Thinking way too far ahead—movement-focused Bard PPs?

[Zaq]

This is thinking way too far ahead, because (1) my group is only level 7 (and we don't level up terribly fast), and (2) the Bard in question is my backup character anyway, not even my main. So the chances of this actually being relevant are pretty slim, and if it's ever relevant, it won't be relevant soon. But when has that ever stopped us from building way more characters than we ever need? That's half the fun, after all.

Anyway, preamble over. My backup character is a Bard who is a disciple/servant of the NecroDancer. He (or she, haven't decided yet; whatevs) was rezzed by said NecroDancer and now moves in a highly rhythmic fashion (as his pulse dictates—he can't do otherwise), and he aims to get everyone to feel the rhythm. To that end, he's got a lot of movement-based powers, both for allies and for enemies. His Bardic Virtue is Virtue of Cunning, just because it opens up so many movement-based options. (Yeah, I know that Valor is considered more optimal, basically because it gives access to the obscenely good War Chanter PP, but that's not what fits my character concept, so there.) I've got a combination of feats that basically says that whenever my Virtue triggers (because an ally was missed by an enemy), I slide that ally, slide that enemy, shift myself, and slide an ally who was adjacent to me. Everyone shall feel the rhythm. I dunno, it just seems like fun to me.

Anyway, I'm not sure what to do for the PP for this character. None of the native Bard PPs seem to have a real good focus on forced/granted movement, so I'm a little frustrated there. Cunning Prevaricator kind of works just because it has ways of making my allies get missed more often, so my Virtue triggers more often, but I'm not thrilled with that setup overall. Of course, for a Bard, multiclassing is easy, so I don't have to be shackled to Bard PPs. I'm CHA/INT based, so that's a consideration, but beyond that, I'm sure I can find a way to squeeze in whatever MC feat I need, as long as the stats required aren't horribly limiting. (I don't have a ton of open feats, though. Bards have no shortage of really nice feats to take.)

So what else is out there? I can't think of a PP that really fits my "everyone shall feel the rhythm" focus. I'd like to have a way of sliding allies and/or enemies around without sacrificing key leader tricks (like granting attacks, applying bonuses to allied attacks, and so on). My Bard powers are pretty good about that so far as it goes, but I'm not sure what direction to go for the PP. Any ideas?

[tcrudisi]

Evermeet Warlock.

Yes, its a warlock path. Look it up anyway. Feel free to power-swap at level 10 to pick up the at-will teleportation.

[Zaq]

Evermeet Warlock is indeed a good path, but there's no way I can take it. In our last campaign (which had about 50% player overlap with this one), we had an Evermeet Warlock, who was the craziest Evermeet Warlock you'd ever meet. (He was actually a Rogue with a Staff of the Traveler who literally never walked. He teleported 100% of the time. It was awesome.) So not only did we already do that joke, as it were, he did it far, far better than this poor little Bard would do it, even if I were to take Bardic Wayfarer and Walk Among the Fey.

That, and I feel like sliding is more NecroDancer-themed than teleporting is. So I appreciate the suggestion, but there's no way I can pull off an Evermeet Warlock in this group.

Anything else out there?

[Waddacku]

Digging a bit, I didn't find all that much. The Ardent PP Talaric Strategist has some nice benefits, though to make real use of it you'd have to hybrid Ardent. That hybrid should be called an Ard. Anycase, chassis-wise the combination works, and the PP lets you slide all enemies in the burst when you Ardent Surge. Immediate Interrupt action point usage and the E11 has some nice shift and basic attack granting.

Praetor Legate (Templar theme or Sorc-King Pact) lets you slide enemies that start adjacent to you, otherwise has some decent leadering.

Delving into more hybriding, Sorc-King greater pact feat Spirit Master of Lalali-Puy lets you slide all adjacent enemies and all cursed enemies up to 1 square when you (personally) drop your curse target. Of course, that necessitates you killing them, which might not be all that common depending on party and encounter design.

[georgie_leech]

Digging a bit, I didn't find all that much. The Ardent PP Talaric Strategist has some nice benefits, though to make real use of it you'd have to hybrid Ardent. That hybrid should be called an Ard. Anycase, chassis-wise the combination works, and the PP lets you slide all enemies in the burst when you Ardent Surge. Immediate Interrupt action point usage and the E11 has some nice shift and basic attack granting.

Thematically, Ardents can also actually make other people feel the rhythm, what with their emotional projection thing.

[CorranH]

I found a few Warlord paths that deal with forced movement, Commando Captain and Pack Master are probably the best ones. The one downside is the attacks are Strength based, so you will probably want Reserve Maneuver to get a decent Encounter out of it though. Skirmishing Leader is also a fairly thematic multiclass feat for you, so even if you don't use a Warlord PP it is something to consider getting anyway.

[Zaq]

Pack Master is an interesting choice, especially with Bracers of Mental Might making the encounter power usable. We did have a Pack Master in the last campaign, long ago, but he was a transitory character, not one of the real icons of the campaign, so I could probably make it work without triggering too much of a "hey, we already did that joke!" reaction. (It would mean that I would have to stoop to using a dagger or something, rather than the super-classy wand-as-conductor's-baton route, but that's not mechanically hard for a Bard, just a bit distasteful for the character.)

Of course, aside from the hilarious encounter power, the high point of Pack Master is the delightfully poorly-worded 11F. "When you end your movement 2 squares away from an enemy" isn't limited to only move actions, after all. It could even be self-sustaining, as you just orbit around an enemy, staying exactly 2 squares from them. Of somewhat limited usefulness on its own, maybe, but when combined with Tail Slide, as this character would have? Potentially very interesting indeed. So yeah, I like the idea of a Pack Master for this character. Good find.

I'm still open to other suggestions, but right now it looks like Pack Master is the forerunner.