I've a player who is interested in playing a beguiler from the Players Handbook II. Since I've never seen this class in action, I thought I'd ask here if anybody had any experience with the class.
Am I in for any surprises?
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They are a CKS class (can't kill s**t). They have some really cool ways to control opponents with mind effecting and illusions, but they themselves never deal damage. They have effects. Lots of em.
They suck badly against undead and constructs and other mindless things.
All in all it is a good class that reminds me of a bard with better casting, better rogue-like skills, and no music.
You shouldn't have any problems with them being overpowered or anything unless the player is one of those guys who can make a commoner into a killing machine.
It's a good class to add to a game.
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The beguiler is kind of an enchantment/illusion sorcerer with rogue skills. They have next to nothing as far as damage-dealing spells go, but are geared towards social interactions a lot. Thus, in a campaign centered on dungeon crawls, a beguiler may not be very enjoyable to play, especially at higher levels because most of their spells allow Saves to negate.
Awesome input, all. His request came coincidentally right at the time I was focusing on the social encounter discussions up at the Pathfinder: RPG section. Hopefully all the discussion there has prepared me for the curveball potential of a charmer like this.
As luck would have it, this is for our upcoming Rise of the Runelords campaign and I’m pretty confident the book packs enough NPCs and social opportunities to keep him engaged.
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As luck would have it, this is for our upcoming Rise of the Runelords campaign and I’m pretty confident the book packs enough NPCs and social opportunities to keep him engaged.
Be aware some encounters in the first adventure could really be turned upside down in a major way with a creative beguiler aboard.
Be honest in evaluating yourself as a DM. Do you feel that charming the BBEG in the first round is a downer? Do you feel that illusions that allow the party to skip entire encounters spoils the party's fun? Do you jigger things to prevent these tactics from working? Do you feel like you have to keep the PCs on track, or later encounters will be too tough for them?
If so, you're the wrong DM for a Beguiler.
DMs who regard a good game session as one involving lots of martial combat and explosions rather than one that includes stealthing and diplomacy/charm nerf characters who depend on the enchantment and illusion schools. Basically, enchanters and illusionists depend heavily on their DMs.
They also depend on their fellow players. The bane of the enchanter/illusionist is the idiot player who bashes before the enchanter/illusionist can blink, saying "hyuk, hyuk, that's what a barbarian would do!" Enchanters and illusionists should not be allowed in any kind of "kick in the door/beer and pretzels" style campaign. It's just a recipe for player boredom.
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There is a beguiler in our party (we are playing War of the Burning Sky) and he got bored of the lack of damage potential and multi-classed into wizard and then ultimate magus.
If I ever had to play a "rogue" character, my preferences would be :-
1. Barbarian trap smasher
2. Beguiler
3. Try and get someone else to play the rogue instead
4. Take 2 levels of rogue then multi-class into something else.
So the beguiler works fine for parties which feel they need a rogue but no one wants to play one. However, the lack of damage potential would put off most of the people I've gamed with.
Be honest in evaluating yourself as a DM...
This is good advice and I second it. Beguilers are very good with a particularly extreme series of spells. Generally they either succeed amazingly with very little challenge (and the rest of the party is not involved) or their totally worthless and ineffectual. There is very little middle ground here.
My feeling is the class has issues - it does not play well with others - its not really all that good a class in terms of a co-operative game. If your p-laying Solo its a fantastic class however. Its just neat enough that I allow it at my game table but its definitely on probation.
Part of the reason I allow it is its perfectly possible to get to the same problematic area of the rules using a straight sorcerer and picking up enchantment/charm spells while boosting the DC and spell penetration by every means conceivable. Hence its not really the Beguiler itself that is the problem but the whole enchantment/charm school of magic.
The "working spectacularly" or "having nothing to do" thing is pretty accurate. The gnome beguiler in our campaign has blown through many goblins, wolves, thugs, and assassins, but when I have thrown undead at them, the beguiler is a flanking bonus that does no damage and might make a few knowledge checks.
I don't think its an unbalanced class, nor do I think that it doesn't work well with others, but our beguiler has been heavily leaning towards the illusion side of things, since we also have a bard in the party.
And of course, the most amusing thing is that last session was the heavy investigating, negotiating, social RP session, and both the bard player and the beguiler player were gone.
Odd. I would think that their buff spells would be pulled out when fighting the un-charmable. I thought spells like blur, haste, and invisbility would give them several rounds to cast spells on the party once they get 2nd and third level spells.
Expeditious Retreat gets quite a workout . . . then again, he is a gnome.
Loved expeditious retreat for my slower characters as well. Never really used it to retreat though :).
No, its usually "Expeditiously Get Me Set Up to Flank" or "Expeditiously Get Me Across the Room so My Area Affect Doesn't Hit My Allies." ;)