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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Damien" data-source="post: 4478843" data-attributes="member: 1071">If you had access to the PHB2, I'd suggest replacing Bardic Lore with Bardic Knack, which would significantly augment your non-core skill group. It would also almost justify taking the Jack of All Trades feat (which, contrary to what you said, only gives you a flat 1/2 virtual rank in skills). For your feat selection: 1. Jack of All Trades - useful with Bardic Knack primarily; it basically lets you use Trained-only skills untrained. The problem here is that most Trained Only skills are generally either of little use (e.g., Profession), or require you to pump a lot of ranks into them to make them worthwhile (e.g., Disable Device, Use Magic Device). It is most useful for the large Knowledge skill group, IMO, but without Bardic Knack to improve those skills above the base level, your bonuses here won't be enough to make your use of knowledge skills at all reliable. Even with Bardic Knack, you can probably get by without this feat by simply putting one rank into whichever knowledge or other Trained-Only skills you want. 2. Lingering Song - As mentioned by others, a decent feat, but with Melodic Casting it's probably redundant. 3. Versatile Performer - I could see taking this for its flavor, or perhaps as a prerequisite for a prestige class or something, but on its own from a game mechanics perspective, it is superfluous. 4. Disguise Spell - Between the Melodic Casting feat and the Conceal Casting skill trick from Complete Scoundrel, this feat is not needed. 5. Subsonics - it sounds interesting, but leaves a lot of room for DM rulings; just what, for example, is your bardic music's range when using subsonics? Usually for bardic music it is "within earshot," but how would that apply here? In combination with Disguise Spell, it's also a DM's call whether the verbal components of disguised spells would be rendered subsonic through this feat. You should get these issues straightened out before taking this feat. Here's some other feats I'd consider: Melodic Casting - pretty much indispensable for a bard. Spell Focus (enchantment) - if you plan on focusing on enchantment spells, anything to boost the DC is worthwhile, especially with a base Charisma of only 16. Captivating Melody - lets you use bardic music slots to boost the DC of enchantment/illusion spells (it's in Complete Mage)Fey Heritage feats (in Complete Mage) - these feats dovetail nicely with bards, since they produce enchantment-related effects. You might also consider dipping a single level of Mindbender (in Complete Arcane). For that one level, you get an incredible benefit: 100-foot telepathy with any intelligent creature! With this you can communicate tactics to your allies while performing or engaging in diplomacy, provide hidden directions to charmed creatures--and of course, communicate with any intelligent creature without the need for knowing its language. You can qualify for Mindbender pretty early, though you'd need to pump up Intimidate, which is a cross-class skill for bards. If you're willing to give up a level of spellcasting (which I probably wouldn't), you can go 2nd level in Mindbender, and get the ability to do suggestion telepathically 1/day, with a DC of 13 + Charisma bonus. You could boost this by +2 with the Ability Focus feat, but it's not worth it IMO to use a feat to power a single 1/day ability, no matter how good.</blockquote>

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