Any input on what the Dread from DSP can do?

[Deadkitten]

So one of my players wants to play a dread in an upcoming game. I looked at the class and it should be fine to use.

I was wondering though, what is the class capable of when sufficiently optimized?

I haven't found any handbooks for the class so I was just curious about its capabilities in the event I have to plan accordingly.

[Anlashok]

At its basic level, the dread isn't very scary (no pun). It's a gish, but its manifesting is asynergistic (contrast: PsiWar buffs itself and then attacks, Magus can attack and cast spells at the same time. Dread has offensive spells and attacks and nothing to bring the two together).

Levels 1-2 the class is a pretty mediocre package. Decent debuffing and decent damage, but lacks the control of a proper spellcaster or the killing power of a proper melee.

Level 3 lets you terror with your weapons, which helps and more importantly lets you break fear immunity. Which would be the most awesome ability ever, except DPS decided to pull a Paizo and require you to spend a feat for it to work on undead (aka the main thing you run into that's immune to fear).

From then on, you're pretty mediocre. Not bad, but you don't have a lot of punch behind anything you do and, like I said, there's no synergy between your mechanics.

Then you hit level 11.

At level 11 you get a class feature called Shade Twin and Twin Fear. Now every time something within 30 feet of you has any fear effect on them (and since you took that feat tax earlier that should be every single round but the first) you're now playing two characters at once.

The class' overall package is pretty meh. Limited target debuffing isn't a strong playstyle and for some reason the Dread has no mechanical synergy between any of its effects. Except the level 11 feature jumps you from eh to amazing.