So I'm goign to ask, what exactly do Bards do? What are they good at?
Anything?
Thanks,
~theuberkodama
The bard has many charm spells and social skills. The bard gets the group out of a tough social situation. The bard is a negotiator, sly talker, jokester, prankster, and realy anything else that requires the mouth.
Bards are support in combat. Out side of combat they are the ones that should do most of the information gathering and and speaking.
If the group role plays a lot then the bard is the stength of the group. If the group dungeon crawls then the bard is nearly useless.
Anyway, kind of a rant, just get the guy to multiclass rogue, not rouge, or a ranger.
So I was thinking of making that Bard a complete combat support person. She likes to feel "in" the group, so....is that a good idea? Becuz she doesn't really want to multiclass....
(I had a second level bard doing a +3 inspire courage).
Then get buffing and healing wands.
Hopefully shes chosen a Perform that doesn't require hands - like Perform (sing), Perform (oratory), or Perform (comedy).
#1 - Charisma is not that important. You need a '16' eventually in order to cast the highest-level spells.
#2 - Again, considering the sucky spellcasting, don't shy away from picking up a heavy shield or somehow expanding into heavier armors.
#3 - If making a melee bard, make Constitution your highest score. An archer bard should obviously focus more on Dexterity. Both need good strength.
#4 - As far as actually supporting the party? Inspire Courage is always a welcome ability. Using a whip to disarm and trip enemies is also a useful tactic. Unfortunately, you can't be much of a healer until the party puts together enough cash for a cure light wounds wand. Once you got that, though, you're golden.
#5 - For the most bang for your buck, 'Extra Music' from Complete Adventurer is highly recommended at low level. Retrain it into something more useful at later levels.
#6 - For the love of God, don't use an instrument. +2 to your Perform checks isn't worth wasting one of your hands.
If you are the DM then you need to make encounters that are likely only salved by talking. The group needs to do information gathering. Make a situation that talking well get the PCs on the good side of NPCs and fighting well get the PCs on wanted/execution list.
If you are a player then there are some prestige classes and feats that I can suggest. First I will need to know the feats, spells and skills your cousin has chosen. There are a few options for the bard that can make them one of the strongest class. Use Magic Device is one of the most useful skills.
I like the bard. The only thing bad (or good) about the bard is that it is really the only class were the player needs to be a good role player to succeed.
I would suggest he take a prestige class, Lyric Theumaturge in Complete Mage. This will allow him to add a couple of Wizard spells to his list which will bolster his combat strength somewhat. Being able to use Lightning Bolt. scorching ray etc will bolster his combat capabilities.
Then select some feats which support these spells, Sudden Maximize is a must really and will allow your Bard to do maximum damage with a bolt at least once a day.
Also a few meta magic rods are in order, an Empower Rod for example used with sudden Maximize would stack and really push out some serrious damage potential.
Also, note that on the Bard spell list is Cure spells, which also can be enhanced with metamagical means, a bard can switch from healer to blaster, as the case may be, which does in fact make him a versatile and useful member of a group in a dungeon crawl.
-Snowflake Wardance feat (Frostburn): adds your charisma modifier to attack
-Dip into 1 level of Cleric. This gives you Turn Undead, which you can use to power divine feats like Divine Might (Complete Warrior). Also, some Domains are really cool. Take Charm domain, which adds 4 to your charisma for 1 minute. Complete Champion has some borderline broken Devotion feats; like Knowledge Devotion, which you gain for free if you use the Cloistered Cleric variant from Unearthed Arcana. Chaos/Travel/Animal Devotion are cool too.
-Get a weapon enhanced with the Sudden Stunning ability (DMG2) or Stunning Surge (MIC)
However, it doesn't sound like that's the kind of campaign you're playing in. You say you bard can't hit much, but there's still ways that your bard can contribute meaningfully to combat through buffing and debuffing. Here's a few simple, general suggestions.
First focus on making your fight-happy friends even better at what they do. Try pumping up your Inspire Courage ability. The ability affects everyone of your allies and lasts as long as you perform and 5 rounds thereafter (longer if you have that feat I can't remember at the moment). The bonus to attack rolls applies to all weapon damage rolls an to all attacks (including spells that require attack rolls, so your ray caster's aren't left out). That means that every time the fighter and rogue make successful attacks, you are effectively doing damage as well; more so if they hit when they otherwise would have missed thanks to the attack bonus granted by your Inspire Courage. And since Inspire Courage affects all allies, the effectiveness of this ability grows with the size of your party. So if you have animal companions, cohorts, or spellcasters in your party that likes to summon, all the better. Search the boards for some guides to increasing this ability. I remember seeing some pretty insane bonuses from fairly low levels (I think it got up to at least +11, though I think that required material from the BoED).
Second, the bard as a good list of support spells. Spells like Haste, Greater Invisibility (mostly for the rogue), Displacement make your party that much more effective in combat. With some creativity, alterself can be a very useful self-buff, and can even grant you swim speed, fly speeds, and sizable natural armor bonuses if you know how best to use it.
Third, there are some very good debuffing spells as well. Glitterdust can end encounters before they even start, and Heighten Spell can be used to help keep the DC competitive. Grease is effective at all levels since there's no saving throw and most creatures don't have ranks in balance. In addition, balancing creatures are considered flat-footed unless they have 5 or more ranks in balance (and again, most of them won't), which will make your rogue very happy. The uses for the dispel magic line are obvious.
If you have access to the Spell Compendium, you have quite of number of more options at your disposal that are more combat oriented than the PH spells. Improvisation and Ruin Delver's Fortune are great buffs to have. Unluck is a devastating debuff. And you'll also have access to some more offensive, damage dealing spells like Whirling Blade, Creaking Cacophony, Cacophonic Burst (read: sonic fireball), and Wail of Doom.
There are also ways to increase your presence on the front lines. From the Complete Warrior, the Improved Toughness aids your hp total and Arcane Strike allows you to sacrifice a spell to gain a bonus to both attack and damage. A bow is also a good weapon for you since you likely have a decent dex. It allows you to attack from the rear lines, which is good due to your low-ish hitdie, and you still benefit from your own Inspire Courage. If you have a strength score less than 10, use a crossbow with the quick loading property instead.
And don't forgot to make use of your skills. Ranks in tumble make it much easier to get around the battlefield and into advantageous positions where you can safely fire your bow and cast spells. High ranks in Spot and Listen can save your party alot of grief that would otherwise be caused by stealthy opponents attempting an ambush.
Last, but not least, you have access to UMD. Use it to keep some interesting options around. Ray spells are good offensive choices for wands since they often have no saves, though you'd probably be better off picking up utility spells if your party has offense already covered. Though I will say that Ray of Stupidity (SC) is a very nice spell to have in wand form. Its use is situational, but the int damage cause by it can drop low-intelligence foes like dire animals, dinos. Can the fighter drop a purple worm in one hit? No? Didn't think so :P
The bard is generally a jack of all trades; however they can be further defined depending upon what you want to focus on. You can make a bard into an imitation of nearly any other class depending on what feats and PrCs you choose.
Others have already mentioned ways that the bard can be effective in combat, but to be honest these are all just making the best of a bad situation: a bard in a brawl.
But even a dungeon-crawl campaign has things to do between the fights. This is where the bard shines. Bardic Knowledge means never having to bother with a Knowledge skill (although having both gives you two chances to succeed, a very rare opportunity in D&D): a bard's player should ask the DM at every opportunity. DMs love to hand out behind-the-scenes information, and sometimes the trivia a bard unearths can save the party's bacon. ("Say, the seal on this door was used to banish the Nightwalkers from the surface world. Maybe we should try the other door instead.") Negotiations may seem dull, but most dungeons have internal politics, and getting Faction A to help you kill Faction B is something a bard does better than other classes. (The Diplomacy-oriented rogue mentioned by a previous poster is a valid option... but he's giving up a lot more interesting skills than the bard is for the sake of diplomacy.)
Of course, if the bard still doesn't do it for the player in question, multiclassing can be fun. It might seem like combining two "weak" classes is a losing proposition, but a fighter/bard has strong saves across the board, enough skills to be useful, the lower-level bardic inspiration abilities, access to scrolls/wands/etc. from the bardic spell list... and can still pull out his composite longbow and greatsword when things get bloody. (There are ways to optimize the build - I'm sure you can think of a few.)
As others have stated though, Extra Music is awesome, cuz you never run out of support at lower levels and you never run out of suggestion (one of the best effects in the game for it's accessability) at higher levels.
Okee, my cousin plays a bard in our session and is...somewhat at a loss. The fighter and monk are somewhat overpowered brute-slayers. They practically take over all the combat and everything, she relaly can't hit much.
So I'm goign to ask, what exactly do Bards do? What are they good at?
Anything?
Thanks,
~theuberkodama
Do you want my honest answer? My most pure and honest answer? You probably won't like it.
Have her remake the character as a Rogue Sorcerer, and go with the Prestige Bard instead.
What level is the campaign?
If possible, have her take up Arcane Strike, and Two Weapon Fighting, if you still have a feat left, go with Snowflake Wardance. Problem solved. She will go from never hit, to practically never miss in an instant and she will outstrip both of them in damage out put.
Bards really aren't good for anything without special help and optimization.
If the bard has moderate to good strength then taking Battle Caster would be good for higher AC. (Complete Arcane)
The Bardic Music feats in the Complete adventurer are always helpful.
My favorite feat for the bard is Melodic Casting. It allows the bard to use perform checks in place of concentration (to use spells and such) and you may also cast spells while using bardic music. (complete mage)
If the DM is OK with her taking the Sublime Chord class the Melodic Casting feat will allow the bard to cast disintegrate while using bardic music (Inspire Courage). If the bard takes the Sublime Chord class then the bards casting potential will be comparable to any wizard or sorcerer in the group.
Monk-7 (The monk’s highest damage dealt to a creature was 110 damage exactly. Sick for a lvl 7)
Fighter-8 (Usually always hits, has a +14 bonus to his sword.)
Druid-9 (That WS really grinds my nerves.)
Bard-5 (Not great at much.)
Yes I’m the DM, so why does the fighter and monk have such insane bonuses at their level? Because one of my filler DM’s filled in this one day and they got these new weapons with those bonuses. They all really like their bonuses so I didn’t want to take them away.
Personality of each Player playing their charries:
Monk-Dislikes maps were there is sneaking involved and any encounter with out some huge monster. xD.
Fighter-Loves fighting monsters and having minions to slay with his Great Cleave. Can like negotiations.
Druid-Likes Wild-shaping and sometimes annoying me with his spells.
Bard-Wants to prove that a Bard is good and that she will be useful in their party.
So as you can see the Bard is not in the best group. She doesn’t exactly want to mulitclass, though. So yeah, basically I’m thinking of giving her a lot of good items to match everyone else. The Bard does not have that special bonus to her weapons cuz she wasn’t playing D&D at the time. So in combat she stinks. But she doesn want to actually kill SOME monsters while being the parties negotiator. But the party doesn’t really need on because….well…..it’s hard to put anything like that in becuz the monk and fighter gets bored by it.
It’s either make a map with small monsters in it and bore everyone else, or throw in big monsters and bore the Bard. I really don’t know what to do.
Sorry if I keep repeating myself, :P , and please tell me of any questions I didn't answer or if you have any questions that will affect your final input. :embarrass
~theuberkodama
Just one level and she can start suggesting and that's where the real bard fun begins. "Your pal over there has really been plotting all along to use you to get in better with your boss and then kill you when he's done; we'll help you kill him now." Usually works nice with a good bluff check (she is a bard, right?) since most things you're fighting are evil, and evil knows how evil works.
Sorry if I keep repeating myself, :P , and please tell me of any questions I didn't answer or if you have any questions that will affect your final input. :embarrass
~theuberkodama
As the only Arcane caster, you could supply that player with wands and scrolls that do cool stuff the other player cannot.
Alternatively, when dungeon crawling, you could allow the Bard to make Bardic Knowledge checks to guess what lives there and what might be coming up.
"You know that song that goes 'Don't open doors, until you check all the floor'? I think we should check for traps."
"Don't go in there! That's the infamous choker-chimney from The Tale of the One-Handed Sorcerer! Don't you listen to my tales?"
She should get 5 ranks in decipher script and spellcraft for the synergy bonuses. She should have use magic device maxed out. She should have her charisma as high as she can get it. Take the feats skill focus (use magic device) and magical aptitude.
When using scrolls her UMD check modifier will be lvl+3 + 4 (synergy) + 5 (feats) + ability score. for scrolls it is 12+lvl+ability modifier. If she had these feats and skills at her current level and a charisma of 16 then she would have a +20 to UMD checks with scrolls. She automatically can cast a lvl 1 spell. This modifier is 4 less for non scrolls, but a 16 is quite high for a level 5.
The good thing is she can't fail her check by more than 10.
Tell her about this and give her character a lot of magical items such as wands, rods, staffs, scrolls or just anything.
This also works well with the dragonfire adept class in the dragon magic book. I think its cool when you can cast higher level spells than the wizard and cleric in the group. Using the Use Magic Device skill the bard can easily put other classes out of a job. Her bard needs to open a business for funds, so that she can by lots of wands and scrolls.
If you have access to Complete Mage, consider taking the Lyric Thamaturge PrC. You still gain Bardic Music as a Bard and you get greatly expanded spellcasting. Using this, you may also gain Sor/Wiz spells (say hello to evocation/conjuration). The one other tip I can give is to not overspecialize. One of the defining characteristics of the bard is its ability to fill in any role in any situation.
Adding wizard spells to your list makes your Bard a blaster in combat, choose a couple of meta-magic feats and meta-magic rods and you can really pack a punch, the additional benifit is that these meta-magic feats also effect the bard's cure spells, so you can be a combat medic or blaster as the case may be.
Bards are, from the get-go good in social situations (skills & class features, CHA focus), for party buffing (inspire courage/greatness/etc., spells). They also make decent archers. Mechanics aside, they also offer plenty of fun roleplaying opportunities.
Beyond that, bards have plenty of options to be really, really good. For example:
Melee (not my forte, but since the player in question seems to want it, so this is from the top of my head):
- Items
- Gauntlets of Heartfelt Blows: +CHA fire to damage
- Harmonizing Crystal Echoblade: +½ Bard Level (10) sonic damage on melee attacks, keeps bardic music active by itself
- Slippers of Battledancing: CHA to hit/damage instead of STR if moves 10+ft.
- Gauntlets of Heartfelt Blows: +CHA fire to damage
- Feats
- Snowflake Wardance: +CHA to hit
- Words of Creation: double Inspire Courage (IC) bonus
- Song of the Heart: +1 IC
- Dragonfire Inspiration: instead of providing a to hit / damage bonus, your Inspire Courage adds +1D6 fire damage to each melee attack for each ally per point of IC bonus
- Snowflake Wardance: +CHA to hit
- Inspire Courage, optimized: +12 to hit & damage or +12D6 fire to damage to each melee attack for each ally (*)
- x2, Words of Creation
- +1, Badge of Valor
- +1, Inspirational Boost
- +1, Song of the Heart
- +1, Masterwork Horn
- Vest of Legends, +5 levels
- x2, Words of Creation
- Spells
- Creaking Cacophony [SC]: Creatures in the area gain sonic vulnerability
- Inspirational Boost [SC]: +1 inspire courage
- Creaking Cacophony [SC]: Creatures in the area gain sonic vulnerability
(*) Depending on how your DM adjudicates the Words of Creation feat, its doubling of the IC bonus can also include the +1 from the various feats & items, resulting in (+15 to hit/damage or +15D6 per melee attack). More might be possible, but I am AFB right now.
Option: Take 1 level of Sorcerer for Draconic Heritage (Battle). This makes the damage bonus from Dragonfire Inspiration deal Sonic damage. Note that sonic damage is doubled by the Creaking Cacophony spell.
Summary: As a Bard19/Sorcerer1, you could use IC & Creaking Cacophony at the beginning of an encounter, giving yourself and all your allies that can hear you up to 30D6 sonic damage to each melee attack. Your weapon keeps the effect in place. If you start a Snowflake Wardance now, you get 2xCHA to hit (moving 10+ ft.), and do an extra 2xCHA+9 damage on each hit. Since CHA is your main stat, that's quite nice.
Even without the cheese, a mildly optimized Inspire Courage can greatly improve the effectiveness of all party members.
Spellcasting
Very simple: Sublime Chord PrC, 9th level spells. If you want to do the IC optimization at the same time, use something like Bard9/Virtuoso1/SublimeChord1-2/Virtuoso8-9
You can still get the same effects as from the melee focus, except that your blade will do less sonic damage, and your BAB suffers.
If you are not into melee, consider a dip into Mindbender for Telepathy.
Buffing
Inspire Courage and Spells. Use the spellcasting build above. Consider adding levels of the War Weaver PrC (after Sublime Chord, of course), and your spells will affect the whole party. Buffing is fun, by the way, and makes everyone in the party happy.
Debuffing
Bards have nifty save-or-be-screwed spells, too, such as Unluck [SC]. If you really want to optimize this, take the Doomspeak [CoR] feat. It's strange save mechanics make it succeed virtually every time, and the -10 on all the enemy's rolls pretty much guarantee that your next spell (Unluck!) lands.
If Dragon material is ok, consider taking the Unseelie Fey template [DC], it offers (among other options) a power that reduces the saves of all those adjacent to you by your CHA modifier. Neat that CHA is your primary attribute.
If you focus on debuffing, the spell Assay spell Resistance [SC] is very useful, as are the Spell Penetration feats.
The level’s are:
Monk-7 (The monk’s highest damage dealt to a creature was 110 damage exactly. Sick for a lvl 7)
Fighter-8 (Usually always hits, has a +14 bonus to his sword.)
Druid-9 (That WS really grinds my nerves.)
Bard-5 (Not great at much.)
Like Tytalus mentioned, bards are not weak. The problem here is the level difference. A level 5 character will always be weak compared to level 7, 8 and 9 characters, no matter the classes*.
*barring broken combos like pun-pun
Like Tytalus mentioned, bards are not weak. The problem here is the level difference. A level 5 character will always be weak compared to level 7, 8 and 9 characters, no matter the classes
I concur completely. The ridiculous items only aggravate the issue.
I'm afraid I missed the OP's post detailing the levels of the characters. He seems to have two problems:
1. Power imbalance caused by (A) items, (B) level discrepancy
Disclaimer: I believe that giving a weapon with a +14 bonus to an 8th level character is a terrible idea.
The item issue can be easily addressed:
- Make the items accessible that I mentioned above, including the Vest of Legends.
- Consider increasing the bonus on the Echoblade, or make it a (home-brewed) legacy weapon that gets stronger as the player levels.
- Give her an item that provides a massive CHA bonus. This increases her spells per day, spell DCs, to-hit and damage (in combination with the other items)
- Throw in a decent light armor (mithral chain / breastplate +X)
Other things to do:
- Discuss character options with her, point her to useful feats and spells. Perhaps show her how strong IC optimization can be. Discuss PrCs.
- Allow her to exchange feats and (if she decides to go the Dragonfire Inspiration route) to use a dragonblooded race.
- Close the level gap.
However, I'd remove the offending items from the other players. This requires some maturity on their part, though.
2. Playstyle issues
This is harder to solve. Since the other players don't seem to enjoy encounters that play to the bard's strength, you'll need to compromise.
Perhaps if these players see that reasonably short social encounters can lead to big advantages for the party (items, help, status, etc.), they'd find them more interesting.
Otherwise, keep those to a minimum and buff up the bard to be a combatant. Melee, ranged, or arcane - depending on her preference.
End result? Most rounds he kept singing, plinked an arrow, and moved to keep close enough to melee that he could rush in for a heal or flank if needed.
He wasn't the star of the show, he was definitely support, but it worked well enough.
You can't cast a spell or anything or you count as stop singing/playing music.
But you can sling a arrow, slash with a sword, etc.
Arcane Strike is a fantastic feat for a Bard interested in fighting: you have the spell slots to spare.
What the Bard may not know is Inspire courage doesn't take an action to maintain. Yes, that means you can fight after the 1st turn of singing.
You can't cast a spell or anything or you count as stop singing/playing music.
But you can sling a arrow, slash with a sword, etc.
Arcane Strike is a fantastic feat for a Bard interested in fighting: you have the spell slots to spare.
With the feat Melodic Casting the bard can cast spells and use bardic music unless the bardic music requires concentration, such as with fascinate. I think this feat is almost a must for a bard, especially one that wants to get heavy into spell casting.
Okee, my cousin plays a bard in our session and is...somewhat at a loss. The fighter and monk are somewhat overpowered brute-slayers. They practically take over all the combat and everything, she relaly can't hit much.
So I'm goign to ask, what exactly do Bards do? What are they good at?
Anything?
Thanks,
~theuberkodama
I played a bard for about 5 minutes. Bards are the people who stand in the back of the group, cast Daze on random enemies, play country music, and occasionally stab something. Then they die.
My favourite character who I've recycled a couple of times was a bard, and she was quite broken for the simple reason that our DM didn't put a cap on skills. Therefore I had millions of ranks in perform and people had to roll a nat 20 to pass her fascinate save. And obviously that then leads to suggestion.
I cross classed into stormsinger which meant that I could control weather while singing: with a caster level of 20. At level 10.
I defy anyone to say that my bard was weak. (Well, she was underground.)
Also there was something so cool about the image of this little gnome controlling the weather, creating hurricanes etc while singing at the top of her voice, possibly to Nightwish.
I played a bard for about 5 minutes. Bards are the people who stand in the back of the group, cast Daze on random enemies, play country music, and occasionally stab something. Then they die.
An optimized bard will be as good as most other optimized builds, just depends on what sources you can use.
Threads: http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=48277&highlight=bard
http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=952766&highlight=bard+builds