For me, this is now my personal favourite Bard build as it can be played as a melee char or as a good support party character, or as both depending what mood you are in
Stats: Race Human Str 16 Dex 10 Con 14 Int 10 Wis 8 Cha 16
I wanted to take Lasting Inspiration by level 33, hence why the last RDD is so late.
Stat Selection; STR 12 & 16 Char 4,8,20 to 40
Skills; Discipline 42 Perform 43 Tumble 40 Taunt 43 (Skill points are only put in after after lvl 20)
Hide 5 Lore 8 Open Lock 1 (taken before lvl 20) Spellcraft 9 (3 before lvl20) UMD 12 (7 before lvl20)
Charisma taked UMD to 20, while bard song without items takes Spellcraft to 20.
End Stats; Str 26 Dex 10 Con 16 Int 12 Wis 8 Cha 26
Saves; Fort 33, Bard song 35 Reflex 27, Bard song 29 Will 30, Bard song 33 Additionally; Add 1 minimum for eagle splendor, add 4 vs spells when bardsong active.
Attack Naked +38/33/28/23 Attack Naked with Bardsong & buffs +44 minimum, however excluding greater magic weapon and Curse Song.
AC naked 24 AC naked with bardsong & buffs 47 to 49
The nicest thing is that Taunt is pretty powerful at level 40; it is 73 minimum with eagle splendor and bardsong, and enhanced to 85 minimum when considering the affects of Curse Song.
Complimenting spells and bardsong for damage is Divine Might.
Edited By griphook on 06/02/05 14:41
I like this build a lot myself, and am hard pressed to change much of it except a couple of variants. I say variants because the build as is quite polished.
Could go BG 10/bard 20/rdd 10, better sneak attacks, and you can have 1 better AB this way.
bard 20/rdd 16/bg 4, I believe you get 2 more AC this way from rdd lvls, and only lose 1 feat by doing so. _________________ I may not be able to get an erection, but at least I have enough balls not to hack.
Thanks Stephen Your right about the changes, which make good alternatives.
I went 26 Bard for a couple of reasons; dont have to worry about greater dispel, and I really wanted to justify playing beyond a lvl 20 Bard
It is hard to justify for sure.
I would slightly change the stats myself since I would just cast cat's grace usually to max out dex needed for plate armor, and raise up int. Skills are always a good selection with the bard class, but with almost half your lvls to BG/rdd, its nice to get 43 more skills for use magic, tumble, spellcraft, discipline, heal, perform, taunt or whatever else is needed. _________________ I may not be able to get an erection, but at least I have enough balls not to hack.
I really like this combination, IMO its one of the strongest blackguard concepts along with cleric/BG (im ignoring pally/BG since its exploit based). Id be sorely tempted to go for bard 14 rdd 10 BG 16 though for the extra epic feat, albeit with a significant skill point loss.
Even so, it looks good.
The original goes bard 26, so actually does gain the same amount of feats.
While it would be nice to go more blackguard, I like lasting inspiration a lot since most PWs have some kind of rest restriction. Extra sneak attacks is nice, but so is 10 turn bard songs as well as more spells.
Least that's my view, like I said, the first version has very little improvements. _________________ I may not be able to get an erection, but at least I have enough balls not to hack.
I made a similar build to this that I play on the PW I frequent but have never posted here. Same level distribution, I just took more Dex so that I could cast and still have good AC in robes. It is a great combo. Level 26 Bard Song is the point where your song AC goes to 6, and you get two bonus bard feats that can be spent in either Great DEX, Great CHR, or Lasting Inspiration. On a PvM server, Lasting Inspiration is one of the best feats around as it allows you to spend almost all of your songs on curses as you go from fight to fight. I also went for dev crit as opposed to more Charisma, but this would be fun, too
One thing I did differently in my build was that I skipped Divine Shield. The server I am on has +10 Boots available, along with permahaste. That gets you to +16 dodge AC, which combined with either a lvl 16 bard song and mage armor, or just a lvl 26 bard song, gets you to the +20 Dodge AC limit. On a low magic server, I would definately take it, though. _________________ Click Here
Edited By Yar Stardawg on 04/07/05 14:38
according to grimoire, you get the second sneak attack at BG 7, so how would Bard 23/RDD10/BG 7 go in the wash.
You get Lasting Inspiration (yay), 2d6 sneak, yay and Dev Crit, Yay!
according to grimoire, you get the second sneak attack at BG 7, so how would Bard 23/RDD10/BG 7 go in the wash.
You get Lasting Inspiration (yay), 2d6 sneak, yay and Dev Crit, Yay!
Well, what other feats are you dropping? 23 bard will give you one less bonus feat. Plus you'd need to pick up Great Cleave, overwhelming crit, and dev crit. So that's 4 feats you'd have to drop from the current build.
That drops your bard song down further than dropping the bard levels does, as well as your already low AB. Which also makes it less likely that you would actually get enough crits to make Dev crit as useful. Hrm, well, too each his own. It probably will end up not being that much more or less effective anyway.
Steve
To use Dev Crit I would consider some of the other Bard/RDD builds out there.
From my own experience playing online PWs, if Dev Crit is enabled then you need to have a reasonably high natural STR, around the Mid 30s. Otherwise epic mobs save most of the time, the places I played disabled the auto fail 1 to stop the abuse of critting a lot and hoping for a roll of 1 on the dev
I quess it depends where you play.
Anyway, this build was designed more around not being dispelled by anything except Mords, have strong saves, and good dmg/ac due to divine shield/might. Edit: Oh, and to have a very strong bardsong and taunt. The reduction on a boss discipline by Curse song could make a difference for another fighter in the group managing a Knockdown. And the high taunt has a good chance of working against casters.
That drops your bard song down further than dropping the bard levels does, as well as your already low AB. Which also makes it less likely that you would actually get enough crits to make Dev crit as useful. Hrm, well, too each his own. It probably will end up not being that much more or less effective anyway.
Steve
alright settle petal. I didn't question the ladies honour. I'm making an observation on a build I like very much..
That drops your bard song down further than dropping the bard levels does, as well as your already low AB. Which also makes it less likely that you would actually get enough crits to make Dev crit as useful. Hrm, well, too each his own. It probably will end up not being that much more or less effective anyway.
Steve
alright settle petal. I didn't question the ladies honour. I'm making an observation on a build I like very much..
kudos lala.. your points are well taken.
I think I was unclear. I was listing possible drawbacks, but endorsing your changes because it would still be a strong build but would suit your tastes more. Nothing wrong with personalization.
Steve
an excellent build, just wish you included the spells that you pick
Sorry to post so late on this build, but i just did one with this lvl split, with just a few differences i felt the need to share. First off i love this build it's great. I went elf and maxed out listen and took ESF listen. On the pw i play on you can get extra affects on items and with those bard song and amplify my listen max's at 92. Woo to the hipsers. So with keen sense and 92 listen it's real easy to curse then horn the hipsers. Byebye lil dex hipser it's over. Also took ESF disc which maxes out at 80. with a fort of 46 and a dc of 46 as well i'm doing the deving not getting dev'd. All in all a great pvp build. I recomend it to anyone . Xaentian(Mobius) Elp!!! I'm Bleedin Eavy!!!
Sorry to post so late on this build, but i just did one with this lvl split, with just a few differences i felt the need to share. First off i love this build it's great. I went elf and maxed out listen and took ESF listen. On the pw i play on you can get extra affects on items and with those bard song and amplify my listen max's at 92. Woo to the hipsers. So with keen sense and 92 listen it's real easy to curse then horn the hipsers. Byebye lil dex hipser it's over. Also took ESF disc which maxes out at 80. with a fort of 46 and a dc of 46 as well i'm doing the deving not getting dev'd. All in all a great pvp build. I recomend it to anyone .