Binders, what are they good for?

[Pesimismrocks]

I've been trying to create a binder for a fairly mid op game, but I'm really quite confused at to their usefulness at lower levels. They seem to me to be a class based on a once per day shift of class features. Except that this is difficult to build on, as it punishes you for using various vestiges by having to use a larger portion of feats as well as making it difficult to apply ability scores. To me it seems to be a class based on versatility that sort of locks itself down until additional vestiges are gained. This could potentially be because I'm building him a 5th level, an area binder seems to struggle at.

My main question is what vestige should I be using primarily. I've heard good things about Paimon, but he seems to be a sort of minion slayer, I've heard good things about Malphus; He doesn't really seem to exceed at this level due to low damage, although he has strong utility.

I've also heard that Tenebrous is one of the strongest that there is. Why? is it down to turning giving him Dmm or access to divine might and such. His other abilities, one of which actively stops everyone in the party performing except you and another which while useful doesn't really make up for him. He also grants access to unlimited amouts of out of combat healing, but while he can dance around and keep people at full health without wasting spell slots he doesnt appear to go above and beyond, say Andras.

What are my best options at this level?

The party has 2 druids, a mounted knight and 2 undecided. I'd like to be a full binder going into KoSS

Any help is appreciated.

Edit: I'd prefer to go a more debuff/ ranged attacks than combat, but that seems unfeasible at this level

[Psyren]

Your party looks like it needs a face, Binder rocks that - just bind Naberius in towns. As for ranged attacks and debuffs at 5, just bind Focalor - spammable 3d6 lightning and a roughly 1/encounter fort save vs. Blind that you can use on an annoying caster or rogue right before the melee charges to paste it.

Binders are a bit annoying before that second vestige though, which is why I prefer Anima Mage so I have something else caster-y to do.

[Snowbluff]

Warlock/Anima Mage. :p

[The Viscount]

Your overall assessment is pretty much right. Binder is a bit difficult at low levels, and nearly everyone agrees that they should have given access to multiple vestiges earlier. In the meantime there is still much you can do.

First, and most importantly, are you taking Improved Binding? It is practically a must, because it unlocks vestiges faster. It'll mean access to 4ths, rather than 3rds. It will almost certainly be what you use your bonus feat on, unless you want to spend it on Ignore Special Requirements. I'd recommend taking both feats if you have the space, since it will save you some skill points and save you a headache with vestiges who don't like each other, or have inconvenient requirements like "in no light" or "in a city." In terms of other feats, Weapon Focus is the other one to get out of the way if you want to enter Knight of the Sacred Seal, which is a very popular choice.

Tenebrous is commonly cited as the most powerful vestige because of his limitless uses of turn/rebuke, and using them to power divine feats. Be warned though, that some would say you can only spend 1 use of turn/rebuke at a time, and so DMM is out in this case. The other abilities are largely unimportant. I'm not sure what you mean by "actively stops everyone in the party performing except you". Are you referring to deeper darkness? It isn't exactly great in battle, but if your party has the right spells up they can operate through it.

In terms of what to have as an all the time vestige, it depends heavily on what the rest of your party is doing. By the looks of it, you're currently lacking a face, which Naberius is outstanding at.

Malphas is useful because he's the only real stealth vestige you have for a while, but the bird is good utility. He becomes more useful once you get 2 vestiges, since Malphas's bird plus Savnok's Move Ally is a great means of getting you where you want (since you lack any real flight for almost all your levels).

Leraje isn't amazing, but she gives you bows

Focalor is a solid source of debuff and damage, he's the only vestige with an offensive ability that works every round (due to an oversight of it basing off of call lightning, but no-one's complaining:smallwink:)

Buer as you mentioned is a source of limitless healing, but also protects the party from poison. She's defensive only and not very glamorous, but again if you don't have some healing in the party it's filling that role 100%.

Kas is from Dragon Magazine, but whoever wrote him knew their stuff, so he's perfectly serviceable. He's only really useful against undead, but if your campaign focuses on them he's killer.

If you want more of a utility vestige, Karsus is your man. He has a number of abilities, but the real important one is using magic items as if a wizard of your binder level. As is your party lacks arcane magic, and it can be whatever you need. Obviously try to keep away from things where a save really makes it useless, but the boost to DCs helps with that.

[Psyren]

Focalor is a solid source of debuff and damage, he's the only vestige with an offensive ability that works every round (due to an oversight of it basing off of call lightning, but no-one's complaining:smallwink:)

Actually this isn't true - Geryon and Balam give you gaze attacks, which also function every round with no cooldown. Best of all, since they are gaze attacks you don't even need to use an action to "fire" them - every enemy looking at you has to save on their turn. This gives you 4d6 to all nearby enemy targets every round, including your primary target who is also trying to avoid Focalor's lightning on your turn for a total of 12d6 every round to one target at EBL 20. Not mindblowing by any means but it does ignore SR and immunity.

[Pluto!]

Level 4-7 are hard. I've tried my share of Binders, and I'm still not sure what I should be doing in combat during that gap.

I've had reasonable luck abusing a Sudden Stunning Weapon in a melee build (frankly, the rest of the build, beside high Charisma, didn't really matter), and I played archer once with just a few thousand gp again carrying the character, but neither was honestly all that outstanding.

[Segev]

If you're really, truly at a loss, Karsus + battlefield control wands are probably your best bet. It's a little pricey, but it will let you do the most party-friendly version of the "god wizard" build for the time you have to wait until you can bind two vestiges at once and be otherwise more versatile.

Warlock + Anima Mage can also really work out well, if you don't mind the FURTHER delay on your 2nd vestige, because the warlock invocation(s) plus the eldrich blast does a lot to give you some consistency to fall back upon. Also, I could be wrong, but Anima Mage might be a way to cheat Hellfire Warlock to higher effective level, and you're already a binder so Nabarius is a great bargain for the Hellfire Blast's costs.

[Psyren]

Karsus is an okay choice IF you're in a reasonably high-wealth/magic-mart campaign and you can acquire the wands to make him useful. Even then though, his +2 DC to wands is nothing to write home about and you're best off sticking with no-save spells if possible.

My personal low-level choice is Dahlver-Nar. The natural armor bonus is very helpful early on (and increases if you quaff a bear's endurance potion, effectively turning all of those potions into mini-barkskin potions as well), and his sign is easy to hide (wear a hat). His cooldown ability is pretty useful, and you can gish/tank even better with his share damage ability, which is spammable (either used on your enemy for additional dpr, or on a throwaway minion like a summon who was ordered to fail their save for additional toughness.) His influence is also easy to deal with for binders, who rarely if ever need to concentrate.

For a "caster" binder, Focalor is indeed tough to beat, as 3d6 energy damage at level 3 is pretty much the gold standard, plus yours ignores SR/immunity, plus you have a 1/round blind, and you effectively have +2 AC because any enemies that get into melee range take -2 to hit you. His sign is also pretty benign, but his influence is a little more painful however as it can cost you actions/DPR in a fight. The constant water-breathing is just icing.

[Pesimismrocks]

Thanks for the help. I'll grab a stunning weapon. The problem with Karsus is that due to campaign fluff, it sounds like magic item support will be rare and varied, and arcane casters are existant but distrusted by the party's homeland. Ithink that I'll bind Focalor until level 8, takesome generic feats amd see how it goes from there.

Thanks for the help