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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kelleris" data-source="post: 3003814" data-attributes="member: 19130">I'd strongly consider a dual-wielding bard, actually, with the awesome power of Arcane Strike (Complete Warrior) and 6 attacks per round, 7 hasted.  That's a full attack sequence with +5 on all attacks and +30-35d4 extra untyped arcane energy damage a couple of time per day, with only slighly worse results the rest of the time.  Get the broadblade shortsword from Complete Adventurer and fight defensively (with 5+ Tumble ranks) and get a +5 dodge bonus to AC for a -4 penalty on attacks, then concentrate on your Dex and charisma for stats (Dex for weapon finesse and AC, Charisma for bardic spells and the huge AC boost from sirine's grace in the Spell Compendium), and you can be well-nigh unhittable, especially with the also-huge bonus for inspire heroics.  Take Two-Weapon Defense if you have the slots and your full-defense AC will be impregnable and (even better!) mostly applicable even to touch attacks.  Round out with utility spells that might come in handy at weird moments (you can always feed those slots to Arcane Strike anyway) and the advice earlier in this thread to make the bardic music bonuses larger to ensure that you hit.  Don't forget that inspire courage lasts as long as you play (you will be singing), so you can start it up any ol' time and have it already up when combat starts.  Use zone of silence both for the unbeatable Move Silently check and so your singing doesn't warn bad guys.For extra bonus ridiculousness, see if you can convince your DM to let you take wraith strike as a bonus spell with the Extra Spell feat to guarantee that you miss only on a 1 in those rounds you feel like unloading a horrible, horrrible arcane strike punishing.  Then take the flaws from Unearthed Arcana that give you a penalty on all ranged attacks (use spells instead, or just dimension door into melee) and the one that reduces your Will save (you'll still be better off than a "real" fighter, and knowledgeable NPCs won't typically hit the obvious bard with a Will save spell anyway).Extra extra bonus shenanigans - use the spell point variant from Unearthed Arcana so you have the option of alpha striking with arcane strikes and swift action spells when need be.Oh yeah, and this stuff almost leaves your spell selection and skills up in the air.  Use those to either get more and better buffs and combat skills (Hide, Move Silently, Tumble, Sense Motive, Spot, Listen), utility spells as mentioned, or play the enchanter/skills monkey thing to the hilt.</blockquote>

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