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Note to general readers: This is concering the effectiveness of the UrSublime Lyrist

Quoting Sang-Drax:

I really think there are more powerful things you can do using Ur-Priest and SubChord. True, once you make into Fochlucan Lyrist, you become really powerful. But for the first 10 levels of your career all your skills and many feats are taken. Basically, you trade levels 1-10 for being a skill monkey from levels 11-20.

Sang-Drax -- about 70 skill ranks are spent just getting into the Ur-Priest and Sublime Chord. Yes, the Fochlucan Lyrist makes it "worse", but any build maxing the Ur-Priest and Sublime Chord would suffer from the problems you describe both above and below.

Also, you say, "many feats are taken" -- 2 feats are taken to get in Ur-Priest, and 1 is taken for "Able Learner". Most of those "many feats" would be taken in any Ur-Priest build.

Yes, since BAB alone doesn't make you a good warrior. You have no feats and need high Cha and Wis. I'd rather go a theurge of some sort, or a triple threat using warrior instead of skill money.

I completely agree that BAB alone doesn't make a good warrior. However, you can actually have 7 feats (hardlly "no feats"). Human -> Illumian costs 1 feat, but lets you dump Cha and Wis.

Furthermore, it is a given that multi-threats are going to be fundamentally MAD. That is just part of the game. Any Ur/Sublime build will have that.

I don't see how you could make a better Fighting/Divine/Arcane threat primarily using Ur/Sublime and Mystic Theurge -- 9 levels of MT & 1 level of Sublime Chord => +5 BAB in 10 levels. No way to reach 16+ BAB in 20 levels. I don't see it happening. *Shrugs*. Could just be a lack in my vision.

On the other hand I suspect you could do some really nice things to make it a better skillmonkey. Trade 1 level of rogue for 1 level of Exemplar and re-order things. Other stuff. Could be nice.

David

Good day,

This is my first ever post so please be patient with me if it has alot of errors in it. This post goes along the line of focusing on the Unearthed Arcana classes to generate all the pre-reqs for the Ur-Priest and Fochlucan Lyrist PrC's.

*Note: Mainly devised using alignment Neutral Evil for Druid and UrPriest restrictions.

The first big note (which was mentioned earlier) is the Expert Generic Class.
Although its first level is +0 BAB it gets 2 Bonus Feats in the first 2 levels. As per reading in the text they are not limited to any feat list. Also, you can exchange one of those feats for an ability that is listed on pg. 76.

Thus, A Human Expert 2 would be able to select Evasion (Ex) as one of the bonus feats plus having 2 spare feats left (Human/Level 1 Expert). It says it has a pre-req of Reflex +3 but that will be covered later.

Also, The text for Expert states that you take ANY 12 Skills as Class skills plus Craft and Profession.

Thus, UrP and FL need 11 pre-req skills ( FL: Decipher Script, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Knowledge (Nature), Perform (String) and Sleight of Hand. UrP: Bluff. Knowledge (Arcana), Knowledge (The Planes), Knowledge (Religion) and Spellcraft). Therefore you select the pre-req skills as your class skills so by level 2 you can have a Rank of 6 in alot of these skills. All that is remaining after that is getting Perform (String) to 13. (Yes, I know there is some Rank 7 and Rank 8's but they are easily obtained over the first 10 levels before you PrC into FL). However, Perform (String) from 6 to 13 isn't really difficult if your going to take Bard up a decent amount of levels... say 5 or 6.

The only thing hindering the chance to fulfill all skill reqs really fast is that the Expert is limited to 6+Int Mod for skills per level. Although that is decent in itself.

Another thing to note about the Expert Class (yes, Another.. listen) It says on pg. 77 Table 2-7: "Good Saves" Not "Save"; Therefore, you get to select 2 saves to follow the Experts pregression. Select Reflex (For evasion pre-req) and Fort (For UrP +3 req and Barb levels will cover the Well req for it).

If you want to add in Sublime Chord to the mix, you can select the Experts 12th skill as Listen (as the other pre-req skills are already taken care of)

The last thing id like to add, that was also mentioned, is the possibility of adding in the Variant Druid on pg. 58. This gives you fast movement, wis to ac, track feat, swift tracker and favored enemy.

Well with that said I guess i'd suggest looking at:
NE Human Expert 2/ Variant Druid 1/ Bard 6/ Ur-Priest 1/ Fochlucan Lyrist 10
or
NE Human Expert 2/ Variant Druid 1/ Bard 6/ Ur-Priest 1/ Sublime Chord 1/ FL9
(Sublime Chord taken after first level of FL so Bard = L7 Caster [L4 spells])
(Note* If you want full PrC of FL, You can also drop Bard by 1 and up FL by 1. Albiet you lose 1 Bard level while not generating any bonus that I can see.)

Build1: Druid of Level 11, Ur-Priest of Level 10 and Bard of Level 16. [+15BAB]

Build2: Druid of Level 9, Ur-Priest of Level 9, Sublime Chord of Level 9 and Bard of Level 14. [+13BAB, ow... but understandable]

Also, With Favored Class of Bard for Human, I believe theres no penalty at all.

Thanx for reading this and any criticism,
Ensanitii

*Edit - Changed 2nd Build due to Sublime Chord overlooked pre-req of Lv 3 Arcane spells required. Also added a slight overview..*

Cool. Was hoping most of it was structural sound but I did find some flaws myself as I went through it again. Mainly the skill issues. Acquiring all those skills by the right levels is a nightmare. I forgot about Able Learner(I think) that helps with that but didn't look into it yet tonight. Will fix it a bit tomorrow. Also, I guess it seems to be a trade off between those level 2 abilities and bard levels.

Do the Sublime Chord and Fochlucan Lyrist Bard levels also stack or are they seperate? I assume seperate but still decent.

However, I did kinda think about it and figured this might work:
*Note: Favored Class Bard for Non-XP Penalty
*Note: Mystic Theurge used to read level 3 Arcane Spells.

NE Human Expert 2/ Warrior 1/ Variant Druid 1/ Bard 3/ Ur Priest 2/ Mystic Thuerge 4/Sublime Chord 2/Fochlucan Lyrist 5

This is the only way I can really think that getting both second level abilities would work due to the huge Perform (String) 13 required for FL.

So, In the end I guess your trade off is Level 9 Sublime Chord Spells for Level 8 but Song of Arcane Power which boosts CL by +4. Ur Priest would still advance to being able to use Level 9 Divine Spells. Sublime+Bard for level 4(Dont think I calculated this part right) Bardic Songs. FL+Bard for level 8 bardic songs. So, In the end you kill Bardic songs by a good 4-6 just to snag those 2 abilities. (Unless Sublime and FL stack then you get another 1 level over all.. *laughs at that*). Although with just the Able Learner, Iron Will, and Spell Focus (Evil)[as well as free Track] feats, you are left with 7 feats to choose over the 20 levels.

Not to sure if that is worth the trade off.

Or I guess, after relooking over and not wanting to delete that, you could as easily just go:

Expert 2/ Warrior 1/ V-Druid 1/ Bard 5/ Ur Priest 2/ Fochlucan Lyrist 2/ Sublime Chord 2/ Fouchlucan Lyrist 5

Which also retains Ur Priest progression and increases Bard music levels upto 12. The only problem is making sure you can reach that Perform (String) to 13 ranks by level 12..... hm... (not sure if the pre-req is reached, its to late sorry ). Also still left with 7 feats to choose from.

Once again, any criticism welcome,
Good Night,
Ensanitii

hmmm, I don't suppose we can use Bardic Knowledge to learn Druidic.

Yeah, figured not.

Ensanitii]Good day,

Well with that said I guess i'd suggest looking at:
NE Human Expert 2/ Variant Druid 1/ Bard 6/ Ur-Priest 1/ Fochlucan Lyrist 10
or
NE Human Expert 2/ Variant Druid 1/ Bard 6/ Ur-Priest 1/ Sublime Chord 1/ FL9
(Sublime Chord taken after first level of FL so Bard = L7 Caster [L4 spells])
(Note* If you want full PrC of FL, You can also drop Bard by 1 and up FL by 1. Albiet you lose 1 Bard level while not generating any bonus that I can see.)

Note that you can't "drop Bard 1 and up FL by 1" because Sublime Chord requires 13 ranks in a skill, and can't be taken until 11th level -- same thing with FL.

Good day,

Well with that said I guess i'd suggest looking at:
NE Human Expert 2/ Variant Druid 1/ Bard 6/ Ur-Priest 1/ Fochlucan Lyrist 10
or
NE Human Expert 2/ Variant Druid 1/ Bard 6/ Ur-Priest 1/ Sublime Chord 1/ FL9
(Sublime Chord taken after first level of FL so Bard = L7 Caster [L4 spells])
(Note* If you want full PrC of FL, You can also drop Bard by 1 and up FL by 1. Albiet you lose 1 Bard level while not generating any bonus that I can see.)[/quote]
Note that you can't "drop Bard 1 and up FL by 1" because Sublime Chord requires 13 ranks in a skill, and can't be taken until 11th level -- same thing with FL.

Build1: Druid of Level 11, Ur-Priest of Level 10 and Bard of Level 16. [+15BAB]

You can advance the casting of the Druid *or* the Ur-Priest.
Build 1: Druid Level 2, Ur-Priest Level 10, Bard level 16.

Similarly with Build 2.

*Edit - Changed 2nd Build due to Sublime Chord overlooked pre-req of Lv 3 Arcane spells required. Also added a slight overview..*

I think that you need bard 7 for Lv 3 spells. Moho Tsukai can be a useful alternative.

Best,
David