What class makes a manipulative blaster?

[Nettlekid]

I'm DMing a newbie campaign, and the tentative character styles my party wants to go for are...unorthodox, I'll say. I've got someone who wants to be a reluctant Paladin (once a streetrat type, a higher power calls on him and he stops evil but is kind of annoyed by it. I've suggested both Gray Guard and Crusader to fit the edgy divine hero thing,) an Elven Shoemaker (I've suggested Factotum in order to have a skill-based character whose Craft: Shoes and Profession: Cobbler gets better and better with levels, and can be a jack-of-all-trades who doesn't officially devote themselves to anything besides making shoes despite Sneak Attacking or healing now and again) and finally, someone who wants to be a disarming face and sociable, but with the power to decimate someone if they're driven to that anger. For that one, I was thinking of Wilder (Cha-based and has social skills as class skills, but low number of powers runs the risk of being a one-trick pony), Telepath Psion (Social skills and high Int for skill points, not to mention blasting power, but no particular special disarming/stealth ability), and Beguiler (perfect for being disarming and manipulative, but no nova potential).

The campaign will be starting at level 3, though I plan to have them level up pretty quick. Does anyone have a good suggestion for a starting point for any of those three character ideas, especially the third?

[Nerd-o-rama]

Well my first thought was Sorcerer, although that's basically the same thing as a Wilder, and my second thought was a bard going into Sublime Chord (for Sor/Wiz spells), although building to a Prestige Class might be tricky for a newbie in a group that doesn't seem to understand the class-based system quite yet.

[Piggy Knowles]

Bard/Stormsinger. It makes a perfect face/social rogue, but when he gets ticked off, his voice can literally call down lightning and fury.

It progresses casting 10/10, and gives you new bardic music uses, letting you sing to create lightning bolts (damage = your perform check), tornadoes (control winds with a CL equal to your ranks in perform means you can go from still air to tornado-force winds by ECL 12, or hurricanes by ECL 9), huge thunderclaps (solid electricity and they must save or be permanently deafened), and eventually, bring down storms of vengeance (two levels earlier than a cleric or druid could, too).

[Nettlekid]

Well my first thought was Sorcerer, although that's basically the same thing as a Wilder, and my second thought was a bard going into Sublime Chord (for Sor/Wiz spells), although building to a Prestige Class might be tricky for a newbie in a group that doesn't seem to understand the class-based system quite yet.


Bard/Stormsinger. It makes a perfect face/social rogue, but when he gets ticked off, his voice can literally call down lightning and fury.

It progresses casting 10/10, and gives you new bardic music uses, letting you sing to create lightning bolts (damage = your perform check), tornadoes (control winds with a CL equal to your ranks in perform means you can go from still air to tornado-force winds by ECL 12, or hurricanes by ECL 9), huge thunderclaps (solid electricity and they must save or be permanently deafened), and eventually, bring down storms of vengeance (two levels earlier than a cleric or druid could, too).

Yeah, I first thought that a Cha-based caster would do best, though I realized that an Int-based caster with the right class skills would also work. I'm reluctant to just say something like "Use spells because they're better than all class features" so I think something that has sneak/face/manipulator class features (like a Beguiler) but then can turn to spells for the blasting (not like a Beguiler.) Like the Beguiler, in both the case of the Sublime Chord and the Stormsinger, the "blasty" part is too far down the road. Their first venture into D&D for about 6 levels will be "be clever but basically powerless" and then get a bit of damage that is either less than most Sorc/Wiz spells...or they get Sorc/Wiz spells. There isn't the feeling of "eruption just below the surface" in a Bard that I think this player wants.

[Nerd-o-rama]

"be clever but basically powerless"

Well if you don't want that then Bard's off the table I guess.

What are his thoughts on a Cleric?

[Nettlekid]

Well if you don't want that then Bard's off the table I guess.

What are his thoughts on a Cleric?

Just knowing the person, I doubt they'd like the Cleric's divine devotion flavor. And to a D&D newbie, Cleric=Healbot.

The actual quote from the player is "My plan was to go for the dark, troubled, but social type. I want to play the kind of social, cheery character who seems pretty harmless, but then you piss them off and they very swiftly and politely DESTROY YOU and no one would ever suspect it was them because, hey, look at that face. Pure innocence."

[Piggy Knowles]

OK, then I'd go back to your early suggestion of telepath. High Int means good social skills, plus powers like psionic charm, conceal thoughts (ie mini-glibness), psionic glibness and more. On the other hand, when someone pisses you off, Overchannel an ego whip to lash them into oblivion (or go with something more straightforward like energy wall or crystal shard or the like).

Wilder fits the flavor even better thanks to their base fluff and wild surges, but your skills and power selection will be lacking. Still, you could pull off a pretty cool social wilder with a few powerful surge options. Fluff the wild surge as something akin to an uncontrollable rage and bingo, you're done.

[Nettlekid]

Yeah, I feel like Wilder would be perfect if it just had a few more powers known. But unless the player wants to just rely on regular old Bluff checks, they'd need a few powers for stealth/charm, plus the blasting powers, and the Wilder just can't do it all. That and the Sorcerer-rate progression (as opposed to the Wizard-rate of the Psion) makes it undesirable.

So then yeah, maybe Telepath Psion is the best option. I just worry that the player would get bored with a lack of class features, having only their few skills and limited powers per day to work with.

EDIT: Oh, also, Telepath doesn't really lend itself to this same kind of PrC too well. I looked around only a small amount, and it looks like only Anarchic Initiate has the skills you'd want, and if you're using Overchannel instead of Wild Surge then you end up with just that, Overchannel and an underleveled Wild Surge, which doesn't do much good.

[Piggy Knowles]

Well, I'd take a look at Face First (http://community.wizards.com/content/forum-topic/3476361), a build by RadicalTaoist to build a super-effective social telepath from level 1 through level 20. It's a pretty excellent build from the get-go, and you could make some changes to get the flavor that you're looking for.

So, from level 1, you could go with Vigor for defense, Mind Thrust for angry offense, and Conceal Thoughts for utility and ridiculous bluff checks right off the bat. Add on 2-3 feats (Psicrystal Affinity plus one or two others, depending on the player's race) and excellent skills, and you're not starting off half bad. At level 2 you can pick your two favorites out of Psionic Charm, Mindlink, Entangling Ectoplasm, Psionic Grease and Crystal Shard. Level three brings you more powers - Share Pain gives you the psicrystal/Share Pain/Vigor combo for excellent defense, and the Face First build I linked goes for Mental Rage (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20041029b), which seems like it's a perfect fit flavor-wise:


You enter a state of rage and focus psionic energy in the nearby area. Silver-white bolts of raw psychic energy arc forth from your body.

Plus as it's level three, you're nabbing your first Expanded Knowledge, which is probably going to be Astral Construct but could be something cool like Psionic Minor Creation, too.

...and so on. Seriously, you can do some pretty ridiculous stuff with a social telepath. Your powers are your class features, and you get plenty of those as a psion. And you'll have more than enough bonus feats to go in whatever direction you want.

EDIT: Why would you want to PrC out of telepath? It gives you everything you'd need - two new powers every level, the best PP progression in the game, and fantastic social skills, plus enough bonus feats to give you the freedom to go in several different directions.

[Nettlekid]

Hmm, although I'm reluctant to say "spellspowers do anything better than other classes' class features" it's really true. That Face First is a great base to go on, swapping out some powers for more blasty ones, etc. I'll suggest that to the player.