Best all-around entry into Chameleon?

[rigsmal]

I understand this is a very open question, but it's purely hypothetical since I'm not running Chameleon any time soon. Essentially: I'm trying to create a build centered on taking 10 levels of Chameleon, but I'm having trouble filling in the other 10 levels! Previously I'd considered some mix of Factotum and Warblade, but I've always felt very... either underwhelming or overly melee-centric.

So I'm really asking this question to broaden my horizons on options. What's a good 20-level Chameleon build that keeps me competent for any and all of its roles?

[Zaq]

I had fun with a Binder/Incarnate entry into Chameleon just so that I could have a metric buttload of swappable abilities and reinvent myself every day, but it's a lot of bookkeeping.

[rigsmal]

I had fun with a Binder/Incarnate entry into Chameleon just so that I could have a metric buttload of swappable abilities and reinvent myself every day, but it's a lot of bookkeeping.

I assume you mean either Binder or Incarnate, and not both? You aren't wrong on the bookkeeping, though; really incentivizes picking Binder, since it's easier on your eyes when you look at your sheet.

Binder 10 also seems like a reasonable breakpoint... something like Binder 10/Chameleon 10, where I enter Chameleon as early as possible and fill in the rest of the Binder levels later, sounds very attractive.

[Zaq]

No, I totally had both. Swap out both vestiges and soulmelds (plus Chameleon stuff) every day. It was crazy fun. Had to burn a feat on City Slicker to qualify for Chameleon, though.

[Kelb_Panthera]

For one thing, don't bother with factotum unless you need a 1 level dip for the class skills. Factotum demands you stay in so it turns to garbage petty quick if you drop it at 5. You can hold on 'till 8 for cunning surge but that's 90% of your build gone.

Ultimately, the best entry depends on what you want to do with the chameleon abilities. If it's the standard arcane/divine focus, you should go with an arcane or divine caster (bard can get you either way) and grab some spellcasting trickery for which chameleon doesn't qualify you.

[Rebel7284]

There really isn't one best entry. Typically, you are best taking a few dips into front-loaded classes, but which abilities are the best will vary widely depending on your game, goals, and play style.

Some classes to consider:
- Cloistered Cleric 1: 3 domains/devotion feats. Opens Divine Metamagic.
- Dread Necromancer 1: More DMM fuel if needed.
- Incarnate X: Soulmelds are fun.
- Totemist 2: Soulmelds still fun, now with natural attacks.
- Factotum 1-3: Nice with Able Learner, Int to everything a few times per encounter is useful.
- Conjurer 1: Abrupt Jaunt. Arcane casting can help qualify for some feats.
- Changling Rogue 1: Lots of skill points, social skills.
- Human Paragon1-3: MOAR feats and skills.
- Binder 1: Number of useful vestiges at first level, Naberius is the most frequently used for a reason.
- Hit and Run, Sneak Attack(?), Exoticist Fighter 1: adds a number of useful melee abilities.
- Lion Totem Whirling Frenzy barbarian: more useful melee abilities.
- Spellthief 1: stealing spells is nice as is zeroing out arcane spell failure for light armor.
- Duskblade 3: Smack people with your spells.
- Monk 2: 2 feats and Invisible Fist is nice.

So yeah, dozens of different builds, and none of them are strictly better than the others.

[WhamBamSam]

Looks like I got Swordsaged on some of this while writing it up, but oh well.

Cloistered Cleric 1 with the Trickery Domain gets you all the necessary skills and an extra Turning pool. Extend Spell from the Planning Domain can help you set up for DMM Persist with all the turn attempts you can get from Mimic Class Feature. There are a number of Chameleon builds in the excellent Piggy Knowles' Archer Build Thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?284283-Piggy-Knowles-Archer-Build-Thread) which make use of this. If you do this, you might also consider two levels of some flavor of Paladin and the Serenity feat to make all your Turning pools base their number of attempts off Wis.

Martial Abrupt Jaunt Wizard 1 packs a lot of goodies into a single level, so it's always worth considering when you're just dipping around en route to a PrC.

Incarnum classes work pretty well, as mentioned. You get all the melds with just one level, and can pick up higher level chakra binds with your floating feat as they become available.

Similarly, initiator classes can help you qualify to use your floating feat to pick up higher level maneuvers through Martial Study.

Factotum 5 is a bad breakpoint, but if you're angling for some manner of Int-SAD build that cares about Str or Dex based checks, Factotum 3 might be worth it.

Changelings can be Chameleons, and Changeling Rogue is cool.

Half-Elf Paragon at first level can allow for both Human Heritage and Able Learner at first level, if you want to qualify for Elf things without using Racial Emulation.

Silverbrow Human always treat Disguise as a class skill, and hence can open up classes/builds that otherwise would need to burn a feat on it to Chameleon entry.



Also, I like Marshal and Combat Trapsmith as post-Chameleon classes, as your floating feat can trick them into giving you any feat you qualify for.

[Selene Sparks]

This depends on the lines your group draws on where reasonable optimization ends and cheese begins, but my favorite build is something like Factotum 2/Chameleon 10/Factotum +6/X 1, using a major bloodline for early entry(I'm personally partial to Vampire), but my group is pretty tolerant of weird tricks and early entry. Instead of more Factotum, a level of Cloistered Cleric could work for divine metamagic, as could grabbing Spelldancer, and I personally like (ab)using Extra Slot on Chameleons, but again, your mileage may vary. Another fun option is using Ardent's CL-based learning to mitigate the level loss for more options, so you can pretend to be a psion in addition to being a wizard, cleric, rogue, and fighter.

[Uncle Pine]

Chameleon is one of those PrC whose prerequisites only include one feat and a boatload of skill ranks, so any best build would have to include contracting lycanthropy at 1st level, starting Chameleon at your 2nd class level and curing lycanthropy once you have enough skill ranks to qualify on your own.

[Gnaeus]

I liked cleric 1, swordsage 4.

[Darrin]

Cloistered Cleric 2/Incarnate 2/Ordained Champion 3 or Cloistered Cleric 2/Swordsage 2/Ordained Champion 3 are both pretty nifty. There are a large number of wacky things you can do with Channel Spell and the chameleon's access to various spells: turn people into spiders, fish, or trees. And if you can leverage up your spell slots to 9th, transcend mortality for insta-kill.

[Rebel7284]

Cloistered Cleric 2/Incarnate 2/Ordained Champion 3 or Cloistered Cleric 2/Swordsage 2/Ordained Champion 3 are both pretty nifty. There are a large number of wacky things you can do with Channel Spell and the chameleon's access to various spells: turn people into spiders, fish, or trees. And if you can leverage up your spell slots to 9th, transcend mortality for insta-kill.

In my opinion, if you are going to be delaying Chameleon by that much, might as well just do Factotum 8 entry.

If channeling spells through your weapon is important, as mentioned, Duskblade can do it quite well.

[Fouredged Sword]

I like trickster spellthief 1 /duskblade 3 /cloistered cleric (travel devotion) 1 entry.

This is a 6th level entry with a spattering of 1st level arcane and divine casting, good saves, good bab, arcane channeling, casting in light armor, 1d6 sneak attack, travel devotion, knowledge devotion, and a floating domain/devotion.

[Nifft]

There really isn't one best entry. Typically, you are best taking a few dips into front-loaded classes, but which abilities are the best will vary widely depending on your game, goals, and play style.
(snip)
So yeah, dozens of different builds, and none of them are strictly better than the others.

This.

Additionally, there are a bunch of single-class entries, all of which can be solid:

Warlock 6 / Chameleon 10 -> floating bonus feat gets you an extra floating invocation, good for downtime invocations like The Dead Walk, you've got a caster level for downtime crafting using your floating bonus feat, and you're great at UMD. Your Eldritch Blast will steadily get less useful over time, but it'll keep you in the game while your Chameleon casting develops, and invocations like Flee The Scene can remain relevant forever. If you've got a lot of spare feats, consider capping the build with Telflammar Shadowpouncer 4.

Dragonfire Adept 6 / Chameleon 10 -> Humanoid Form means alter self at-will all day, and use some spells to enhance your (otherwise lackluster) breath weapon. Take that invocation which immunizes your friends to your breath weapon, and you can get some value from dispelling breath. Entangling Breath remains relevant for a surprisingly long time, too. You can qualify with Silverbrow Human.

Binder 5 / Chameleon 10 / Knight of the Sacred Seal 5 -> spend your Binder bonus feat on Improved Binding, and you get Vestiges up to level 4, which includes Astaroth the Unjustly Fallen, who gives you a bonus Item Creation feat. You can qualify with Silverbrow Human. The KotSS levels are good, but hardly mandatory.

(Changeling) Rogue 5 / Chameleon 10 / Cabinet Trickster 5 -> a classic combo, with social skills oozing out of a variety of orifices. You need to be a Changeling, obviously. Caveat: the utility of mind-reading at high levels can vary by DM.


... plus some weird stuff:

(Silverbrow Human) Sorcerer 5 / Chameleon 10 / Primal Scholar 5 -> at level 20 you can refresh all of your level 5 spells and lower for free, all day. Since your spells are drawn from lists with spells that have unusually reduced level, this is unusually awesome... but you only really get to do that at level 20, so mostly you're just a Chameleon with 5 levels of Sorcerer (few skills, few spells, but with caster level for Item Creation feats and either a Familiar or whatever you traded it into).

Swordsage 5 / Chameleon 10 / Master of Nine 5 -> you need to spend feats (or race + a feat) to get the skills to qualify for Chameleon, and then a lot more feats to get into Master of Nine, but if you can pull them all off, then you're one of the best jack-of-all-trades in the game -- with level 8 Maneuvers and level 6 spells from any list, you've got a lot of tricks up your sleeve.

Eagle Totem Druid 2 to 6 -> you get a limited version of Wild Shape at level 1 and Natural Spell as a bonus feat at level 2; with lackluster Wild Shape progression at higher levels, you're losing less than a regular Druid would lose; you can qualify for Chameleon with Greensinger Initiate + Silverbrow Human, or with another feat to get Disguise, or with a whole 'nother class if you only take Totem Druid 2.



Chameleon is a great class. There's no one right way to build it or to play it.

[Tvtyrant]

I like Mystic Wildshape Sword of the Arcane Order Ranger 10/Chameleon 10. You are MAD as heck (and you aren't going to take it anymore!) But gives you a metric ton of versatility as a Gish with nearly full BaB, wildshape, divine casting, arcane casting (possibly twice) and easy focus on either melee or ranged combat.

[mabriss lethe]

The best way to build a chameleon is to make the build objective-oriented. Figure out what you want the Character to do and how Chameleon fits in with that idea. Once you've got that down, look for an entry path that compliments your idea. Though in general there are only two good options for a Chameleon, a 2 level dip, or going all the way to 10. After 10, recommend something like Uncanny Trickster or Legacy Champion to keep pushing your Chameleon levels higher. (It won't help with a whole lot, but it gives you a huge boost to your caster level)

[Fouredged Sword]

The best way to build a chameleon is to make the build objective-oriented. Figure out what you want the Character to do and how Chameleon fits in with that idea. Once you've got that down, look for an entry path that compliments your idea. Though in general there are only two good options for a Chameleon, a 2 level dip, or going all the way to 10. After 10, recommend something like Uncanny Trickster or Legacy Champion to keep pushing your Chameleon levels higher. (It won't help with a whole lot, but it gives you a huge boost to your caster level)

This is why I like Spellthief 1 for entry. It makes ALL arcane casting classes for CL. This lets you fill in any arcane casting for your last 5 levels. beguiler is fun as it keeps up your deception skills and allows you to have some dependable utility illusion/enchantment casting.

[Falontani]

Take the chameleon template (I think drow of the underdark, or another fr book) on a changeling