So why would you want a bard?

[Fluff]

So I tried a bard in my 3rd run. Respeced Daeran into bard with his native stats and respec mod even. His stats at lvl 9 are 4 str 22 dex 10 con 8 int 12 wis 26 cha. So i diped into monk and all other into bard with weapon finesse & mythic, so his hit and dmg rolls scale off dex.

Yeah with mage armor he has >35 ac. Can be buffed with other buffs >40 ac. But all dangerous mobs and bosses still have modifiers +35 +40 at least on Core. Outside of them he tanks nicely though + mirror image + last stand ofc for bosses. Neither he is an awesome fighter. I tried giving him dual wielding rapiers or daggers with all the feats & he only has a modifier of +18 on first attack, +13 on 2nd. Which won't hit any big bad-s. Without dual wielding i wouldn't call stats impressive also compared to even shield basher Greybor i made, who has +22 on main and +21 on shield attack, with second attacks being almost as high as bard's first - +17 and +16. And with his slayer's mark he boosts those much higher.

And at the same time bard's songs don't impresse me at all. +2 to attack rolls e.g? it''s only +2 at this lvl, +3 next. And he gets 6 lvl spells max and very late. Why would i want a bard if i can have Brown Fur Transmuter at his place e.g? which will give much more and much earlier. Or some Divine buffer, because Sorc MC can handle most necessary arcane buffs. Have a witch this run also and damn she can be abused so hard, that she can prebuff the whole team with Fortune and Protective ward for several minutes with her Cackle.

[Agent]

But yeah, dirge of doom on the bosses and the +4 aura of courage on mid-tier stuff makes things a looooot easier. Sadly, switching performances turns off dirge even with lingering performance so you can't cheese it by setting everyone shaken with dirge and then switching over to the aura of courage.

[CHAO$$$]

With stinking cloud basically being unuseable for most of the game due to poison immunity, fascinate is the best CC in the game and its not even close.

its insanely powerful.

[Conquista]

wasn't trip kineticist the king of cc or did they nerf it in wotr

[Elnidfse]

You get good hope at level 7 which is +2 to everybody (including performance +4 to everybody) for a single spell slot (admittedly of which aren't in low supply thanks to improved abundant casting)
Can dip into freebooter for 4 levels for an extra +3 to everybody. So at level 11 your bard can toss +5 to everybody and +7 to flanking melee.
Which helps.
On top of being the skill monkey and the parties face so you don't have to think so hard about party composition in reference to skills. And while admittedly having to pay the 3/4th tax in expanded arsenal due to enemy saves, they can take said expanded arsenal too and guarantee most spells land by MR4 and all of them land by MR6.
Dirge of Doom applies shaken (no save) which let's you exploit shatter defenses more easily.

If you're playing on higher difficulties somebody is going to have to pay the support tax. Might as well be the class that's specialized at it.

The only thing is that you'll have to decide what else your bard can do besides buff.

[krtalic]

dirge of doom + shatter defense , but you can use frightful aspect (instead of dirge) i think its better than having a bard

[krtalic]

Conquista の投稿を引用：

wasn't trip kineticist the king of cc or did they nerf it in wotr

its still strong but you have to go demon with all cmd and trip and mythic trip and demon rage with trip and so on but yes it still tripps everything and everyone on hard

[CHAO$$$]

Conquista の投稿を引用：

wasn't trip kineticist the king of cc or did they nerf it in wotr

demons often have silly size and str/dex bonuses
in addition you fight level 40+ enemies so their CMD from BAB is silly high

Its okay when it works but it has way less targets than it used to

That and fascinate is available way earlier than deadly earth.

Theres a bunch more really good reasons why fascinate is better in situations when it really matters, like a lot of really annoying fights start you with enemies surrounding you pre fight before you can do anything. You can't exactly cast deadly earth on top of yourself either.

Fascinate you can precast and walk into the cutscene with and it will proc before your character even gets an action.

Its a crazy good ability and it solves a very unique niche of very relevant problems.

[Agent]

Fascinate is 10 + CHA + 1/2 Bard level?

[Elnidfse]

Conquista の投稿を引用：

wasn't trip kineticist the king of cc or did they nerf it in wotr

It's still functional. You just have to dedicate more into it to use it 100% of the time given that end game trip capable bosses have like 68 CMD

[CHAO$$$]

Elnidfse の投稿を引用：

Conquista の投稿を引用：

wasn't trip kineticist the king of cc or did they nerf it in wotr

It's still functional. You just have to dedicate more into it to use it 100% of the time given that end game trip capable bosses have like 68 CMD

The nafelshnee slaver in abyss has 90 on hard difficulty.
Youre not landing it on the big bads. The most useful thing you probably do with it is take out the coloxus - those guys were a pain and their cmd was very manageable.

[Elnidfse]

CHAO$$$ の投稿を引用：

Elnidfse の投稿を引用：

It's still functional. You just have to dedicate more into it to use it 100% of the time given that end game trip capable bosses have like 68 CMD

The nafelshnee slaver in abyss has 90 on hard difficulty.
Youre not landing it on the big bads.

So it seems. I was also off about 68. The monster I'm thinking about is 78 on normal.
C'est la vie.
Same reason I don't even look in the direction of disarm

[DarkFenix]

Tusk_Luv の投稿を引用：

DarkFenix の投稿を引用：

Because the bard is the best all round support caster in Pathfinder. They aren't supposed to be tanking, they aren't supposed to be awesome fighters.

I can't imagine any reason you'd want to take an arcanist instead. What, you get spells a couple of levels earlier, in return you lose hp, BAB, bardic performance, bard-specific buffs... Bard is just a no-brainer as a support caster. And bardic performance should impress anyone who understands Pathfinder's mechanics, an up to +4 bonus to attack and damage rolls that stacks with basically every other buff out there, that's huge.

Just 1 self-buff from Brown Fur Transmuter spent instead on your tank will give him +4 AC that is not possible to get in any other way. Or +2-4-6 bonus to hit or stat = BAB = which is also not possible to get in any other way. Immunity to ability damage, crits, fire, cold, etc etc. And bard so far just gives +2 +3 to attack roll and that's all. I look in bard's spell book for 5-6 lvl and i see nothing that arcane/divine buffers don't have, but many things that they have are not there. Many 7-9 buffs which are very strong especially.
Did you try Brown Fur so we can equaly compare them?

Exactly which buffs are so unique to it? At least specify what's supposed to be so good about your brown fur transmuter.

I see, what, +6 size bonus to strength? Okay, but that's from a level 8 spell, by which time you're going to be at a +3 from inspire courage and almost a +4, or better yet be perma-FFing everything with dirge of doom. Immunity to criticals? Better to just not get hit. Natural armour? Loads of sources of that. Enhancement bonuses? Again, loads of sources. BFT seems decent enough, but it's gotta wait until really high level to get anything particularly special.

Bard does a better job from an earlier level.

[Conquista]

alright thanks everyone for answering my question

[Koveras]

One of their songs increases AC and saves by +4.

The inspire courage is good when used in conjunction with good hope and other effects like a divination wizards +2 insight to attack aura. Last I checked my entire party had plus +7 to attack

[Fluff]

For those who doesn't know what Brown Fur does - he can give 'self only' transmutation buffs to the whole party. Like:

https://pathfinderwrathoftherighteous.wiki.fextralife.com/Frightful+Aspect
https://pathfinderwrathoftherighteous.wiki.fextralife.com/Fiery+Body
https://pathfinderwrathoftherighteous.wiki.fextralife.com/Angelic+Aspect,+Greater
https://pathfinderwrathoftherighteous.wiki.fextralife.com/Ice+Body

And so on. And every spell that he casts that gives bonus to any stat - gives +2 more bonus to the written stats. +4 more at level 20. As +8 str to all party from Bull's Streng Mass etc. And you would want to go for 24h long buffs with that with mythic abilities. It carries between many locations easily.

I tried playing Bard more and still can't justify him for my party at least, not all enemies have different flat footed ac and it doesn't work all the time, plus many enemies are immune to shaken effect and you can get that effect in some of buffs mentioned above and some other ways also. So idk, may be just not my style. I will try to play for several more lvls with him, but will probably change back to 'Furer' if the difference will be that big or me just bad with bards. I remember bards from PoE (pillars) being very interestingly made though.