They also know that up-front.The party has: one spring-attacking fighter, one duskblade, one Radiant Servant of Pelor a dwarven paladin (all others are human). She has opted to have an elf bard, with stats as follows:
Str - 14
Dex - 18
Con - 16
Int - 16
Wis - 15
Cha - 18
This takes place in a homebrew world, so setting is unknown for them right now. Please remember, I'm looking for just help with her spell list.
Thanks in advance, you guys are great.
These are the ones off the top of my head...
For the bard you want to pick the low level spells that even high level wizards/clerics like to cast. The bard's caster level is just as high as the wizard, you free up the wizard to do other things, so it's all win. Also pick the useful bard only spells. Avoid falling into the "bards buff" mentality at all costs. Weak buffs only waste a round. Even greater heroism isn't worth it. Ideally you want mass buffs or buffs you can do in the morning.
Specific Spells:
0: prestidigitation
0 scrolls: summon instrument (not just for playing!), flare (for drow), know direction, mage hand,
1: cure light wounds, feather fall, grease, sleep (swap out later)
1 scrolls: alarm, comprehend languages, identify
2: cure moderate wounds, glitterdust, heroism
2 scrolls: invisibility, silence, tongues
3: cure serious wounds, dispel magic, glibness, haste,
3 scrolls: see invisibilty
4: cure critical wounds, dimension door, greater invisibility, zone of silence
4 scrolls: locate creature, modify memory, neutralize poison, legend lore
5: greater dispel magic
6: some ok spells but nothing sticks out to me
You might not want a cure spell on every level though. Especially 3rd level, since it's loaded with other bardy goodness. Buy only low level scrolls; high level scrolls are too expensive.
(Greater) Invisibility, Mirror Image, Shatter, Shout, healing spells, Glitterdust, (Greater) Heroism, Grease.
These are the ones off the top of my head...
Shout, no. (Greater) Heroism, no. Also, keep at most Cure Moderate/Critical and Mass Cure Light for healing spells. The rest I can agree with.
Anyway, for my suggestions I'm AFB, so I'll just pull stuff off the SRD.
1st- Grease and Inspirational Boost are always good. Unseen Servant, Undetectable Alignment, and Detect Secret Doors are also helpful.
2nd- Summon Swarm is good early, but should be replaced eventually. Otherwise there's Calm Emotions, Delay Poison, Glitterdust, Mirror Image, and Shatter. If you intend to PrC out of Bard, you're also going to likely want to get Suggestion here early until Mass Suggestion becomes available.
3rd- Charm Monster, Fear, Glibness, Haste, Phantom Steed. Fear is the weakest spell here, but it's a pretty damn good spell, so... yeah. You might want to use Dispel Magic instead of Phantom Steed until your Caster Level gets up there, but Phantom Steed is your only method of flight, so use it!
4th- Cure Critical Wounds, Freedom of Movement, Dimension Door, Greater Invisibility are all great picks from Core. The last should almost certainly come from a splatbook, though.
5th- Mass Cure Light, Greater Dispel Magic, Seeming, and Mass Suggestion are Core's great contributions. I think Wail of Doom might also be available this level, and it's certainly powerful. If you use it, find something other than Fear to use for 3rd-level. Another option might be Greater Blink, but I think that's Wizard only.
6th- Animate Object, Geas, Greater Shout, and Irresistable Dance are all hard to pass up. Frankly, I don't remember another 6th-level Bard spell in the Completes worthy of ursurping one of these.
Now, if you look carefully, you'll see that there aren't many buffs. Buffing is what your music is for, and the couple buffs that are listed just fill the gaps between what your songs do.
seriously...... she doesn't need any other spells(since you disallowed splat goodness).
if splats were allowed I would say her spell list should be ....
light, undersong, glibness..... nothing else needed.
light to cast on the paladins forehead.
undersong to power warblade driven melee godhood.
and Glibness to make it so you never have to fight in the first place.
BBEG, "you have meddled with me for the last time treehuggers"
bard, "these aren't the druids your looking for"
BBEG, "these aren't the druids I'm looking for...."
Bard, "my obvious power has shaken you to the core and you wish to give me your magic items in exchange for your continued allowance to breath"
BBEG, "here are all my treasures great one...."
Bard, "we may move along"
BBEG, "please don't let me keep you great one..."
===2 minutes later===
Paladin, "weren't we suppose to save those children he had caged up hanging above the pit of fire?!?!?!"
Bard, "what do I care, I got a friggin new sword!!"
Duskblade, "ooooo keen"
Second Level: Alter Self
Fourth Level: Polymorph
They're on the bard spell list, and their power is well known, make use of them...
This is core. The bard will need all the power he can get...
Second Level: Alter Self
Fourth Level: Polymorph
They're on the bard spell list, and their power is well known, make use of them...
Polymorph is not on the Bard spell list.
Polymorph is not on the Bard spell list.
I've been playing a Sublime Chord for too long. You are right. Oh well, you'll have to deal with Alter Self alone then...
here's my bard spell list:
1st:
inspirational boost
charm person
grease
tasha's hideous laughter
2nd:
glitterdust
alter self (BROKEN since i'm a kobold i can become a wyrmling shadow dragon)
mirror image
invisibility (well i should've taken smth else but it's too late now :D)
3rd:
Dispel magic
Haste
Slow
Scrying
4th:
Celerity
Greater Invisibility
Later on, I love Glibness. Greatest spell ever! I'm still trying to convince my conservative group to move up to 3.5... meaning that, at the moment, I can only get access to it via Potions of Glibness. And still it's fantastic to chug one of the suckers and talk everybody into or out of whatever I want to!
Dominate Person is another nice one, as is Greater Invisibility, Freedom of Movement, Mass Suggestion, Mind Fog, Mass Charm Monster, and Project Image.
Since Complete's are allowed, you might let your Bard in on a great PrC, Lyrical Thaumetergist(sp?). Outside of advancing almost all of your Bardic abilities, you get additional spells known(from the Bard list) multiple times over the 10 PrC levels.
It's great if your trying to cram a bunch of your favourite Bard spells into a Bard though.
Gah, damn my AFB'ness.
Since Complete's are allowed, you might let your Bard in on a great PrC, Lyrical Thaumetergist(sp?). Outside of advancing almost all of your Bardic abilities, you get additional spells known(from the Bard list) multiple times over the 10 PrC levels.
It's great if your trying to cram a bunch of your favourite Bard spells into a Bard though.
It is actually from the Sorcerer list, I think.
I've been playing a Sublime Chord for too long.
limited the campaign to Core and Completes
'nuff said on that, really.
Lyric Thaumaturgist is in Complete Mage.
What is your point?
There's two bummers built into LT, though. The first is: fewer skills. It's acceptable, but not awesome. The second is: the only part of your bardic music that advances is your uses/day. It doesn't advance your inspire courage effect or anything else. So you're missing out there.
Personally, as far as a real bard's bard goes, I'm fond of:
Bard 6 / Lyric Thaumaturge 2 / Virtuoso 2 / Sublime Chord 2 / Virtuoso 8. Depending on the DM's interpretation of Virtuoso's caster advances, you might need to delay Virt2 until after Sublime Chord 2.
But seriously, that build does everything a bard does, and then some. You lose 2 levels of inspire courage and never get inspire greatness/heroics, but you instead get 9th-level sor/wiz casting and some cute extra uses to your music (song of arcane power, virtuoso's abilities, etc).
Spell-wise, the lists here are all good. I've got little to add, except to point out that the slow spell-level progression prior to Sublime Chord means that you'll want to avoid spells that are too reliant on saving throws. At level 10, for example, the above build has some 1st-3rd level spells, which have a save DC in the vicinity of 17 or so. Many of the foes you encounter at that level will be able to beat that save pretty easily.