She has 14 strength, 16 dexterity, 14 constution, and 16 charisma (very good stats I know)
The problem is, bards seem pretty useless in melee combat
and if they are going to focus on ranged combat, they do a maximum of 1d6+strength (which is 2 in her case)
Is there any better way to make a bard better optimized or just leave the class to be a healbot/group helper?
But yeah, core-only, no Diplo-cheese, Bards suck.
Bards need a bit of tweaking to do melee, but they are certainly capable.
To steal from my own sig, I like Sublime Chord Gish like
x2/Bard4/SpellSword1/AbjurantChampion2/EldritchKnight1/SublimeChord1/AbjurantChampion3/EldritchKnight6
Where x is 2 of Spellthief2, Barbarian1, Paladin2, Crusader1, Swordsage1 or whatever else tickles your fancy and gives you 1 BAB.
The essential things to add to an existing build rather than an overhaul are the "Snowflake Wardance" feat from Frostburn and the Crystal Echoblade weapon from the MIC
Throw all the bonus spellcasting you can into sublime chord and get a powerful bard spellcaster that STILL is a good musician. feats can be a lot of nice stuff
That's a nice 'un.
Also Bard X/battle dancer 1 for charisma to AC. Battle dancer is a base class in dragon compendium say hello to CHA based monk
Have you looked at Inspire Courage Optimization and The Bard Handbook?
Bards need a bit of tweaking to do melee, but they are certainly capable.
To steal from my own sig, I like Sublime Chord Gish like
x2/Bard4/SpellSword1/AbjurantChampion2/EldritchKnight1/SublimeChord1/AbjurantChampion3/EldritchKnight6
Where x is 2 of Spellthief2, Barbarian1, Paladin2, Crusader1, Swordsage1 or whatever else tickles your fancy and gives you 1 BAB.
The essential things to add to an existing build rather than an overhaul are the "Snowflake Wardance" feat from Frostburn and the Crystal Echoblade weapon from the MIC
While i love your idea's we're not playing with a INCREDIBLY optimized group, and recently our books seleciton became rather limited
SO in reality the only books I have to work from for her is The 3 core books, most of the completes, and players handbook 2
Also isnt the MIC still 3.0 rules?
Anyways, with just those books can one make the bard significantly better?
Anyways... At low level, pick up Power Attack and use a Longsword two-handed. Really simple. Bards have lots of options to boost up their attack modifier, but damage usually is a bit harder to enhance (thus, why I suggest just getting Power Attack).
Or, use a Bow, and don't worry about melee stuff.
Also isnt the MIC still 3.0 rules?
Magic Item Compendium was the consolidation of most of the 3.5 items released prior to that point and a few upgrades from older 3.0 books. It's pretty much the gold standard for how they intended items to be used in 3.5.
But yeah, your sourcebooks aren't very bard-friendly. I recommend changing class. If the player really likes the flavor of bard, maybe a HumanParagon(It's in the SRD)/Wizard keeping perform as class skill would be good.
Those are all core + complete classes. Complete Warrior, Mage, DMG, Arcane, respectively.
Anyways... At low level, pick up Power Attack and use a Longsword two-handed. Really simple. Bards have lots of options to boost up their attack modifier, but damage usually is a bit harder to enhance (thus, why I suggest just getting Power Attack).
Or, use a Bow, and don't worry about melee stuff.
Yeah but we no longer have the completes so this is now a problem!
Shotgun shuriken effect!
Master thrower 1+/Bard 7/Class X 2/Chaos monk 1
Shurikens + bardsong optimization means these little buggers do quite a bit of damage.
Flailing strike = 0 to 3 extra attacks of shuriken flurry on top of whatever else.
Palm throw from master thrower = 2 per attack (no str modifier).
Add in feats like... Dragonfire Inspiration (Races of the Dragon) and trip throw, and you got an awesome disabler or super damager.
And for kicks, I like to try to get into Lyric Thaumaturge or Knight of the Weave for mage armor, and use ascetic mage for the charisma to AC on top of a dex build is awesome.
Then duel wield harmonizing crystal echoblades to bump up that damage
Yeah but we no longer have the completes so this is now a problem!
I thought you just said you had most of the completes? If you've only got core, it's almost impossible to really run bard as a mainline class. Unfortunately bards really lack a middle ground, relying heavily on PrCs for their mid to late game.
If you have complete warrior, War Chanter ranges from funny to fantastic. You can get in very easily, and it has the crucial option at level five of combining songs. It also offers full BaB. It's no sublime chord, but.... Non-casters have a very hard time measuring up to casters.
I have to go ahead and emphasis how nice and well-written the Bard's Handbook is! It's way better than my shoddy advice
This thread, linked to from the Bard's Handbook but easy to miss, is also basically mana from heaven.
Other than that get your hands on the complete warrior again and take the War Chanter with the fighter levels.
And seeing as combat expertise is a requirement for the war chanter, mix that with Defensive strike (also from complete warrior) and Deadly defense (complete scoundrel) and you can have a great defensive fighter that sings in the mean time, simply take a full defense action (which means you forgo your attacks for a +4 to armour and add +5 combat expertise for a total of +9 to AC) then if your opponent attacks and missess you , you get a +4 to hit in your next turn, activating combat expertise for +2 will trigger deadly defense and give you +1d6 damage. In short, in exchange for forgoing your attacks every 2 turns you can get a +2 to hit, +2 to AC and a +1d6 damage every 2nd turn, this while not overly damaging could mean less healing needed in combet for your character and making you a usefull combatant against tougher foes. And don't forget arcane strike in the complete warrior.
Yeah but we no longer have the completes so this is now a problem!
Ah, bad economy + pawn shop... yup... Which completes do you have?
Anyways, not that big of a deal, really. Featwise, just pick up Power Attack and Weapon Finesse, just keeping the Str at 13, boosting Dex, and use a Rapier two-handed. You get double the PA damage, just not double the Str damage. Its worth it. Here's a gnome bard I did for a low-level one-shot core-only game:
Gnome Bard 6
Str 13, Dex 18, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 8, Cha 14
1 Power Attack
3 Weapon Finesse
6 Combat Expertise
Spells
1 Cure Light Wounds, Expedious Retreat, Animate Rope, Undetectable Alignment
2 Alter Self, Blindness/Deafness, Silence
Equipment-wise, we were given higher than WBL, so I got a +1 Spellstoring Whip, and just get a Masterwork Chain shirt, +1 Rapier, +2 Dex gloves, and a CLW Wand.
So, I abused Alter Self for form of Troglodyte, and ended up with:
AC 24, +5 to hit, d6+11 damage, and had a bite attack at iterative bonus. The whip only got used once to tap a spellcaster with Silence, which worked well, though I overrated it (it would be better to just put it in the Rapier). The attack bonus wasn't really good enough, but enemies could barely hit me, so it worked out OK, and it allowed me to setup flanking for the Rogues pretty well, too.
Those are all core + complete classes. Complete Warrior, Mage, DMG, Arcane, respectively.
Anyways... At low level, pick up Power Attack and use a Longsword two-handed. Really simple. Bards have lots of options to boost up their attack modifier, but damage usually is a bit harder to enhance (thus, why I suggest just getting Power Attack).
Or, use a Bow, and don't worry about melee stuff.
This is exactly what I suggested and what she did and power attack pretty much solved the problem
She is having a lot more fun because with all the bonuses she adds to her attack shes doing hefty amount of damage (2nd highest in the group in fact)
Ah, bad economy + pawn shop... yup... Which completes do you have?
Anyways, not that big of a deal, really. Featwise, just pick up Power Attack and Weapon Finesse, just keeping the Str at 13, boosting Dex, and use a Rapier two-handed. You get double the PA damage, just not double the Str damage. Its worth it. Here's a gnome bard I did for a low-level one-shot core-only game:
Gnome Bard 6
Str 13, Dex 18, Con 14, Int 12, Wis 8, Cha 14
1 Power Attack
3 Weapon Finesse
6 Combat Expertise
Spells
1 Cure Light Wounds, Expedious Retreat, Animate Rope, Undetectable Alignment
2 Alter Self, Blindness/Deafness, Silence
Equipment-wise, we were given higher than WBL, so I got a +1 Spellstoring Whip, and just get a Masterwork Chain shirt, +1 Rapier, +2 Dex gloves, and a CLW Wand.
So, I abused Alter Self for form of Troglodyte, and ended up with:
AC 24, +5 to hit, d6+11 damage, and had a bite attack at iterative bonus. The whip only got used once to tap a spellcaster with Silence, which worked well, though I overrated it (it would be better to just put it in the Rapier). The attack bonus wasn't really good enough, but enemies could barely hit me, so it worked out OK, and it allowed me to setup flanking for the Rogues pretty well, too.
our game is almost entirely now core, and the books were not lost to core
One of our members slept with someone he should not have, and that persons boyfriend owned all the books we used, and bam, no more books!
However, since everyone is using pretty much only core everyone has become pretty well balanced. Even the wizard is not outshining the rest of the group (only level 11 so far, and EVERYTHING has a nack for resisting his spells)
interestingly enough, when we took away all of the added books, everyone started having a lot more fun.
lol try it out sometime everyone!
One of our members slept with someone he should not have, and that persons boyfriend owned all the books we used, and bam, no more books!
Omg that's so epic. You guys got totally trolled. LOL
Sigg'd.
Omg that's so epic. You guys got totally trolled. LOL
Yep. It was worth it for him, stunk for us!
oh well, at least 2 of the 6 of us are now incredibly happy
our game is almost entirely now core, and the books were not lost to core
That build is core; are you looking for something slightly different? We needzez teh detalezzzz....
Human Bard5/Mindbender1/Bard3/Virtuoso1/SubChord1/Virtuoso9
I think SnowFlake Wardance and the melee bard in general is a little overrated. The most important thing is the last eleven levels. The first level of Virtuoso provides no spellcasting increase, so take it first. Then move on to one level of Sublime Chord and the last nine of Virtuoso will improve your bard music, and increase the spellcasting progression of your SC PrC.
The mindbender is just something fun to take with the Mindsight feat
I would have thought more along the lines of a Bard8/Rogue8/Fighter4 (If EXP penalty is ignored any race is OK, otherwise you need favored class: fighter)
Wyvernhand tipped me off to this build
Human Bard5/Mindbender1/Bard3/Virtuoso1/SubChord1/Virtuoso9
I think SnowFlake Wardance and the melee bard in general is a little overrated. The most important thing is the last eleven levels. The first level of Virtuoso provides no spellcasting increase, so take it first. Then move on to one level of Sublime Chord and the last nine of Virtuoso will improve your bard music, and increase the spellcasting progression of your SC PrC.
The mindbender is just something fun to take with the Mindsight feat
Great build; unfortunately he's core only now.
Isn't 7 levels of bard a rather silly number to take, given that inspire courage goes up at 8?
I would have thought more along the lines of a Bard8/Rogue8/Fighter4 (If EXP penalty is ignored any race is OK, otherwise you need favored class: fighter)
Particularly in Core, he shouldn't lose more than 4 CL of Bard (to get terminal level spells before epic). That said, there's something he can do for more of a gish flavor:
Bard 8 / Arcane Archer 2 / Eldritch Knight 10
For ranged; use area enchantments at quite a long range. Has some very interesting potential, imo, and if I ever play a Bard again, I'm going to do this. Also, can get into Manyshot and the fully ranged archetype.
OR
Bard 8 / Ranger (or Fighter) 2 / Eldritch Knight 10
For melee; use self-only buffs to great effect. I like Ranger for the TWF, but Fighter could work too if you already have it. The idea is to get bonus damage on TWF via songs and spells.
I've always thought that the bard's inspire courage should be something other than a morale boost... A wizard putting greater heroism on the Fighter and the Rogue >> A bard. Sadness.
Except not. Inspire Courage can be easily boosted to add a lot more bonuses to attack/damage than heroism.
Except not. Inspire Courage can be easily boosted to add a lot more bonuses to attack/damage than heroism.
In core.
In core.
Granted. But even then, with enough levels, Bard gets better bonuses.