My attempt at a Fochlucan Lyrist build

[UinseanRianAchta]

A Fochlucan lyrist, for those who don't know is a PrC from the Complete Adventurer supplement book. It's basically a combination of Rogue, Bard, and Druid because of the requirements (Evasion, Perform, ability to cast 1st level Arcane and Divine spells, Knowledge Nature, and the ability to speak the Druidic Language). Now, the advantage of the p&p version is a huge one: Every level of FL grants +1 to each Arcane and Divine spell caster level, so you're basically leveling as both a Druid and a Bard. That doesn't exist here, nor do some of the requirements, so this build is purely for fun.

The best way to build this in p&p is to start with 2 Rog, then 4 Brd, then 4 Drd. At level 11 start finishing with FL.

However, because of the new PrE's in DDO and the lack of requirement to change to an actual class for Prestige, I have tweaked the class selection a bit.

Starting off instead with three levels of rogue to get the Thief Acrobat ability to use Dex for Staff damage. Next we're taking 1 Druid level, simply to meet the "requirements" and also get access to a couple great spells and the free Magical Training feat. The build is meant to be played primarily as a musician, so more Bard levels will help to show this. The final class difference will be 3 Rog/1 Druid/16 Bard. That third Rogue level is normally rather useless in multiclass builds, but in this case it's going to be a huge help. If you want more Druid spells and the Wild Shape ability, feel free to go 3/3/14.

Now, into Attributes. Because this is such a varied class, my attributes are spread out pretty thin.

With a 32 Pt. Build (and no tomes cuz im poor!):

Sihndralla of the Fochlucan

10 Str
14 Dex
10 Con
14 Int
14 Wis
16 Cha

I went with Elf because the race really fits all three of the classes, especially with House P being home to Elven Bards. But if you want to maximize Attribute distribution, a TR into Halfling might be the way to go (+2 Dex, -2 Str, which is great because the Thief-Acro Dex damage for Staffs gets around the hit to Str). Then of course maxing all stats with tomes if you can manage it!

The choice to go with staff was made for two reasons. The first being the Thief-Acro ability, but also because of the Druid's Shillelagh spell. Sihndralla is currently level 7 with a +2 QS of Riposte that has +14 Attack - not too bad for only having a +4 BAB. This toon is also brand new and I don't have much in the way of equipment yet. Its damage also gets an additional +1d6 instead of only half like other wooden weapons. With careful focus on making melee better, this class is going to be very formidable up close. A good supplement to the spell casting power to come.

Skills are also going to be rather difficult, especially if you want to make good use of Disable, Search, Open, and Spot. The main focus though, since this is primarily a Bardic spell casting class, will be on Perform, Concentration, and Spellcraft. Secondary skills I am using are Bluff (TA Rogue's Sly Flourish), Disable, Open, Search, and Spot. With the extra points from the 2 Rogue levels at start, I also boosted Tumble, Hide, and Move Silently. Anything else you want is up to you, if you can afford it. Like I said though, the diversity of the skills here and the low mediocre Int score are going to wear you thin so be smart about it. If you can get a big Int tome, I'd suggest doing that.

Now we come to feats. If you chose a Human, go with Weapon Focus: Bludgeon as the Bonus feat. I'm listing here the ones I chose for my Elf. I'll make a second list of feats I'd recommend for other races (or Elves who don't want the DM)

1st level: Toughness
3rd level: Extend Spell
6th level: Least DM of Shadow
9th level: Mental Toughness
12th level: Lesser DM of Shadow
15th level: Maximize Spell
18th level: Greater DM of Shadow

------

1st: Toughness
3rd: Extend Spell
6th: Mental Toughness
9th: Heighten Spell
12th: Improved Mental Tougness
15th: Quicken Spell
18th: Maximize Spell


Now for the spells. My focus for arcane spells is on useful spells that (mostly) tie into the theme of being a Bard - hypnotic/charming/captivating spells for good CC and sonic spells for damage. Additional Bard spells, as well as my divine Druid spells, will help to boost combat abilities of me and my allies.

Bard:

Caster level 1 spells: Focusing Chant (@Lv1), Otto's Irr. Dance (@Lv2), Sleep (@Lv3), Sonic Blast (@Lv5)
Caster level 2 spells: Soundburst and Blur (@Lv4), Heroism (@Lv5), Hold Person (@Lv7)
Caster level 3 spells: Haste and Displacement (@Lv7), Good Hope (@Lv8), Deep Slumber (@Lv10)
Caster level 4 spells: Otto's Sphere of Dancing and Shout @Lv10

Once you've got all 10 Bard levels, go ahead and use the spell reset to get rid of old and redundant spells. Replace Sleep, Blur, and Otto's Irr. Dance with other spells you will find useful in your adventures.

Druid spells:

Shillelagh and Ram's Might. The DDOwiki page says Druids get 3 spells at first level in addition to the Spontaneous spell, but mine only has 2. I'm guessing it's because my Wis mod is only +2. Anyway, any spell will work as the third choice (and fourth if you go 3/3/14)

If you choose to take three levels of Druid, you can pretty much choose any of the second level spells to prepare. The main spells you want for the build though are Ram's Might and Shillelagh as they will beef up your melee capabilities the best of all the spells available to this build.

PrE's

For this build, I'm focusing on the Rogue's Thief Acrobat, the Druid's Nature's Warrior, and the Bard's Warchanter. These PrE's work incredibly well together. I'm not going into level 2 or 3 NW PrE's because, well, I just haven't taken the time to see how well they'd work with the other two PrE's. I don't plan on taking more than 1 Druid level. If you are considering it, you might wanna check out the bonuses offered by NW's level 2 and 3 PrE choices. Could be something useful there to help sway your opinion.

Level 1 Choices

Thief Acrobat:

Acrobat
Staff Training
Thief Acrobatics x3
Charming x3
Sly Flourish x3
Faster Sneaking x3

Charming increases an important skill for this build - Bluff. This meshes well with the Nature's Warrior ability Shifting Rake, which lowers enemy AC when they are successfully bluffed.

Thief Acrobatics increases Balance, Jump, and Tumble as well as your melee attack speed. The skill increases can be combined, if desired, with the Nature's Warrior ability Athletic (which also increases Swim.) Now, moving into ---

Nature's Warrior:

Nature's Warrior
Shifting Rake x3
Aggrivate x3
Athletic x3 (optional)

Aggrivate gives you DR whenever you successfully Intimidate an enemy, or use an ability that triggers its skill check. The Intimidate bonus granted by TA's Charming is another plus to the combination of these PrE's. A third ability that adds to the Intimidate bonus is Focused, which we get from the ---

Warchanter:

Skaldic Rage
Focused x3
Rough and Ready x3
Poetic Edda x3
Inspired Bravery x3

Rough and Ready's initial acquisition gives you a +2 to your AC, which right of the bat cuts the penalty from your Skaldic Rage in half. Not too shabby.


Level 2 Choices

TA:
Staff Training
Quick Strike x3
Haste Boost x3
Subtlety x3
Trip Focus x3

Three these deal strictly with your combat prowess with a Quarterstaff. The first increases your attack again, the second increasing damage and Double Strike chance, and we all know what Haste Boost does. Subtlety generates less hate, which will make up for a penalty granted by an ability from ---

WC:
Boast x3 > Words of Encouragement x3
Gathering Cold x3 > Iced Edges
Sprint Boost x3

Boast and WoC will give you a bonus to HP with any Song you sing, and a greater bonus specifically with Inspire Courage. Boast will also give you a bonus to weapon damage and increased hate generation (some of which gets negated through the use of Subtlety). Gathering Cold is rather situational, but will indeed come in handy when it's needed. It grants a chance to absorb the energy of cold damage against you and turn it into stacking bonuses to AC and Cold Resistance. Gathering Cold also opens up Iced Edges and a level 3 ability, Northwind. Iced Edges gives you +1d6 Cold Damage when Gathering Cold is combined with Skaldic Rage. Sprint Boost for increased movement speed.

Level 3 Choices

TA:
Stick Training
Sweeping Strike x3
Shadow Dodge x3
Dex increase
Stick Fighting

Sweeping Strikes is a melee attack with your quarterstaff that deals additional damage and attempts to trip all enemies around you. Trip Focus gives you a bonus to your DC's. Improved Trip is a great feat option if you want to focus more on your melee combat than spell casting. Shadow Dodge grants bonuses to Dodge and Dexterity. Stick Fighting lets you use your Dex modifier as your damage modifier with quarterstaves.

WC:
Ironskin Chant
Frozen Fury
Northwind
Charisma increase
Fighting Spirit

Ironskin chant gives allies a DR bonus. Frozen Fury increases your weapon damage and has a chance to freeze your enemies solid. Northwind gives you additional cold damage on a vorpal strike while using Skaldic Rage and Gathering Cold. Fighting Spirit grants a passive +10 HP and an additional +1 to damage with your Inspire Courage

Level 4 Choices

WC:
Charisma bonus

Pretty much finish out with any of the level 5 WC PrE's you see fit for your play style, and with the level 6, 9, and 12 PrE's for WC.

I'm not even going to get into items because I have no clue what's out there anymore. Pretty much just focus on Stat boosts, damage output, and skill bonuses.



So there you have it, the Fochlucan Lyrist. Typically these characters fill the roles of advisers, spies, scouts, thieves, trapists, guides, entertainers, scholars...very very diverse in the types of lives they can live. Sadly, DDO doesn't allow the true greatness of the intended build to flourish.

If anyone has any tips to improve on the build, they would be much appreciated Just don't be an a hole about it :\

[unbongwah]

You may want to look into taking a few more druid lvls; in particular, druid 3 would let you add Vengeful Hunter, Double Strike action boost, and Fatal Harrier (or Reaving Roar) for 13 APs, if I'm adding right. [The sonic vulnerability from Fatesinger might be the only way to keep RR at all useful in epics.] Also, 4 APs into SH gets you Beguile, which is a nice little stacking debuff.

EDIT: I'm less than wild about your feats; you didn't take anything to boost your melee DPS. IC:Blunt and Power Atk/CL/GC are practically de facto pre-reqs on any staff build, IMHO. I also don't see why you dumped STR & CON for so much WIS & CHA.

[mezzorco]

Note: lesser and greater DM are racial enhancements now.
Premise: I could sound rude, but it's because english is not my main language I'm trying to help you and really don't want to offend you, your efforts in such a thematic build are praiseworthy

Your stats:
10 Str
14 Dex
10 Con
14 Int
14 Wis
16 Cha

Why 14 wis? it only adds to will saves, no other benefit.

Why 16 cha on a warchanter?
I don't think you're going to have good DC, in my opinion it's a very thematic build but you will be "master of none" more than "jack of all trades".

Moreover, there are many more ways to increase Str over Dex (and Skaldic Rage is one of them, you can cast rage spell too and they stack). I don't know if going dex with this build is a good option.

Only 10 Con is going to hurt much more than you would expect, especially if you intend to melee.

If I were you I would do:
10 18 14 14 10 10 or even
8 20 14 12 8 10

More hit/damage, more hp, more fort and ref (but you would still lack PA, cleave, gcleave, impr crit, OC).


Or, if you still prefer spellcasting:
10 14 12 12 8 18

More hp, more DC, very lacking in melee.

Long story short:
I love pnp, and I prefer it over DDO. But your try is difficult in DDO world, these games are simply too different.
If you are the "flavour and roleplay" kind of player, then I must congratulate with you for your efforts, it perfectly fits the theme of that very nice PrC.
Otherwise, if you still take into account build capability, I think you should focus either on spellcasting (consider spellsinger) or melee (change stat distribution and feats), because you're dissipating your energies.

Hope it helps

[UinseanRianAchta]

You may want to look into taking a few more druid lvls; in particular, druid 3 would let you add Vengeful Hunter, Double Strike action boost, and Fatal Harrier (or Reaving Roar) for 13 APs, if I'm adding right. [The sonic vulnerability from Fatesinger might be the only way to keep RR at all useful in epics.] Also, 4 APs into SH gets you Beguile, which is a nice little stacking debuff.

EDIT: I'm less than wild about your feats; you didn't take anything to boost your melee DPS. IC:Blunt and Power Atk/CL/GC are practically de facto pre-reqs on any staff build, IMHO. I also don't see why you dumped STR & CON for so much WIS & CHA.

After playing it some more I've realized that I do prefer the melee side of the build over the spellcasting. The dump was because I was too focused on being able to cast spells. Strength I wasn't too worried about anyway because of the TA's Stick Fighting. Con was the second choice because I knew I would need Dex for the Att/Dmg for the build, Int for as many skill points as possible, and Wis & Cha for spellcasting.

And you're absolutely right about the feats. This build, I think, is better suited for melee in DDO because of the lack of the FL class feature that keeps increasing caster level.

Now that I know I prefer melee more, I'm going scrap the toon and rebuild it. (already used free LR)

[UinseanRianAchta]

Note: lesser and greater DM are racial enhancements now.
Premise: I could sound rude, but it's because english is not my main language I'm trying to help you and really don't want to offend you, your efforts in such a thematic build are praiseworthy

Your stats:
10 Str
14 Dex
10 Con
14 Int
14 Wis
16 Cha

Why 14 wis? it only adds to will saves, no other benefit.

Why 16 cha on a warchanter?
I don't think you're going to have good DC, in my opinion it's a very thematic build but you will be "master of none" more than "jack of all trades".

Moreover, there are many more ways to increase Str over Dex (and Skaldic Rage is one of them, you can cast rage spell too and they stack). I don't know if going dex with this build is a good option.

Only 10 Con is going to hurt much more than you would expect, especially if you intend to melee.

If I were you I would do:
10 18 14 14 10 10 or even
8 20 14 12 8 10

More hit/damage, more hp, more fort and ref (but you would still lack PA, cleave, gcleave, impr crit, OC).


Or, if you still prefer spellcasting:
10 14 12 12 8 18

More hp, more DC, very lacking in melee.

Long story short:
I love pnp, and I prefer it over DDO. But your try is difficult in DDO world, these games are simply too different.
If you are the "flavour and roleplay" kind of player, then I must congratulate with you for your efforts, it perfectly fits the theme of that very nice PrC.
Otherwise, if you still take into account build capability, I think you should focus either on spellcasting (consider spellsinger) or melee (change stat distribution and feats), because you're dissipating your energies.

Hope it helps

Thank you very much for the input, and you didn't sound rude at all! So basically both you and the other poster suggested lowering the magical abilities and increasing the melee ones. I still don't really see the point in increasing strength as I can get way more use out of Dex. I have Vet 7 so early levels aren't even an issue. I have a Rogue/Monk TA build and I started it with I think 16 Str and 16 Dex. At level 18 I'm seeing that I should have gone with a much lower Str and put those extra points into Dex.

And thank you very much for the praise. This is a build that I've always wanted to do in p&p but never had the chance because there were already spellcasters. So I figured I could give it a try in DDO and see how it played out. It's going fairly well, but I definitely see some improvement by tweaking the starting stat distribution.

[cru121]

If I had to build this on a bard chassis keeping the staff flavor

Rogue 5 Thief-Acrobat for +1 threat/multiplier
Druid 2 for ram's, shillelagh, doublestrike boost... and beguile abuse while it lasts
Bard 13 (meh, but still gets 5th level spells - GH+CLWMass)

Human, strength based
18 STR, 14 CON, 14 INT; rest into cha or con
Or less STR and few points into Dex so that your evasion actually kicks in at least occasionally.

Strength at lvl 12: 18 +3 levelups +2 tome + 6 item = 29; +3 from enhancements (human, 2x rogue) = 32. Rage (spell) +2, Ram's Might +2, Skaldic Rage +4 = 40 self-buffed sustainable; perhaps more while actionboosting

Power Attack, Cleave, Extend, Great Cleave, IC:Blunt, Empower Healing, Overwhelming Crit; THF chain and/or quicken

[UinseanRianAchta]

So I kept asking myself why everyone is going for Str over Dex when you can use Dex for staff damage...

Then I went looking for the Thief-Acrobat's Showtime


And it's gone. DDO got rid of one of the best things about the TA.

I'm not liking these new enhancements. I'm seeing more negative things on the classes i play than positive.

Like the Ranger losing Sprint boost, what the hell man

But I yeah i see the point in going with Strength build. More ways to increase Strength than Dexterity.

[UinseanRianAchta]

If I had to build this on a bard chassis keeping the staff flavor

Rogue 5 Thief-Acrobat for +1 threat/multiplier
Druid 2 for ram's, shillelagh, doublestrike boost... and beguile abuse while it lasts
Bard 13 (meh, but still gets 5th level spells - GH+CLWMass)

Human, strength based
18 STR, 14 CON, 14 INT; rest into cha or con
Or less STR and few points into Dex so that your evasion actually kicks in at least occasionally.

Strength at lvl 12: 18 +3 levelups +2 tome + 6 item = 29; +3 from enhancements (human, 2x rogue) = 32. Rage (spell) +2, Ram's Might +2, Skaldic Rage +4 = 40 self-buffed sustainable; perhaps more while actionboosting

Power Attack, Cleave, Extend, Great Cleave, IC:Blunt, Empower Healing, Overwhelming Crit; THF chain and/or quicken

Shadow Dodge definitely makes the dex build worth it. I can't afford tomes because my toons never make enough plat for them. I have a Rogue/Monk/Druid staff build and it's sitting at 38 Dex at level 13. Considering that the 40 str you calculated includes a +2 tome, it's the same as what I have now in dex. And that's a 38 that doesn't rely on spells/abilities that are on timers. However, I CAN get it up to 40 with the +2 to Dex from human Action Boost. And I'm definitely going to be scrapping the feats I had picked in favor of PA, Cleave, GC, etc.

[Toro12]

Shadow Dodge definitely makes the dex build worth it. I can't afford tomes because my toons never make enough plat for them. I have a Rogue/Monk/Druid staff build and it's sitting at 38 Dex at level 13. Considering that the 40 str you calculated includes a +2 tome, it's the same as what I have now in dex. And that's a 38 that doesn't rely on spells/abilities that are on timers. However, I CAN get it up to 40 with the +2 to Dex from human Action Boost. And I'm definitely going to be scrapping the feats I had picked in favor of PA, Cleave, GC, etc.

Remember you still need 13 base str to get power attack.