LT Silverstar's page

I looked over the changes and they all look pretty good. I really like what you did with morithil, it's a neat flavor idea without too much mechanical benefit.

Updated conversion document, 2 year anniversary edition with two new orders and three new archetypes can be found here:

bit.ly/pathfinderbeguiler

Sorry it took so long, but I've finally got around to compiling my thoughts on the new options here:

• Counterfeit Blood: It's hard for me to decide whether this new order or the Shadowgraft Skirmisher are my favorite additions to the class. CB is full of flavor, its powers are unique and exciting (even though they are more suited to an intrigue game than a combat game). Absolutely perfect.
  
• Ghastly Claw: I never particularly cared for the Spell Kill ability, I think Malicious Maneuvers is a pretty good replacement power. The wording about feat qualification seems a bit clunky, I wonder if it might be better served by granting them the benefits of the Dirty Fighting feat which is basically the same thing.
  
• Petrified Mind: Not really my cup of tea, but still an interesting option for an intimidate build. Probably synergizes well with something like a few levels slayer or anti-paladin, haven't really theorycrafted that to completion, but you'd still be giving up beguiler spellcasting for that so it seems a fair trade. Does the Daunting Illusion ability pertain to illusions that are purely sonic in nature like ghost sound? If so you might want to change the last line of the ability to match that. I like the way that the Creeping Fear ability is stepped which will prevent a simple 7 level beguiler dip being used to make a super powered lockdown build. Typo note: you've got their 3rd level order spell listed as "REPLACE", I'm guessing that was a note to yourself that made it through the editing process.
  
• Shadowgraft Skirmisher: As I mentioned this is a favorite addition of mine. It's a very cool take on the Stygian Skirmisher PrC from the Inner Seas Beguilers document. I love the flavor and mechanics of the Shadowblade, IMHO it's a much better implementation than Paizo's recent release of Shadowcraft Weapons from Blood of Shadows. One big question I have is: how does the Shadowblade interact with Wraith Strike? It seems like a perfect opportunity for use of the d6 damage dice instead of d4s, but as written it wouldn't gain this benefit. Maybe you can say it's treated as if it were made of a special material like umbrite and add umbrite weapons to the list of things that advance Wraith Strike's damage dice? It also seems to me that taking a full round action to change the type of an already summoned weapon is a bit prohibitive (especially since it's already keying on Weapon Focus as a feat tax), maybe the ability to decrease the change time as a move/swift action could be added at the cost of a few arcane pool points? Another thematic option I had thought of for Umbral Sorcery was an option to spend arcane pool points to charge and full attack like the Swordmaster Rogue's Tiger Trance (particularly because this is meant to be a more martial beguiler).
  
• Tomebound Beguiler: An interesting option for those who want to go guild-less. I like the pseudo-spellbook of the tome, but I think the spellcasting ends up a little wonky because it's mixing the standard sorcerer progression with a lot of savvy preparation. I'd recommend just outright giving this archetype Arcanist spellcasting which will result in the same more breadth at the cost of decreased spell slots mentality. If you're still restricting the spell list, that kind of casting doesn't seem particularly unbalancing. Beguiling Strike is kind of a fun antipode to the Magus' Spell Combat. Adept Beguiler seems like a bit of a let down in terms of a capstone for the archetype, but I'm not sure what you could do there. Typo note: in the Beguiling Strike ability, you have an unmatched closing bracket at the end of the sentence about the spell's reduced range.
  
• Whispering Initiate: I don't 100% have a feel for this archetype. It seems like more of a NPC class than a PC class (as others have said). I suppose it has its niche in an intrigue-based game, but this really doesn't grab me the same way that a Wandering Heart beguiler would for that purpose. As others have stated, the strong scrying focus is a tad odd for PCs. I wonder if adding enchantment/mind-affecting spells to Piercing Gaze might give the archetype a bit more heft as more than a scrying master.

I hope you find these comments helpful and thank you again for your hard work these past two years.

I'd recommend against that approach. Yes hide in plain sight is a fairly middling power for a 17th level beguiler, but it is still situationally useful. While Wise Old Man is off base claiming that the beguiler is more powerful than anything else in pathfinder (indeed it sits below most full casters in the game, both arcane and divine) it is still a fairly powerful class. At high level most of its high power goods come in the form of spells and order powers, it doesn't particularly need a powerful bump again at level 17. Take a look at the wizard and sorcerer as an example for how a class like this should evolve in high level play: the wizard gains its last school power at level 8 and only gets free metamagic feats at 10 and 15, the sorcerer's bloodline powers stop at 15 before the capstone. New spells are more than enough for a beguiler.

If you do want to do something to replace hide in plain sight, I'd recommend against giving dodge for free. Instead just give wind and lightning stances without needing to meet the prereq's. If you must have something at high level, maybe at level 17 the beguiler can extend the protections of these feats to a minute once a day.

Mark pointed me back here telling me you've made some changes to the conversion. While I'm sad you've departed from the old standby of the class knowing all its spells, I can definitely understand your reasoning for doing so. The new spell list looks really neat and I'd still look forward to seeing what kind of spells known my players would build up. One thing I would beg of you is to add mage hand to the spell list. From the beginning this class was one that cried out to be paired with the arcane trickster PrC and the only thing holding them back is that one spell not being on their list. Before this expanded spell list, I could see the reasoning for keeping mage hand off the list, but now it seems like it would be a simple add that would be well within the themes of the class.

I absolutely adore the new concept for the baleful shadow order. The order powers from old version really did seem like it wasn't anywhere near as unique as the other groups. That said, I think there are some things that could stand to be cleaned up a little and clarified:

• Stygian step is really interesting. I think you definitely hit on a good point about the lighting conditions to prevent multiclassing shenanigans. Honestly you could drop this limitation at 5th level (the second time there's no BAB bump) and it'd hold off the martial dips. However, when I first read the fluff sentence I had a bit of a different picture for the idea than the crunch bore out. What I had in mind was more akin to being under the protection of a blink spell for the duration of their move action. This provides similar protections against AOOs while also letting them blink through walls and such. Maybe at 9th level you could let them spend two uses to become incorporeal for that move action. You also don't really need the text about not granting new forms of movement as it's only ethereal creatures that gain the "any direction glide" movement, not blinking nor incorporeal creatures.
  
• As I had suggested earlier, the arcane trickster really goes well with this order. I would be nice if wraith strike counted as a sneak attack for the purposes of qualifying for feats and PrCs so you could theoretically build a beguiler 10/arcane trickster 10 without having to waste 3 levels multiclassing in rogue to qualify.
  
• I like both the shadow tricks and peerless tricks. Very cool ways to customize your stygian step. One thing I'd like some more clarification on is whether or not stygian jump qualifies a beguiler to take the dimenional agility feat chain. If not it seems like it has relatively little worth, particularly since you can get it for free with dimensional step; if so it would have significant worth and might even be worthwhile to combine with dimensional step.
  
• I'd definitely back a change to the aspect of mastery to treat concealment and perception as if her space were one step darker.

The quality of your work continues to astound me and I must say it has been a pleasure to help you craft this class.

I'm glad you're enjoying my work. I hadn't thought about converting the warmage and dread necromancer, but I may give it a shot when this conversion is put to bed.

You've got a good framework to build these other two classes on with this beguiler conversion. Surprise and cloaked casting get replaced with two synergistic powers for the warmage/dread necro and the orders turn into different paths for each of them (maybe the warmage is split into different elemental schools of fire/lightning/ice/acid and the dread necro would split into a variety of undead-type transformations). I'd give the warmage a spell list heavy one evocation and abjuration, while the dread necro would get necromancy and divination (avoiding conjuration and transmutation since those schools are where most broken spells can be found).

I'd be weary of something like shatterglass not giving a save. Even if it were a fort save with a 20 or 25 DC, it should offer a chance to avoid the blinding effect. Otherwise it outshines a wide number of other items or spells with significantly greater cost.

Sorry for the delay in my summary of our playtest, I've been sick as a dog for the last week. I'll start off with the cast of characters we play with, one build for each order/archetype. They all shared the same stat rolls (we do 5d6 drop the two lowest) the resulting array was: 18, 16, 15, 14, 10, 9.

Here are our six beguilers at level one(stat boosts and penalties in brackets, alternate racial traits in square brackets).

arcane hand build - Human (+2 int) [silver tongued]:
Lady Seriana "Bragg" Braggard
Str 10, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 20, Wis 9, Cha 15.
Born of noble parents, heiress to her family's title. As an act of rebellion against her parents she joined the beguiler's guild instead of entering the local wizard's college. Narcisistic, selfish, unyielding.

wandering heart build - Ifrit (+2 dex, +2 cha, -2 wis) [efreeti magic, hypnotic, wildfire heart]:
Ember Strongheart
Str 10, Dex 17, Con 14, Int 18, Wis 7, Cha 18.
Her efreeti father left his elemental home when he fell in love with her human mother. As her mother died in childbirth, he was left to raise her in this strange new land. When she came of age she struck out on her own and left her small village for the big city. Quickly finding herself in trouble, she joined the beguiler's guild to pay off the debt of their protection. Beautiful, coy, sweet.

baleful shadow build - Wayang (+2 dex, +2 int, -2 wis):
Fidgit
Str 15, Dex 18, Con 10, Int 20, Wis 7, Cha 14.
He doesn't like to talk about his past, nobody's quite sure of where he came from. He found the secret, underground headquarters of a beguiler's guild and they haven't been able to get rid of him since. Insane, offputting, flighty.

ghastly claw build - Sylph (+2 dex, +2 int, -2 con) [breeze-kissed, like the wind]:
Luro Akaash
Str 15, Dex 18, Con 12, Int 20, Wis 9, Cha 10.
Orphaned because of his mixed blood, he carved a home for himself in the ghettos. By age five he was leading a gang of homeless orphans that eventually ran the local mob out of town. Over the years, stealing no longer satisfied him and he sought out new thrills as an assassin amongst the beguilers. Strong, unfeeling, ambitious.

theurgic brigand build - Fetchling (+2 dex, +2 cha, -2 wis) [shadow magic, subtle manipulator, world walker]:
Jegan "Jiggy" Anto
Str 10, Dex 17, Con 14, Int 16, Wis 7, Cha 20.
Bastard son of the king of the realm and a fetchling emmisary, neither race wanted to claim him as their own. The captain of the king's guard was ordered to kill the infant, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Instead the child was smuggled to another city where he was adopted by a wealthy family of gnomes. Despite the unknown nature of his magic, he was honored to be accepted into the clan of wizards that ran the city when he came of age. He later learned that this was actually a front for a guild of beguilers, but didn't mind as long as he still got paid. Friendly, sarcastic, calculating.

elusive wildling build - Kitsune (+2 dex, +2 cha, -2 str):
Cassandra Silvermane
Str 13, Dex 18, Con 10, Int 9, Wis 14, Cha 20.
Born to a xenophobic group of kitsune druids, she always thirsted to explore the world outside of her grove. She was excommunicated because of her curiosity and the strange magic that manifested within her. She survived in the wild along the outskirts of a small farming village, spying on the residents and learning their ways. Eventually she found a new home among a travelling band of druids who were willing to teach her how to blend in among humans. Adaptible, calm, kind.

As you can see we had a lot of fun just putting these characters together. We ran them at level one and then leveled them up to ten to run them through some more tests (our next session will be a level twenty one-off mission that should be a lot of fun). Here's a summary of our conclusions so far.

Skills: As expected, the class works well as a skill monkey. Tons of Int guaranteed this for all but our elusive wildling. Any obstacle that could be solved with a reasonable skill check (ex. no jumping across a 100 ft. gorge) were successful most of the time.

As I mentioned earlier, sometimes spells can get in the way of skill-based encounters. The biggest offenders were spider climb breaking climb checks and teleport spells breaking hazard crossings. The new teleport spell looks really great and steps on the chasm crossing issue; though it can still be used to break a grapple without an escape artist check if it's cast stilled.

Combat: The higher BAB definitely helped to make this class more capable in combat. When forced into straight combat (no magic), the beguilers weren't useless, but often had trouble with groups of martial opponents. Armor, weapon proficiency and better hit dice make the class more robust in straight combat than your typical arcane casters. Straight combat was still pretty difficult at level 1 when they were pitted against full BAB enemies.

Spells: The illusion/enchantment spell list is pretty fun at lower levels. I think my favorite move was when Mark decided to use silent image at level 1 to imitate a level 20 beguiler's aspect in order to intimidate a group of guards (this was in an area where beguilers were well known). While the spell list was still quite useful at level 10, but looking ahead we saw the high level spell list was a little lacking.

The two new spells you've done over the last few days ought to do a lot towards making that issue better. The invisibilty spell is definitely useful for all beguilers and offers tools not available elsewhere. It's an interesting choice not to have verbal components to the spell since it couldn't otherwise be silenced, but I think that might be a bit too advantageous. The modify memory spell is also pretty great (especially since modify memory is only available to theurgic brigands), but it still seems a little underwhelming to be its own spell at level 9: it doesn't add a whole lot of new functionality to modify memory other than the increased number of targets. I wonder if this might work better if modify memory was added to the beguiler spell list and a new metamagic feat was added that allowed an enchantment spell with one target to be applied to multiple targets for a +4 spell level bump. Just a thought.

Class features: cloaked/surprise casting and feinting are pretty effective and will only get more effective as feinting becomes a swift action and the save DCs are better.

Orders: The orders all have their strengths and weaknesses and actually seem pretty well balanced.
Arcane Hand: Loads of casting options with a pretty rich bonus spell list (arcane hand gave us the most trouble when it came to deciding which spells we wanted to add to our list because we wanted them all). We were using false theurgy for pretty much every cast to give decent protection from dispelling, though swift feinting might take a bite out of that. We went with a familiar at level 1 (a black cat) and it was a pretty nice thematic option for RP, but not quite as powerful as most of the other level 1 order powers.
Wandering Heart: We had a ball RPing a mousey, reluctant seductress with Ember. Charmed casting wasn't much use at level 1, but at level 10 it let us use silent or stilled spells liberally. Still seems a little disappointing not to be able to use the level 1 order power until level 5 without increasing casting time. Maybe a CL bump alongside the metamagic option would make this more interesting. Enchanted casting is great, combined with charmed casting we only really needed to put ranks in one perform (we chose dance) to disguise all her casts. I'm interested to see how beguiling aura is going to work out at level 20.
Baleful Shadow: This was quite a stand out in combat. The extra damage of the shadow strike (there's already a feat with this name, BTW, so you might want to figure out a new one to avoid confusion) was quite noticeable at low levels. Shadow evocation makes it even more dangerous at level 10 (which will only get better with shadow magic at level 13). We didn't use the entangle ability much, but it was pretty critical when we were fleeing from mercenaries through a busy city. Shadow weapon made for a great thematic ability, but I feel like this could be improved if somewhere along the line the spell had a longer duration (I'd love to have a baleful shadow that always used his shadow dagger).
Ghastly Claw: Crummy rolls hampered most of the paralysis options for the ghastly claw at level 1 as Mark said, but that's how the cookie crumbles for these kinds of powers for low level characters. It was a lot more useful at level 10 and the save was the only real decider on this one. I had gone into this playtest thinking that the save might be better replaced by a simple HD cap (ex. it only works on an enemy with HD less than or equal to your beguiler level), but during play the variability the save gave made it more interesting. Coup de grace as a standard action is a mean trick, but still had to be used pretty strategically and was often only used to drop the last foe in an encounter.
Theurgic Brigand: Plays very much like a rogue with a decent set of spells to aid him. Lots of decent options for talents, though fugitive's foresight stands out for the advanced talent to pick up at level 9. We built him as a ranged character so we could dump Str, though the low Wis we picked for him bit us a few times when he had to make will saves.
Elusive Wildling: Gina had a ton of fun with Cassandra. Just like with the pack lord druid, boon companion is a must have feat for this archetype. The companions can be pretty powerful if you design them right (at level 10 she had a level 10 badger, a level 4 eagle and all her nature's allies on top of them, all of which were vital in some of the grittier battles) Skills are where she fell a little short. Because she dumped int she was a lot more limited than I was expecting in this regard. That said, she works well in a group of beguilers who can cover up the skills she's lacking.

All in all, everything seems to have a bit of a handicap and a fairly decent set of advantages. I'm looking forward to seeing how we do with the high level adventure next time we get to play testing.

ertw wrote:

What kind of game do you guys play? Do you perhaps mean Mage's Lucubration? LOL. It's an interesting idea, though it would potentially cause issue with the ghastly claw's spell kill ability.

Oh god! facepalm I've been saying that wrong for years now.

That makes two of us.

On the subject of beguiler spells, Gina and I have been tossing this idea around for the last few days and wanted to get your feedback on it:

Reflected Decoy

School: illusion (figment)
Level: 4th
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Components: V, S, F (a flat, mirrored surface at least 1 sq ft in area)
Range: personal
Target: you
Duration: 1 round/level

When the beguiler touches the mirror, she creates an extradimensional space containing a mirrored duplicate of all things within line of effect of the mirror. The beguiler is then pulled into this extradimensional space leaving behind a single illusory double of her self as per symbol of mirroring. This image lasts for as long as the beguiler remains within line of effect of the mirror.

Spells cannot be cast across the extradimensional interface, nor can area effects cross it, however spells of the illusion school are reflected by the mirror and act as if cast by the figment. The beguiler cannot break the plane of the mirror without ending the spell. If the mirror is broken by outside forces, if the beguiler's double steps out of line of effect with the mirror, if the duration of the spell ends or if the beguiler dismisses the spell, the beguiler is instantly teleported to the space occupied by the figment.

The mirror can be moved while the beguiler is within it, changing the extradimensional space contained within. While the mirror is being moved, both the figment and the beguiler remain stationary while the extradimensional space shifts around them. This shifting space can be difficult to navigate and thus, if the mirror is moved, a beguiler must succeed an acrobatics check (DC of 1/2 the number of feet the mirror is moved) or fall prone. If the mirror is tilted such that it no longer has line of effect with the ground, the spell ends and the beguiler falls prone and is teleported to the space occupied by the figment.

I've had a chance to look over the changes and I have a few comments.

• I see the logic in the decreasing of skill ranks since it's not a major hindrance to the beguiler still being a top notch skill monkey, but I think this may be a bit of an issue for the archetypes (since they're Cha casters rather than Int casters). I'd recommend keeping the 6+Int progression for the theurgic brigand at least (since it's more rogue-like than the elusive wildling).
  
• The arcane hand changes look really great except for the typo Penumbral Shadow already pointed out.
  
• A few issues with baleful shadow. 1) Have you considered adding shadow weapon to the list of spells effected by shadow magic? It seems like it would fit the theme. 2) The duration of the entangling darkness ability seems a little long to me, I'd cut it down to 1/4 the beguiler's level. 3) If it's your intention to limit shadow magic by way of spells per day, you probably need to think about how metamagic interacts with the ability. If they are allowed to work with the ability that's every cast between spell level 5th and 9th that could be used with the ability, which is not an insubstantial amount.
  
• The spell kill of the ghastly claw may also benefit from thoughts about metamagic like shadow magic.
  
• I think you made some really good choices with regards to the wandering heart capstone.
  
• Most of the favored class options look good. I'd reduce the drow option to +1/4 rounds to match my suggestion above.
  
• I had a thought about the stolen knowledge ability: since the bard spell list often gives early entry on many wizard/sorcerer spells, you should add some specifics about whether or not he can learn a spell that's already on his list (only at a lower level).
  
• You still haven't discussed unrooting for the elusive wildling, did you decide against that change?
  
• The two new weapons are really cool. Small nitpick: a drake isn't a magical beast, it's type is dragon.
  
• I think the material components for dreaming puppet might be a bit too cheap. Even at 100 gp per HD that's only about 2000 gp for a max level character (which is far cheaper than most spells that effect such high level creatures).

Altogether I think these changes are really great and the conversion is definitely getting close to a nicely balanced finished product.

So I had a chance to go over the whole conversion document with the players I'll be play testing with last night (though it seems there have been updates to it since I printed it out Thursday morning). Let me just lay out a few of our comments:

• As expected, the flavor of the class as a whole went over incredibly well. Mark (Penumbral Shadow) had already seen it, but Gina (my pack lord druid player) was really entertained by it. We couldn't help but kick around a few ideas about what the beguiler guild would look like in the various cities of our world. Each of us had a slightly different picture of the guild, but the world is so varied that each interpretation could fit in somewhere. I really think the beautiful job you did formatting these pages helped to make it more immersive since it looked like we were reading off of pages from an actual Paizo splatbook.
  
• The general mechanics of the class seem to be really well worked out. The consensus around the table was still that we'd like to see the BAB bumped up to a three-quarters progression. They've got armor training and expansive weapon proficiencies to indicate some level of martial training and the poor attack progression the beguiler currently has doesn't mesh with that.
  
• We all really enjoyed the equipment you've included for beguilers, you've come up with some really creative stuff here and neat ways to subvert simple powers in exciting ways. While we love the butcher's crook and the hornet's sting, they're both exclusively ranged weapons and we did wonder if you might have something in store for a melee weapon?

Here's what we ended up saying about the various orders and archetypes:

• The arcane hand is very interesting, though the bonus spell list is kind of all over the place. I guess that might make sense thematically since they're assembling a little bit of magical powers from all the schools. We felt that nondetection was a bit of a weak choice for the level 13 power, you might want to up its power to mind blank.
  
• The ghastly claw is an interesting martial class, but the core power is still limited to a toss up in the early game because of the poor BAB. Having said that, it may pose a bit of a problem when used on significantly larger enemies (the kind that typically make up mini-boss or boss encounters) since their touch AC is lowered by size penalties. Maybe you could include a fort save in the attack to help depower it against big foes a little.
  Another point Gina made that we hadn't foreseen is that it is a super tempting order to multiclass into for martial players. A ninja, for example, could take a single level of beguiler and pick up an incredibly powerful touch attack to paralyze an enemy with literally no downside. If you were to include the save we mentioned above and have it scale with beguiler level it would help to limit the effectiveness of a beguiler dip. Also, the spell kill ability could be abused by multiclass casters who have a wide range of spells (instead of just their bonus necromancy spells) to use with it. There's even a trait called two-world magic which explicitly lets you grab a cantrip from another list (like ray of frost) so you could make ranged coup de grace attacks all day long. You'll have to think about things you can do to prevent open loopholes like that.
  The capstone power for the ghastly claw seems a little overpowered compared to the other orders, too. You might want to cut down on the number of immunities granted or remove the DR.
  
• The obscured step feels underpowered. You added vanish to the beguiler spell list and that makes their level 1 power completely obsolete. The rest of their powers seem to lack a lot of the flavor contained in the other orders. I understand the need for a kind of stealth-utility class, but it just seems boring on paper. Maybe it'll get better when we actually play with it.
  With the shadow evocation powers on their bonus spell list, this class is going to have some combat potential so you might think about reskinning it along those lines. Give it something like the rogue's sneak attack with a slower progression (maybe a new die every three or four levels). Combine this with a better BAB and you've got something interesting IMHO.
  
• The restless mind seems very niche-oriented. It has incredible flavor, but its utility is pretty limited in combat. We're not sure we'd change it, since pathfinder isn't all about combat, but we'd probably pass it over for a PC. It's a pretty good NPC tool for GMs, especially for the big bads: make your players go for a little sleep walk during the night and leave them to figure their way back to the group.
  
• The wandering heart is likewise a primarily non-combat order, but it has legs to stand on. The tools given to this beguiler makes it quite a powerful party face and I could easily imagine having one of these characters leading a whole attachment of town guards around to do her bidding. One particular concern we had was the capstone: at level 20 most enemies you face (even ones with natural attacks) have the +3 enhancement bonus required to overcome that cold-iron DR, so it essentially becomes a nonfactor. The end result seems a little underpowered. Maybe replace the DR with a DR 5/- like the ghastly claw or some kind of energy resistance.
  
• The theurgic brigand is interesting, but the talents seem a little underwhelming. Mark informs me that you've added a few unique talents for the beguiler that might help that, but I haven't had a chance to look it over. The capstone here seems a little overpowered, too: sneak/crit immunity, PLUS DR 10/adamantium (while this faces a similar problem to the DR of the wandering heart, it needs a higher tier enhancement to overcome it that won't be quite as ubiquitous), PLUS SR 30, PLUS blindsight? I'd cut out the blindsight and one of the DR or SR.
  
• The elusive wildling was a bit of a favorite at the table with Gina considering moving over to this if we give the conversion to OK for table play (her pack lord is currently in a pretty precarious position). A lot of the powers synergize really well and make it really powerful out in the wilds. In an urban environment it still has enough tools to get by on its charisma. The capstone seems powerful, but not overly so: our only concern is that a move action for rooting might be a bit too little too quick for the advantages it has and there's no mention of how to unroot. Gina suggested that maybe it could take a full round action to unroot, this would prevent situations where a beguiler would root once she's taken combat position to prevent trips/bullrushes and then unroot to move on.

I hope these comments help, as Gina showed us yesterday, it can be useful to see these things through new eyes.

LT Silverstar wrote:

The flavor changes with the guild are also quite good, though I do have a few issues here. There's a bit of an issue where in some places you give a very broad idea of the guild (ex. each guild has its own rules) and in other places you give very specific ideas (ex. things that happen in ALL guilds). I'd recommend removing all instances where you give unnecessary specifics about the guild. The biggest offender here is the hideaway and elysium: you've gone on about how every guild is different and then suddenly there's these two places that exist in every guild that are all the same. I love these two flavor-wise and I'd probably use them at my table, but to make them mandatory hurts the class on the whole. Some of your earlier criticisms boiled down to the fact that your idea of the guild didn't match the way they would play their beguilers. By opening up the guild structure as you have in some places you give the GM and player the option to make it their own. If you could work this openness across the entire document it would likely be more palatable to more people.

I can see your point about the hooligan's hideaway and (I assume) dark lyceum. I had put those in to boost the flavour of the guild, but I can definitely see how that could cause problems for some. I can remove that section and I'll probably also try to make my claims about the guild more general. The other big point that jumps into my head right now is their relationships with natural beguilers, I'll try to simply give the two ends of the spectrum of attitudes and remove the bits about how large guilds usually treat them poorly.

Yes, I meant lyceum. Not sure why elysium jumped into my head. I'm glad you're getting my point about keeping the fluff general. When I went back and looked over my D&D books, one of the things that jumped out at me where your beguiler differed from the original was the guild structure. The D&D books specifically mentioned that a beguiler fit easily into any game since it didn't come with the baggage of a new BIG GLOBE SPANNING group. Your new draft definitely falls more in line with this and will make it much easier to fit into an existing game.

If you make those changes, it'll make the class a lot easier to shoehorn into an existing campaign. The secretive nature of the guild explains why people haven't heard of it before and with your new, more adaptable guild structure, now these guilds will be easier to fit in. In fact, you might even have a beguiler guild that's just a part of the local thief's or assassin's guild. This isn't the Elder Scrolls, not everything needs to be neat and separate and compartmentalized. Hell, I could even imagine the beguiler's being an arm of a local wizard's guild in some of the more evil-themed areas of my world.

Might I ask if you had any feelings about the equipment that I added to this document? I know you were interested in more martial options for the beguiler and I'm pretty proud of some of the stuff in there.

You've got a lot of really great stuff in there. I can tell you spent tons of time making sure that the fluff and crunch on each of these items made it unique and different. I loved that you brought back set bonuses from D&D, and the way you did it was really neat. It gives every group another unique power to play with (and the beguiler is all about deciding which of your fun toys to play with for me). Both weapons are great with really neat rogue-like applications (and repeating endless ammunition is a killer combo on the crossbow). You painted a really vivid picture with the hood of many faces and I've got this really cool image of how it works in my mind.

The night's watch (fantastic pun, btw) might be the star of the show for me. I'll want one for every character I play from now on. You took some simple, low level spells and turned them into a pretty beastly combination. Right now I'm thinking about the beguiler nobly volunteering to take guard duty all night and then, after the party falls asleep, he just opens up his watch and rolls into his sleeping bag.
One comment I'd make is that you might want to mention what kind of action is required to take something from the pockets of the breastplate. The description mentions a bag of holding so is it a move action? Does it work like the handy haversack where it doesn't invite an AoO? My gut instinct is, since each pocket is so small, it'd work as a free action without opportunity.
I guess it might also be interesting to have options for the butcher's crook to be done with different types of crossbows. Some players might prefer a light crossbow or even dual-wielding hand crossbows. I'm not sure what kind of mundane items they might look like... maybe the light crossbow could be an umbrella while the hand crossbow could be a canteen? I guess those could be done up and priced by GM fiat.

Thanks for your interest! I took a look at the file permissions and it seems that when I uploaded a small revision (removing a repeated word) a few days ago the permissions switched over to only allowing me to view it. I've fixed the permissions so now the link above should work, let me know if you're having any more problems.

I guess I got lucky since I saved a version of the pdf saturday afternoon. I can confirm that the file is loading correctly again.

Well I've taken a good read over the latest pdf and you've got some good stuff in there. I like the melding of the unseen hand and shambling bones, you've figured out a really neat blend between assassins and necromancers. The new sets of bonus spells are also really nicely crafted: there are much more cohesive themes across the orders (except the arcane hand, but that seems to be by design) and the addition of wider spell lists (I noticed a few the bard and witch lists).

The flavor changes with the guild are also quite good, though I do have a few issues here. There's a bit of an issue where in some places you give a very broad idea of the guild (ex. each guild has its own rules) and in other places you give very specific ideas (ex. things that happen in ALL guilds). I'd recommend removing all instances where you give unnecessary specifics about the guild. The biggest offender here is the hideaway and elysium: you've gone on about how every guild is different and then suddenly there's these two places that exist in every guild that are all the same. I love these two flavor-wise and I'd probably use them at my table, but to make them mandatory hurts the class on the whole. Some of your earlier criticisms boiled down to the fact that your idea of the guild didn't match the way they would play their beguilers. By opening up the guild structure as you have in some places you give the GM and player the option to make it their own. If you could work this openness across the entire document it would likely be more palatable to more people.

So I've taken a look at the class as a whole and here are my comments, questions and suggestions:

I love the fluff you've put into this class. The guild and orders give enough of a framework to build up the basic idea of the beguiler while leaving it sufficiently vague so that the player can mold the character to his specifications. The archetypes build on this even more so, allowing the player to break out of the enforced framework of the guild without sacrificing any of the trademark beguiler abilities.

BAB: This might just be because I've houseruled that rogues and monks get full BAB at my table, but I think this class might benefit from the medium BAB progression. The HD reflects the fact that this class is forced into closer combat and some orders have a strong melee/combat focus.

Saves: I like that you added good reflex saves to the class, it always seemed fitting with the theme of the beguiler. It wasn't usually a very big issue in D&D as high dex was pretty important for the class. Fortitude saves will always be where this class is weakest.

Charlatan's cant: A great addition that calls back to the thieves' cant from AD&D. It adds a neat depth to fluff of the class and becomes a valuable tool for DMs looking for a hook to offer his players.

Bonus spells: A lot of really cool options here. Bonus subschools and bard/witch spells make for very interesting new options to add to the spell list. I'm not sure how I feel about the list spells entering at a lower spell level than they normally occur. I think I'll have to see how it works out at the table.

Surprise casting: Similar to the D&D ability, but the addition of ranged options at higher levels makes it really killer. Not too powerful, but it lets a beguiler use it without getting absolutely stomped if her enemy succeeds on his save. Combining it with improved/swift feint gives the beguiler a lot of combat options.

Hide in Plain Sight: Thematically a very neat addition. A beguiler's likely to be a stealth machine, but this adds to their options for a quick escape when necessary.

Orders, apostasies and archetypes

Arcane hand: False theurgy was a skill trick I've used pretty routinely with my beguiler builds. A familiar and constant nondetection help to beef up the magical abilities of the class. Metamagic without increased casting time is an incredible capstone power, not sure I'd ever use the spells for charge option.

Silent foot: An interesting stealthy class. Lots of shadow utility from shadow's kin and night eye. Enveloping darkness is the real star of this show, I think. The capstone is decent, but not as nice as many of the other orders.

Unseen hand: This is a really interesting, but strongly situational order. I always saw assassin-types as more of an NPC class than a PC class. That said, you have a much more worthwhile assassin than the prestige class. Combining a paralysis attack with faster coup de graces is a powerful way to kill, but it's fairly limited by use-per-day restrictions. Quiet death is a really fun option with lots of flavor. I especially liked the penalty for the check if you're not using a dagger for the killing blow. Capstone again is kind of meh.

Wandering heart: Really cool thematically and everything here feels so incredibly unique. Enchanted casting jumps right off the page and makes so much sense to me. When you couple it with charmed casting, it basically gives you a free silent/still so you only need to focus on one perform skill. You could also use charmed casting to extend your charm spells to great effect. The power of these abilities is somewhat offset by the somewhat limited utility of charm spells. Beguiling aura is also really intriguing, the only change I might suggest is being a little more explicit in terms of what defines "looking upon her". Does it mean her face? Could it be any part of her body (I have this funny image of my mind where a wandering heart beguiler fascinates men by showing some ankle)? The capstone seems like it comes out of nowhere, but offers useful abilities and resistance. Maybe a little more could be included to explain why this seductress suddenly turns into a fey creature?

Restless mind: At first I thought this order wouldn't interest me, but it caught my attention with dreaming puppet. What an option to have in your toolbox! It's powerful, but it's offset by risk (not just getting lost, but also to your character while they're in the trance). I might suggest making the "search" phase of the spell last longer if you don't know the target. In particular it feels like it should be a very real risk that the entire duration of the ability could get used up by the search to really drive home the need to name your target. The rest of the powers are alright, but don't jump out like dreaming puppet.

Shambling bones: Feels like kind of a boilerplate necromancy option to me and almost seems out of place. Enervating touch is an interesting option that (when combined with the capstone morph into pseudo-undead) almost touches on the dread necromancer's transformation from D&D. This thing is still thematically a nightmare and the order as a whole just seems... not a beguiler.

Theurgic brigand: Stolen knowledge is an interesting take on the bonus spells. Otherwise it's a pretty simple reskin of rogue talents instead of order powers. If you made the change to hide in plain sight you discussed (replacing it with the ranger ability for urban terrain) would help to distinguish it too.

Elusive wildling: Already posted my comments on this. The more I read it, the more I fall in love with this weird beguiler option. I still think you should include the empathic link.

Hi there, I'm Penumbral Shadow's DM and just had a quick read over the writeup. I didn't take a really close look at the numbers, so I'd need a little more time to decide if we might move forward with a little in-game play testing.

I must say I found the flavor and fluff of the class really exciting. The guild and all the underlying structures in the order helps to differentiate the character of a beguiler from a sorc or bard. But the thing that really caught my attention is the archetype. The idea of a beguiler developing outside of a guild is intriguing and I think it opens the door to a wide number of options. The rogue-like archetype is great and on-flavor for an urban beguiler but what about a self-taught beguiler who grew up in the wilderness? You might blend the class with the weapon style feats of the ranger to replace the order powers? What about a street brawler with a better BAB progression and some of the fighter's weapon training skills? What about a beguiler trained in a church who can channel energy to inflict damage on an enemy? You might even do something with limited bardic performance abilities. You've set up a great class archetype which could turn into a jack-of-all-trades.