Beguiler and Bosses

[quiet1mi]

Hey guys, one problem has always bothered me...

Boss fights and D&D... when it comes down to it, beguilers have little to do.

*Please note that when I say beguiler I mean a character that does not rely on damage to defeat foes...

Spamming Save or lose spells that do not seem to work gets frustrating as "missing" does nothing to contribute to the fight... Many Dms do not want to want their BBEG to go down because he failed a will save so he gives either immunity or just high saves (15-20% failure rate)... Thus trivializing the beguiler's presence...

Battlefield control also becomes the ire for DMs as the BBEG is about to charge with his big sword but the beguiler cast solid fog on him and where ever he goes... Great... now without trivializing the beguiler again the BBEG has no way of getting out of a solid fog, giving the party and the BBEG time to regroup.

Illusions sound clever but creating multiple images of party to lower the chance of the BBEG from hitting the right person makes the Dm fight back by giving the BBEG another form of detection or a high listen check. Thus trivializing the Beguilers actions...

With physical attacks you can either up the AC of an opponent, creating the horrible feeling of a wasted attack, or give the bad guy more HP... With a beguiler it feels like all a Dm can really do is up the "AC" of an opponent...

This often leaves the Beguiler annoyed as he can no longer contribute to the fun of "beating up the bad guy" (unless he is fine with just buffing but then he should just play something that buffs).

[AslanCross]

Well, the beguiler class itself does have a good spread of buffs (well ok, they only get haste), debuffs (crushing despair, slow, confusion), save or sucks (glitterdust, blinding color surge) and battlefield control (solid fog, legion of sentinels). For everything else, there's UMD.

A specialist illusionist can and still should prepare other spells, and will also have [Shadow] spells at his disposal.

A specialist enchanter is going to have a much harder time, but he should have other spells at his disposal.

A trickery domain cleric will have other spells and another domain to use, and finally, a bard will have buffs and has other options (especially Dragonfire Inspiration and/or Snowflake Wardance).

[Sliver]

Let there be mooks. That will allow the beguiler to either be sure to contribute to the fight by canceling the mooks out, or have a small chance to finish the fight by targeting the boss.. A single big enemy isn't a good thing in D&D anyway, as either he is strong enough to KO the party one by one or he can't handle them..

[Toliudar]

Considering all the other areas in which beguilers can shine (social interaction, investigation, trapfinding, anti-mook spells), I'm actually okay with them being a bit nerfed in the final encounter. Besides, casting haste, one battlefield control spell, a debuff and an illusion? That's a lot to have in one combat. They may not contribute quite as much as in other types of challenges, but they're hardly standing around getting bored.

[AngelOmnipotent]

Of course if you run out of mooks to kill and the BBEG is still alive, you can always make yourself nigh-impossible to hit and Aid Another.

[Ashiel]

Hey guys, one problem has always bothered me...

Boss fights and D&D... when it comes down to it, beguilers have little to do.

*Please note that when I say beguiler I mean a character that does not rely on damage to defeat foes...

Spamming Save or lose spells that do not seem to work gets frustrating as "missing" does nothing to contribute to the fight... Many Dms do not want to want their BBEG to go down because he failed a will save so he gives either immunity or just high saves (15-20% failure rate)... Thus trivializing the beguiler's presence...

Battlefield control also becomes the ire for DMs as the BBEG is about to charge with his big sword but the beguiler cast solid fog on him and where ever he goes... Great... now without trivializing the beguiler again the BBEG has no way of getting out of a solid fog, giving the party and the BBEG time to regroup.

Illusions sound clever but creating multiple images of party to lower the chance of the BBEG from hitting the right person makes the Dm fight back by giving the BBEG another form of detection or a high listen check. Thus trivializing the Beguilers actions...

With physical attacks you can either up the AC of an opponent, creating the horrible feeling of a wasted attack, or give the bad guy more HP... With a beguiler it feels like all a Dm can really do is up the "AC" of an opponent...

This often leaves the Beguiler annoyed as he can no longer contribute to the fun of "beating up the bad guy" (unless he is fine with just buffing but then he should just play something that buffs).

The vast majority of this is not the fault of the beguiler, but the results of a horrible DM who has no business being on that side of the screen. You can, as a DM, make any class useless through DM fiat. Fiat, oh how I loathe how dirty some people have made this word.

You actually listed yourself some great things the party's beguiler can do, such as casting solid fog. As far as spamming save-or-loose spells, get your party in on it, and find some ways to debuff! Negative levels, fear conditions, aura of despair, intimidate, and anything else that inflicts a saving throw penalty. Negative levels are probably the best as they reduce a lot more than just saving throws, but the more HD your opponent has the more penalties you can stack! Save, at best, increase by 1 per 2HD. Negative levels inflict a -1 penalty per HD drained.

The beguiler nonlethal spells + Fell Drain metamagic from Libris Mortis would be a fair way to inflict negative levels (really, anything that inflicts damage - even better if it inflicts it multiple times).

But it really sounds like your DM just needs to grow up.

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Also, Merry Christmas.

[quiet1mi]

The main problem is encounter balance. The beguiler acts as a glass cannon, able to take out people in one attack with out the HP to back up the counter attack. Instead the beguiler relies on concealment, and his hide check...

So far I like the Idea of having the final boss being ECL+2 higher instead of ECL+4 while having about 8 minions ECL-4. This gives the "boss" allies to provide flank, aid another, trip, bullrush, cover, extra actions and most importantly blocking charge lanes...

Another thing I like is to have the party on board with debuffing the enemy with demoralize, sicken, negative levels etc...

As for the beguiler providing aid another and flanking bonuses... that is quite difficult as the AC to attack bonus ratio at mid levels is ridiculous (Monsters hit you very easily) this is quite the problem with a D6 HD, unless you can use illusions to flank...

Shadow Conjuration works to provide something to aid another, flank and all the other thing minions do without worrying if they disbelieve it or not...

[HCL]

Use magic device/use psionic device can get you a good spell to remedy this

Shadowcraft mage and Rainbow servant are also nice :)

[quiet1mi]

To keep things tier 3 (party balance) I cannot multiclass into a PRC without good reason... besides I am a grey elf.

Wands sound good for some evocation or a runestaff...

[Mike_G]

UMD is a must for teh Beguiler.

It's a class skill, he gets loads of skill points, and it allows him to access all the spells not on his list, including divine ones.

My Beguiler served as party healer through wands and scrolls in addition to being the scout and the arcanist. The rest of the party were all melee types, but with the Beguiler, the party was nicely balanced. Beguilers are nice for not stepping on toes as well. You can buff, control and wipe out mooks, but the fighetrs get to beat the tough enemies to death, so everyone has fun.

[RagnaroksChosen]

I am a big fan of using welm on boss's that can have non lethal done. Especially for Good aligned beguilers. Allows for the BBEG to be captured. If its something immune to non leathal.. buff the party then start using a wand of something.