Generalist Binder?

[Qwertystop]

The question is basically what I'm looking for. Any Binder guide I see seems to be aiming towards optimizing one particular thing a Binder can do rather than fill the jack-of-all-trades role its wide variety of abilities points to. Does anybody have build tips to make a good whatever's-needed-just-give-me-a-minute Binder? Ideally, I'd like to be competent at something when selecting binds randomly, but that probably wouldn't work out because some combinations just don't work. At the very least, competency for any set of binds randomly selected from combinations that work.

[Qwertystop]

Anybody? I've looked through the book, but all I can find that works as a general thing is feats to make binding faster and such.

[silverwolfer]

Generlist is late in life 15+, protizing is everything below that. You can only have one bind per day + a feat , to have it change once a day. If you could switch them out easier, sure, sadly you can't so you need to focuse on what you want to do.

[Tvtyrant]

In higher levels you could grab a few levels of Chameleon for the floating feat, and use the Heroics spell to get two useful feats to match your loadout. Low level I have no idea.

[eggs]

If the goal is to spend feats to simultaneously improve at everything the Binder might choose - breath weapons, natural attacks, spring attacks, ranged combat, diplomacy, miscellaneous supernatural abilities, and so on - the only feats I can think of that satisfy that are luck feats or things like Improved Toughness/Improved Initiative/Quick Recovery. And even though those make passable filler, a binder with only those as feats is going to be pretty crummy until high levels.

What might work out would be using feats to specialize in something based on Binder stat-priorities, but largely class-feature independent, like Fear stacking (Dreadful Wrath/Imperious Command/maybe Daunting Presence), Dragonmarked feats (they're not going to change the game, but it's hard to cast something like Enervation or Benign Transposition as a bad ability), or maybe something like Shape Soulmelds and Incarnum Feats that can be respecced to give different benefits according to the vestiges of the day.

[prufock]

Bard 1/Binder 4/Chameleon 2/Anima Mage 10/Knight of the Sacred Seal 3 or Binder 2+KotSS 1 (level 7 of Binder doesn't really give you anything other than Soul Binding)

Race: Human

Feats: Able Learner (as human bonus feat, to qualify for Chameleon), Precocious Apprentice (at level 1, to qualify for Anima Mage), Improved Binding (at level 3, so your Soul Binding doesn't fall behind), Expel Vestige (as your Binder 4 bonus feat, switch out a vestige 1/day), any Metamagic feat (at level 6, to qualify for Anima Mage), Song of the Heart (at level 9, +1 Inspire Courage), Weapon Focus (level 12 or 15, if you want to go into KotSS).

This leaves you 2 feats to pick from late in your career. Metamagic would be useful.

Spells: Heroics, Inspirational Boost, Heroism, Alter Self

Skills: Just meet the prerequisites and put some ranks in Perform (whatever) for IC. Otherwise up to you.

This nets you:
- Bardic Knowledge
- Inspire Courage +1 (which can be improved with IC optimization through spells, feats, and items, or even Dragonfire Inspiration if you want to go that route)
- Good number of skill points at level 1, and bard skill selection forever
- Soul Binding as a 19th level binder (in truth 19th level is not so hot - you'd ideally want 20th or only 17th, but Improved Binding makes up for your SB lost to Bard and Chameleon - maybe you can retrain Improved Binding later)
- Floating bonus feat that you switch around each day as needed
- At least 2nd level sorc/wiz spells through Aptitude Focus. You WILL be grabbing Heroics for even more switchable bonus feats.
- At least 1st level bard spells. You WILL be grabbing Inspirational Boost, right?

A word about Anima Mage and Chameleon:
Chameleon specifically does not allow you to qualify for Anima Mage (that's why Precocious Apprentice is listed as a feat), however there is some debate as to whether you can progress spells gained through Aptitude Focus with prestige classes that grant +1 spellcasting. If your DM says "yes," progress Chameleon to 10, then use a couple levels for Bard, otherwise you'll just be progressing Bard spellcasting.

None of this is set in stone. You might choose to drop a couple levels of SB to pick up more Chameleon goodies, for instance. Or you might decide to use Factotum instead of Bard (I wouldn't if your DM says "no" to progressing Chameleon spellcasting, though). Or you could drop a couple Anima Mage levels (progressing to bard 2 and chameleon 9), in favour of more Knight of the Sacred Seal. It's pretty versatile as is, but there are lots of ways to play with it.

[Psyren]

Binder isn't that kind of generalist, at least not until late levels as others have said. They are a 5th-man rather than a true JOAT - capable of filling in whatever role a party is missing, but being forced to specialize to do so (e.g. tank, striker, face, caster, etc.) Every Vestige you bind locks in what you can do that day, and until you get multiple vestiges you'll have a hard time filling more than one role at a time.

Contrast with a Bard - they can pick up a very diverse layout of spells and abilities, from battlefield control to interaction to summons to combat buffs (including their own performance-related buffs) and generalize moment-to-moment. Many spells (like Alter Self) are more toolboxy than Vestiges in this regard, and thus grant bards more freedom.

[CockroachTeaParty]

Step 1: Bind Naberius.

Step 2: Max ranks in Bluff.

Step 3: Pretend to be whatever you want. If you can convince enough people, it has to be true! :smalltongue:

[Snowbluff]

Step 1: Bind Naberius.

Step 2: Max ranks in Bluff.

Step 3: Pretend to be whatever you want. If you can convince enough people, it has to be true! :smalltongue:

A good dose of Charlatan could work here as well.