Ok, build first, chat later:

"Pacifistic Minstrel"
Elf
Bard 30
Shadowdancer 10
"Let's make love not war"

This guy has maxed out Bard/Curse Song. His aim in life is to avoid getting in fights, and if he has to fight, to fight defensively. Nobody wants to hear a Bard sing about himself.

STR 12(12)
DEX 16(28)
CON 12(12)
WIS 10(10)
INT 14(14)
CHA 14(16)

Take 2 points of CHA to get 6th level spells and the rest DEX

1 Bard-Artist
2 Bard
3 Bard-Dodge
4 Bard
5 Bard
6 Bard-Mobility
7 Bard
8 SD
9 Bard-Curse Song
10 SD
11 Bard
12 Bard-Imp Crit(Rapier)
13 Bard
14 Bard
15 Bard-Weapon Finesse
16 Bard
17 Bard
18 Bard-Extend Spell
19 SD
20 SD
21 Bard-Epic Skill Focus:Parry
22 Bard
23 Bard
24 Bard-Lasting Inpiration
25 Bard
26 Bard
27 Bard-Great DEX I/II
28 SD
29 SD
30 SD-Great DEX III
31 SD
32 SD
33 SD-Epic Dodge
34 Bard
35 Bard
36 Bard-Imp Parry, Skill Focus:Parry
37 Bard
38 Bard
39 Bard-Great DEX IV, Epic Skill Focus:Perform
40 Bard

Skills:
Max out Hide, Move Silent, Parry, Perform, Tumble, and UMD
Do whatever you want with the rest

His naked Parry with maxed Bard Song is:
43+3+4+10+19+9=88
Magic will put it over a 100 easy. For 3 parrys and a dodge he will be pretty safe. Too bad people have so many more attacks than that...

Magic items:
If you dont have 'Epic Gloves of the Minstral' (or something as good) dont bother. Naked build has a Perform of 58, leaving you 42 points away from the required 100 to max Bard Song. +12 in CHA items/spells/potions and the Gloves gets you to 94 Perform. Better hope your world has good Bard items.
If you really need a few more points of Perform, you can shift 2 points from DEX to CHA and change Skill Focus to Perform at the end of the build. This will take you up to 98 Perform with Gloves and CHA buffs.

Edited By griphook on 02/11/05 01:12

I like this idea of a pacifist. My pacifists are always monks, so it's good to see one of another type.

I have one question, however. What are the stats for the maximum bard song? What benefits does it give? Here's a snip out of the nw_s2_bardsong script:

if(nPerform >= 100 && nLevel >= 30)
{
nAttack = 2;
nDamage = 3;
nWill = 3;
nFort = 2;
nReflex = 2;
nHP = 48;
nAC = 7;
nSkill = 19;
}

Pretty self-explanatory. Curse song does the same as minuses to the bad guys, no save, unless they're deaf.
When I built him I took 1 point of Pick Pocket, Open Lock, Set Trap, Disable Trap. Which max Bard Song raises to 20. Damn versatile.

[edit: Damn! just noticed, its supposed to be 'Minstrel'. curse my lack of literacy. any mod wanna fix that for me?]

Edited By King Ubu on 02/10/05 22:37

Done
Quote: Posted 02/10/05 21:57:58 (GMT) -- King Ubu

Magic items:
If you dont have 'Epic Gloves of the Minstral' (or something as good) dont bother. Naked build has a Perform of 58, leaving you 42 points away from the required 100 to max Bard Song. +12 in CHA items/spells/potions and the Gloves gets you to 94 Perform. Better hope your world has good Bard items.
If you really need a few more points of Perform, you can shift 2 points from DEX to CHA and change Skill Focus to Perform at the end of the build. This will take you up to 98 Perform with Gloves and CHA buffs.

Cool build. Have you actually played this build much? I'm curious how the Parry worked out. I personally found Parry occasionally useful at lower levels but not worthwhile later on. But I never put as much into it as you have.

Here's a snip from my Versatile Songmaster build in this Guild related to the Perform score, I thought this might be relevant (I went a little heavier on Charisma than you did):

Quote: 
BARDSONG AND HOW TO GET PERFORM 100

The main strength of this build is the Bardsong. A fully maxed Bardsong is incredible. The attack and save bonuses are nice, but the 48 bonus hit points, +7 to AC, and 19 extra skill points to everyone in your party put it over the top. Then via Curse Song you can subtract the same things from your opponents via Curse Song, and you’ve tilted the fight your direction in a huge way. Like Taunt? You’ve just added a 38 point gap in your favor to the chances it will succeed. Anyone in your group like Knockdown or Disarm (or did you work those into the Bard build)? Same effect on the chances. Have an especially difficult trap to disarm or persuade check to pass? And opponents get no save! (Sonic damage resistance does apply, but that’s rare.) No problem. Thing is, all this requires a Perform skill of 100, which you just can’t get without equipment. Fortunately, it is doable with items available in the game. Here’s the math:
Max Perform Skill = 43
Skill Focus (Perform) = 3
Epic Skill Focus (Perform) = 10
Epic Gloves of the Minstrel = 30
Belt of the Performer+5 = 4
Adjusted Charisma of 30 = 10
-----------------------------------
100
The Belt of the Performer gives CHA+5, and a Nymph Cloak +7 finishes off the CHA adjustment. If you’re into creating items in the toolset, you can get the same bonuses with fewer inventory slots by making uber-items. Keep in mind that you can have both the normal and the curse version of Bardsong active at the same time. Although singing multiple times doesn’t stack, you can “re-sing” curse to add its effects to any new baddies that have shown up, or that you encounter in the next fight before the first curse song has worn off. Your Bardsong is your most potent weapon in this build. Use it!

I'll also add that you can sing your normal Bardsong first, which bumps your Perform score, benefiting any Curse Songs you do while the normal song is still effective. So even if you don't quite get Perform to 100, you can still get the full benefit of Curse Song with this trick.
_________________
Disarm? That means chopping the other guy's arms off, right? Yeah, I saw your build where you go into detail on the Bard Song. So I figured I could just skim over it. I'm playing him right now on a server. He's up to 21th level. It's a high magic world. So getting to 100 perform is no problem. I've got robes and helms and amulets and rings and ... well, a lot of stuff I can get to boost Perform.

In practice, I'm not wowed by Parry. It's cool from a stylistic point of view. I use a Rapier of the High Road that I enchant with Greater Magic Weapon to +5. It's keen and +d6(acid). And fighting medium strong creatures and characters about my level, I get the riposte strikes pretty often. Plus you can fight two creaturs at once and parry/riposte both of them for extra pirate movie effects goodness. So I'm certainly not disappointed.

The absolutely most annoying thing about parry is that you have to cancel Parry Mode before trying to do something else, like sing your Bard Song. If you're in a fight in Parry Mode and your Song buff runs out and you try to re-sing it without canceling Parry Mode first, you will just lock up and sit there doing nothing. You have to then click on the song in the action queue to cancel it, re-engage the enemy, then cancel Parry mode, then sing the song. All the while some troll is bouncing rim shots off your head like you were a snare drum. It's a complete pain in the ***.

I mean, my Dwarven Defender's Defensive Stance Mode will cancel if a stiff breeze blows by or someone sneezes, but Parry hangs on like bad debt or an crazy ex-girlfriend.

Anyway, you can see that this annoys me. Minor glitch. I just hit level 36 playing this one, and you need to switch the Skill Focus:Parry and Epic Skill Focus:Perform from levels 36 and 39.
Other than that, this a great character. Everyone want's to party up with me because of my song and buffs. And he's suprisingly good at fighting. AB 40 with a +6 rapier, +2 from the song, and he drops enemies AC by 6 from the song + 6 from taunt. So an effective AB of 54.