Binder musings and character build help

[martixy]

I have a player who is about to join my campaign and he has chosen to play binder.

The campaign is pretty high-op. And gestalt. The second side is Shadowcaster.

Seeing as how the player is not terribly experienced in the ways of the optimizer, and I, as a true denizen of these boards, enjoy the character creating minigame, I am creating the character build for him.

The class choices are kind of set, the theme is a shadowy character (The race is also FF's shadar kai, for even more "shadowness", along with the Shadow Creature template. Yea, we're going whole-hog. Note: Please do not bitch about LA and RHD and that jazz. It's taken care of.), my job is merely to flesh out the character build itself into good effectiveness. Now, me being the DM, I have the distinct advantage of being able to fudge the rules a little bit in service of that goal.

My woe, is that this is my first foray into Tome of Magic, and my player is playing not just one, but 2 of the base classes from that book!

Now, for Shadowcaster, I've already have in mind a thread that was floating around here about a month ago: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?577834-Minor-buffs-for-shadowcaster-Why-is-it-bad-in-the-first-place
...and all that was said and linked there. Though I do welcome more input.

But for binder... I'm practically clueless. I'm aware of its existence, the online vestiges, and the fact that Improved Binding is so critical, it might as well be a class feature.

But... should it be a class feature?

Another line of thought I had is, if the feat is so critical that it might as well be a class feature, but messes so fundamentally with the class' design, maybe get rid of it. In exchange I was thinking of granting Expel Vestige as a core class feature. A change which won't affect the power level, but tremendously increase the class' versatility. Something like 1 extra use/day every "dead level" in the binder's progression.

"Dead level", because every level with a — in the progression, you actually get actually a new vestige level(like spells levels), hence my willingness to axe Improved Binding and not mess with spell level progression(essentially).

I've poured through the MinMax handbooks, but I lack the experience to competently put that knowledge to practice. Especially when it comes to gestalt combo potential.

Party comp: We have a face/brawler/tank(a literal dragon), a tripper/BFC/chameleon(1) and a necromancer. No good consistent healing. Trapfinding with a day's forewarning.

Build guidelines: Dips okay, don't hijack entire build. Pile on the shadow.

Content guidelines: 3.5, 3.0 subject to updating, Dragon subject to approval, PF subject to adaptation.

[Zaq]

Binder and shadowcaster fit reasonably well on either side of a mid-tier gestalt. Binder gets lots of little tricks that are individually cool but that don't tend to easily line up as anything really impressive, while shadowcaster gets some cool flashy mysteries but runs out of steam super fast if all they have is their base allotment of mysteries, so they work reasonably well together. The shadowcaster side gives the character big things to do, and the binder side gives the character little things to do. Plus the binder side offers way more flexibility than the shadowcaster side, so that's cool.

Nothing that either side gets is going to be on par with high-tier casting or even with an high-op ToB character (well, maybe on the turn they use their biggest mystery, but there won't be many such turns per day), but the two classes do cover one another's weaknesses reasonably well.

Expel Vestige is a pretty good feat, but it gets awkward if you play it by RAW. See, most of the time when you expel a vestige, the reason that you'd want to do so in the first place is to bind another one in its place, right? And if you do, that's great for the rest of the adventuring day. But bound vestiges don't last until dawn or until the end of an extended rest or anything like that. They last for 24 hours. So if you normally bind your vestiges in the morning, the vestige you rebound in the middle of the day is going to stick around past your normal binding time. To illustrate:





8 AM Monday


Bind vestiges A, B, C.




8 AM Tuesday


Monday's vestiges gone; bind vestiges A, B, D.




1 PM Tuesday


Vestige B isn't helping. Expel B; bind E.




8 AM Wednesday


A and D are gone. E's stuck around. Bind A and C, keeping E because you have no choice.




1 PM Wednesday


E is gone, and now you've just got A and C.





You can kind of work around this by using Expel Vestige again at, in this example, 8 AM Wednesday (thereby resetting your number of vestiges per day), but then you don't get to use Expel Vestige on Wednesday. I suppose your solution of granting extra uses of Expel would be a partial solution, but be aware that unless you stick in a clause about resetting after an extended rest, you're going to end up with some very confusing bookkeeping as you try to have a separate binding timer for each vestige. A relatively easy problem to fix with houserules, perhaps, but still a problem that you need to be aware of so you can make an informed decision.

In order for the player to not be frustrated, he'll need to have some idea about what he really wants to do. A weakness of the high-versatility classes like binder is that your feats generally don't change, so you either can't specialize with your feats too much or else you just have to accept that there will be days when your vestiges don't match your feats, which can be annoying if you haven't planned for it. "Being shadowy" isn't something to do so much as just a fluff description, so he'll want to go a bit deeper. What party role does he want to play? Does he have any specific tricks that he wants to build around? Is there something in particular he wants to do? We need to know what he's doing, and then we can help him do it.

[Aharon]

Depending on how high-op, taking the Zceryll-vestige at level 10 is almost a must.
This is a list of the spell-likes binders get access to via summoned monsters - most of them low-level or with narrow applications, but it's a ton of versatility given that you get them at basically an unlimited amount per day...:

Color Spray
Feather Fall
Ray of Enfeeblement
Alter Self
Spider Climb
Reduce Person
Plane Shift
Disguise Self
Mirror Jump
Mirror Image
Charm Person
Tasha's Hideous Laughter
Crushing Despair
Good Hope
Dancing Lights
Faerie Fire
Magic Missile
Sleep
Detect Evil
Detect Magic
Scare
Stinking Cloud
Protection from Evil
See Invisibility
Invisibility
Dipsel Magic
vampiric touch
detect good
command
hold person
suggestion
detect poison
bless
light
Dispel Magic
major image
Earthbind
Continual Flame
Aid
Chill Metal
Glitterdust
Gust of Wind
Heat Metal
Melf's Acid Arrow
Scorching Ray
Soften Earth and Stone
Wind Wall
Haboob
Detect Chaos
Slow
daze
burning hands
expeditious retreat
jump
Insanity
wrack
Message
blessed sight
cause fear
obscuring mist
vision of heaven
cure moderate wounds
eyes of the avoral

[martixy]

In order for the player to not be frustrated, he'll need to have some idea about what he really wants to do.

He doesn't.

Hence me building the character. It's essentially a prebuilt char with a specific theme. We started with just shadowcaster. I actually suggested binder because I knew I'd end up building it and I wanted to finally give that class a spin.


Expel Vestige is a pretty good feat, but it gets awkward if you play it by RAW.

Mechanic-wise, I feel like there's often legitimate reasons you want a vestige to last its full 24 hours. For some that equates to "persistent spell".
Book-keeping-wise, I see where the problem lies.

I'm wondering about the idea of making pacts permanent, or least longer - like a week or so, and grant free expels for any vestiges still bound after a rest.
This seems to eliminate the weird book-keeping, and align all resource resets at the start of the day.


Nothing that either side gets is going to be on par with high-tier casting or even with an high-op ToB character

I feel like the shadowcaster fixes I mentioned do push them somewhere around Tier 2.
And a T3+T2 seems like a rather decent gestalt combo, especially based on the classical definitions, of T2 being powerful, but limited, and T3 being versatile, but less powerful. So yea, kinda like you described.


Does he have any specific tricks that he wants to build around? Is there something in particular he wants to do?
Nope, that's all me at this point. Been busy with work the last couple of days, so though I'd swing around these parts to farm ideas. Though, seemingly, my harvest has been rather barren.
I'm more free now, to get busy optimizin and prepping this week's sesh.



~snikt~

Neat list, even if without the creatures themselves.

Buy yea, Zceryll is just so abusable.

P.S. I'm taking suggestions on improving the Psionic Vestiges (apart from the measly Power Point pool).

[Psyren]

Binder and Shadowcaster work great in gestalt, but I wouldn't combine them in a high-op game; it'd be much better to pick just one and put a T1 or T2 caster on the other side imo.

Alternatively, I would use a powered up version of one or both of them, like the Pactmaker from PF in place of the Binder (with access to all the vestiges of both.)

[Aegis013]

The only thing I have to contribute requires some minor rules fudging, but seems in line.

Once available, use the Tenebrous vestige's Turn Undead benefit on Water Devotion feat from Complete Champion, just change all instances of Water and Water Elemental to Shadow and Shadow Elemental (found in the monster section of Tome of Magic, I think it's in the Shadowcaster chapter, but I'm AFB now).

If you consider the expenditure of a Turn Undead for an additional daily use of Water Devotion to not require immediate expenditure of that use of the feat, then it gives you an on demand swarm of disposable minions. It's strong even if the minions aren't just because they can hassle enemies, flank with your melees, or follow basic orders to improve your action economy.