[Build] Bard

[cosper123]

The idea here is a Bard...with perfect two weapon fighting, utilizing a rapier. Was trying to avoid exp pen if possible....so went with Rock Gnome. Cleric thrown in for Evasion (need for PrC) and the weapon focus and heavy armor focus (knocking out three requirements for PrC).

Thing is...never had a bard before, so no idea really what they NEED. For example, I don't have curse song in here...is it really that big of a deal?

So anyhow...what do you people think. On one hand the two weapon angle seems like it's taking up too many feats...but with CoTW and deadly defense....perfect two weapon fighting doesn't seem too bad to me. You guys seem much better at breaking down this stuff than I ever have been, so please do your worst before I waste my time on another build I won't be happy with in the end.

Thank you in advance.



Bard(15), Can Lyrist (10) COTW 4, Cleric(1)

Race: Rock Gnome

STR: 6
DEX: 18
CON: 10
WIS: 8
INT: 14
CHA: 16

Lvl 01: Bard(1): Dodge
Lvl 02: Cleric(1): Water and WAR (rapier)
Lvl 03: Bard(2): Combat Expertise
Lvl 04: Bard(3): DEX+1, (DEX=19)
Lvl 05: Bard(4):
Lvl 06: Bard(5):Weap finesse,
Lvl 07: Bard(6):
Lvl 08: Bard(7): DEX+1, (DEX=20)
Lvl 09: Bard(8): Extend Spell
Lvl 10: Bard(9):
Lvl 11: Can Lyrist(1):
Lvl 12: CoTW(1): Deadly Defense, Battle Caster DEX+1 (DEX=21)
Lvl 13: CoTW(2):
Lvl 14: Can Lyrist(2):
Lvl 15: Can Lyrist (3): Monkey Grip, Two-Weapon Fighting,
Lvl 16: CoTW (3): DEX+1, (DEX=22)
Lvl 17: CoTW (4): Two weap fight
Lvl 18: Can Lyrist (4):imp two weap fight
Lvl 19: Can Lyrist (5)
Lvl 20: Can Lyrist(6): DEX+1, (DEX=23)
Lvl 21: Can Lyrist (7): great two weap
Lvl 22: Can Lyrist (8)
Lvl 23: Can Lyrist Bard(9): DEX feat
Lvl 24: Can Lyrist (10): DEX+1, (DEX=25)
Lvl 25: Bard(10): Perfect two weapon fighting
Lvl 26: Bard(11)
Lvl 27: Bard(12): Song of Requiem
Lvl 28: Bard(13): DEX+1, (DEX=26)
Lvl 29: Bard(14): Hymn of Requiem
Lvl 30: Bard(15)

[cytoc]

I really love curse song, especially with a lingering song thrown in on top.

At level 16 (along with 25 modified perform ranks), you give your opponent -2 AB, -3 dmg and -5 AC, which is AOE centered around you, irresistable and lasts for 10 rounds (15 with lingering song).

I find that kind of thing priceless.


With evasion, I'd also try and fit in expose weakness. It'll give an additional decrease to the mob's AC.

Battlecaster is probably not that effective, with your dex you probably will spend most of your time in light armour, if any at all, so it becomes a wasted feat.

Weapon finesse is coming in really late, even though you can fast start, you'll be fighting with a -2 AB bonus until level 6. Switch it with combat expertise to get it at level 3 IMO.

I'm also not sure about rock gnome, considering the cost that monkey gripping two rapiers will cause to your AB. It also looks as though 1.35 may see shortsword added to the CotW dex dmg feat, so you may find it better to dual wield shortswords. However that will still come with an AB penalty. I strongly recommend going a medium character for dual wielding to get CotW dmg bonus.

I assume you're using Can Lyrist to up cleric spell levels, rather than bard spell levels? If so, you're going to have a really low wisdom, or have to take an amulet and give up your nat armour bonus from amulet.

If you're going to be taking bard spell levels with Can Lyrist, I'd probably try and squish in 2 levels of SD for the evasion and max hide / ms and leave cleric out of it. - Edit: forgot about heavy armour requirement for CotW. Guess that make cleric even more effective...

These things are obviously going to leave you very stretched for feats. Not sure if I can offer you much advice on what to take and leave out

Good luck.



Just to add:
I've been playing around with CotW dex based builds and have struggled to get a TWF bard based build that I'm really happy with (I'm thinking something along the lines of 16 bard, 2 SD, 2 Fighter 10 CotW or 10 SwB). I've settled on the sword and board dex based melee guy when using bard, or fighter heavy TWF-ers.

I'm yet to really play around with Can Lyrist either, but I would be more likely to use it to pump the cleric spells, whilst still giving you the bard song increases. In which case maybe something more along the lines of 6 bard, 10 Can Lyr, 9 Cleric and 5 CotW. Gives you lvl 9 cleric spells, level 16 bard songs, 2 bonus feats from CotW. This guy would probably be a sword and board character, but you'd also have holy warrior to boost dmg... Once again doesn't help with the TWF-er.

[mammothtruk]

SongBlade will bring about a new era of two weapon bards. Its a long way out but it will be worth it.

[shoujo]

Lyrist - It's a waste to advance bard casting with the lyrist, since a bard basically already does what a lyrist does well enough. Cleric casting's the way to go, allowing you to combine just about all that's good about a bard to make a cleric even better than it already is. If you go this route, the stat to dump would be charisma since you can just use a cha cloak without sacrificing AC.

Race - Why gnome instead of human?

Stats - Think you'll want to squeeze in combat insight there. Elegant strike stacks with str, so dumping strength's a bit of a shame unless you're going to turn that int into str damage.

Feats - Don't think you can qualify for the requiems without 21 bard levels unless K's changed something.

[Kaedrin]

Lyrist 5 provides some serious sonic punch and shouldn't be ignored. Past Lyrist 5 is debatable. Great Shout does 18d6 sonic.

The Requiems require 20 song uses/day, NOT bardic levels.

[Beldar]

I have been working on a bard too, but am pretty unhappy with my results. I am starting to think that the bard prcs are not as good as just bard by itself. My build is a Yuan-Ti: 8 Bard, 2 Shadow Dancer, 10 Lyric thaumaturgist, 10 Canaith Lyricist.

I am thinking of abandoning her and making an EDM bard instead, maybe something like 17 Str, 18 cha (human) 20 cha (aasimar or yuan-ti but xp penalty) : 15 Bard, 4 RDD, 1 Cleric, 10 Heartwarder.

I haven't done much with bard so I'll need to spend some time in the trainer to sort out what is worthwhile. The heartwarder levels pump cha (and thereby damage), but might not be worth the loss of curse song power.

[Kaedrin]

An EDM bard is not a bard, it's a build that uses bard to get EDM. It's a one trick pony, same as all the other EDM builds.

[shoujo]

Good to know about the requiems.

And I agree about the bard PrCs. So far I've found swiftblade to be the most useful for someone that wants to advance bard casting and melee, straight bard for casting and songs, and lyricist for cleric casting and bard songs. The lyric and stormsinger are just gimps.

With RDD, I don't think you need a heartwarder. You gain 4 str and 2 cha from the last 6 RDD levels along with the other perks which is more than the heartwarder's 5 cha in 10 levels and you don't screw your BAB in the process. 10 RDD/4 heartwarder might work, but I think the prereqs are a bit of a waste for just 2 cha.

[cosper123]

Well I decided to go with this now...idea being duel weilding bard with holy warrior, deadly defense, and cotw. Cleric casting will bring me to one level 9 spell for the power word kill for holy warrior boost to damage. Bard level will be high enough for legionerre's march or whatever it's called or spelled. Decided to level out Bard and Cleric levels so that I didn't need Rock Gnome to avoid exp pen....and the Assimar had good stats so it makes up for the 1 ECL.

Race: Assimar
8 bard, 10 Can Lyr, 7 Cleric and 5 CotW.

STR: 8
DEX: 18
CON: 8
WIS: 15
INT: 13
CHA: 16

Lvl 01: Bard(1): Dodge
Lvl 02: Cleric(1): Water and WAR (rapier)
Lvl 03: Bard(2): Combat Expertise
Lvl 04: Cleric(2): DEX+1, (DEX=19)
Lvl 05: Bard(3):
Lvl 06: Cleric(3):Weap finesse,
Lvl 07: Bard(4):
Lvl 08: Cleric(4): DEX+1, (DEX=20)
Lvl 09: Bard(5): Extend Spell
Lvl 10: Cleric(5):
Lvl 11: Can Lyrist(1):
Lvl 12: CoTW(1): Deadly Defense, Holy Warrior DEX+1 (DEX=21)
Lvl 13: CoTW(2):
Lvl 14: Can Lyrist(2):
Lvl 15: Can Lyrist (3): Curse Song
Lvl 16: CoTW (3): DEX+1, (DEX=22)
Lvl 17: CoTW (4): Two weap fight
Lvl 18: CoTW(4):imp two weap fight
Lvl 19: Can Lyrist (4)
Lvl 20: Can Lyrist(5): DEX+1, (DEX=23)
Lvl 21: Can Lyrist (6): great two weap
Lvl 22: Can Lyrist (7)
Lvl 23: Can Lyrist Bard(8): DEX feat
Lvl 24: Can Lyrist (9): DEX+1, (DEX=25)
Lvl 25: Can Lyrist (10): Perfect two weapon fighting
Lvl 26: Bard(6)
Lvl 27: Cleric(6): feat
Lvl 28: Bard(7): DEX+1, (DEX=26)
Lvl 29: Cleric(7): feat
Lvl 30: Bard(8)

[cytoc]

I'm not really sure about the value of deadly defense. It's only of use when you're in CE mode, which I'd find more attractive if you had TWD feats.

Even so, it's still only +1d6 magical damage, which, once you have +9 divine and +13-ish magic damage is kind of negligable. I'd rather have persistent spell (you could switch in a TWF feat as the CotW level 1 bonus feat), which could be used to give persistent divine favour (only lasts 2 mins when extended) and persistent weapon of energy (which affects both weapons with one casting, I believe).

For playability reasons, I'd also switch Combat Expertise with Weapon Finesse. But this may not be too much of an issue if you're fast starting...


It may also be worthwhile trying to tweak starting stats as a Yuan-ti, rather than Aasimaar. Admitedly you then need to level ECL 2, rather than ECL 1, but I think you could spread the stats out better this way.

[cosper123]

Am I correct in assuming the extra damage from holy warrior, deadly defense and divine favor would apply to both weapons?

My desire for deadly defense is for those extra-tough situations like the skellis. Something where although I'd hinder my attack rating...I could boost my defense and damage...every little bit counting when trying to bypass DR.

Yeah combat expertise and weapon finesse no big deal. Not only am I fast starting, but I'm leveling up to my mid teens as a sorc as it'll be soooooooo much easier (and faster)than doing so as a Bard.

[mammothtruk]

reasons to do away with the relevel options IMNSHO(in my not so humble opinion)

[Beldar]

I don't see how leveling into his mid teens with an aasimar as a sorceror is going to be faster. First, he can't rebuild level 1 so he has to take bard there if he is following his build plan. That means that sorceror levels are going to incur an XP penalty once they progress beyond 2 unless he also levels bard.

Generally, I think the lowest levels are slowest with a caster. My casters level very quickly once they get to fifth level spells or so, but those first few levels are a real slog. I find a pure melee specialist to be the fastest leveling at the low levels. With all of the extra feats, a fighter can get whirlwind attack from fast start. Whirlwind can turn a pack of angry chodes into a blood cloud.

Fighter doesn't work for his build either. I guess if he wanted to quickly level an aasimar, he could take paladin levels.

I don't have a problem with releveling. If people are eager to exhaust the playable content, it seems like that is there perogative. I don't do it, but I do like having the option to rebuild characters that end up sucking, but that have useful starting stats. Beldar is like that. He really struggled in his initial incarnation, but now that I have rebuilt him he is passable. I don't think people who eagerly bypass the playable content should whine about the need for epic content (not that I am saying Cosper123 does this).

[cosper123]

Yeah the lower levels are painful for a mage but as soon as you can fireburst regularly it's an ease. Exp pen, ECL gimp, whatever...

And yes on this character I am bypassing playable content and will (and do) whine about the need for epic content. I think it's a moot point, however. Epic content should be there, period. I got tired of waiting for it with one epic character...and then another...both that went through the "playable content" and then hit a stone wall. I am passing through the "playable content" until my teens on this character because I am, quite truthfully, bored. Once I get this char to level 15 I will reroll with my intended plan above. From there I'll take him up until I hit that wall of 'lack of epic content' and then I'll most likely take a break until characters here have a feasible way of hitting 30 without millions of painful repeditive battlefield battles.