(3.5) Playing a Jann from Level 1

[Blackjackg]

Say hypothetically that I have a cool character concept for playing the Jann racial class from Planar Handbook (p24) from level 1. I'm left with the question of what niche I fill in the party.

Over the span of levels I get a bunch of neat spell-like abilities that might come in handy in some situations, but few of them are combat useful and ultimately I lag way behind the party wizard in terms of utility spells. I've got good BAB, but because I lose all those hit dice to LA, I'm lagging behind even the cleric there.

Really, all I have to play with to make the character stand out is feats and skills. Is there any combination of those that can make this character unique and not useless, especially at those early levels? (Note, I'm not looking for optimization, I know that's shooting for the moon... just something to make him not a drag on the party).

For this question, assume the Jann is the fifth character in an industry-standard FighterWizardClericRogue party.

[nedz]

I posted this build (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=16192161&postcount=7) recently which uses the Educated and Endurance feats to get into Horizon Walker early. It's medium OP and functions as a skill monkey/taxi/tripper. I'm not sure about the details of the Jann racial class but it should work.

[Blackjackg]

Thanks for the link. I actually saw this build in the Build a Weird thread, and it was what reminded me that I had been thinking about a Jann character. It's a good example of how to make the character work once you're able to add class levels, and I might wind up using an approximation of it. But I'm still concerned about what the character will be doing while leveling up through the monster class while being outpaced by his human and demihuman companions.

On second thought, I might tweak the idea a little and give a 3.5 spit-polish to the Djinn racial class from Savage Species. It goes two levels longer, but it has more useful abilities early on.

[nedz]

Yes it's tricky to do anything but a cookie cutter character. You can choose the skills and feats but that's about all. One idea from the Savage Species racial classes is to allow them to take non-racial class levels before completing their racial class levels, which would imply that you wouldn't have to get around to taking all of the racial levels. This may require DM approval though.

[Psyren]

You could always try being a half-Jann (aka a Suli) from PF instead. If you wanted to power it down for 3.5 you could simply remove the Str bonus.