A little Build Assistance?

[wolff96]

Some quick background -- without trying to start anything, I'm not the world's biggest 4e fan. So my rules knowledge is light, limited to a six-month campaign when the PHB was the only book. Regardless, I've been persuaded to try it again with a bunch of friends. And I'd prefer not to completely stink up the joint with a horrible character.

RESTRICTIONS: PHB and PHB2 only, 1st level character, 22 point-buy standard.

The group has no leader and I've been looking at the bard. The group is currently pretty melee heavy, so I was leaning towards the Cunning Bard, with Gnome for the race. One of the players recommended (and the DM allowed) some MP2 feat that allows me to use Cunning Sneak from the rogue and get Stealth training.

The idea is obviously the stealthy, sneaky bard, always on the fringes of the fight and tweaking positioning and helping his friends. Is this a viable way to approach it? Is there anything else I should be looking at in terms of feats/PPs?

------------------------------------

The other option is kind of diametrically opposed -- going the Valorous Bard route and getting some striker/defender MCs and standing on the front lines with the rest of the party. I haven't put as much thought into this one and don't know what would be a good route to pursue.

So I'm here looking for advice from those more knowledgable than I am in 4e mechanics. Advice and recommendations would be most helpful.

 

[twilsemail]

I've not played a bard so I can't give you much advice on that front. I've had an absolute blast playing a Cunning Sneak Rogue in the past and think that adding a bit of that to any class could be a blast.

THe one bit of advice I'll toss out on this thread is to bold and underline your source restrictions and repeat them in later posts. I've seen a lot of people on here ask for build advice with restricted sources and get responses with "You should totally Check out Y from Dragon X" or "There's a feat in *Source* Power..."

 

[Neonchameleon]

Bards rock; Any excuse to use the Vicious Mockery At Will is worth having. You don't declare it, you just insult the bad guys. And both those approaches work - the classic race for the valorous bard is the Half Elf. Either way, Vicious Mockery and Guiding Strike as your at wills are both gold. The thing about the cunning bard is that it grants a lot of slides so it really helps if you have a good eye for tactical positioning.

Feats/PPs - do you know what level you are starting at? And the biggest feat problem Bards have is that they need two Expertise feats eventually - one for their sword and one for their implement. (The second biggest problem they have is that the non-powerswap multiclass feats are mostly golden and they can take as many as they like and qualify for).

 

[Mentat55]

If you build a cunning bard, you can focus exclusively on implement attacks, I think, without much trouble and to good effect. I think your proposed build sounds solid. If you can only use the PHB/PHB2 plus that one multiclass feat (Twilight Adept), you honestly do not have to make many choices. Your at-wills are pretty much going to be Misdirected Mark and Vicious Mockery -- Misdirected Mark varies in usefulness depending on the type of defender you have in your party. You could multiclass into sorcerer, warlock, and wizard if you want more varied power choices (and your focus on Cha and Int will mean you give up very little).

If your party is heavily melee-based, a valorous bard can hand out some pretty great buffs, especially once you hit paragon level.

 

[Riastlin]

I loved my Cunning Bard. I'm still wishing the DM would resurrect the campaign as I had such a blast playing the character.

Anyhoo, some suggestions:

The bard actually does really well in both melee and ranged regardless of whether you are cunning or valorous. My half elf bard was technically a cunning bard but spent almost as much time in melee as at ranged.

However, it does sound as though you have some source restrictions. I would look at getting a songblade (which I believe was in PHB 2 but not positive). The songblade lets you use the blade for your implement powers as well as melee so you don't have to swap between them. This would save you a feat (or allow you to retrain once you get the songblade). This is important because bards will never lack for good feat choices given their multiclass versatility and jack of all trades nature.

Alternatively, you could ask your DM if you can use versatile expertise (a feat from PHB3 that gives you expertise in both an implement and a weapon) but this would be against the above restrictions. For powers, I agree with the aforementioned Guiding Strike and Vicious Mockery. Blunder makes for an excellent encounter power for a Cunning Bard as you get to slide the target, give a free attack to an ally, AND that attack gets a bonus. Great for making a creature's day really miserable. I can't remember which daily I went with off the top of my head, but you can't go wrong with the one that grants free healing. I'll check out my character when I get home from work and let you know about the other daily.

At any rate, the bard is very fun in 4th ed and you can't really go wrong with it. I honestly think that its a pretty difficult class to mess up as even if you take a power designed for a valorous bard when you are cunning, you'll still be pretty solid with it. Definitely I would look to keep Cha, Int, and Con all as high as possible since its very viable to dip into the opposite virtue powers and you can absolutely duck in and out of melee regardless of your virtue. The only thing you might want to consider in creation is which multiclasses you want since most of those feats have specific ability score requirements that you'll have to make sure you meet. Otherwise, you can pretty just roll with it as you level up.

 

[IanB]

The ranged bard is definitely a good idea given what you've said about the rest of the group being melee-heavy; it is very possible for melee-heavy groups to get themselves into trouble against ranged opponents in 4e since it isn't quite as easy for a fighter to just bust out the bow and shoot things competently, so having you able to pelt that artillery monster is useful. The slide-y powers that the bard has should play well with helping them get flanks and such.

I would probably go all-out ranged rather than try to squeeze in much of the bard's melee stuff personally. Possibly you could consider skipping misdirected mark for one of the melee at-wills for emergency "I am stuck between this guy and a wall" circumstances, but vicious mockery is probably going to be your bread-and-butter either way.

 

[Mengu]

Bards do rock. Gnomes suck (especially when limited to PHB 1 and 2) but you won't suck as much, so long as you're sticking with implement attacks and playing a cunning bard so your stats line up.

I play a gnome sorcerer, and the 5 speed is the worst part of the race. If you can get over that, you'll enjoy your gnome cunning bard.

If you're looking for stealth, I don't see a reason to try to get training through multiclass. Pick up Bard of All Trades, and you're almost as good as trained.

 

[wolff96]

If you're looking for stealth, I don't see a reason to try to get training through multiclass. Pick up Bard of All Trades, and you're almost as good as trained.

I don't remember seeing this feat in the PHBs... What does it do? And where can I find it? Asking for two out-of-source feats is probably really pushing it, but I can always try...

 

[Herschel]

What Mengu said. If you stay ranged and sneak around, Bard of All Trades is pretty good. The stealth option will never be great unless you pump Dex, and with Int as your secondary ability, you may not have many (any) points to put in to Dex. You rarely want to go first anyway and often leaders work best going last in initiative.
Also, if you really like Gnome, ranged is a much easier option anyway. Heavy armor would drop you to Speed 4 (!) which I personally find rather harsh to deal with. Plus, as others have said, if the party is melee heavy, you'll want some ranged powers or you may find the party getting stuck/pinned down at times with few options.

I think your Gnome Cunning Bard idea would work just fine. If going Valorous, I'd likely switch races due to the speed issue.

 

[Ryujin]

Just for the sake of versatility, I suggest that you give yourself a melee at-will attack. There are also some very handy encounter and daily melee attacks, that work quite well for a Cunning Bard at higher levels. Cunning Ferocity at Lvl 3, for example, is a great Solo-Whupper.

My party was particularly fond of the times that I would bounce an opponent's head off a wall and give them a free attack, with Staggering Note, despite the fact that I was doing negligible damage, myself.

If the DM extends to PHB3, and you have a good History skill (what Bard doesn't?!), then the skill power called "Strategist's Epiphany" can turn the tide of a battle. It's a daily that lets you substitute a History check for your entire party's initiative (close burst 5 - their choice).