Wild Singer (Apath)

Unofficial rules compendium

The savage bard is a warrior at heart, though his arcane powers strike fear into the enemies of his tribe. Savage bards often multiclass as barbarians to improve their combat prowess.

Alignment: A savage bard must be chaotic in alignment. A savage bard who becomes nonchaotic cannot progress in levels as a bard, though he retains all his bard abilities.

Base Save Bonuses: A savage bard has good Fortitude and Will saves, but has poor Reflex saves.

Class Skills: A savage bard loses Linguistics as a class skill. He adds Survival to his list of class skills.

Class Features

The savage bard has all the standard bard class features, except as noted below.

Illiteracy: A savage bard is illiterate, and his superstition does not allow him to learn to read and write later in life or as a part of a multiclass. A savage bard cannot use or scribe scrolls or a spellbook or formula book, and cannot later take up a class that requires the use of such a book.

Class skills: Add Survival (Wis) to the savage bard's class skills.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: A bard is proficient with all simple weapons, plus the battle axe, chakram, handaxe, shortbow, and throwing axe. Bards are also proficient with light armor, medium armor, and shields (except tower shields). A savage bard can cast bard spells while wearing non-metallic armor and using a non-metallic shield without incurring the normal arcane spell failure chance. Thus, they may wear padded, leather, or hide armor without incurring arcane spell failure. A savage bard may also wear wooden armor that has been altered by the ironwood spell so that it functions as though it were steel. See the ironwood spell description. There might also be other kinds of non-metallic armor available in the campaign, such as dragonhide armor.

Like any other arcane spellcaster, a savage bard in metal armor armor incurs a chance of arcane spell failure if the spell in question has a somatic component. A multiclass savage bard still incurs the normal arcane spell failure chance for arcane spells received from other classes.

Spellcasting: Remove the following spells from the savage bard’'s class spell list: calm emotions, comprehend languages, detect secret doors, illusory script, prestidigitation, read magic, sepia snake sigil, summon monster (I through VI).

Add the following spells to the savage bard’s class spell list:
1st — calm animals, detect snares and pits, endure elements, summon nature’'s ally I
2nd — bull’s strength, pass without trace, summon nature’'s ally II;
3rd — snare, summon nature'’s ally III;
4th — insect plague, summon nature'’s ally IV;
5th — commune with nature, summon nature'’s ally V;
6th — creeping doom, ironwood, reincarnate, summon nature’'s ally VI.