Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 operation_shoestring Mar 15, 2008 18:46:24	Character concept: She's a Lawyer/Union Organizer on a social justice crusade. Very much a support character who depends on social skills and magic. Build: CG Human Female Bard 1 -Able Learner, Melodic Casting, Flaw: noncombatant, Obtain Familiar Paladin of Freedom 1 Paladin of Freedom 2 -Versatile Performer Bard 2 Bard 3 -ACF: Healing Hymn Bard 4 - Quicken Spell Virtuoso 1 (get's fascinate back) Bard 5 Bard 6 -Rapid Metamagic Virtuoso 2 Sublime Chord 1 Sublime Chord 2 - Practiced Spellcaster Virtuoso 3 Virtuoso 4 Virtuoso 5 - Metamagic music Virtuoso 6 Virtuoso 7 Virtuoso 8 - Extend Spell Virtuoso 9 Virtuoso 10 stats on 28 point buy STR 8, DEX 14, CON 14, Int 14, WIS 8, CHA 16 I picked virtuoso in an attempt to keep bardic music viable- is this worth doing or am I better off just ditching inspire courage, and focusing solely on magic? Any suggestions on better feat selection? Any ways to get more feats? (I would prefer to go easy on the flaws- DM's are pretty leery about them in my experience)
#2 Blade2718 Mar 15, 2008 19:06:30	Union organizer doesn't shout Chaotic to me, but my main concern is the decided lack of Abjurant Champion.
#3 x-codes Mar 15, 2008 19:11:37	My main concern is that you don't think Bardic Music is viable. Initiate of Milil is found in Champions of Valor. P.S.: Lawyers are Lawful.
#4 operation_shoestring Mar 15, 2008 19:26:18	She's siding with the little guys against "Teh EVIL Bourgeoise". That makes her chaotic, in the social sense. She works within the law (criminal paladins are just silly, IMO), but she opposes some of what the law stands for, seeing it as oppression of the masses. Basically, she's working for reform, and defending the poor as much as she can within the law in the interim, eagerly anticipating the day when the laws will change and the common people set free from oppression I really don't want to blow a feat on Initiate of Millil (useless) or Devoted Performer (almost useless) either. With regards to viability-- Virtuoso retains Inspire Courage progression, which is why it's in the build. The questions is whether that's worth it or if it should instead go for, say, the War Weaver/Combat Medic combo.
#5 ChristopherGroves Mar 15, 2008 19:46:24	Bard 1 / Crusader or Warblade 19 w/ Song of the White Raven and Extra Music?
#6 tblade2001 Mar 15, 2008 19:46:36	I'd just like to mention that Obtain Familiar has a prereq of Arcane CL of 3.
#7 x-codes Mar 15, 2008 20:31:23	She's siding with the little guys against "Teh EVIL Bourgeoise". That makes her chaotic, in the social sense. She works within the law (criminal paladins are just silly, IMO), but she opposes some of what the law stands for, seeing it as oppression of the masses. Basically, she's working for reform, and defending the poor as much as she can within the law in the interim, eagerly anticipating the day when the laws will change and the common people set free from oppression This is exactly what Lawful Good is. Oh well, do whatever blows your skirt up, but as it is now this isn't a Bardadin, just a Bard with Divine Grace. Healing Hymn is a 1st-level ability, not 3rd. Drop the Bard's Suggestion ability for Song of the Heart (early you get the spell, late it's save DC sucks) at Bard 6. Ditch Versatile Performer, move Extend Spell to 1st, Practiced Spellcaster to 3rd, Obtain Familiar to 6th, Quicken Spell to 15th, and Metamagic Song to 18th. Feats for 12th level: Extra Music, Extraordinary Concentration, Captivating Melody, Residual Magic Another option is to be an Illumian. Drop a level of Bard early and take a level of Sacred Exorcist later to get Turn Undead and fuel their pseudo-divine-metamagic ability. In this case, get Persistent Spell at 12th and use it to get Persistent Harmonize. Afterwards you can still quicken or at least extend a spell.
#8 operation_shoestring Mar 16, 2008 14:42:52	This is exactly what Lawful Good is. Oh well, do whatever blows your skirt up, but as it is now this isn't a Bardadin, just a Bard with Divine Grace. And lay on hands, and detect evil. I should probably change the backstory... eh, i can worry about that over on CharDev. Healing Hymn is a 1st-level ability, not 3rd. Drop the Bard's Suggestion ability for Song of the Heart (early you get the spell, late it's save DC sucks) at Bard 6. Ditch Versatile Performer, move Extend Spell to 1st, Practiced Spellcaster to 3rd, Obtain Familiar to 6th, Quicken Spell to 15th, and Metamagic Song to 18th. Bard's suggestion is useful cause it's "free". Sure's it's not great, but hey, free. I can replace Inspire Competence instead of Suggestion. Is it really more useful than suggestion? Another option is to be an Illumian. Drop a level of Bard early and take a level of Sacred Exorcist later to get Turn Undead and fuel their pseudo-divine-metamagic ability. In this case, get Persistent Spell at 12th and use it to get Persistent Harmonize. Afterwards you can still quicken or at least extend a spell. How would illuminian help? Feat expenditure for that is rather staggering. extend + persist + DMM = 3 feats burned. But persisted Greater Harmonize and Sirene's grace would be awesome.... Then again, would be spending about as much for quicken (Quicken, Rapid Meta, Meta Music) Hmn... Dump a level of either Bard or Virtuoso for Sacred Excorcist, remove quicken, get persist instead. H) - Able learner F) - Extend spell 1) - Melodic casting 3) - Obtain Familiar 6) - Words of Creation 9) - Persist spell 12) - Practiced Spellcaster 15) - DMM Persist Spell 18) - (?) By level 15/16, i'm figuring on having a good CHA, +8 or so. Throw in a Reliquary Holy Symbol, and that's two persists a day. Sounds good.
#9 x-codes Mar 16, 2008 17:33:03	Bard's suggestion is useful cause it's "free". Sure's it's not great, but hey, free. I can replace Inspire Competence instead of Suggestion. Is it really more useful than suggestion? It has Inspire Competence as a pre-req. How would illuminian help? Feat expenditure for that is rather staggering. extend + persist + DMM = 3 feats burned. But persisted Greater Harmonize and Sirene's grace would be awesome.... Then again, would be spending about as much for quicken (Quicken, Rapid Meta, Meta Music) Hmn... Dump a level of either Bard or Virtuoso for Sacred Excorcist, remove quicken, get persist instead. H) - Able learner F) - Extend spell 1) - Melodic casting 3) - Obtain Familiar 6) - Words of Creation 9) - Persist spell 12) - Practiced Spellcaster 15) - DMM Persist Spell 18) - (?) By level 15/16, i'm figuring on having a good CHA, +8 or so. Throw in a Reliquary Holy Symbol, and that's two persists a day. Sounds good. You can't DMM Persist Arcane spells, I'm telling you to use Naenhoon. It would come out like this: F) Able Learner 1) Melodic Casting 3) Practiced Spellcaster 6) Obtain Familiar 9) Extend Spell 12) Persistent Spell 15) Rapid Metamagic 18) Quicken Spell If you take another flaw, you can move up Extend, Persist, Rapid, and Quicken and pick up Metamagic Song at 18th. Also, Suggestion is free in resources, but you still have to Fascinate your enemies before you can use it, and that requires a standard action to activate *and* concentration (more standard actions) which really limits it's combat uses to... just about none. The spell is just plain better than the music if you aren't making a straight bard to jack the Suggestion DC, and even with Greater Harmonize up you eventually get Mindbending Song and Mass Suggestion (the spell), which should keep all your mind-affecting bases covered.
#10 operation_shoestring Mar 16, 2008 19:11:57	It has Inspire Competence as a pre-req. You can't DMM Persist Arcane spells, I'm telling you to use Naenhoon. It would come out like this: F) Able Learner 1) Melodic Casting 3) Practiced Spellcaster 6) Obtain Familiar 9) Extend Spell 12) Persistent Spell 15) Rapid Metamagic 18) Quicken Spell If you take another flaw, you can move up Extend, Persist, Rapid, and Quicken and pick up Metamagic Song at 18th. Also, Suggestion is free in resources, but you still have to Fascinate your enemies before you can use it, and that requires a standard action to activate *and* concentration (more standard actions) which really limits it's combat uses to... just about none. The spell is just plain better than the music if you aren't making a straight bard to jack the Suggestion DC, and even with Greater Harmonize up you eventually get Mindbending Song and Mass Suggestion (the spell), which should keep all your mind-affecting bases covered. Point taken on suggestion. Illuminian kills able learner, which really makes the skills tight, but it's do-able. Takes fun/versatility out though. Also, practiced spellcaster has to be taken at 12th or higher, it's meant to boost SC, not bard. Could also go for Easy Metamagic to get persist on greater harmonize, but that means waiting for level 19. Might be better off just casting it when there's a serious battle.
#11 x-codes Mar 16, 2008 19:58:39	stuff Ok, please read the Illumian racial traits in Races of Destiny. You'll see that it works (including Able Learner and quasi-DMM).
#12 operation_shoestring Mar 16, 2008 20:55:51	Ok, please read the Illumian racial traits in Races of Destiny. You'll see that it works (including Able Learner and quasi-DMM). I was just looking at the book when I last posted. The Able Learner feat is in the same book and it specifies human or doppleganger. If it was open to Illuminians, who are INTRODUCED IN THE SAME BOOK, you'd think it'd say so. No-where under the Illuminian entry does it say they can qualify for feats as humans. It just says they have the "human" subtype, which means rangers with favored enemy human can hit them for extra damage.
#13 x-codes Mar 16, 2008 21:41:57	No-where under the Illuminian entry does it say they can qualify for feats as humans. It just says they have the "human" subtype, which means rangers with favored enemy human can hit them for extra damage. Using that same logic, Drow can't take Elf-specific feats because they don't have "Elf" in their name, despite having the subtype. In other words, Human subtype means that something is human.
#14 the_shaman Mar 17, 2008 0:37:55	She's siding with the little guys against "Teh EVIL Bourgeoise". That makes her chaotic, in the social sense. She works within the law (criminal paladins are just silly, IMO), but she opposes some of what the law stands for, seeing it as oppression of the masses. Basically, she's working for reform, and defending the poor as much as she can within the law in the interim, eagerly anticipating the day when the laws will change and the common people set free from oppression. I agree with the above - there can be chaotic lawyers (CG reminds me of the OotS sylph - she didn't make the rules, but she damn well can put them to some use!), but that doesn't sound like one of them. She just has a different code she sticks to, but she sticks to it nonetheless. As for how useful Devoted performer or IoM are, I would disagree but that's your own choice. I take it mechanically the character is a caster bard with an added save boost from paladin? In your case, I'd probably go for this... and yeah, inspire courage sounds about right when you can't fight all that well. If you're dragonblooded (silverbrow human, for example) dragonfire inspiration isn't bad either if your companions are relying on a lot of attacks - and considering that you may be a bit of a rabble-rouser, that can mean a lot of attacks in the right situation ;)
#15 angelus_obscura Mar 18, 2008 12:35:32	Okay, to diffuse this pointless argument over alignment inherent in the word lawyer, just change the word LAWyer to "Advocate" (aka Voice of the Little Peoplez), which is the originating term/profession. Problem solved. Next! + Badge of Valor (District Attorney ID) By the by, wouldn't the Evangelist be a good option for this type of character? Using his/her great orating skillz, the character can sway the rabble, influence the jury, and whenever he/she stands up to address the court, he/she says her name first (a la Denny Crane). :P