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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jasin" data-source="post: 2534825" data-attributes="member: 7531">Well, being 2nd level in a 4th-level party sure isn't helping with that! But hey, at least you didn't die at 8th level and come back at 1st..."Once per level per day" quickly comes to mean "every fight" in D&D.Also, it's not quite +1... it's +1 at 1st, +2 at 8th, +3 at 14th and +4 at 20th. And there's also the inspirational boost spell from Complete Adventurer, that increases the bonus by +1. And there's the Song of the Heart feat from Eberron, which improves all bardic music by 1, which you can take at 3rd level (so not yet, but soon). So at 3rd level, you could be granting +3/+3 to attack/damage three times per day. That's better than mass bull's strength 3/day... at 3rd-level!And if you really want to make a point (be careful, you don't want any real hard feelings...), when someone scoffs at how your inspiration sucks, they just don't get it the next time. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> So everyone's fighting at +3/+3, but the smartass is at +0/+0. I think you won't be hearing complaints anymore.Improved Trip and/or Improved Disarm can be really useful with a whip, if your opponents are mostly weapon-users, and not too big. The +4 you get from the feats mean you don't need that big a Str. And the whip gets another +2 to disarm.Snowflake Wardance is nice for a melee bard, and it works with the whip. Just remember that you're fatigued for 10 minutes afterwards, so either have lesser restorations ready, or be ready to rest for a while, or get immunity to fatigue somehow. (My bard with Snowflake Wardance was a necropolitan... undead don't get fatigued. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f60e.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":cool:" title="Cool    :cool:"  data-smilie="6"data-shortname=":cool:" />)Bladeweave from Complete Adventurer is a great melee bard spell (2nd level), and is for me the prime example of what bardic combat should be all about. It grants you an extra melee touch attack with a slashing weapon when you attack or full attack; this attack doesn't deal damage, but the victim is dazed if they fail a Will save. So who cares you can't hit anything with your Str 10? You can hit touch AC, surely, and that means someone has to make a Will save or do nothing, each round!At 6th level and beyond, anyone who isn't outright hostile is potentially your toy. The fascinate save DC soon becomes almost impossible to beat, and suggestion DC is decent (+1 if you have Song of the Heart, and +2 with Ability Focus, which might be a good idea). Sneak up to enemies and suggest they fight each other; when enemies sneak up to you, use diplomacy to get them to stop attacking for just a moment... and suggest they fight each other. Suggest guards to let you through; suggest people to give you information you seek.Bards are useful. Very useful.The bard's weakness as a class isn't lack of usefulness, it's lack of glamour/flashiness/spotlight opportunity. A party with an extra fighter will be able to kill the dragon more quickly because the extra fighter will be in there, dealing damage. A party with an extra bard will be able to kill the dragon more quickly because they'll all be attacking at +3/+3. Both the bard and the fighter are useful for the party. However, the fighter has a decent chance of being the one who takes down the dragon. The bard will be the one who helped someone else take down the dragon. And for many, many people, it feels much better to be one doing stuff, than the one who lets others do stuff.I think that, ironically, bards are best suited for players who aren't show-offs, and who don't easily feel upstaged by their mates. The bard will hardly ever do anything well enough to steal the show (except social interaction, and that's such a small part of typical D&D game) and let the player feel like THE MAN!!1, but if you can derive satisfaction from being able to say "sure, Jim took him down, but he would never've done it without me!" a bard can be a very rewarding class to play.Oh, another good feat for a melee bard: Arcane Strike. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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