Blade Bard: Essential Striker Bard (2e kit remake)
Second your virtue of the blade has a few issues.
- The effects of the crit are a lot of extra book keeping, especially if you choose the until end of encounter version. Maybe just give them a bonus to defenses after a crit.
- Why use dexterity for MBAs when the primary ability seems to be charisma?
- the line about alternating weapons is confusing me, how much in game effect does that have?
Well the first thing is that it feels more like a melee controller than a striker.
Second your virtue of the blade has a few issues.
- The effects of the crit are a lot of extra book keeping, especially if you choose the until end of encounter version. Maybe just give them a bonus to defenses after a crit.
- Why use dexterity for MBAs when the primary ability seems to be charisma?
- the line about alternating weapons is confusing me, how much in game effect does that have?
Thanks for the feedback!
I hadn't thought about it being controller more than striker, I can see why: many attacks against possibly many enemies. But the level of damage and the fact that it's not imposing conditions, I think it makes it more of a striker. You could even think of it as a defender for the "when the enemy misses an ally" thing, but well, I think it classifies as a primary striker, secondary whatever...
- The Bardic Virtue is what I'm having trouble with, too. I figured that crits would happen with all those attacks, and it's a flavorful trigger, that I wanted to represnet as the Blade Dancer impressing either the enemy or the allies. In the end I thought that making it give a bonus to allies was too leaderish, so I thought it was more of a morale effect on the enemy. And in line with the class theme, I decided it could go 2 ways: defense bonus or attack bonus. Didn't think about the book-keeping aspect, I guess I should find a way to deal with that.
- I wanted it to be very two-stats dependent. Dex is already used by some things, and I thought that in order to make it feel more martial, at least melee basic attacks could have been Dex based. But after all, the class already requires Dex for AC, so I might as well change that.
- That line was to avoid complication in the powers write-up and to differentiate it a bit from other classes. It's a type of warrior which always uses two weapons, and always has a "spin-like" attack style. Plus, it also limits damage a bit, I thought, but in the end I could be wrong. I'm still not sure, if there's a way to deal with this more simply. I thought that it was quite easy to remember that it attacked on a main-hand/off-hand basis always. I also have to make it different from both Scout and Whirling Babarian, other than Ranger.
The tempest fighter prefers two-off hand weapons to max out their bonuses, the ranger loves the traditional twin blades, and the barbarian goes in for a nasty sword + other big nastyness combo.
This guy wants a long or bastard sword back up by a dagger or shortsword type weapon. Seems different enough to me.
The best way to make it different from the other two-blade builds is to go defensive. You already did that by not giving one-handed weapons as off and tossing in the two-weapon defense feat.
The tempest fighter prefers two-off hand weapons to max out their bonuses, the ranger loves the traditional twin blades, and the barbarian goes in for a nasty sword + other big nastyness combo.
This guy wants a long or bastard sword back up by a dagger or shortsword type weapon. Seems different enough to me.
Well, I didn't want to end up with a defender either, though. I think we needed a multi-attacker that had more flair and flavor than the classic ranger or scout, but what i mean is that I also wanted to differentiate it in mechanics. If I didn't put the alternate weapons statement in, it would have ended attacking always with the bastard sword, which is kind of lame, as in "it's just using the second weapon as a shield". Instead, I want the class to be as dynamic as possible, and possibly even "combo-based". I tried to reach that with the encounter power, but I'm still not satisifed enough. I want to create mechanics so that the order in which the character distributes its special attacks, matters.
It's a dancer, an artist and a bard at heart: I tried to reach some of this with limitations to his stances, forcing the character to change the style once in a while, but I wanted more.
I know this is quite unrelated to the alternate main-hand / off-hand thing, but at least I think the purpose I had in mind is clearer.
Hello Lord Archaon, just some flavor thoughts on the Blade Bard. The Jaszt Dancer and Arms-Troubadour paragon paths from the Dark Sun Campaign Setting have quite a bit of flavor elements that you might want to incorporate into this build. In particular the shifting and deflection powers I think perfectly reflect the grace of a blade dancer. I think it is worth noting that a certain advanced class of belly dancers are trained to dance with scimitars and this could even be used as a theme for an assassin build (I'm also reminded of the scene from the James Bond movie Octo**** in which the carnival dancers are out front dancing for the men and then suddenly slip into attacks.) You might want to look at a Galeshi Knife Dancer miniature to get a feel for a different type of Blade Dancer. one for whom subterfuge is as important as any weapon they carry. Perhaps the spells they weave with their songs confuse and misdirect in order to grant combat advantage to themselves or allies?
Wow, this could be a different type of Blade Dancer! I also had thought a bit about it, because one of my previous work was a conversion of an Oriental Adventures / Legend of the 5 Rings prestige class that granted the use of Kuji-Kiri, a hypnotic type of swordplay (or gestures/dance, I changed into swordplay I guess), that kind of charmed enemies.
I must devise a way to split this subclass in two builds: one should be the "Spinning Blade" the other should be the "Hypnotic Blade". The Hypnotic blade would be a lurker isntead of a skirmisher, in that her hypnotic dancing abilities would make her able to sneak through places and enemies, not by hiding, but by magically controlling! And her combat style would involve a lot of immobilization/dazing and such. She could even be the true melee controller!
*lifts wineglass* Cheers to a melee controller! It is easy to envision how a beautiful woman could hypnotize a man with a beautiful, seductive dance. It doesn't even need magic lol. But, the addition of magic would easily explain giving minuses to perception if she wants her team mates to slip by undetected, granting CA as she slips seductively close with her gyrations and plunges in the knife with sneak attack bonuses no less. You could even explain the dances hyponotizing effects on women as a jealosy that comes upon them as she dances, that forces them to watch her as they wish they had her beauty and grace.
In following the return with Essentials of alignment restrictions, we could even have a gender restriction on this!
Hahaha no, better call the magic in, and let males do the hypnotism too. After all, it's dual power source, but we never said the proportions... It's going to be done 99% thanks to Arcane for men and 99% ""Martial" for women..! 
That sounds like an implement power.
That's exactly why it will be original if made into a weapon power!
I think the swordmage implement rules would fit the bill nicely Rampant. This is definitely starting to sound like a very elegant build for a politically based campaign. I've been looking over swordmage, psion, arms-troubadour, and jazst dancer and there are enough powers there to re-flavor, and change the mech's slightly to make a solid build at each level. I'm thinking the powers would be based off of int and dext with charm and implement giving this build some of the best control and attack abilities. I also like the swordmage ability to call their weapon to hand from up to 10sq. away. A dancer could be searched, admitted to a private chamber and still be sure of her weapon having been snuck in by one of her allies. I also think that using the veils as garrote's would give a base for it's damage as a weapon, although you might have to take the damage die down I'm actually thinking of a thin wrist veil that's made from spider silk as a perfect garrote while still granting reach for some of the psion powers like Kinetic Trawl, Mind Thrust and Memory Hole which could easily be changed to arcane instead of psionic and reflavored to Pull of Desire, Dancer's Gambit and Sinner's Snare, the swordmage's Lightening Lure, Foesnare and Flame Cyclone turn into Lure of Enchantment, Besotted and, wait for it ... Flame Cyclone! (Not everything has to be about dancing!)
Well, it may become a completely different implementation of the Bard and even the Blade Dancer maybe... Or not. I just have to figure it out better. But now I got one day to submit something cool to the XDMC!