I died... again. new character: a binder! I'm looking for inspiration, suggestions, a

[dehro]

Brief premise for those who have not noticed my occasional incursions/cries for help/inane doubts and questions about my previous characters
I've been playing a campaign for about a year and a half now. I've also been dying.... A lot. My last and most satisfying character to bite the bullet was a warlock.
The current predicament of our remaining team has pushed my master to suggest I try my hand at making a binder.

we are around the 14/15th level mark. We are currently exploring a planar prison filled with creatures of various traditionally alligned species/creatures... Devas, devils etc, on an infernal plane, in search of a kidnapped ally we aim to rescue.
We have been needing rescue ourselves a few times.
Other team members:
A temperamental druid gnome whose standard tactics revolve around growing a few sizes and pummeling anything within reach of his own shapeshifted self or that of his pet gorilla.
A bard buffer who should be our face but is amazingly ineffective and lost for words at it despite having picked perform stand up comedy as his instrument/bardic talent of choice.
My warlock who is about to be rerolled.
Two former PCs turned NPCs, a ranger-scout and a sorcerer elf who specialises in blowing people up and strategically placing magic walls.

The situation could easily favour one of the cages being opened and a new character step in the warlock's shoes.
Races available are various... The basic ones plus an opening for one of those that can be found on the infernal plane. The initial suggestion from the master was to look into one with high LA, in order to make the binder levels not too high, them being difficult to manage at high level for a newbie at playing this class. Otherwise, a common race and a full binder at 14th or 15th level are also acceptable, as is a degree of optimisation (or even multiclassing) as long as it doesn't lead to anything broken or too aggressively minmaxed, and remains primarily a binder
I know binder is a favourite for minmaxers to dip into, but what could be a good and flavourful build?
I'm not interested in tentacled abominations or anything that isn't at least humanoid and I must yet receive the details such as level (14 or 15), budget or specific limitations. Source material is strictly dnd, no third party. Books are usually accepted, articles from magazines are subject to debate and convincing or trading.

So far I'm looking mainly for interesting concepts and to answer the obvious question, I don't have a specidic role in mind nor do I particularly want him to be a brawler, healer, debuffer or ang other specific role. I am open to all as long as they at least minimally fit the rest of the party and don't earn him the automatic distrust/enmity from the druid for being some sort of abomination.

[Thurbane]

I'm very fond of Hellbred (body aspect) for Binders. There's some decent synergy between vestige granted powers, and the stuff you get from your bonus Devil-touched feats. 14th level is a pretty sweet spot for a build like this.

Also, I like the concept of someone coming back from the Nine Hells, and instead of turning to a path of repentance or a deity to save him, instead starts studying weird, otherworldly entities as a way to try and escape his fate.

[dehro]

Both concepts sound intriguing. I'll have to look into the hellbred.
I'm also looking for a handbook that is complete and doesn't spend half the time lamenting how other classes are much better. I've found a few promissing ones on various boards, but they were largely incomplete.

[Qwertystop]

I had some fun building a Midnight Occultist, if homebrew is allowed. It blends Binding with Incarnum - they're pretty similar to start with - and lets you bind vestiges to chakras and put essentia in.

[Shining Wrath]

Pixie (LA 4) is full-on awesome sauce for a Binder. Dex +8, Int +6, Cha + 6, +4 Wisdom. OK, -4 Str, but you don't intend to Grapple anyone. You get to fly, you get Natural Invisibility, you get some nice SLA and magic arrows.

You need Charisma to make pacts with vestiges. Buy 18 to start, add 6 from Pixie, add +2 for your 10 or 11 levels of binder, 26 before items ought to do nicely. Pick vestiges that let you be a ranged fighter - you can fly above the battle and attack without becoming visible, and you do get +8 to your dexterity from Pixie. Or use vestiges to help you be a better party face out of combat.

[Martimus Prime]

Having played a number of binders in my day, I would strongly suggest looking at the binder prestige classes and building towards at least one of them.

I'm personally biased towards pointing you in the direction of knight of the sacred seal. You can play meatshield with it like a fighter-type, but having full binder progression means you can also put some decent DPS downrange as a blaster as well. My personal favorite was a guy I built around Focalor and Chupoclops; having two sets of untyped debuff auras made his vestige's protection aura not so good, but with Imperious Command/dread armor/Never outnumbered and two auras imposing untyped penalties to virtually all saves and checks, I could rush someone in melee and intimidate them to stack crazy debuffs on them, something the casters in the party greatly appreciated. I've also seen a reasonable tank/rogue hybrid built around Malphas and Andromalius.

I've heard anecdotally that anima mage is really broken, but I have yet to playtest it personally. Supposedly there's a trick involving the class that can net you an infinite timestop spell, but somehow I think your DM would smite that build on principle.

Tenebrous apostate looks flavorful, but some of the wording is ambiguous (requiring turn/rebuke in a class that already requires binding a vestige that grants turn/rebuke once every five rounds), so not much to add, but it might be worth trying out if you're more into minions than front-lining. Only the requirement that you worship Tenebrous as a god prevents some glorious ur-priest shenanigans.

I usually don't put much thought into scion of Dantalion, but on closer inspection it could be excellent with a warrior-scholar type build centering on knowledge devotion and able learner, especially in combination with knight of the sacred seal. The large charisma score required to make those saves worthwhile would also go well with Naberious' diplomancer skills.

Lastly, I'd like to leave you with the thought that it might be worthwhile to look into some of the iron chef builds on this very forum. There's a good reason why binder is considered a good splash class (binder/hexblade/pyromancer for explosive lolz, anyone?), and certainly some of the fine people here have gone into greater depth with the class than I can dare aspire to.

EDIT: spelling lol

[dehro]

Over-optimisation, broken builds and homebrews are very much frowned upon, but as long as the class remains primarily a binder I think I'm allowed a minimum of tweaking, albeit strictly by the book
Some of those bindings make it sound like I'm training pokemons, lol.
I'll have a look around
The knight of the sacred seal sounds like fun.

[Thurbane]

KotSS is awesome for any Binder.

[...]

A binder that acts like a rouge and/or assassin, and uses vestiges that give him/her rouge and/or assassin abilities.

[Martimus Prime]

A binder that acts like a rouge and/or assassin, and uses vestiges that give him/her rouge and/or assassin abilities.

Malphas/Andromalius/Marchosias/Paimon for vestiges would be perfect for this. Catch a bunch of baddies in a whirlwind attack from invisibility, with loads of sneak attack and sudden strike stacked on a poisoned rapier, and target any one caster in the unfortunate group with a death attack (which is made easier to pull off by the fact that you were invisible a second ago).

[dehro]

It should be worth pointing out that my last character's "thing" was to be invisible and it didn't really help me a great deal the last couple of sessions. Most of the big guys we face now come equipped with true seeing of one kind or the other

[Martimus Prime]

The only real problems with the various PrC is that they do limit one of your vestige slots to a specific vestige (with the exception of anima mage). If versatility is your shtick, splashing classes that grant abilities you can't bind for is also viable - my buddy seems pretty happy with himself for pairing binding with soulmelds, and you could go for rogue if you want to play the trapfinder/social butterfly.

[dehro]

versatility seems to be overrated in this campaign. we fail spectacularly at being stealthy, effective or indeed keep on track without being on the brink of death half the time (or over it like last session).
I've always tried to leave a few doors open to not being just one thing with my characters, but so far I have the "highest getting killed" rate of the team. We have a few options already for traps and scouting/lockpicking, so I'd rather just go debuff, lay waste to stuff either magically or up close and personal, or some other somewhat less versatile thing.

[atemu1234]

I'm very fond of Hellbred (body aspect) for Binders. There's some decent synergy between vestige granted powers, and the stuff you get from your bonus Devil-touched feats. 14th level is a pretty sweet spot for a build like this.

Also, I like the concept of someone coming back from the Nine Hells, and instead of turning to a path of repentance or a deity to save him, instead starts studying weird, otherworldly entities as a way to try and escape his fate.

Mind if I borrow this for my campaign?

(I once had a half-fiend Hellbred who chose to serve a fiend rather than try and repent again).

[Thurbane]

Mind if I borrow this for my campaign?

(I once had a half-fiend Hellbred who chose to serve a fiend rather than try and repent again).

Not at all - I'm desperately hoping to play this type of character in a game myself sometime, but most games I get to be a player in a core books only. :smallfrown:

...I might work one in as an NPC in my current campaign though.

[atemu1234]

Not at all - I'm desperately hoping to play this type of character in a game myself sometime, but most games I get to be a player in a core books only. :smallfrown:

...I might work one in as an NPC in my current campaign though.

I know your pain. I once had a DM who banned everything in everything except for the Player's Handbook, and homebrewed classes, races, spells and such.

It was interesting for a few sessions, but eventually it just trainwrecked.

[dehro]

Not at all - I'm desperately hoping to play this type of character in a game myself sometime, but most games I get to be a player in a core books only. :smallfrown:

...I might work one in as an NPC in my current campaign though.

Soooo.. How would you put together a 14th level binder/koss hellbred with level appropriate budget and average initial stats (we usually roll dice for the stats, and I have to wait for our next meet to do so, but I'd like to get there with something of an outline, rather than a blank slate). The reason I'm asking is that my ability to **** up any build even within the confines of having already chosen the class progression is almost proverbial

[dehro]

Update. Dies were rolled with mixed results
7
14
14
15
15
17
Which leaves me with strong doubts on what stat to dump, whether to use the 3 extra points to max out my primary skill or to un-dump the dump stat (I could also just buy a stat enhancing item)
Budget is of 100.000 GP. With a cap of 25k to any single item.
I'm also considering to take force of personality. It seems a bit of a waste of talent slot, but in this campaign wisdom checks have proven to be fatal, when failed

[Bonzai]

When I get around to actually playing a binder in a campaign, I am thinking of a Half Drow binder/wizard/anima mage. The concept being that he was raised as a slave to the drow and spit on his entire life. In the process he was thoroughly indoctrinated in the Drow belief system. He firmly believes that Drow are the superior race, and that all other races are vermin. As a half drow, he is an abomination and tainted. Loth would want nothing to do with a half breed like him, nor would he lower himself to worshipping the pathetic gods of other races. So instead he bargained with other entities to gain power... and then learned wizardry after he escaped... because why not?

[Beneath]

Update. Dies were rolled with mixed results
7
14
14
15
15
17
Which leaves me with strong doubts on what stat to dump, whether to use the 3 extra points to max out my primary skill or to un-dump the dump stat (I could also just buy a stat enhancing item)
Budget is of 100.000 GP. With a cap of 25k to any single item.
I'm also considering to take force of personality. It seems a bit of a waste of talent slot, but in this campaign wisdom checks have proven to be fatal, when failed

When I last played a binder, WIS was her dump stat and that worked pretty well. Though if you need good WIS for survivability, don't dump it. Consider INT or even DEX (depending on the vestiges you bind).

Force of Personality only applies against [mind-affecting] IIRC. If the fatal things are like, glitterdust, it's no help.

[Biotroll]

I'm no binder specialist, but I would build it like this:
7 -wisdom
14 -inteligence (-2 for hellbred body aspect)
14 -dexterity
15 -constitution +1 at 12th (+2 for hellbred body aspect)
15 -strength +1 at 8th
17 -charisma +1 at 4th

You could mix it up as you wish. But these are my suggestions for now.
Go binder 6/KoSS (Andras) 5/Binder 3
Feats:
1) Devil's favor (B)
1) Force of personality
3) Travel devotion
4) Improved binding (B)
4) Devil touched feat of your choice (B)
6) Weapon focus
9) Free feat
12) Free feat
14) Devil touched feat of your choice (B)
With improved binding you can bind Andras at 5th and get enough BAB bonus at 6th. Weapon focus is needed for KoSS, I suggest getting WF(greatsword). You will be proficient with greatsword only when bound to Andras, but after taking first level in KoSS you will be able to use it normaly. If this doesn't fly at your table, pick morningstar or something. For free feats at 9th at 12th I suggest getting Power attack and one other you like, maybe another Devil touched feat.
Bind Andras as your main vestige, as it will alow you to be good at melee and with 18 con, you should have reasonable amount of HPs and good Fortitude save. Use Smite good/evil to get some extra damage and Sow discord to have some fun (it's standard action though).
Tenebrous should be your second vestige, as it allows you to turn undead once per 5 rounds, which you use to fuel travel devotion. It also let's you see in darkness, make darkness around you and use swift action to get some extra damage once per 5 rounds. You can use Flicker mystery as immediate action to get away with 50 % chance of ignoring the attack.
Third vestige is open up to you. Savnok i good for free fullplate, some DR and Move ally to get party members switch positions with you. Dahlver Nar is great for tanking, as it gives you some more natural armor based on your con bonus and more importantly it gives you Shield self. It halves damage you take and the rest goes to someone else. If they are willing, it's good (you can use mount that Andras gives you to do it if you want) or you can try to force it on your enemies (which is even better). Maddening moan can be useful if you fight enemies with low will. Balam is nice too, as it gives you gaze attack, bonus to initiative, reflex and AC and also ability to reroll attack, saving throw, or skill check once per 5 rounds.

You can play it as paladin that went too far if you want. You got horse, you can smite, you got turn undead and fight in heavy armor with greatsword. I guess others will come with improvements or even better builds. Also, I'm not good with magical items, so I leave them to someone else. :smallsmile:

[Martimus Prime]

If you don't mind going human, or if you can convince your DM that your hellbred started off as human and therefore you can act as if he is for certain abilities, I have a possible buildout for you (goes to level 20 if desired):


1. Paladin. Feats are Able Learner and Weapon Focus (longsword).
2. Paladin. Divine grace will help you immensely with your saves.
3. Binder. Feat is Improved Binding. Bind Focalor. Start building up ranks in intimidate (ideally max it) and the knowledge skills required for your prestige classes. You’ll be springing for the heaviest set of armor you can with the fearsome property (Drow of the Underdark), a belt of battle (MIC), and a heavy shield down the road.
4. Binder. Increase your charisma.
5. Binder. Get the Never Outnumbered skill trick (CS).
6. Knight of the Sacred Seal. Feat is Intimidating Strike (PHBII). Pick Focalor for your favored vestige.
7. Knight of the Sacred Seal.
8. Knight of the Sacred Seal. Increase your strength.
9. Knight of the Sacred Seal. Feat is Imperious Command (Drow of the Underdark).
10. Knight of the Sacred Seal. Bind Dantalion.
11. Scion of Dantalion. Now that all knowledges are on your class list and you have Able Learner, ranks in knowledge skills are solid gold for reasons you will soon see. Pick up the Collector of Stories skill trick (CS) for extra utility.
12. Scion of Dantalion. Increase your dexterity. Feat is Knowledge Devotion (CC).
13. Scion of Dantalion.
14. Scion of Dantalion. Pick up a couple ranks in spellcraft to qualify for the next feat.
15. Scion of Dantalion. Feat is Mage Slayer (MM5). Since vestige activated abilities are considered supernatural (not spell-like) abilities, the reduction in caster level doesn’t hurt you at all, and now you’re a real menace to mages you charge into melee with.
16. Binder. Increase your charisma. Bonus feat is Favored Vestige (Dantalion). Bind Chupoclops
17. Binder.
18. Binder. Feat is Favored Vestige Focus (Dantalion).
19. Binder.
20. Binder. Increase your charisma.


Round 1, charge the caster at the back of the enemy group and strike him with a smite/intimidating strike combo, which he will have to roll against with a large penalty due to being next to yous. Then, use your belt of battle to gain an additional move action and intimidate him and any nearby enemies into a cowering status due to Imperious Command and fearsome armor (bonus points if you have a draconic graft to give you a fear aura on top of all of this). Stick to that mage until the condition of dead is achieved; the mage will either have to pull range (provoking AoO) or cast at point blank range with a strong fighter (also provoking an AoO) and having to make that concentration at a big penalty (he can’t cast defensively due to Mage Slayer). Against creatures immune to your mind-affecting penalties (which are mostly untyped and therefore stack, BTW, despite being RAI morale effects), you have Focalor’s lightning and strong melee capabilities to fall back on.

[Thurbane]

If you need help passing off a Hellbred as a Human for reqs, the Human Heritage feat *might* help. Requires a lenient DM and probably a flaw for an extra feat at 1st level.

[dehro]

Nah, I think I'll be going straight up hellbred. Also, I rather dislike paladins on principle, which makes the hellbred an odd choice, I reckon. Is there a difference between binder9/koss5 and binder6/koss5/binder3?
Either one of these is going to be my progression

[Biotroll]

The only difference between binder 9/koss 5 and binder 6/koss 5/binder 3 is what vestiges you will be able to pick for your koss focus. Binder 6 with improved binding should be able to get lvl 4 vestiges, binder 9 with improved binding is able to get up to lvl 6 vestiges iirc. So if you want to focus on higher level vestige, get more binder levels first.

[Val666]

Uhm...I while ago I made a build using Sanctum Spell + Heighten Spell + Improved Binding for early access to Anima Mage. Using flaws :v

Unseelie Fey Magic Blooded Lesser Aasimar:
It was Binder 1/Sorcerer 1 /Anima Mage 8/Mage of the Arcane Order 10

Binding Zceryll and any other Save-based Vestige.

I don't remember the feats but they where the after mentioned + Metamagic stuff and Vile Feats.
Maybe worship an Elder Evil? that would be cool

[dehro]

Uhm...I while ago I made a build using Sanctum Spell + Heighten Spell + Improved Binding for early access to Anima Mage. Using flaws :v

Unseelie Fey Magic Blooded Lesser Aasimar:
It was Binder 1/Sorcerer 1 /Anima Mage 8/Mage of the Arcane Order 10

Binding Zceryll and any other Save-based Vestige.

I don't remember the feats but they where the after mentioned + Metamagic stuff and Vile Feats.
Maybe worship an Elder Evil? that would be cool

Mmmhno, that kind of clashes with the setting in a few ways.
Is expel vestige a valid investment? Being able to swap vestige when needed rather than when the day is over sounds good but it comes with steep consequences for subsequent bindings

[Martimus Prime]

Is expel vestige a valid investment? Being able to swap vestige when needed rather than when the day is over sounds good but it comes with steep consequences for subsequent bindings

If your binding check is high enough, it's rather handy to have something like expel vestige or a vestige phylactery to let you alter your abilities to suit the unexpected. Rapid pact making is, IMHO, only really useful if you find yourself doing this on a regular basis.

[dehro]

Gave the character a trial run last night. It takes some getting used to, having to rewrite half the stats every time.
Plus I have to pick the right combos, and try to not make enemies of my party members who still don't know what I am (which so far is rather hilarious).
And finally our master is cruel and a trifle sadistic... He's built an extra vestige which I am saddled with even if I don't actually pick it for the day... And the influences are... Let's just say, mildly embarrassing at best... And outright scandalous at worst.
It's fun, so far

[Socratov]

Well, I'm gonna break out the tried and true Human.

Why? Well, humans have the following very binderesque qualities: 1 - willing to trade anything away, form mothers-in-law all the way to their very souls. 2 - Always looking for power.

With the extra starting feat and extra skillpoint per level, and for the rest I refer you to the Binder Handbook (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=137.0).

Have fun!

[Thurbane]

Gave the character a trial run last night. It takes some getting used to, having to rewrite half the stats every time.
Plus I have to pick the right combos, and try to not make enemies of my party members who still don't know what I am (which so far is rather hilarious).
And finally our master is cruel and a trifle sadistic... He's built an extra vestige which I am saddled with even if I don't actually pick it for the day... And the influences are... Let's just say, mildly embarrassing at best... And outright scandalous at worst.
It's fun, so far

Very interested in the development of this character, keep us up-to-date! :smallsmile:

Is there a Myth-Weavers (www.myth-weavers.com/) or other online character sheet we could see?

[Biotroll]

Very interested in the development of this character, keep us up-to-date! :smallsmile:

Is there a Myth-Weavers (www.myth-weavers.com/) or other online character sheet we could see?

This. I've never had a chance to play binder, so I'm curious about how it goes.

[dehro]

all my personal emails are of the yahoo variety, and are therefore banned a priori by the site.
I'm not going to use my work email to register on myth-weavers, so I'll have to simply link to the dropbox file (https://www.dropbox.com/s/k81hn5whijogge7/Panaron.pdf?dl=0) of the character sheet. it is still incomplete but further modifications will still be found under the same link.
It is in Italian, but fairly understandable what with most items being in the same place, except for the skills, which are alphabetically listed.
I haven't listed the class and the race, in order to prevent my confused and nosy co-players from understanding what it is I play, just yet.
class is binder 9/ KoSS 5. Race is Hellbred body aspect.
The preferred (KoSS) vestige is Andras, but that can still change between now and the next session, in 2 weeks time (though normally we play every week). Between the first day of use and the following session, our GM authorises the tweaking/fine-tuning of skills, equipment, selected vestige/s and so on... (basically most of what hasn't come into play yet)

P.S. I'm also working on an excel file to have all the vestiges' relevant info in one easy to understand and remember place, since I don't want to clutter the sheet with modifications every time I make a binding.

[dehro]

Dahlver-Nar is listed as having special requirements.. except they're not stated or listed anywhere that I can find.
does anybody know more about this?

[Thurbane]

This was fixed in the errata.


Page 28: Dahlver-Nar
Dahlver-Nar’s summary indicates that he has a special requirement. He does not.

[dehro]

Thank you. I should have known to watch for it

[dehro]

on a different note.. the way I'm playing/have equipped my character, I'm playing primarily a melee fighter. I picked Andras as my primary vestige (as per KoSS requirement) but am thinking I may have chosen the wrong one. he's quite nice in combo with others, but we don't really travel that much by foot (if at all) so the whole having a horse and the skills to use it in battle is at risk of falling flat compared with other bindings that may bring more yield. I can always bind him too, if I do need a horse... but what is the best choice of a primary binding for a scrapper? I've used otiax and malphas combined, for instance..
I'm guessing it should be one that doesn't have "traditional enemies" he can't bind with... to be safe..but then, I can always just not use the primary for a day and intentionally forego the perks of the KoSS prestige class, if need compells me that way.
anyhoo, tl;dr: what should be the primary vestige of a melee fighter?

[dehro]

stupid question time: at current level I have access to 2 pact augmentations of choice. does that mean 2 for each vestige bound (which are 3, so 6 total)? or just two comprehensively?
I'm guessing/hoping that it's 6 pact augmentations and not 2, but..better be sure I interpret the text correctly.

[Biotroll]

I always understood it, that you only have the number of auguments mentioned in the table, not to number of auguments*vestiges bound. If it was your way, you could have 20 auguments at lvl 20, which would be quite a lot. Also:

As you attain higher levels, you can make additional selections from the list. You gain one additional ability at 5th, 10th, 16th, and 20th level (to a maximum of five selections at 20th level)

As for what are traditional melee binds: paimon for dex-based fighters. His dance can be really dangerous, especialy at lower levels. Chupoclops for chargers as it gives pounce, bite attack and you can go etheral. Dahlver-nar for his shield self and con bonus to AC. Savnok for repositions and free heavy armor. Eligor is really good in combination with Andras as it gives you mount related feats, str bonus, some bonus damage for free action 1/round and more natural armor bonus. Tenebrous is good for powering devotion feats and misschance due to darkness, that you see through (but devils too I think, so it might not be useful for you now).

There were some more psionic vestiges somewhere and I think there were some in one issue of Dragon - I remember something about Primus, the highest modron and also about some city spirit. I don't remember them and I don't have their sources, so I cannot give my opinions on these vestiges and their powers. They might be in some vestige lists around, or maybe someone will point you to them.

[dehro]

I always understood it, that you only have the number of auguments mentioned in the table, not to number of auguments*vestiges bound. If it was your way, you could have 20 auguments at lvl 20, which would be quite a lot. Also:


As for what are traditional melee binds: paimon for dex-based fighters. His dance can be really dangerous, especialy at lower levels. Chupoclops for chargers as it gives pounce, bite attack and you can go etheral. Dahlver-nar for his shield self and con bonus to AC. Savnok for repositions and free heavy armor. Eligor is really good in combination with Andras as it gives you mount related feats, str bonus, some bonus damage for free action 1/round and more natural armor bonus. Tenebrous is good for powering devotion feats and misschance due to darkness, that you see through (but devils too I think, so it might not be useful for you now).

There were some more psionic vestiges somewhere and I think there were some in one issue of Dragon - I remember something about Primus, the highest modron and also about some city spirit. I don't remember them and I don't have their sources, so I cannot give my opinions on these vestiges and their powers. They might be in some vestige lists around, or maybe someone will point you to them.

you are probably right, though the wording is somewhat open to interpretation:

Pact Augmentation (Su): Beginning at 2nd level, you can draw additional power from the vestiges you bind. As long as you are bound to at least one vestige, you can choose one ability from the following list. Each time you rebind a vestige, you also reselect your pact augmentation ability. especially the last sentence. makes it somewhat unclear..
say you bind one vestige.. select an ability.. then you bind a second one.. do you reselect (as in can chose to change to another one) that same ability or do you select a new one, adding to the previous one? in this case,the "re-selecting" would simply mean that those augmentations last for as long as that particular binding last and when you do it over you can pick another one
then again... I am not good enough with in-game numbers to determine if 2 or 6 bonuses make a massive difference, especially at levels where there are classes that have spells and powers that add double digits to their stats (for instance, the druid in our party has a spell that gives something like 20 stat points spread over a couple of ability scores.).

On the whole, the touch attack seems to land a whole lot more often than others, on the foes our DM pits against us, so now that I have a grasp of how things work, I've agreed with the DM that the primary vestige be Otiax and not Andras, and will be using its air blast as main weapon (keeping the greatsword as a backup route of pummeling with other builds, if necessary) combined with a few other builds that add damage to attacks with DEX bonus negated. I'm thinking otiax, malphas and someone else as main unarmed/touch/bludgeoning combo.

[dehro]

Mildly confused as to what the bab for a binder 9/ koss 5/ binder 1 should be. GM says 11, 6, 1..
For some reason, the +5 from the Koss prc confuses the crap out of me and I just don't understand how it works. Shouldn't the full bab progression of the koss improve on the natural progression of the binder, which isn't full?

Correction, the GM gave me amended values of 12/7/2... But I'm still confused as to the mechanics of it all

[Martimus Prime]

Mildly confused as to what the bab for a binder 9/ koss 5/ binder 1 should be. GM says 11, 6, 1..
For some reason, the +5 from the Koss prc confuses the crap out of me and I just don't understand how it works. Shouldn't the full bab progression of the koss improve on the natural progression of the binder, which isn't full?

Correction, the GM gave me amended values of 12/7/2... But I'm still confused as to the mechanics of it all

AFAIK, you take the total levels from each class to determine BAB/Saves/Skills/etc and ignore splits like you have. Your ten levels of binder give you a +7 to your base attack due to it having 3/4 progression, and 3/4 of 10 rounded down is 7. Five levels of KotSS gives you +5 because it is full progression. When you add those together, you get 12.

[Thurbane]

The class table for Binder 10 says BAB +7. The class table for KotSS 5 says BAB +5. Add them together, and your BAB is +12. You work out iteratives from the BAB, so in your DMs shorthand, your "BAB" is +12/+7/+2.

Same answer as above, but worked out slightly differently.

[dehro]

and it turns out I may have levelled yet again, so I'll probably go for the talent that allows me to swap out a vestige a day in favour of a new one (albeit with a handicap), to increase my versatility, although I must say that currently, the combo built on Otiax's air strike that strikes as a touch attack is paying dividends. We're mostly facing single (or 2-3) enemies with high AC and no swarm of allies, and it turns out that the extremely high AC can be mostly beaten by the air strike and by having my weapons alligned with good, beating also the damage reduction.. turning me unexpectedly in the party's most effective damage dealer.
if only it didn't take the enemy a mere 2-3 rounds to put me on the brink of death, it would work even better. (I've taken 50hp of damage that can't be healed by anything we can get our hands on currently, which makes the whole act of getting into melee very akin to flirting with death)

[dehro]

so... a couple of accidents later, I find myself now to be of 16th level (5 KoSS, 11 binder) and due to tangential occurrences, I have to pick both the 15th level feat and the 16th level feat.
I didn't go for the expell vestige feat, on account of how I have a vestige phylactery that allows me to do the same thing and prefer to buy another one, should I need it, rather than to spend a feat on it.
this does leave me with no idea what feats to go for though.

1)are daily feats worth investing in? by which I mean, is it worth it to for example maximise a single blow once a day instead of investing in a feat that grants a more durable ability or bonus?
2)one of the powers bestowed by a vestige speaks as such: Healing Gift: as a standard action you can heal 1 point of damage to self or other. full round action heals 1d8 points +1 x binder lv. (topping at 1d8+10). the standard action is at will.. the full round action stops from using the ability for 5 rounds.
really? a standard action to heal a single hitpoint? or are we talking about drained ability scores here?

[Thurbane]

In regards to Healing Gift: yes, it is really 1 hit point/round. It is for OOC combat healing so you can top everyone up between battles. It's one of the best sources of unlimited OOC healing.

[dehro]

In regards to Healing Gift: yes, it is really 1 hit point/round. It is for OOC combat healing so you can top everyone up between battles. It's one of the best sources of unlimited OOC healing.

we're walking around with 130-200 hitpoints a piece.. there's 5 always at least 5 of us... if we're in a bad way after a battle, that's going to take a couple hours of ingame time... but yeah, I see your point.

in the meantime, I have chosen a devil-touched feat as my 15th level feat.. now I need to pick a feat from the binder bonus feats shortlist... and I'm having a hard time with it.