The shadowsoul lyrist is a multipurpose character. Equal parts healer, hipser, and bard, with an ocean of offensive buff spells, this character has a little bit of something for every conceivable foe he may face.
Bard 8/Caenith Lyrist 10/Favored soul 10/shadowdancer 2
yuan-ti pureblood *EDIT* I realized just now that yuan ti-s require snake blood as their lvl 1 feat. Thus, I will have to remake this build as a drow or some other race, but I'm too lazy to do it atm :P
str 11
dex 19 +7
con 12
int 12
wis 10
cha 16
1 favored soul — dodge
2 bard
3 favored soul— weapon finnesse
4 bard
5 favored soul
6 bard — Mobility
7 favored soul
8 Shadow dancer
9 Shadow Dancer — two weapon fighting
10 bard
11 Caenith lyrist *Advance Divine Spellcasting*
12 Caenith lyrist — Improved two weapon fighting
13 Caenith lyrist
14 Caenith lyrist
15 Caenith lyrist — greater two weapon fighting
16 Caenith lyrist
17 Caenith lyrist
18 Caenith lyrist — lingering song
19 Caenith lyrist
20 Caenith lyrist
21 favored soul — extend spell
22 bard
23 favored soul — persistent spell
24 bard
25 favored soul — perfect 2 weapon fighting
26 bard
27 favored soul — curse song
28 bard
29 favored soul —quicken spell *or* stealthy
30 favored soul
On the lvl 29 feat choice: if you choose least, lesser, and regular spell mantle, you can then quicken least and lesser 12 times per day, and have over 30+ total mantles per day available. This makes you very mage resistant: you can actually get into a mantle/breach battle and live to tell the tale. If you don't care about fighting enemy mages, then stealthy is a good way to boost up your hide/ms that is otherwise lacking in this build.
Skills:
fs lvl 1 = 12
9 fs lvls +1 int = 27
20 lvls of other classes +1 int = 140
179 total skill points
Diplomacy 7
Lore 7
sleight of hand 7
Perform 31
hide 33
move silent 33
tumble 20
concentration 31
spellcraft 10
Ac
Bab 24
Ab:
naked:
26 dex = +8
bab 24
Dieties weapon focus: +1
33.
Self Buffed:
33 naked ab
3 divine favor
1 bless
1 aid
1 prayer
3 recitation
2 battletide
6 divine power addtl bab
5 greater magic weapon
-2 2wf penalty
total: 53
Most settings will have at least potions of cats grace available bringing the total to 55, which is respectable, especially with 14 attacks per round!
Add in the curse song malus, which makes the effective ab 58 or 60 with a cats grace potion.
Pros:
- Full lvl 20 divine spellcaster.
- Bard songs and inspirations as a lvl 18 bard granting:
- legionnaires march
- +4 ac or +3 regen or +4 skills or +3 ac or inspire jarring or inspire slowing.
- song of heroism for +4 ac 10 rounds, usable once per 5 minutes
- Maxed out Curse song with:
- -2 to Attack rolls.
- -3 to Damage rolls.
- -3 to Will saves.
- -2 to Fortitude saves.
- -2 to Reflex saves.
- -6 to Skill rolls.
- 24 damage.
- -5 to Dodge Armor Class
Cons:
- Heavily feat starved: I couldn't fit stealthy and 2 skill focuses in there for hide and ms, so this build is only an average hipser.
- ac is sub optimal, so the build is reliant upon fs buffs in order to survive.
- Damage output is sub optimal, relies on elemental damage from spells and a lot of attacks per round for damage: highly damage resistant enemies are a problem.
- heavily buff reliant.
Note: the build as stated relies on a +3 or greater cha item to cast lvl 9 spells. This can, of coarse, be modified. I would probably also add 2 more points of int in the build, depending on the mod: use magic device is often too good to pass up!
Another variant would be 12 fs/8 bard/8 CL/2 sd This would net you weapon specialization at the cost of legionnaires march.