing).

Buffs have been explained already by other posters.

As for social skills, invest a bit in Int. Bards with Int tend to be quite the versatile monkeys, though not in combat. Between social skills, knowledge, and languages, I'm sure you have plenty of skill options available.

Don't forget to look at the "Collector of Stories" skill trick in Complete Scoundrel. It gives you a +5 to ID a monster/its weaknesses using Knowledge checks. It's not exactly optimizing, but a Collector of Stories sounds very bard-like. Not to mention, it's useful for when the party wizard somehow doesn't have sufficient knowledge checks.

[mabriss lethe]

lyric spell is a pretty useful feat if you're going to be casting a decent amount. If I remember correctly, It lets you cash in your bardic music/day to cast more spells. Cash in 1+ the level of the spell you want to cast, or something like that.

Snowflake wardance is pretty neat, but you can combine it with Epic of the Lost King to negate its drawbacks.

Just be sure to take lots of extra music feats.

[SadisticFishing]

Wow, okay, want to play a ridiculously good buffer? You're going to need ridiculously good buffs. Don't listen to these guys, Bards are amazing at what they do if built right. Also, I'm listening to DragonForce in the background, so bards seem even cooler right now.

Song of the Heart (ECS) - very good.
Melodic Casting (CMage) - also very good.
Dragonfire Inspiration - less good, though rather decent if you use other ways to give attack bonuses, really, attack bonuses own damage bonuses. Plus lots of things are immune/resistant to fire.
Snowflake Wardance - good if you want to melee, quite.

You left out the most ridiculous feat of all - Words of Creation (Book of Exalted Deeds). Doubles your Inspire Courage bonus - personally, I read it as the base one, so the SotH and Inspirational Boost bonuses wouldn't double, but that's me.

Okay, so for melee, I'd play a human with TWF, Song of the Heart, Melodic Casting, Dragonfire Inspiration, Snowflake Wardance, and just sing and smack. Also grab the Gloves that give Improved Two-Weapon Fighting for free.

For a more... buffer, I'd much rather a bow guy though.

Song of the Heart
Melodic Casting
Words of Creation
Point Blank Shot
Precise Shot
Rapid Shot

Round one: Sing, assuming at least level 8, for a +6 bonus.
Round two: Haste. Continue singing.
Round three: Twang, twang, twang, twang.

[Learnedguy]

One word my friend:

Tome of Battle; White Raven
(Yah I cheated)

You are a party player, so why don't you play like one? I've always wanted to try a Bard who uses White Raven maneuvers myself

[Keld Denar]

One word my friend:

Tome of Battle; White Raven
(Yah I cheated)

You are a party player, so why don't you play like one? I've always wanted to try a Bard who uses White Raven maneuvers myself

Yea, I recommended Song of the White Raven, which allows 2 things. A) Your Bard and Crusader/Warblade levels stack for determining the level of your bardic badassery. B) While in a White Raven stance, you can initiate a bard song as a swift action.

Together, something like a bard4/crusader16 or bard4/warblade16 would have 19/20 BAB, IL of 17 at level 20 to get 2 9th level maneuvers and maxed out Bardic Music abilities. A Warblade focusing on Tiger Claw/White Raven would be an amazing TWFer, especially combined with Dragonfire Inspiration while a Crusader focusing on Devoted Spirit/White Raven would be an excelent team tactical player, focusing on using a reach weapon, Combat Reflexes, Thicket of Blades stance, and probably the Standstill feat, standing and singing as a bastion of defense for his fellow party members to perform their role untouched while streaming in some minor healing through DS strikes.

Heck, you could have a whole party of multiclass bards, each focusing on a specific niche and you would have an awesome party.

Crusader/Bard tank
Warblade/Bard striker
Bard/Paladin striker
Bard/Sublime Chord caster/controller

Healing would come from Bardic spellcasting, Crusader strikes, supplimented by items such as UMDed wands of Lessor Vigor and Belts of Healing. Party would be effective for a long time, possibly through level 20 without too much trouble.

EDIT:
Man, at level 20, this group would actually be REALLY scary, since both the Crusader/Bard and the Warblade/Bard could both have Battlemaster Charge. The Crusader would initiate first, making the whole party charge a target, clobbering it and stunning it, and then one of the other bards acts to dim-door the party back, and the Warblade initiates Battlemasters charge, causing the entire party to surge forward and smash again. Then they could beat on the stunned foe for a round or 2, while the crusader and warblade recover, then dim-door and do it again. Wow....stunlock charge goodness. Just give all the bards a lance and a horse and you'd stack up some fierce damage with 2hand PA, and all the charging shenanagans.

Excuse me, I have to go write a level 20 encounter to pretty much autokill 2 PCs per round...WITH BARDS!

[GrandMasterMe]

All i have to say for bard is Elan, but seriously go bard with 10 bard, sublime chord 10, then learn the spells avasculate, body of war, and lightning ring, you can open with avasculate and drop them to 1/2 hp (they get no save against it but you have to hit them with a ranged touch attack, luckly for you you have 3/4 bab and will have no trouble with this) then hit them with lightning ring and if that dosent kill them just turn into a warforged titan and smash them, pluss you get more lightning bolts each round

[SandDemon]

Anyone else got suggestions on how to max group buffing?

[Ascension]

[S]omething like a ... bard4/warblade16 would have 19/20 BAB, IL of 17 at level 20 to get 2 9th level maneuvers and maxed out Bardic Music abilities. A Warblade focusing on Tiger Claw/White Raven would be an amazing TWFer, especially combined with Dragonfire Inspiration

Oh man... I want to play this build now. My only concern is the Warblade's lack of perform... While the bonus feats would take away a tiny bit of the sting, I'd really hate to have to blow a feat to get perform as a class skill.

If you don't plan to take Snowflake Wardance (which, while awesome, more or less forces you to dual-wield), the Crusader would seem to have a bit more natural synergy, what with the CHA to saves and to Smiting, but I like the style of the Tiger Claw build better, and you don't have to muck about with the randomness of Crusader maneuvers that way.

Digression: I had never really read the flavor text on the Crusader's Smite before (when I got ToB I read the section on granted maneuvers, raised an eyebrow, and quickly flipped to the Swordsage), but I find the wording amusing in the context of the oft-used "But ToB's too anime!" protest... "you can concentrate all your anger, hatred, and determination into one single attack."

If they had just added "and all of your sorrow," it would've really sounded like Shining Finger.