Friday, June 3, 2011

Building a better Skills Bard - D&D 4E

First of all, a couple things to take note of:

Bards are awesome.  There is nothing they can’t do and nothing they are mediocre at, as long as you build them correctly!  This version of the Bard will take multi-classing to a level never before seen.  Your skill bonuses will be top notch and you won’t sacrifice as much power as you would think.

First of all, it’s a MUST that your racial choice is HUMAN, as the extra feat and skill are huge.

This build will ensure you are trained in EVERY SINGLE SKILL, by multiclassing into 8 other classes!  Don’t take this lightly though.  This is a very advanced and complex build.  When trying to play a PC with this many multi-classes, it can be very cumbersome in play, ONLY due to the fact of remembering all the cool things you can do.  So far, I have found it to be highly effective as a leader, who can always find something to pull out his bag of tricks when the party needs it.

For the campaign that I’m in, we are using the following elite stats (being heroes and all).  For those following the offical guidelines, just adjust the ability scores as necessary.  Currently we are level 4, but as you can see, I’ve built him all the way to 30 already!

Human Prescient Bard – Jinx (how appropriate)
Str:  10
Con:  13
Dex: 14
Int: 15
Wis: 16
Cha: 20 (with +2 racial bonus)

Cha and Wis, are the two ability scores that affect the most skills. (9 total), which is why they were chosen.  Int and Dex followed as the next two highest for the same reason.  I normally don’t like to have my two highest scores competing for the same defense, (Will) in this case, but this is all about the skills.

Initial Training in: Arcana, Bluff, Diplomacy, Dungeoneering, Religion and Streetwise.

Here are the feats to choose at the appropriate level:

Level 1:  Bard of All Trades, Spirit Talker (Shaman Multi-class, gives Nature as a skill, a spirit companion with a cool power, speak with spirits – which gives you a bonus to a skill daily = to wis mod)

Level 2:  Resourceful Warlord (multi-class Warlord, training in History, really cool action point bonus, even on a miss (for all allies))

Level 4:  Bardic Knowledge (+2 to 6 skills, if trained...guess what, you are!) (+1 to Cha and Wisdom as well at this level)

Level 6:  Acolyte of Divine Secrets (Invoker Multi-classing, choose Religion as this skill, and retrain the previous Religion to Perception)  You also get a free invoker at will power to use, I recommend Vanguards Lightning. (uses Wisdom for attack)

Level 8:  Warrior of the Wild (multi-classing into Ranger), Training in Endurance, get Hunter’s Quarry feature.  (+1 to Cha and Wisdom, gives you an additional +1 bonus to all related skills)

Level 10: Sly Dodge (multi-class Rogue) Training in Intimidate, gives you a bonus to an opportunity attack against you = to your Cha mod. (currently a +6)  The Rogue multi-class feat is also taken now, because you need it for a Paragon Rogue Path.

Level 11:  Jack of All Trades – Rogue Paragon path!  +2 bonus to all skill checks!  +5 bonus to a skill check when you use an action point.  Feat:  Pact Initiate (Multi-class Warlock), training in Thievery.  Use Feypact Eyebite at will spell.  (+1 to all attributes, Int and Con Skills all go up by 1.)

Level 12:  Soldier of Virtue (Multiclass Paladin) Get the Virtue’s Touch paladin ability (very helpful).  Training in Heal.

Level 14:  Monastic Disciple, Multi-class Monk, Training in Athletics (Get the flurry of blows power to use once per encounter) (also, Cha and Wis goes up again, giving an additional +1 bonus to 9 skills)

Level 16:  As part of the Jack of all Trades path, you get training in 3 additional skills at this level!  Choose Acrobatics, Stealth and Insight.  You are now trained in all Skills!  Your lowest skill bonus should be around +15 and the highest around +24, NOT including any magic items you have that provide additional bonuses, this is just raw skills!)

At this point, replace Bard of all Trades with Improved Majestic Word and for your feat choice at this level, choose Prescient Fortification (even though it’s a heroic tier feat, it’s needed before the next feat).

Level 18:  Feat:  Prescient Aid (Cha and Wis ability scores go up +1)

Level 20:  Feat:  Majestic Rescue

Level 21:  All ability scores go up by +1, which means Cha, Wis, Str and Dex skills all go up by +1.  EPIC DESTINY:  SAGE OF ALL AGES, get a +6 bonus to the skills Arcana, Dungeoneering, History, Nature and Religion. (+30 skill points in total... HUGE)

Feat:  Multi-class Mastery.  Use this feat to replace 2 feats you already picked as multiclass feats, then for your ADDITIONAL 2 feats, choose:  Prescient Fortification and Toughness.  Retrain Prescient Fortification at 16th level with Extended Prescience.

Level 22:  EPIC WILL (+4 bonus)

Level 24:  EPIC REFLEX (+4 bonus) (Cha and Wis go up by +1)

Level 26: EPIC FORTITUDE (+4 bonus)

Level 28:  Prescient Resurgence  (Cha and Wis go up by +1, so a +1 to 9 skills again)

Level 30:  Supreme Majesty

So at this point, your lowest skill bonus should be around +23 and the highest around +37, NOT including any magic items you have that provide additional bonuses, again, this is just raw skills!)

So you can see this build is perfect for the skill junkie.  You can go even further by taking skill focus, as additional feats instead of the EPIC WILL/REFLEX/FORTITUDE and prescient/bard feats, but I felt that those that were chosen, were much more worth it, especially when your average skill bonus at 30th level,  is a +30.

This build can do more than a little bit of everything, with 511 skill points BEFORE any magic items.  Pretty sick.

If you have any questions or thoughts on improving the build, send me an email or post a comment.

2 comments:

  1. This is an amazing!!! bulid I'm acutally planning to use this in a campaign what items, backgrounds, from 4e would you recommend to use and if allowed is there a way I can add a dragonmark feat(was looking towards Mark of Scribing (from eberron)+2 to diplomacy checks +4 languages for role-playing purposes) without hurting the bulid? Please email me tjmoffatt285@gmail.com or tjmoffatt2@live.com. Thank you so much for posting this looking forward towards your response and advice

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  2. Thanks for posting this (oh so many years ago now)! :)

    I've gotten good mileage out of many of the suggestions here. And taking Sensate as a Theme (half level TMP when using Encounter or Daily attack powers) has had good synergy with the multi-class attack powers.

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