Bard Variant - Generalist

[Ry]

One of my players wants to have a character that's more of a solo investigator. To do this, we were going to...

Take the bard,
Remove bardic music
Fortitude saves go to good
Upgrade hit dice to d8

Is this variant balanced? I feel like he needs a higher hd or maybe some kind of feats, but I'm not sure.

 

[Levitacus]

I recently posted something similar, but with more of a focus on skills (especially knowledge and performance) and with a more focused spell list. For somebody interested in investigation and knowledge, it might do the trick as well.

Another Bard variant

You might consider simply working with a Rogue depending on how you want the character to come out.

 

[Nifft]

Bard song = very flexible, group-enhancing ability.
A Bard Soloist requires a very flexible, self-enhancing ability.

IMHO, Action Points fit the bill. Grant the Soloist one extra action point per day per Soloist level -- non-accruing, so he has to use them every day or lose them.

(Depending on how powerful you allow the effects of an Action Point to be, you may want to scale this back to +1/day at 1st level, then an extra +1 every 2 levels -- so +2/day at 3rd level, +3/day at 5th level, etc.)

-- N