Help!

[Silverlich]

How would I build a PC if I wanted to have a Lovecraftian feel? I want my character to basically feel like a Eldritch abomination.

Notes: No LA.
Keep cheese under control
Don't make it something fully dependent on the DM (i.e. taint)
It doesn't need to be tier one or anything, but it should be consistently useful.

[Keld Denar]

You can do a number of things while taking the Aberrant Blood (Lords of Madness) line of feats. Human would probably be best, simply for the bonus feat.

Alternatively, something PsyWar oriented, grab the Illithid Grapple feat (CPsi) a few times, and use your PsyWar powers to utilize those feats to jump on people and eat their faces.

[The Dark Fiddler]

Fluff-wise, Alienist from Complete Arcane is exactly what you're looking for, I believe. I don't remember exactly how it is or have the book on hand to look, but I don't recall it being particularly amazing. I think it had crappy caster progression, maybe ask your DM nicely to improve it, because what it got in return isn't exactly game breaking.

[HappyBlanket]

Going for an Illusionist would be a pretty simple take on this, if you're willing to take the extra step fluffing; a Sorcerer with enough Illusion spells effectively inflicts madness into his victims by sheer force of personality.

That aside, there are a bunch of other options. Just off the top of my head: The Alienist Prestige Class, from Complete Arcane. It plays as a Summoner, but it's summons are created as masses of inflated eyeballs, exposed intestines, and fleshy tentacles. The book describes Alienists as individuals who call upon creatures from beyond the edge of "dimension, distance, and sanity..." but maybe this isn't quite what you're looking for. Even with the Alienist's 10th level "Transcendence," it's really more about summoning Eldtrich Abominations than being one. In terms of play: It's not terrible, but the Alienist loses access to some fantastic summons, which turns many away from taking it.

Also, Prestige Class Master Transmogrifist, from the same book, might be worth your time, if you want the look.

edit: Swordsaged! Dark Fiddler is right though; it's not particularly outstanding for a Prestige Class. It doesn't lose any caster levels though, and it has some easy prerequisites, the most difficult of which is 8 ranks in Knowledge (Planes). As a Wizard, by taking Spell Focus (Conjuration) and Augmented Summoning for your 1st level and 3rd level feats, you can qualify for it by Level 6 (just in time to pick up a bonus metamagic feat from the Wiz line).

[Keld Denar]

The Archivist in Heroes of Horror also has that "learn the things that were not ment to be known" feel.

[Wings of Peace]

Changeling Warshaper who specializes in tentacles and bite attacks (with some house ruling to keep it from getting broken). A symbiont specialist could also be fun.

[Rei_Jin]

The "Lovecraft" thing is complex, as there's a lot of things under that banner. And the idea of an Eldritch Horror is also complex... do you want to be a monster that your party members keep under a sack, so that people don't see you and run off screaming, or do you want to be able to walk amongst the people incognito?

You might get some mileage out of the feats in the Elder Evils and Exemplars of Evil books, as they deal with this sort of thing well. There are multiple fear based Prestige Classes as well, check HERE (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3809.0) for the lowdown on what you can do with that. If I wanted a Lovecraft type PC, I'd probably consider building a fear based PC who slowly becomes a horror from beyond the stars... either with grafts or feats, depending on what I'm aiming for.

[Tvtyrant]

Lovecraft isn't really about tentacle monsters, its about the way that tension builds up. He has stories about fish-men, mummies, were-wolves, mole people, aliens, eldritch abominations, psychics, cannibals, liches, Frankenstein based undead, etc. Even the dream-like/otherwordly quality doesn't exist in all of his stories. He has one about a pair that are so deeply engrossed in the dark arts that they have read the Necromonicon several times and horror no longer horrifies them. They eventually panic when they realize that the creature they unearthed is stalking them and there isn't enough time to fix the problem before it gets them, making it a race for time rather than an insanity revelation.

[Devmaar]

How do you feel about homebrew?
This is what the Ozodrin (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=153536&highlight=ozodrin) class was designed for

[Luckmann]

I've always loved the Ooze Master PrC, but it was never officially adapted for 3.5, so you might have to tweak it a fair bit.

[TimeWizard]

HELP!
You need somebody!?

HELP!
Not just anybody!?

Edit: Try the Alienist PrC

[Yora]

It depends on what kind of character you exactly want to make: An actual ancient aberration, a mortal with an aberration ancestor, or a normal human who uses aberration magic.

If it's a mortal character who studies aberrations and becomes crazy and mutated from it, Alienist would be the #1 choice. For other characters, not so much.

And to expand on Time Wizard: If you'd expand the thread title to "Help with making an aberration character" (by editing the first post), people who know things useful to your question are much more likely to read it and share their knowledge.

[Rejakor]

You say Lovecraftian - do you want to be a tentacled horror that causes fear and madness as a way of defeating enemies? Aberrant Blood, Illithid Grapple x2 or 3 or 4... and then a combination of spells from BoVD, LoM and a few other places. I think there's a few vestiges, generally higher level ones, that do something similar. There's a couple of ways to get an aura of terror. That sounds like the place to start. I think there's a few obscure things that grant some kind of madness causing mojo..but I don't remember where.

Do you want to be the investigator, reading the books, going slowly nuts? Archivist. With Taint rules. No more questions asked or answered.

Alienist summons tentacle beasts. It's not really lovecraftian, even though the Far Realms is supposed to be the lovecraft part of the universe.

[subject42]

I'm assuming that you want horrifying, non-euclidian geometry where π = 4?

Try fourth edition.
(I kid)


The binder can actually work very well for this. Just play up that you're calling in things from outside. This works even better if you bind Zceryll.

[Tvtyrant]

One thing you could do is go for templates that are going to make you more Lovecraftian; Liches, Worms that Walk, Psuedonatural (the epic one), etc. These combined with a caster gives a very "you have gone too far" feeling, espcially if you add cancer mage or the grafting class to it.

[Rejakor]

You say Lovecraftian - do you want to be a tentacled horror that causes fear and madness as a way of defeating enemies? Aberrant Blood, Illithid Grapple x2 or 3 or 4... and then a combination of spells from BoVD, LoM and a few other places. I think there's a few vestiges, generally higher level ones, that do something similar. There's a couple of ways to get an aura of terror. That sounds like the place to start. I think there's a few obscure things that grant some kind of madness causing mojo..but I don't remember where.

Do you want to be the investigator, reading the books, going slowly nuts? Archivist. With Taint rules. No more questions asked or answered.

Alienist summons tentacle beasts. It's not really lovecraftian, even though the Far Realms is supposed to be the lovecraft part of the universe.