lachancery
November 4th, 2012, 14:29
I am following-up on a thread about rules for the Bard, more specially the Dawnflower Dervish archetype, which happened in the game thread for a First Steps scenario. The original is thread can be read here (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17605)
In this post (https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2mlu3?Inner-Sea-Guide-Dawnflower-Dervish-question#2) from a "high up" at Paizo, he declares the Dawnflower Dervish as a swashbuckler fighter rather than a support character, because the changes to the inspire performances only affecting the bard, rather than the group, but doubled.
I'm interested in making such a PFS character, so I started reading to figure out how its combat power grew at different levels vs a vanilla fighter. I was reading on the spell Good Hope (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/g/good-hope) and thought "wait a minute, this is a morale bonus, so it doesn't stack with inspire courage". This thought lead me to this post (https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2o0oa?Do-Morale-Bonuses-Stack#3) on morale bonus. I was surprised to realize that only the Save boost of Inspire Courage is a morale bonus; the attack and damage boosts are competence bonuses.
So, that means morale bonus spells, such as bless (which I cast in that First Steps scenario) and Good Hope, do stack with the Inspire Courage performance. On the flip side, a trait which increases morale bonus does not increase the attack and damage bonuses of Inspire Courage.
As conclusion to this long post, I still find the Dawnflower Dervish a fantastic archetype. Here are a few things that combine well for it:
Level 1: Dex 18 + Dervish Dance + Inspire Courage (+2)
Scimitar ATK +6, DMG 1d6+6, CritThreat 18-20
Level 5: Dex 18 + Dervish Dance + Inspire Courage (+4) + Cats Grace spell
Scimitar ATK +13, DMG 1d6+10, CritThreat 18-20
Level 5: Dex 18 + Dervish Dance + Inspire Courage (+4) + Heroism/Allegro/Cats Grace spells
Scimitar ATK +15, DMG 1d6+10, CritThreat 18-20 (2 attacks from Allegro's Haste)
It gets even more interesting by combining with these items and feats:
- Keen weapon or improved critical: threat range grows to 15-20
- Good Hope & other morale bonus spells
- Vital Strike: increase base damage to 2d6
I'm sure there are other interesting combos to bolster this. I'm not sure how this compares with a vanilla fighter and other melee classes (barbarian, ranger, etc), but I'm impressed with the power and versatility of the Dawnflower Dervish.
In this post (https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2mlu3?Inner-Sea-Guide-Dawnflower-Dervish-question#2) from a "high up" at Paizo, he declares the Dawnflower Dervish as a swashbuckler fighter rather than a support character, because the changes to the inspire performances only affecting the bard, rather than the group, but doubled.
I'm interested in making such a PFS character, so I started reading to figure out how its combat power grew at different levels vs a vanilla fighter. I was reading on the spell Good Hope (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/g/good-hope) and thought "wait a minute, this is a morale bonus, so it doesn't stack with inspire courage". This thought lead me to this post (https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2o0oa?Do-Morale-Bonuses-Stack#3) on morale bonus. I was surprised to realize that only the Save boost of Inspire Courage is a morale bonus; the attack and damage boosts are competence bonuses.
So, that means morale bonus spells, such as bless (which I cast in that First Steps scenario) and Good Hope, do stack with the Inspire Courage performance. On the flip side, a trait which increases morale bonus does not increase the attack and damage bonuses of Inspire Courage.
As conclusion to this long post, I still find the Dawnflower Dervish a fantastic archetype. Here are a few things that combine well for it:
Level 1: Dex 18 + Dervish Dance + Inspire Courage (+2)
Scimitar ATK +6, DMG 1d6+6, CritThreat 18-20
Level 5: Dex 18 + Dervish Dance + Inspire Courage (+4) + Cats Grace spell
Scimitar ATK +13, DMG 1d6+10, CritThreat 18-20
Level 5: Dex 18 + Dervish Dance + Inspire Courage (+4) + Heroism/Allegro/Cats Grace spells
Scimitar ATK +15, DMG 1d6+10, CritThreat 18-20 (2 attacks from Allegro's Haste)
It gets even more interesting by combining with these items and feats:
- Keen weapon or improved critical: threat range grows to 15-20
- Good Hope & other morale bonus spells
- Vital Strike: increase base damage to 2d6
I'm sure there are other interesting combos to bolster this. I'm not sure how this compares with a vanilla fighter and other melee classes (barbarian, ranger, etc), but I'm impressed with the power and versatility of the Dawnflower Dervish.