Neutral Bard and martial class dip

[Wethrinea]

I understand that the best martial dip for a bard is a divine one, either BG og Paladin to capitalize on high charisma. But the concept I have in mind is of a neutral aligned warrior-bard, so I am left with the question of which non-divine class is the better option? Fighter would give less SP and more feats pre epic and weapon spec, barbarian fluff and uncanny dodge, CoT a bit better saves and more feats, Swashbuckler +1 reflex, while ranger would give some minor cookies, easy access to that nice spear, archery feats, some extra SP and a better thematic fit than most other classes.

Is the difference between the five options large enough to matter? The intention of the build is to be moderately effective on it's own, and of great use to a group.

[Drowble Oh Seven]

Neutral Battlebards were traditionally fighters. The extra feats are nice, and let you make up for the investment in curse song; as well as letting you nab all the typical fighter goodies, and having heavy armour access and spellcasting means you can let your dex sit at 8 - Which is nice, given you'll be spending points on STR, CON, INT, and CHA as it is. That's probably how I'd lean - Though I'll happily admit to having played a ranger-bard, and enjoyed being friend to all living things with bardsong buffed animal empathy.

Here's the classic setup.

[Wethrinea]

Thanks for the reply. How did your bard/ranger fare on his own in PvE?

[the grim yeeter]

Bard20/PDK10 is your best bet then, probably. Valiant and Vanguard both are solid options, depending mostly on flavour. For fiendguards, I would always take Valiant over Vanguard, but for this build I think I would go Vanguard, maybe. Don't ever cast spells as a 20/10, though.

[Drowble Oh Seven]

That's true. I've got a hole in my brain where PDK builds go. TGY knows things. Terrible and potent things.

That aside, my ranger/bard was fun! Struggled more than it strictly needed to, because I was intentionally being very suboptimal and grabbing neato class features and a loadout that looked pretty at the expense of a fair bit of power. It's worth noting that you can use favoured enemy slots to pick up greater spell foci, if you've already got the regular spell focus. Which I took full advantage of to take GSF: Divination on a melee build. It's not at all sensible, and I don't recommend doing it. Even with all my maiming of it, it managed to solo fairly comfortably to 10-11 (thanks in large part to animal empathy and a very cooperative dog in Skal), where I set the character aside for a while. I don't expect it would be at all unplayable, if you were inclined to take that route - There are better options, but it's not horrible by any measure.

[legionetrangere]

I've came up with the following

Code: Select all

Level	Class Level	Class	Feat			
1	1	Bard	Expertise			
2	2	Bard				
3	3	Bard	Improved Expertise			
4	1	Fighter	WF Polearm			
5	2	Fighter	Blind Fight			
6	3	Fighter	Curse Song			
7	4	Fighter	WS Polearm			
8	4	Bard				
9	5	Bard	Still Spell			
10	6	Bard				
11	7	Bard				
12	8	Bard	Brew Potion			
13	9	Bard				
14	10	Bard				
15	11	Bard	Imp Critical Polearm			
16	12	Bard				
17	13	Bard				
18	14	Bard	SF UMD			
19	15	Bard				
20	16	Bard				
21	5	Fighter	ESF Polearm			
22	6	Fighter	EWS Polearm			
23	17	Bard				
24	18	Bard	Armor Skin			
25	19	Bard				
26	20	Bard				
27	21	Bard	ESF Perform			
28	22	Bard				
29	23	Bard	Lasting Inspiration			
30	24	Bard	ESF UMD	

Going for 55 UMD
Is it worth to take Skill focus and Epic SF UMD?

[Skarain]

Generally, I would avoid regular Skill Focus unless absolutely needed. They equal only a +3 bonus, which is insignificant. However, Epic Skill Focuses are great!

With 55 UMD do you aim to make use of Elder Dream spear and potentially Ranger Armor? Be aware that the armors increase your Arcane Spell Failure, so they won't work with Still Spell either.

33 ranks of UMD + 10 ESF UMD + assuming 16 CHA -> buffed 28 (+9 umd) = 52 UMD

If 55 UMD is your goal, you can easily reach that with 2 enchanted gear pieces of one +2 and another +1.

On top of that, Bard Song skill bonus for a level 24/70 Perform bard is +14, so technically you can ignore UMD in gear and focus on maintaining 70 Perform instead.

You could use the spare feat from SF: UMD for things like Knockdown, Disarm, Extend spell (for double-duration buffs before putting armor on), or another crafting feat for Dwemercraft 3.

I am unsure if Ring of the Ram (free Knockdown feat) still esists within the loot matrix. Can anyone confirm?

I will recommend that you take Lasting Inspirstion at level 27, rather than at 29. Bard Song going up from 1 minute to 11 minutes is a MASSIVE power-spike and allows you to be more aggressive with your Curse Song use.

Finally, my recommendation is to take Carpentry as your crafting of choice. Bardic Harps are insanely good. On my bards I had entire tabs of 1/day Mass Haste harps, as well as Dove Harps for10x Greater Restoration per harp + 5/rest Cure Serious Wounds (which scale by character level in potency now), so I just ignored taking Heal skill at all and instead stacked Dove Harps.

Harps weight 0.4lb eavh, take 4 inventory slots BUT harps that have an equal amount of charges in them do stack with eachother. Useful when managing inventory space.

[AstralUniverse]

I've came up with the following

Code: Select all

Level	Class Level	Class	Feat			
1	1	Bard	Expertise			
2	2	Bard				
3	3	Bard	Improved Expertise			
4	1	Fighter	WF Polearm			
5	2	Fighter	Blind Fight			
6	3	Fighter	Curse Song			
7	4	Fighter	WS Polearm			
8	4	Bard				
9	5	Bard	Still Spell			
10	6	Bard				
11	7	Bard				
12	8	Bard	Brew Potion			
13	9	Bard				
14	10	Bard				
15	11	Bard	Imp Critical Polearm			
16	12	Bard				
17	13	Bard				
18	14	Bard	SF UMD			
19	15	Bard				
20	16	Bard				
21	5	Fighter	ESF Polearm			
22	6	Fighter	EWS Polearm			
23	17	Bard				
24	18	Bard	Armor Skin			
25	19	Bard				
26	20	Bard				
27	21	Bard	ESF Perform			
28	22	Bard				
29	23	Bard	Lasting Inspiration			
30	24	Bard	ESF UMD	

Going for 55 UMD
Is it worth to take Skill focus and Epic SF UMD?

You should take 5th fighter at 30, pick lasting inspiration at 27 and epic weapon spec at 30, as Drowble's build shows above. The reason for that, I'm pretty sure, is the lvl 25th bard song has +1 ac and it's worth more than ESF UMD. This build can reach Elder Dream without ESF UMD.

[legionetrangere]

I mean, the investment to use Elder Dream without UMD is kind too much i feel. Not worth the hassle for 1 ac. And also, 75 perform? damn lol

[the grim yeeter]

I mean, the investment to use Elder Dream without UMD is kind too much i feel. Not worth the hassle for 1 ac. And also, 75 perform? damn lol

The elder dream is one of the strongest weapons in the entire game. It's got +4 enhancement, +2d6 divine, keen, runic and it's a x3 multiplier weapon that can be both 1h/shielded and twohanded.

[AstralUniverse]

Elder Dream's stats out weight the gear investment in UMD. Your gear is basically str/con/umd/perform/spellcraft/disc and then later 5% uni. You get enough. Another thing to consider is the difference of 1 CL between 24 and 25 bard. It's exactly in that zone were every CL you can squeeze out really matters.

[the grim yeeter]

Elder Dream's stats out weight the gear investment in UMD. Your gear is basically str/con/umd/perform/spellcraft/disc and then later 5% uni. You get enough. Another thing to consider is the difference of 1 CL between 24 and 25 bard. It's exactly in that zone were every CL you can squeeze out really matters.

Either way you're still better off never casting a spell and just using wands and potions instead to keep 30 CL.

[msterswrdsmn]

Thanks for the reply. How did your bard/ranger fare on his own in PvE?

To answer this question; not as bad as some might think, but not great either.

10 ranger levels gives you 3 favorite enemies, 2 studied enemies (with proper wis) and free imp dual wielding with light armor.

On the plus side, you -can- swap out those 3 favorite enemy feats for something else, like spell focuses. And free dual wielding isn't bad, if you want to make a dual wielding bard. Animal language, tracking, and access to a few neat class skills (climb, search, spot) that bards don't normally get are also a plus.

That said, you're not getting anything great out of it either. While dual wielding, you'll loose any AC or Parry AC, so you're defenses are going to be signficantly lower than a sword-and-shield build. Additionally, you can get -better- class benefits from other classes.

[AstralUniverse]

you can get -better- class benefits from other classes.

And that's really important to echo here.

Ranger/bard has a really nice RP flavor to it and the ranger cookies are something I'd find useful on almost any bard I've played but this class, mechanically speaking, combat-wise, is just inferior to Fighter in just about every possible way to think off. And even if someone were to go for 10 ranger lvls and pick up 5 favoured enemies, they'd only get effectively +3 damage against them. Everything else there is skill bonus that is off-set by a much better bard song if they'd take 25 bard instead of 20 and while a dex bard can somewhat benefit from free dual wielding in light armor, a dex bard also craves for a damage source so badly they are still better off with a fighter dip, if not divine dip.

Something that wasnt mentioned in this thread for neutral bards here is WM. 20 bard, 5 fighter, 5 wm with scimi/rapier is a very VERY fun build from experience (mine was 17/6/7 but that's just lasting inspiration difference for some other stuff I liked more at the time). And it's on the wiki.

[Wethrinea]

To answer this question; not as bad as some might think, but not great either.

10 ranger levels gives you 3 favorite enemies, 2 studied enemies (with proper wis) and free imp dual wielding with light armor.

On the plus side, you -can- swap out those 3 favorite enemy feats for something else, like spell focuses. And free dual wielding isn't bad, if you want to make a dual wielding bard. Animal language, tracking, and access to a few neat class skills (climb, search, spot) that bards don't normally get are also a plus.

That said, you're not getting anything great out of it either. While dual wielding, you'll loose any AC or Parry AC, so you're defenses are going to be signficantly lower than a sword-and-shield build. Additionally, you can get -better- class benefits from other classes.

I was thinking more of a 26 bard/4 ranger distribution, for spells, CL and 25 bardsong and lasting inspiration from bard, and 4 APR some skills and access to the ranger spear and armour (which gives arcane failure, I know), in addition to the thematic feel of it.

[msterswrdsmn]

You might as well go 25 bard/5 ranger in that case to grab a studied enemy, as well as the second favorite enemy feat, which you can substitute for a spell focus feat. Transmutation works well for buffing, and abjuration works well as a magical missle swarm is something that is very effective against bards. Small dips in climb and search, as well as a major dip in spot would help your build, if you have the skillpoints to spare.

The high end rangers armor is very nice, but you'll have a hefty 40% spell failure penalty. Don't expect to be reliably casting with it on. That said, a majority of a bards commonly used spells are buffs (many of which in turn are wandable), which can be thrown on before combat without armor on.

[the grim yeeter]

You might as well go 25 bard/5 ranger in that case to grab a studied enemy, as well as the second favorite enemy feat, which you can substitute for a spell focus feat.

On a 25/5, you would take your 5th ranger level in epics for an extra epic feat instead of FE.

[msterswrdsmn]

You can, yeah. I completely forgot about that. I believe epic prowress is one of the feats you can substitute for a favorite enemy.

That said, unlike most skilldump classes, you don't -have- to take that last level at epic levels if you don't want to. Skill wise, bards already have access to all the cruical skills, with almost all of the skills they'd need ranger levels to obtain being flavor of less than useful.

The only skill I can think of that would make a bard mechanically stronger would be spot (performance is more consistant than listen) and set traps. The epic feat selection you can choose from when substituting a favorite enemy was pretty limited too, from my recollection. Not bad, but limited.

[the grim yeeter]

Epic Prowess, Armor Skin and Epic Weapon Focus are all vastly superior to Favoured Enemy or Greater Spell Focus (I suppose there could be an argument for Abjuration if you want IGMS immunity, though I would never prioritize it over any of these three epic feats myself).

Those are also three epic feats that you very much want on any non-caster build, if you have the room for it. Considering you don't really get to take that many feats in epics anyway, being able to pick one of these three as a bonus feat is not at all "limited".

[msterswrdsmn]

Epic Prowess, Armor Skin and Epic Weapon Focus are all vastly superior to Favoured Enemy or Greater Spell Focus (I suppose there could be an argument for Abjuration if you want IGMS immunity, though I would never prioritize it over any of these three epic feats myself).

Those are also three epic feats that you very much want on any non-caster build, if you have the room for it. Considering you don't really get to take that many feats in epics anyway, being able to pick one of these three as a bonus feat is not at all "limited".

No, theres literally a limit as to what feats you can choose from when substituting a favorite enemy feat for something else at epic levels. Pretty sure its limited to the list of available bonus epic feats.

Epic ranger bonus feats: bane of enemies, blinding speed, epic prowess, epic spell focus, epic toughness, epic weapon focus, improved combat casting, perfect health

You're probably not going to have the stats/class levels for perfect health, epic spell focus, or bane of enemies. Blinding speed is only going to be up for grabs if you have a dex bard, and improved combat casting is a waste of a feat. Literally, you're limited to an epic weapon focus or epic prowess when substituting a fav. enemy feat, and odds are you've probably already grabbed the epic weapon focus as soon as you hit level 21. And armor skin, sadly, cannot be substituted for a fav. enemy

[the grim yeeter]

Oh, Armor Skin is not on there. My bad.

Anyway, what I said is that this list:

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bane of enemies, blinding speed, epic prowess, epic spell focus, epic toughness, epic weapon focus, improved combat casting, perfect health

is not limited at all, dude. It really isn't. In pretty much every case of a non-caster build, there's a feat or more on that list that you'll want to take for sure, be it EWF or EP for literally any non-caster build, BS for dexers (though in its current state, I'd skip it), or BoE for heavy rangers. Consider the fact you can only take four general feats in epic. An extra feat from that list is very valuable.

Literally, you're limited to an epic weapon focus or epic prowess when substituting a fav. enemy feat, and odds are you've probably already grabbed the epic weapon focus as soon as you hit level 21.

No, of course not. This would simply be a stupid move on the player's side. You plan this type of stuff. You make sure to pick that EWF or EP feat in your ranger dip, and other feats (there's plenty that you'll want) in the levels prior.

[msterswrdsmn]

LOL. Okay. I think we're having a bit of a miscommunication here.

By "limited" I meant "There are a few good choices, its not like a bonus fighter feat, where you have tons of options or just a general free for all with any/all available epic feats. Just 2 or 3 good ones". I think you're taking it as "whats you get is limited, therefor, not good".

[the grim yeeter]

No, what I am saying is that it literally isn't limited.