[3.5] Party trapfinder

[macdaddy]

I am GMing for a party in the Savage tide adventure path. The party needs a trap finder and a player is willing to do so. He is leaning towards strong heart halfling but doesn't know where to take the build, so it thinking basic Rogue.... I have never done much with the Rogue class myself, other than an ill-advised Ranger/Rogue build a long time ago, so I am not sure what advice to give him.

I am allowing Core, All Completes, Races of Stone, Races of the Wild, and obviously strong heart halfling from races of faerun. There is NO tome of battle, 3.0 material, or book of exalted/vile anything/

Given that, what would make a good trap-finder build that can contribute to the group in other ways?

[Ellowryn]

The real question is what he want's to do beyond that?

There are a few classes that get trapfinding base: rogue, scout, beguiler, and spellthief. And there are a couple classes that can get it as an ACF: ranger and barbarian. So you have several different bases to work with, it just matters what he wants to do besides find traps.

[macdaddy]

That's a good question.

It's a VERY large party:
Dwarf Barbarian (headed to Champion of Gwynharyf)
Human Duskblade
Goliath Barbarian
Human Druid
Human Warmage (headed to Rainbow Servant, and wherever he can pick up free domains)
Human Cloistered Cleric
Elf Mystic Ranger
Human Warlock

So, 3 fighters with the Druid being a 4th once he gets wild shape. 2 Ranged attackers (Ranger, Warlock), Then a cleric and warmage for "magic".

However he contributes will have to be fairly simple. I don't think he's ever played anything other than a fighter type. so giving him a boatload of spells and options may not be ideal...

[Ellowryn]

hrm, looking at your list of 'WOW thats alot of players' and i would suggest beguiler. It has a fixed list of very useful enchantment, conjuration, and illusion spells with the option to add a few more. Some of its class features are kinda meh to kinda bad but it gives the party some arcane utility that it lacks without overwhelming the poor guy with 1,280 different spells. Plus you could always tweak the class feature, or find fixes that others have made and tested, to give him more stuff.

[Frostthehero]

hrm, looking at your list of 'WOW thats alot of players' and i would suggest beguiler. It has a fixed list of very useful enchantment, conjuration, and illusion spells with the option to add a few more. Some of its class features are kinda meh to kinda bad but it gives the party some arcane utility that it lacks without overwhelming the poor guy with 1,280 different spells. Plus you could always tweak the class feature, or find fixes that others have made and tested, to give him more stuff.

I would argue for an arcane trickster. It's harder to build, and takes more time to get powerful, but a beguiler puts half of it's spells into enchantment, which really sucks. The illusion half is great, but the arcane trickster offers much more versatility, because they cast off of another classes spell list, and gain spells as appropriate. They also get sneak attacks, and the always fun ranged legerdemain. If he really wants to find (and hopefully disable) traps, that is a useful skill.
Beguiler has the nice ability to automatically overcome SR at level 20, but in my opinion the arcane trickster is a better, albeit more expensive and difficult class.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Beguiler/Wizard into Ultimate Magus, though he would want a race with the human subtype to be able to get Able Learner. Ultimate Magus's 1st, 4th, and 7th levels advance your spellcasting class with the lower caster level, so get Practiced Spellcaster: Beguiler by 5th level and you can put most of those toward Wizard. Alternatively, get a level of Spellthief with Master Spellthief and all your classes have equal caster levels, so all ten UM can go toward Wizard.

[Jeff the Green]

I would argue for an arcane trickster. It's harder to build, and takes more time to get powerful, but a beguiler puts half of it's spells into enchantment, which really sucks. The illusion half is great, but the arcane trickster offers much more versatility, because they cast off of another classes spell list, and gain spells as appropriate. They also get sneak attacks, and the always fun ranged legerdemain. If he really wants to find (and hopefully disable) traps, that is a useful skill.
Beguiler has the nice ability to automatically overcome SR at level 20, but in my opinion the arcane trickster is a better, albeit more expensive and difficult class.

Arcane Tricksters are a pain to build without losing more than two levels of casting, though. And the OP said he'd rather not dump a bunch of spells on him.

With those restrictions Beguiler's a very good option. It doesn't step on anyone's toes, it fills the role of skillmonkey, scout, face, and BFC which your party could probably use shoring up, and with its fixed list it doesn't require a lot of knowledge of spells. As you're below 5th level he only has to deal with cantrips and 1st- and 2nd-level spells.

I'd encourage you to give wide latitude with his illusions, at least until he gets his feet under him. My beguilers have used them to create a fog that his allies can see through (since he has a code to tell them it it's an illusion they automatically disbelieve), to create flanking buddies, to make illlusory trees to hide in, and a bunch of other cleverish things. All of those are legal (except the flanking buddies, possibly), but a beguiler doesn't work well if the DM tends to reflexively deny these sorts of tactics.

[Thurbane]

Beguiler and Factotum are both pretty much superior to straight Rogue. Beguiler can become really powerful with certain dips etc. to expand his spell list...

[Jeff the Green]

Beguiler can become really powerful with certain dips etc. to expand his spell list...

Even without it, Beguilers are top of tier 3, and more powerful than your average unoptimized sorcerer.

[macdaddy]

I had considered steering him towards Beguiler. However, I was a little worried about it.

1. If played property with charms/suggestion/domination, there are entire encounters he could just "blow up" or go around. Making the rest of the party feel useless and "ruining" some of the planned adventure. Just imagine Dominate Monster getting through on a Greater Demon! It's not the kind of spell most characters would carry, because its so hit or miss, but a 20th level beguiler would have 5 9th level spells available, so why not!

2. In some encounters, due to spell resistance, saves, immunity, he would feel quite useless.

I'll bring it up with him as an option. But, given his history of playing fighters, he may want to be halfling death. As a halfling rogue, I am guessing that being IN combat, isn't a great idea. So maybe some kind of thrower?

Maybe some kind of
-- Rogue,Swashbuckler,Whisper Knife,Master Thrower

I read about: Strongheart Halfling with Rogue 3 / Swashbuckler 3 / Master Thrower 5 / Whisperknife 9. Take the Halfling Rogue racial substitution from Races of the wild to give an extra d6 to ranged sneak attacks and get the Deadeye Shot feat to SA reliably.

But not sure what the level progression should be....
Any suggestions?


Then I can give him 2 options to choose from.

[Garktz]

I had considered steering him towards Beguiler. However, I was a little worried about it.

1. If played property with charms/suggestion/domination, there are entire encounters he could just "blow up" or go around. Making the rest of the party feel useless and "ruining" some of the planned adventure. Just imagine Dominate Monster getting through on a Greater Demon! It's not the kind of spell most characters would carry, because its so hit or miss, but a 20th level beguiler would have 5 9th level spells available, so why not!



Yoy already have a cloistered cleric and a druid, if your players want to break your campaing, they will...
Dont worry about that

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

I had considered steering him towards Beguiler. However, I was a little worried about it.

2. In some encounters, due to spell resistance, saves, immunity, he would feel quite useless.

Beguiler gets Glitterdust, and Haste, and plenty of other spells that can be of benefit regardless of SR.

[Ellowryn]

Yoy already have a cloistered cleric and a druid, if your players want to break your campaing, they will...
Dont worry about that

Ditto to this, plus at high enough level it is easy to become flat out immune to enchantment and there are entire creature types that ignore it as well. As Biffoniacus_Furiou the beguiler list has a surprisingly large number of really good utility spells without forcing you to choose through hundreds of other spells. And yes, there will always be some encounters where he is useless, just as there will be some where is close to godlike, as long as you the DM can give his a balance of this then he should not feel bad about the class.

[Tetraplex]

You didn't list dungeonscape as allowed, but I would consider it for Factotum. Limited casting (1 spell chosen per day at 3, I believe), with all kinds of goodies to contribute outside of trapfinding.