Thanks! section. The bonus to attack is conditional; you won’t get it every attack. It also scales very well. I’m curious what suggestions you would have for boosting the music (plan on taking Chaos Music since it fits) as well as synergies with and super jack-of-all-trades build (be everything, cast everything, do everything). Bard Inspiration – Companions now get a +d12 to Hit. Definitely cool. Mostly a face for the party, but not bad with spells either. You talked about multiple perform skills, I’m taking oratory right now so I won’t need my hands but am I supposed to spread my skill points all over the place to make use of all those instruments? I’d ask on rpg.stackexchange.com to be sure. Use it with Disguise (as Profession), Diplomacy, Sense Motive, and especially Gather Information. You can turn your party into flying whales. My spell compendium says it’s a level 3 spell. I’ve updated it to two stars. Any help would be great. You can get by without it, but it’s one of the better options. But probably not worth the loss of a spell slot. 2. Since it advances Bardic Music along with its divine casting, it allows you to pull this trick off *yourself*. © Friends: Better for intimidation or goading someone into attacking you then actually doing anything friendly. Thanks for a really nice response. 🙂. Cracking work on the guide, by far the most detailed, well presented guide I have read for anything d&d. But at levels 1-8, you’re doing a For example, if a creature is currently shaken and Typically, you want to choose skill tricks that suit your character. At lvl 12 i want Lyric Song to have more and more possible way to use spells. I think that and the Inspire Courage buffs are worth the two feats, alone, for some builds (Heartfire Fanner comes to mind) even if you don’t have any of the other standard Bardic Performances. Therafim did a poor job of denoting that what they did was homebrew. With Melodic Casting i have the Entry Requirments to be a Lyric Thaumaturge, but before it my goal was to be a Virtuoso and then the Seeker of the Songs. To elaborate, I’m actually working on an NPC who may become an enemy boss for the players to fight – a vampiric Bard who is a high-ranking commander in an undead organization. Thank you for putting this together! Two-weapon fighting and I have not gotten along well in the past. Objective information is our business here, eh? Thank you so much for the guide, this has helped me so much since I haven’t played 3.5 for something like 12 years… I would say that Lyric Spell is outright better than Metamagic Song when it comes to Persistent magic builds. On it’s surface +1 AC and Saves for 1 hours is it’s a weaker buff. You said it all. In my case the DM went so far as to waive the evasion req because he wanted to see this in play. I have a couple of questions, however, regarding spell casting as a bard in general and instruments. Savage Attacker: Even 2-handed valor bard don’t want this. really high perform check. Any build progression with War weaver ??? Druid 3 : Magic secrets let’s you keep Cha as your cast stat. Dispel Magic: Great if you fight a lot of mages, but can be a little niche. Becomes better with barbarian in party – he can use his own bonuses, while not wasting his daily use of rage, very good since you have a lot more daily musuic that he has rages. Note also that it doesn’t require attacking. The class is really well designed, progresses well, and there are no core dips or prestige classes I can really recommend. They easily could have ©Polymorph: Generally you want to use this to add a massive amount of Temporary Hit Points (Tyrannosaurus Rex), to a friendly. Warcaster: For valor bards so they can cast “S” spells with their hands full, or insult people who run away from dissonant whispers, and add to their concentration checks. Freedom of Movement: Immunity to a lot of nasty things. — Ur-Priest gives you divine casting — “An ur-priest gains the ability to cast a number of divine spells. Monk: Very little reason to go monk, even as a valor bard. Im level two now with melodic casting and dragon fire inspiration. It has a lot of nice effects that all benefit the gish-bard: 10′ move, +5 to tumble, +2 to initiative, and a conditional +3? Huh? Key Ability Score – Similarly, the key ability score is assumed to be the minimum necessary. Bards get a moderate number of known spells. ©Lighting Arrow (level 3): While does less damage then other things (even with +2 archery style), the fact that you can pre-cast it before you kick down the door is handy. Note starting Paladin gives you heavy armor. Make a poison taste like a refreshing glass of juice. Hello Josh, your handbook is great and has helped me out a lot with playing bard for the first time. Mounted Combat: Even valor bards don’t make enough melee attacks to make good use of this. This does come at a high slot cost, but it really opens up your options. Does not solve material and focus components. That is great. Thanks for your analysis and your time. Better if your DM allows for more creative curses like immobilizing a melee only guy. Have you or anyone met this problem and thus maybe found a solution? It seems far to strong in this case. Today in Thoughts and Things, we have the optimization of the D&D 5th edition Bard Class that has been archived from the Wizards of the Coast D&D Community boards. Elf (wood, high): Not much here. You say a dip in rouge is only 2 stars, what if you decided to dip into martial rouge for a level or 2 for the bonus fighter feats? Perform check with Keyboard Instruments, Bard 4/ Paladin 2/ Eldritch Knight 9/ Sublime Chord 1/ Abjurant Champion 4. A great 2-level dip or 6-level dip. I love all of this and got much indeas for my own bard. A little gentle encouragement can go a long way here. Eventually getting peerless skill to make you the ultimate skill master. An impressive collection of bard stuff, u helped me to confirm some ideas of my build, thanks a lot. If you are looking for good bard feats, Chaos music (Dragon Magazine 326 page 80) is something to look at. What is your opinion about this “OR” thing? It advances Druid spells, which makes it handy if you want to do a Druid/Bard theurge. Refrain is good *** – area dispel check with SotS + bard level bonus. RAW it isn’t easily countered, although most groups go RAI/RAMS and say that Mind Blank/equivalent does. Observant: For the scout in you. But most importanly knowstones which are items that allow for additional spells know, they’re expensive though calculated the same as pearls of power. The benefit to ‘being able to attack’ doesn’t do Really, I don’t juggle bardic musics. This loses steam later since most OA’s don’t scale and reactions get more competition (reactions reset at the start of your turn) Rogues, Warcasters, Necromacers, and Summoners can keep this gold, clerics and paladins keep it sky blue. I can see why a Whisper Gnome makes a bad choice, but what’s wrong with regular gnomes? That sounds accurate to me. Resilent (Wis): If you didn’t take Con, Wis saves are pretty nice too. Greenbound summoning is a very powerful feat, and being able to build into it as a bard is really cool. LA+0. I run a human bard with Bard 6/Lyric Thaumaturge 1 now and my future build will be Bard 6/Lyric Thaumaturge 4/SotS 10. I don’t recommend doing this, because it will piss of your DM and co-players, but it definitely exists as The DM is Thanks a lot for your hard work from Italy! I think it’s too much of an ask to allow LT to continue SC casting. Far cheaper than the corresponding staff, and you definitely want it to be a staff or runestaff so that your stats apply to the creature. This is one reason that I give Melodic Casting a 5* rating. Charger: This is bad for just about anyone past the first few levels. It loosens up druid armor/weapon restrictions. Plus it costs almost NOTHING to get into. put him down. I like to use these when I am contemplating putting together a character in a new class to understand how they work. So I’m kicking myself for a few choices in feats and the like now. Thanks! as a sorcerer, so it’s important to make sure the spells you choose have a wide range of cases where they Gold isn’t mandatory and red isn’t quite a trap. The other times I then used chrome and this time also tried edge but no luck (originally in Dragon mag 304) No LA http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Battle_Knight_Bard_of_Sublime_Chord_(3.5e_Optimized_Character_Build) 🙂. Very didatic and easy to use. Rhythm – Extending bardic musics isn’t too exciting. Addendum: Oh, and the telepathy from Mindbender also has some really interesting potential with regards to performance that can be sent telepathically. I’m currently playing an 8th level bard, and the only enchantment spell he has on his list is suggestion. I have my bard working towards taking the prestige class Duelist. If you take metropolitan or another feat that adds class skills, you can easily max this as a bard. 50 Gains 1d4 Negative Levels. According to 3.5 official material, you can come in and out of sublime chord as much as you please. You don’t need to have been there before like teleport does. I like getting captivating melody. Thanks for the suggestions however I wanted to ask, is there a way to get haste to qualify for swift blade before level 3 spells for bard? “Modified spell level” is the level of the spell slot that the spell would occupy if it were prepared with the metamagic feat applied. So just to make a correction Divine bard cannot go sublime chord. I have been perusing it for the last month or so for my Gnome Bard Illusionist. Virtuoso is nice because of the supportive song, bard improve and the Sharp Note, but maybe if i let it flew away from my mind, the second option is way better. So far I’ve picked out some items to have him go shopping for and I’m going to start grabbing some metamagic feats to do some catch up on what I should have taken…. I want to try a bard now. For anyone else looking, it’s the Book of Eldritch Might from Monte Cook’s Sword and Sorcery series. Is there a way, for a bard to have decent damage to their attacks if they Is this correct? “Modified spell level” is the level of the spell slot that the spell would occupy if it were prepared with the metamagic feat applied. Get wings and vision (or don’t and/or get blinded). This is probably the most optimal bard, though it’s still group dependent. Oh man, good finds. Combine with swift invisibility (other whatever other techniques you have for staying out of combat) to safely cast the spell if you didn’t know the combat was about to happen. For example, if an incantatrix applies the Maximize Spell feat to an ally’s chain lightning spell, the modified spell level is 9th (6th for the spell, +1 for the Maximize Spell feat), and the DC is 18 + (3 × 9) = 45. Thanks for catching it! Unfortunately, you probably won’t be using the Inspire Courage as a swift action since you be using your swift action to get a Inspirational Boost. What would your ruling be? ©Suggestion: “Help us kill your boss” not only disables someone, but adds to your allies as well. Leaning toward Crusader, for the reason you noted (swift action IC). Bard8/AbC2/SC2/AbC3/Archmage5. This seems like a cool character. There is debate over weather you can retrain your magic secrets (“bard spell” vs “bard spell list”). +2 Int: +2 Wis: Athlete: If you have an odd stat. Benefit: +2Cha -2Wis and 4 very useful cantrips 1/day. For instance if you have a paladin and life cleric on your team, you probably don’t need any additional healing, but might need some extra blasting. The vows are a really strong option for a bard. This is a premium way to seriously save on action economy and make playing a bard much more fun. This helps boost duration, range, and area of their illusion spells too. First of all, AMAZING GUIDE. any suggestions? Bards have a lot of good buff spells, so make excellent War Weavers. Perfect! * continued progression of bardic musics per day (can you take lyric spell?) I forgot to take a note here and now I don’t know where I got it from. However, it has interesting interactions with concentration checks. Blade Ward: Much of the time you could simply dodge instead. It’s amplification effect would greatly extend the range of bardic music. But there are plenty of times where you move-then-attack, or attack-then-move, and in those circumstances, the bonus is nice. Inspire Courage: Increase bonus by 1 at levels 7, 13, and 19; Wow man. It’s not worth taking another 10 levels in bard just to get a measly +1 more to inspire courage, but taking 4 more bard instead of lyric thaumaturge is just fine. Rapier’s a trap in 3.5. But don’t be too hasty to trade up control spells like Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, since it’s just as effective on a storm giant as it is on a kobold chief (magic resist and legendary saves aside). Yea I agree that a gishy-type build would be a fun add to that campaign. Yes, the chaos music + vest of legends will give you an effective lvl of 15 for determining which bardic musics you have access to. D. Has no real way to make use of Knowledge Devotion. Necromantic gives up healing spells and Anarchic has a great list, but a number of those spells are level discounted for a Bard and you don’t get to take advantage of that. Under the Seas of Vodari Now on Kickstarter - FUNDED IN 6 ... Oath of Justice - Paladin Sacred Oath - D&D 5e, Mythic Odysseys of Theros Breakdown, Part Two. It’s also a con save. However, you cannot escalate from panicked to cowering in this way. Minor Illusion: So many uses for this spell with just a little creativity. Second, It allows much : Music of course, plus declamation to be a troop leader plus picking up on the ticks of others and mimic them, plus using humor to solve a social tensed situation… Third, it permits you to use snowflakes wardance or different music instruments (harmonica, flute..). friendly to other PCs. Martial weapons are nice too. I would think a single dip in that class can go a long way for a bard. Yup, good point. It looks a little unclear, but I think RAW is that you cannot have both going at the same time. I’ll get them into the handbook in my next round of edits. Elemental Adept: Bards have very few damage spells, even with magic secrets. things here. Jarring song of 3.0 made spellcaster make 15 + spell level concentration checks instead of you Perform check, making it a lot less useful. Leadership if you’re in the mood to manage paperwork. I would not take lingering song unless you want to stack bardic musics. the pictures in the handbook downloaded are in color so my computer can see the other colors It looks weak to me. I think the first ruling is more RAW, but I think the second ruling is a reasonable allowance. There’s a lot here, so I’m going to respond in points: * I love the idea of an item of continuous harmonize. Mortuum – The Bard’s Handbook, Endarire – I know what 18/xx means, and I consider myself very lucky for having had the opportunity to learn, thanks. That’s just the kind of resourceful tricksieness you’d see from a Bard or Rogue. ®Leomund’s Tiny Hut: You can take a full rest and only need to worry about a dispel. I have a hard time finding the stats of those mongrelfolks. Some flexibility and effectively 5 spells (1 per level). Either way, make sure to take feather fall. Success means they cannot tell that you’re casting regardless of components. ©Otto’s Irresistible Dance:Single target with a weak-ish effect is bad, but the fact that it requires an action to save means a guaranteed 1 round, and makes it perfect for legendary monsters. That’s how it’s designed, and you have If we want to take a dip of four level we can take dark companion or familiar plus other stuff I listed before 🙂 Anyway, imho Hexblade gives a badass look. ©Conjure Elemental/Fey (level 6/7): A stronger conjure, but runs the risk of having them be hostile towards you. You can use your high level slots to smite, and this level comes with a slots. through the mid levels, and, if you’re lucky, you get to play some teen levels before the game falls apart. Divine Bard and Ur-Priest grant divine casting, NOT arcane casting. under masterwork Lute should read Also Virtuoso gets 2 more skill points per level. B. class? Bard is one of the few War Weavers who can heal the whole party through the weave!! There are a lot of options here, especially considering the So having a few alternatives is good. Abjurant Champion is probably underrated. I recommend doing more than that. So at L 20, my spells would be (L1) 4, (L2) 4, (L3) 4, (L4) 4, (L5) 3, (L6) 2 – just as they appear in a standard table with no other adjustments. Rather than activating it during the If you find anything, definitely let me know! If you use the Lyric Thaumaturge or Sublime Chord prestige classes to get into Cutting Words: The fact that you don’t need to pre-use it makes it a good bit harder to waste, though you still want to hand them out to your allies for any saving throw situations. You can pick up a few with the Lyric Thaumaturge class. Why not mention Undetectable Alignment? I just found out about it and I’m sad. What should I do next to optimize it a bit?