Tier 3/4 suggestions for a battlefield control caster

[TheDarkSaint]

Hey guys,

I'm looking for a class or a class/prc combo that is around tier 3 to 4 that is a caster with focusing on battlefield control.

I've been playing a strait wizard up until this point but we are getting up in levels and the power differences are becoming quite noticeable, at least to me. I'm planning on retiring the character and subbing in a new one.

I REALLY enjoyed the battlefield control aspects of the wizard and I'd like to play something that specializes in that aspect without having God Mode turned on with everything else.

Anyone have any suggestions?

[Juntao112]

Beguiler
A moderately well built sorcerer
Shadowcaster
Warlock

[Pilo]

Without thinking a lot, I would say Beguiler (from PHB2) might be what you want.

You can also rebuild a wizard or a sorcerer and narrow your spells selection to tier 3/4.

[avr]

Beguiler is reputedly at the top of tier 3 and does battlefield control.

An elf who takes the Dragonmarked Heir PrC can get some uses of Shadow Conjuration (and a few other tricks) with a rather high caster level; maybe enough to make it into tier 4, whatever the base class.

[sonofzeal]

How has nobody mentioned Dragonfire Adept? At-will AoE "save and it still affects you" Slow... At-will Solid Fog... and THEN there's Entangling Exhalation straight from level 1 if you want it!

DFA is pretty much the KING of battlefield control in this level range.

[Ardantis]

I did not know that.

[ArcturusV]

If you want to jack down the power? An Air focused Shugenja can do the trick. Got lots of ways to impact the battlefield but it's mostly lower powered. You're a divine caster rather than Arcane, spontaneous based. Really does lower the power. Does mean that you're looking at Divine PrCs rather than Arcane ones as well, and it seems to me at least, typically the divine PrCs are the weaker of the two.

So in short you'd have to kind of struggle to break the game over the knee with it. It's a divine caster that has all the weaknesses of Sorcerers and Wizards in one (Spontaneous casting/spells known limit, AND they cast their spells using scrolls they have to keep with them so you're also Spellbook crippled, possibly), the spell lists are generally kinda "... eh..." for them.

Beguilers are, from what I've seen of them in action, actually really quite strong. As are sorcerers. So you might want to gear down even further into Shugenja. Then again, might be too far for all I know.

[Ardantis]

I didn't know that either!

[TheDarkSaint]

Thanks folks! Some excellent answers. I'll check with my DM about some of these.