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Gnaeus
2010-01-24, 02:03 PM
Background:

Party is 7-8 level. Consists of
Spiked Chain Tripper,
Swift Hunter
Cloistered Cleric/Swordsage/Chameleon (DM has ruled that divine casters have to pick a certain # of spells known, so he doesn't have ALL divine spells, but about 25/spell level of the best ones)
Necropolitan Dread Necro 7 (me)

Party is neutral tending evil, of the Mafia, we will break your kneecaps if you betray us variety, not the burning down orphanages variety.

All decent builds, say medium-high optimization tier 3-4.

Virtually all books in play. We have been fighting highly optimized monsters (Complete Psionics npcs designed to nova, clerics with DMM, Large Dungeoncrasher fighters in enclosed areas, huge trippers or disarmers with powerful build, etc.) Some of these fights we are losing, or nearly losing, so we need any help we can get. DM will kill things that break the game, but pretty high optimization is allowed.

Having just taken Dread Necro 7, I get an improved familiar, which will be an Imp. (I know Visage and Quasit are both better, I am a LE member of a devil run fiend blooded merchant house, the imp will be a dead relative who spent a few hundred years as a lemure and has graduated up to being an imp).

Due to lack of good planning on my part, the imp does not have a lot of available gear. Vest of resist +1 and healing belt are pretty much it at the moment. We DO have a Chameleon with a huge spell list, floating feat for crafting, 2,200 gp in crafting supplies and 9 days on a boat coming up.

As a necro, I don't have any familiar buff spells to speak of, and the earliest I could drop another feat on the familiar is level 9, and I am 36 xp over level 7, so quite a ways off. The DM has ruled that when I take the Fiend Blooded PRC that my imp will get some kind of bonus to replace the fiendish template my familiar would normally get. Not sure yet what this will be or what I should ask for. I have 54 HP, so the Imp has 27.

I have 2 ranks in cross class UMD (fiend blooded prereqs ate most of my skill points). Good bluff, max intimidate. Without items that puts the imp at +4 UMD, +14 intimidate. The dm will not allow MW UMD or intimidate items, but WILL allow custom crafted stat+ items.

Stuff I was thinking of already:
Boar and Medium Spider forms for alternate shape.

Craft a UMD + 4 or 5 item and some level 1 buff wands (bless? conviction? resurgence? resist energy? snakes swiftness? lesser vigor? protection from good? the chameleon has all those spells at level 1). Is there a better way to go?

Use him to hold a touch spell, so I do a Scabrous, Sickening Charnel Touch, then he follows it with Ghoul Touch or something similar?

Use him for an intimidate check, so I move up, Sickening charnel touch (to lower save DCs), then I flash my fear aura, then he intimidates to push the enemy to frightened for a round. Unfortunately he would have to be visible and either in an enemy's square or in an animal form to make the intimidate check.

Have him use his Suggestion 1/day to get enemies to attack the Chameleon, who has an ungodly AC and the party's best hp but can't do enough damage to draw hate.

Are there tricks I am missing? How can I use him best to contribute to the party?