Unexpected good character?

[morkendi]

So after a few years and covid, DM decided to go back to 3.5. Contacted players to roll up characters. Other players did a optimized fighter, battlefield control wizard, glass cannon wizard, and druid. Thinking where we short on certain roles, I chose changeling beguiler as it was a class I knew fairly well. This allowed me to cover skill monkey, face, and much of the trapfind and scout roll. Everyone was grabbing templates since we have LA buy off. I chose the shadow template.

After first session, we leveled to 2nd. Doing research, I came across the changeling sub levels in psion. I didn't like that discapline however, but I started looking at telepath instead. With my high int and bonuses from race and template, I figured I could still keep my skills pretty high and fill my rolls, and I was having fun messing with peoples mind in game.

So, I left begiler at 1 level dip and jumped to psion telepath. Now we are 8th lvl after buy off. I have ended up with a very stealthy character with armored mage, tons of skills, and crazy sevivablity. With fast healing 2 and DR5/magic, the psion powers like vigor, empty mind, and tons of defensive stuff, I have found I am helpful in any situation. Dm has said my character is becoming very hard to deal with which was surprising as it was not intended.

[MultitudeMan]

This reminded me of a Piggy Knowles build, The Utility Belt (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?560988-Optimzation-Showcase-in-the-Playground-The-Utility-Belt). Nice and simple, but the skillmonkey splash followed by 19 levels of Psion seems to be pretty effective.

[morkendi]

With the amount of damage dealers in party, I can limit my damage to the ones with no save and no SR. Damp power is crazy good. Buff up with vigor and do energy retort and purposely run by someone each round. Even simple things like mind link with party member before scouting to comunicate. Immediate powers and save buffs. Combine all this with maxed out stealth and beguilers cantrips and first lvl list which you get full access to. It's so fun to play.

[RNightstalker]

Dm has said my character is becoming very hard to deal with which was surprising as it was not intended.

In what ways?

[morkendi]

In what ways?

Some things may be a combo of race, class, and template. With LA pay off, it's even better.

The lvl 1 beguiler splash into psion offers a lot. With armored mage, weapon proficiencies, and access to a pretty good spell list for first lvl, the 1d6 hit die, 6+int skills on a large skill list, it's a pretty stacked 1 lvl dip. The only issue is being dependent in multiple ability score focusing on int, dex, and cha. Taking fast healing 2 from shadow template shores up a low con early as you heal a 3rd of your hit points every round at 1st level. I ended up with more spells, more hp, and better ac than the wizards with a decent ability to hit with my bow at low levels if I went though my spells. Skills and stealth on par with any rogue and pretty much the ability to contribute to any situation.

Going into telepath after, with maxed int, I am able to keep my stealth skills high. Combine that with gather shadows, shape change at will, and mind link, I am more than capable as a scout. I mind link with a party member and move out giving them instructions as I keep moving up through mind link. Comp language from beguiler allows me to understand any language heard. I usually try to separate a enemy to charm and gather information from about leaders, layout, traps, etc. early on. I also have my psycrystal to help with scouting which is fairly capable in this roll by itself.

In combat, vigor/share pain combined with DR5 vs magic many times gives me more effective hit points than the melee characters. With base movement 30 plus x1.5 from shadow template and expedious retreat giving +30 when needed, I spend most combats running around outskirts of battle with energy retort up letting things get attacks of opportunity on me so the energy retort does 4d6 back on 1st attack that hits me each round. While doing this, I focus on locking down problems with entangling ectoplasm, crisis of breath, or giving melee enemies a debuff with inflict pain for -4 or -2 if they save. This way, I am able to do decent damage and cast powers each round. I can also shape the battlefield some with energy wall or do more damage with other powers from psion. Some of the powers are no save and no SR.

With expand knowledge, I have astral construct which is always good. I also have immediates like damp power which can be augmented later to cover the group or empty mind if something targets my will save. If you think a hallway is trapped, send a 1st level astral construct down it to activate any traps.

Out of combat, I have high diplomacy, intermediate, disguise, sense motive etc to make a good face character. Also access to thieves tools and find traps. Read minds is crazy good when scouting as it can penetrate walls and doors allowing me to know what's in room many times without opening the door.

The DM saying the character was hard to deal with was just friends talking. Neither one of us thought the character would be this versatile or effective as I didn't go about this in an optimization mindset. I can fill multiple rolls when needed in most situations with a good degree of success. This may change some as we progress in levels, but so far, I have not felt like the build had any dead spots so far compared to the party.

[Bonzai]

Love when something unexpected ends up panning out. My best experience with this was running a Shadowcaster/swordsage/ Teflammar Shadowlord build. This was my first "GISH" build, and shadow casters were/are considered to be one of the worst base classes. To make things even more interesting the character had no hands and a peg leg (both were considered flaws by the DM and granted me bonus feats).

What amazed me is how well the build came together and worked. The still mystery feat let me cast with no hands. The Umbral Hand fundamental mystery got me by situations where hands were necessary. Early Shadowcasters are notorious for running out of stuff to do, but since I was melee focused I chose to pick utility mysteries for the most part. This helped stretch out my casting considerably since I wasn't pretending to be a blaster. Stat wise I needed only enough int to cast flicker, and the rest went into dex and con. Weapon finess and Shadow blade totally replace Str as a combat Stat. The skillful weapon enhancement gives you 3/4 bab. He fought with a pair of stump knives, which in turn made him a crit monkey. This in turn helped Amp up the damage as he two weapon fighting pounce attacked as a standard, move, swift, and free action in the first round of combat.

On paper this should have been a horrible joke of a character. Yet it really held its own, and became a fun and useful member of the party. "Clappy" is still one of my favorite characters that I have ever built.

[Maat Mons]

This is actually a type of build you'll see floating around these forums from time to time.


Rogue 1 / Wizard 5 / Unseen Seer 10 / Arcane Trickster 4
Ninja 1 / Cloistered Cleric 19
Factotum 1 / Archivist 4 / Divine Oracle 10 / Contemplative 5
Beguiler 1 / Wizard 4 / Ultimate Magus 10 / Shadowcraft Mage 5
Ranger (Trap Expert ACF) 1 / Psion 6 / Slayer 10 / Anarchic Initiate 3

The common elements are a one-level dip in a class with Trapfinding and good skills, the Able Learner feat, and all remaining levels fully (or nearly fully) progressing a strong casting (or manifesting) class.

[Arkain]

Going into telepath after, with maxed int, I am able to keep my stealth skills high. Combine that with gather shadows, shape change at will, and mind link, I am more than capable as a scout. I mind link with a party member and move out giving them instructions as I keep moving up through mind link. Comp language from beguiler allows me to understand any language heard. I usually try to separate a enemy to charm and gather information from about leaders, layout, traps, etc. early on. I also have my psycrystal to help with scouting which is fairly capable in this roll by itself.

To me this sounds as if you're doing the sneaky eavesdropping schtick, which would actually not work without physical contact, as Comprehend Languages requires you to touch the text you are reading or the person talking. My group and I were rather surprised by this detail, when re-reading the description at some later point, having apparently glossed over it before.