Making a PF Bard, haven't really played PF before (but 3.XE, sure), anything I should keep an eye out for?

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm talking tricky rules changes from 3.XE, advice on building a Bard in PF (I like to optimize, but not to the point where it gets tasteless - I noticed that the Archivist archetype seemed a bit OP/cheesy, so avoiding that), stuff I should know about Golarion that might not be obvious, etc?

This is for the Carrion Crown AP, which my brother is running, so no spoilers, but if it's dumb to take certain options (the CC Player's Guide seems to suggest going enchantment-heavy is a bad move, presumably due to Undead immunities), that's be good to know.

Looking at a Half-Elf Bard (no archetype) right now, might be persuaded otherwise.

Also, all my 2E Bards has Familiars - is there any way to get one in PF without multiclassing?

 

[Neonchameleon]

You got nerfed in the changeover from 3.5. You absolutely need Lingering Performance to avoid burning through your music too fast at low levels.

Look for the discounted spells; Hideous Laughter (and its bard specific L2 upgrade Cacophonous Call) may or may not be worth it in Carrion Crown as there are too many undead. Heroism certainly is - but I wouldn't recommend Confusion for an undead heavy game however effective it is normally. (Glibness is a scary buff). And if you're feeling you aren't contributing enough calculate how much damage is done by the rest of the party due to your buffs - it should be a lot - by L5 you should have +2 Inspire Courage and Heroism, which stack, meaning you're routinely handing out +4 to hit to the party's best damage dealer and +2 to everyone else (and +2 damage all round).

Perform: Sing or Oratory both cover for your wisdom on Sense Motive - and are an absolute blast if you have a book full of verse prepared for your performances (as our Bard does in my current campaign).

 

[Starfox]

You got nerfed in thqat you can no longer use various cheat such as Lingering Song to keep several bardic performances running side-by-side. Also, your spell list lost a lot of 3E goodies.

You got a massive buff in versatile performance and the level 16 jack-of-all-trades ability. At higher levels, bard is the prime skill monkey now. Also bardic knowledge is arguably better now.

Concrete tips; put a decent score into Int some ranks into your knowledge skills, with bardic knowledge you get good pretty quick and horror often uses knowledge and research.

My suggestion for performance skills is
Dance (Acrobatics, Fly)
Keyboard Instruments (Diplomacy, Intimidate)
Sing (Bluff, Sense Motive)

 

[Alzrius]

You got a massive buff in versatile performance

I disagree. Versatile performance is an ability that looks good the first few times you take it, but the higher level you get the more it sucks. If you want to extend its usefulness, you need to be very cognizant of what skills it links to your Perform skills; otherwise you can quickly render it obsolete.

 

[gamerprinter]

I'm no optimizer, but there's an odd 3PP bard archetype that has some abilities against undead, called Moso. Like a "blind" oracle, this bard is blind, but still effective in close range and melee range. This archetype is based on Hoichi, a blind bard in an old Japanese horror tale. This was created for the Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG).

 

[Henry]

First of all, RE, if you have not seen this yet, there are a number of good community guides for character construction available on the internet (anything by PF forum poster Treantmonk is pretty good):

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/extras/community-creations/treatmonks-lab/test2

Also

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ogz8HL6GeguT-tN3-6HxXiF_G7mg_tyAQ59V9kPg6g4/mobilebasic

For another take using the more recently released splatbooks.

They might give you a good idea of a direction to take, the pitfall feats and skills for a bard, most importantly, an explanation of WHY certain choices may not be useful for a bard PC. Hope these help a little!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

First off, thanks to everyone for their help! Great stuff and I think I'm sorted now on that. I may make another thread with general PF/Golarion questions, since this got moved to builds.

I disagree. Versatile performance is an ability that looks good the first few times you take it, but the higher level you get the more it sucks. If you want to extend its usefulness, you need to be very cognizant of what skills it links to your Perform skills; otherwise you can quickly render it obsolete.

Your assessment of it seems to work on the understanding that it merely substitutes the skill ranks, but that's not how it works. You substitute the skill bonus.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/bard#TOC-Versatile-Performance-Ex-

For example, in your article, you assert that using Perform (whatever) to replace Sense Motive, if your Perform skills are such that you're only getting one skill each out of them via Versatile Performance, is not a net gain.

That would be true if it worked the "skill rank" way, but it's unlikely in the extreme to be true because it actually works the "skill bonus" way. As you're a Bard, you are unlikely to have much in WIS (even rolling, it's unlikely to be a priority - CON, DEX and INT are likely to come before it). Sense Motive bought directly will be thus WIS MOD + Skill Ranks + Class Skill, and WIS MOD is probably between -1 and +2. Sense Motive via Versatile Performance will be CHA MOD + Skill Ranks + Class Skill. Likely +4 or much more. So there's a net gain even using Versatile Performance clumsily for non-CHA skills. Even with Animal Handling, which is a CHA skill, if you get it before all skills become class skills, then you're getting an effective +3 from that factor.

You're right that you will lose out a bit if you get to high levels, but it's not a big deal imo, and you can still pick up a lot of skills that way. The bigger deal is whether the DM will let you retrain skill points that are effectively invalidated, because you will need to plan very clearly and operate without some fairly basic skills if he won't.

Plus I'm pretty sure both the 2E (esp. post Complete Bard) and 4E Bards had plenty of mojo, more than the 1E Bard, who required some bonkers dual-classing action and ultra-high stats. Flavour is a matter of pure taste, but mechanically? Those guys kicked ass.

Totally agree that it's really odd that all the higher-level abilities have nothing to do with Perform, though!

 

[Alzrius]

Your assessment of it seems to work on the understanding that it merely substitutes the skill ranks, but that's not how it works. You substitute the skill bonus.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/bard#TOC-Versatile-Performance-Ex-

I think that there's a misunderstanding going on, as that wasn't what I wrote about (or at least, it wasn't what I was trying to say).

My reading of Versatile Performance is that it lets you substitute a given Perform (X) skill for another two skills altogether. So if you'd taken Versatile Performance in Perform (comedy), you'd essentially make a Perform (comedy) check when everyone else would have to make a Bluff or an Intimidate check; you'd roll your ranks in Perform (comedy) + class skill bonus + Charisma modifier + miscellaneous modifiers. Your total skill bonus is eveything that applies to the skill. Versatile Performance essentially means you don't have to use the associated skills (per se) ever again, because now you have a Perform skill doing what the replaced skills do.

The problem with this is that of the nine subsets of the Perform skill, the two skills they each replace have significant overlap between them. So much so that if you don't choose very carefully what Perform skills you take with Versatile Performance, you'll quickly end up replacing skills that have already been replaced.

Does that make sense?