Toland's Juju's page

I guess if you don't agree with how it's been done or if you think it's broken, you don't have to use it? I'm perfectly content with nobody else wanting to use this, I just figured that I would share it and see what people thought about it. I, personally, don't see this class as being broken and unbalanced.

I certainly won't be using it and it's great that you're fine with being the only one to use it since that'll probably be the case. I do however think it's pretty disingenuous to say that you posted it to "share it and see what people thought about it" and then proceeded to ignore any criticism and insult those who offered suggestions/comments by telling them that "they don't know the original class". As Ciaran said, you asked for comments, but those seem to be pretty unwelcome as long as they're not praising you for all the work you did.

Concerning the criticism, I don't personally consider an Int based spontaneous caster to be "nonsensical". It's a unique aspect of the class that aside from the amount of skill points gained (and considering that the Beguiler is designed to stand in for a Rogue in terms of skill use, it's not a flaw so much as it is a design decision that you seem to disagree with) is not mechanically too different from casting from Cha and provides a really interesting thematic difference to Cha based spontaneous casters. Edit: Thinking on it, you can even make the Sorcerer an Int based spontaneous caster, so I don't really see your argument here.

Spontaneous casting in pathfinder comes from a caster who uses his force of personality to evoke the innate magic within him. The sage bloodline sorcerer you mention is described as being studious and delving deep into arcane tomes to drive his magic through knowledge rather than personality. Without enshrining some aspect of a studious tradition behind the beguiler class, it still seems ridiculous to me to think about a beguiler being deep in study on long nights when he could be out carousing or stealing or manipulating fools from their coins. But that's just me so I'll concede this point.

As for it being Int reliant....that's the point? How is it any more broken than an Investigator, doubly so if you look at the Empiricist archetype. If a Beguiler takes Clever Wordplay then it becomes two skills that now use Int instead of Cha, their spellcasting, and two class abilities. I don't see this being a flaw so much as "It's an Intelligence based class, therefore, it uses Intelligence primarily".

It's not that it's Int reliant. It's that Int is the only stat it needs to be workable. It governs practically every aspect of the class: skills, using magic devices, social abilities (with the trait), attack and damage rolls (with the feat focused shot), etc. Most importantly it defines the spellcasting for the class and let's be clear: this is a 9 level spontaneous caster with over 100 spells known (and easy access to any spells it doesn't have on its list with wands and staves), an investigator with 6 level prepared casting does not compare to this level of power creep.

To me the most worrying and broken aspect of the conversion is arcane deceit. You've said above that the limiting aspect of beguiler spellcasting is that its spell list is so constrained. Well guess what? this ability blows that constraint out of the water. It gives them access to ANY spell of up to 8th level, that's insane. If you don't see how broken that is there's no hope for you or this conversion.

Edit: Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong but honestly it seems like you just don't like the Beguiler and/or think the original is terribly broken.

I don't have any particular hate/dislike for the original class. It has its quirks that I'm not crazy about and it's not the style of play I prefer, but I've DMed more than a few without problems. That said, I certainly don't think the WotC beguiler fits within the pathfinder universe without major revisions and you seem too focused on carrying those oddities through despite any outside commentary you've received. Since you've demonstrated a complete lack of manners and care in dealing with criticism this will be my last post in this thread, I have better things to do with my time than to argue with a brick wall.

Also, I feel like you don't know the original class? The complaints you have are just default things for the class. Higher HD than other full casters, spontaneous Int caster, etc.

I'm familiar with the original class, but it seems like you're not familiar with the differences between pathfinder and dungeons and dragons. Pathfinder has done away with a lot of nonsensical things that WotC did like Int based spontaneous casters and normalized others like how they treat base attack bonus, hit dice, armored casters and spell levels.

In pathfinder if you have a slow base attack bonus progression you have a d6 hit die. All the armored casters use the medium base attack and are 6th level casters (even the ones that seem like they should be fragile casters like the summoner or bard). If you want your beguiler to get into melee, give it the tools it needs to do so and treat it like the other armored casters in the system.

Another massive problem I see here is that too much of this class keys on Int. It's an Int based caster with tons of skills/level which is already off kilter. Then you add on the arcane deceit ability and now you're using Int for UMD (not to mention you can now boost the power of ANY spell with cloaked casting). Toss in the clever wordplay trait and you don't even need Cha for social skills. This is broken and it's not enough to throw your hands up and point to WotC's original broken and unbalanced game design to cover the flaws of your own conversion.

Here's the final version of the Grave Caller summoner I gave to my player, for those of you who are interested:

Dhampir Grave Caller
A dark power binds a dhampir's undead heritage to the voices of the lost souls crying out for vengeance from beyond the grave. He is able to call these restless spirits back to the material plane and summon a powerful undead eidolon to his side.

Spells
A grave caller does not have access to summon monster spells. Instead, he swaps out those spells on his spell list with summon undead spells of the same level. Furthermore, a grave caller also replaces agonize on his spell list with command undead as a 3rd level spell.
This ability alters the normal spell list of the summoner.

Eidolon
The eidolon of a grave caller tends to take more unnatural and more savage forms than other summoners' eidolons. A grave caller gains 1/4 his class level as bonus evolution points in his eidolon's evolution pool, but his eidolon must take the undead base form (see below) and cannot take the following evolutions:
* 1-point evolutions: basic magic, gills, magic attacks, skilled;
* 2-point evolutions: alignment smite, energy attacks, immunity, minor magic, poison, weapon training;
* 3-point evolutions: burrow, celestial appearance, major magic;
* 4-point evolutions: blindsight, breath weapon, dimension door, spell resistance, ultimate magic.
The grave caller's eidolon only gains half of the skill ranks normally available to an eidolon of his level and only gains the following skills as class skills: Intimidate (Cha), Perception (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), and Stealth (Dex). Note that eidolons with a fly speed receive Fly (Dex) as a free class skill, even if they do not gain a fly speed until a later level.
In addition, the eidolon and the summoner must remain within 100 feet of one another for the eidolon to remain at full strength. If the eidolon is beyond 100 feet but closer than 1,000 feet, its current and maximum hit point totals are reduced by 50%. If the eidolon is more than 1,000 feet away but closer than 10,000 feet, its current and maximum hit point totals are reduced by 75%. If the eidolon is more than 10,000 feet away, it is immediately returned to its home plane. Current hit points lost in this way are not restored when the eidolon gets closer to its summoner, but its maximum hit point total does return to normal.
This ability alters the normal summoner's eidolon class feature, but is otherwise identical to that class feature.

Summon Undead I (Sp)
Starting at 1st level, a grave caller can cast summon undead a number of times per day equal to 3 + his Charisma modifier.
At 3rd level and every 2 levels thereafter, the power of this ability increases by one spell level, allowing him to summon more powerful creatures (to a maximum of summon undead at 17th level). Furthermore, at 19th level, the grave caller cannot use gate as a spell-like ability, but can use either astral projection or greater create undead instead.
This ability otherwise functions like the standard summoner's summon monster I ability and replaces that ability.

Channel Energy (Su)
Starting at 1st level, a grave caller gains the ability to channel energy as the cleric ability, save that he must channel negative energy. This ability replaces life link and life bond.

****

Undead Base Form
Starting statistics
Size Medium; Speed 20 ft.; AC +4 natural armor; Saves Fort (good), Ref (bad), Will (good); Attack bite (1d6); Ability Scores Str 16, Dex 12, Con 13, Int 7, Wis 10, Cha 11
Free Evolutions
bite, improved natural armor, undead appearance, unnatural aura.

Paralyzing Touch
4-point evolution
An eidolon's natural attacks are empowered by fell energies to render living foes helpless. Pick bite, claw, pincers, slam, tail slap, or tentacle attacks. Whenever the eidolon makes a successful attack of the selected type against a living creature, the target must succeed on a Fortitude save (DC = 10 +1/2 the eidolon's HD + its Con modifier) or be paralyzed for 1 round. Creatures that successfully save cannot be affected by the same eidolon's paralyzing effect for 24 hours. This evolution is only available to eidolons of the undead base form.

@Toland's Juju: Have you considered the spell Khain's Army (from Inner Sea Magic) as a replacement for Gate rather than Undead Anatomy III? Since it's a high level replacement spell you might want to up the number of summons to something like 3d4+3 ghouls and 3 ghasts.

Also, off topic, but would your username be a reference to Destiny?

I'm thinking the gate replacement might be well served by the grave caller's choice of astral projection or greater create undead (after all, the wild caller gets their choice of two alternates for gate). Also I'd want to replace agonize on his spell list with command undead to help out. And yes, my name is a reference to Destiny. I absolutely love Bad Juju.

My player decided they were more interested in a summoner than a shaman so I've put together an archetype I'd like to share with you. It's based on the half-elf wild caller archetype.

Dhampir Grave Caller
A dark power binds a dhampir's undead heritage to the voices of the lost souls crying out for vengeance from beyond the grave. He is able to call these restless spirits back to the material plane and summon a powerful undead eidolon to his side.

Spells
A grave caller does not have access to summon monster spells. Instead, he swaps out those spells on his spell list with summon undead spells of the same level.
This ability alters the normal spell list of the summoner.

Eidolon
The eidolon of a grave caller tends to take more unnatural and more savage forms than other summoners' eidolons. A grave caller gains 1/4 his class level as bonus evolution points in his eidolon's evolution pool, but his eidolon must take the undead base form (see below) and cannot take the following evolutions:
* 1-point evolutions: basic magic, gills, magic attacks, skilled;
* 2-point evolutions: alignment smite, energy attacks, immunity, minor magic, poison, weapon training;
* 3-point evolutions: burrow, celestial appearance, major magic;
* 4-point evolutions: blindsight, breath weapon, dimension door, spell resistance, ultimate magic.
The grave caller's eidolon only gains half of the skill ranks normally available to an eidolon of his level and only gains the following skills as class skills: Intimidate (Cha), Perception (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), and Stealth (Dex). Note that eidolons with a fly speed receive Fly (Dex) as a free class skill, even if they do not gain a fly speed until a later level.
In addition, the eidolon and the summoner must remain within 100 feet of one another for the eidolon to remain at full strength. If the eidolon is beyond 100 feet but closer than 1,000 feet, its current and maximum hit point totals are reduced by 50%. If the eidolon is more than 1,000 feet away but closer than 10,000 feet, its current and maximum hit point totals are reduced by 75%. If the eidolon is more than 10,000 feet away, it is immediately returned to its home plane. Current hit points lost in this way are not restored when the eidolon gets closer to its summoner, but its maximum hit point total does return to normal.
This ability alters the normal summoner's eidolon class feature, but is otherwise identical to that class feature.

Summon Undead I (Sp)
Starting at 1st level, a grave caller can cast summon undead a number of times per day equal to 3 + his Charisma modifier.
At 3rd level and every 2 levels thereafter, the power of this ability increases by one spell level, allowing him to summon more powerful creatures (to a maximum of summon undead at 17th level). Furthermore, at 19th level, the grave caller cannot use gate as a spell-like ability, but can use undead anatomy III instead.
This ability otherwise functions like the standard summoner's summon monster I ability and replaces that ability.

Channel Energy (Su)
Starting at 1st level, a grave caller gains the ability to channel energy as the cleric ability, save that he must channel negative energy, and when she does, she cannot choose to target living creatures. This ability replaces life link and life bond.

****

Undead Base Form
Starting statistics
Size Medium; Speed 30 ft.; AC +4 natural armor; Saves Fort (good), Ref (bad), Will (good); Attack bite (1d6); Ability Scores Str 16, Dex 12, Con 13, Int 7, Wis 10, Cha 11
Free Evolutions
bite, improved natural armor, undead appearance, unnatural aura.