Sex Appeal Build 2.0 (Get ready for MOD 5!)

[hazur]

Greetings,

I have been hinting around here and there about the power of splashing a cleric level onto your bard, but now, I shall unleash the power of Sex Appeal 2.0.

The Sex Appeal "build" isn't even so much a build, as a bard state of mind. If you made a bard to be selfish, you should not read further. If you made a bard to help others, you should try this out. You want people to want you. You want people to stare. You want people to LOVE you. You want to SURPRISE people with your awesomeness. You are pure sex appeal.

This build is designed to do as much to help the group as possible without sacrificing a well-rounded stance.

This character is to be a Drow! (The sexiest race.)

This character should end up as a 13 Bard/1 Cleric.

Behold, my general starting stats for most of my Drow bards:

Str: 16 (Yay you can hit the broad side of a barn!)
Dex: 16 (You can still shoot a bow fairly decent!)
Con: 8 (Wow, you're a squishy.)
Int: 10 (Not too bright.)
Wis: 8 (Yea, we don't really need this.)
Cha: 18 (Woohoo, lots of sex appeal!)

You're going to put all your level ups into CHA. No questions there.

Level 1:
You're going with BARD here. I would pick up Cure Light Wounds, and the Mental Toughness feat.

Level 2:
Bard yet again, I think you get another spell, I would go with charm person.

Level 3:
CLERIC! And you get a feat, lets see, Extra Turns sounds good, lets get those DVs flowing! Pick up the DIVINE VITALITY and EXTRA TURNING enhancements and you are set to go with 4+3+4+1=12 DVs. You get to pick up Remove Fear (suggested) and another level 1 cleric spell slot for free.

Levels 4-14: BARD! You're looking at the bread and butter spells for bards, mostly as many buffs as you can grab: Blur, Displacement, Haste, Cure Moderate Wounds, Cure Serious Wounds, Good Hope, Greater Heroism, Disco Ball, Mass Suggestion, etc. For enhancements you want to go with MT/IMT, Extend Spell, Empower Healing, SF: UMD, Extra Turning, etc. All stat increases to Charisma! You also definitely want to pick up SPELLSINGER.


Now what the heck does this bard do anyway?

Well, most would say this bard is healing spec'd. Personally, I say its GROUP oriented. This bard does its best to help everyone in the party with their problems. You are the glue that holds the party together.

Some points:

You will have a large spell point pool from the extra 100+ cleric SP.
Your buffs help the entire party be a more devastating force in combat.
Between Fascinate and the high level CC spells, you set the pace.
As of MOD 5 you should be able to get 18+ DVs, or 300+ SP for the party.
You get a couple of free spell slots, cheesy but semi-helpful.
With your mid-range strength and dexterity, you can still wade into combat.
You will have burst healing ability, which is clutch in a lot of situations.


As of MOD 5 your entire Charisma Modifier will be added to your amount of Turn Undeads (DVs). This will allow (easily) for 10+3+4+1=18 DVs with the feat and the enhancement, or 13 without the feat and the enhancement. Even with the smaller amount, you are still looking at 200+ SP. This combined with the 100 or so you get from the cleric level on your own SP bar blows the sorcerer level concept out of the water. This is as far as grouping is concerned however, if you're selfish, you need not apply.

For more information and strategies on this build, refer to the original Sex Appeal Build thread. This is basically designed under the constraints of that build, only adding in the cleric level for the DVs and whatnot.

Regards,
Booser

[geezee]

Correct me if Im wrong, but dont you get more SPs from talking cleric at lvl 1?

[Freeman]

Correct me if Im wrong, but dont you get more SPs from talking cleric at lvl 1?

No, you get the same amount no matter when you take the first level of cleric.

But don't listen to Hazur, he doesn't know what he's talking about. Otherwise, he'd know that humans are the sexiest race

[Frodo_Lives]

With a wisdom that low I didn't think you could even cast cleric spells. Also that will make one heck of a squishy bard with such a low Con. I'd pull Str back to 14 and bump Con and Wis to at least 10.

This build seems to be a casting type of bard and I don't think losing +1 to Str will hurt it all that much. Heck I'd rather have a 12 Str or even 10 and go almost completely caster style and take advantage of the natural bonus to Dex (weapon finesse?) and Con.

[Quartzite]

A +3 Wis item is pretty easy to get. In fact you can buy them off the AH by level 7. So basically I'd leave the Cleric level until then.

For a caster build I'd feel comfortable taking 14 Str, too. Especially if it meant shoring up Con. But I'm a Con junky. It just becomes so much more effective at later levels. Every 2 Con gives 14 HP at 14th, after all. A bit of an improvement over the 2 HP/ 2 Con at level 2.

[Impaqt]

15 STR and 16 Dex make no sense for a Support Build.... Either way, your not hitting Much inthe High levels with a 3/4 BAB Build thats been splashed with another 3/4 BAB Build..... THat nets you a 9 BAB.. +6 STR or Dex gets you to +15 You'll be struggling to get you to hit up around +25 which is the Minimum you need to be efective at end game in batle.

8 CON is a death Sentence.... You simly wont survice if you take a couple hits. Fasinate i s an important tool if you intend to be a support build..

Run up to Fasinate.. Get clocked once.. Dead bard.. No Facinated Mobs........

Drop STR to 10, Put a couple more Points in DEX and the rest in CON.... Stick to Ranged attacks, Pick up Precision as a feat if you have room.

[hazur]

Greetings,

Great guys, thanks for the replies. The stats are just the basics that *I* personally enjoy for a bard. They are easily interchangeable. I am personally not big on CON for bards. I try to only be a front-line combatant when I will not be getting hit, therefore for me Strength > Con. I generally pick up things like +6 strength items with RR warforged or some other unfavorable race for strength (halfling for example) for cheaper than the norm. This boosts my strength up to 22, with rage, 24 and a +2 favor or raid tome for 26. You could do the same with lower and end up with 20-22 going as low as 10-12 strength. That is perfectly fine to smack things every now and then. Just personal preference. Just for your information though, I do fine with 8 base con on both my current 14 bards. I do not tend to stay in combat if anything is going to hit me hard. I also always use displacement in sticky situations, and make sure I have the resists I need.

Like I have said before, often constitution for a bard or cleric is all about reaction time. If you have a fast reaction time, you can generally go with less HP. The things that are going to one shot you with lower HP are generally spells that you can have resists up for, or traps which you can avoid. Otherwise you should be able to heal yourself/jump out of combat between hits, which is what I normally do. Granted there have been a few occasions where I have slipped up and died trying to fascinate, but I would have died whether I had 200 or 250 or even 300 HP, so made no difference. I currently run around 200 hp all buffed up and gear included. This is possible with an 8 base con if you have the gear. If you don't have the gear, (Greater False Life, +6 con item, tome) you might want to bump the con.

I have made full blown caster bards with con/cha before, as well as ranged. This just has a better feel to me. It makes leveling a breeze as well. Up until around level 10 (when you start getting into GH) you can pretty much be a frontline combatant all the time (except for some elite stuff, like Co6 elite for example).

With my current maxed bards, I have a 10 BAB. He gets up to +30 to hit with ease. With +1s (paralyzer etc.) it is around 26, yes. So this one will have about 25. I agree it will be tough to hit some things, but I am generally not interested in damage so much as paralyzing things. Vorpaling I don't even need a to hit for, that's the other thing I often do, but you don't need any strength for that so.

You're right about ranged being better for an all out caster bard, this is just how I like to play it. I'll try to post a ranged version soon. I posted a pure casting HUMAN version under a perma-death post recently if you can find that.

About Humans by the way - I adore them. Especially in 32 point varieties. They do make the BEST bards in many cases. However, I like the feel of Drow, and the evilness of them. Just my favorite D&D race, and why I feel they have the most sex appeal.

As for wisdom, wisdom items are cheapo. You could also boost the wisdom on this build if you wanted to drop the strength. This would net you an extra 10 SP if you popped it up to 10. Personally, I just use the items, seems like next to int, wisdom is cheapest. As for the level to take cleric, I like it at level 3 as the DVs allow you to blow otherwise drab parties through a lot of mid-level quests. It is perfectly viable to take it at 6 and get the extra turns feat, or even 7 and not get extra turns until 9. Or not even bother getting extra turns. When MOD 5 comes I may even drop that feat, I don't really think an average of about 70 SP is worth the feat, but I have it for now. Mental toughness gives 75 at this point, but will get better, so maybe 70 SP is close to taking a feat, at max it could be worth 88 SP.

I don't think people realize 200 HP is achievable with 8 con, and that 200 HP is perfectly fine for GH elite quests. I rarely die on Booser, unless the party is really really bad, or I am really really drunk. In most situations I die, 14, 28, 42 or even 100 more HP would not have helped me. I think everyone is just HP happy, like on every other MMO ever and since dwarf fighters get 500-600 HP now, everyone thinks they should have that much. :P

Maybe I will just level up my maxed con dwarven fighter that's so boring it makes me want to shoot myself. Then I can post that I have 34 con and everyone will love my build. :P

Enjoy,
Booser

[Impaqt]

You absolutly need a high TO Hit for Vorpaling.. You need to roll a 20 PLUS Confirm the Crit... WHich is a second roll where you MUST hit for the vorpal to kill the Mob...

[hazur]

You are totally right, forgot about that. I don't really play melee characters much so I forget things like that...is confirming the same as a to-hit roll?

[Freeman]

You are totally right, forgot about that. I don't really play melee characters much so I forget things like that...is confirming the same as a to-hit roll?

Yes, to confirm a crit, you make a second roll, using the same modifiers as the initial attack. If the second roll would hit the target AC, then the attack is a critical hit. Also, I'm betting we are going to start seeing more mobs with fortification items in the future as well, so there will be times when a third roll will be necessary to determine if you get through the fortification.

[Thrudh]

A bard with DVs (and the extra SP helps too) is a very interesting idea....

If my bard wasn't already multi-classed, I'd seriously consider this...

[LadeeM]

My healing bard is lvl 5 and started as such:

STR: 14 (can solo comfortably)
DEX: 12 (decent enough to assist with AC)
CON: 12 (make sure I get enough hps)
INT: 12 (I love skill pts)
WIS: 12 (I can cast cleric spells)
CHA: 19 (and a +1 cha tome right off the bat)

I took my cleric lvl @ 1 to get it over with, put started everything with the bard in mind. Mental toughness and extend are selected so far. Will also be going spellsinger. This build is pure support, and I have already convinced many that you don't "need" a cleric to do a quest. Although, running a bard as a pure healer is a lot more difficult than a cleric, but this character is all support with buffs, healing, and CC spells (she rarely misses on commands so far!).

Let me know if you're interested in what I end up with when she's lvl 14.

PS: She has 9 dvs so far, and will have more once mod 5 hits and I get extra turns.

[hazur]

Hello all,

I am back, since MOD 5 came out while I was gone, I figured I'd bump this to see if anyone else has tried it.

Regards,
Booser

[maddmatt70]

Greetings,

I don't think people realize 200 HP is achievable with 8 con, and that 200 HP is perfectly fine for GH elite quests. I rarely die on Booser, unless the party is really really bad, or I am really really drunk. In most situations I die, 14, 28, 42 or even 100 more HP would not have helped me. I think everyone is just HP happy, like on every other MMO ever and since dwarf fighters get 500-600 HP now, everyone thinks they should have that much. :P

Maybe I will just level up my maxed con dwarven fighter that's so boring it makes me want to shoot myself. Then I can post that I have 34 con and everyone will love my build. :P

Enjoy,
Booser

I would actually say in the gh you could probably successfully tank it with 150 hp, but thankfully this game is about more then the gh. If you want to play in some more quests then just the gh and you expect to get any sort of aggro at all 200 hp is light in the wallet especially if we see an invaders elite like return with the devils in the next module in which case you will be sitting in the back and your 16 str is worthless and would be better served in another stat like maxing charisma..

[hazur]

Greetings,

Thankfully this game is more than beholders and renders. By the way, this build is not meant to get aggro, its meant to hit stuff when its possible to do so WITHOUT getting aggro. This is not a tank, its a bard. Its a bard that can hit stuff. I would rather have 16 strength and 18 cha on this build than 10 strength and 20 cha. No one brings a bard with them to Invaders anyway, unless they really want the songs.

Regards,
Booser