They think they have, you think they haven't. I've been watching this argument unfold and neither side is going to back down, so what's the point?
I've already swayed two people (Kaelik and Braithwaite). There's a good chance I can sway more.
About 7 pages of repeating and ignoring the same arguments over and over and over you have three people siding with you. I could know nothing about D&D and completely agree on the idea the Beguiler belongs in the 3rd teir based on the last sentence alone.
OK, if you went into an argument with everyone starting disagreeing with you and managed to convince anyone at all to switch opinions, would you consider that a success? I would. It is quite literally infinitely better than doing nothing (2 understanding now divided by zero understanding otherwise).
Maybe you're just closed minded. There's always that.
Most of your arguments are done as a comparison to a sorcerer so I'll follow along with those and say to ask your self these questions.
1. Is the Beguiler a solid class capable of winning most encounters?
Clearly.
2. Does the Beguiler have the raw power capabilities of a Sorcerer? For explanatory reasons of what I'll mean I am defining power as things like Arcane MoreSpellsThanYouPerRoundSurge, Avascular, Black Tentacles, Burning Blood, Fleshshiver, Grease, Kelgore's Grave Mist, Ray of Stupidity, Shapechange, Shivering Touch, Wings of YouCan'tTouchMe, Wish and other slimier spells.
About a third of those, yeah. They're on the base list (or something so similar as to not even be funny is). Several of those are "too much rules shenanigans to get" and some other ones are "Yeah, I'd totally pick up that with arcane disciple because I'm not retarded".
But yeah, while he doesn't get all the OMG WIN spells, he gets several.
2.5 If some of those spells can be cast, please reilliterate to me on how to do so.
Either they are already on the spell list, they get picked up with arcane disciple (for easy stuff like animate dead), or they get picked up with advanced learning (in the case of ray of stupidity).
3. Is a Beguiler be more versatile in the spell's known than a Sorcerer without explicitly taking your mentioned feats or PrCs to expand it's spell list?
Assuming same level of optimization, yes. It's a lot harder to add spells to the sorcerer list than the beguiler list, so at any point of optimization knowledge where the sorcerer is getting more spells known, the beguiler is tossing on an arcane disciple or three to get some neat tricks of his own.
Remember guys, fiend blooded is the PEAK of adding sorcerer spells known outside of dragon mag (which has that silly feat to use INT for hp in it as well).
Spells known is a HUGE consideration, so yeah. Beguilers *are* more versatile. Take a look at the side by side comparison at level 10 with moderate optimization for both and you'll see what I mean.
4. The built in feint for +2 DC and bonuses to SR seem handy for the Beguiler, but since feinting takes a standard action how do you effectively use it?
Not until you get the class feature to downgrade it to a move action and take improved feint or whatever. In any case, it's a neat class feature but not the beguiler's important thing by any stretch of the imagination.
5. Is the Sorcerer a feat less class that prohibits PrCing out or optimization in anyway?
Well, in my side by side comparison I just kinda picked no brainer things for each build. I spent more time on the sorcerer (optimizing spells known pretty hard). And he has two open feats. They wouldn't change the fact that a moderately optimized beguiler is on par with or better than a moderately optimized sorcerer, would they?
Seriously, fiend blooded is the sole class we actually care about for adding spells known and it adds a grand total of five spells. Mage of the arcane order just plain blows. Shadowcraft mage is done better by beguiler anyways (because beguilers also get stuff that isn't sorc/wiz like glibness and freedom of movement).
