The World of Avlis

I am a fighter/bard and wear armour. How do I get around arcane spell failure. Is there a feat that will help? Thanks. deth

What you're looking for is the meta-magic feat Still Spell. It allows the spells to be cast without the somantic components (i.e. no movement, just verbal).

Spells used in this manner occupy 1 spell level slot higher than normal, e.g. a lvl 2 spell takes up a lvl 3 slot.

Some spells do not have somantic components, e.g. Darkness, True Strike .. I'm sure there are others.

There is armor out there with reduced arcane failure % chance, however it will be expensive and/or not as good as a good thick set of plate.

There are several ways around this. The easiest one is probably to not wear armour (heh) or wear a light armour, unequip your shield to cast and hope for the best. There are also armours with reduced arcane casting failure out there but they don't seem to be common at all and the few ones i have seen for sale are always expensive.

This said, the best thing you can probably do is to take the Still Spell feat and to cast spells without a somatic component, specially if your character uses heavy armours and shields: this works for my own character.

There's a list of bard spells without somatic component in the bard forum.

The easiest one is probably to not wear armour (heh) or wear a light armour, unequip your shield to cast and hope for the best.

In my experience, arcane spell failure, even if the chance is just 10%, ALWAYS happens at the worst possible moments (imagine yourself being chased by hordes of angry foes, and your improved invisibility fizzles before your eyes). So it is probably best not to cast while in armor, or take the still feats (as suggested above).

Ok thanks my armour is full plate AC8 which I like, having a total AC25 with shield is nice. I really want the armour. I was thinking changing to a cleric as arcane failure isnt as prevalant, but I dont want to max out my 3 classes just yet.

Marijn wrote:

The easiest one is probably to not wear armour (heh) or wear a light armour, unequip your shield to cast and hope for the best.

In my experience, arcane spell failure, even if the chance is just 10%, ALWAYS happens at the worst possible moments (imagine yourself being chased by hordes of angry foes, and your improved invisibility fizzles before your eyes). So it is probably best not to cast while in armor, or take the still feats (as suggested above).

Yes, but you can't always do this. What does a bard in full plate and tower shield who wants to cast Mass Haste? He unequips his shield and hopes that the 45% arcane casting failure doesn't kick in, bards cannot still level 6 spells.

For the record, i used to have a nice leather armour that i liked to wear in low-risk situations and i ended discarding it in favour of either no armour or full plate: the damn 10% was kicking in like 50% of the time, lol. Or so it seemed to me.

Yeh, invisibiltiy was one that I need on demand. Being a higher level fighter I am in the enemies face all the time. Great for getting killed a lot *smiles*

Mozertus wrote:

For the record, i used to have a nice leather armour that i liked to wear in low-risk situations and i ended discarding it in favour of either no armour or full plate: the damn 10% was kicking in like 50% of the time, lol. Or so it seemed to me.

The same happened to me, so now its no armour at all.. isnt this a great example of Murphy's law?
*kicks the engine*

My other problem is my intel, and Charisma are only 10, been focusing on the fighter. Should I just ditch the lvl 4 Bard and go with Cleric? I have a +1 charisma cloak, but it doesnt seem to do much.

dethtrooper wrote:My other problem is my intel, and Charisma are only 10, been focusing on the fighter. Should I just ditch the lvl 4 Bard and go with Cleric? I have a +1 charisma cloak, but it doesnt seem to do much.

Can you actually cast any spells as a Bard? As far as I am aware you need and INT or CHA of 10+X to cast X level spells. You're Bard can only cast lvl-0 spells ! Or is it different with Bards?

Well, with a base CHA 10 you aren't going to be able to cast as a bard any other thing than cantrips so either raise that ability or forget completely about spellcasting. Gear isn't going to help you here.

No you're right, I get a UMD failure or something. Cantrips are only level 1. I want to persue spell casting by increasing Int, or Charisma, but even get the damn arcane failure on healing cantrip.

Cantrips are level 0 so you can cast them with CHA 10. However, that's everything you can cast unless you increase your base CHA. INT won't help you in the slightest for spellcasting purposes since your character is a bard.

Seriously, your problem is not the arcane casting failure with a cantrip that will heal 1-4 hp if you succeed. Your problem is that with CHA 10 you aren't getting access to the level 2 spells that the average bard gets by level 4. If you are interested at all in casting spells as a bard, raise your CHA first and think about Still Spell later. Being able to still your spells is not any good if you can't cast spells to begin with.

dethtrooper wrote:No I get a UMD failure or something. Cantrips are only level 1. I want to persue spell casting by increasing Int, or Charisma, but even get the damn arcane failure on healing cantrip.

What character level is your bard now?

You've got a bit of a problem. Bard's use CHA for spells if I recall.

You will need pump you ability increases into CHA (i.e. every 4 levels) to get that score up. But it will still be low, you will never be able to cast high level spells, you will not have many bonus spells. You will not have oodles of spell-slots available to use Still Spell on.

Sorry for the feedback, but this bard is going to suck as a caster. However, not impossible ... just a lot of hard work, with little reward until very late .. and then even then the reward isn't that good.

Also, a bard with 10 CHA is probably a bad start too. CHA is their primary ability (and affects they skills and songs per day, etc.)

Thanks for the honest feedback. I am lvl 11 fighter but my bard is 4. I kinda want the best of both worlds (being able to fight and cast spells). I plan to hit epic. Maybe I will just pump up Charisma, although it sounds I wont go that far with it. I guess rings ect wouldnt help much either with Charisma.

dethtrooper wrote:Ok thanks my armour is full plate AC8 which I like, having a total AC25 with shield is nice.

*dies*

Good god, how do you do _anything_ bardlike in that? Then again, I probably can't speak, I dropped wearing armour altogether for dex based AC, and the loss of failure.

As above though, still spell, or try to get your hands on some Mithril or Featherweight armour.

p0m wrote:Good god, how do you do _anything_ bardlike in that?

Hey, i have been doing everything bardic in full plate and tower shield since level 2. There are even bard-only full plates for sale in at least one store.

p0m wrote:

dethtrooper wrote:Ok thanks my armour is full plate AC8 which I like, having a total AC25 with shield is nice.

*dies*

Good god, how do you do _anything_ bardlike in that?

You ever met Hargas Steelhead? Biggest bard around and a good frontline fighter too. Plate and beard all the way

It all depends on the kind of bard you're playing.. not all are wussy airheads you know

Wyrmwing wrote:It all depends on the kind of bard you're playing.. not all are wussy airheads you know

Pft.. wuss.. airhead. Hm, might have gotten me there.

My above statement was firmly tongue in cheek, as I know quite a few steelbards, just never understood their appreciation for armour

dethtrooper wrote:Maybe I will just pump up Charisma, although it sounds I wont go that far with it. I guess rings ect wouldnt help much either with Charisma.

The ability to cast spells of a given level, depends on base stat, without gear. So rings, cloaks etc don't help. You wont be much of a caster till you get at least 12 in the appropriate stat.

If you intend to always be a primary fighter, secondary bar, you could stop at 12 charisma and just use your first and second level slots for the hour per level buffing spells. That way you could remove your armour to buff in a non combat situation then suit up to fight. Still spell would still be useful. You wouldn't be able to cast lv3 spells but (I think) you could still use the lv3 slots for stilled lv2 spells.

Since the team was anyways spellhooking all spells it would have been nice would they have changed them acording to the 3.0/3.5 rules where bards can cast spells in light armors without a chance for arcane spell failure.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A bard is proficient with all simple weapons, plus the longsword, rapier, sap, short sword, shortbow, and whip. Bards are proficient with light armor and shields (except tower shields). A bard can cast bard spells while wearing light armor without incurring the normal arcane spell failure chance. However, like any other arcane spellcaster, a bard wearing medium or heavy armor or using a shield incurs a chance of arcane spell failure if the spell in question has a somatic component (most do ). A multiclass bard still incurs the normal arcane spell failure chance for arcane spells received from other classes.

dethtrooper wrote:Thanks for the honest feedback. I am lvl 11 fighter but my bard is 4. I kinda want the best of both worlds (being able to fight and cast spells). I plan to hit epic. Maybe I will just pump up Charisma, although it sounds I wont go that far with it. I guess rings ect wouldnt help much either with Charisma.

Joined: 10 Sep 2005

Not trying to tell ya how to have fun, but have you considered stopping to smell the roses? There's a lot of things in Avlis that are more fun than hitting epic (IMHO, of course).

dethtrooper wrote:I kinda want the best of both worlds (being able to fight and cast spells).

Pfft. Focus on being an awesome fighter and bring along another wizard. Team work > fighter/bard/rogue/cleric/wizard/ranger combo.

- Aeveras