Quote Originally Posted by Dalmosh View Post
How about Ardent as a Shrieker Fungus class? The Freedom mantle would give it a 10ft speed, and access to powers that would let it teleport and fly.
It's still pretty miserable, but it has to be an upgrade on Truenamer.
I agree that Ardent is better than Psion, since the Shrieker only has -8, and not -10 Wis. But that only means it might reach 10 Wisdom during character creation. So it can't manifest anything until 4th level (except if you use other templates, but then I'm still not sure it needs less than ECL -3). The powers of the Freedom mantle are indeed very good (Dimension Hop will be an incredible boon if you go that way), but the +10ft only applies to existing movement speeds. It helps greatly if you already have Flesh Plant, but it does not replace it. In the end, I still think the Warlock would be a better choice than ardent, but that is close. And I don't think you could consider the shrieker playing as a "normal" Ardent. Its progression will be greatly slowed down and it will become more and more apparent as it levels up. On the other hand, even if the class itself is terrible, the shrieker will truespeak almost as well as anybody else, and the difference will decrease instead of increasing as it levels up. If I have to compare to a class to deduce a level adjustment, I'd rather do it with Truenamer, since there is a chance that with the right adjustment, the shrieker will be equivalent to another 'namer, while whatever the adjustment, a shrieker Ardent will be way stronger than a normal Ardent at the beginning (if it has enough negative LA), then quickly become way weaker (when it starts to not be able to increase its Wis fast enough).