Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Rerednaw 09-25-06, 11:59 AM	I've read through several Bard threads but finding one on LG bards is difficult. This is what I have so far (I'm planning him out to 6th to start): Human Bard. (new level 1) Str10 Dex12 Con14 Int12 Wis10 Cha15 (2 points left, where?) This is what I am shooting for (in order of priority.) Bard song (party buffing) specialist. Face of party (Diplomacy) Knowledge (Arcana, History, Local-Core, Local-NMR) Everything else: Healer/Summoner/UMD. Spells at each level: 1 0-Detect Magic, Message, Read Magic, Summon Instrument 2 0-Prestidigitation 1-CLW ,Grease 3 0-Light 1-Inspirational Boost (SpC) 4 2-Summon Monster II, Tactical Precision 5 2-Invisibility, replace Grease with Joyful Noise 6 - Feats: L1 - SF: Diplomacy (+3 Diplomacy) H1 - Negotiator (+2 Diplomacy and Sense Motive) L3 - Versatile Performer L6 - Inspire Spellpower or Lingering Song L9 - Lyric Spell My thoughts: Take Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot at Level 1 so he can shoot while singing? Take Scribe Scroll and make CLW scrolls? Take SF: Conj/Augment Summon instead at level 1->Invisibility, Summon Monsters, Inspirational Boost+Sing. My DC's suck. Buff don't debuff. Long Term: Bardx or Bard9/Marsh1/SubChord5? Any tips/advice (or LG Bard thread links) most welcome!
Nutation 09-25-06, 02:57 PM	It's hard for a bard to be completely useless. Inspire Courage (with Inspirational Boost) is a powerful force multiplier. However, it's easy for a bard to be lackluster, doing that and nothing else. Ramping diplomacy is an obvious draw, but it's usually wasted effort in LG beyond a certain level (say, +20, achievable at pretty low level). You need a way to contribute in combat beyond the one standard action required for Inspire Courage. Archery, other songs, and casting spells are common choices. So, for the answers to your various questions, you have to decide what kind of bard you want to be. Feats: The two diplomacy boosts are overkill. Keep SF: Diplomacy only if you intend to pick up a level of marshal. Improved Initiative is a popular choice for singers and casters. A caster bard might pick up a metamagic feat (Extend, Empower) to be combined later with Extra Music and Metamagic Song (RS). Or Spell Focus: Enchantment. If you can't decide on a second feat to take as a human, look at the regional feats or even consider switching to half-elf. An archer bard would obviously start on the archery feats. But, I wouldn't invest heavily, unless you push your strength to 14. Archery for a bard tends to become more of a hobby later on, when you have enough spells and song choices to keep you busy. PBS and Precise Shot will still be useful if you go into sublime chord and start firing rays off the sorcerer/wizard list. Take the spell Master's Touch so you can use a composite longbow. Look at taking Focusing Chant. At higher levels, the number of potential bard feats becomes huge. If you take Lyric Spell or Metamagic Song, you will wnt Extra Music. If you buy up UMD, then CWI could pay off. I wouldn't bother with Scribe Scroll; you have too few spells known to make it worthwhile. Wait and take Craft Wand if you want to go that route. Spells: If you want to boost diplomacy, you can use spells rather than feats. Look at Improvisation (SC) and Friendly Face (RD). A singing bard will take Harmonize (RS), but that's not useful to a pure bard until you have Inspire Greatness. If you acquire another in-combat song from a feat or PrC, then it's useful earlier. With what you've listed, your first in-combat rounds are Tactical Precision (while the party is still together), then Inspirational Boost/Inspire Courage. Many bards pick up Haste as one of their first 3rd level spells. At that point, it's tough to get off both Haste and Tactical Precision before characters start to scatter. I would hang on to Grease, it will be useful forever to break charge lines and help extract people from grapples. CLW is the spell that will outlive its usefulness. Replace it with CSW, or better, Insignia of Healing, at 7th. If you have Lyric Song, either spell gives you decent healing choices, otherwise you can at least do one big heal per day. At that level, your CLW spells should be coming from a wand. Any Summon Monster spell is weak for a bard out of the box, compared to wizard/cleric/druid, and rapidly becomes completely outdated. (So forget Augment Summoning.) You can't go wrong choosing Glitterdust. A melee bard would take Alter Self or Mirror Image. A caster bard will likely take Tasha's and then Confusion. Consider Silence, Calm Emotions, Swift Fly, any of the stat enhancer spells. Prestige Classes: A caster bard will go into sublime chord at 11th, no questions asked. If you go this route, you can start bard10 or take up to 2 levels of something else. For example, bard8/marshal2. Sublime chord requirements suck up most of your skill points, so don't skimp on the Int and don't expect to answer every trivia question in the module. After the first two levels of sublime chord, you have the best features and can branch off into one of the wizardy prestige classes. For a singing bard, warchanter and seeker of the song (requires access) both add song types. This has been pretty general advice, I know, but "bard" is such a variable class. Refine your priorities and post again.
Rerednaw 09-26-06, 05:54 PM	It's hard for a bard to be completely useless. Inspire Courage (with Inspirational Boost) is a powerful force multiplier... So, for the answers to your various questions, you have to decide what kind of bard you want to be... This has been pretty general advice, I know, but "bard" is such a variable class. Refine your priorities and post again. Thanks for all the help! Hmmm it's tough to decide between Sublime Chord and straight Bard. I do not want my bard to be too ineffective levels 01-10 outside of songs. And he will never be as good an arcane as say a true caster. Still having arcane backup isn't a bad idea. I'll drop both SF: Diplomacy and Negotiator feats though. It makes sense that if the effects can be duplicated via spells (scrolls, etc.) I should probably not burn a feat. And I can put 5 ranks in bluff/know(nob/royal)/sense mot for +2/+2/+2 = +6 total synergy bonus > 2 feats. Besides Metamagic Song has heavy prerequisites. Dipping into a second prestige doesn't seem practical given the limited feats. If I prestige at all, it will be sublime chord. Given that most of the requirements are skills I can delay putting ranks in those less useful ones as I get closer to 10th. I'm pretty sure by then (since that's yearsaway) I'll know if I want to prestige or not. The only tough choice is feats. For Metamagic song, I'll need 2 other metamagic feats first. If I keep Grease, then Sculpt Spell is too good to pass up. But it requires a metamagic as well...I guess Empower. Maximize is +3 and I won't have that many songs/slots to burn. So I guess it will be bard10/sublime 2 for now. I'd decided to drop the extra 2 points into int. Since he's a skill freak he'll need the extra points.
salp 09-27-06, 09:33 PM	When I started playing LG last December, I decided I wanted to play a Human Suel Bard from Bright Lands. Our GM decided on playing most of our adventures in Bright Lands. Before I knew it, my character was third level. At first level I had no direction. I took Negotiator, and Great Fortitude as feats and my stats were S 14 D 10 C 14 I 12 W 12 Cha 14. When I reached 3rd level, I quickly looked for a Bard Feat and I chose Lingering Song, but I wished I had planned my character a little better from the beginning. I found the Feat Devoted Performer. I thought this is really cool, a bard/paladin (which both work well having a high charisma). So now, being a 4th level Bard BTW put my stat point into charisma, I look forward to being a paladin from 5th to 6th level and take Devoted Performer at 6th level. 7th 8th and 9th I will take bard levels. At 9th I plan to take the feat Arcane Strike (+1 to hit, +1d4 dam, per spell level sacrificed for one round.) At 10th and 11th I will take Paladin levels to get Divine Might as a 12th level feat. or should I take power attack? Any advice on how to make this a better situation would be appreciated. (Also I just upgraded my character to 4th level so I could gain a class other than bard at 4th level, if need be) Sincerely from Sal.
Iswald 10-01-06, 07:46 AM	You need power attack for divine might. If you want divine might, you need power attack at 12th and then divine might at 15th.
UMiskatonic 10-11-06, 11:15 AM	Don't overlook the other bardic music abilities. With them, a bard is easily the equal of an arcane caster. Fascinate DC is equal to your perform check. Push that up with a cloak of charisma and all the other bonuses you can find. VERY few opponents will be able to beat a DC 40 Will save. Suggestion is fantastic on top of that. If you fail, just try again. And again. And again. You'll be able to bypass roughly one encounter in five this way, assuming your party doesn't sabotage you. Inspire competence is also useful here and there, especially finding and removing traps.
Japangirl 10-11-06, 01:31 PM	I built a talky half-elf bard, and she's already (at level 2) talked our way out of a few combats and gathered all available information, which made the mod a lot easier to do. I sing in combat, which is never useless, and try to stay out of the way :). I will wind up spending a lot of feats to bump my diplomacy, but it'll be worth it when I take my first level of Mindbender for the extra stupid cheese of being able to understand, and talk to, everything in the world that has a language. I will also wind up with one level of Marshal to boost my own charisma, because at heart I am a powergamer and I couldn't pass it up. So the final build will be Bard 13/Marshal 1/Mindbender 1 with Diplomacy at about +56 (assuming basic magic items) and a reroll if I don't like the first try, Bluff at +30-40something, a marshal cohort for all the other cool auras and abilities marshals get, and all the useful bardic spells and abilities at almost full level. My point is that if you focus on the face skills of a bard, you can be incredibly useful to a party even without spellcasting "power" spells or boom spells.
wooti 10-12-06, 09:18 PM	... with Diplomacy at about +56 ... I my experience this is a way to break modules and distroy any faith you had in module writers and GMs that you had. About +20 is plenty for most cases while making it hard to turn your dire enemy into your best friend in 6 seconds. If you trust your GMs in your local area to run it well it can be fun but in my experience the combination of not enough prep time (for GMs) and module writers not taking in account huge Diplomacy means having a monster diplomacy is not only a waste of time but very frustrating as the monster attack you anyways.
Iswald 10-12-06, 10:53 PM	There are authors that use insane diplomacy modifiers in encounters. The encounter I have in mind had a DC of 50ish. If you didn't make it, the NPC would talk for a while. You'd continue on your way, but then he'd ambush you a short bit later. If you succeed, then he'd tag along and fight for you. Personally, I'd rather not see this kind of crap in mods. If the author really felt that this very powerful and fairly neutral NPC should react to the PCs, then he should have used more gradation. Ie, a result below 20 resulted in being ambushed, 20 - 30 results in being attacked then, 30 - 40 results in being left alone and 50+ gains his friendship. I think though, that some people feel that diplomacy should work like charm if you roll high enough. The rules though, don't support this. Even if you get an extraordinary diplomacy roll, it doesn't mean that they NPC is going to give up their own motivations. Well, maybe in epic levels they would.
kenobi65 10-12-06, 10:58 PM	I'm not sure why you're bothering with spending 2 build points to get a 10 Str, unless you're one of those folks who just hate having any negative modifiers on your stats. You're not going to be going into melee if you can at all help it, you don't need to wear heavy armor or carry a bunch of equipment...take the Str down to 8, and bump the Cha up to 16.
Japangirl 10-13-06, 02:12 AM	I know that many times, the diplomacy won't be effective. It'll be fun though, and that's what matters, right? I know the clerics of Iuz are fanatics who won't give up and leave my party alone. The epic level red dragon isn't likely to see us as anything but a tasty meal, no matter how friendly I am (well actually, he's a horny bastard. Being friendly might work). I can't talk the big baddie into joining us and I can't convince the zealots of the Pale that they might be wrong about that whole Lawful Neutral tyranny thing. Avoiding combats by talking our attackers out of it could cost my party access as well. However, I can talk the assassin or the ambushers into surrendering without a fight. I can get all the information out of role-playing modules, no matter how rare they might be, without the pain most parties feel. I can get our standard adventuring fee raised by 25% through the haggling rules. If PHB II is allowed, I can use my diplomacy check to force someone who is lying (and who I have caught lying) to reveal to me the truth and why they are trying to lie to me about it. Reticent NPCs with information will always talk to me, and I can talk my way out of all sorts of awkward situations that city guards might catch my party in.
Ojoxsofeta 10-14-06, 03:50 AM	I'm not sure why you're bothering with spending 2 build points to get a 10 Str, unless you're one of those folks who just hate having any negative modifiers on your stats. You're not going to be going into melee if you can at all help it, you don't need to wear heavy armor or carry a bunch of equipment...take the Str down to 8, and bump the Cha up to 16. When I'm on a boat and the GM calls for a swim check, I would like to pretend that I'm not automatically in the hole when it comes time to tumble the d20.
Mommy was an Orc 10-14-06, 10:54 AM	I'm not sure why you're bothering with spending 2 build points to get a 10 Str, unless you're one of those folks who just hate having any negative modifiers on your stats. You're not going to be going into melee if you can at all help it, you don't need to wear heavy armor or carry a bunch of equipment...take the Str down to 8, and bump the Cha up to 16. 10 Str helps out a lot with encumbrance - even with Mithril Chain Shirt and a Heward's Handy Haversack, I'm bumping up against the limits of my encumbrance while keeping a 30' move. It has also saved my character from being turned into a shadow at one point. I'd also drop Wisdom to 8 and bump up Intelligence to 14. You can never have too many skill points as a Bard, especially if you go Sublime Chord. That's one of the reasons I picked up a level of Marshal at 3rd - it turned Skill Focus(Diplomacy) into an extra bonus feat and because I motivate Charisma, it makes me essentially have phenomenal amounts of skill points.
retro 10-17-06, 10:17 PM	I'm considering making a Bard as my next LG character, and I have to ask: why not Virtuoso (CV)? I don't have my LGCS with me at the moment, so is it Limited/Restricted? Or just a weak PrC? At the moment, I'm thinking Bard/Virtuoso/Seeker of the Song, in some combination.
kenobi65 10-17-06, 11:03 PM	Virtuoso's Core access.
Morgen 10-17-06, 11:15 PM	I've seen a very effective bard doing the Diplomacy/Spellcasting route. Inspire Courage (Inspirational Boosted), followed by a decently DC'ed Glitterdust and then a Critical Strike+Whirling Bladed Longsword. Pretty decent for a lower level and we certainly enjoyed battling the blinded monsters.