Optimizing a Character: Human Bard

There are many unique ways to build characters, but I've just so happened to have thought up this one, and I feel it's too good not to share.


 Baldric Bard

A human bard with the right equipment and move set can offer a significant advantage.

By taking the feats "Two Weapon Fighting" and "Quick Draw" you can remain armed with daggers in both hands at all times in combat, even if you throw some away, and lose very little in the way of offensive ability. If you'll be playing with miniatures, it'll be easy to calculate distance, or if you uses tokens on grids to represent combat areas. It breaks down as thus:

A dagger can be used as a regular melee weapon for melee damage, excepting the deductions for the offhand weapon. You can use only half of your strength bonus for the offhand dagger, and it will be slightly less accurate. Same as applied for the influence of strength for throwing your daggers, and they will do the same damage. You can throw your daggers up to fifty feet, or ten squares in game. Your accuracy will deteriorate by an additional -2 per range increment(ten feet, or two squares in game). Quick Draw will allow you to draw another dagger once you've made your attacks. You will be capable of retaining weapons in both hands at all times, and will have an effective threat range as far as you can throw. So long as you purchase enough daggers and collect them from the battlefield, you shouldn't run out of weapons, and it should be cheap enough that your character will have a large disposable income. A baldric full of daggers makes for easy access and usage.

As long as you choose to whistle, sing, or some other form of verbal music, you can have both your hands ready to deal ranged or melee damage, and still be able to perform bardic counter songs, and other class related abilities.

And if you want to really take advantage of this class and setup, you'll want to place your ability points primarily in Strength, then Dexterity, then Intelligence, then Charisma, then Constitution, using Wisdom as your lowest stat. Once you acquire the proper prerequisites for Greater Two Weapon Fighting, your efficiency will increase dramatically.

As a Human, you'll have access to more Skill points at first level, and an additional point per level after that, after calculating for your Skill points. If you want to further improve your effectiveness with this class, you can take Profession(Alchemy) as a skill, and brew poisons to use on your blades.


In essence, clever use of feats and available weapons can make for unique and surprising combinations. Many people shrug bards off as overly generalized Jacks of all trades, but a specialized bard such as this has the hallmarks of great utility in many situations. A skilled warrior, a subtle assassin, a dashing hero; The potential is in your hands.