Looking for a fun PrC

[tgva8889]

Hello all. I've come to ask for your help.

I've decided to expand my horizons a bit when it comes to D&D. I'm not the biggest of optimizers, but I do try to make my character good at doing what I want them to do. However, the one thing I've never tried to do is play a Prestige Class. I've been looking at a few, but there's just so many and looking for descriptions on PrCs online often leads to handbooks that demonstrate how to break them in half, which isn't exactly what I'm trying to do. I want to be good, but not game-changing. I played a full-class battlefield control Wizard once as the only tier 1 character, and I accidentally broke several parts of a campaign. (We weren't supposed to be able to Scry & Die the way we were, which ruined some things. Also I accidentally recruited a BBEG to our side as a mook.)

So here's what I'd like to ask for: Can anyone suggest to me a build or Prestige Class which meets the following criteria?

Probably equivalent with a moderately well-built Tier 3 class. My friends aren't heavy optimizers, but they'll try to do good things most of the time, so I may as well be with them.
Uses any number of prestige classes
Comes to its own somewhere in the lower or mid levels, I'd say around ECL 10-13. We tend to start play around level 5, which often doesn't mean prestige classes are a thing for a while.
Preferably, allows my character to do something that couldn't be easily replicated by a full base-class character with interesting feat/spell/skill selection of Tier 3 or below.
Limited early entry. 2nd level entry is just too ridiculous, but something like 5th level entry might fly, depending on the prestige class combination
No flaws. They're not guaranteed in the games I play, so I'd prefer a build that didn't depend on them to be reasonable.


The available books include the the three core rulebooks, Complete series, PHB2, Book of 9 Swords, Tome of Magic, Dragon Magic, Races of the Dragon and the Draconomicon. Psionics is disallowed since none of the players are familiar enough with it to know how the rules work. If a race, feat, spell, or item is in one of these books, there's a chance I'll be able to convince my DM to allow it, since I have these books in print. Also if items are relevant, I have the Magic Item Compendium.

No limits to a specific party role, though I'd appreciate if you suggested a build/class to look at that you help me figure out what role I should be trying to play. Online supplements are not confirmed, so I'd prefer to avoid characters dependent on them to function. If any such sources would be really helpful for a particular build, though, I'd appreciate if you could provide the source so I can attempt to find it and maybe convince my DM to allow it. I'd assume RAW for the most part, though if it requires a rule that seems to go against RAI or at least might raise some questions, please point that out in case I have to discuss rulings with my DM.

[Hiro Quester]

A swiftblade is a fun PrC, though web-based. Haste personified. http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/prc/20070327

A fun concept I have always wanted to build would be a Yoda like kobold swiftblade. Elderly, with natural magical abilities, and incredible speed in melee when roused.

Max out cha and dex.
Venerable Dragonwrought (is dragon type, not humanoid, so ignores aging penalties, gets +3 to all mental stats, by being venerable age)
Desert Kobold (-2 wis instead of -2 Con)
Perform Greater Draconic Rite of Passage as soon as you have 6HD, to regain lost sorcerer caster level and get +2 Cha.

Overall this gives you -4 STR, +2 DEX, +3 INT, +1 WIS, +5 CHA for a feat and 1000gp, a few days fasting and a DC 20 concentration check.

Something like this:

1 Dragon Heritage Kobold Paragon
1 sorcerer
2 kobold paragon
2 sorcerer
9-10 Swiftblade/
4-5 Abjurant Champion/
10th level of swiftblade means you get an awesome free action time stop, but don't get 9th level spells. But the swiftblade 10 capstone is IMHO better than regular time stop, because you control the duration.

For optimal synergy, get slippers of battle dancing, for CHA to attack and damage when you move 10 feet, which swiftblade enables you to do.

For max Yoda flavor, use a brilliant energy longsword.

Much of the non-swiftblade part of this (dragonwrought, kobold paragon, rite) is from Races of the Dragon.

[Extra Anchovies]

Druid 5, Wildshape Ranger 5, or Wild Monk (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=6897.0) 6 into Master of Many Forms is pretty great.

[tgva8889]

Hiro Quester, I opened my copy of Races of the Dragon and didn't find a lot of things you mentioned. Specifically the Kobold Paragon levels and the Greater Draconic Rite of Passage. There's a regular one, but no Greater version that has effects that you describe. Also, where is the Desert Kobold from?

Master of Many Forms looks quite amusing, though it will require me to research many alternate forms.

[Hiro Quester]

Sorry, those are from a set of web enhancements to ROTD that wizards published.
Kobold paragon is in the first part:
http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060127a

The greater rite is here, in the second part: http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060420a

Desert Kobold is originally from Unearthed Arcana, but it's also in SRD: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/environmentalRacialVariants.htm#desertKobolds

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

While psionic manifesting classes may be banned due to unfamiliarity with the rules (the only important one is that you can't spend more powerpoints on a power than your total manifester level for that power), what about psionic classes that don't manifest powers? The Soulbow (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20060403a&page=2) gets a very unique ability unlike any other base class or prestige class, and you qualify via Soulknife (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/classes/soulknife.htm) which is also fairly unique. Each of those classes do exactly what they say on the tin, nothing really complicated considering you only want two Soulknife levels.

If that would be available, go Unarmed Swordsage 2/ Soulknife 2/ Unarmed Swordsage 1/ Soulbow 1+, and grab another Swordsage level every so often whenever your initiator level would be high enough to get a desired maneuver or stance. Use two-weapon fighting with the Mind Arrows, and get the Lucky (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/items/weapons.htm#lucky) property on them so every arrow gets a second chance to hit if it misses. Pick maneuvers and stances that will add utility and defense, such as the Shadow Hand teleports and Dance of the Spider (or just begin play with Up The Walls (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#upTheWalls)), the Setting Sun counters like Counter Charge, and the Tiger Claw mongoose boosts. Whisper Gnome (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20040807a&page=3) would be a good choice of race for this character, especially if you max out Hide and Move Silently.

[tgva8889]

Oooh, the Soulbow is cool, and being in an online excerpt would make it easier to convince my DM to let me try it. I am familiar enough with the Soulknife in particular to consider it, and I was looking at the Soulknife earlier and wishing that playing one wouldn't make me sad. (Why don't they get decent BAB? Why is their main class feature often worse than just buying a magic (or psionic) weapon?) The Soulbow looks like it adds enough options to the class to make the concept of creating weapons with my mind actually do something cool. Your suggestion of using the Whisper Gnome might be somewhat problematic if my DM uses multiclassing rules, but perhaps I could find some way to make the whole thing work. I'm certainly interested enough.

Does the Warlock have any reasonable prestige class options? Or is there anything psionically oriented I should reconsider? I was looking at that class earlier and it looked potentially interesting, and it's possible my party might ask me to play a caster, since of the group I might be the one least afraid to delve into some manuals and find some interesting spells to cast.

[Sagetim]

Hello all. I've come to ask for your help.

I've decided to expand my horizons a bit when it comes to D&D. I'm not the biggest of optimizers, but I do try to make my character good at doing what I want them to do. However, the one thing I've never tried to do is play a Prestige Class. I've been looking at a few, but there's just so many and looking for descriptions on PrCs online often leads to handbooks that demonstrate how to break them in half, which isn't exactly what I'm trying to do. I want to be good, but not game-changing. I played a full-class battlefield control Wizard once as the only tier 1 character, and I accidentally broke several parts of a campaign. (We weren't supposed to be able to Scry & Die the way we were, which ruined some things. Also I accidentally recruited a BBEG to our side as a mook.)

So here's what I'd like to ask for: Can anyone suggest to me a build or Prestige Class which meets the following criteria?

Probably equivalent with a moderately well-built Tier 3 class. My friends aren't heavy optimizers, but they'll try to do good things most of the time, so I may as well be with them.
Uses any number of prestige classes
Comes to its own somewhere in the lower or mid levels, I'd say around ECL 10-13. We tend to start play around level 5, which often doesn't mean prestige classes are a thing for a while.
Preferably, allows my character to do something that couldn't be easily replicated by a full base-class character with interesting feat/spell/skill selection of Tier 3 or below.
Limited early entry. 2nd level entry is just too ridiculous, but something like 5th level entry might fly, depending on the prestige class combination
No flaws. They're not guaranteed in the games I play, so I'd prefer a build that didn't depend on them to be reasonable.


The available books include the the three core rulebooks, Complete series, PHB2, Book of 9 Swords, Tome of Magic, Dragon Magic, Races of the Dragon and the Draconomicon. Psionics is disallowed since none of the players are familiar enough with it to know how the rules work. If a race, feat, spell, or item is in one of these books, there's a chance I'll be able to convince my DM to allow it, since I have these books in print. Also if items are relevant, I have the Magic Item Compendium.

No limits to a specific party role, though I'd appreciate if you suggested a build/class to look at that you help me figure out what role I should be trying to play. Online supplements are not confirmed, so I'd prefer to avoid characters dependent on them to function. If any such sources would be really helpful for a particular build, though, I'd appreciate if you could provide the source so I can attempt to find it and maybe convince my DM to allow it. I'd assume RAW for the most part, though if it requires a rule that seems to go against RAI or at least might raise some questions, please point that out in case I have to discuss rulings with my DM.

Just for fun stuff to do, I would suggest Binder 3/Wizard 3/Anima Mage. It's like mystic theurge, but for Binders and arcanists. I suggest this because the Binder is a spiffy class with the ability to swap out sets of abilities in the form of it's vestiges, and you've already stated that you have proficiency with wizards. This build would slow down your arcane casting a little, which is good because it would delay the whole 'scry and die' thing that became a problem in the previous campaign. This build also gets you access to supernatural abilities, which, as I recall, ignore spell resistance.

By having 3 levels of binder you get a little more base attack bonus (it's a 3/4th bab class) and you get the very useful 'supress sign' ability from binder level 2. Which means you don't have to wander around with horns showing while you have Amon bound, for example. Anima Mage, as a prestige class, has a few neat tricks to exploit your bound vestiges for boosts to arcane power. Downsides include 'must be nongood' and the fact that you're being a **** to your vestiges if you use a number of the anima mage's abilities. The capstone, however, is freaking amazing. Once per day cast any spell you have prepared as an immediate action. That just isn't replicatable. Quicken spell doesn't even hold a candle to that, because this ability has no limit on the normal casting time of the spell. You could immediate action a simulacrum out (which normally takes 12 hours to cast). And since it's an immediate action, you can use it to interrupt someone else's turn. Like...with a finger of death.

The only requirements are 4 ranks of knowledge (the planes), 4 ranks of intimidate, and any metamagic feat. The rest are filled out by getting 3 binder and 3 wizard (you can speed up entry by taking improved binding as a feat, letting you bind 2nd level vestiges with only 1 binder level, but that second binder level has a really helpful class ability) You might want improved binding anyway, since it helps you get earlier access to vestiges.

As an aside: If no one knows how psionics works, they aren't going to learn how it works without Someone playing a psionic class. That's a helluva catch 22, and the only way I broke it in my group was by wearing the DM down by asking to play a psychic every time we started a new game until he relented and let me play a Soulknife (the dm in question hates full casters, so full manifesters were off the table too).

edit: The Soulknife has a medium base attack bonus, but there's a reason to keep pumping soulknife and it's prestige classes up instead of dropping in unarmed sword sage or what have you: The Enhancement Bonus From The Mindblade Adds To Your BAB. This means that a soulknife has, if not a full bab, pretty close to one while using their mind blade/mind arrow. It also means that the enhancement bonus applies twice, once to raising your bab, and once as an enhancement bonus to hit.

I don't know if lucky is on the whitelist for soulbow's abilities. Both the mindblade and mindarrow have a specific list of abilities that you can pick from. I know that in my run of the class, I went Soulknife/Illumine Soul/Soulbow and could wreck some undead face. The build was based around having a high wisdom and abusing it by using zen archery and the mind arrow to get ranged attacks that operate off of his wisdom for both to hit and damage.

Illumine soul gets you Bane (undead) on your mind weaponry for free as one of it's abilities. And at 5th level (it's maximum) the capstone is that you can expend your psionic focus to hit all undead within 30ft for 10d6 positive energy damage (will save for half, dc is charisma based). It also gets Death Ward whenever you expend your focus. This is why my soulknife build for that had psychic meditation and psionic shot and greater psionic shot: so he could refresh death ward within a round if it happened to go down or get dispelled.

[tgva8889]

My understanding of Anima Mage was that it was gonna be more complex and potentially more broken than a full-class Wizard due to all the various abilities it grants. Not sure if that's exactly what I'm looking for, but the Theurge classes always looked like a way to play some sort of caster without rushing the best spell levels, so I have to get more creative.


As an aside: If no one knows how psionics works, they aren't going to learn how it works without Someone playing a psionic class. That's a helluva catch 22, and the only way I broke it in my group was by wearing the DM down by asking to play a psychic every time we started a new game until he relented and let me play a Soulknife (the dm in question hates full casters, so full manifesters were off the table too).

edit: The Soulknife has a medium base attack bonus, but there's a reason to keep pumping soulknife and it's prestige classes up instead of dropping in unarmed sword sage or what have you: The Enhancement Bonus From The Mindblade Adds To Your BAB. This means that a soulknife has, if not a full bab, pretty close to one while using their mind blade/mind arrow. It also means that the enhancement bonus applies twice, once to raising your bab, and once as an enhancement bonus to hit.

I don't know if lucky is on the whitelist for soulbow's abilities. Both the mindblade and mindarrow have a specific list of abilities that you can pick from. I know that in my run of the class, I went Soulknife/Illumine Soul/Soulbow and could wreck some undead face. The build was based around having a high wisdom and abusing it by using zen archery and the mind arrow to get ranged attacks that operate off of his wisdom for both to hit and damage.

Illumine soul gets you Bane (undead) on your mind weaponry for free as one of it's abilities. And at 5th level (it's maximum) the capstone is that you can expend your psionic focus to hit all undead within 30ft for 10d6 positive energy damage (will save for half, dc is charisma based). It also gets Death Ward whenever you expend your focus. This is why my soulknife build for that had psychic meditation and psionic shot and greater psionic shot: so he could refresh death ward within a round if it happened to go down or get dispelled.

Yeah, I look into psionics every now and again just to see if I'm missing anything or if there's anything I'd really like to do. The Psychic Warrior looks like it could be fun someday as a different sort of fighty-type. Psions from what I understood were the wizard/sorcerer of psionics. I was never quite sure what the Wilder was trying to do. I know if I try psionics once I'll get a better feel for them, but I'm always afraid of really slowing the game down due to my ineptitude.

Soulbow sounds like a really interesting option to consider, though. I'll definitely keep it in mind, since the most important parts (the Soulknife and the Soulbow) are really easy to show my DM since they're online, and neither one really seems to do anything too gamebreaking. The Soulknife was the class I really wanted to make work with Psionics, so this seems like the class to do it with.

[Troacctid]

Warlocks have some decent prestige options, but a lot of the coolest ones are outside your sources. Eldritch Theurge and Eldritch Disciple are good if you're starting at a high level, although they can be awkward at early-mid levels. Virtuoso works decently as sort of a Warlock-Bard hybrid. Unseen Seer is awkward to qualify for (probably costing you two caster levels), but can work okay on a skirmishing or sneak attacking build. Paragnostic Apostle is solid, but boring, as is Hellfire Warlock (available online).

There are also a bunch of sweet ones like Stormsinger, Demonbinder, Urban Savant, and Sentinel of Bharrai, but they're from other books.

[Sagetim]

I don't know about available online, but for book sources: Soulknife is in the expanded psionics handbook, Illumine Soul and Soulbow are both in Complete Psionics. Feats you'll probably want to pick up include: Psychic Meditation, Psionic Shot and Greater Psionic Shot from Expanded Psionics Handbook. Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Far Shot, Rapid Shot, and Improved Rapid Shot also help (Player's Handbook, then Complete Warrior for Improved Rapid Shot).

And while I went bow and board on my soulknife, you Can dual wield with mind arrows because they only require one hand to use. This would mean you're not using a shield in your other hand though...so...your AC will suffer. The other downside to trying to two weapon fight with a soulbow is that you would need to have both good dex and good wisdom if you wanted your damage bonus to be consistently good.

An (apparently often) overlooked feat from expanded psionics is Greater Many Shot. If you're going just soulknife/soulbow it's not super useful...but if you've got some sources of precision damage (such as Assassin's Stance, rogue levels, ninja levels, etc) you can shotgun things by using that feat. It's a general feat in the expanded psionics book.

[Nifft]

My understanding of Anima Mage was that it was gonna be more complex and potentially more broken than a full-class Wizard due to all the various abilities it grants. Not sure if that's exactly what I'm looking for, but the Theurge classes always looked like a way to play some sort of caster without rushing the best spell levels, so I have to get more creative.

Anima Mage is fantastic, I highly recommend it.

The no-cheese optimal entry is Binder 1 (take Improved Binding) / Wizard 3 / Anima Mage 1 at character level 5. It's non-cheese because you want Improved Binding as a regular Binder. That said, it's got a lot of Wizard in it, so it's not necessarily T3.

On the subject of Binder, have you played a regular Binder? They're great fun, and quite at home in a T3 (or otherwise unoptimized) party.

- - -

A PrC which can't be easily replicated... Chameleon from Races of Destiny leaps to mind. (Available online here (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20041210b).)

Build is either Human or Changeling
1: Rogue (with Changeling racial sub level if available) - take Able Learner
2: Rogue
3: Cloistered Cleric - take Practiced Spellcaster (Cloistered Cleric)
4: Rogue
5: Rogue
6+ Chameleon

The reason you have the Cleric level is to give your Chameleon bonus feat more uses. With the +4 caster levels from Practiced Spellcaster, you qualify for a lot of item creation feats. With the Turn Undead attempts, you get a lot of utility from Domain feats.

[tgva8889]

On the subject of Binder, have you played a regular Binder? They're great fun, and quite at home in a T3 (or otherwise unoptimized) party.

I've done some research into Binders, actually. Seemed very cool! I really want to play one in a campaign sometime. Alas, this is not that time quite yet.


A PrC which can't be easily replicated... Chameleon from Races of Destiny leaps to mind. (Available online here (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/iw/20041210b).)

I have heard tales of the Chameleon. Looks pretty fun! Quite the pool of options available; I suppose that is their shtick, after all.

By the way, thank you everyone who's offered ideas. Certainly given me a lot to think about with prestige classes! A whole new world of gameplay has opened up to me.

[PaucaTerrorem]

Changeling Warshaper. Always wanted to do it but no DM I've played with allows ebbed on material.

[torrasque666]

edit: The Soulknife has a medium base attack bonus, but there's a reason to keep pumping soulknife and it's prestige classes up instead of dropping in unarmed sword sage or what have you: The Enhancement Bonus From The Mindblade Adds To Your BAB. This means that a soulknife has, if not a full bab, pretty close to one while using their mind blade/mind arrow. It also means that the enhancement bonus applies twice, once to raising your bab, and once as an enhancement bonus to hit.

Can I get a source on this statement? Specifically the claim that it would apply twice, rather than just as an enhancement bonus to hit.

[Sagetim]

Can I get a source on this statement? Specifically the claim that it would apply twice, rather than just as an enhancement bonus to hit.

That it would apply twice is a logical extrapolation of rules as written. It is a weapon with an enhancement bonus, so you get the bonus to hit from that. It is a mind blade enhancement bonus, so that number is applied to your BAB when attacking with it. Thus it 'applies twice'. I don't think this is outright stated, but it fits into the logic of how the rules work.
-------
I looked through soulknife, illumine soul, and soulbow and found this from Soulbow:

Your mind arrows improve as you gain higher levels. At
3rd level, a mind arrow gains a +1 enhancement bonus on
attack rolls and damage rolls, and at 7th level the bonus
improves to +2. These enhancement bonuses stack with
previous enhancement bonuses gained earlier for your
soulknife class levels. Likewise, these enhancement
bonuses also improve your soulknife base attack bonus.
If your return to your soulknife class progression, these
mind arrow enhancement bonuses on attack and damage
are cumulative bonuses on top of any new enhancement
bonuses gained, and they benefit both your mind blade
and mind arrows.

So I may have been misreading it, and it may be that it only applies the soulbow's enhancement bonus to your BAB instead of applying the mindblade's total enhancement bonus to hit. It's just...a really odd little thing. It would make sense and not unbalance things for all mindblade enhancement bonuses to apply to the base attack bonus for a soulknife and it's prestige classes. After all, none of them have a full bab. Let me give an example to clarify:

If you went full soulknife 20, and this little part of soulbow was taken as a poorly written update to all mindblade enhancement bonuses applying to the bab, then the soulknife's bab with their soulknife comes out to exactly a full bab. And while the enhancement bonus would technically 'apply twice' it wouldn't bring the person's attack any higher than a fighter with a weapon of equivalent enhancement bonus to hit and damage.

If, however, you went soulknife 10/Soulbow 10, your BAB would only come out to 18 while wielding your mindarrow/mindblade, and 14 while using anything else. Because soulbow only goes up to a +2 to hit and damage, and 10 levels of soulknife only goes up to a +2 to hit and damage (for a total of +4 to hit and damage).

If you went Soulknife 5/Illumine Soul 5/Soulbow 10 you would actually exacerbate the problem further. 3 bab from soulknife 3 bab from illumine and 7 from soulbow gets you 13 bab. And you still only get a total of +4 enhancement bonus to hit and damage, which would result in a +17 bab for mindblade/mind arrow.

So I think these examples show why I may have mentally retconned the rules to making more sense in my head ^^;

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Oooh, the Soulbow is cool, and being in an online excerpt would make it easier to convince my DM to let me try it. I am familiar enough with the Soulknife in particular to consider it, and I was looking at the Soulknife earlier and wishing that playing one wouldn't make me sad. (Why don't they get decent BAB? Why is their main class feature often worse than just buying a magic (or psionic) weapon?) The Soulbow looks like it adds enough options to the class to make the concept of creating weapons with my mind actually do something cool. Your suggestion of using the Whisper Gnome might be somewhat problematic if my DM uses multiclassing rules, but perhaps I could find some way to make the whole thing work. I'm certainly interested enough.

Does the Warlock have any reasonable prestige class options? Or is there anything psionically oriented I should reconsider? I was looking at that class earlier and it looked potentially interesting, and it's possible my party might ask me to play a caster, since of the group I might be the one least afraid to delve into some manuals and find some interesting spells to cast.

Favored class wouldn't even come into play with that build until you took your fourth Swordsage level, since prestige classes never count, so you could just take all ten Soulbow levels and not even worry about it until the game goes past 15th level. Otherwise you would want to use a race with either Soulknife or Swordsage as the favored class, which seriously narrows down your options. Xephs (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicRaces.htm#xephs) get Soulknife as a favored class, but (Silverbrow) Human would probably be the better choice. Underfolk in Races of Destiny get some decent stealth abilities, but that's not in your list of books and it's not available online.

Warlock doesn't have any great prestige class choices, sadly enough. Hellfire Warlock in FCII is good if you use a trick to mitigate the impact of the Con damage it deals every time you use Eldritch Blast. Enlightened Spirit in CM is only usable if you make a gestalt character and take it with Warlock levels. Eldritch Disciple and Eldritch Theurge can be useful, but only because you're adding Tier 1 spellcasting to your Warlock. Classes that advance an arcane spellcasting class can be used to advance Warlock invocations and eldritch blast, such as Unseen Seer and Abjurant Champion.

[tgva8889]

Does the Warlock get anything useful to do with the Abjurant Champion class features? I don't recall Warlocks getting any invocations that created vaguely force-like effects besides the force of an eldritch blast to the face, which I didn't think was actually force damage.

Humans, always making multiclass combinations possible/not cost XP for those DMs who remember there are rules for that sort of thing. The Whisper Gnome thing does look appealing, I was just trying to figure out how to get it to work without getting XP penalties.

[marphod]

Does the Warlock get anything useful to do with the Abjurant Champion class features? I don't recall Warlocks getting any invocations that created vaguely force-like effects besides the force of an eldritch blast to the face, which I didn't think was actually force damage.

Nope; nor do they qualify. (Requires casting 1st level arcane spells, rather than an arcane caster level of 1.)

[ericgrau]

Here are a list of T3 things to play in the future but I've never got the chance to:



Bard / shadowdancer, darkness, haste, wand of empowered ray of enfeeblement, strength debuffer
Hasted shadow companion also debuffs strength, scouts ahead, weakens foes that have trouble hitting incorporeal before the rest of the party comes in
Needs ~level 10 to come online, but before that point you're a bard

Unicorn based caster. Probably druid/wizard theurge (I think there's a druid PrC for this).
Summon nature's ally, melf's unicorn arrow, mount, phantom steed, unicorn cohort w/ class levels (also summons unicorns), etc.
Can probably pull a lot of fluff from my little pony, or talk about rainbows and such
Nixie bard or rogue X "magician"
Claims to be a magician, actually relies on items
high cha, UMD utility hundreds of scrolls and wands from all class lists, sleight of hand
illusions for basic combat spells (no save if not examined or interacted with)
eventually staffs
handy haversack to draw proper scroll / wand
eventually a glove of storing (10k) to store old items as a free action rather than dropping
Similarly or part of the same concept as above
Every cheap wondrous item imagineable for even more utility
There are awesome combat wondrous items too at all levels: Pipes of the sewer, dust of disappearance, ring of the ram, rod of wonder, rod of the python
Higher levels get several immovable rods for all kinds of shennanigans
Very high level spam contraptions that drop a portable hole into a bag of holding upon impact
Etc. for a hundred other items. Scour the books.
Consider leadershipping a crafter

Aasimar eldritch knight
Self polymorph into angels thanks to outsider type, outsider also grants martial weapon proficiency
There is a LA 0 race that does this better since it's also outsider, but I forget what it's called. Google?
Child with angel blood who changes into angels similar to the half-Esper Terra from final fantasy.
Child acts like he's a stereotype Saturday morning superhero whenever he transforms.

Dual wand wielder
[empowered] ray of enfeeblement, web, sleet storm, invisibility, haste
eldritch knight most likely, otherwise practiced spellcaster and buy the wands



I want to play the magician so bad, but it's not easy to plan. You have to read MIC cover to cover and the entire magic item section of the DMG. Or at least the wondrous item and ring parts. Plus all the 1st-2nd level spells in the PHB and spell compendium for 100 different utiltiy scrolls and wands.

EDIT: Ooops I thought you said "PC". Oh well. Um, I suppose most of the above use PrCs too. Abjurant champion is an alternative to eldritch knight in the above.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Does the Warlock get anything useful to do with the Abjurant Champion class features? I don't recall Warlocks getting any invocations that created vaguely force-like effects besides the force of an eldritch blast to the face, which I didn't think was actually force damage.

Nope; nor do they qualify. (Requires casting 1st level arcane spells, rather than an arcane caster level of 1.)

Non-multiclassed Warlocks can't qualify for most of the prestige classes that can advance its abilities, I was just naming a few example classes. You can't qualify for Unseen Seer without multiclassing either, but it's still worth considering if you're making that type of character.

[Socratov]

while not exactly a weird build I'd like to propose warlock 6/Dread necromancer 14. this way you get to be a warlock (which is funny), get to make better undead (which is nice), you don't get too powerful (up to 7th level spells?) and lots of flavour.

Also, the best, hands-down, prestige class for warlock is Hellfire Warlock, provided you are able to nab (hehe) 1 lvl of Binder for Naberius. A must for any Warlock build (except for E6 necro's)

[Silva Stormrage]

Druid 5, Wildshape Ranger 5, or Wild Monk (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=6897.0) 6 into Master of Many Forms is pretty great.

Seconding this, master of many forms is really fun to play.