Beguiler becomming MAO - good/bad

[Duff]

Reading the list of Prc's for rankings and was struck by a thought. If a beguiler took prepared spontanious casting and then the Prc Mage of Arcane Order, would that let them "call" spells not on the beguiler list?

If so would that be 3 feats to cover a (the?) weakness of the class, and a fair trade or would it break the character (or force my GM to?)


I'm frequently surprised at how strong or weak combo's turn out (I thought a spiked chain on a swordsage focused on shadow hand would be faily effective - It seems it is considered game breaking, not meerly effective!

[Eldariel]

It should be relatively fair. Sorcerers have been doing it for aeons without breaking anything. There are lots of limitations on just what you can do with the Spellpool so you don't suddenly become a Wizard with spontaneous casting. Also, it means giving up Beguiler's incredible skillpoints; it's a fair trade for sure and might actually be weaker than a straight Beguiler.

[Fishy]

Well first you'd have to print up a whole lot of Little Red Books...

... Wait, nevermind.

[dspeyer]

You can partially get around the skill thing with one more feat: able learner. An int 18 human beguiler/mao drops from 11 skill points to 7 -- still pretty good. What keeps wizards out of the skillmonkey business normally is their lousy class skill list, and this solves that.

[Sinfire Titan]

Well first you'd have to print up a whole lot of Little Red Books...

... Wait, nevermind.

I thought the same thing.

[Moose Fisher]

I thought the same thing.

As did I.

OP could turn his beguiller into Mao by gaining control over the Arcane Order. This would allow him to call any spell he wants with no penalty.

Anyway, if sorcerer's can do it, there should be nothing holding beguiller's back.

[tiercel]

I don't see any reason it couldn't work -- but I'm old fashioned, If I'm gonna cover beguiler weaknesses, well, (1) I'm adventuring with a party and honestly I'm already a skillmonkey and a diviner/enchanter/illusionist-sorcerer-type rolled into one, how much am I supposed to do, and more to the point (2) UMD is a class skill.

Get some utility scrolls and maybe eventually a nice staff if you need offensive fireworks. MAO is a compromise of course, but a more expensive one, and if you're going to go that far it's worth considering say, Arcane Trickster as an alternative to beguiler/MAO (and just pick any spells you like).

Alternatively, you could drop advanced learning choices into shadow conjuration/evocation spells and concentrate on cranking your illusion DCs -- I think I saw a build once, possibly FR-based, that tied a shadow-magic using PrC into beguiler along this line.

I guess to me "it's not a bug, it's a feature" -- a beguiler just doesn't dish out damage. While this can be seen as a weakness, it can also free you up to play to your strengths: sneaking, dissembling, debuffing, divining, etc.

[Duff]

As did I.

OP could turn his beguiller into Mao by gaining control over the Arcane Order. This would allow him to call any spell he wants with no penalty.

Anyway, if sorcerer's can do it, there should be nothing holding beguiller's back.

Would need party backing to do the purges.
Cultural revolution - Does the Arcane order have enough culture to be revolting?

[The Glyphstone]

I thought this was going to be a thread discussing making the Beguiler Multiple Attribute....sOmething to balance it.

[Sinfire Titan]

I thought this was going to be a thread discussing making the Beguiler Multiple Attribute....sOmething to balance it.

Apparently, it's a poorly disguised Commy meeting.