Friends don't let friends unoptimize their Shugenjas

[ArqArturo]

A friend has a dream dwarf shugenja from the Earth affinity, and the Order of the All-Seeing Eye. The thing is that he's kind of sick of being the buffer (last game he was a cleric of kord that ended up being the party band-aid, same thing with another cleric of Pelor but he saw it coming with that one).

His build is:

Str 10
Dex 12
Con 20
Int 12
Wis 14
Cha 18

Feat: Point Blank Shot

Spells:

0.- Mage Hand, Mending, Guidance, Detect Magic, Cure Minor Wounds

1.- Detect Snares and Pits, Magic Stone, Cure Light Wounds

His biggest complain is that he feels 'less useful in combat' , and we mow down the mooks before anything.

Me and the DM have suggested he could switch to a Wujen, and get a little more mileage out of the Dream Dwarf's ability, and he says he'll think about it.

Is there a way to optimize a 1st-level shugenja?.

[Gildedragon]

well it is level 1 so power isn't gonna be that high.
Precocious apprentice is an option

Wu Jen does have more spirit spells than the shugenja, and more combat spells

Question is, what do they want to do?
Blast? battlefiend control? debuff?

[ArqArturo]

He wants to go with Area control. I deal with blasting (gestalt paladin/warmage) while the wizard is essentially batman, and the druid summons creatures/throws his bloodhound animal companion/beats people silly with a stick, and the gestalt barbarian/paladin of freedom acts as a tank.

The DM, however, did gave him the green light to add Sanctified Spells as universal shugenja spells.

[Metahuman1]

What's his other class if it's a gestalt game?

[ArqArturo]

Me and the barbarian are the only two gestalt characters.

[Metahuman1]

?

Um, dude, are you sure you don't mean multy class? Or are you like running a 2nd E Multyclass rules or something? Or is this like a house rule to try and bring the casters and none casters more in line?

I've never heard of an actual occasion in 3.5e of 2 characters in a party being Gestalt and the rest not.

[ArqArturo]

The DM saw no harm on both of us being gestalt while the rest of the casters weren't, because he thought tier 1 casters break the game by themselves than, say, a barbarian/paladin and a paladin/warmage. However, we do get higher challenges.

[Metahuman1]

Ok, that makes sense. If I might be so bold as to make a suggestion? Shugenjas aren't tier 1 classes, there tier 3. Maybe look at letting him pick up a Tier 3 or lower class on a gestalt himself?

Perhaps a fighter or a rogue or a beguiler to give him some more ability to kick butt or some more good but not borked spell casting and/or some skill useage so he has things he can do other then sling spells form one list/pool.

[Gildedragon]

Lessee:
so first thing: the order he's got is an Air order, which clashes with the element focus picked, as he cannot take Air spells. It is fixed by the DM allowing that, and ignoring the element-spells known quota.

second: air and water are actually the most battlefield control elements, and fire the least. A water specialization would be best suited to his preferred playstyle.

Now if the DM rules you can pick your opposition element, earth is allright, but as is he's missing out on all the cloud and area illusion spells that benefit terrain control.

Now within the spell options:

0 level spells:
2 earth ones: Mage Hand and mending are good choices
2 free ones: Detect Magic is solid, but with the number of spellcasters it might be overmuch, and CLW... well he doesn't want to do healing so let's see what is available:
Dancing Lights (fire) is closer to the battlefiend control he aims for, as is Create Water (water) (alchemical substances can freeze the ice into a low level grease effect)
1 order: the earth orders offer resistance (crucible) or mending (sculpture), the impenetrable crucible seems like a better option.

1st level:
1 earth: Shield of Faith (defensive)
1 free: Obscuring Mist (instead of cure light wounds: he doesn't want to be the healer, then he ought not pick healing spells)
1 order: Magic Weapon (crucible) or Magic Stone (sculpture)
again I prefer the crucible, boosting your actual weapon seems better than enchanting three pebbles, and works on ranged attacks, lasts longer and a crossbow does better damage than the slings.

[Amphetryon]

I believe there's still a handbook for Shugenja over at WotC and/or MinMax. Might be worth checking out.

Earth is the best element for most BFC, but - unless your friend both wants to fulfill the healbot role and wants not to switch Race to Spellscale - Fire is arguably the best choice in terms of what you gain versus what you give up. Earth purportedly plays a bit like a weird Dragon Shaman, while Fire plays somewhat like a Warmage with slightly less blast and slightly more versatility, depending on order chosen.

[nedz]

I believe there's still a handbook for Shugenja over at WotC and/or MinMax. Might be worth checking out.

Earth is the best element for most BFC, but - unless your friend both wants to fulfill the healbot role and wants not to switch Race to Spellscale - Fire is arguably the best choice in terms of what you gain versus what you give up. Earth purportedly plays a bit like a weird Dragon Shaman, while Fire plays somewhat like a Warmage with slightly less blast and slightly more versatility, depending on order chosen.

This (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=1199) one. ...

[Gildedragon]

The guide points out that you are not restricted to orders by raw.
but I would still advise against picking an Air school, as you a) cannot cast the air spells and b) you will need to make up the earth-spell quota with your any-element slots because:
"At least half the spells a shugenja knows at each spell level must belong to his favored element"

[ArqArturo]

Yeah, he's looking either for the Perfect Sculpture, and the reason he got some healing was because there are cases you need a fallback cure potion, a term we use when the primary, secondary, and fallback healers are dead (the term came into play when we faced a black dragon that annihilated the healers, and unmade the potions), but since even I have lay on hands, there's no such thing necessary.

[Gildedragon]

Yeah, he's looking either for the Perfect Sculpture, and the reason he got some healing was because there are cases you need a fallback cure potion, a term we use when the primary, secondary, and fallback healers are dead (the term came into play when we faced a black dragon that annihilated the healers, and unmade the potions), but since even I have lay on hands, there's no such thing necessary.

for that a knowstone, or a wand. spells known are a very limited resource.

[Coidzor]

Yeah, being a non-gestalt T3 in a party with 2 T1s and 2 T4//T5s that have all specialized might be contributing here.

Can't think of any class in particular that'd really help out though, especially from either T5 or T6.

Also they need to approach their niche so that they're not competing with the Wizard if they want to do non-summoning BFC.

...Why does he have detect snares and pits as a spell known? :smallconfused:

[ArqArturo]

Yeah, we kind of corrected that mistake. The DM let him either do another character, or take up the gestalt route (at this point he kind of has to keep up with us... Weird thing for me to say since my choices are also funny). He decided to keep the PC, but rework the feats and some spell selections to get more control. He also took the Earth Sense feat instead of Improved Initiative.

Last session we went up a level, and he decided to take Spellthief, and we continued down the dungeon. The funny thing is that, in his case it worked rather well, but he is considering gestalt with those two classes, he still doesn't get too comfortable with the idea (he's been playing since 2e).

The combination works because he basically, as a dream dwarf, can detect stone traps out of the fly, and we can at least pass over them, and with Earth Sense feat, plus Sense Elements, he's doing some scry-or-die tactics. He's considering taking Paragnostic Apostle once he fills the prerequisites.