Advice for Bard character

[Emongnome]

I'm thinking about starting a bard character that focuses on the Summon Monster line of spells. His bardic music abilities lend well to this, but only having up to SM VI does limit his capabilities in this area. Outside of Augment Summoning, what feats should he take? Extent Spell is useful early on (keeping the summons longer should they live), but at higher levels, it hardly seems necessary to keep them longer. Most combats are done within 10 rounds at the most. Maybe take Persistent Spell, but that +4 spell levels, so unless I'm epic level, SM II is the highest one I can do. Is this a viable direction for a bard? Mind you, I don't have access to the MC Bard class. Perhaps the Alienist PrC? Don't know how well that would fit for a bard class.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

My advice would be: drop that idea, if that would help you in this case, which is doesn`t, so I don`t give you this advice

Extend Spell is good, since there are some other bard spells that might be interesting for this - Cat`s Grace, Bull`s Strength and similar spells.
Try to look at the summoned creatures and there special abilities - some of them can not only fight, but also cast healing spells, and this would give you some more options. (and there might be more)
Remember that summoned creatures can use flanking tactics and so on, so be sure you use this option, especially when you have a rogue.

Persistant spell won`t work on this, I believe. Isn`t it restricted to personal or touch spells only?

I don`t know about Prestige Classes for you, maybe the alienist is okay. The Gate Crusher might also fit - hey, you`re constantly summoning "things" from the planes...

A real weakness for you will be, that you will always use a spell slot of each level on a Summon Monster SPell, that might never be used when you reach higher levels. As compensation, you should consider metamagic feats like quicken spell or being hasted, so you can summon great groups of "monsters", so your enemy has a hard time to kill them fast. (But Fireball Spellcasters and Great Cleavers will be extremely effective against this tactic, so it might not be that useful... Besides the fact, that for spontenous caster, using Metamagic Feats is a Fullround Action, so Quicken won`t work, unless you take feats like Arcane Preparation, or you`re DM is willing to ignore this stupid rule...)

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[The Sigil]

*Shameless Plug*

Well, if you really want to make a "Summoner-Bard" you might want to check out the Enchiridion of Mystic Music (http://www.cooleys.org/publishing/index.asp?view=stc001). It has rules for using bardic music abilities to summon creatures and also expands on the types of creatures you can summon using both spells and bardic music abilities (for instance, summoning creatures native to the elemental planes). This allows you to use your bardic music to do summonings and saves your spells for other uses.

--The Sigil

 

[Mistwell]

I too would be in the "drop this idea" camp. In fact, I would encourage you to go with the Monte Cook alternative bard class from Book of Eldritch Might II, and switch to direct damage spells.

 

[Nifft]

It seems to me that the kind of monsters a Bard can summon will be very quickly outclassed by his or her opposition, and since a PHB Bard can't change spells -- EVER -- it's probably not too wise to pick non-scaling spells.

IMHO it's annoying that those spells are even available to Bards -- they don't fit my image of Bards at all.

-- Nifft

 

[sigfried]

A summoning bard. I guess the strategy depends on what you are going for beyond that. Why a bard, and why summoning?

A straight spell caster will make a better summoning character. A wizard can specilize getting more spells per day and the fastest spell progression. Sorcerers will get the most spells per day and better progression than a bard. A cleric can summon as well and gets better saves and such.

If your idea is to summon and then sing to help your critters, its not going to work. Summons are full round spells and you cant cast and sing at the same time. So you won't get to use bard song much anyway. If you want the bard skills and such then thats another story, but summoning will be a side activity in terms of combat effectiveness.

Now you could do some multi classing and come up with the right mix. A bard cleric could be a very good character that summons, buffs their pets with duration spells like bless and pro evil etc... You could also heal pets and such. Pick domains that can help out, (is there one with haste in the domain list?) Clerics can wear armor and as a summoner you will need to stay put and get attacked a lot. You could call yourself a cantor (religious singer) or some such.

There arn't many feats that would help with summoning. Concentration bonuses are good. Improved initiative might be nice. More hit points are nice.

BTW: We generaly refer summoning monsters in 3E as playing pokemon. I like to actualy give names to the creatures I summon, makes it more fun.

 

[Emongnome]

Thanks for the replies. And don't worry about telling me that it's a bad idea. If I didn't consider that a possibility, I wouldn't have posted the question. Besides, better now than later when I realize that I have a 15th level bard that really sucks.

Clerics definately make better summoners with their buff spells, but are limited by their alignment which ones they can summon. Arcane spellcasters are better too, including sorcerers since I allow them to change spells over the course of their careers, with limitations. I guess part of me was hoping for a decent solo-character that could use summons for combat along with maybe some missile attacks. Of course, nothing's stopping me, but I don't want my character around the realms to be known as "that useless bard again". I guess if I'm bent on having a solo-summoner, I'll play a druid!

Thanks for the reference Sigil. I've always had an interest in playing bards, but I just can't seem to use the standard PHB class to customize as well as I would like, or make it unique enough that a multi-classed character isn't doing the same things as me, only better. I may get that one, as well as BoEMII, with the MC bard in it. I only vaguely know about that one.