Author Topic: Cantor. making a "Bard" with full Divine casting  (Read 2713 times)

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Operation Shoestring

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Cantor. making a "Bard" with full Divine casting
« on: September 06, 2008, 07:24:28 PM »
Took a look at Initiate of Milil, and have been trying to optimize a Cantor ever since.

The most obvious thing is Bard1/Cloistered Cleric19 using initiate of Milil.  Effectively you can function as a level 20 bard, while having 9th level divine spells.

Anyone with ideas on how to make that better?

One of my attempts came out as

Beguiler1/Cloistered cleric 4/Prestige Paladin3/Prestige Bard1/Cloistered Cleric+7/(Divine casting +4)

However, I am not sure how Initiate of Milil or Vest of Legends interacts with Prestige Bard.

Arcane-surge

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Re: Cantor. making a "Bard" with full Divine casting
« Reply #1 on: September 06, 2008, 07:32:13 PM »
Sacred Performer from Dragon 357 would give you more bardic music attempts with the Bard 1/Cloistered Cleric 19. Divine Inspiration, from Dragon 330, would do the same job as Initiate of Milil, I'm pretty sure.
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woodenbandman

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Re: Cantor. making a "Bard" with full Divine casting
« Reply #2 on: September 11, 2008, 11:45:42 AM »
Wells, the only way to get TRUE full divine casting is to have all domains and access to spells of any alignment descriptor. Obviously not happening, but you CAN get some Ur-Priest in there, if you want access to evil spells (or good spells, if you're evil).

Try the ol' Bard/Ur-Priest/Lyric Thaumaturge/Mystic Theurge for 9th level arcane and divine spells. A bit of MAD, but at least it's Wis and Cha, which synergize fairly well. You might even be able to become a diplomancer, if you try hard at it. But... I digress. Lyric Thaumaturge is either Complete Arcane or Mage, and Ur-Priest is complete divine. Mystic Theurge and bard obviously are core.

Also, if you're a gnome, definitely look in Races of Stone at the Divine Prankster class. It doesn't have full bardic abilities per se, but the initiate of Milil (if I understand it) stacks bard and cleric levels for bardic music in some way, and the Divine Prankster stacks for inspire courage and gets a slew of "comedic performance" which climaxes with the Killing Joke, which is really freakin' awesome. It takes 3 rounds, they make a will save to notice what's going on, and then they make a will save or die. Pretty sweet. Also it's a 10/10 class, and it has some sweet moves related to combat as well making it a rather good battlefield controller with some of its moves making the enemies attack you exclusively. A build might look like Bard 1/Cleric 9/Divine Prankster 10.


PhaedrusXY

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Re: Cantor. making a "Bard" with full Divine casting
« Reply #3 on: September 11, 2008, 02:57:05 PM »
Divine Prankster is awesome. I posted a cleric build combining it and Shadowcraft Mage in the SCM handbook back when puppies were the smallest animals.
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Akalsaris

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Re: Cantor. making a "Bard" with full Divine casting
« Reply #4 on: September 12, 2008, 04:26:13 AM »
Looks like a fun exercise =)

I actually like Bard 1/Cloistered Cleric 19 for the sheer simplicity of the combination.  Since you won't get more songs/day, you'll need to take Extra Music once I think.  If you're not using fast advancement classes like Ur-Priest and Sublime Chord (and honestly I dislike fast advancement classes: they suck too much at low levels and rock too hard at high levels), then the trick is to find the combination of bardic music and inspire courage that you want.

Bard 1/Cloistered Cleric 4/Divine Prankster 7/Cloistered Cleric +8 gets +2 to Inspire Courage and Song of Freedom, for example, but a Bard 1/Cloistered Cleric 4/Divine Prankster 10/Cloistered Cleric +5 gets +2 to Inspire Courage and Inspire Greatness, while picking up Disguise Spell (verbal) and Killing Joke.

Alternatively, a Bard 1/Paladin of Freedom 19 with Smite to Song and Initiate of Milil would have a high Inspire Courage and bardic music advancement (though not times/day), though it obviously wouldn't get very high divine casting, so it's a little off-topic.  Sorry ^^;;

Edit: I forgot Devoted Performer, which will let you do the Bard/Paladin thing without Paladin of Freedom, and also gives you another smite, plus stacking bardic music attempts/day.  The Knight of Milil from the CoV web enhancement would also let a paladin pretend to be a bard without leaving levels of paladin.  Anyhow, this has caught my interest...off to work on some bard/paladin builds (without derailing threads)!

« Last Edit: September 12, 2008, 06:18:52 AM by Akalsaris »

Operation Shoestring

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Re: Cantor. making a "Bard" with full Divine casting
« Reply #5 on: September 12, 2008, 01:21:46 PM »
Wells, the only way to get TRUE full divine casting is to have all domains and access to spells of any alignment descriptor. Obviously not happening, but you CAN get some Ur-Priest in there, if you want access to evil spells (or good spells, if you're evil).

Try the ol' Bard/Ur-Priest/Lyric Thaumaturge/Mystic Theurge for 9th level arcane and divine spells. A bit of MAD, but at least it's Wis and Cha, which synergize fairly well. You might even be able to become a diplomancer, if you try hard at it. But... I digress. Lyric Thaumaturge is either Complete Arcane or Mage, and Ur-Priest is complete divine. Mystic Theurge and bard obviously are core.


You mean Sublime chord, not lyric thau.  That's a caster build, not a real "bard" one.  And it goes Bard 6/Mindbender1/Ur Priest2/Mystic theurge1/Sublime Chord2/Mystic theurge+8

Does anyone know how "+ Bard Level" Effects stack with prestige bard?