Bards

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I am planning on making a bard, what feats and skills should i choose? Also, should I multiclass?

 

I can't understand why people ask these questions, as ultimately it is you who play them and you who develop techniques with them.

Anyway;
A high CHA, Weapon Finesse, Proficiency in Small Blades, any Enhanced <insert Spell School> Spells, Dodge (a must). Take a Ranger level for the Ambidexterity feats, or Fighter for fighting ability.

Up to you really. Depends if you want a Fighter/Rogue/Spellcaster-ish bard really.

 

The bard is a support character. As opposed to a fighter, wizard, paladin, or monk.

There's no much point, really, in multiclassing a bard, unless you want to strengthen his role has a fighter.

He learns quite a few handy mage spells. And he has two songs which actually are pretty handy to have, if you take the "lingering song" feat.

Other than that, the charisma determines his spellcasting abilities; you'll want to eventually give him an 18 int, as a minimum. The bard will be casting spells. He will do a little knife work. And inbetween those spells and swashbuckling, he'll sing a song or two.

 

I truly enjoy bards for their convenience. That being the case, here's my favorite role-playing build. My favorite "power build" (if they can ever be said to be for power) is below.

Barbarian 1/Bard X (this gives him that artistic temperment--"What! How dare you insult me! I'll cut both my ears off with equal skill with both hands!")

Str 12 (He's going to be identifying everything--give him the strength to carry stuff. No less than this.)
Dex 14
Con 10 (He's not going to do melee. Period.)
Int 10 (add to this as you go)
Wis 10 (Come on--he's a roving musician who has to make his money by traveling on dangerous trips and singing while other people get hacked to bits. Does he sound smart and wise?)
Chr (18+)

He sings. He IDs. He shoots an occasional arrow. Tra-la-la! He's a backup-backup mage for summons and buff spells, clearing up those slots for your mage/s for pure offense spells. A sorcerer or pure wizard works nicely with this plan.

My second build is actually useful.

Rogue 4/Bard 11 (that's when he gets his last song, right? Whenever he does that, stop leveling and go back to rogue.)

Same build as before, but rob something to max out dex. Put points into hiding and sneaking and opening locks and other thief skills. He's a thief who can ID things and support your troops and backup your mage. He's not your back-stab sniper rogue, so don't worry about those feats.

I've enjoyed the bard in the latter role, especially. He really starts to matter in higher levels when defensive magic is so important and your opponents start to resist everything. Your defensive magic is non-interuptable and has no casting time--not bad.

 

BGP, your first bard is my usual setup. And I usualy load my bard up with the level 7 and 8 area effect spells.

But you're right, in that your wizard should be setup for all the hardest hitting spells, and your bard should have all the other *useful* spells covered.

The only other thing I might mention is put one dispel in on your bard, at the very minimum. It's frustrating to have all your spellcasters confused or a couple charmed, and the rest don't have a dispel left to cast.

 

OH GREAT now you tell me that Bards aren't the hack and slash type!!!!!!!!
After I spent all this time on him! I use him AS my wizard!
1- Barbarion
1-Range
1-Fighter
1-Rogue/Fighter
1-Wizard/Cleric( usually the female of the group)
AND ONE OH SO BAD, NOT TO BE TRIFLED WITH, BUTT-KICKIN' SWORD SWINGER LIP SYNC' BAD ASS BARD.

RAV'N (and, oh yeah ...the Bard....thats ME

 

You never asked...

 

The following has been posted before, in a "bard sucks" post.

Does anyone know that a level 1 bard is the best minions summoner of all classes?

Take a sorcerer, with limited CON, huge INT, you might maxed you concentration. Then you attempt to summon your minions, take Animate undead for example. Your sorcerer, no matter how many level, can only summon one minion at a time, expecially those high level ones, correct? Your sorcerer, no matter how many level, still need some duration for a spell to fully cast and the minion to appear, correct? Your sorcerer, no matter how many level, still has a chance to fail the concentration check and lose your spell before you can finish it, correct?
But, a bard, a lvl 1 bard can use a horn that you've gotten from the werewolf merchant in western pass foothill and summon 3~6 barbarians in no time.

No one expect these barbarians to withstand a single battle. But, due to the fact that it require no time at all to cast so many barbarians, they are instant meat shields. It is so instant that these barbarians can laugh at how not instant those Japanese instant noodles are.

3~5 barbarians is for the horn you found in normal mode, 4~6 is for the horn you found in HoF mode.

 

Oh great, now we're all blowing our own horns!!!

 

You never asked ...

 

Is wisdom and intelligence important to bards, How many ability points should i put on them ?

And the future 4 lvl ability points where should they be put on (all on Charisma)?

 

Depends on how you want your bard. There's a good build on a post above.

Wis/Int isn't important. But, if you're going to do something like a rogue/bard, then int would come into play. So, just depends.

If you just want a 100% bard, then make it stupid. you'll get by fine with 10 int, 10 wis (If you're a stinkin powergamer, give it a lot less).

That barbaric bard build does look fun. : )

 

Hey! Is that just me being or getting paranoid? I just thought I read exactly the same post in an other very related thread ?

And check the posting-times... You really were in a hurry, heh? Well, hurry then!

 

Thanks for all the stuff guys. Master of Nuhn, I didn't see the post, no biggie alright.

[ February 13, 2003, 03:11: Message edited by: Bigfatguy12 ]

 

Bigfatguy12,
You started your thread at Feb 10th. The other started his/her thread at the 11th. So you couldn't have seen that thread. So my post was not ment for you, it was someone else who should have looked better.