Like other spellcasters, a bard can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. His base daily spell allotment is given on Table: The Bard. In addition, he receives bonus spells per day if he has a high Charisma score.
When Table: The Bard indicates that the bard gets 0 spells per day of a given spell level, he gains only the bonus spells he would be entitled to based on his Charisma score for that spell level. A bard begins play knowing four 0-level spells of your choice. At most new bard levels, he gains one or more new spells, as indicated on Table: The Bard.
Unlike spells per day, the number of spells a bard knows is not affected by his Charisma score; the numbers on Table: The Bard are fixed. Upon reaching 5th level, and at every third bard level after that 8th, 11th, and so on , a bard can choose to learn a new spell in place of one he already knows.
In effect, the bard "loses" the old spell in exchange for the new one. A bard may swap only a single spell at any given level, and must choose whether or not to swap the spell at the same time that he gains new spells known for the level. As noted above, a bard need not prepare his spells in advance. A successful bardic knowledge check will not reveal the powers of a magic item but may give a hint as to its general function.
A bard may not take 10 or take 20 on this check; this sort of knowledge is essentially random. Once per day per bard level, a bard can use his song or poetics to produce magical effects on those around him usually including himself, if desired.
While these abilities fall under the category of bardic music and the descriptions discuss singing or playing instruments, they can all be activated by reciting poetry, chanting, singing lyrical songs, singing melodies, whistling, playing an instrument, or playing an instrument in combination with some spoken performance. Each ability requires both a minimum bard level and a minimum number of ranks in the Perform skill to qualify; if a bard does not have the required number of ranks in at least one Perform skill, he does not gain the bardic music ability until he acquires the needed ranks.
Starting a bardic music effect is a standard action. Some bardic music abilities require concentration, which means the bard must take a standard action each round to maintain the ability. If he fails, the attempt still counts against his daily limit. A bard with 3 or more ranks in a Perform skill can use his music or poetics to counter magical effects that depend on sound but not spells that simply have verbal components.
Each round of the countersong, he makes a Perform check. The bard may keep up the countersong for 10 rounds. A bard with 3 or more ranks in a Perform skill can use his music or poetics to cause one or more creatures to become fascinated with him. However, inside combat they rarely shine, as most buffers prefer to stay in the background, but they are an important wheel to the group.
So, if you are a player that enjoys having a good time, serving the group as a whole and you are not particular fond of rolling for big damage, think about the bard. The bard also is one of the best characters an experienced player can use when in a team of newbies, as you will be able to make sure the party survives and does its job, without stealing the spotlight. Attributes Because you'll need to spread out your attribute points, don't spend too much on charisma. A score of 16 is both easy to attain and gives you a few additional points to place in your intelligence and constitution scores.
Dump wisdom completely, unless you have an important reason not to. Choose between strength and dexterity for your combat stat, but don't over-do it, a score of 14 or so is quite alright. Strength: Bards are able to go melee with their buffs, but this is not a first priority.
Moreover, quite a few of the best bard races are small sized. Dexterity: Some of your skills are keyed off this attribute. Also helps your initiative rolls and possibly your attack modifier. As above, this isn't a first priority, but try to keep it at decent levels, which means no negative modifiers. Constitution : Helps constitution saves and hit points.
All characters benefit from a big score in this attribute and bards are not an exception. Intelligence : Bards are skill-monkeys at heart and getting bonus points helps them fulfill that role.
Wisdom : You can dump this attribute. You have strong will save and only a few of your skills are tied to this ability. Charisma : This is your first priority. Charisma determines your spellcasting ability and several key bard skills: use magic device, bluff, diplomacy, perform. You need a minimum charisma of 16 to be able to cast your most powerful spells.
Races When picking a race, it's important to remember that your bardic music is a mind-affecting effect. Which means that if you're undead or whoever teammate of yours is will not be affected by it. The same is true for the plant and construct creature types. There are two special feats called requiem and grean ear that enable you to affect undead and plant creatures respectively, but you gain them pretty late and cost you a feat slot, which is not a good thing.
Human : The human race receives a bonus feat, a significant bonus to the feat starved bard and a bonus skill point per level. Also helps multiclassing with his favored class. Gnomes : This is a great race for bards. Small size is a benefit, since it helps your attack and sneak abilities. The constitution bonus is always welcome and strength penalty doesn't hurt you significantly.
Half-Elf: Yup, that's right! Bards must be one of the rare few classes that can fit half-elf in, but only if the great alternative class levels from races of destiny are available to you. Other non-conventional half-elves may be more worth it, such as half-drow, forestlord half-elf or even deepwyrm half-drow. Dragonborn Lesser Aasimar : Lesser aasimars are humanoids, which means they can become dragonborn.
Dragonborn is a great template-like race and provides you with either a breath weapon, flight or improved sensory abilities. Note that due to creature type, an aasimar without level adjustment isn't that good without the dragonborn template. Whatever you do, please, please, please , don't be an elf.
They have attribute bonuses that don't matter dexterity , packed with a constitution hit. The only race worth considering is the faerunian star elf, but even these guys are trumped by the spellscales because of the latters' blood quickening ability. Both races provide a bonus to charisma and a penalty to constitution, but you're better off with a human or a dragonborn lesser aasimar.
Aasimar : Great because of its outsider type in combination of alter self and similar spells. Now you can really dump wisdom completely. Various smaller benefits. It's worth noting that this is better that its non LA cousin, because you just lose XP at 3rd level to buy it off and keep the outsider type.
Eventually you will get back the lost XP. Chaos Gnome RoS : Nice ability modifiers, immunities and spell-like abilities. The luck reroll ability comes handy if you use skills a lot and the spell power is handy. Draconic Creature template RotD : Great bonuses and the dragonblood subtype that opens up several feats and prestige classes. If LA buyoff this is a great addition to several base races.
While they are not proficient with martial weapons, they get free weapon proficiencies in longsword, rapier, sap, sword sword, shortbow and whip. Armor Proficiency: Light armor and all shields except tower shields. You ignore arcane spell failure from light armor. It's a great ability if you want to know various interesting stuff, but it mostly affects the role playing aspects of your character. Bardic Music : Bards have the unique ability of producing magical poetic effects.
A bard is able to use his bardic music once per bard level per day. This is actually a collection of songs which are unlocked if the minimum bard level and minimum perform ranks are met. This is why maxing out perform is essential for any bard.
Remember that most songs are mind-affecting and lots of features can make you immune to this effects, like races, items and spells for example mind blank. Bardic music songs Countersong Su : This provides you and allies within 30ft a protective buffer. It would be better if it provided protection against a wider range of spells, but as is, providing defense only against spells with the sonic descriptor, it's not good, because you are better off actively buffing your party instead of passively waiting your opponents to cast [sonic] spells.
If an ally is influenced by a spell of this type, you can easily activate your countersong to enable him to roll again once per round he hears the countersong! Fascinate Sp : Meh, it doesn't work if the subjects are threatened, but it has some usability as you need to fascinate a target to use your suggestion ability.
Still, remember that you can select suggestion as a spell, which will open up additional bardic music options, if you lose Fascinate using alternative class features to replace fascinate, suggestion and suggestion, mass. Note that if you want to use Suggestion, Mass later on, you can still trade Fascinate and dip the Virtuoso prestige class, which grants Fascinate at the first level, has extremely easy requirements and stacks with Bard for the purposes of determining your inspire courage ability.
Inspire Courage Su : This mind-affecting ability is one of the best songs bards get. The bonuses are twofold, as this improves both your saves versus fear and attack and weapon damage rolls. The bonuses are morale, so it will stack with most other bonuses. Here's a thread with ways to optimize inspire courage to a terrifying degree. Note that this is a mind-affecting ability, so it won't work on some characters, like undead and classes that offer immunity to those effects.
Inspire Courage works very well with Power Attack and two handed weapons, so make sure to advice your teammates accordingly. Inspire Competence Su : This improves a skill of a specific ally. The problem is that the bonus is competence and really small. Also characters who want to optimize a certain skill check use custom magic items that grant competence bonus. Note that the awesome eberron feat Song of the Heart, which increases the bonuses you get from several of your songs, requires you to have inspire competence.
Thus, if you're planning on getting it, you should really keep this. Suggestion Su : Suggestion is a great spell and it only requires you to fascinate a target to use this ability. Inspire Greatness Su : I like this ability, not because of the bonuses on saves and attack rolls. Don't get me wrong, both areas always are glad to receive a boost, but the bonuses are competence.
What really shines for this ability is the 2 bonus hit dice people affected receive. That is an average of 11 bonus hit points and the difference between life and death in certain situations like spells that only check your hit dice , like dictum, holy word, etc.
If you have the feats to spare, a great way of boosting your caster level during your buffing routine is getting practiced spellcaster [Bard] and inspiring greatness yourself. Song of Freedom Sp : Handy for the occasional curse or enchantment, but not anything special. You can produce many break enchantment spells of course, but only a few if any times will be really needed per day. You can't use this ability on yourself and the fact that most bards will generally have multiclassed to something else by this level, makes it less appealing.
Inspire Heroics Su : Nice ability, as morale bonuses to saves are not often and dodge bonuses always stack. Mass Suggestion Sp : Great if you want to control crowds, but remember that you can't fascinate creatures that are threatened.
The downside is that you have poor reflex saves and you must have at least one neutral component in your alignment and cannot be chaotic or lawful. Moreover some of your songs only last 3 rounds after you stop singing.
This class variant is useful to bards that are going to be multiclassing early. Reflex saves are not that important generally and you can get over the bardic music duration problem, just by selecting one feat, lingering song CV. If you have the points to spend though, this comes handy because divine spells have no spellcasting failure and the expanded spell list has some nice spells.
Note that divine bards can't cast spells with an alignment component that doesn't match his. Savage Bard UA : This is a nice variant class. Fortitude saves are far better than reflex ones. You are illiterate, but it's only 2 skill points to get around that. The main problem is that your spell lists are customized. Loss of summon monster spells, the main source of expanding your spell list through spell-like abilities your summons get. Prestigitation is also a good spell, but losing it won't hurt you.
You do gain the summon nature's ally spells, insect plague, creeping doom and the very good reincarnate. You also lose two class skills decipher script and speak language , but both are not in any way essential to a bard. Survival on the other hand has much more applications in a game not to mention that you become an instant tracker by acquiring a familiar with track and scent.
My vote goes to savage bard. Fey Bard UA : If divine bard is bad, this sucks. It can only be used in builds to fill requirements. Don't even consider it for a normal bard build.
This is no better, but spells with verbal components are much more common than the ones countersong protects you from.
The sad thing is that you need concentration to maintain it and it only lasts 3 rounds. Healing Hymn CC : Don't do it! It's a trap! Losing fascinate also denies you access to suggestion and mass suggestion. I used to believe so, but after playtesting it turns out to be awesome. You can use alternative features to swap suggestion and mass suggestion, because they won't be useable after you pick this.
But there's nothing like healing 20 hit points with a cure minor wounds spell. The majority of enemies is evil and if you team up with a summoner, this is an easy way to get protection from evil. Check with your DM if you can stack levels that grant bardic knowledge or a similar ability for this. Twenty levels of bardic knack plus the feat jack of all trades would be like having all skills maxed out as cross class skills minus 1 rank cross class skill maximum is This gives you space to maybe have a lower intelligence score and focus on important skills while dumping stuff like hide, move silently, spot, listen.
Note that RAW, you need to have 1 actual rank in a skill that doesn't allow untrained checks to use it so you have to spend two ranks for a cross-class skill, not just one to enable trained checks with it. Bardic Knack works great with the Knowledge Devotion feat. Inspire Awe : Unfortunately inspire courage is one of the best songs out there. This is good at later levels, but it remains [fear] and [mind-affecting] so be warned that many creatures will be immune to it.
Loresong DS : I still prefer bardic knack if you want to trade your bardic knowledge, but this is pretty solid and eventually you'll gain quite a few uses.
To me, a rules lawyer is I would say that the feats labeled as [Bardic Music] would in fact count as Bardic Music abilities for the purposes of that epic feat. However, in Lyric Spell's case, I would say that you are the only subject of the ability. The spell itself is not a part of the music's effect; rather, the bonus it grants is the equivalent of an extra spell slot from which to cast said spell.
Last edited by Vaern; at PM. Originally Posted by Vaern. Originally Posted by Flickerdart. Alright, let's do this. Munchkin happens when any play style sacrifices group benefit for individual benefit especially when the individual benefit is the chagrine of the group. Min maxing is an excellent tool for trolling a group. It's a great tool for a lot of things, but its association with munchkins is not without merit.
The OP wasn't overtly munchkin-ing, but it flirted that line because many tables would view this kind of rule bending to be in bad taste. As with most issues of balance, the best advice is to steer clear of treating lyric spell as bardic music if you don't want to annoy the average play mate.
Originally Posted by Doctor Despair. I don't think there are any feats tagged with [Bardic Music]? As far as I'm aware, while there are many things tagged with [Bardic], many that consume charges of Bardic Music, and some that do both, I don't think there are any with the tag you mentioned, sadly.
It appears that the book has Lyric Spell, as well as some other feats, tagged as [Bardic Music], though similar feats found in other books may be marked [Bardic]. And it looks like some online feat references have all such feats are simply labeled as [Bardic].
I'm not sure if the tag was changed to make it easier to index the feats, or if it was errataed with the intention of creating more distinction between the base ability and extra powers granted by feats for the purpose of things that affect Bardic Music.
I did a bit of quick googling and can't find any errata notes regarding the tag changing, though, so I'm assuming it's just for organization purposes. But either way, I'd still say your epic feat won't affect the actual spells that you cast using Lyric Spell.
I think you might be looking only for offensive effects of Bardic Music abilities that you could use. However, it also allows you to affect the same types of creatures with beneficial effects. For example, if you happen to have a golem or something of the sort fighting for you, you could use Inspire Greatness on it; or if you had an undead army, you could make use of Inspire Courage with them. And that one doesn't even give them a bonus to their saving throws against negative effects :P.
Last edited by Doctor Despair; at PM. I'm inclined to say no. Like, hard no. There are a number of things that count as expansions to the bardic music ability but they call themselves out as such. Since lyric spell doesn't, it's just a thing that consumes the potential to perform bard songs rather than being one itself.
As far as rules lawyery goes, I prefer the lawyer approach to the programmer one. Taking the intentions behind design elements actually isn't at all difficult if you examine precedents set in other design elements and consider precise language parsing as a secondary concern to that. Tends to yield fewer problems that way.
I am not seaweed. That's a B. Praise I've received Spoiler. Originally Posted by ThiagoMartell. Originally Posted by LTwerewolf. You can, but it's such massive overkill. Site Navigation.
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