College of Swords: A Melee Bard Path

[Good Character]

Melee bard has been certainly eclipsed by other classes since the first notable bard rework. Despite that, the bard rework has overall been an impressive success to revitalize a class that served as no more than a dip class the majority of the time.

Melee bard lacks in damage, and hopefully this college will provide that while keeping bards in check.

Here come the first college (AKA "path") of potentially many.

1. Make the college a choosable feat for the level 10 bonus feat to make it consistent with existing classes (e.g. spellsword, knight).
a. Other prerequisites may be required.


2. Bard Songs, aside from Selfish Solo, scale at a 1:2 ratio. Selfish Solo scales normally at a 1:1 ratio. Base song also scales normally at the 1:1 ratio. However, Curse Song will scale at 1:2 ratio.
a. A non-college 30 melee bard hits with, Selfish Solo and Atrocious Aria, 56 effective AC (with no haste) and 52 effective AB. By setting Curse Song scaling to 1:2, the numbers go down to 55 AC and 50 AB.
b. Curse Song scaling also prevents the monster that is the 2-turn OTK Curse Song -> Knockdown -> Die as the skill malus goes from -16 to -3.


3. Divine Shield/Might is deactivated for this college/path when Selfish Solo is activated. The lore justification: the bard takes inspiration from solely himself rather than divine inspiration.
a. This may need to be a total ban on the divine feats. Requires playing with numbers.


4. Spells have a reduced CL of -3; dispel CL remains the same. Summoning of any kind is disabled. Spell slots are reduced by 1 across the board.


5. Bard Song no longer recharges passively. Rather, Bard Song recharges based on kills. Each kill has a X% chance to refund a Bard Song charge. The chance to recharge a song will follow the current scaling of base Bard Song recharges; each tier and each relevant feat offers a higher percentage chance.
a. An alternative to this is to provide a base percentage such as 50%. However, each tier/feat offers an alternating bonus such as 5% increase for Tier 1/Level 5 then 2 charges refunded for Tier 2/Level 10 then another 5% increase for Tier 3/Level 15 and so on.
b. Curse Song will still recharge passively in the same way as it usually does.
c. "Kills" should follow the same situation as writs; kills done by party members will be considered a kill for the bard.


6. Bards will be able to expend one of their Bard Song charges per Y seconds to do an instant action. The instant action will apply an additional scaling amount of Sonic damage.
a. Due to the Sonic damage type being often resisted in PvE, this damage type could be changed depending on what elemental -stream you're using similar to Elemental Weapon. It would be thematic as the Bard is diving into lore for inspiration.
b. If Sonic damage is the choice, the Lush Lament curse song might need to be reviewed for this college/path.
c. Spell Failure will be taken into account.


7. Selfish Solo's +1 APR, +10% movement speed and +1 unisave is achieved at level 21 rather than 28. The bonus damage will remain unlockable at level 28 unless code limitations require it to be the same level.



"Bards of the College of Swords are called blades, and they entertain through daring feats of weapon prowess. Blades perform stunts such as sword swallowing, knife throwing and juggling, and mock combats. Though they use their weapons to entertain, they are also highly trained and skilled warriors in their own right.

Their talent with weapons inspires many blades to lead double lives. One blade might use a circus troupe as cover for nefarious deeds such as assassination, robbery, and blackmail. Other blades strike at the wicked, bringing justice to bear against the cruel and powerful. Most troupes are happy to accept a blade’s talent for the excitement it adds to a performance, but few entertainers fully trust a blade in their ranks.

Blades who abandon their lives as entertainers have often run into trouble that makes maintaining their secret activities impossible. A blade caught stealing or engaging in vigilante justice is too great a liability for most troupes. With their weapon skills and magic, these blades either take up work as enforcers for thieves’ guilds or strike out on their own as adventurers."

[The GrumpyCat]

Rejected as displayed, but a mele bard path isn't a bad idea, but now is probably not the time.