3.5e New player in the group, want some advice

[BloodSnake'sCha]

Hello guys :)

I have a new player join my game and I want to help her make her first PC.

She want to play an Elf Witch. I think that Beguiler will fit because he focuses on Enchantment and Illusion(I think, I am away from home for a few days and I don't have the class spell list with me).
(My first idea was Dread Necromancer but she don't want necromancy)

We are playing with LA+1 so I will like to get your advice for a Elf sun-race or a template for her(something simple, there is no need to confused her with cool race abilities).

I will like your advice on enemies I should avoid in order to not make her useless(I do know it is hard to be useless with hast in the list).

The party is:
Half-Minotaur Fighter 3/ Barbarian 2(A regular Charger(not UberCharger))
Draconic Elan Erudit 5(Blasting and little BFC)
Draconic Tabbit Dragonfire Adept 3/ cleric 1/ Eldritch Disciple 1(BFC) (I allow some cheese so it is possible)

[Covenant12]

I think Beguiler/DN/Warmage are excellent choices for a first PC. Many options and not as easy to screw up as wizard/sorceror. You have a blaster so Warmage is especially unwise, no necromancy so Beguiler, and I think that suits some versions of witch very well.

An elf with +2 int (grey elf core, sun elf forgotten realms) is quite solid. You don't look to have a skill monkey so let her shine there 1-2 times a session. Glitterdust and haste alone she will never be a bad teammate, and if something like knock is truly needed she has it already.

Oozes are an achilles' heel for beguilers, immune everything and may not need to even see for glitterdust. Undead and constructs follow up with immune to many spells. She doesn't need to dominate every encounter, but a healthy sampling of humanoids would be good. Glitterdust is SR:No, so anything that can see (and doesn't have blindsight/tremorsense) makes that a combat rebalancing spell.

For LA +1 Dark creature could be excellent for an evil-ish feeling witch, not seeing much other templates that feel appropriate.

Basically I approve, should be a solid char and good fit with the party.

[Malroth]

Give her Arcane Disciple for either the cold, storm or fire domains and a related reserve feat for an at will damaging power good against things immune to the beguilers normal tricks.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

For the +1 LA, a Quasilycanthrope (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mb/20040721a) gets DR 10/Silver, and her character can walk around with cat ears or lizard scales or giraffe spots or ram horns or whatever else she prefers. Otherwise one level of the Half-Dragon template class (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20030912a) gets +2 Str and Int, +2 natural armor, darkvision and low-light vision. You're never forced to finish a template class (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20030824a) so just one level of it should be perfect. Putting either of those on a Gray Elf (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/elf.htm#grayElf) or Fire Elf (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/elementalRacialVariants.htm#racesOfFire) should be what she's looking for.

Beguiler is a fantastic choice, ideally she wouldn't be good aligned so she can dip a level of Mindbender at 6th, then keep taking more Beguiler afterward. If she's savvy enough you can include Versatile Spellcaster. For the witch flavor I'd give her a Bloodline feat from Dragon Compendium, each will add one spell of each level to her list of spells known. The Necromantic bloodline looks ideal to me, but if she doesn't want necromancy then the Plant bloodline may be closer to what she's looking for. She could even take both if she likes them.