Need help as a beguiler

[Stark]

My level 6 party discovered through interrogating an enemy that we would be fighting a dragon next gaming session, and during this week leading up to it, the party's Evoker has been trying to convince me that my Beguiler is useless because illusion's suck, and against dragons I'll have a hard time getting enchantment spells to succeed.

Does anyone have any tips on how I should go about making sure I'm not dead weight during the fight? Spells that would be useful would be great.

[Hal]

First, what did you take for your advanced learning? What about feats?

Second, even if illusions aren't your thing, you have plenty of other awesome tools in your utility belt. Haste and Slow make for good (de)buffs, and Glitterdust is classic. If you have a rogue in the party, Legion of Sentinels will help make short work of the dragon if it lands. Finally, if the dragon likes to cast spells, you always have both Silence and Zone of Silence.

[Kurald Galain]

the party's Evoker has been trying to convince me that my Beguiler is useless because illusion's suck

Heh. Shows what he knows

Invisibility? Check. Party buffs? Check. Dispel? Check. UMD for healing wand, if necessary? Check. Oh, you'll carry your weight.

For some extra options, grab bloodline feats, or Arcane Disciple. Sure, trying to charm a dragon isn't all that great - but then neither is casting Fireball on it.

[Eldariel]

If it's a relatively small Dragon (Juvenile or younger), something like Glitterdust could work provided that you have Very Buffed Int. If it's Young Adult at least, it'll have Spell Resistance and superhigh saves (for the level), so that'd be waste of time.

Regardless, you could use Invisibility Sphere + Silence or similar to approach it up to its Blindsense without notice. Then dismiss Silence and enjoy your 50% miss chance from Invisibility; Dragons don't have Blindsight so Invisibility is very efficient against them (as long as they don't have much of a caster level, but Young Adults cast only as level 3 Sorcerers, which means level 1 spells which are fairly trivial so I wouldn't worry about that; anything higher than Young Adult is way over the CR).


Inevitable Defeat is usable; Dragons have no special protection from nonlethal damage. That said, if its Will-saves are high, the damage dealt will be rather modest. It's also subject to spell resistance which means that a young adult would cause a rather high fail chance.

Images could be used to potentially make it waste its Breath Weapon; Major Image should be able to fool Blindsense as it's got sound, smell and warmth. Some manner of threatening image, mayhap the very image of your party (while you're invisible further back) should work, provided that the Dragon knows it'll fight you. I'll repeat though: Invisibility is the best thing you can do; gives your allies all the benefits an invisible attacker enjoys (50% miss chance from opponent, -2 opponent's AC and denied Dex out of which only Dex isn't relevant). Haste is second for all those doing actual attacks. Extra attack helps.

In combat, if it has Spell Resistance, you'll have serious difficulties landing spells. Even if it doesn't, it'll have rather high saves. That said, few tries may give one success; if it doesn't have Spell Resistance, spam Slow on it. Soo, overall, I'd suggest:
Invisibility
Haste
Major Image

rest depends on whether it's old enough to have SR or no. Use Magic Device with a Wand of Lesser Acid Orb, for example, could also work, although such a Wand on sufficient caster level to actually hurt the Dragon would be expensive.

[Stark]

First, what did you take for your advanced learning? What about feats?

Second, even if illusions aren't your thing, you have plenty of other awesome tools in your utility belt. Haste and Slow make for good (de)buffs, and Glitterdust is classic. If you have a rogue in the party, Legion of Sentinels will help make short work of the dragon if it lands. Finally, if the dragon likes to cast spells, you always have both Silence and Zone of Silence.

Distract assailant for my advanced learning
The Feats i have so far are Spell Focus Illusion & Enchantment, and Heighten Spell

I'm also a Gnome, and have no wands that i can obtain before reaching said dragon, or anything else

Oh, and I'm 90% sure its a young adult fang dragon

Thanks alot for the advice already though. You guys rock

[Eldariel]

Well, they don't have Breath Weapon, so the Image would probably be largely wasted, although it might serve to distract the thing a bit. They also have some spell-like abilities, such as Shield which you'll probably want to Dispel.

[Hal]

Distract assailant for my advanced learning
The Feats i have so far are Spell Focus Illusion & Enchantment, and Heighten Spell

I'm also a Gnome, and have no wands that i can obtain before reaching said dragon, or anything else

Oh, and I'm 90% sure its a young adult fang dragon

Thanks alot for the advice already though. You guys rock

I'm not familiar with fang dragons. Perhaps you could elucidate? Do they still fly? Since it sounds like there's no breath weapon, does it have any other ranged attack?

[Keld Denar]

Beguilers get Glitterdust, right? Thats a big SR:No spell. All you have to do is spray and pray. 1 failed Will save means you just turned your whole party Invisible, and that's useful! You should have quite a few 2nd and 3rd level spells, so you can keep it blinded most of the time by repeating the cast after 4 rounds of duration is up. That gives you 2 chances to reblind it before the spell wears off.

[Fax Celestis]

If you have a rogue in the party, Legion of Sentinels will help make short work of the dragon if it lands.

Rogue or not, that spell is boss. Try bull-rushing someone through one sometime...and remember the spell is spherical.

[BRC]

Rogue or not, that spell is boss. Try bull-rushing someone through one sometime...and remember the spell is spherical.

It is also death to casters.

[Bulwer]

Is there somewhere one could get a copy of the Beguiler spell list with descriptions attached? I'm not very familiar with some spells, and I hate looking things up every time.

[hiryuu]

Playing a Beguiler is sort of weird to most players. If you're level 6, for example, you should never have to roll initiative. Seriously. You have a +30 bluff on top of your skill modifiers and you've got a spell in your arsenal that deals 8 Dex and Wis damage (well, you should; Phantasmal Assailants, that's the way to go. I've turned off Warblades and shut down boss monsters with that thing. Sure, it requires two saves, but you should have something like +3 to the DC right now because you're a gnome). Level 6 with beguiler is also the crazy level. All the good spells come online then. Fireball my bum, haste people like crazy.

You're a Beguiler after initiative has rolled, stop thinking about what you can do to hurt the enemy and start thinking about what your party can do while the enemy's busy chasing its own tail and your buddies are displaced, invisible, and hasted.

[Leewei]

...the party's Evoker has been trying to convince me that my Beguiler is useless because illusion's suck, and against dragons I'll have a hard time getting enchantment spells to succeed.

Bwahahaha. Clearly, an Evoker will have the upper hand against a dragon.

If the dragon has allies subject to mind affecting spells, you will own them. If the dragon has trapped its lair, your Search check gives you the best shot at finding them. If its a straight fight with the dragon, you can pop off haste. At level 6, you can buy scrolls of freedom of movement, solid fog and greater invisibility and succeed on a caster level check of "1". As has been stated previously, legion of sentinels is insanely good.

Why is this? The spell summons incorporeal attackers. To hit the dragon using AoOs, they need merely succeed on a touch attack. Dragon touch AC sucks. Want to own the dragon? Cast invisibility on yourself. Hang back away from the party and ready an action to cast this if it moves more than 5'. The dragon moves, provokes a dozen or so attacks for 1d8+2 with an attack bonus of +6 (x2 on a natural 19-20) against its touch AC of what, 11?

Need some synergy? Open with solid fog from a scroll. The spell restricts morement to the degree that a 5' step with no AoO is no longer possible. Then cast legion of sentinels on the dragon's location in the fog. Any action involving movement will now provoke AoOs, albeit with 20% miss chance.

Edit: The best part of this? Legion of sentinels is an illusion. Rub the evoker's nose in that.

[Eldariel]

Is there somewhere one could get a copy of the Beguiler spell list with descriptions attached? I'm not very familiar with some spells, and I hate looking things up every time.

I'm not sure what you're looking for, but try http://www.emass-web.com/index.php; it'll give you list of all the spells a class knows with short description. Dynamic sheets, choose 3.5.

[Paul H]

Hi

Try this:

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=1028316

Just click on the link for full list & description.

Cheers
Paul H

[Stark]

Thanks for all the great ideas. I have a question regarding legion of sentinels.

How do the attacks of opportunity work? It gives the sentinels no stats for these attacks, do i use my own? If so, what weapons are they using? The spell says swords..

[Paul H]

Hi

Re Legion of Sentinels:
Attacks - Only AoO, once/rnd (No Combat Reflexes).
BAB = your CL
Saves = your CL
HP = Twice your CL
Damage = [Slashing] D8 + (CL divided by 3) EG D8+2 for CL 6
(Damage listed in short preamble, (Spell list), not in main blurb.
Each fighter can be attacked individualy, or destroyed by fireballs, etc.

Oh, and dont' forget it's a Globe, so yes to the flanking & 'higher ground' BAB bonuses.

Since they can inhabit squares already filled with terrain, creatures, etc, some GM's class them as ethereal. (But check first).

Took out an Illithid as 6th lvl Beguiler with this one. (Well, OK, it teleported away with just couple HP left....).

Cheers
Paul H

[Who_Da_Halfling]

Beguilers seem very, very strong from what I've seen. Their power is more subtle than that of an Evoker, but the Beguiler spell list seems to cover so many useful and powerful spells that they seem nearly as powerful as Wizards, albeit less versatile. Spontaneous casting has a lot of benefits.

Am I off-base on this? The illusion/enchantment spells seem to be among the most powerful.

-JM

[Fax Celestis]

There's a very good reason that the beguiler is considered one of the best classes in the game, and you've hit it right on the head.

[Thurbane]

I've been in 2 games involving Beguilers (one as the DM, one as a fellow players) and trust me, they don't really struggle against any opponent, even undead or golems (there's always UMD and/or party buffs).

For the reasons already stated above, they are one of the most versatile and powerful casting classes in the game...

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Haste + Slow = Win. Slow should be first up, which means Cloaked Casting DC modifiers, so you should be able to land it. May want a Scroll of +4 Int just in case.

Like others said, you're pretty much going to make the Evoker look like a Timmy for the entire campaign. Every time he steps up to try and blast it, you've already taken it's mind, caused it to attack it's allies, then curl up in a little ball muttering "Can't sleep, clowns 'll eat me" over and over.