DominionSeraph's Endurance Powergaming Party.

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I decided to come up with an ultimate powergaming, HoFable party that fit my playing style.

Six Bards, anyone? (Yup, all six party members have Bard levels.) [can you tell where this is going?]

Here's what underlay my decisions:
- I don't like to abuse the rest system. Sure, Sorc(30)'s are powerful -- for about 20 minutes. Then they need to rest for 8 hours. I don't consider sleeping for 23 hours/day to be "adventuring."
- HoF summons is a retarded situation, so no HoF summons.
- I don't metagame my prebuffs. Casting all your 1 rd/level buffs before you go through that door, or casting encounter-specific protections is cheesy. I just like to cast my 1 hr/level buffs immediately after resting and then be able to bulldoze my way through the majority of each chapter.
- No reliance on random drops. I don't want to feel the need to cheat myself up a Massive Greataxe of Flame +5 because I built a character around it.
- No ORS, pre-patch Improved Invisibility, etc. Again, cheese.

Basically, a powergamed party should feel powerful all the time, so that's what I went for.

Ease-of-Use components installed:
~Bugfixes~
~Infinite Stacking~
~Deep Gnome Starting XP~
~Collector's Edition Bonus Items~
~No Alignment Class Restrictions~
~Always Get Some XP Per Kill~
~Stronger Bastard Swords~
~Include Forgotten Armor and Shields~
~Non-Combat War Chant of the Sith~
~Additional Druid Spells~
~Alternate Shapeshifting~

This build does use the improved Bastard Swords extensively (Considering you have to spend a feat to become proficient, I feel the mod's improvements aren't overpowered, with the exception that Fang is available too early [1d10 +5d6 acid [23 average plus it kills trolls] available for 11k gold at Galloway in normal mode]). This build also also has three Bard/Monk multiclasses which would normally be alignment prohibited.

I went full Evil because... what powergamed party wouldn't go out of its way to avoid being hit by Blasphemy?

On to the characters!

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Characters 1 & 2
Both are Deep Gnome Fighter(4)/Monk(20)/Bard(5)/Cleric(1)

16/20/14/3/20/1

Fighter(4) for the feats to burn on Abidexterity, Two Weapon Fighting, and opening Specialization in Bastard Swords and Axes (Character# 1) and Bastard Swords + Polearms (#2)
Monk(20) for the damage reduction, unbreakable SR, permanent +4 AC, and fast movement speed (only four Boots of Speed in a Normal+HoF run IIRC. Having them available to your other characters is WONDERFUL.)
Bard(5) for songs. (Lingering Song a must for all characters)
Dreadmaster of Bane(1) because I made level 30 before the Banenite quest in HoF and I couldn't think of anything better to put it in.

Ambidex and TWF because this party starts out with FOUR level 1 Bards, then levels up three of them right away up through (5) to (11). That's +4 to hit and +4 damage from level 1, and add +3 from luck at level 5.
That off-had attack makes a BIG difference in damage output through normal and the first few chapters of HoF with those kinds of damage-adds.

Character #1 adds ability increases to Wisdom for AC (73 AC reached). Character #2 to STR for Massive Halberd of Hate insanity. (He still reached AC 58 without either brazen or indomitable bands)

Multiclassing penalty was compensated by squatting at Fighter(4)/Monk(5) all the way until the Goblin Fortress HoF, where I hit Monk 20 and never looked back. (HoF Targos was far easier with level 9 tanks than normal was with level 1's, and being level squatted was netting me 1000xp per kill)

Regardless of what Jukka says, Monks do NOT suck. Yes, a cleric or mage can beat them for an encounter or two using by breaking into their store of 1 rd/level spells, but for power that just won't quit, a Monk(20) is the only way to go.

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Character 3:
Female Drow Bard(11)/Cleric(16)/Monk(1)/Paladin(1)/(Rogue(1)

18/18/16/5/18/5

Starts off as Bard(1) w/ Lingering Song, switches to Cleric, adds the level of Monk when AC is needed (Edit: Add the level of Monk before Chapter 6 Normal to use the +1 attack/rd monk-only Thunder Clap with the Massive Halberd of Hate +4)., Paladin level before the Holy Avenger quest, and Rogue when you get Crow's Nest. Finishing off the last 10 levels of Bard has to be done by squatting to avoid a 60% MC penalty.
She gets the Indomitable Bands for DR and AC, as well as all the SR potions.

Pump STR because she also gets a Massive Halberd of Hate. With the Monks being faster and in the front row, the reach of the Halberd tends to keep her behind them, which is good since with lesser DR she tends to take more damage.
IIRC, she had an AC of 60 at the end of HoF.

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Characters 4+5
Drow Bard(11)/Sorc(19)
Drow Bard(11)/Sorc(18)/Wiz(1)

18/18/16/5/3/20

A caster with 18 STR? Damn straight! There are ranged weapons all along that give strength bonus to damage, slings being the first.
First two feats are Lingering Song then Rapid Fire. With character #6 who also gets Rapid Fire, and two front-liners dual-wielding, that brings us to 5 characters who very early on have an extra attack per round to take advantage of the multiple Bard damage bonuses. At level 8 these guys have 3 attacks/rd doing a set 15 damage with just the early +1 slings. That rips through normal mode.

These two pump STR and switch from slings to Big Death and Big Black Flying Death when available. 30STR with Champion's Strength gives +15 damage. With that damage bonus, those axes beat out Mord's Sword for damage. (you have to spend a feat to get axe proficiency, but it's worth it.)

You can squat at Bard(11) until Sorc(10/11/12) to avoid a multiclassing penalty. I stayed at Bard(11) all the way until the verge of Sorc(19). Not having any area-effect damage spells made the River Caves in HoF kinda hard -- especially the Ochre Jellies (I spent an hour real-time beating on those bastards [I was silly to engage them]), but by doing so I had everyone at level 30 by Dragon's Eye.

(Character #5's Wiz(1) was to be able to equip Mystra's Embrace. I felt losing a die of spell damage was worth the constant 10/+2 DR.)
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Character 6
Deep Gnome Bard(11)/Druid(19)
8/20/12/18/15/1

This character is my concession to the fact that IWD2 is not all combat. He gets all the points in Search, Disable Device, Pick Pockets, Alchemy, and Spellcraft.

With no strength bonus and no proficiency in bows, he has to stick to the crossbow Hagnen's Folly (+3) and it's HoF counterpart (+5) for most of the game. I had the former at 4 attacks/rd with rapid fire and switching to the latter gave 5. (Don't know why these crossbows give so many attacks, but they do.)
His final weapon was the Screaming Axe.

Oh, with a CHA of 1, he can't use any of his Bard spells. No great loss there.
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That's my party. There may be 16 songs to refresh every 3 rounds (thank god for a customizable action bar w/ hotkeys), but it beats out a party with 12 Tymora's Loops.

(Of note: The AC's listed are fully buffed. Adventuring AC was 12 under that if I just went with the 1hr/level Mage Armor and Cat's Grace, and 7 less if I added 190 rounds of Barkskin)

 

Bard song stacking is AFAIK a bug. Otherwise a group of six bards is pretty much invincible.

 

Sounds like god-moding.

 

Not quite god mode. I failed to mention that those ACs weren't, "sustainable adventuring ACs," (fixed) and it's still HoF. Monk #2 did get in trouble a few times wading into battle thinking he was a god. Bard songs are short ranged, and if you're surrounded by enemies while having only 51 adventuring AC, then you lose all four War Chants of the Sith and drop down to 43...

"Ethereal! Ethereal! Ethereal! I need Heeeeealz!"

 

The stacking of bard songs is a "bug". Exploiting bugs is pretty much the same as god-moding I think.

 

...and you continue by descending into rather... how to put it mildly... extensive level-squatting and using no less than five bard songs on top of each other?

Sorry, you kinda lost me there.

Also,

Let's see if I got this one straight: Instead of getting two tanks, you get one somewhat split-minded monk (courtesy of alignment removal and exotic squatting scheme) plus two guys that just barely meet the minimum levels of AC where it even starts to matter?

I'm not sure I follow why that would be a good thing.

 

DominionSeraph, I don't want to stifle your enthusiasm here. You definitely put a lot of thought into the party, but you made a number of common mistakes. XP penalties for all party members indicates to me, that you're taking way too much on your plate, and don't realize the negative consequences.

Heavy mixing of classes makes your characters poor at everything. Not in a bard-way, as 'jack of all trades but master of none', but genuinelypoor at everything they try (melee, spellcasting). The leveling system of IWD2 makes every extra mix-in level weigh more and more heavily upon the advancement of your main class.

Planning a character to be 'perfect' once it reaches level 30 is another common error: you need a party that is effective thoughout the game. It's an adventurer, not a painting! In fact, level 30 isn't achievable without playing multiple runs through normal and Heart of Fury mode.

There are plenty more factors to take into account, I detail them in my guide, which I'd suggest you take a look at. I'm definitely a proponent of parties with lots of mix-in levels, and my 'versatile' powergaming party is effective without metagaming pre-buffs, although they retain the ability to use almost every spell. You need to understand that when mixing-in classes, less is usually more, and delayingmix-ins can be very advantageous.
If you read why I came to certain decisions around my powergaming party, I guarantee you will be able to create a party of your own, that will withstand scrutiny much better!

 

Level squatting uses a disparity in encounter level to net XP. What evil party wouldn't use such a shortcut to power? It's not like they need to take those levels to ensure the protection of the innocent...

See, I can RP level squatting. I can't RP ORS where every enemy in the game will still be targeting an invulnerable foe, or a level 4 spell that turns you into an untouchable death-dealing machine for 1 minute/level.

(and this is my party)

Levels 1-4 there's four, which is less than five. ;D

Two tanks wouldn't work anywhere near as well. Two gets surrounded MUCH easier than three, and the reduction in damage output means they're just sitting there waiting to be critted.

This is a party that has FOUR 30 Strength characters wielding 1.5x STR weapons, two with additional day-long sustainable +10 damage (+6 songs/+2 Hope, +2 gloves), one with +13 (add Power Attack 5, subtract gloves), one with +15 (add specialization), all four with x3 crits -- three critting on effectively 13-20 and one 11-20. The worst of the meleers can be buffed to a 30% miss by AC to a +52 BAB Attack 1, which 99% of HoF creatures don't even have, the ones which do being battles which which warrant Recitation/Prayer/Despair/Slow. They have 8/- DR which stacks with Stoneskin's 10/+5, and any enemy with a weapon that can bypass Stoneskin gets focus fired down.

This isn't one of those weak-ass "ultimate powergaming" parties.
I could make it more powerful still if I gave up the realistic resting and trap detection/disarming. But that doesn't suit my playing style.
I finished HoF in under 25 days without being anal about resting (I always had my store of buffs), and carrying around that silly little Druid who only did 231 average damage/rd. (By comparison my Sorc does 333.5 and my Fighter/Monk #2 does 475. Even my tank did ~330.)

---------- Added 0 hours, 56 minutes and 53 seconds later... ----------

This isn't a theorycrafted party. I posted this after finishing playing it.

XP penalites are largely avoided during gameplay through smart level-ups. The worst penalty you HAVE to take is squatting 5.99 levels at 20% MC penalty with your two Fighter(4)/(Monk(20)s to tack on 5 bard levels, and then you gain 0.01 level xp at 40% penalty to tack on the Dreadmaster of Bane(1).

Level 30 WAS reached before the Banenite quest in HoF. Why do I care if they have 60% MC penalty after that?

The Cleric is Favored for female Drow, so she NEVER had to take a multiclassing penalty. Cleric(16)/Bard(1)/Monk(1)/Paladin(1)/Rogue(1) is 0% penalty. You squat the last 10 levels to jump to Cleric(16)/Bard(11)/Monk(1)/Paladin(1)/Rogue(1). You have a ridiculous penalty there, but you're at the level cap, so who cares?

My Bard/Sorcs squatted at Bard(11) all the way 'till level 29 and 30. Instead of squatting 18/19 levels, you could just squat to Sorc 10/11/12, as those all are within 1 level of Bard(11), so no MC penalty as you squat the rest of the way to 30.

Bard/Druid did Bard(11), then squatted 12 levels which he took in Druid (gave full barkskin with no MC penalty), then squatted the remaining 7 levels.

It IS effective throughout the game. Did you miss where I have two characters dual-wielding and three with Rapid Fire to take advantage of the Bard song damage adds?
+4 to hit and +4 to damage to every attack from LEVEL ONE!
+3 to luck from level five!
Two characters with 18 strength wielding slings (+4 strength bonus, at least +5 with Bull's Strength)
There are two Bastard Swords available early which give 5d6 added damage.
There's a Bastard Sword in the Black Raven monastery which gives constant effect: Executioner's eyes. With +3 luck and Improved Critical, it crits on 11-20.

This party is insanely effective from the second you step off the Wicked Wench, as your characters all effectively have +4 weapons and you're sporting two Deep Gnome fighters tanks.

 

These parties are not based on using an exploit.

Please, do enlighten me, what sort of RP is involved? I for one can't RP level squatting but I'd be eager to learn.

 

They all exploit something.

My inner DM rather enjoyed the sight of 6 characters all with major investments in Bard having synergy. I would have balked at the thought of six only splashing Bard(1) for the cheapo exploit, but if you're gonna put in the levels, why not get the bonus?

Think: Climbing Mt. Everest without supplemental oxygen.

That's making things more difficult to enrich the experience.

 

That's equipment though. Level Squatting is more:
Climbing mount everest, but climbing it like you've never climbed before in your life.

The levels are meant to represent improvement in your character, but due to the nature of the system spending skill points gradually does not necessarily work so well. Instead the level of experience between levels is meant to represent the amount of time taken to improve skills and abilities.

If you drew pictures, every day, you would see a gradual improvement, you wouldn't draw ten pictures then suddenly the eleventh would be better, then the 21st, then the 31st. You see gradual improvement and alteration in style and technique.

While you can argue level squatting represents a character hasn't quite 'clicked' with a certain skill or ability refusing to advance any skills or abilities isn't quite the same vein.

 

Oh, I forgot that you apply squatting to get to level 30 fast.
Personally, I use the level 40 patcher & extended tables, to get more out of my game. I still don't find it necessary to do any squatting at the end; it would feel like spoiling the character, by making it into something disingenuous.

This is all opinion of course, everyone plays their own game, and decides for theirself what is acceptable. I've had lots of criticisms myself, for installing almost every mod there is for the game. It can be argued that the overpowered items available make the game too easy. But as a guidewriter, I strive to achieve some level of acceptance, by not using certain game exploits like level squatting. This way, although the party uses mod items, the characters remain authentic, and applicable to an unmodded game.

There are many character builds out there that have level penalties, some due to squatting (so they never suffer actual XP penalty), and some that played with the penalty (it has even been said that the XP penalty benefits the rest of the party. I disagree, since the character has to suffer more than 5 levels before the rest in a 6-man party even gains a level.)
The game designers created the XP penalty system to reflect the more current D&D rules. Older rulesets simply wouldn't allow for such mixing of classes. The heavy penalties are intended to make very exotic characters unappealing, but still allow you to take a previously restricted combination if you really want to. Taking 4 party members with penalties is already stretching the rules, but avoiding the incurring penalties due to an exploit is.. 4th-wall breaking.

On the topic of why your characters are poor for a lot of the game:
Your warrior classes are very mixed. So although their attack bonus advances like a pure warrior, they will gain their extra attacks/round significantly later. The attacks/round seem to be capped at 5, and most warrior classes achieve this at level 21 (monks at 28, unarmed 18). I've also experienced that almost no items allow my characters to gain more than 4 main-hand attacks unless they have the necessary levels. It really matters, as I'm sure you'll agree.
Turning to spellcasting, the difference between pure and heavily mixed characters becomes even more clear. At level 30, your level 19sorc/bard11 will have to specialize in self-buffing spells, because his offensive and debuffing spells are weak, and easily resisted by magic-resistant monsters (there are many of those). The spell caster's level affects hit die of spells, duration, and of course at what character level certain spells are available. Your lvl19 sorc will only know 2 level 9 spells with 4 base castings. One more level and he would've known 4 with 6 castings!

 

You don't seem to have picked on the (obvious) irony in my previous post.

You can't RP level squatting. IMO that is a flaw in IWD2, it should work like in NWN so that level squatting shouldn't even be a possibility.

It's a breach in the system.

Trying to come up with RP justifications is not sensible at all and I was merely picking up on that.

You seem to have a lot of fun with your party and that's what counts and as far as playing style is concerned anything goes, it's just that your idea of fun is very close to god moding (as it has been pointed out earlier). Nothing wrong with that as long as you're having fun.

 

It doesn't matter.
A pure warrior is going to get beat up at the end of normal, and is going to get his ass kicked in HoF. It doesn't matter that a Fighter(16) has 5 attacks/rd dual-wielding while my Fighter(4)Monk(5)'s are going into HoF with only 3. The Fighter(16)'s 28 AC going up against HoF goblin 26 BAB? Hahahahahaha!
My Monks were sporting an AC in the mid 40s around Chapter 5 normal.
Their Bard backup gave them +7 to hit and +6.4 damage counting Luck, and another +15% to damage from +3 Luck bonus to crit on their x2 weapons, far surpassing a 4th attack without such bonuses.
At the Horde Fortress they hit Fighter(4)Monk(20), giving them 5 attacks/rd dual-wielding, a WONDERFUL 20/+1 DR, unbreakable SR, super fast movement speed, and +3 to AC.
The Fighter still only has 5 attacks/rd, no DR, and 28 AC.

My monks were gibbing HoF goblins at clvl 9. Damage was NOT a problem.

With all the class adds, none of my meleers gain 5 attacks/rd mainhand. But my tank is dual-wielding and Char #2 has monk-only bracers which give another attack/rd, so they have 5 attacks. My cleric is wearing the Indomitable Bands instead of the other set, so she'd need to be hasted to reach 5 attacks/rd. But 4 attacks with +12 to hit and +12.25 to damage due to Bard Songs and then add +60% to damage from Luck's +6 to crit on an x3 weapon... yeeeeah, I'm not really minding those Bard levels.

I used one level 9 spell the entire game, just to try out Wail of the Banshee. Needing to spam level 9 spells is for weaklings.
Damage die are pretty much irrelevant. The difference in average damage between a 19 sorc and a 30 sorc's DBFB damage is ONE NON CRITICAL HIT BY ONE OF MY MELEERS. So a DBFB on 9 enemies? 3/5ths of a round difference.
And that's not even taking into account that my meleers have double the damage output of a standard party, and the sorcs have around TRIPLE the weapon damage.

SR penetration? What do I care? The sorcs are doing over 300 damage/round with their weapons! The only time it's worth taking them off throwing axe duty is when there's a horde of enemies to AOE down, and hordes do not come in the variety in which they all have SR.

Look, you obviously can't comprehend what Bard bonuses do, so stop embarrassing yourself.

 

Coineineagh is nicely commenting on your build and offering suggestions and the least you could do is show some respect and appreciation for what he is doing.

You are embarrassing yourself by being so aggressive and disrespectful.

It seems obvious that you can't handle criticism all that well but that is not an excuse for being rude to a poster who is only trying to be helpful.

 

Yes, my optimizations resulted in a very effective party.
If you modify the experience tables so no character can get past level 1, no level of optimization will result in a very effective party.
That's just the interaction between gameplay and potential.

---------- Added 0 hours, 35 minutes and 9 seconds later... ----------

Criticism has to be correct to be useful. Spouting naiveties as though he is somehow authoritative is rude.

This is a party focused on sustained weapon damage and tank protection and he doesn't understand the relationship between the Bard class and either.

 

DominionSeraph, that last remark to me was uncalled for. If my posts read to you as condescending, then it was entirely unintentional. Only the words come across on a forum; our minds determine what the intonation of the writer was. My intended tone was not as negative as you imagine, so please don't see this as an attack on your pride.

In Heart of Fury mode, enemy attack bonuses go way up, making your armour class nearly useless unless you figure out a construct to artificially raise it to around 72AC. Many people go this route and describe how they get one or more characters up to this AC. I don't like this method personally, since people weaken their characters for an imperfect defense. Most depend on monks and short-lasting buffs, you employed bard song stacking, which is somewhat original.

Still, I disagree that attacks/round can be insignificant. I decided to go the straightforward route, without employing 72AC-decoys or -tanks. What more attacks per round does for me, results in the same thing as having high AC: It lets me get in more hits than the enemy, by shortening the duration of battles. I won't pretend that I don't take damage with my frontliners, but the damage is quite minimal. Enemies are taken down too fast to harm my characters significantly. It's also quite satisfying to watch my battlecleric fell an Iron Golem in 5 hits. Try using the modded Bastard's Son sword in the off hand: the Executioner's eyes effect carries over to your main-hand weapon, meaning you can use nearly any weapon with constant ExEyes!
As for spellcasting; when applied correctly, spells can save you a lot of hassle. It doesn't even need to be lvl9 spells: A lvl5 Dismissal can defeat tough summons much faster than any weapon can (unfortunately your lvl11 bards never get that spell). A simple Prayer or Recitation can improve your combat significantly too. If you ignore spellcasting, you're neglecting a whole dimension of gameplay. Instead of a rewarding tactical experience, your combat is reduced to a hack-'n-slash war of attrition. Good thing you have that high AC...
And I've never had any issues with goblin hordes in normal or HoF: they are my favourite opponent to use AoE offensive spells on. Their casters and archers can barely tickle my party, and their melee-ers don't even get close, since they're all roasting in a web or something similar.

Anyway, perhaps you should think about what you're trying to achiev by posting on this forum. My intention has always been to exchange information in an honest fashion, in order to increase my (and others') sum total of knowledge. A scientific approach. You seem to be going down the political route, where you've staked your pride on your initial statement, and will defend it fiercely. I've had to swallow my pride a few times on this forum, but the rewards were great. I've learnt a great many things, like the effectiveness of Rapid Shot, the importance of timing and minimizing mix-in levels, etc. The knowledge I gained from admitting I was wrong in the past, has resulted in my party being greatly improved. I hope my preaching tone hasn't soured you to this approach...

 

You're the one being rude here. I can only say that comments like those are unproductive and may only antagonize people who don't see things the way you do.

If you knew Coineineagh better you'd know that he is not condescending and his post just proves it:

It takes a wise man to learn from his mistakes and I think that Coin has put into words the interest of posting in this forum better than I would have. Most of us here would agree that we've learned a lot by contrasting different opinions.

I can only salute Coin's patience and the fact that he has shown his willingness to overlook disparaging comments to invite a sensible exchange.

I'd suggest refraining from personal attacks and focusing on build discussions from now on.

 

And Bard Songs do that too.
The difference is that after 3 attacks/round buffed with Bard songs, I still gain additional attacks/rd. After 5 attacks/round, you do not gain more attacks, nor do you get the Bard Song buffs.

I will outdamage your party in the beginning. I will FAR outdamage you in the end. There is a point in the middle, like towards the very end of Normal mode, where your meleers (only) might do slightly more damage than my two Fighter(4)/Monk(5)'s. But my Cleric is still leveled and sporting 20+STR and wielding the Massive Halberd of Hate with ~+9 to damage and +30% average damage on top of that due to increased crits. My back line Bard(11)'s have the same 3 attacks/rd w/ Rapid Fire as a pure Sorc would, BUT they get ~+6 to damage each hit and +15% to average damage from Luck's effect on crits.
My Cleric does enough additional damage through Bard Songs to be more than the equivalent of +1 attack to the party. My 3 backliners are also doing an average ~80 EXTRA damage/rd through their songs, so that's the equivalent of an additional attack from each.
So at this highly squatted position I'm doing damage equivalent to that of a party with 4 more attacks/rd. And with three Bard(11)'s, I'm in the mid 40's for AC, meaning I'm simply not getting hit.

So I have:
Equal damage.
Tons more AC.
Massive growth potential into more attacks/rd, DR, even higher ACs, fast movement speed, unbreakable SR, ethereal.

Whereas you have:
Equal damage
Far less AC
No growth potential

I like my positioning better.

See, I rather knew about it.
At one point both my Fighter/Monks had constant effect: Executioner's Eyes. (Know Thy Family is the HoF version of Bastard's Son)

When your party does 2000 damage/rd, what's a "tough summons"?
My casters have much better things to do with their time than Dismissal. Their spell slots are not there to make a simple encounter that has ZERO threat take 5% less combat time (then tack on 8 hours of rest and 5 minutes IRL to rebuff the party) -- they're there to give me options in major battles.
Swarms of weaker enemies? DBFB.
Fewer, super-strong ones? Recitation+Malison+Despair+Hopelessness+Mass Dominate+Slow

Not to my party. The to-hit bonuses are irrelevant when you hit on every attack anyway. The to-hit penalty to enemies is meaningless when they can only hit you on a natural 20 anyway. The saving throw bonus doesn't matter when you're sporting saves which are all in their 40s (+12 to saves from 6x Tymora's melodies). The saving throw penalty is only meaningful if you're casting spells.
And +1 damage is a drop in the bucket.

You're still thinking like a weakling. This is not a party which has to burn through its stock of short-duration buffs/debuffs just so it can squeeze through each and every encounter by the skin of its teeth.


Look, just run the party. The first two posters here said, "a group of six bards is pretty much invincible," and, "sounds like god-moding," and you're trying to negatively compare it with a straight warrior/caster build? What, like we are somehow in the dark as to the power of such a vanilla grouping?
We're not. We know what a vanilla party is like. We know how it plays. A vanilla party is not, "pretty much invincible." A vanilla party is not, "god-moding." The simple fact is that a vanilla party is weak compared to exotic builds.

 

Four War Chants of the Sith stacking is definitely overkill (no need for the "weakling" comment as this is the basis for your party and the song stacking is what makes it work).

The Non-Combat War Chant of the Sith from Ease of Use makes the song stacking effects permanent. I wonder how your party would have fared without it (probably more resting involved and more switching on and off singing even with Lingering Song).

I'm not an HoF player (overpowered items, monsters that are completely over the top, that's just not my style). Most people play HoF with walls of summoned creatures and I really don't like using summons.

Some players don't however: Kmonster did solo HoF with a Ranger and a Barbarian (link) which are not the most obvious choices for a solo (a solo Bard would probably be a much easier class to solo).