Dr. Facilier from "The Princess and the Frog"

[Uhtred]

So my current campaign has finally dropped the PC's into our New Orleans expy, a bustling trade hub on a swampy major river delta filled with magic and history. I've combined it also with the concept of Mordavia from Quest for Glory IV, so it has the Lovecraftian darkness and problems with vampires and arrogant rulers who BECAME vampires...and in the midst of it all, I have The Shadow Man.
My concept for this campaign is that it pits Team Good, my PC's, in a race to acquire a set of divinely empowered Swords before Team Evil does, and naturally Team Evil are their opposite numbers, and high-level BBEG's. So Team Good's Cleric is Lawful Good and focuses on personal buffs and attack spells like Flame Strike, so I was figuring on having Team Evil's Cleric be Chaotic Evil and focusing on Summoning and Necromancy, bringing me to Dr. Facilier from "Princess and the Frog" and his "Friends on the Other Side." I figure he'll be using a lot of Planar Ally spells, maybe giving him a Shadow cohort? And of course because Facilier mentions his magic doesn't work on himself giving him some spell resistance? Is there a better class for him than Cleric, a better race than human? I'm DM so pretty much what I say goes, but the limits I set for my players was no ToB and no Incarnum, and no Unearthed Arcana shenanigans. They probably won't have to fight him yet; Facilier's thing is that he doesn't seem like a threat at first, but he does have powerful minions that they might end up facing. Thanks in advance.

[docnessuno]

Archivist or Cleric with the Summoning domain, going into Malconvoker seems like a perfect fit for the concept, provided you are willing to slightly alter the fluff of the class.

If you are willing to go arcane, a Conjurer / Nar demonbinder / ultimate magus is also an effective and flavourful concept.

[Torben Raibeart]

I know there exists a class in Ravenloft that is kind of a Voodoo-priest, although I can't remenber what its name was. Will return if I remembers it/finds out. Other then that, I guess you could read about Souragne (a ravenloft-domain) for inspiration.

Binder might do the trick ass well 8at least fluff-wise), allthough I'm less then certain...

[Gildedragon]

The Sha'ir is somewhat fitting. Change up the cleric domains and the nature of the entities the Sha'ir communes with.

[The-Mage-King]

Spirit Shaman! It fits in fluff and gets little love. It's worth taking a look at.

[BowStreetRunner]

Spirit Shaman! It fits in fluff and gets little love. It's worth taking a look at.

Thematically, I would second the Spirit Shaman from Complete Divine.

[Uhtred]

Spirit Shaman DOES sound great! I'll have to re-fluff a bit and add the Planar Binding and Planar Ally spells to his list since he casts from the Druid spell list and Druids don't get those. Otherwise perfect.
Also, is the Sha'ir the genie class from Dragon Compendium?

[Gildedragon]

Yeah. Swap genies for some sort of lower power or outer evil

[Telonius]

The Shadow-Man seems like it could go a couple of different ways. If you're emphasizing the "pact" aspect, you could base it on a Binder build. If you want to emphasize the shadow allies, Shadowdancer/Thaumaturgist is what you're building towards. For a straight "I've sold my soul to the other side" motif, Warlock is what you're looking for.

[Torben Raibeart]

Here we go: Voodan, from "Dark Tales And Disturbing Legends". The magic of the class is bound to junk and they bargain with spirits, so is as far as I know a good fit fluff-wise.

[Fable Wright]

Here we go: Voodan, from "Dark Tales And Disturbing Legends". The magic of the class is bound to junk and they bargain with spirits, so is as far as I know a good fit fluff-wise.

And mechanics-wise. Give him Dynamic Priest with the custom flaw that he must bestow all of his prepared Gris-Gris on other people, and you're set. Give him a Collar of Perpetual Attendance to act as his Shadow, and you've got a Charismatic spellcaster with little to no personal power. While he can't summon spirits by himself, his "friends" give him trinkets that contain magical power, that he offers to people in exchange for various favors. Rather than commanding an army of summoned minions, he has a large number of people who owe him favors. Policemen who owe him for Heart of Earth spells that saved their lives during a bust, Shopkeepers who owe him for Glibness on the day of a major deal, and so on. He charges a relatively small fee, but everything comes with a hidden cost: You owe him, and if you try to dodge the debt, he pulls strings to shut you down (through people he regularly gives Gris-Gris, whose supply he threatens to cut off). People know about him, and know that to deal with him is to deal with the devil. You always pay his debts, one way or another, and most of the city had to go to him for a favor at one point or another. Many of them several times. Give him Ohuwaghnn as a patron, keeping Divination and Transmutation as favored schools, with the Trickery domain (whose spells he can actually cast, as they're spontaneous), and you've got Facilier. Everyone who works for him gets magic support, making them dangerous, though it's mostly self-buffing, due to the abysmal save DCs. Facilier doesn't seem dangerous, but because of his magic, his enforcers are dangerous. He wields insane political power, due to the network of people who owe him favors. He's dangerous in all the ways that the party cleric isn't: He's everywhere at once, wields power through others and buffs them, and isn't too great in a fight.

[Gnorman]

And mechanics-wise. Give him Dynamic Priest with the custom flaw that he must bestow all of his prepared Gris-Gris on other people, and you're set. Give him a Collar of Perpetual Attendance to act as his Shadow, and you've got a Charismatic spellcaster with little to no personal power. While he can't summon spirits by himself, his "friends" give him trinkets that contain magical power, that he offers to people in exchange for various favors. Rather than commanding an army of summoned minions, he has a large number of people who owe him favors. Policemen who owe him for Heart of Earth spells that saved their lives during a bust, Shopkeepers who owe him for Glibness on the day of a major deal, and so on. He charges a relatively small fee, but everything comes with a hidden cost: You owe him, and if you try to dodge the debt, he pulls strings to shut you down (through people he regularly gives Gris-Gris, whose supply he threatens to cut off). People know about him, and know that to deal with him is to deal with the devil. You always pay his debts, one way or another, and most of the city had to go to him for a favor at one point or another. Many of them several times. Give him Ohuwaghnn as a patron, keeping Divination and Transmutation as favored schools, with the Trickery domain (whose spells he can actually cast, as they're spontaneous), and you've got Facilier. Everyone who works for him gets magic support, making them dangerous, though it's mostly self-buffing, due to the abysmal save DCs. Facilier doesn't seem dangerous, but because of his magic, his enforcers are dangerous. He wields insane political power, due to the network of people who owe him favors. He's dangerous in all the ways that the party cleric isn't: He's everywhere at once, wields power through others and buffs them, and isn't too great in a fight.

This is an insanely cool adaptation of the character. I second this.

[Uhtred]

Just read through it. It's perfect. Thanks for directing me to a very fun and interesting class! The Shadow Man met them yesterday. They sat at his table and he took what they had, but they technically got what they wanted. I essentially body-swapped the entire party with one another; now they're trying to find a way to switch back. Now that he has a class and stats, he'll be even more interesting. :)

[Asheram]

Spoilered for length

And mechanics-wise. Give him Dynamic Priest with the custom flaw that he must bestow all of his prepared Gris-Gris on other people, and you're set. Give him a Collar of Perpetual Attendance to act as his Shadow, and you've got a Charismatic spellcaster with little to no personal power. While he can't summon spirits by himself, his "friends" give him trinkets that contain magical power, that he offers to people in exchange for various favors. Rather than commanding an army of summoned minions, he has a large number of people who owe him favors. Policemen who owe him for Heart of Earth spells that saved their lives during a bust, Shopkeepers who owe him for Glibness on the day of a major deal, and so on. He charges a relatively small fee, but everything comes with a hidden cost: You owe him, and if you try to dodge the debt, he pulls strings to shut you down (through people he regularly gives Gris-Gris, whose supply he threatens to cut off). People know about him, and know that to deal with him is to deal with the devil. You always pay his debts, one way or another, and most of the city had to go to him for a favor at one point or another. Many of them several times. Give him Ohuwaghnn as a patron, keeping Divination and Transmutation as favored schools, with the Trickery domain (whose spells he can actually cast, as they're spontaneous), and you've got Facilier. Everyone who works for him gets magic support, making them dangerous, though it's mostly self-buffing, due to the abysmal save DCs. Facilier doesn't seem dangerous, but because of his magic, his enforcers are dangerous. He wields insane political power, due to the network of people who owe him favors. He's dangerous in all the ways that the party cleric isn't: He's everywhere at once, wields power through others and buffs them, and isn't too great in a fight.

Damn, DMoD. This is Great! Time to import him into my campaign, call him Mr Gold and see if anyone notices. :smallbiggrin:

[Uhtred]

Mr. Gold's magic works on himself, though, so be sure to take out that custom flaw. Might add a different flaw that, regardless of a person's age or gender, he MUST refer to them as "Dearie."