Fun Build Suggestions/Help, Thanks!

[Dusto]

Alrighty playground, it is time. I knew my character's time was coming up, and last game it happened. Was playing my party's cleric and got a huge promotion in the church, but it involved my character basically becoming a npc. So now I'm given the opportunity to create a new character for the party, and I for sure want to play something different. One of our players picked up leadership for a healbot, so I'm not obligated to take over that roll again.

Our party is kinda weird, it consists of a Crusader/Warblade, Warmage/Warlock(with cleric follower), Fighter/Crusader and a Ranger/Scout(bow guy). Both of the ToB characters are really, really decked out, so while I could play a tank or front line guy, I don't need to. The Blaster does an excellent job of just that. And the Scout guy is a part-time player, so most of the time the DM runs his guy, but his usefulness drop drastically then since the DM wants us to not rely on someone who is mostly an npc.

To get the wheels turning, the build would go by the following:
14th Level
32pt Buy
All hardcover 3.5 books EXCEPT any psionics, specific realm setting(faerun, ebberon, etc.)
Wealth is questionable
No LA buyoffs. I may consider if worthwhile, but without buyoff it will be tough.
DM does NOT enforce racial favored class(yay!)
No Flaws

I am really hoping there are some good ideas that I may not be thinking of. I need to have my character ready to go by Sunday when we play again.
The main concepts I'm thinking of are:
Skill Monkey/Sneak Attack character - This would fill our gap of the scout never really being useful, and lots of opportunity for flanking and helping the two other melee characters. With no exp penalty for dipping, this could be a lot of fun if built right.

BardBlade or BardSader or just Bard - This would be useful for helping out the party, though I really don't want to get into the same mode I was with my cleric where I felt robotish every battle.

Master of Many Forms - This idea was thrown at me from another player in the group. While it looks fun(if not kinda complicated though), I think I might way to try that in our other campaign that will be starting up in fall since that DM enforces racial favored class.

Wizard, Sorc or some other sort of utility caster - Could be fun, but in our world material components can sometimes be hard to come by. I would really hate to be limited in what my character can do just because there happens to be a shortage on mushroom or diamond dust, etc...

Any and all ideas welcome, or if I am missing some general ideas please, please, please ask!

Thanks!

Edit: I should add that alignment isn't a huge thing, but I would like to stick to CN, LN, N, NE or LE. Our group can be 'shady' and my cleric was NG, and it was fun how they would hide things from me, but I also missed out on a ton of cool stuff because of it.

[Togo]

Master of Many Forms is a great class, but very very powerful at the level you are describing. It also requires a vast amount of bookeeping, or the ability to restat your character on the fly.

Bard sounds like it fills the most obvious gap, and gets you the skill monkey without treading on the toes of the ranger/scout. Sublime chord would get you the spellcasting as well, although you wouldn't be able to get too many utility spells since you'll have limited spellcasting. Also you mentioned that you felt to roboty in the last role, which suggests you want to play a flexible character.

As an odd idea... How would you feel about the chameleon prestige class? I find they work best not when you follow the existing fluff about pretending to be other classes, but when you use their combination of abilities to make something very flexible and strange. Combine with a few levels of bard and maybe some marshal, and then choose utility and odd spells from lists like the assassin, wu jen, paladin and bard.

While I can see the attraction of the bardblade, its going to hard to effectively contribute when you have so many melee specialists in the party.

you might also want to look at spellthief.

[Dusto]

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. I finally read through and got familiar with Spellthief... and it actually looks pretty fun. Definitely putting it in with the others as an option. Trying to decide if it would be worthwhile to dip a little Warblade and/or Swordsage in there, or just stick right through the class. Not having xp penalties in this game makes me want to branch out as much as possible.

[killianh]

sounds like you need some utility and skills...I would say binder or beguiler.

[Thump]

Githzerai swordsage? Racial modifiers are freaking amazing, and the other little stuff is just icing on the cake, like SR 5 + class levels. Might not sound like much, but it makes for that little chance of enemies to fail, and it may come in handy. Best of all, it's only LA +2, so you get;

The entry is from MM1, btw;

DEX +6, INT -2, WIS +2, darkvision, psionics (CL = class levels), inertial armor (basically perma mage armor as SP ability, only functions while conscious), and SR. However, the language barrier (They only speak Githzerai, and you have to have high INT to know common) may be a bit of a problem. With 32 PB, though, I would make something like this;

STR 12
DEX 18 + 2 levels + 6 racial + 6 from item = 32 (11 mod!!)
CON 14
INT 12 - 2 = 10
WIS 16 + 2 racial + 4 or 6 from items = 22/24
CHA 7 (-2)

[Wonton]

So you want a skill monkey combat rogue, eh? Let me show you one of my favourite characters that I ever played. This was shortly after Complete Scoundrel came out, so I was really interested in the (dreadfully underused, IMO) Skill Trick system.

This build is not 100% optimized, I'm sure dropping the LA and going Lesser Tiefling or Whisper Gnome would have been much better mechanically. But I think it's fun nonetheless, and that's what you asked for in the thread title. :smallwink:

Tiefling Rogue 5/Swashbuckler 3/Invisible Blade 5:

Note:
All of the below is before equipment. I never got past level 9 with this build, so I didn't have much aside from a few +2 daggers and some +Dex gloves (although I will say that a well-stocked Belt of Hidden Pouches can be lots of fun).

Stats (32-pt buy):
Str 10
Dex 16 --> 18 --> 20/21
Con 14
Int 16 --> 18 --> 18/19
Wis 12
Cha 8 --> 6

Feats:
1 Point-Blank Shot
3 Weapon Focus (Dagger)
6 Far Shot
6 (Bonus) Weapon Finesse
9 Two-Weapon Fighting
12 Improved Two-Weapon Fighting

Skill tricks:
Only mandatory one is Group-Fake Out, although many of the movement ones are incredibly fun (Leaping Climber + Wall Jumper = Samus?) and fitting with the swashbuckler theme if you wanna go that route .

BAB: +11
Fort: +7
Reflex: +14
Will: +3
AC: 19, unarmoured

Attacks: 2 daggers, +15/+10/+5 (main hand), +15/+10 (off hand)
Damage: 1d4 + 4

The general idea is, go up to an enemy, and use your free action feint with a full attack (you have low Cha, so I suggest a spell or item to buff your Bluff) to get 5 attacks of 1d4 + 6d6 + 4. You can take 10 on these Bluff rolls, so as long as your bonus is decent, you will succeed 100% of the time. Group-fake out will even allow you to do this to two, three, or four enemies at once.

If the enemies are mindless (or 1-2 Int so you get that -8 to Bluff), take the boring route and just flank with one of your fighters. If they're sneak attack immune, do the usual Wand of Grave/Vine/Golem Strike spell-trigger-as-a-swift-action trick.

Given the Tiefling and the low Cha, this isn't intended to be the "save-the-damsel in distress" swashbuckler, this is more of just a "parkour around in combat, killing dudes" swashbuckler. If you DID want to be a high-cha swashbuckler of the former type, switch to another race and bump up your Cha.

[Dusto]

sounds like you need some utility and skills...I would say binder or beguiler.

We actually had one player previously play a binder up to about level 9 and... I'm not sure if it was just a bad build or whatever, but the character seemed basically useless, lol. It might be worth my time to get a bit more educated on them. Beguiler I have to admit I'm not really familiar with at all, besides what I am assuming their name implies.


Githzerai swordsage? Racial modifiers are freaking amazing, and the other little stuff is just icing on the cake, like SR 5 + class levels. Might not sound like much, but it makes for that little chance of enemies to fail, and it may come in handy. Best of all, it's only LA +2, so you get;

The entry is from MM1, btw;

DEX +6, INT -2, WIS +2, darkvision, psionics (CL = class levels), inertial armor (basically perma mage armor as SP ability, only functions while conscious), and SR. However, the language barrier (They only speak Githzerai, and you have to have high INT to know common) may be a bit of a problem. With 32 PB, though, I would make something like this;

STR 12
DEX 18 + 2 levels + 6 racial + 6 from item = 32 (11 mod!!)
CON 14
INT 12 - 2 = 10
WIS 16 + 2 racial + 4 or 6 from items = 22/24
CHA 7 (-2)

This does look pretty cool and I do really appreciate the idea, but there are two issues. I wasn't super clear, but for this game there are zero psionics allowed. So while I believe I could take the creature, it would lose a good chunch of why it has a +2LA. Also my character in our other campaign is currently a pure swordsage(albeit a poorly made one :smallbiggrin: )



Wonton - Your character idea does indeed look like a lot of fun :) There are also no gnomes in this world, but I imagine any other rogue friendly race would work out just fine. One concern is I would say about 60-70% of what we fight are large creatures with high BAB, so that would make my feint attempts very difficult against them. Are you aware of any items or such that can really boost bluff? I guess those are also the times that I could just try the traditional flank route. As for things immune to SA, with the rogue levels I think I would pick up penetrating strike acf.

Thanks for the build ideas guys, this is really helping and I'm excited to make a decision and play the new character. Any additional ideas or builds, keep'em coming!

[Wonton]

Well, this guy was actually designed for a solo campaign, but I figured that even in a party he could function as a sort of "lone wolf" type who could take on 3-4 enemies by himself in a different area of the combat. But if your DM is the type whose encounters just consist of one big CR-appropriate enemy (the most boring type of encounter there is, IMO), you could just go and flank (probably don't need Invisible Blade then, though it doesn't make fighting with no armor and 2 daggers any less FUN).

Having said that, you should have 16 ranks in Bluff, with a -2 for your Charisma. Looking at CR-appropriate enemies, most of them annoyingly have a big Sense Motive modifier, which coupled with their BAB gives them bonuses of nearly +30 against your Bluff. So you'd probably need a +10 Bluff item (10,000 gp per the DMG rules), and maybe some magical aid. Ask around on the forums maybe, I'm sure people could tell you lots of ways to boost that Feint modifier to the point where you can take 10 and guarantee success even if the enemy rolls a 20.

But really, what it comes down to is your DM. If he's the type who will immediately start maxing out Sense Motive on every enemy just to shut you down, don't play this character. If he's the type who picks enemies by CR without really worrying about how his party will beat it, you will have some tough battles unless your Bluff is through the roof. If he's the type who makes sure that all his players are having fun, you will get some enemies without Sense Motive and that's when you'll really be able to go to town.

[The Redwolf]

May I ask if you're just doing 3.5 or are you using Pathfinder as well? If so there are some really fun things I could recommend, but as far as 3.5 goes you could be an arcane spellcaster and be a blood magus, it's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen but it's a lot of fun, just try not to fall out of the chair laughing when you read it, because that's what I did.

[Thump]

We actually had one player previously play a binder up to about level 9 and... I'm not sure if it was just a bad build or whatever, but the character seemed basically useless, lol. It might be worth my time to get a bit more educated on them. Beguiler I have to admit I'm not really familiar with at all, besides what I am assuming their name implies.



This does look pretty cool and I do really appreciate the idea, but there are two issues. I wasn't super clear, but for this game there are zero psionics allowed. So while I believe I could take the creature, it would lose a good chunch of why it has a +2LA. Also my character in our other campaign is currently a pure swordsage(albeit a poorly made one :smallbiggrin: )



Wonton - Your character idea does indeed look like a lot of fun :) There are also no gnomes in this world, but I imagine any other rogue friendly race would work out just fine. One concern is I would say about 60-70% of what we fight are large creatures with high BAB, so that would make my feint attempts very difficult against them. Are you aware of any items or such that can really boost bluff? I guess those are also the times that I could just try the traditional flank route. As for things immune to SA, with the rogue levels I think I would pick up penetrating strike acf.

Thanks for the build ideas guys, this is really helping and I'm excited to make a decision and play the new character. Any additional ideas or builds, keep'em coming!

They aren't actually psionics, the only thing that they are is 3/day cantrips/1st level spells. I believe they get 3/day daze, feather fall and shatter, and once they get 11 class levels (ECL 13), they get plane shift 1/day.

[mattsdelf]

You could try a Sorcerer/mage of the arcane order. You don't lose anything from sorcerer by taking a prestige class, but you do get all the utility of a wizard with a decked out spellbook, while being spontaneous. It's not the ultimate optimization, but I think it would be fun to play. Mage of the Arcane Order would give you a good base to roleplay off of too.

[Dusto]

May I ask if you're just doing 3.5 or are you using Pathfinder as well? If so there are some really fun things I could recommend, but as far as 3.5 goes you could be an arcane spellcaster and be a blood magus, it's one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen but it's a lot of fun, just try not to fall out of the chair laughing when you read it, because that's what I did.

No PF, just 3.5. I did a read through of Blood Magus and it does look fun. Some of the abilites are 'meh' but scratching yourself to boost spells and making scrolls out of your fingers could be interesting :) Would have to figure out best way to get in, either warmage5 or wizard 5 or sorc 5 and then bloodmage 9.


They aren't actually psionics, the only thing that they are is 3/day cantrips/1st level spells. I believe they get 3/day daze, feather fall and shatter, and once they get 11 class levels (ECL 13), they get plane shift 1/day.

I get what you are saying, but if it has ANYTHING to do with psionics, our DM says it doesn't exist in this world. He is hardcore against psionics since way back in 2e and hasn't changed his stance on it :)


You could try a Sorcerer/mage of the arcane order. You don't lose anything from sorcerer by taking a prestige class, but you do get all the utility of a wizard with a decked out spellbook, while being spontaneous. It's not the ultimate optimization, but I think it would be fun to play. Mage of the Arcane Order would give you a good base to roleplay off of too.

I'm not familiar with Mage of the Arcane Order. I'll look them up, thanks!

[The Redwolf]

No PF, just 3.5. I did a read through of Blood Magus and it does look fun. Some of the abilites are 'meh' but scratching yourself to boost spells and making scrolls out of your fingers could be interesting :) Would have to figure out best way to get in, either warmage5 or wizard 5 or sorc 5 and then bloodmage 9.


Well bloodwalk actually has no distance limit, so it's the ultimate get out of dodge since you just have to be on the same plane, you could technically just go until you find another planet with things that have blood, also awakened blood does a lot of damage. The main thing though it it's just fun, in my view, which is what you said you wanted. I have a scenario in my head of gathering a bunch of townsfolk in a square, then being a decent distance away where they can't really see me, jump into an ally, pop explosively out of one of the townsfolk, shout "Tada!", tap someone on the shoulder to use awakened blood and then just bloodwalk back to the party and go on my merry way.

[Dusto]

It indeed sounds like fun for sure.

Also I did some reading and was looking at Mindbender. Has anyone played one or have some advice if they are decent enough to play? Their abilities seem really, really good...but losing spell casting every other level i'm not so sure about.

[Dusto]

I did some reading and checked out Beguiler too, now I see why it was recommened. If I am understanding it correctly, they are basically a sorc/rogue without SA and use INT instead of CHA for spells. That's pretty nifty considering a higher INT would help with the 'roguish' skill points. One thing I'm not understanding though is how feinting helps a spell caster, especially one without SA. :EDIT: Sorry :smalleek: I fully read the cloaked casting ability...lol. This is what happens when you are reading information inbetween work.

[Talionis]

I like the sneak attack Chameleon because it can get you the Cursed Blade spell from the Assasin spell list. Then you can use the floating feat or one of your feats for artierial strike. When you sneak attack they bleed forever unless they cast remove curse or Wish.

The bleeding can also help you track foes that don't immediately die.

[Dusto]

Well bloodwalk actually has no distance limit, so it's the ultimate get out of dodge since you just have to be on the same plane, you could technically just go until you find another planet with things that have blood, also awakened blood does a lot of damage. The main thing though it it's just fun, in my view, which is what you said you wanted. I have a scenario in my head of gathering a bunch of townsfolk in a square, then being a decent distance away where they can't really see me, jump into an ally, pop explosively out of one of the townsfolk, shout "Tada!", tap someone on the shoulder to use awakened blood and then just bloodwalk back to the party and go on my merry way.

Bloodwalk works just once a day though. That would work if it was more than that, and it would be a very nice mode of transportation for sure.

[The Redwolf]

Bloodwalk works just once a day though. That would work if it was more than that, and it would be a very nice mode of transportation for sure.

Oh, I thought it was more than that. Still, do the first stuff then just walk away nonchalantly would be great too.

[Roguenewb]

Wanna borrow one of my favorite Dudes? His name is Thraxilix. He's a Sorcerer/Spont-Druid/Arcane Heirophant. See if you can talk your DM into allowing you the GITP feat that switches druid casting to CHA. If you do, heres a fun build:

Thraxilix, Magic Blooded Lesser Feytouched (+2 DEX, -2 CON -2 WIS +4 CHA)

Sorcerer 1
Precocious Apprentice

Spont Druid 1

Spont Druid 2
Druid-casting to CHA feat

Spont Druid 3

Spont Druid 4

Spont Druid 5
Natural Spell

Arcane Hierophant 1

Arcane Hierophant 2

Arcane Hierophant 3
"The Feat that Stretches Share Spell with Familiar to a mile"

Arcane Hierophant 4

Arcane Hierophant 5

Arcane Heirophant 6
Dragon Cohort

Arcane Heirophant 7

Arcane Heirophant 8

So, he started down the path of the strong magic in his blood, feeling it was draconic. However, on his first adventure he discovered he also had a connection to natural magic. All in all, he know melds the two. At level 14 casting 4 levels of Arcane Magic, and 7 levels of Druid spell casting.

You can solve lots of problems and be wierd and fun. I guarantee nothing in the party plays like you do!

[Woodzyowl]

Oh man, I almost feel like a bad person for mentioning this, but since you played a cleric and (I assume) know the spell list fairly well, I'll suggest playing a warmage (taking versatile spellcaster and heighten spell before 4th level) and entering rainbow servant from level 5 to level 14 (getting all ten levels), with CHA>CON>DEX>INT>WIS>STR. You now can spontaneously cast all cleric spells ever printed from 0-7th level and have a barrage of books headed your direction coming from the general direction of your DM. I do believe that it is RAW acceptable, but to at the very least lessen the number of flying books, ask your DM if rainbow servant is a 10/10 casting class as per the text over table rule. If it isn't, then disregard my suggestion. Also, if you think that being able to pick any spell off of a tier 1 spell list to spontaneously cast might be a bit too much for your campaign (which it seems like it is), then disregard this suggestion as well. Now let me wash my hands of this terrible, terrible thing I have done.

TL;DR: Warmage 4/Rainbow Servant 10, but check with your DM if Rainbow Servant is 10/10 casting as per text, and exercise discretion on the power level.

[Thump]

Well... that's kind of dumb, since none of it is even from psionic books. It's basically fluffed magic, when it's all core spells, which core has no psionics. As they are arcane/divine spells, effectively, an antimagic field would work against it by RAW (citation needed?). He also gets a perma mage armor effect as long as he's conscious. TBH, if your DM is just saying no because it says psionics, have a chat with him.

[Azoth]

I suggest Rogue1/martial wiz 5/Unseen Seer8. Race has to be human unless you can get able learner okayed for other races besides human/changeling...if so fire/grey elf are preffered +2 dex/int -2str/con. Goes something to the effect of:

Stats:
Str:10
Dex: 16
Con: 14
Int:18 +3 levels=21
Wis: 8
Cha: 8

Feats:
(H) Able Learner
(1) craven
(W1) Improved initiative (or any other fighter feat)
(3)dark stalker
(W5) Spontaneous Divination
(6) Accidic Splatter
(9) Invisible Spell
(12) sculpt spell

Tons of skill points so you can be scout/skill monkey. Able leaner keeps all your skills 1 point per rank so go nuts. If you feel it necessary you can/should take practiced spellcaster to make up the 4 lost CLs I would either take it at 15 or replace darkstalker with it. Another bonus aside being crafty and sneaky is wizard casting as sorcerer progression, which is liveable. The main boon is gaining 3 divination spells from any other spell list in the game. Personal first pick is hunter's mercy from PHB2. CL/3 extra d6 sneak attack dice...I'll take 2 and a side of fries. Another goodie is Sniper's shot to remove your range for sneak attack entirely.

Though is you do replace darkstalker for practiced spell caster make sure your 15/18 feats are extend/persist. Sooooo many good buffs to make last all day.

[Urpriest]

As they are arcane/divine spells, effectively, an antimagic field would work against it by RAW (citation needed?).

AMF works against psionics too.

[Dusto]

Roguenewb - I appreciate the suggestion, but only book stuff will fly, no homebrew.

Woodzyowl - Wow, that is for sure impressive. There may be dents in my head from books flying if I did go that route. BUT, I'm definitely going to take it into consideration :xykon:

Azoth - That is a really interesting build, and gives access to tons and tons of spells! I'm not sure if divination is my route, but I for sure am putting that up on the list.

[Dusto]

It looks like I will be playing a rogue-ish, caster or both character and now need to start getting ideas for equipment. I don't have an exact number from my DM, but I believe I should have around 200-300k to purchase with. Any ideas on how I get stretch my gold the furthest to get the most bang for my coin?

EDIT: Also, please someone talk me out of Mindbender... because I am STRONGLY considering it :smalltongue:

[Dusto]

Ok, I think the builds that I am leaning towards are below. Please feel free to add any ideas or input is appreciated and need equipment ideas. Thanks!

Beguiler5/Mindbender1/Beguiler8

Spellthief14

*Insertcaster*5/Mindbender9

[Woodzyowl]

First off, good job resisting the temptation of the book-flinging level of cheese. Mindbender is a good dip for 1 level (free telepathy with your entire party? Sure, why not?), but if you play casters, losing caster levels is not good, so people generally stay away from more. And if you intend to go the beguiler route, being a gnome and going beguiler 5/mindbender 1/beguiler +2/shadowcraft mage 5/beguiler +x would be pretty good, since you don't lose caster levels. It is worth noting that my suggestions are from an optimization standpoint. If you want the flavor of being a highly dedicated mental manipulator, go right ahead.
As for spellthieves, I have no skill with them or their mechanics, so I'll just direct you here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44299).

EDIT: Also, for getting bang for your buck, this place (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19872102/Bunkos_Bargain_Basement:_Magic_Items_That_Are_a_St eal!) seems to do a reasonable job of listing some cheap items.

[Korivan]

Barbarian druid: wagin wabbit
warlock druid: badger blaster
Bard(focus on comedy) druid: LOL Cats
Warforged druid: Beast Wars
Plain Druid: Summon Bears while riding your bear animal companion as a bear...

ya, silly, but funny

[Dayaz]

I love the Mindbender... It has such ability to feck with a DM's head lol

I was playing one once (after this is was forcibly retired from the character and my DM has smited my chances of ever playing one again) I don't quite remember what level we were, but I had two uses of perma-charm :belkar:

Our mission was to end a small war happening between some demons and devils that had managed to get into the city (something about a cult 'f'-ing up a ritual?)

well, my DM (poor guy) totally forgot I had 3 important feats, and that I was a Mindbender (I had taken levels but had seen nothing worth perma-ing, so I had gone like 4 levels w/o really being a mindbender. Important thing to note, my character at the time was a Sorcerer with a good int for the skills needed in the class.

We stumble upon two Succubi who were arguing about who was a better seductress. *Grins* I popped off a Charm Monster on one of them, and made it permanent as I hide (lucky nat 19), then hit the other one next round. I then proceeded to bluff/diplomacy them until they agreed to turn on the lead demon, and they told me that the portals were being held open by some crazy stones in the cult's headquarters. I then took my two new playgirls (the name amused them, so my character went ahead and kept calling them that) and my party, a Barbarian/Frenzied Beserker, and a Ranger/Rogue/Assassin and had the two Succubi pretend we were captured and were going to take us to be sacrificed. When we got into the room with the stones, there was a Ice Devil and a Retriever being forced to fight each other to the death. I proceeded to have my teammates distract them while I wandered around until I found the stones and broke them, causing the portals to close while sucking up all the demons (mine were told to fly outside of the town, so they were safe).

All in all, I got two perma-charmed Succubi, and avoided roughly 5 fights my DM had planned for us, and then asked if I could train my Succubi to be Mindbenders (they naturally beat the prereqs)... Which lead to my DM making me roll a new character or else I would randomly fall into a hole that lead to the Terrasque.

Best. Mission. EVER.

EDIT: If you wanna be a monkey's uncle, be a Wizard and go Fiendbinder >:D You're DM (and quite possibly party) will hate you forever

[Dusto]

First off, good job resisting the temptation of the book-flinging level of cheese. Mindbender is a good dip for 1 level (free telepathy with your entire party? Sure, why not?), but if you play casters, losing caster levels is not good, so people generally stay away from more. And if you intend to go the beguiler route, being a gnome and going beguiler 5/mindbender 1/beguiler +2/shadowcraft mage 5/beguiler +x would be pretty good, since you don't lose caster levels. It is worth noting that my suggestions are from an optimization standpoint. If you want the flavor of being a highly dedicated mental manipulator, go right ahead.
As for spellthieves, I have no skill with them or their mechanics, so I'll just direct you here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44299).

EDIT: Also, for getting bang for your buck, this place (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19872102/Bunkos_Bargain_Basement:_Magic_Items_That_Are_a_St eal!) seems to do a reasonable job of listing some cheap items.

I think that level of cheese would result in disaster, though I did find it highly entertaining, and I may yet use it in another campaign :)

No Gnomes in this world unfortunately :( Thank you for the links! That equipment one is really good.

I've been going through a few of the guides and getting some information on two of the builds and equipment. I think that I'm just going to finish them both and compare the final products and post up and make a decision from there.

[Psyren]

I think you need a controller and possibly a rogue-type. So I definitely second Beguiler. Eschew Materials gets you around the mushroom shortage easily. The Warmage and beatsticks can have fun rolling dice while you make sure their targets are lined up single-file and standing on their heads. And also that there are no traps or locked doors in the party's way.

[Dusto]

I'm going to see if he will allow the shadowcraft mage or not due to the gnome requirement. Hopefully so, those are some really good abilities for this particular build.

[Zombulian]

I recommend Teleporty-poofyness. Tashalatora Ardent with the Freedom and Time mantles. Then go for the Sun School feat from CWar. Dip 2 lvls in Totemist for a Blink Shirt and bind it to your totem chakra. Use quickened hustle and dimension hop as well as your regular 2 move actions in the round to teleport all over, every time you do so smacking someone in the face! :smallcool:
This by itself is a fun fighting style and you can play around with the whole Teleporting and Time-Controlling flavor of your character, and you could maybe jump into some more power-gamer zones (improved trip, every time you hit someone after teleporting, you trip them, and then get another attack on them.). But those may seem to be in bad form.

[Dayaz]

I recommend Teleporty-poofyness. Tashalatora Ardent with the Freedom and Time mantles. Then go for the Sun School feat from CWar. Dip 2 lvls in Totemist for a Blink Shirt and bind it to your totem chakra. Use quickened hustle and dimension hop as well as your regular 2 move actions in the round to teleport all over, every time you do so smacking someone in the face! :smallcool:
This by itself is a fun fighting style and you can play around with the whole Teleporting and Time-Controlling flavor of your character, and you could maybe jump into some more power-gamer zones (improved trip, every time you hit someone after teleporting, you trip them, and then get another attack on them.). But those may seem to be in bad form.

Please do this (and Zombulian, if you wouldn't mind an rough round by-action, so I can see exactly what this nightmare could be?)

I could see adding rogue to that and teleporting into a Sneak Attack that trips them, giving you more sneak attack :D

[Dusto]

Holy crap, it is late and I need to get some sleep. I spent too much time going over feats and equipment, lol. Very basically here is the build I am considering regarding race, feats, stats and class progression.

Beguiler5/Mindbender1/Beguiler2/Shadowcraftmage5/Beguiler+x (if the shadowcraft is a no-go because of the gnome part then I'll just go Beguiler5/Mindbender1/Beguiler+x)

Feats:
Human - Spell Focus: Illusion
Level1 - Spell Focus: Enchantment
Level3 - Shadow Weave Magic(will worship Shar)
Level6 - Mindsight
Level9 - Darkstalker
Level12 - Improved Iniative(not sure on this one, considering leadership for a lackey or something else better)

Stats:
Str 10
Dex 16
Con 14
Int 16 + 3 from levels = 19
Wis 10
Cha 10

[Dusto]

Please do this (and Zombulian, if you wouldn't mind an rough round by-action, so I can see exactly what this nightmare could be?)

I could see adding rogue to that and teleporting into a Sneak Attack that trips them, giving you more sneak attack :D


LOL! Umm.. this may just lean me back towards the SA route...

[Zombulian]

LOL! Umm.. this may just lean me back towards the SA route...

If you want to got the SA route, I would just say have your character use a Crescent Blade with the Speed enhancement. Every time he teleports to someone, he attacks 4 times. The damage from a Crescent Blade is really bad, but the main point is the amount of SA and Str bonus damage you can pile on, as well as Craven (which you should always have as a sneak attacker.)

I'm glad someone likes this build :smallbiggrin: I came up with it while at work today.

edit: Dayaz what do you mean by the action by round thing?

[Dayaz]

Action by round is my and my friends way of asking what the typical round would look like

Move, teleport, melee SA, Trip, SA, Teleport <- Example

[Zombulian]

Action by round is my and my friends way of asking what the typical round would look like

Move, teleport, melee SA, Trip, SA, Teleport <- Example

Ah well then. The Blink Shirt lets you dimension door a few feet according to essentia blah blah, the point is you can Dimension Door with a move action. Hustle gives you another move action. Hustle takes a swift action to cast so you quicken it, making it a free action, and use Dimension Hop for your swift action, which is just another free teleport. I suppose you could Quicken Dimension Hop as well, but for some reason, what kept with me from my sun-addled brain working this build out at work, I applied Quickened to Hustle.
You use your first move to teleport to someone, smack him, if using improved trip, you then trip them after hitting, if they fall, then you smack them again. Then you teleport to the next person. The trip version of this is much more of a lock-down character. Spanning large areas of the battlefield and knocking people on their butts.
Then there is the SA based one, the heavy hitter with the small knife. A Crescent Knife gives you 2 attacks every time you regularly would strike them once. Looking at Speed right now, it only triggers on a full attack action, which is a shame. But hey, you could always trip with the crescent blade. Double hit someone, trip, double hit him again.

[Dayaz]

*stares in awe* umm... mind PMing me with all the things I would need to make this work in a game? You could just as easily put it here for Dusto I suppose, I just wanna be able to save this to a word doc to show my friends this site has win people here :D

[Dusto]

I'm going to see if he will allow the shadowcraft mage or not due to the gnome requirement. Hopefully so, those are some really good abilities for this particular build.

Taking another look I see there is an adaptation that allows non-gnomes to take the PrC as long as they are part of a cabal, which should be very do-able.

[Zombulian]

Taking another look I see there is an adaptation that allows non-gnomes to take the PrC as long as they are part of a cabal, which should be very do-able.

They're loads of fun. I definitely recommend trying it out.

[Gandariel]

You may find some cool Mindbender builds Here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=224008).
Also, This (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19872354/Shadowcraft_Mage_Handbook) is the Shadowcraft mage handbook =)

Nothing more constructive to add, i guess Wanna know a joke about Incantatrix? Nah, nevermind, it's too cheesy