Versitility Bard vs. Duskblade?

[Aeromyre]

Just in your opinion who do you think is more versitile?
Bards do more for everybody, but duskblades have more options in combat.
I'm not as familiar with DB magic so i don't really know

[Prodan]

Snowflake Wardance Dragonfire Inspiration

[senrath]

I'd have to go with the Bard, since I think they actually get more spells, as well as their Bardic Music and Bardic Knowledge class features. And unless I'm remembering incorrectly, the Duskblade really just gets better and better at hitting things.

[The Shadowmind]

The Bard wins. The Duskblade suffers a bit from nearly all of his spells being combat focused. He does get a slightly more varied list than the failure of a blaster the Warmage is though. Sand Shaper and other +spells know PrC's/feats help as well but that says more for the feats/PrC's than is does for Duskblade.

[Aeromyre]

Snowflake Wardance Dragonfire Inspiration

I'm not sure what that means...

I'd have to go with the Bard, since I think they actually get more spells, as well as their Bardic Music and Bardic Knowledge class features. And unless I'm remembering incorrectly, the Duskblade really just gets better and better at hitting things.

Yeah pretty much they cast their attack spells through their melee weapon strikes

[Snake-Aes]

In terms of number of options, Bard. Duskblades are restricted to damage dealing, and most of it melee. Some of the spells allow for stuff like ranged damage and there are two or three spells to keep enemies in check. Bards on the other hand have access to more spells.

Spell-wise, most stuff a dusk can cast a bard can too, but the bard can also control the battlefield more effectively.


(Snowflake Wardance is a feat that lets you burn a bardic music usage to add charisma to hit)

[theos911]

Snowflake Wardance Dragonfire Inspiration

Exactly! Also don't forget Bardzilla, take metamagic song and that other feat that people always use to break(tehe) metamagic song and persisted glibness. There is a saying I like, it goes something like this:

Fighter: I can kill a guy in one turn.
Cleric: I can kill a guy in half a turn.
Wizard: I can kill a guy before my turn!
Bard: I can get 12 idiots to go kill guys for me

Now take persisted glibness and the brokenness of RAW diplomacy and you have the above situation and more!

(In case you didn't notice-hehe- I'm a bard aficionado)

EDIT-WOW swordsaged x4

EDIT 2-

(Snowflake Wardance is a feat that lets you burn a bardic music usage to add charisma to hit)

Alright that covers wardance. DFI lets you convert every +1 inspire courage into basically 1d6 of elemental damage on all allies strikes and your own as well. Basically with a decent charisma you can effectively have a better than full BaB and have up to 16d6 element damage to your strike AND your allies strikes!

[Aeromyre]

Exactly! Also don't forget Bardzilla, take metamagic song and that other feat that people always use to break(tehe) metamagic song and persisted glibness. There is a saying I like, it goes something like this:

Fighter: I can kill a guy in one turn.
Cleric: I can kill a guy in half a turn.
Wizard: I can kill a guy before my turn!
Bard: I can get 12 idiots to go kill guys for me

Now take persisted glibness and the brokenness of RAW diplomacy and you have the above situation and more!

(In case you didn't notice-hehe- I'm a bard aficionado)

EDIT-WOW swordsaged x4

WArharharhar priceless...and true!

[theos911]

Also a level 1 bard can have some scary bonuses to inspire courage. At level 1 you can have a "+8" Lets see how-

1 base
1 from song of the heart feat(ECS)
1 from badge of valor item(MIC)
1 from insppirational boost spell(SC)
*2 from words of creation(BOED)

1+1+1+1=4 4*2=8

Assuming max charisma at level 1, you could have a +5 bonus to hit without a str or dex bonus and then add 8d6 of element damage to that. Eventually the base goes up to +4, then you have 4+1+1+1=7 7*2=14d6 to attacks. There is a way to get another +1, but I think it's even cheesier than the above methods and I can't think of it atm. Anyway, a bard can be made as scary as all the other classes, even at level 1. The kicker, however is.... he's not just adding the awesomeness to himself- He's adding it to EVERYBODY! This is why bards win for versatility. Understandably, you'd never play a bard like that or risk getting a copy of frostburn(actually, more likely whatever book DFI is in) to your face. However, I personally think they win for versatility overall.

EDIT- TOO LATE, make that starting at level 3...I should not post this late...

[Tyger]

Fighter: I can kill a guy in one turn.
Cleric: I can kill a guy in half a turn.
Wizard: I can kill a guy before my turn!
Bard: I can get 12 idiots to go kill guys for me

This! Theos, with your permission, this is my newest sig addition.


EDIT: Though your second post is a touch off. You can't get Song of the Heart at first level (needs 6 ranks Perform and Inspire Competence), nor can you likely have a Badge of Valour, unless your DM is being generous with starting gold.

That said, yes, the bard wins this competition hands down.

[theos911]

Go ahead, spread the truth, we have cookies
Also-you wanting to sig something of mine reminds of me how I felt when this guy made a thread based on two other threads, one of which was my thread, the other one of which was another thread based of my thread. Nonetheless, I felt very important

EDIT-

EDIT: Though your second post is a touch off. You can't get Song of the Heart at first level (needs 6 ranks Perform and Inspire Competence), nor can you likely have a Badge of Valour, unless your DM is being generous with starting gold.

Shhh, you'll spoil the soufle!

And yes, I was a bit off. Assume starting at 3 and you can make the perform reqs and have inspire competence, and I'd assume you'd have at least 1.5k by then for the badge.

[dextercorvia]

EDIT- TOO LATE, make that starting at level 3...I should not post this late...

Also, Words of Creation requires a base Will save of +5, that's level 6 for a single class Bard. You could multiclass to get it by level 3, but that doesn't seem like long term planning, (and would push SotH back, too.)

Edit: Minor Nitpick, since we are up to level 6 now, but Inspirational Boost is a 1st level spell, which Bards don't get until 2nd level.

[theos911]

ok, ya I should definitely not post this late....................................

[Snake-Aes]

ok, ya I should definitely not post this late....................................

It's the post-glibness rush. Don't worry, it fades after a few minutes.

[theos911]

It's the post-glibness rush. Don't worry, it fades after a few minutes.

They should really put this on one of those warnings on stuff, you know the ones that say the coffee is hot or the milk contains milk

[dextercorvia]

The IC op that I have seen says that +4 by Level 3 is doable (sometimes, thanks to IB). Words of Creation is a broken thing to apply once you are adding in all of the other modifiers.

Base +1
Badge of Valor +1
SotH +1
Inspirational Boost +1

[theos911]

Well for completeness's sake it does do a considerable deal of subdual damage for low levels.
But yes, It's broke when used this way. That's the point.

and:

Edit: Minor Nitpick, since we are up to level 6 now, but Inspirational Boost is a 1st level spell, which Bards don't get until 2nd level.

That's what magic devices are for.

[Fizban]

You can do +4 with one level: use a Masterwork Mandolin (Complete Adventurer). It trades part of the bonus for another point of +attack, which is what keys DFI, so it increases your DFI by one. And it's extremely debatable as to if Words of Creation stacks that way.

I myself would just be happy with +4 to start. If you keep taking bard it'll go up to +7, +8 with Song of the Heart. If you just take a dip and the required feats along with Extra Music, you can level up in whatever else you want.

Don't forget Song of the White Raven to let you progress Inspire Courage as a Crusader. That, is the true Bardzilla.

[Evard]

Didn't read this all buuuut the winner is Bard ... With the right set up you can pull off a HUGE amount of spells...

Lyrical Spell + extra song

Then you could add in the Metamagic Song feat or whatever its called... Bards can be scary with shout...

[Optimator]

Bards, hands-down.

[Zovc]

Bards get 6th level spells at level 16, Duskblades get 5th level spells at level 17.

Duskblades get a lot more spells/day, but that's still not much in the way of counterbalancing lost casting levels due to prestige classes like Sand Shaper.

Another problem with Duskblade is that it doesn't get Use Magic Device, so it doesn't get to do all that much with Intelligence synergy (Casting and Skills).

There's also the fact that, if you're just using Bard for its spellcasting (in other words, not for Bardic Music or Bardic Knowledge), you generally won't lose much getting into Prestige Classes.

[ShadowsGrnEyes]

the easy answer is . . . whatever can be found in more scource books. . . as duskblade is in a fairly late scourcebook. . theres just not enough extra junk to be found to break it quite as well as bard which has been around forever.

given time WotC will accidently throw in a harmless sounding feat for any class that completely breaks the game when combined with enough other harmless sounding feats.

theres actually only a couple classes they HAVENT done this for. . .

[mcl01]

Well for completeness's sake it does do a considerable deal of subdual damage for low levels.
But yes, It's broke when used this way. That's the point.

and:


That's what magic devices are for.

But part of the awesomeness of inspirational boost is it's swift casting time. You're now using up an extra standard action to only boost your IC by +1 or +2.

[Keld Denar]

Rules Compendium fixed this. Using a spell trigger item of a swift action spell is now a swift action instead of the previous standard action or higher.