13th Age 2E Pregenerated Character Builds: Swashbuckling Virtuoso Bard

By Jay Godden

In this series, I’m presenting two different pregenerated builds for every 13th Age Heroes’ Handbook character class, at all levels. My goal is to present complete mechanical builds using only standard elements and rules from the Heroes’ Handbook, ready for you to apply your own backgrounds, icon relationships, and One Unique Thing.

In this pair of articles, we look at two potential builds for the Bard.

The Bard is probably the most complex class to build and to play in the Heroes’ Handbook. Fundamentally it acts as a support character, offering powerful buffs and healing, with options to grant saves and movement. This, combined with powers to suppress the monsters, means that with a Bard in a party everyone else performs better. With that said, Bards can hold their own in combat, dishing out damage with powerful limited-use spells or acting as melee skirmishers, depending on how they are built.

The Bard is significantly changed compared to its first-edition counterpart, with a new talent structure and many Battle Cry-like effects now folded into these talents (as Combat Riffs, Healing Magics and Miss-Effects). Most of the talents follow an Instrumental structure, where picking an instrument gives you 4 distinct powers related to that aspect of music. There are two simpler talents, one that offers at-will spells related to your instrument choices, and another that improves your ability to sustain bardic songs (a subset of your spell options). Some story-focussed talents from 1e have been reimagined as feats, leaving more of your build budget free for combat effectiveness.

That spare build budget can take you in a number of directions, from a mobile Dexterity-based melee skirmisher, a Strength-based front-liner, backline healer, or even to a spell blaster giving the Wizard a run for their money.

You will have to keep an eye out for any triggers of your Combat Riffs, Miss-Effects, and Healing Magics, as well as making decisions about when to unleash your spells to bolster allies, debilitate enemies, or blast thundering damage across the battlefield.

SWASHBUCKLING VIRTUOSO BARD

Download the Swashbuckling Virtuoso Bard character sheets here. These sheets make use of the class-specific character sheets designed for second edition by Miguel Friginal.

The Swashbuckling Virtuoso leads from the front, spinning through melee with a buckler and rapier alongside their allies. This build is reasonably complex, with additional per arc uses of all their Combat Riffs. You will also be in the thick of battle and therefore in danger, having to keep yourself safe as well as all your allies. This build does invest in some self-defence, starting with choosing Strength for its melee attacks to be able to use a shield and improve its recoveries. Most of your spells will be songs, which often have simpler effects that go alongside your melee attacks, rather than lots of fiddly bardic control and damage spells.

As usual magic item choices are left out of the character sheets, check with your GM to see if they will be granting you any. You can benefit from arcane implements in addition to a magic sabre or rapier. Since you are proficient with shields, grabbing a magic one will give you some much-needed defence, and a magic belt and armour can help bridge the gap between your defences and those of other melee combatants. Consider asking your GM for simpler magic items, since your class already has so much going on.

Talents

Dance

The Dance talent, while not technically an instrument, follows the instrumental structure in that it gives you a set of four powers. This talent’s theme is all about mobility, excellent for a melee bard like the Virtuoso.

Strings

The healing effect from Strings is rather unique in that it only works out of combat, improving the efficiency of your quick rests. As is usual for a Bard talent it has powers to help your allies hit, and also one to shrug off conditions. The Accord Keynote lets you steal at-will spells from allies. We’ll have to leave that one up to you and your party.

Songmaster

Roll 2d20 and choose the result you prefer whenever you roll to sustain a song. This hugely improves the efficiency and longevity of your most powerful spells, without adding much overhead for you.

Kin Power

Half-Elves’ Resilient allows you to reroll a d20 roll not used for an attack. Good candidates for this might be initiative checks, disengage rolls when you are in serious danger, saves for serious conditions, and sustain checks for your favourite songs. If this reroll is an 11+ you can also heal using a recovery, great for your frontline longevity.

Attributes

While Charisma does improve many of your Combat Riffs and spells, it is still secondary to Strength and Constitution, which drive your ability in melee: Str 19 (+4) Dex 14 (+2) Con 17 (+3) Wis 10 (+0) Int 12 (+1) Cha 13 (+1).

1st level

Attributes: Str 19 (+4) Dex 14 (+2) Con 17 (+3) Wis 10 (+0) Int 12 (+1) Cha 13 (+1).

Kin Power: Resilient

Talents: Dance, Strings, Songmaster

Class features: Spells, Bardic Talents, Bardic Songs, Bardic Control Thresholds, Social Skills, Ghost Sound, Spells with Replacement, Glows, Strength Melee

Spells/songs: Song of Heroes, Survivor’s Song (You can change your limited-use Bard spells freely when you have a full heal-up; these spells are just suggestions for a default arc.)

Feat: A: Dance

2nd level

New spell (Befuddle), new feat (A: Songmaster).

3rd level

New feat (A: Endless Patter).

4th level

+1 to three attributes (Strength, Constitution, Charisma), new song (Song of Self), new feat (A: Strong Recovery).

5th level

New feat (C: Song of Heroes).

6th level

New spell (Ascending Notes), new feat (C: Songmaster).

7th level

+1 to four attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma), new song (Song of Blood & Legends replaces Survivor’s Song), new feat (C: Dance).

8th level

New spell (Connection), new feat (E: Songmaster).

9th level

New feat (A: Toughness).

10th level

+1 to five attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Charisma), new spell (Wink Wink), new feat (E: Wink Wink).

Zenith feat

New feats (Z: Zenith Adventurer, A: Strings, C: Strings).