AMIA ARCHIVE • View topic - Bard/Fighter/Weapon Master

So, this here is probably my favorite spin on this class. It far, far, far from being the most efficient, but it has its strong points.

The build is Bard 21/Fighter 2/Weapon Master 7, and the concept makes me do the smiling. I see it like this sort of warrior poet who looks for challenges to face in order to make his own name. He's a loud, occasionally obnoxious braggert at heart, and he may or may not believe every tale he tells about himself true or not; so he's basically Kanye West.

So here we go.

Race: Human

(These base stats may be incorrect, I'm writing this from a phone.)
STR: 15 (20)
DEX: 14
CON: 12
INT: 14
WIS: 8
CHA: 14 (16)

PRE-EPIC: Bard 12/ Fighter 2/ Weapon Master 6

Pre-Epic Feats:
1: Dodge, Expertise
2-Fighter 1: Weapon Focus
3: Mobility
5-Fighter 2: Spring Attack
6: Whirlwind Attack
9: Improved Crit
12: Blind Fight
15: Curse Song
18: Maximize Spell

Epic Feats:
21: Armor Skin
24: Epic Weapon Focus
27: Epic Fortitude
30: Lasting Inspiration

For those worried about casting buffs in combat, 24 ranks in concentration and defensive casting will solve all of your problems. The epic feat at 27 is entirely optional and can be changed to epic skill focus perform if you really want, but bare in mind that you risk the wrath if dev crit for it.

I'd point out a few things!

DEX13 is enough to wear the ASF0% without much bother; a Maxed Cat's will bump it up to 18, which caps the DEX bonus. This allows you to raise STR to 15 at character creation.

I would most definitely want Extend Spell for spellbook flexibility and Extended Haste. This is a matter of taste, but I would happily pony up with an epic feat (Epic Fort) for the Extended enjoyment.

It's a great build and you can even squeeze in Spot if you're a human, owing to the Weapon Master.

Actually 18 Dex does NOT max out the 0ASF Chain shirt... 20 does.

What, how? Doesn't it cap at +4 DEX?

I recall the caster armor being +4 ac, and amia changed the max dex of all armor types so that if ypu invest your ac is equal to full plate, sp base ac plus dex mod comes out to 9 ac.

Edit: It happened some time last year.

All armors on Amia go to 9 total now, even though they don't say that.... Plate is 8/1, leather is 6/3, chain shirt is 4/5.

But honestly the 15 str variant is just as nice. Slap on some +5 ac +3 dex boots and you compensate anyway.

I've played similar builds before, and they work really well. I changed the feats a bit for knockdown and IKD, since I don't really find maximize to be that useful for bards. Keeping people taunted and knocked down tends to work better.

I've seen a few 0ASF plates floating around, and I almost made this build again, just to use one. But you can just swap armors if you're not planning much in combat casting.

Here, you can easily max your Perform with the epic gloves, freeing up a lot of slots.

You'll be able to solo all the bosses. Bards are fun.

The plate is super rare or I would totally build for it. The team took it out of the module for balance purposes (or at least I think that's it, don't quote me on that).

There were two, I believe, sold in the last year. So they're still around the module in people's inventories, I would think. People were just charging really REALLY insane amounts for them.

I had a char that almost bought a set for like $100k. The half plate with a -1 STR penalty on it.

That Guy wrote:

All armors on Amia go to 9 total now, even though they don't say that.... Plate is 8/1, leather is 6/3, chain shirt is 4/5.

Is that the DEX modifier or the armour bonus? The untouched leather armour is 6/2, DEX/AC, meaning that if the other armours follow this logic as well, the base armour is increased, not the max DEX AC.

DEX bonuses were upped. So a 2/6 armor is actually 2/7

It's one of the changes that could admittedly do with better documentation.

I went with Bard21/WM5/Ftr4 on mine, using a scimitar. The difference between 12-20 and 10-20 crits is pretty piddly and you get that +6 damage per hit.

It's a fearsome bosskiller, as long as you're just having a toe-to-toe with something that can be critted.

bobofwestoregonusa wrote:

It's one of the changes that could admittedly do with better documentation.

I'd suggest adding it to the Modifications: classes and feats: Miscellaneous

Uberuce wrote:

I went with Bard21/WM5/Ftr4 on mine, using a scimitar. The difference between 12-20 and 10-20 crits is pretty piddly and you get that +6 damage per hit.

It's a fearsome bosskiller, as long as you're just having a toe-to-toe with something that can be critted.

What is the lvling order?

The leveling order wasn't given because as long as you stick to the PRE-EPIC: Bard 12/ Fighter 2/ Weapon Master 6 you can't really mess it up. The only thing of note is where certain feats are listed, such as Curse Song, you need to take a bard level there to properly grab the feat. I am also going to say that Maxi spell requires a bard level as well. So take your fighter/bard early then go 6 WM, and finish off the rest of your bard after that and you should be fine.

Bard/Fighter/Weapon Master - The Sword IS Mightier

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