Bard Advice/Help

[Ragnar13]

Alright, I've been away fromt he game for what seems like forever. I happen to have a level 4 Bard/1 Fighter. I can't seem to recall what original plan was for this character but I noticed I've used 4 +2 tomes so was wondering if someone could help me steer this character back on track and be viable for current game.

Started Dwarf NG
17 str
15 dex +2 tome 17 now
16 con
12 int +2 tome 14 now
8 wis +2 tome 10 now
10 cha +2 tome 12 now

Have feats:
Power Attack
Two Weapon Fighting
Weapon Focus: Slashing

Happen to have quite a load of dwarven axes.

[earlran]

It looks like you have an Axesinger or something of the like.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=195289

If you modify it for fighter, rogue, or barb levels you can make a beefy TWF bard out of it.

You have a high enough intell that you can do traps if you take a rogue level imo.

[karl_k0ch]

Welcome Back.

Looks like a decent start for a DPS centered Bard.

Taking Rogue not at level one yields a sub-optimal skill progression. You'll be missing quite a number of skill points. But then, if you do not plan to take Disable Device, Search, or Spot, you could be fine just taking the rogue level later on. With that, rogue only gives some Sneak Attack damage, and Evasion.

Let's have a look at the various viable options to splash bards:

16 Bard, compared to 20 Bard essentially lacks +1 damage, +1 attack from level 20, a Mass Suggestion Song, the capstone and a few spells (but allows also level 6 spells).
15 Bard, compared to 16 bard loses Level 6 spells,
14 Bard, compared to 15 bard, loses the AC song, but still gets access to the same enhancements as a level 20 one.

You see, it's a slippery slope.

That having said; depending on how much fighterness and how much bardiness you want, both 16/4 and 14/6 are viable Bard/Fighter splits. The former one gets almost all the stuff of a full bard, while having a better DPS than that, the latter trades off some of the bard perks for a Kensai I with dwarven axes for even more DPS.

If you are interested in splashing other classes, such as Barb or Rogue, this is also totally possible, but I stuck to the already apparent classes. Broader multiclass splits include 16/2/2 and 15/3/2, where the 2's are either fighter, barbarian or rogue, and the 3 is rogue. Let let us know what you are interested in. You might find some interesting builds in Irinis' Bard guide, which I've linked in my sig.

If anything what I said here was unclear, or overwhelmed you, just let me know.