party spokesman role and bards

[ishuman]

I’m curious about how people have constructed their party spokesman character. How high a charisma score does this character need? It seems like it would need to have some levels of rogue or bard to cover all the talking skills. I’m not planning to have a Paladin or Sorcerer in this party and generally don’t take too many rogue levels anyway so that probably leaves me with using a Bard (although these forums are full of fighter/rogues).

Any thoughts on how to construct a bard for this role? If I do use a bard how many bard levels would this guy need? It might make sense to start with one level of rogue to cover the thief skills that aren’t class skills for bards. Then if I limit bard levels to seven I've got 2 levels to play with and could add some fighter or barbarian. Fighter levels for the feats? Barbarian levels for the rage and speed? I bet a bard/barbarian with a spice of rogue might be a blast to play. Or maybe a second level of rogue would be better?

Have people had any success with such a character or am I better off going a different route?

Thanks!
ishuman

[Lord Plothos]

The only time I've really bothered with bard is to take 1 level for the inspire courage song.

I'm a rogue3/fighter7 fan, myself, but a rogue1/bard7/fighter2 sounds doable. Depends on what you want the extra feats for. I don't find the extra speed from a barbarian level is sufficient to sacrifice a feat for myself, because so much of the action takes place in the confined spaces of the temple. It's nice to have the movement, but it's nice to have a feat too. *shrug*

You could try two levels of ranger and get rapid shot for free and a favored enemy. On the other hand going from 1st to 3rd level in rogue is pretty nice too. You get the massive skill points, which if nothing else can be dumped into use magic device, plus +2 to your BAB (same as 2 levels of fighter) AND an added 1d6 to your sneak attack, AND a bonus to trap finding. So if you're set on bard7, adding rogue3 isn't bad.

[ishuman]

Hey, thanks for the reply. I'm definately not set on using bard 7. I used a bard through BG2 and pretty quickly gave up on the bard stuff and just used him as if he was a ftr/wiz. Identifying everything for free was pretty nice though.

I've never used a ftr/rogue before. What kind of ability scores would that character have? My thinking about being a bard was just that if I had to have a high charisma anyway and didn't want him to be a paladin or sorcerer then I might as well use that high Charisma for something.

Also, it looked like the rules changed in TOEE to allow Bards to attack while singing. Does anyone know if that's really true?

[Lord Plothos]

Yeah, you'll keep singing until you cast a spell with a verbal component or sleep or something.

You don't need a high cha. There's one quest requiring a 16, but you can just have someone cast eagle's splendor on you for that little bit and get by with a 12. With 3 levels of rogue, you can go up to 6 ranks in all the dialog skills. With a +1 or +2 from cha, that's 7 or 8, which is plenty for most quests. If you need more for one, well there's always eagle's splendor.

[ishuman]

That makes sense.

I started playing around with the beginning of the game today with different characters. I'm really impressed with the variation in the beginning sequence (before you get to Hommlet) depending on your party's alignment. Each one giving you a different reason for starting the adventure in the first place. Well done, there.

I also noticed that the dialog options really varied depending on who was talking. The intelligent and charismatic bard got some very funny lines but the 1/2 Orc barbarian brute conversation was hilarious! I'm not sure which would be more fun...

ishuman

[Sokaijin]

1/2 Orc barbarian brute conversation was hilarious! I'm not sure which would be more fun...

I love the "lower intelligence" dialoges, too. Some of them are so hilarious that I have to stop playing for awhile, in order to regain my composure.