11 Barbarian/8 Bard/1 Rogue - Solo Crowd-Control Tank

[clericreborn]

Greetings,

I've been playing around for the last couple days with a build for a solo-character that would be able to run pretty much any mission without help. To that end, I wanted something with good crowd control and high skills. After alot of tinkering, I set upon 11 Barbarian/8 Bard/1 Rogue. The idea being that the 8 Bard provides the vast majority of buffs that I care about (Blur/displacement/Haste/Good Hope) as well as maximum perform skill, with virtuoso and skill-perform, for a powerful fascinate/enthrall that allows me to handle the hoardes on my own terms. I've thrown in alot of toughness enhancements, tower shield and heavy armor to make up for the relative squishiness of rogue/bard levels.

Anyway, The character builder gives too much information. Here's the cliff notes:

Barb 11/Bard 7/Rogue 2
404 HP
280 SP

14 Str 12 Dex 20 Con 14 Int 8 Wis 21 Cha

ENHANCEMENTLIST: 40,
2 Human Adaptability Constitution I,
4 Human Greater Adaptability Charisma
2 Human Improved Recovery I,
1 Human Versatility I,
2 Human Versatility II,
3 Human Versatility III,
4 Human Versatility IV,
1 Bard Extra Song I,
2 Bard Extra Song II,
4 Bard Virtuoso I,
1 Bard Perform I,
2 Bard Perform II,
2 Bard Charisma I,
4 Bard Charisma II,
2 Bard Music of the Dead,
1 Bard wand/scroll mastery 1
1 Rogue Disable Device I,
1 Rogue Open Lock I,
1 Rogue haste boost 1
2 Barbarian Improved Damage Reduction I,
4 Barbarian Improved Damage Reduction II,
1 Barbarian Damage Reduction Boost I,
2 Barbarian Damage Reduction Boost II,
3 Barbarian Damage Reduction boost III
4 Barbarian Damage Reduction boost IV
1 Barbarian Extend Rage I,
2 Barbarian Extra action 1
2 Barbarian Constitution I,
4 Barbarian constitution 2
1 Barbarian Toughness I,
2 Barbarian Toughness II,
3 Barbarian toughness III
4 Barbarian toughness IV
1 Barbarian Sprint Boost 1
1 Racial Toughness I,
2 Racial Toughness II,
3 Racial Toughness III,

Toughness
Skill-Perform
Heavy Armor Proficiency
Tower Shield Proficiency
force of personality
Diehard
nimble fingers
toughness

LVL 1 Spells
Cure light wounds
Charm person
Feather fall
Focus Chant

LVL 2 Spells
Blur
Heroism
Fox's Cunning
Eagle's Splendor

Lvl 3 Spells
Good Hope
Displacement
Haste

Relevant Skills
Unbuffed
Haggle26
Perform 35
UMD 26
Disable Device 25
Open Lock 23
Spot 22

Buffed
Haggle 33
Perform 42
UMD 33
Disable Device 34
Open Lock 30
Search 31

I still feel like I could put my feats to better use, grabbing myself some mithral full-plate and dropping the heavy armor, but I'm really not sure what else I should take. Also reconsidering some of my enhancement investment in toughness, and still debating what to take in its place. So please, let me know what you think, and how I might do better. I'm hoping to roll this soon as a veteran character, as soon as I have the points to unlock it.

Thanks!

[vindicater]

Unless I am mistaken the DCs on your facinate figure in your bard level. So any significant splash out of bard pretty much nurfs your fasinate. I really dont see the possibility of this being a strong build. If you just have to do something like this I think you would be better off going with fighter than barb. And thats coming from a barb.

[clericreborn]

Fascinate is based on total skill in perform + 1D20 for its resist DC, not caster level. Losing so many levels in bard does nerf my access to certain spells and my SP, but as I stated, this character is about soloing and crowd control, and I happily make that trade.

With 11 levels of barbarian, I gain access to some truly fantastic enhancements, most notably static and boostable damage reduction, boosts to constitution and hp. Rage is useful for a character whos damage output is fairly limited, and, most importantly, this is a skill intensive build.As it is, I am stretching my skill points to the max to get the levels listed.

Fighter further limits my skills and really offers no new enhancements that I need. I have more feat slots than I have essential feats right now anyway. I really think that I have the optimal level spread, but I would love some input into my feat and enhancement selection.

Thoughts?

[Ultrazen]

I have some bard splash buffer/fighter characters, they are actually really fun for solo play. You'll run into a whole lot of grief from people when grouping, but they are fun toons.

The general problem with builds like this, is that you give up quite a bit, to get sub standard buffs that are usually available in a better form. Once again, they are awesome builds for solo focused characters, but really lose out when you start getting into serious groups tackling tougher content. All the buffs and what you have to bring with the bard splash will be done better by someone else, and at that point your just left with a DPS character that's sub standard.

I love builds like these, and they are fun depending on what your goals are for the game. If you're going to solo a bunch, and or group with 1 other person and try and run quests, they're awesome. If you are looking for a viable end game toon that is going to contribute in groups, that's where you're going to run into trouble.

[testing1234]

towershield 50% arcane spell failure for bards (not all bard spells get this but haste and displacment do)
heavy armour 50% or 75% arcane failure

why not just settle for 6barb lvls that were you get all the juicy stuff frenzy
your actually missing both feats needed to take frenzied berzerker at lvl6 barbarian
cleave and power attack

have you compared your builds damage to what a pure bard would have with either 2handed fighting feats or 2weapons feats? i suspect your build would not win this dps battle

[clericreborn]

@Testing1234- While you may have a point about frenzy, as I could very well fit that in my build for some decent DPS, you seem not to have grasped the point of my build. This is not a DPS build, this is a jack-of-all-trades that is designed to solo as much content as possible, yet still offer some value to groups through great crowd control and rogue skills.

Likewise, spell failure is only an issue if a spell needs to be cast DURING combat. As long as I can take a moment in between fights to strip gear and cast buffs, spell failure is a non-issue.

That said, I could address the DPS issue greatly by dropping diehard/tower shield and my second toughness for power attack and cleave, then take Frenzied berzerker. If I dropped down to Bard 7, I could trade haste or displacement for Frenzied II and, by dropping haggle, move to 22 ranks in Perform, UMD, Search, Disable Device, and Open Locks. I retain maximum utility from my Bard, while giving my self a great DPS boost.