Alright, been a while since I've posted but I've once again developed a thirst for something new.

I love Bards... they are perhaps my new favourite Class so it is definetly something I look forward to playing in a new way, however I'm not sure in which route I want to take the build.

-30 Levels
-12 Bard Levels Required for RDD
-No Devestating Critical
-No Perma-Haste or Perma-Sight Items
-Attribute Items Never Beyond +2
-Weapons and Armour +3 or Lower
-Alignment Shifts Possible
-Minimum 3 Consecutive Levels Before Taking New Class

I am thinking Melee. Bards have spells but most of the good ones are primarily used for boosting combat abilities.

I am considering:

Bard/BG/RDD
Bard/Paladin/RDD
Bard/BG/PM
Bard/RDD/PM

Or really any combination involving Bards, and an interesting PRC.

Any suggestions on a level split for a good Melee Bard? I will work off of a level split.

Thanks. Harper Scout is interesting as well, and so is AA though I do prefer Melee.

Hell, if you could find a way to incorperate Druid I would even take that simply because its unique. I guess what I'm saying is, I'm open.

Melee based preference, Bard is the only class I require, and I'm just hoping for a level split for a few of these class combos for me to work with. Since this is a low magic worlds, I'd highly suggest Shifter. (Yes it seems that I am very pro shifter these days.)

Shifters have great DR potential when the weapons they will face are +3 or less. Bard class plays nicely with Shifters since you can sink alot of Stat points into Cha and still end up with a decent str/dex/con because of shifting.

Or, you could be a singing Elder Earth Elemental. Their DR and heavy punches would work great. Those Druid spells would be nice for buffing too.

Shifters get +5 weapons. That would bypass the +3 limit on your server. If a form is unarmed, then it's DR value is used as the weapon + for determinig if they bypass the opponents DR. Example: Epic Gargoyle has 25/+7 DR. So he attacks as if he were using a +7 weapon when it comes time to determine if he can bypass the opponents DR. (he doesn't get +7 AB or Damage)


I would vote for DRx/Sh17/BARDy and go Epic Lizard Man Singer build.

You get a +5 whip, you get 15/+5 DR, free 21 str and 20 dex.

lots of goodies.


Keep in mind that I am a big Shifter Fan. I am also a big fan of Shifters, mainly for the RP, but I am a little skeptical about them. Though they often get cool abilities with high levels, the AB of most of the forms never exceeds low-forties if I'm not mistaken. I could be mistaken here as I haven't played a Shifter in a while, but as I recall, the AB was a bit of a problem for some (though not all) of the shapes.

It is something to keep in mind though, as it is perhaps one of the more interesting builds to play.

And somewhat offtopic, though since we mentioned Druids: What is the highest DC of a level 30 Druid?

DC = 10 + 1/2 Level + Wisdom Mod + Spell Level + Feats?

So with probably 28 Wisdom, 30 Levels, Epic Focus, and Owl's Insight Activated, the DC could exceed 50... right? That sounds too high for some reason, am I miscalculating something? There's no 1/2 lvl factor.
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Heavy metal
Or no metal at all
Whimps and posers
Leave the hall! I'm not sure what you mean with "Spell level" for the DC... wait, no 1/2 level factor!? come on, my DCs on a melee based Druid 38 / Monk 2 with dragon shift (over 30 WIS) were definitely below 50 (no spell focus feats).

Sure, it sounds high, but it needs to be high, a DC of 50 is quite good but it's not that high, take in account the uber saving throws reach the 90s (yeah, you won't find plenty of CoT/Paladin/Blackguard builds, but still, you get the point).

But Druids don't have too many good DC-style spells IMO, probably Drown, or to ensure a strong Fire Storm. Storm of Vengeance can be awesome with a high DC, if the enemy is not immune to paralisis (hate RDDs) and his save is low you'll make a continuous paralisis for 10 rounds, you can even cast simultaneous Storm of Vengeances, it will trash anything, as full damage when all saves fail is 20d6 (although easy to resist), the thing is I don't know how the save works against that one, or which one is applied as it says "Save: Special", don't even know if Evasion works against it, shouldn't work...

I remember an odd thing occuring when I played my first Druid/Monk build, as my DC for Storm of Vengeance suddenly increased if I shifted after casting it (more or less from 40+ to 50+), and the Dragon shift would improve the DC more than the elementals... I never figured out what was that, probably even a bug on old versions, might or might not be corrected by now, but I haven't checked. The 1/2 lvl posted there is meant as 1/2 caster lvl. Caster lvl does not get computed in the DC of a spell. A DC of 50 is very high, so high you ain't gonna get it. The highest DC for a spell is Implosion's DC at 48 with maxed WIS (50) and ESF: Evocation and that's because of the inherent +3 DC Implosion gets.
_________________
Heavy metal
Or no metal at all
Whimps and posers
Leave the hall! Hmmm, I should try my bug on the DC of Storm of Venegance again in the new version, it jumped DC to about 53... but I haven't played recently.