Good Classes/Builds for Efreeti?

[HolyCouncilMagi]

I'm houseruling the Pathfinder monstrous PC rules over to 3.5 for a carryover FF campaign. For a quick reference, the Pathfinder rules are such: The monster has a base ECL equal to its CR, with all the benefits of all its HD even if it has more HD than the new ECL; and they get an extra class level every three levels a number of times equal to half its CR rounded down. This extra level should be given between the second and third levels everyone else gets. Their example is a Minotaur, which has 6 HD and a CR of 4, which would get two class levels if it joined a 6th-level group, and would gain two class levels by the time everyone else got to level 7, bringing it up to [class] 4 while everyone else is [other class] 7, and this would happen one more time, between levels 9 and 10.

The party level is 12, with two Efreeti party members. Efreeti are CR 8. That means the Efreeti will have five class levels each at this point. You may notice the potential abuse of Efreeti being able to grant non-genies three Wishes per day at no cost, but don't worry about that; it's been taken care of in-universe, and won't be an issue.

The other two party members are: a human Paladin 5/Occult Slayer 5/homebrewed Pious Templar variant (focused more on anti-magic than peity and stacking with the Paladin features rather than replacing them) 2, with Charging Paladin ACF and a carry-over plot item that gives her various shadow-themed abilities and some boosts to her charging and smiting abilities; and a human ghost Fighter 2/Sorceress 4/Spellsword 5 (houseruled to full casting progression) with Ghostly Grasp. As you can see, nobody's really optimized in any fashion.

So... What classes/builds would be good for the Efreeti to be able to contribute effectively alongside the other party members presented? I was thinking one could go the Cleric route, and maybe the other would go a sort of "skillmonkey beatstick" route, though I don't know how one would build those. What would you guys recommend doing with the Efreeti?

[Flickerdart]

Cleric's not likely to do you much good, as you are seven levels behind. Half-decent Wisdom means that an ardent would not be a bad choice though, using their quirky manifesting to put some of those dead Outsider HDs to good use. Also consider that you could just jump right into a prestige class; if you want to be a caster then Ur-Priest (or Divine Crusader if you're not into being evil) is a good choice.

Your SLAs kinda suck, and without wish there's not much going for the race, but there's a cool advantage - between your Change Shape ability and Change Size, you can become Tiny or Huge. Change Size also lets you cherry-pick extraordinary attacks like a giant's Rock Throwing (2d6+STR damage at 600 feet is no joke), a troll's Rend, or a troglodyte's Stench. So a class that wants either high Strength and large size, or a very small size, would benefit. You can't go wrong with rogues or fighters!

Oddly enough, halflings list "halfling traits" as a Special Attack in their monster entry, at least on the SRD. So uh, good luck figuring that one out.

[HolyCouncilMagi]

Well, the character's getting point-buy with Efreeti racial mods, so middling Wisdom doesn't have to stay middling, though it's nothing like that Strength.

Ah, Ur-Priest, multi-purposed in so many ways. It can be used to broken effect in a high-OP game, and help a Divine caster who's behind play catch-up! And sometimes it's not even a PrC, but a forum member with great advice :smalltongue:

Though Ardent is looking like a pretty neat idea too. Not something I've ever worked with before, but definitely a cool option.