Bard Creation Guide? (Or should I create something else?)

[JesterPoet]

I'm trying to create a first-level bard. I've never made a bard before, so I don't really know how to make him useful. I have a 30-point buy, and he has to be a gnome, dwarf or halfling. Those are pretty much my only restrictions.

I've seen guides for creating Druids, Barbarians, Rogues and the like, but haven't seen a bard guide. Is there anywhere I could find useful information on making this character? If not, can people give me suggestions?

I'd like a character who can be the mouthpiece for the party, but at the same time, I don't want to be completely useless outside of that capacity. I'm kind of lost. I usually play Druids, but I'm trying to branch out.

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[Mekabar]

Well, if you want to be the party faceman, I wouldn't advise the dwarf due to the Charisma penatly. It also doesn't help your casting ability.
Both Halfling and Gnome are solid choices, the gnome even more so because of Favored class: Bard and possible Paragon levels. To be the party mouthpiece you don't need much more than Bluff, Diplomacy and perhaps Gather Information, which are all class skills.

For your fighting abilities Gnomes and Halflings are somewhat sub-optimal, although halflings make good throwers/slingers.

To optimize your spell selection you need to know what the other party members already cover.

 

[Kalendraf]

The current campaign I'm running features 2 bards (one is an NPC), and the last one I ran had one as well. Based on what you've mentioned, here's what I'd recommend:

As Mekabar says - Avoid dwarf. The charisma penalty is a no-no for a bard. As for gnome vs. halfling, I'd probably go with gnome.

With 30 pt point buy, I'd probably do something like this:
STR 12 (dropped to 10 by gnome penalty) 4pts
DEX 14 6pts
CON 14 (bumped to 16 by gnome bonus) 6pts
INT 10 2pts
WIS 10 2pts
CHA 16 10pts

For skills, it's really a campaign-dependent kind of thing. I would recommend the same ones that Mekabar mentions: Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Info, and I'd also take a look at putting some points in a few Knowledge skills and perhaps Spellcraft. Concentration can be useful as well.

For feats, it really depends on whether you want to be more of a combat character, a spellcaster or a skills master. I've seen bards try each of those paths to varying degrees of success.

The can be suprisingly versatile casters, especially with the right spell selection. Tasha's Hideous Laughter is a 1st level spell for them, and is one of the strongest in their arsenal. I highly recommend it. If you decide to go for enchantment type spells like that, it may be worth taking the feats of Spell Focus (Enchantment) and then Greater Spell Focus (Enchantment) in order to make the DC's extra hard for the enemy to overcome. At higher spell levels, there are other enchantment spells (Hold Person, Confusion, Hold Monster) all of which can benefit from the Spell Focus (Enchantment).

They can also be adequate in combat, though they'll never be as powerful as fighter types are. The archer route is an option, but at higher levels, you may find it to be overly weak. But if you want to try that, Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot & Rapid Shot are worth investigating. Just remember that as a gnome or halfling you will do less damage with the smaller weapons.

The skill mastery route is very campaign dependent. If you roleplay a lot, then taking feats to boost skills may be worthwhile. I don't recommend it unless that is your style.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Most of the successful bards I have seen have been human, but from this list, gnome is definitely the way to go. The CON bonus effectively changes your d6 hit dice to a d8, allowing you to go toe-to-toe without dying as often (although most bards do better to stay in the back and use ranged weapons), and the AC from size small also helps. Don't forget the DC bonus to Illusion spells that stacks with Spell Focus. Tasha's Hideous Laughter is an excellent choice, but go for good Save-based Illusion spells to take advantage of the racial ability. That being said, I've seen a large number of 3.x bards fall by the wayside because they were completely overshadowed by clerics or druids. In order to prevent this, take advantage of the bard's unique abilities: Take 5 ranks in Knowledge [History] ASAP. Then, whenever the DM mentions something new, ask to make a Bardic Knowledge check. Chances are, the DM is happy to provide you with some of their carefully-crafted backstory, and this information is often quite useful to the party, especially at lower levels when there aren't many divination spells to be used (or at high levels when you don't know what question to ask yet!). Also, you are probably your party's best user of Charisma-based skills (almost as many Skill Points as the Rogue, and you are raising Charisma anyway for DCs and those important bonus spells at the
3 3....2 0 levels), so make sure to purchase some of those, if your campaign uses them (if it doesn't use social skills very often, you may want to rethink class options). As mentioned above, a few Knowledge skills never hurt, and if you want to use wands of a variety of spells, make sure you can reliably make a DC 20 Use Magic Device check.

Finally, if your DM allows them, check out some of the great bard prestige classes. Bards' jack-of-all-trade nature (and the other, stronger classes that share it) has perennially made them a slightly suboptimal choice (hence the stereotype of Elan from Order of the Stick), so some of these prestige classes are really neat and fun ideas. Others, like the War Chanter, have an overwhelmingly powerful capstone ability that your DM is sure to ban if you also have Leadership, so steer clear of those unless you talk it over first with your DM.

 

[JesterPoet]

The reason for the race restrictions is that we're going to be playing Hamlet of Thumble, run by a new GM. I wanted to try something new, but then again, I have the concern that I may be totally useless if the module or GM prove to be hack & slash centric. Would I perhaps be better off going with a rogue who has a highish charisma so that I can be more useful outside of diplomatic situations?

 

[The Souljourner]

Here's my suggestion - try to get 14 strength. If you don't have decent strength, you're wasting yourself in combat. DEFINITELY do not give yourself 10 strength. You get the same BAB as a cleric... use it! You can choose a martial weapon to be proficient with, too.

here's what I'd do with a gnome bard and 30 point buy:

Str 14 (10pts to 16, -2 racial)
Dex 12 (4pts)
Con 12 (2pts to 10, +2 racial)
Int 14 (6pts)
Wis 10 (2pts)
Cha 14 (6pts)

You really don't need 16 charisma... believe me. You're a secondary caster, and won't be slinging fireballs. Yes, high charisma is good for when you need to charm people or whatever, but it's not the same as intelligence for a wizard... there are many things you can do that don't need high charisma.

I've played a bard with very nearly these stats and he did pretty well against everything except oozes.

Remember, you are a fighter-wizard-cleric-rogue. You're not just a wizard rogue. You can get into combat.. I wore light armor and used a buckler and longsword, and did just fine in combat, thankyouverymuch. I was no fighter, but I was at least as good as the cleric most of the time, and that's saying something.

Don't go ranged combat.. people will tell you that... you just don't get enough feats to combat all the inherent drawbacks of ranged combat. Sure, lug along a bow, but don't try to concentrate on it, there are better things to do with your feats.

Last tip - don't choose spells you can duplicate with your bardic abilities. You'll pretty much never run out of uses of your bardic abilities, but you run out of spells fairly often, and spells known are way too precious to duplicate things you can already do.

Most of all - live it up! Bards more than any other class lend themselves to over-the-top roleplaying that doesn't piss anyone off (unlike barbarians and paladins). Everything should be big and dramatic and amusing.

Bards rock. Have fun.

-The Souljourner

 

[Gnome]

Maybe I'm wierd, but I like the idea of a dwarf bard, especially if you want to make a more meele-capable bard. It might be worthwhile to take 1 level of fighter for the feat, martial weapons and armor proficiencies. This will also let you use the dwarven waraxe one-handed due to weapon familiarity. That, along with the CON bonus will let you hold your own in meele quite nicely in addition to your other abilities.

For additional wackyness, a recent Dragon magazine talked about having bards wear heavy armor for additional protection. This won't interfere with bardic music abilities, at all. As for skills, if you focus on skills that don't have an armor check penalty (like all of the CHA-based skills), then this won't be a problem.

As for spellcasting, any spell that doesn't have a somatic component will be unaffected. This is only a handful of spells, however. Eventually, once you can afford to get mithril full plate armor and a mithril shield, this will only give you 25% arcane spell failure, and you won't be slowed at all due to your race. Seems like a decent trade-off for a secondary caster.

Oh, and here's a 30-point 1st-level build for this guy:

STR 14 (6)
DEX 14 (6)
CON 16 (adjusted from 14 - 6)
INT 10 (2)
WIS 8
CHA 14 (adjusted from 16 - 10)

 

[Kalendraf]

The Souljourner's option is another approach. In the the current campaign I'm DM'ing and the previous one, both parties were extremely heavy on melee characters and severely lacking on casters, so the bards have ended up being primarily casters.

Just how any bard is going to fit in is going to depend on the composition of the party. If the party needs more melee characters, the bard can fill that role. If they lack enough healing capability, the bard can take healing spells to help fill that role. If they lack arcane casters, then the bard can help there too. As jack-of-all-trade type characters, there's no 1 specific way to build a bard, and your success will depend heavily on how well they integrate themselves into a party to fill the holes.

Though no one has mentioned it yet, the bard songs can really add up in terms of their damage with larger parties and at higher levels. With the extra attacks, a single bard song can quickly add up to tens of extra damage points in a single battle. At level 8, the bonus bumps to +2 and by then most characters will have multiple attacks as well. The bonus to hit will allow bigger power attacks, or make it easier to hit difficult AC's while the extra damage will help take down foes that much faster.

 

[Rystil Arden]

The reason for the race restrictions is that we're going to be playing Hamlet of Thumble, run by a new GM. I wanted to try something new, but then again, I have the concern that I may be totally useless if the module or GM prove to be hack & slash centric. Would I perhaps be better off going with a rogue who has a highish charisma so that I can be more useful outside of diplomatic situations?

In all honesty, whether you should go Bard or Rogue depends on your party composition. Find out what the other PCs are playing first. If they have a cleric and a wizard, you are probably better off going Rogue because Rogues can fight better and they are less likely to need your magic for buffs and healing (and the cleric's Bless won't stack with the Bard's Inspire Courage, etc). One of my PCs was frustrated by his Bard's inability to aid the party significantly in combat (the few times it broke out), so he retired the Bard for a charismatic Rogue and fared just as well socially and better in combat. If the party is not balanced properly, a Bard could help to fix that more than a Rogue. Also, ask your DM about campaign style and find out if it will be heavily combat-based. One PC I created was a third-level telepath who was great at social situations, but he was killed by a gang of four housecats 75% of the time in my playtest, and the DM told me there was significant combat, so I switched his powers up a bit before the first game. It may seem like metagaming, and it is, but this is to ensure that everyone has fun and understands what the game is about, not min/maxing advantages.

Remember though, if you do choose to go Bard, expect to be in a support/subsidiary role except in social situations. And I don't mean support like the wizard or cleric where the party thanks the gods that you were there to save them after every encounter: for bards it is more of a subtle numeric edge that your party members might well take for granted, as it is far less visible, if not that much less potent, than the edge from the cleric or wizard. My players have refrained from choosing to play Bard characters for a while for this reason, although they often pick up a Bard cohort once they have Leadership to sing them some buffs.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Oh, and to The Souljourner: I agree with your analysis of bard spells and their low spells/day and spells/known, but I disagree somewhat with the deemphasis of Charisma. Now, I'm not saying it should be the Bard's sole focus like Intelligence for a Wizard. In addition to aiding the social skills, it is highly important for the Bard to have more of those precious spells/day. Moreover, it is almost vital that the Bard have an enhanced Charisma of 12 by level 2, 14 by level 4, 16 by level 7, 18 by level 10, 20 by level 13, and 22 by level 16. This ensures that they get to cast 1 of their highest level spell at that level, as otherwise they would get 0. The easiest way to go about this is to put a starting 16 in Charisma and buy a +4 Cloak of Charisma by level 10 and upgrade to +6 by level 16. That way you can put all your stat-raises into something other than Charisma if you need them. If you try the reverse (that is, start with 14 Charisma and raise it up), you won't reach 16 by level 7 unless your DM is overgenerous on treasure (based on Table 5-1), or you waste resources on a +2 Cloak of Charisma (starting with 15 and stat-raising will work fine though, and it may be the most efficient use of Stat Points). I know that a Bard is only a secondary spellcaster, but that makes getting the spells soon even more crucial. As a wizard, if I were lazy and there were a choice, I'm supposedly not getting hosed too badly if I miss out on new spells for a level (at least in theory I'm not, since that happens to the sorcerer), but the level 7 Bard is 1 whole spell level behind everyone else even if she does have 16 Charisma, so she is always playing a bit of catch-up. I know that comparing wizards to bards doesn't work perfectly here since sorcerers are a primary spellcaster, but imagine there was an ability that let sorcerers get their next level of spells one level sooner (but only 1 spell per day). How much would you be willing to pay for that ability? Now a bard would probably be willing to pay less for this, but a few stat points that also raise your DCs and most of your favourite skills? That's a bargain.