Breaking Down Inspire Courage Optimization

[Greyfell]

a lot of DM's will not allow DLCS material in their games, because several of the feats have been broken in half and jabbed in their eye too many times. 

Having said that:  yes, Knight of the Rose rocks.  It should rock.. after all, you have to take multiple levels in two other prestiges just to qaulify.  It's alot like Fochlucan Lyrist (spelling? away from books): you can get immense coolness and power out of it, which is only fitting considering the hoops you have to jump through to get into it without silly tricks.

[fuinjutsu]

+ 1 to the above.  Knight of the Rose is nutbustingly hard to get into, and if you do get in, the +4 IC is nice but not super.  Really after all that work you darned well better get something nice.

Making a true Super-bard requires Mythic Exemplar (Reikhardt) shenanigans.

[Greyfell]

Honestly, bard has **SO MANY** paths/options once you get out of core that's it can be a bit overwhelming.

Mythic exemplar with Reikhardt is pretty awesome, just read it over.

Want to debuff? (and are evil?)  Doomspeak.

Want to be a fighter who inspires people around him to fight better?  War chanter with battlecaster and mithral full plate

Want to outcast a stock wizard?  Lyrical Thaum, Sublime Chord.  Sonic might, Lyrical spell, Metamagic song.

Optimizing Inspire courage is great and all (I personally think the dragonfire inspiration is a bit much), but it's only one of dozens of things a Bard can do.

[fuinjutsu]

Honestly, bard has **SO MANY** paths/options once you get out of core that's it can be a bit overwhelming.

yep, s'why it's my favorite Archetype (totemist is my favorite class... pity the two don't mix well)

Mythic exemplar with Reikhardt is pretty awesome, just read it over.

Mythic exemplar + heartfire fanner = What do you mean you base bard level is your class level + 2 without any items?   

Want to debuff? (and are evil?)  Doomspeak.

Don't even have to be evil for doomspeak (no alignment restriction).  One of my bard ideas had both Words of Creation and Doomspeak.

Want to be a fighter who inspires people around him to fight better?  War chanter with battlecaster and mithral full plate

Can also be done as the Paladin (Harmonious Knight) with Smite To Song, Initiate of Milil, and loads of "swap song for feat" shenanigans.  Or bard/warblade or crusader with Song of the White Raven.  Or Warrior Skald.

Optimizing Inspire courage is great and all (I personally think the dragonfire inspiration is a bit much), but it's only one of dozens of things a Bard can do.

Yep.  The half elf "sit-lo-mancer" was a good one too.  Can you make a DC 76 will save?  No? Then you can't make hostile actions this round. 

[zaulsiin]

[...] The half elf "sit-lo-mancer" was a good one too.  Can you make a DC 76 will save?  No? Then you can't make hostile actions this round. 

Would you mind elaborating on this? Don't think I've heard of this build. Just a suped up Bard "Diplomancer" with some sort of fascinate abuse, I guess?

[Unbeliever]

...
Can also be done as the Paladin (Harmonious Knight) with Smite To Song, Initiate of Milil, and loads of "swap song for feat" shenanigans.  Or bard/warblade or crusader with Song of the White Raven.  Or Warrior Skald.
...

Sorry for the ignorance, but what are the "swap song for feat" shenanigans?  Do they rely on Dragon material? 

re:  Doomspeak, the feat is awesome, and I love how it (and Haunting Melody, etc.) give Bards a whole other schtick, as has already been noted.  My gf played an epic bard for a long while, and I know this will never come up in most games, but the epic Lasting Song or whatever it's called feat w/ Doomspeak is pretty horrific.  We nerfed it to 1d4 rounds or something, but it was still pretty amazing.  Like, epic monsters would even miss on some of their attacks, if you can believe it. 

[zaulsiin]

Sorry for the ignorance, but what are the "swap song for feat" shenanigans?  Do they rely on Dragon material? 

Eberron Campaign Setting (pg 34) has rules that allow a bard to swap their songs for feats from a specific list. I'm assuming this is what he's referencing.

Relevant text spoilered below.
[spoiler]

[..] A bard can take these feats any time she would normally gain a feat, or can choose one of them as a bonus feat instead of gaining a new form of bardic music at 3rd, 6th, 9th, 12th, 15th, or 18th level.
These bard feats are Haunting Melody, Music of Growth, Music of Making, Song of the Heart, and Soothe the Beast.

[/spoiler]

[fuinjutsu]

Sorry for the ignorance, but what are the "swap song for feat" shenanigans?  Do they rely on Dragon material? 

Eberron Campaign Setting (pg 34) has rules that allow a bard to swap their songs for feats from a specific list. I'm assuming this is what he's referencing.

Relevant text spoilered below.
[spoiler]

[..] A bard can take these feats any time she would normally gain a feat, or can choose one of them as a bonus feat instead of gaining a new form of bardic music at 3rd, 6th, 9th, 12th, 15th, or 18th level.
These bard feats are Haunting Melody, Music of Growth, Music of Making, Song of the Heart, and Soothe the Beast.

[/spoiler]

Yep.  A Milil paladin can gets all bard songs from Initiate of Milil, so he can trade all the BM's he would get in place of remove disease from Harmonius Knight for those Eberron feats, if the DM allows using sources from multiple campaign settings.  So, Song of the Heart at 6, Haunting Melody at 9, Soothe the  Beast at 12, Music of groth at 15, and Music of Making at 18.  Gotta catch 'em all, Pokemon!

[skydragonknight]

Just don't trade away songs that are the prereqs of said feats.

[fuinjutsu]

Just don't trade away songs that are the prereqs of said feats.

I'm getting all those from the Initiate of Milil feat, not from Harmonious Knight levels.  ^_^

[Optimator]

I think the Sit-lo-mancer is a reference to the Half-Elf Racial Substitution levels, which are pretty cool.

[Endarire]

Where's the lingering chorus spell found?

Spells:
Lingering Chorus: Does the same thing as Lingering Song, except you can have only one LC active at one time, and it lasts CL rounds. Same use as LS.

[Endarire]

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