Welcome to Guidance, Private Sanctuary’s source for tips and techniques for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, written by Everyman Gamer Alexander Augunas. Today, we’re going to be looking at a half-orc skald build.

Sometimes while I’m reading a new product a feat or class feature or something just screams out to me. “Hey, Alex! Would this work?” Today is the result of one of those types of moments.

Build Concept

Plot Twist: Today’s build requires a specific race. Bigger Plot Twist: Its not a kitsune build, but a half-orc/orc build. Take five minutes to settle your beating hearts and straighten your confused heads, I’m NOT doing anything that could be remotely kitsune related this week! Yay! (For you people, I guess….)

Today’s combo relies on a certain teamwork feat called Amplified Rage. Now, it’s a bit debatable on whether or not today’s combo would work without a 1-level dip in barbarian. Basically, today’s build revolves around the Amplified Rage teamwork feat and the skald’s inspired rage raging song. Amplified Rage requires that you possess the rage class feature, and its somewhat unclear whether the skald’s raging song qualifies. Some feats specifically call out that you need the raging song class feature in order to meet the feat’s prerequisites, but raging song itself (namely inspired rage), defines itself as a rage class ability within its description, as quoted below:

“If an ally has her own rage class ability (such as barbarian’s rage, bloodrager’s bloodrage, or skald’s inspired rage), she may use theStrength, Constitution, and Will saving throw bonuses, as well as AC penalties, based on her own ability and level instead of those from the skald (still suffering no fatigue afterward). However, inspired rage does not allow the ally to activate abilities dependent on other rage class abilities, such as rage powers, blood casting, or bloodrager bloodlines; the ally must activate her own rage class ability in order to use these features.”

So as you can see, unclear. I’m assuming that it works. If it doesn’t then change the build to be Barbarian 1, Skald 1, then Cavalier 1 and go from there. That would stop you from getting the skald’s highest inspired rage bonus, but the combo that you’re about to see more than makes up for it.

Early Levels (1–7)

• Classes: Skald 3, Cavalier 4
• Feats: Scribe Scroll (Bonus), Skald’s Vigor (1st), Amplified Rage (Bonus), Power Attack (3rd), Horse Master (5th), Practiced Tactician (7th)
• Abilities: Bardic Knowledge, Challenge 2/Day, Mount, Expert Trainer, Rage Power (reckless abandon), Raging Song (inspired rage +1/+2, song of marching), Versatile Performance (oratory), Tactician
• Bard 1st-Level Spells Known: compel hostility, cure light wounds, moment of greatness, timely inspiration

The combo is simple. Step 1: Activate Inspired Rage. Step 2: Use tactician to share Amplified Rage with all of your allies. Step 3: Everyone now has a raging bonus that is +4 higher than it would otherwise be.

This combo is NASTY. Having a +6 morale bonus to Strength and Constitution at Level 2 (or 3, see above) is pretty terrifying. Now, there are some weak points: namely, the tactician class feature. You’re not really getting any additional uses outside of what you buy with the Practiced Tactician feat and since we’re not shooting for more than 4 levels of cavalier (the most we can take without pushing away the highest inspired rage bonus), you’re not going to get more than one daily use from your cavalier class and tactician itself won’t improve to a swift action, so you’ll need to spend your action economy setting this up to start. But as with any skald build, in the right party a +6 morale bonus to Strength and Constitution will certainly be worth it!

The next best trick that you have is moment of greatness, which will allow you to double your morale bonus to Strength once during its duration. This is EXTREMELY handy, as your total Strength modifier bonus will skyrocket to +12 for one roll. Better still, moment of greatness affects all of your allies, allowing you to really lay on the hurt to your enemies.

Mid Levels (8 –14)

• Classes: Skald 10, Cavalier 4
• Feats: Scribe Scroll (Bonus), Skald’s Vigor (1st), Amplified Rage (Bonus), Power Attack (3rd), Horse Master (5th), Practiced Tactician (7th), Practiced Tactician (9th), Intimidating Performance (11th), Hurtful (13th)
• Abilities: Bardic Knowledge, Challenge 2/Day, DR 1/–, Mount, Expert Trainer, Improved Uncanny Dodge, Lore Master 1/Day, Rage Power (reckless abandon, superstition, witch hunter), Raging Song (dirge of doom, inspired rage +3/+4, song of marching, song of strength), Spell Kenning 1/Day, Versatile Performance (oratory, wind), Tactician, Uncanny Dodge
• Bard 3rd-Level Spells Known: coordinated effort
• Bard 2nd-Level Spells Known: bladed dash, heroism, tactical acumen
• Bard 1st-Level Spells Known: compel hostility, cure light wounds, moment of greatness, timely inspiration

In the mid levels, little changes except for A) better rage powers and B) better feats. At 11th level, I decided to grab Intimidating Performance as it allows you to make a fast Intimidate check when you activate your inspired rage. The only reason I took this feat was so I could also take Hurtful at the next opportunity, which allows you to make a free attack as a swift action after you successfully attack an opponent. In effect, you could use a move action to start your inspired rage, spend a swift action to make a free attack if your demoralize attempt succeeds, and then make another attack with your remaining standard action. Or cast a bard spell. Or use tactician. Whatever you want to do with it. Although Hurtful isn’t going to be something you always want to do (especially when all of your buffs are active), it will be something that you want to do some of the time in order to make the best use of your action economy.

I picked some excellent rage powers for this build to share with its allies as well. Reckless Abandon is AWESOME if something needs to die quickly, as all of your allies can take an AC penalty in order to gain an attack roll bonus whenever they want. Superstition has always been a strong choice for barbarians, and the skald gets to share it as well. But the real winner in this build is witch hunter, which gives you a damage bonus against anything that can cast spells or spell-like abilities. A lot of monsters gain spell-like abilities, so this rage power is an excellent one to share with all of your allies during your amplified inspired rage performance.

Endgame (15+)

• Classes: Skald 16, Cavalier 4
• Feats: Scribe Scroll (Bonus), Skald’s Vigor (1st), Amplified Rage (Bonus), Power Attack (3rd), Horse Master (5th), Practiced Tactician (7th), Practiced Tactician (9th), Intimidating Performance (11th), Hurtful (13th), Greater Skald’s Vigor (15th), Practiced Tactician (17th), Practiced Tactician (19th)
• Abilities: Bardic Knowledge, Challenge 2/Day, DR 2/–, Mount, Expert Trainer, Improved Uncanny Dodge, Lore Master 2/Day, Rage Power (quick reflexes, reckless abandon, superstition, unexpected strike, witch hunter), Raging Song (dirge of doom, inspired rage +5/+6, song of the fallen, song of marching, song of strength), Spell Kenning 2/Day, Versatile Performance (oratory, wind), Tactician, Uncanny Dodge
• Bard 6th-Level Spells Known: dance of a thousand cuts, brilliant inspiration
• Bard 5th-Level Spells Known: bard’s escape, foe to friend, mass cure light wounds, resonating word
• Bard 4th-Level Spells Known: feast on fear, freedom of movement, greater path of glory, hold monster, virtuoso performance
• Bard 3rd-Level Spells Known: blink, coordinated effort, flexible fury, haste, wall of nausea
• Bard 2nd-Level Spells Known: bestow insight, boiling blood, bladed dash, contingent action, heroism, tactical acumen
• Bard 1st-Level Spells Known: blistering incentive, compel hostility, cure light wounds, heightened reflexes, moment of greatness, timely inspiration

In the end game, the build continues to improve its morale bonus via rage. Most of the rage powers that the build gains focus on attacks of opportunity, namely giving more attacks and allowing allies to make attacks of opportunity in special conditions. Greater Skald’s Vigor is awesome, as it allows the skald to share his fast healing from Skald’s Vigor with his allies. Coordinated effort allows you to share your Amplified Rage feat similarly to tactician, but the conditions are a bit less lenient. Other then that, there’s not much else to do with this build except sit back and revel in the massive +10 morale bonus to Strength and Constitution that you’ll be getting.

Other Notes

You’ll note that I did budget Horse Lord into this build, so you’ll have a full character level mount to join you on your travels (and benefit from your Amplified Rage teamwork feat). You’ll likely want to focus your mount on doing damage, and if your GM allows you to take mounts outside of those allowed by the standard list of cavalier mounts, your best bet is probably going to be something Jurassic. I prefer velociraptors myself.

Also, the absolute nastiest thing that you can do using this build is grab a courageous weapon. A +4 courageous weapon will further increase the morale benefits of your rage by +2, so that by 20th level you will have a baseline morale bonus on Strength and Constitution of +12 while raging, or +24 when you use moment of greatness. Enjoy!

Alexander “Alex” Augunas has been playing roleplaying games since 2007, which isn’t nearly as long as 90% of his colleagues. Alexander is an active freelancer for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and is best known as the author of the Pact Magic Unbound series by Radiance House. Alex is the owner of Everyman Gaming, LLC and is often stylized as the Everyman Gamer in honor of Guidance’s original home. Alex’s favorite color is blue, his favorite Pathfinder Race/Class combination is half-orc skald, but only if that half-orc is actually a kitsune who painted his human-form’s face green.