CO help, how do you make a bard good?

[darqueseid]

I've seen people gripe about how terrible bards are, but is there any combination of prestige classes, etc that can make it viable? 

I'm not talking TO realms of course, but what can you do to start as a bard and make a bard the best it can be? 

Seeker of the song looks weak.  As do most of the bard prestige classes I've seen...

is a dip in marshal worth it?  if we think of the bard primarily as a party booster...

[Garryl]

Inspirational Boost + Badge of Valor + Song of the Heart brings the paltry Inspire Courage +1 to +4 (I think there's another easy +1 out there I'm missing). Words of Creation can then double that. Large attack and damage boosts like that are definitely worth something.

Sublime Chord is a good way to access high level spells.

[dipolartech]

Do you want to focus nearly all of your character's resources to being an Inspire Courage godling or are you interested in being more well rounded?

Do you want to be a spell heavy bard/prc mix at later levels or a more of a gish style prc build out?

[Empirate]

Here is a complete build on a Bard base, stylish and quite competent at a lot of things, especially melee and group buffs.

Personally, I like Human or Strongheart Halfling N Bard 5/Mindbender 1/Lyric Thaumaturge 4/Sublime Chord 6/Fatespinner 4. Take the Mindsight and Doomspeak feats, and you're good to go with a 'magical' bard.

[Solo]

Behold Black Jack Wellesley, the Dread Pirate King!

One level of Marshal allows him to add his Charisma bonus to allies' Dexterity rolls, including initiative, while nine levels of bard grant him a Inspire Courage of +8 when all feats, spells, and items affecting it are accounted for, as well as Inspire Greatness.

Finishing off the build are ten levels of Dread Pirate (honorable path) which improves Inspire Courage and grants some pretty nifty abilities when using Inspire Courage, such as temporary hit points equal to 10 + Charisma modifier, a dodge bonus to Armor Class equal to Charisma modifier, and the Die Hard feat. Dread Pirate also allows you to take 10 on certain skills, such as Tumble. Black Jack's tumble modifier in armor is +41, which means that he can tumble up a vertical surface. Sure, a wizard could just cast fly, but that's just not as stylish as breakdancing your way up a castle wall.

Slippers of Battle Dancing allow him to use his Charisma modifier instead of Strength/Dexterity when calculating attack and damage rolls if he has moved 10 feet or more. (They also grant +5 to tumble and, if you have more than 5 ranks in Perform, +2 to initiative.)

Imperious Command allows him to severely demoralize people with Intimidate, while Combat Panache gives several useful tactical maneuvers for a Charisma based swashbuckler.

The Bard Mimicking Song ACF replaces Countersong and grants allies a +4 bonus to move silently.When combined with Motivate Dexterity, it allows Black Jack and his crew to sneak around with with catlike tread.

Other songs which will be featured when he has to inspire his crew include:

Pirates of Penzance - The Pirate King Song

HMS Pinafore - A British Tar Is A Soaring Soul

Muppet Treasure Island - Shiver Me Timbers

Arrogant Worms - Last Pirate Of Saskatchewan

Inconceivable!

[Cyclone Joker]

Dude! Bards are amazing. For a melee-focused bard, you just get an Echoblade, maybe grab the Gauntlet of Heartfelt blows, and a masterwork horn. Pump up your IC and grab DFI. For a caster bard, you could go with a Bardzilla, or just go SC.

Bards can do really whatever they please quite well.

And, NO. Marshal is terrible. Avoid it like the plague.

[Solo]

Avast! Black Jack Wellesley (see above post) begs to differ, you scurvy cur!

[kitcik]

No offense to Fistbeard, but this is one of the most fun builds you have posted. I will have to try this.

EDIT: except sadly the actual link won't work for me...

EDIT2: found him here: http://www.thetangledweb.net/forums/profiler/view_char.php?cid=62699

[Cyclone Joker]

Avast! Black Jack Wellesley (see above post) begs to differ, you scurvy cur!

Meh. It's a passable option at best. It only really is good on trip-monkeys, diplomancers, Iaijutsu builds, and other odd skill-based builds. Generally subpar.

Also? You linked to the wrong British Tar.

[Solo]

Ah, Jean-Luc Picard. If there was ever a Marshal, it was Picard.

[altpersona]

 

(click to show/hide)

bard 3 / wizard 17 : precocious / practiced 

[Unbeliever]

Not to be snarky, but who in the hell ever said bard were terrible? 

Bards can be obscene party buffers, powerful debuffers, and good utility characters all at once.  And, that's without Diplomancy or cracking out their spellcasting via Sublime Chord. 

Solo has some more advanced options.  But, cracking out Inspire Courage + Dragonfire Inspiration is extremely potent, especially if there are martial characters in the party (or god forbid, a summoner).  Doomspeak is ... incredibly good.  As are things like Haunting Melody.  I happen to like Dirgesinger for its capstone with works kind of like super-Revivify, but it's not a well-optimized option.

And, on top of that they have some decent spellcasting, especially if you're creative ...

[sirpercival]

DFI is pretty much a requirement for buffing bards.  Makes the rest of the party extremely deadly.

[Empirate]

Behold Black Jack Wellesley, the Dread Pirate King!

<snip>

Arrr! Me frigate be closer-hauled than yer sorry bucket o'worm-ridden dampwood! Ye scurvy scallywag kenna keep up wit'a speed o'me postings!


Also: the Bard Handbook, and a bit of stuff about Inspire Courage Optimization, just to make the OP realize how misguided Bard detractors really are.

[SorO_Lost]

Not to be snarky, but who in the hell ever said bard were terrible?

Sure the hell not be me.

Take the Inspire Courage setups. +1~+2 from Bard alone since you probably wouldn't take your effective Bard level past 8. +1 for a Natural Horn, +1 for a Badge of Valor (only 1.4k for 3/day), +1 for Song of Heart picked up by trading Fascinate out, +1 for Inspirational Boost by expending a 1st level spell slot, then double the entire bonus for Word of Creation. The easy +12 moral bonus to Attack and Damage turns even a simple commoner into a deadly machine. And unlike level 20 builds where you may handwave things away as "oh it's awesome cus it's level 20", you can hit this bonus by level 8. In fact, you can do it in E6 if you wanted. This isn't a capstone trick but rather one you've had the entire time.

Dragonfire Inspiration turns your Attack bonus into d6s of Damage to use against your enemy. And a Crusader dip not only gives it's own fun Martial Adapt bonuses, but at no IC loss you can pick up Song of The White Raven which lets you IC as a Swift action. In a single round you can use the standard IC and Dragonfire versions. Lastly, something like Lingering Song persists IC's effect for ten rounds after you use it, meaning you could IC/Dragonfire as a Swift action and Full-Attack every round of combat while the entire party benefits from your buff.

And are you short of party members? No problem. Since Song of Heart can be picked up for free, Words is 6th level+, and Lingering Song can be replaced by Harmonizing. You're pretty much only looking at Dragonfire being picked up at level 1. With Human or Flaws you can pick up Greenbound Summoning by going Savage Bard. Heck, pick up Augment Summoning too. Greenbound Animals are fracking insane before you used IC on them. Afterwards? Your army of plant-bears soaked in acid tear through the side of a mountain to "surprise" a dragon so you can afford a new cloak.

Finally, spells. the Bard's spell list is full of insane skill boosts like Sticky Fingers (+10 to slight of hand), Improvisation (+1/2 cl to any skill), or Glibness (+30 to bluff). You can get your Charisma to Saves (ruin devler), Blind people as a free action (blinding beauty), half all melee damage the party takes (empyreal ecstasy) and so on. Bard also gets Nixie's Grace and Snowsong, among other things they allow the Bard to obtain +6 to his Charisma no other character has the means to do. And not only due your Save DCs get higher than most other casters (try 50+), Metamagic Song can be used to give you a method to Persist without having to PrC out into Incantatrix.

P.S. Sublime Chord, A Bard-Only PrC, grants Sorcerer/Wizard 9th level spells. In case you thought the 6th level cap was his only weakness.

[Amechra]

Yeah, Bards are amazing.

My party kinda cries whenever I don't play a bard; they like tossing large numbers of d6s about, and don't know enough to get 'em themselves.

Fights have gone from slogfests (both sides are unoptimized, DAMN IT!) to quick, lethal-for-the-other-side affairs.

[Empirate]

<stuff>

With Human or Flaws you can pick up Greenbound Summoning by going Savage Bard. Heck, pick up Augment Summoning too. Greenbound Animals are fracking insane before you used IC on them. Afterwards? Your army of plant-bears soaked in acid tear through the side of a mountain to "surprise" a dragon so you can afford a new cloak.

<more stuff>

Good advice, except for the above part. The Greenbound template turns your summonses into Plant type creatures. Plants have, among others, the following trait:

Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects).

The Green Ear feat (was it reprinted/updated in 3.5? I only know the Song&Silence version) gets rid of that problem, for what it's worth, but it's more feat tax, on an already feat-starved build.

[darqueseid]

Not to be snarky, but who in the hell ever said bard were terrible?

Sure the hell not be me.

Take the Inspire Courage setups. +1~+2 from Bard alone since you probably wouldn't take your effective Bard level past 8. +1 for a Natural Horn, +1 for a Badge of Valor (only 1.4k for 3/day), +1 for Song of Heart picked up by trading Fascinate out, +1 for Inspirational Boost by expending a 1st level spell slot, then double the entire bonus for Word of Creation. The easy +12 moral bonus to Attack and Damage turns even a simple commoner into a deadly machine. And unlike level 20 builds where you may handwave things away as "oh it's awesome cus it's level 20", you can hit this bonus by level 8. In fact, you can do it in E6 if you wanted. This isn't a capstone trick but rather one you've had the entire time.

its not clear to me that natural horn gives you a +1 bonus, the exact wording is that it increases your bonus from +1 to +2.  Strictly speaking I don't think the horn gives you a bonus after you've already gotten to a +2 from bard levels. 
Still, everything else seems valid, and a +10 to attack and damage rolls to allies is ok I guess   

and as far as who said bards suck, my gaming group has really glossed over them actually. Not sure why, but the people who generally play tier ones have looked down on them-I guess they assumed everything a bard can do they can do better.  And the people who play lower tiers have avoided them as support roles...  I see that we have been mistaken, since it seems like they can do some things very well, apparently better than the tier ones can.  I guess we're still just talking about them as support, but it seems like better than our group had thought...

[SorO_Lost]

its not clear to me that natural horn gives you a +1 bonus, the exact wording is that it increases your bonus from +1 to +2.

If not, Complete Adventurer gives you a masterwork instrument that gives +1 to IC's attack (which is what dragonfire scales by).

The Green Ear feat (was it reprinted/updated in 3.5? I only know the Song&Silence version) gets rid of that problem, for what it's worth, but it's more feat tax, on an already feat-starved build.

Every build uses 100% of Feats. Feat tax is required Feats due to the lack of them gimps your normal choices. Like Natural Spell for Druids and Adaptive Style for Swordsage.

As I literally covered in my post, your typical IC focused Bard is looking at
Dragonfire Inspiration: Needed
Lingering Song: Keeps the buffs up while you do stuff like attack.
Song of Heart: +1 to music effects, awesome.
Song of White Raven: Swift action IC.
Words of Creation: Double music effects, even more awesome.
Except, no.

Lingering Song can be replaced for an 8k magic item and you can trade a less useful music ability for Song of Heart.
Dragonfire^F, Anything^F, Anything^1st, Anything^Human?, Song of White Raven^3rd (assuming crusader dip at lv3), Words of Creation^6th & Song of Heart^7th (assuming bard 6 at this level, replaces Bardic Music's Suggestion) which leaves 2~3 unused Feats, plus everything between lv7 and lv20 which is at least another four on top of that.

Also Greenbound & IC is fracking insane to begin with, Augment Summoning is a toss in for a wth range of power. The only reason I even mentioned it as an offhand comment is because a Human would have room for it. Before level 8.

[Endarire]

Look here.

Also, in the Player's Handbook 177, in the part under "Voluntarily Giving Up a Saving Throw," an Elf can willingly suppress his racial immunity to metaphysical sleep effects.  Ask your GM if you can have your summonlings ignore their morale immunity upon your command.