Best race for a bard?

[Mistwell]

Right but with Melodic Casting you can Sing, Attack with a weapon, and the next round cast a spell w/o stopping the Bardic Music.

You can do the same thing with a Harmonizing weapon (Magic Item Compendium).

A Crystal Echoblade of Harmonizing (Both from Magic Item Compendium) is a bard's ultimate melee weapon. +1/2 bard level to damage every round you are using your bardic music, and the weapon can continue the bardic music for you while you do something else.

I think Bard is a flexible enough class to handle any race. Human and Gnome both have their obvious advantages, but I think any race can work well with the bard if built right.

I also think that multiclassing is not required. Your biggest weapons can be your inspire courage, which increases in power with bard levels, and magic items like that Crystal Echoblade, which increases with your bard levels, and your bardic music uses per day, which increase with your bard levels. Why mess with success?

 

[Nifft]

Right but with Melodic Casting you can Sing, Attack with a weapon, and the next round cast a spell w/o stopping the Bardic Music.

That's a good point. However, the major selling point for Melodic Casting IMHO is that you no longer need Concentration for ANYTHING. You can substitute a Perform check for ANY Concentration check. Holy cow on a pogo stick! That's one mean feat right there, given how Bards are usually desperate for skill points.

One feat to merge three skills (two Performs + Concentration) into a single skill? Nice! Sign me up for that and Skill Focus (Perform).

Cheers, -- N

 

[Darklone]

Human all the way. And don't multiclass. ...

I agree with the rest you posted... yet this? I agree, if you wanna play that full score bard dude how the D&D designers envisioned him, that's the way to go.

But a bard can be so much more. It's a great class for multiclassing with nearly every other skillmonkey.

 

[The Souljourner]

a bard can be so much more. It's a great class for multiclassing with nearly every other skillmonkey.

I don't agree at all. What do you get for multiclassing with other skillful classes? The bard already has 90% of the skills, so you're not gaining much there, and they lose spellcasting and bardic ability for it. Additionally, most skillful classes are 3/4 BAB, which means you're losing out on another BAB, unless you take exactly 4 or 8 levels.

The problem, IMO, with multiclassing a bard is that the bard can already do 3/4 of what any other class can do, so multiclassing to another class only gains you 1/4 more of that class' specialty, and loses you 3/4 of every other class' specialty. It's just not worth the gain for all the loss.

There probably can be very specific exceptions, but most of the ones I can think of are a single level dip in another class for flavor reasons.

-Nate

 

[lukelightning]

Mind flayer.

 

[Nifft]

There are some good multi-class options, particularly with tough lightly armored melee guys, like Barbarian or Warblade.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Darklone]

There are some good multi-class options, particularly with tough lightly armored melee guys, like Barbarian or Warblade.

Cheers, -- N

Yupp:
- Bbn1/Bard. High str, good dex and con, mediocre charisma. With Power Attack and a reach weapon, this build competes till level 10 with the true fightertypes and has much more options.
- Ftr4/Bard8. Archer build. WS, RWM and bard song plus haste and you got one of the best archers in the game (notwithstanding the scout3/rgr with Swift Hunter and Imp Skirmish).
- Rog/Brd. TWF plus Mirror Image. Certainly the rogue can get that with UMD.... but the bard does not cost money. Sneak attack is weaker but bard song bonus counts against undead.
- Bard/Swashbuckler. Sadly there's no multiclassfeat for this combination yet... but it has style.
- Bard/Paladin4 (Devoted Performer). Sword&Boarder who can preach like no other character and has twice the saves of any other group member. If you can spare the feats, Divine Might and bard song together with that Cha-to-damage bow might be something interesting.

The bards spellcasting is not that strong, so he does not lose a lot if he's multiclassing, but the other class has a lot to win.

 

[Mistwell]

I'd say Dragon Shaman and Marshall both synergize well with the Bard's buffing and charisma-based abilities.

I also think that fighter rogue and barbarian multi-classing is a distraction. Bardic music and spells are all really important parts of the bard, and they lose that when multiclassing.

 

[irdeggman]

Athas Gnome

Lol

 

[moritheil]

Bard/IoSV is a lot of fun: nobody expects it, and even when heavily damaged you can contribute to fights by putting up veils and singing.

People are posting funny races, but in an epic campaign, I'd recommend Tulani eladrin as a bard option. They get the musical ability of a 20th bard and can begin or maintain music as a free action each round. Of course, they start at ECL 28 . . .