Obviously a bard is a jack of all trades types but I'd like to focus on perking 4-5 skills.
I usually play on expert to master.
So far I'm thinking something like this:
Female (I couldn't play a fruity male bard)
Brenton (Mainly for 25% magic resist and +5 in speech alchemy)
Skills I'm surely taking:
Alchemy (for poison and fortify buffs)
Speech ( Focusing on the persuasion / intimidate branch and for bard RP)
Which magic school for a bard?
These are my primary choices but feel free to suggest others:
Alteration: Seems like the red head step child of the magic schools. But I'm still interested in it because of mage armor perk and the spell blocking perks that seems to combine well with the brenton's natural magic resist. I'm interested in doing no armor bard so I'd appreciate any feed back from anyone with experience w/ alteration.
Illusion: Seems like a must for a bard but I'm still undecided for a few reasons. Too much investment, almost need the whole tree to keep it viable it seems. It allows you to buff allies but the buffing seems much weaker than restoration buffing.
Restoration: Since I was going to take alchemy to facilitate healing, there seems to be an over lap if i also take restoration. But I'm still interested because this school allows you to heal others, use wards. Is restoration more effective than illusion when buffing allies?
Combat skills:
Since a bard isn't really a combat character I really don't know what to choose. Some things I'm considering. Anyone try to NOT perk ANY combat skill? Will my build suffer if I attempt this?
Archery: Seems like a good RP fit, but my last character was heavy into archery. I know I'll uses this to deliver poison from range but don't really want to perk it.
One handed: I was thinking dagger or axe maybe. Seems so hum drum.
Block: The only reason I'm considering this is for elemental shield. Brenton magical resist + alteration spell blocking + elemental shield seems like it could be interesting. But this seems completely out of character.
Thank You in advance for any feed back.