[3.5] "Bardzilla"

[Flickerdart]

We all know the obscene power level of Divine Metamagic: day-long superbuffs making your Cleric into a brutal melee monster. But while rifling through the pockets of a hobo the books, I happened upon two very shiny feats that let a Bard get in on some of the fun, even if it's in a less ludicrous way.

The first shiny feat from Races of Stone is Metamagic Song. You can spend Bardic Music uses to negate the cost of a Metamagic feat for your spell. Sadly, it has the caveat that you have to be able to cast spells of that level. Does that mean that you can't Persist anything because bards only get 6th level spells? No it doesn't. There are two ways of getting out of this. One way is to go 10-level Sublime Chord, but screw that. There's a faster way. Enter Talfirian Song. It works more or less the same as a heighten-only Metamagic Song - but doesn't have that cap (by strict reading, it also lets a 1st level Human Bard qualify for PrCs as if it had 4th level spells, but that's not important). So Heighten something to 9th level, now you can cast 9th level spells, now you can boost spells to 9th with Metamagic Song, now you can Persist 3rd level spells like Displacement (50% miss chance all day? Eat your heart out, Wizard) or Glibness (all day Glibness? Yes!) as early as you can cast it if you have enough music.

If you don't want to spend precious Bard spell slots buffing, then you can use the Lyric Spell feat from Complete Adventurer to offset that cost too, for more Bardic Music uses.

So, a Bardzilla's feats would look like this. Since you must be Human for Talfirian Song, you get that extra feat for free. You take Heighten Spell and Talfirian Song as your 1st level feats. You take Extend Spell at 3rd and Persist Spell at 6th. You take Metamagic Song at 9th, and you're ready to go. By 9th level, you have 9 uses of Bardic Music, which means you can technically cast a 9th level spell, and thus can Persist a 3rd level spell (which costs you 6 uses, disqualifying you from further Persists, choose wisely) without any cost to your daily activity as a Bard. You can get this free Persist up to 5 times if you take a whole bunch of Extra Music feats. With flaws, you can get in on the fun many levels earlier, as none of this has skill requirements. You don't even have to take Perform.

At some point you'll probably want to take Rapid Metamagic or some such so you can use your Bardic Music to Quicken castings of buffs you can't Persist.

TL;DR: Use Bardic Music to Persist spells of up to 3rd level, 4th level with Easy Metamagic and 5th with Metamagic School Focus/Practiced Metamagic (you can go all the way to 6th level spells but nearly all of them suck).

Bard spells to Persist:

Spoiler

0th level
Summon Instrument: Carry around a flute only you can play! Embarrass your enemies! Amaze your friends!
Ghostharp: An instrument plays a song over and over for 24 hours. If you can't find a use for this, you're not trying hard enough.

1st level
Disguise Self: Fun for the whole family.
Friendly Face: +5 on Diplomacy and Gather Information all day. Pretty nice if you need another bonus.
Serene Visage: +CL to Bluff checks. Stacks with Glibness, which you can also Persist. See how many people you can fool into thinking you're the President of the World.
Expeditious Retreat: +30ft to your move speed, all day. Kicks dust in the Monk's face.
Undersong: Make Perform checks instead of Concentration. Useful when stacked with ToB stuff that uses Concentration, I guess.

2nd level
Detect Thoughts: You don't really need this if you have your +50 to Bluff, but it's always nice before that.
Tongues: For when people you want to lie to speak a different language.
Elation: +2 STR, DEX and +5ft movement to every ally within 80 feet. If you're leading an army of peasants, they'll need this.
Heroism: +2 bonus on attacks, saves and skills. Probably lets you catch up to the Fighter's to-hit, and also stacks with Glibness and Serene Visage.
Darkness: Now everyone can see the darkness of your soul, but not you.
Force Whip: Handy if you're in a jungle and don't want to get violated by bears as you sleep. Excellent for when you make enemies of Druids.
Bladeweave: If you hit them, and can hit them again as a free action, they're Dazed. Nothing (or nearly nothing) is immune to Daze, and you can do this all day, baby!
Blur: Run of the mill 20% miss chance.
Invisibility: Broken on attack regardless of Persist, but fun if you're not planning to. Use the Swift version if you have Rapid Metamagic.
Mirror Image: Sure, the images might get grokked, but you get to keep the ones that don't all day.
Mirror Move: This build is fairly feat-intensive. Borrow some from friends!
Phade's Fearsome Aspect: +5 Intimidate, +10 Disguise, Demoralize as a swift action. Nobody will make fun of you again.
Reflective Disguise: Negate racism for a day.
Alter Self: You know what this spell does. You know you'd love to have it up all day.
Animal's Bonus spells: If you can't afford the +4 item, this is almost as good.
Swift Fly: Who cares that this only lasts one level, you're zooming around all day!
Harmonize: If you have any Bardic Music left, start one as a Move action. You can start another effect as a Swift action through that one White Raven feat, and a third as a standard action. Three songs in one turn? Damn straight.
Iron Silence: Your armour no longer penalizes Hide and Move Silently. All day. Enjoy.
Sonic Weapon: +1d6 to all your weapon's attacks. What resists Sonic? Practically nothing.

3rd level
Wounding Whispers: More Sonic damage to stuff that attacks you.
See Invisibility: Ruin some assassin's day.
Speak With Animals: If you don't want to Force Whip all the animals away, use this instead.
Verraketh's Shadow Crown: +4 to Perform.
Warcry: Enemies in a cone cower for a day. Have fun.
Daylight: You get to be shiny. Woo.
Displacement: 50% miss chance. Add the 20% from Blur and enemies miss you 60% of the time.
Invisibility Sphere: Bring along some friends in your all-day bubble. Great for infiltration.
Allegro: Expeditious Retreat, Mass. Now everyone gets to laugh at the Monk.
Blink: Stack this on top of Displacement and Blur and you're looking at an 80% miss chance before AC.
Gaseous Form: Be a cloud all day. I'm sure you can find a use for it.
Glibness: YES. With +50 to Bluff from this and Persisted Serene Visage, you can go around shooting nonmagical Suggestions at people all day. If you can get your hands on Telepathy, you can pretend to be someone's conscience, too.

4th level
Freedom of Movement: All day escaping from grapples. Nice.
Inspired Aim: +2 to ranged attacks for everyone in 40ft radius. If you have a bunch of followers, by all means.
War Cry: +2 attack/damage (or +4 on a charge) and enemies are panicked unless they save. Excellent upgrade from Bladeweave unless fighting fearless foes.
Fugue of Tvash-Prull: Cheese out your Perform check and crush your enemies with this emanation.
Greater Invisibility: Like Invisibility, only you get to attack too. All day.
Spectral Weapon: Make all attacks as Touch attacks. Since you're Invisible, they're also flat-footed. Never miss again!
Sirine's Grace: +4 to CHA and DEX, +8 to Perform, CHA to AC and an INT-damage touch attack. Pretty sweet (thanks, Claudius Maximus!)
Blinding Beauty: Everyone looking at you gets blinded. Potentially more useful than invisibility with one unfortunate caveat that's fluff-only.

5th level
Revenance: This would be just like a Resurrection except the target dies at the end of the day. Not so hot but not bad if you really need Bob the Fighter alive.
Greater Heroism: The +4 bonus, temp HP and immunity to fear is very nice.
Improved Blink: None of the drawbacks of regular Blink and a bunch of benefits. Mostly take this over Greater Invisibility if your enemies See Invisible.
Unfettered Heroism: 1 action point per round, all day. I'm not sure what they do but it's probably pretty good.

6th level
Snowsong: +4 to attacks and CHA, 15 Cold resistance, fast healing and +1d6 cold damage on attacks. To everyone in a 30ft radius. If you're all about boosting the mooks (like if you're a BBEG), this is a pretty great capstone if you don't run out of feats. (Thanks to Darkmatter!)

You can see that the spells are different from a Clericzilla's: an MS Persist Bard is a very potent socialite first and only then a capable warrior. PrCs that allow you to add spells to your list will be your friend for getting better battle spells.

What other tricks can you find for the Metamagic Song Bard? Find items that help? Get the Bard into PrCs that give their own casting to, for example, Persist some juicy Assassin spells? Maybe build one? This thread's your oyster.

[gallagher]

you already listed glibness, but allow me to expand upon it.

go to the rich section of town.
cast a persisted glibness: knock knock, who is it? its the imperial tax committee, it seems that you owe a massive amounts of taxes that you have been ignoring (knowing the habits of wealthy people, this is very likely to be true, glibness just convinces them that you are legit and that they have little way out of this. bring a couple of fighting buddies to back you up with muscle)

now you just broke the WBL chart

[Your Nemesis]

Use arcane devotion!

[Arakune]

Originally Posted by gallagher

now you just broke the WBL chart

AGAIN? How many times are we going to beat that chart?

[Flickerdart]

Originally Posted by Your Nemesis

Use arcane devotion!

I'm not familiar with that feat, I'm afraid.

[Yuki Akuma]

Be sure to leave some bardic music uses for Snowflake Wardance and Dragonfire Inspiration.

[Flickerdart]

Originally Posted by Yuki_Akuma

Be sure to leave some bardic music uses for Snowflake Wardance and Dragonfire Inspiration.

Sadly, Persists are expensive at 6 a pop and Bard spells with the a few exceptions aren't as spectacular as the Cleric, meaning you need more music than they do Turning attempts. 20th level+Extra Music is 4 Persists exactly, so you'd want a few more Extra Music feats or some kind of houseruled Nightsticks for bardic music.

[tyckspoon]

Originally Posted by gallagher

you already listed glibness, but allow me to expand upon it.

go to the rich section of town.
cast a persisted glibness: knock knock, who is it? its the imperial tax committee, it seems that you owe a massive amounts of taxes that you have been ignoring (knowing the habits of wealthy people, this is very likely to be true, glibness just convinces them that you are legit and that they have little way out of this. bring a couple of fighting buddies to back you up with muscle)

now you just broke the WBL chart

Not that is an especially hard thing to do. It is one of the more entertaining ways to do it, especially since it's a good way to trigger an urban adventure as you try to avoid the real authorities and find a way to cash in the property deeds/trade goods/other non-liquid cash you're liable to receive from your victims.. (what? You thought they were going to pay entirely in bags of coins and jewelry?)

[Pluto]

That needs a lot of Bardic Music uses.

What's the fastest way to accrue songs/day without burning every feat slot for Extra Music?

edit:
Bloodlines + Virtuoso + as many PrC's as fit?

[Flickerdart]

Yes, the Bardzilla needs a ton of Bardic Music uses. He gets more uses than the Cleric gets Turn Undeads, and his Persist is cheaper, but he can't do it to any spell he wants which hampers effectiveness a lot and means he wants to have more spells up.

If Persist Spell is available on a metamagic rod, that saves a feat slot, meaning 4 more uses of Bardic Music.

Additionally, what are good metamagic reducers? Getting to those juicy 4th, 5th and 6th level spells would be great.

[dextercorvia]

Originally Posted by Flickerdart

Additionally, what are good metamagic reducers? Getting to those juicy 4th, 5th and 6th level spells would be great.

Practical Metamagic, but it requires dragonblood subtype, Easy metamagic -- but that is from Dragon 325 IIRC, Metamagic School Focus -- Requires Spell Focus (or school specialization). Arcane Thesis is the best prereq-wise, but it is specific to one spell.

[Flickerdart]

Doesn't look like you can get to Practical Metamagic without losing the prerequisites for Talfirian Song. So Easy Metamagic gets us 4th level:

Freedom of Movement, Inspired Aim (+2 to ranged attacks in a 40ft radius, good with that other spell for buffing mooks)...

War Cry is excellent for this. +2 attack and damage (+4 on a charge) and anyone whom you hit is panicked for a round (Will negates). Send them fleeing all day!

Fugue of Tvash-Prull can do brutal things to people (up to instant death if you can jack your Perform high enough). A good Evocation spell, who'd have thought!

Greater Invisibility can now be Persisted.

Spectral Weapon can now be persisted - all your attacks are touch attacks!

Blinding Beauty can be persisted - if you don't want to go Invisible, blind everyone looking at you instead.

Metamagic School Focus gets us 5th level: let's see which school we should take.

Conjuration:
Revenance. This would be just like a Resurrection except the target dies at the end of the day. Not so hot but not bad if you really need Bob the Fighter alive.

Enchantment:
Greater Heroism. The +4 bonus, temp HP and immunity to fear is very nice.

Transmutation:
Improved Blink. None of the drawbacks of regular Blink and a free Greater Invisibility added on.
Unfettered Heroism: 1 action point per round, all day. Looks like Transmutation is the winner. Sorry, Enchantment.

Adding Arcane Thesis, let's see if we can snag a super-great spell from the 6th level list:

Empyreal Ecstasy: 1 subject/CL in range takes 1/2 melee damage and become immune to mind-affecting. If you're using the mook-buffing strategy (possibly having snuck in Leadership) then you will like this.

Dirge: Enemies within 50ft take 2 points of STR and DEX damage on a failed save. If your mook army is undead (and you have Requiem) then people are going to have a lot of trouble when they wade in.

Nixie's Grace: Some stat boosts, DR and Water Breathing. Not really worth it.

So Arcane Thesis is a waste of time. We don't need to go past 5th level. The Bardzilla's feats now look like this:

Flaw: Spell Focus Transmutation
Flaw: Heighten Spell
Human: Talfirian Song
1st: Extend Spell
3rd: Persist Spell
6th: Metamagic Song
9th: Easy Metamagic
12th: Metamagic School Focus
15th: Extra Music or Dragonfire Inspiration
18th: Extra Music or Snowflake Wardance or whatever

You have up to 28 Bardic Music uses at this point. This Persists 4 spells. You should probably have those spells be Improved Blink, War Cry or Bladeweave, Freedom of Movement or Spectral Weapon and Swift Fly. If you can eke 2 more uses of Bardic Music from somewhere, you can Persist even more of those. An invisibly attacking, hard to hit, flying and frightening/dazing Bard is incredibly awesome. Grab a Harmonizing Crystal Echoblade and start up some Bardic Music (you should have 4 uses left over from that last Extra Music, for a 1/encounter Inspire whatever, and maybe Snowflake Wardance) to get +10 to damage. Dropping Metamagic School Focus (if you're crazy and don't want Improved Blink but take Greater Invisibility instead) nets you two more Extra Musics which can then be used to Persist another spell (Glibness and Serene Visage, perhaps?) and leaves you 4 uses for your daily songs.

Greater Invisibility, Swift Fly, Serene Visage and Glibness mean that you can fly around invisible, plant non-magical Suggestions all day and then leave. And nobody would know you were ever there.

This build actually has the ability to challenge a Wizard (until Wizards can get shenanigans) since it can sneak up with Persisted defenses and daze-lock the Wizard through Bladeweave. At later levels, of course, that won't work, but at later levels it's a fun gish. Since it starts off reasonably early (you Persist your first spell at 6th level if you do things right) and keeps going strong for quite a bit, I think it can be declared a success.

[dextercorvia]

Originally Posted by Flickerdart

Doesn't look like you can get to Practical Metamagic without losing the prerequisites for Talfirian Song.

Silverbrow Human, but that loses the bonus feat.

[Flickerdart]

Yeah, feats are important. Easy Metamagic by itself does well enough, since 5th and 6th spells are not actually very good compared to the cornucopia that 4th level spells are.

[PId6]

Originally Posted by dextercorvia

Silverbrow Human, but that loses the bonus feat.

No you don't (because that would be terrible). You lose the extra skill point per level; still bad, but much better than losing the bonus feat.

And there's always the Dragontouched feat.

[Flickerdart]

Originally Posted by PId6

No you don't (because that would be terrible). You lose the extra skill point per level; still bad, but much better than losing the bonus feat.

And there's always the Dragontouched feat.

Hm, that does reduce the total amount of feats needed for 5th level spells, even though only 2 or 3 are worth it anyway. More Extra Music!

Anyone feel like taking a look at all the nice 4th+ level spells a Sublime Chord gets? If it's viable we can ditch Human and the feat, and the various Metamagic reducers will actually come in handy since we'd need to neutralize as much of Persist's cost as possible.

[dextercorvia]

Originally Posted by PId6

No you don't (because that would be terrible). You lose the extra skill point per level; still bad, but much better than losing the bonus feat.

And there's always the Dragontouched feat.

Really? That's cool. I assumed it was like the illumians. Wait do they get the feat too?

[Starbuck_II]

How much would a nightstick that grants extra music feat cost?

[Marriclay]

Originally Posted by dextercorvia

Really? That's cool. I assumed it was like the illumians. Wait do they get the feat too?

that would be a no, unfortunately

[nedz]

Originally Posted by Starbuck_II

How much would a nightstick that grants extra music feat cost?

What you need is
Harpy’s Cap (DR340 p69)
6 feathers, each of which may add one use of Bardic Music [3000gp or 500gp per usage]

[Escheton]

right, or, you just make songsticks. That use the feat extra song instead of extra turning. Same price. Same effect-ish

[Darkmatter]

Originally Posted by Flickerdart

All persistable 6th level Bard spells suck.

Except for arguably the best persistable Bard (and Bard-only) spell out there: Snowsong, from Frostburn.

You and everyone within the fixed 30 foot range gain a +4 bonus to attacks and Cha, +4 bonus to AC, cold resistance 15, fast healing 1, and deal +1d6 cold damage on attacks. As an afterthought, enemies in the area take a 20% failure chance on spells with V components. You'd be hard pressed to find any single cleric spell that compares.

Of course, considering the resource expenditure needed to persist it, it could still not be worth it.

[Flickerdart]

It wasn't listed in the Crystal Keep document, so I didn't see it. Thanks!

[Claudius Maximus]

Don't forget Sirine's Grace, which among other things grants a deflection bonus to AC equal to your charisma modifier. This can be very good with high charisma. It's a 4th level spell.

[Flickerdart]

Another thing to add: A (Cloistered) Cleric dip can be used to grab Extend Spell through the Planning domain, so you gain a net 3 Bardic Music uses (spending the freed-up feat on Extra Music). This also gets you Knowledge and Travel Devotions, and the TU attempts to feed into the latter.

[ZeroNumerous]

I'm kind of surprised no one's mentioned it, but Lyric Thaumaturge gives you more Bardic Music, spells known and spell slots plus extra damage on [Sonic] spells.

Combine this with Persistent Chained(via Rod) Sonic Weapon to buff your buddies. Unfortunately there's no way to Heighten Sonic Weapon without disqualifying your bard from casting it, but if you could find a way every spell level adds an extra d6 to your friend's damage. Combined with Dragonfire Inspiration and you're adding anywhere from 11d6 to 13d6 to everyone's attacks.

Who says Bardzilla has to be selfish?

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Originally Posted by Flickerdart

Greater Invisibility can now be Persisted.

[...]

Blinding Beauty can be persisted - if you don't want to go Invisible, blind everyone looking at you instead.

If you're going wizard-hunting, who says you can't do both? The BBEG can't see you while you're invisible, unless he pops a see invisibility or true seeing or similar, at which point he now can't see anything at all.

[RagnaroksChosen]

could you not take the prc that lets you get 9th level wizard spells? it apears(atleast fromt he text from crystalkeep) that as long as its spontanious you can use metamagic song with it.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

Originally Posted by RagnaroksChosen

could you not take the prc that lets you get 9th level wizard spells? it apears(atleast fromt he text from crystalkeep) that as long as its spontanious you can use metamagic song with it.

If you mean Sublime Chord, that's mentioned in the OP; I think the idea is to be a persist-monkey without requiring more than normal bard casting (being buffed to the nines without being buffed to the 9ths, if you will).

[RagnaroksChosen]

Originally Posted by PairO'Dice Lost

If you mean Sublime Chord, that's mentioned in the OP; I think the idea is to be a persist-monkey without requiring more than normal bard casting (being buffed to the nines without being buffed to the 9ths, if you will).

fair enough. Just figured with the expanded spell list may help... though im sure it would cut into your bardic musics per day