Barbarian/Bard Build...

[~NakarJovane]

I've been thinkin bout this for a while... how well would a barbarian bard build work? I would wear light armor to reduce my chances and still be armored. I would be able to buff myself and my party members and then tank into battle. Any opinions or builds I could try?

Note: I'm one of those people who has not unlocked 32 point builds... still workin on it though!

[Quartzite]

Rage is the main problem with Barbarian caster multi-class builds. Rage is a Barbarian's main strength, but when raging, you lose your main strength from your caster class. I've been playing a Battlebard recently and although I don't cast very often, I like being able to cast Haste regularly and toss wand heals between fights. Raging would stop me being able to do that.

[Shade]

Well it should be quite viable as its basicly the main idea behind being a warchanter.

But you need to keep in the mind the focus of the build should frontline melee combat, with buffs as a bonus, as well as realising it will be a difficult to play build due to all the careful timing of buffs, rages and abilities to all co-incide.

I looked at the idea and I think the ideal setup was 8 bard 6 barbarian atm. That would get you third level spells, ie haste and displacement, yet keep enough barbarian levels to make you a strong melee combatant.

Your feats would need to be power attack, wep focus, extend, improved crit and 1 other of ur choice.

Ideal race is Dwarf or Human.

Youd play basicly by doing all songs, then all buffs (haste, displacement, and ideally stoneskin and tensors or devine power scrolls) on self and party, then going pure melee for the next 1:48 (length of your buffs) also youd want to set your extend rage to last exactly that amount by adjusting xtend rage/con enhancements to match, so that its all sync'd as you need a rebuff, lesser restore and re-rage.

Youd sacrifice any CC or Healing ability for strong melee skills while filling the role of buffer for the party. Sometimes that can be the ideal setup (say party with several clerics already but low melee power)

You could go more bard levels but youd end up losing allot, imp uncanny dodge, some fort save and a chunk of HP.. and you only gain a little, like lvl4 spells at 10, but really the good one is ottos orb which you cant use rage.. And freedom of movement, is nice but clerics can do that or you can get ht boots.

[Quartzite]

If you were going to do this, I'd say WF is the best race because it allows you to avoid fatigue from Raging. And if you time your Rage with your Hastes it should work decently. But that'll take some precise building. Raging can be ended prematurely next patch, but then you are wasting your core class ability. It'll be much harder to play than a Fighter/ Bard build. But it could work.

Oh and I'd go 9 Bard/ 5 Barb. That way you can get Inspire Greatness and only lose 1 BAB and trap sense, but if you are using Tenser's Scrolls then BAB is maxed, anyway.

[~NakarJovane]

If you were going to do this, I'd say WF is the best race because it allows you to avoid fatigue from Raging. And if you time your Rage with your Hastes it should work decently. But that'll take some precise building. Raging can be ended prematurely next patch, but then you are wasting your core class ability. It'll be much harder to play than a Fighter/ Bard build. But it could work.

Oh and I'd go 9 Bard/ 5 Barb. That way you can get Inspire Greatness and only lose 1 BAB and trap sense, but if you are using Tenser's Scrolls then BAB is maxed, anyway.

You said here that warforged would be the ideal race, but wouldn't that take away my ability to heal between fights? I want this character to be as self-sufficient as possible. I think I'll go as a human and see how it works, maybe I'll try a warforged build if I have a slot. Thanks for the suggestions.

[tihocan]

You said here that warforged would be the ideal race, but wouldn't that take away my ability to heal between fights?

Not really. You'd have UMD and be able to wand-heal yourself.

[Quartzite]

For 2 AP Warforged receive 65% of healing. If you keep yourself in wands it will cost you 1.5x as much as another character. But you will have immunities preventing death and allowing you to never get Fatigued. My Battlebard is WF and it's worth it. If you max UMD and score a Golden Cartouche you can use Repair Moderate Wands sucessfully most of the time.

[Shade]

Sorry but WF make horrible barbarians.

The fatigue thing is absolutely not important on this build. Like I said it will have a fair bit of downtime rebuffing/signing between rages anyways, an xtra few seconds to drink a lesser restore potion will not be a big deal.

The healing penalty, the huge drop in ac (no room for a body feat) just isn't worth it. Especially considering the losses vs dwarf or human. (Human for Free feat, HV, Adaptability or the numerous excellent dwarf bonuses)

Insire greatness is a small benefit, and possibly not even worth the song per day used up in some cases. +2 attack - which doesnt stack with a couple items which give you +1 attack.. Then what you lose.. -1 to both you weak saves, will and reflex, -1 bab (you wont always have tensers/DP scrolls active, it only lasts a minuit) less hitpoints, and most importantly enhancements: power rage II, xtend rage II, hearty rage II. Resulting in your rage not lasting long enough, and not providing as much benefit.

[~NakarJovane]

I went ahead and rolled a human barb, here's what his stats look like:

Str: 15
Dex: 14
Con: 14
Int: 10
Wis: 8
Cha: 14

I knew I needed to have at least a 14cha to be able to cast spells effictively, and the str and con scores could use a little work. So far, however, he's done pretty well. He has 34 hit points and a base ac of 14. I knew the dex needed to be in a moderate range so I set it at 14 to see what my ac looked like. At this point I am only testing the toon to see if it works the way I want it to. If not, I'll consider rerolling or completely deleting him. I'm also lookin for any builds someone has made and doesn't mind me using. Thanks!

[Shade]

I think max str is absolutely required on the build as its DPS focused with basicly no defense aside from buffs.

I think you can drop dex to 10, and possibly cha to 12 and max strength. Dex isn't too important, as long as you can hit the 16 needed for mithral FP, which is easy 10 +1 tome +5 item...

Cha is actually not important for casting on this build. It needs a min of 13 to actually cast, but thats 13 buffed, so a +1 enhancement, item, tome or whatever can get you there. Any higher just provides a very meager bonus to SP (like 8 SP per mod?)

Now you might need the point to hit a certain umd score im not sure I didn't calculate that.. Think your right on getting 10 int tho for the skillpoints.

[sigtrent]

I've got a bard barbarian, and a rogue barbarian, and a sorcerer barbarian...

All of them with only a couple levels of barbarian so far. If you do it this way Rage becaomes yet another buff, but you have to plan on not casting while your doing it. This means I don't use rage much soloing, but in a group I am more likely to do it after throwing whatever spells I want. The sorcerer hardly ever rages, I mostly took barbarian for the speed and an HP boost.

Fatigue is a trivial consideration, just chug a pot or use a wand of lesser restore and its gone.

I can also see a predominatnly barbarian build wiht a level or two of bard just to get UMD and a few uses of fascinate for PvP or the like.

[~NakarJovane]

Yeah, I'm really not that worried about fatigue. After I rage I'll restore and be done with it.

[~NakarJovane]

I've got a bard barbarian, and a rogue barbarian, and a sorcerer barbarian...

All of them with only a couple levels of barbarian so far. If you do it this way Rage becaomes yet another buff, but you have to plan on not casting while your doing it. This means I don't use rage much soloing, but in a group I am more likely to do it after throwing whatever spells I want. The sorcerer hardly ever rages, I mostly took barbarian for the speed and an HP boost.

Fatigue is a trivial consideration, just chug a pot or use a wand of lesser restore and its gone.

I can also see a predominatnly barbarian build wiht a level or two of bard just to get UMD and a few uses of fascinate for PvP or the like.

Is the number of songs I get effected by an ability score? I would love for this guys to turn out as a pvp beast so fascinate is something I am concerned about. I've played a bard once before and really was quite squishy at first lvl so I deleted him... never really got into how a bard works.

[~NakarJovane]

Next mod we will be able to end rages prematurely, but will that prevent the effects of fatigue?

[sigtrent]

Is the number of songs I get effected by an ability score? I would love for this guys to turn out as a pvp beast so fascinate is something I am concerned about. I've played a bard once before and really was quite squishy at first lvl so I deleted him... never really got into how a bard works.

# of Bard songs is just your level in bard + any extra songs from enhancements. They are unafected by stats.

[sigtrent]

Next mod we will be able to end rages prematurely, but will that prevent the effects of fatigue?

Nope, you still get fatigued for the full time if you end it early. None the less I'm looking forward to that, I've been in a few scrapes where I wished I could end it early.

BTW: Keep potions on hand! More than once I've finished a fight wiht a sliver of health while raging realizing that as soon as the range ends... I'm going to drop, but due to the rage I cant use spells or wands to heal! Once I escaped this fate by running out of the quest just before rage expired and fell down and then let the world regen pick me back up. It was pretty amusing but a potion would have fixed it for me.

[~NakarJovane]

Ok, thanks, gonna go reroll now...

[chewwook]

I'm liking this discussion, and learning a lot about the things to watch out for on combining bards and barbarians, but what about dragonmarks? Are these clickies like any others or can you use them while raging?

[Shade]

Dragonmarks are a spell-like ability. So they work exactly the same as casting spells.

You can't do that while raged. You cant do much anything at all while raged except fight and drink potions.

Maybe sing while raged? not sure on that.

[skraus1]

Is the number of songs I get effected by an ability score? I would love for this guys to turn out as a pvp beast so fascinate is something I am concerned about. I've played a bard once before and really was quite squishy at first lvl so I deleted him... never really got into how a bard works.

You won't have the AC to stand up to fighters with true seeing on. These sorts of builds are made to kill monsters, not pvp. In fact your ac is going to suck anyway, so I'd rely on your saves, dr, hp and displacement.

I would go dwarf hands down. My 32 pt warchanter Zhaffy has over 300 hp unbuffed and a 28 str. Zhaffy only has 2 barbarian levels

Inspire greatness really is a good song, as I have not found any non-raid items it doesn't stack with. I would try to get enough bard so that your displacement outlasts your rage, so you can hit displacement and then rage and have protection while you rage.

Also don't forget to consider bard song enhancements a 10 bard can get +7 to hit and +6 to damage from songs alone...which affects the whole party.