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Feats

Bardic music feats

Bardic music feats, as the name suggests, require the bardic music ability and cost daily uses of the bardic music ability to activate. All bardic music feats require that the character be able to produce music to use the feat, even those that only require free actions and those that require no action at all.

Class features that resemble bardic music, such as the war chanter’s war chanter music (see Complete Warrior) or a seeker of the song’s seeker music abilities (see Complete Arcane) can be substituted for the bardic music prerequisite of a bardic music feat.

Chant of Fortitude

You can channel the power of your bardic music to sustain your allies, allowing them to function even after receiving wounds that would cause others to falter.

Prerequisites: Bardic music, Concentration 9 ranks, Perform 9 ranks.

Benefit: You can expend one daily use of your bardic music ability as an immediate action to provide all allies (including yourself) the benefit of the Diehard feat (see page 93 of the Player’s Handbook) until the end of your next turn. You can use this feat multiple times consecutively to keep yourself and your allies conscious. Even while this feat is active, you or your allies die if reduced to –10 hit points or lower. This feat does not function in an area of magical silence.

Devoted Performer

You have foregone the pursuit of frivolous musical talents, instead entering religious training in service of honor and justice.

Prerequisite: Bardic music, smite evil.

Benefit: If you have levels in paladin and bard, those levels stack for the purpose of determining the bonus damage dealt by your smite evil ability and determining the number of times per day that you can use your bardic music. This feat does not allow additional daily uses of smite evil or bardic music abilities beyond what your class levels would normally allow.

In addition, you can multiclass freely between the paladin and bard classes and may even gain additional bard levels regardless of your lawful alignment. You must still remain lawful good in order to retain your paladin abilities and take paladin levels. You still face the normal XP penalties for having multiple classes more than one level apart.

Disguise Spell

You can cast spells without observers noticing.

Prerequisite: Perform (any) 9 ranks, bardic music.

Benefit: You can cast spells unobtrusively, mingling verbal and somatic components into your performances. To disguise a spell, make a Perform check as part of the action used to cast the spell. Onlookers must match or exceed your check result with a Spot check to detect that you’re casting a spell (your performance is obvious to everyone in the vicinity, but the fact that you are casting a spell isn’t). Unless the spell visibly emanates from you, or observers have some other means of determining its source, they don’t know where the effect came from.

A disguised spell can’t be identified with a Spellcraft check, even by someone who realizes you’re casting a spell. The act of casting still provokes attacks of opportunity as normal.

Extra Music

You can use your bardic music more often than you otherwise could.

Prerequisite: Bardic music.

Benefit: You can use your bardic music four extra times per day.

Normal: Bards without the Extra Music feat can use bardic music once per day per bard level.

Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects stack.

Green Ear

Your bardic music can affect plant creatures.

Prerequisite: Perform (any) 10 ranks, bardic music.

Benefit: You can alter any of your mind-affecting bardic music abilities (or similar Perform-based abilities from other classes) so that they influence only plant creatures instead of other creatures. However, plants receive a +5 bonus on Will saves against any of these effects.

Normal: Plants are normally immune to all mind-affecting spells and abilities.

Ironskin Chant

You can channel the power of your bardic music to enable yourself to ignore minor injuries.

Prerequisites: Bardic music, Concentration 12 ranks, Perform 12 ranks.

Benefit: As a swift action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity, you can expend one daily use of your bardic music ability to provide damage reduction of 5/— to yourself or to one ally within 30 feet who can hear you until the start of your next turn.

This feat does not function in an area of magical silence.

Lingering Song

Your inspirational bardic music stays with the listeners long after the last note has died away.

Prerequisite: Bardic music.

Benefit: If you use bardic music to inspire courage, inspire greatness, or inspire heroics, the effect lasts for 1 minute after an inspired ally stops hearing you play.

Normal: Inspire courage, inspire greatness, and inspire heroics last as long as an ally hears the bard sing plus an additional 5 rounds thereafter.

Lyric Spell

You can channel the power of your bardic music into your magic, allowing you to expend uses of your bardic music ability to cast spells.

Prerequisites: Bardic music, Perform 9 ranks, ability to spontaneously cast 2nd-level arcane spells.

Benefit: You can expend daily uses of your bardic music to cast any arcane spell that you know and can cast spontaneously. You must still use an action to cast the spell (following the normal rules for casting time), but using the Lyric Spell feat counts as part of the spellcasting action. Casting a spell requires one use of your bardic music ability, plus one additional use per level of the spell. For example, casting a 3rd-level spell requires four daily uses of your bardic music ability.

Special: Any spell that you cast using the Lyric Spell feat gains your instrument as an additional arcane focus, if you use one.

You cannot use Lyric Spell to cast a spell improved by the Silent Spell metamagic feat.

Obscure Lore

You are a treasure trove of little-known information.

Prerequisite: Bardic knowledge or lore class feature.

Benefit: You gain a +4 insight bonus on checks using your bardic knowledge or lore class feature.

Subsonics

Your music can affect even those who do not consciously hear it.

Prerequisite: Perform (any) 10 ranks, bardic music.

Benefit: You can produce music or poetics so subtly that opponents do not notice it, yet your allies still gain all the usual benefits from your bardic music. Similarly, you can affect opponents within range with your music, but unless they can see you performing or have some other means of discovering it, they cannot determine the source of the effect.

Versatile Performer

You are skilled at many kinds of performances.

Prerequisite: Perform (any) 5 ranks.

Benefit: Pick a number of Perform categories equal to your Intelligence bonus (minimum 1). For the purpose of making Perform checks, you are treated as having a number of ranks in those skills equal to the highest number of ranks you have in any Perform category. You cannot change these categories once you have picked them, but your score in them automatically increases if you later add additional ranks in your highest-ranked Perform category. You gain new categories of your choice if your Intelligence bonus permanently increases.

In addition, you gain a +2 bonus on a combined Perform check when using two or more forms of performance at the same time, such as a bard strumming a lyre while singing. In such cases, add the bonus to the higher of your two Perform skill modifiers.

Prestige classes

Fochlucan Lyrist

Warrior, thief, spy, poet, woodland champion—the Fochlucan lyrist is a legendary figure who serves as the herald and teacher to great kings, the champion of the common folk, and the keeper of lore long forgotten elsewhere. Only the best and brightest are invited to become Fochlucan lyrists, and those who eventually win the approval of the Fochlucan College’s masters are remarkable individuals indeed, skilled in swordplay, magic, and diplomacy.

Those who aspire to join the Fochlucan College face a long and difficult road. The great bards who lead the school choose only individuals who have demonstrated skill at arms and stealth, learning and cleverness, superb talent with the lute and an ear for the stories of old. Finally, all applicants must first study the lore of the druids, learning the ways of growth and the hidden secrets of nature. Few indeed can stand up to the rigorous scrutiny of the Fochlucan masters.

Fochlucan lyrists adventure to gain information. They are spies and rumormongers, ever on the watch for news of events that may upset the balance they seek to preserve. A lyrist can serve as a diplomat, messenger, or assassin, as needed. The Fochlucans strongly believe in fostering the careers of other adventurers whose viewpoints align with their own, and many lyrists attach themselves to adventuring companies specifically for the purpose of guiding their comrades to oppose the right enemies and advance the interests of the Fochlucan College.

Adaptation: This class is a fusion of the druid and bard base classes. An interesting variation would be to adapt the class into a fusion of the druid and ranger base classes.

Hit Die: d6.

Requirements

To qualify to become a Fochlucan lyrist, a character must fulfill all the following criteria.

Class skills

The Fochlucan lyrist’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Appraise (Int), Bluff (Cha), Concentration (Con), Craft (any) (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disguise (Cha), Gather Information (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Hide (Dex), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Speak Language (n/a), Spellcraft (Int), Survival (Wis), Swim (Str), and Use Magic Device (Cha).

Skill Points at Each Level: 6 + Int modifier.

Class features

All of the following are class features of the Fochlucan lyrist prestige class.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Fochlucan lyrists gain no proficiency with any weapon or armor.

Spellcasting: At each level, a Fochlucan lyrist gains new spells per day (and spells known, if applicable) as if they had also gained a level in any one arcane spellcasting class and any one divine spellcasting class to which they belonged before adding the prestige class level. They do not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. If they had more than one arcane spellcasting class or divine spellcasting class before becoming a Fochlucan lyrist, they must decide to which class to add each Fochlucan lyrist level for the purpose of determining spells per day, spells known, and overall caster level. For example, a 2nd-level rogue/5th-level bard/4th-level druid/3rd-level Fochlucan lyrist can cast arcane spells as an 8th-level bard and divine spells as a 7th-level druid.

Bardic Knowledge (Ex): A Fochlucan lyrist can attempt to recall some relevant piece of information about local notable people, legendary items, or noteworthy places. (See the bard class feature.) They add their Fochlucan lyrist class level to their bardic knowledge checks, so their bardic knowledge checks have a bonus equal to their bard level + their Fochlucan lyrist level + their Int modifier.

Bardic Music: A Fochlucan lyrist adds their lyrist level to their bard level to determine the number of times per day they can use their bardic music, the bardic music abilities they can employ, and the power of those abilities. For example, a 2nd-level rogue/5th-level bard/4th-level druid/3rd-level Fochlucan lyrist can use her bardic music eight times per day, can use any bardic music ability an 8th-level bard could use (assuming she meets the Perform skill rank requirements), and is treated as an 8th-level bard for adjudicating the effects of those abilities (such as number of targets, save DC, and so forth).

Unbound: A Fochlucan lyrist’s druid oaths are relaxed, allowing her to wear light metal armor with no loss of spellcasting, supernatural, or spell-like abilities. A lyrist also suffers no experience point penalty for multiclassing.

Fochlucan bandore

In the same vein that most folk consider the Fochlucan College to be the most famous of the bardic colleges, the most well-known and most often encountered of all the famed instruments of the bards is the Fochlucan bandore. (This item and the other instruments of the bards are described in detail in Complete Arcane.)

This three-stringed masterwork lute grants a +2 circumstance bonus on Perform (string instruments) checks and a +1 competence bonus on bardic music checks for countersong, fascinate, and suggestion. The instrument can be played by anyone to produce light once per day. Any character with at least 2 ranks in Perform (string instruments) can use the bandore to cast flare, mending, and message each once per day.

Faint transmutation, faint evocation; CL 3rd; Craft Wondrous Item, flare, light, mending, message, creator must be a bard; Price 1,900 gp; Weight 3 lb.

the Fochlucan College

Perhaps the most famous of the bardic colleges, the Fochlucan College serves as a beacon of learning and diplomacy in a dark and restless land. Many have accused the Fochlucan masters of fomenting intrigues among the nearby kingdoms and using their famed neutrality to conceal the real extent of their meddling and manipulation. By advising mighty rulers and undertaking the tutoring of royal heirs, the Fochlucan bards turn the fate of kingdoms with nothing more than quiet words and whispered secrets.

The Fochlucan College itself is located on the shores of the misty Loch Firrnen, a few miles from the town of Oakenway. The College is a rambling old stone building that resembles something between a minor lord’s manor house and a decrepit old monastery. Green ivy covers its walls, and old lanterns hanging from its eaves warm its chill, misty nights with golden light.

No more than a handful of its collegians are present at any given time—the strength of the organization lies in the learning and skill of its individual members, not in any muster of warriors. Members are welcome to stay as long as they like but are expected to contribute to the college’s upkeep. The customary donation is 50 gp a month (for itinerant members) or 200 gp a month (for members living on the premises).

A small number of servants keep the College in order and prepare meals, but there are no guards or soldiers. Instead, its defense lies primarily in the reputation and influence of its members. Should trouble come anyway, the College is well defended by the handful of lyrists or guests who happen to be visiting at any given time. In case of serious trouble, the Fochlucans turn to the creatures of the surrounding forest. Through ancient pacts, the sylvan denizens of Loch Firrnen’s forests are pledged to defend the bards’ house against attack.

The College is governed by the Yew Circle, a small council composed of the five most senior Fochlucans currently enrolled in the order. All five are nominally equal, but if the Circle’s opinion is divided on any important matter, the Eldest of the Circle—the Fochlucan who has served the longest in the college—decides the issue. Currently, the Eldest of Fochlucan is Yew Master Hurlich Stennarden, a half-elf who has belonged to the College for better than fifty years. The masters of the Yew Circle rarely meet, since they are not often at the College at the same time.

The Fochlucans are affiliated with several other bardic colleges in neighboring lands, including the College of Mac-Fuirmidh, the Doss School, and the High College of Anstruth, oldest and most knowledgeable of the colleges.

See also

• Filí
• Ollam