Will my players party work?

[Pheonix0114]

Just to put it in here, my reasons for picking a bard in the first place go as follows:

The bard would be a storyteller (Oratory) that after the parties first few adventures would ask to join up in order to capture their tale. From that point though he would help out on his own he would mostly stay in the background. I'm planing on giving him a 7 Wis to explain 1) Why a story teller would go on adventure and 2) why he doesn't realize when his own skills will be useful. He'd also be the one in the party that kinda "picks up" rumors and could therefore tell the party about them. And if the ever really NEEDED to know something he'd have the assortment of knowledge skills to give them a hint and a push.

As far as being the talky person, he could try to charm people for the party but for the most part he'd just use Aid another to make the fighter's diplomacy be roughly equal to if it were a class skill.

I was also thinking of making him a Pathfinder Chronicler at level 7 to keep his spells low powered and even more exemplify the personality and story I have in mind for the character.

 

[Steel_Wind]

We have a bard in our 6 player Kingmaker campaign. The high charisma class is a natural to act as the Ruler of the players' kingdom.

In terms of abilities, the bardic inspiration (+2/+2 soon enough) and later further buffed by the casting of Good Hope is +4/+4 of awesomeness. Add in the obligatory +1 from haste and +5/+4 is the standard buffs the party lays down on the 1st round of combat. It works extremely well against almost everything. YMMV.

 

[Herobizkit]

Any magical character will "overshadow" the group because they'll have abilities above and beyond what the group's muscle power can accomplish. Bard does seem to be the least of the magical evils.

Having a Bard as the DMPC as well as the DM mouthpiece works, so long as the players aren't expecting the DMPC to "pull his own weight".

Does said Bard have to be Human? Make him a Halfling and have him progress along the Archery path. -4 to fire into melee can be off-set by an 18 Dex. Start him off with Point Blank Shot. If you want, make him a Strongheart Halfling (Forgotten Realms) and give him Precise Shot as a bonus feat. Now he's much better. 1d3+1+Str for a rock plinked up to 30' away isn't so game-breaking.

Heck, give him one of those Halfling SlingStaffs... oh, but it's a Martial weapon for Halflings and Bards don't get prof. in all of those. But you're the DM.