.... Another Door Opens?

[Iskajir]

Ok, my bottle of wine is mostly gone, and I am feeling MUCH better about this. Thank you all!  

I am 95% decided on Ninja 1/Druid 19, with Able Learner and _____ as my first feat. 4% in favor of UM. 1%, which maybe wine-related, says screw it, I'll play DFA and burn things better than you.   

stats 13/14/16/15/18/10. I will be their skill monkey, but social skills can be shared out by mid levels. UMD may have to take a hike as well, unless there is an easy way to get it in-class with a feat, at 1st level.

Ideas for second feats? I am considering Nymph's Kiss, but think I could do better.

[weenog]

Ick.  That party is worthless for skills and has nothing remotely resembling a real arcanist.  Ninja/druid works if you want to essentially make a solo character who has the misfortune of carrying multiple millstones hung from his neck.

I think the god style wizard is probably the best bet too, but that won't really help for skills, and at least in the early levels, you tend to want those.  To get the skills, trapfinding, social ability, etc, I would start off like this.

Human Beguiler 1
Str 10, Dex 16, Con 15, Int 18, Wis 13, Cha 14
features/feats: Armored Mage, trapfinding; Able Learner, Arcane Preparation
skills: Concentration, Disable Device, Knowledge (arcana), Listen, Search, Spot, Tumble, Use Magic Device, pick 2 more

From there go Beguiler up till 6th level (and grab Cooperative Spell with the feat at that level), then go straight into Mage of the Arcane Order to expand your utility options with the spellpool.  Feats are pretty much open all the way, though it's hard to go wrong with Versatile Spellcaster.

[Gods_Trick]

This might come off as confrontational and passive aggressive, but why carry millstones? Play your Ninja/Druid, survive everything and look innocent when the group wonders why there are so many PC deaths  .

Personal philosophy though. I actually like being God, but if I'm keeping their buts alive, they better appreciate it! Maye it'll encourage the GM to put in an NPC to carry the skills, BFC, face, traps or utility load.

[Sohala]

@Sohala- I can't tell him anything. To him, arcanists blast. Period. He will blast every round however ineffectually, until he runs of out of blast, then pull out a stick and start beating the BBEG. This does not matter if he is a warmage, wizard, or sorcerer. He seems to object in principle to me not blasting. "Please quit casting haste every combat, and do more fireballs!"  (This of course got him pelted with cheeetos by melee fighters' players.)

Marshal 2/Factotum 4/Chameleon?...... hmmm. So 2 auras, trapfinding, some INT-based skill and combat boosts, 2 1st level arcane spells/day, the chameleon goodies. Stats INT/CHA/DEX/CON/STR/WIS??

But...sanctified one helps with fire blasting...

If you wanted to go with it, I would swap STR and WIS around, for divine casting and facto healing.

If you are going ninja/druid, I would double check with your DM on if you can search/disable/open, while shifted.

[Eviltedzies]

I would have to add my vote to the Factotum 8/Chameleon 10/ (Insert Class Here) 2.

The sheer versatility of the build is astounding. Since your being forced to be human and be a skill monkey.... why not make the party wish they were even half as awsome as you?

[Iskajir]

 

UPDATE:
Our 5th player is trying to choose between illusionist and beguiler. I am encouraging UM. Life is good.

Player 4: Warmage going towards Elemental Savant, because why would you ever need anything but fire spells? 

You know, it's like the designers put both of them in the same splatbook just for the offchance someone might get the idea of combining the two together...

Ugh. Just ugh. If he can be talked into a different blasty prestige class, I will call it good. He looked at me like this when I suggested Rainbow Servant: 

Maye it'll encourage the GM to put in an NPC to carry the skills, BFC, face, traps or utility load.

As DM, with 5 experienced players, I certainly would not.

If you are going ninja/druid, I would double check with your DM on if you can search/disable/open, while shifted.

Search, yes. Disable/open only if I have articulate fingers, and my tools aren't melded to the new form.

I would have to add my vote to the Factotum 8/Chameleon 10/ (Insert Class Here) 2.

This is an insanely useful build. If I had any trouble convincing the DM to go with ninja/druid, it would have been my plan. But access Exalted Wildshape pretty much decided me on druid. Access to pretty much any critter's Ex and Su abilities at my 9th level feat is made of win. If the rest of the party is crawling all up the exalted thing, so can I.

Thank you everyone so much. Any ideas for a 1st level feat, useful at 1st level, that I won't have to retrain? If not, something I could retrain for SF(conj) at 3rd, that would be very useful until then?

[Dictum Mortuum]

Companion spellbond is always good.

[X-Codes]

I hope not a Beguiler/Illusionist/UM.

Beguiler/SCM is actually a really potent build, and you'll have the crowd control angle absolutely handled.  I don't see much of a reason to go and start blending it with other character-defining PrCs.  If he doesn't want to be a gnome, then just go with the non-racist version.

For you, now, Ninja/Druid does pretty much cover the rest of what the group is looking for, so happy hunting.

[Iskajir]

Companion spellbond is always good

It's my 1st choice for a 3rd level feat. Unless I can get the arcanist to really go beguiler and do the locks/traps schtick, I won't be eligible for it until 2nd level.

If he doesn't want to be a gnome, then just go with the non-racist version.

No so much a "want" thing. Part of the character creation requirements. Young humans facing extinction at the beginning of an ice age, in an isolated northern village.......
My luck convincing this DM that non-racist SCM was a good thing in the past, got me pointed towards the Stoneblessed class. *harumph* I doubt there's much hope for that variant in this game.

[Dictum Mortuum]

What's your alignment? Master of poisons? Nymph's Kiss?

[Iskajir]

Finalized Version of Party:

Player 1: me. Hi! I decided on Druid 20. see below.
Player 2: Psychic Warrior 1. Plans PsyWar2/Fighter6/PsyWar X... dungeoncrasher.
Player 3: melee cleric. Plans Cleric 8/Fist of Raziel 10. Dumped INT & DEX
Player 4: Warmage 20, having been dissuaded of elemental savant... I think.
Player 5: Rogue 20.
Player 6: Yippee!!! Cloistered Cleric 1/Beguiler 19

Setting is arctic, frostburn: permanent winter, which creeps further south each year. (A bit like the area north of The Wall in George R. R. Martin's Fire & Ice series.) Terrain will be a major challenge.
Feats: Companion Spellbound, and Animal Devotion (which I can retrain later for SF-conj or Extend Spell).
Animal Companion: a Swindle-spitter dino w/ Cold Endurance instead of Run.
Wild Empathy ACF: DM let me trade out for the Ranger Wild Empathy ACF, Spiritual Connection, which I think will be more useful in a shoot-first-talk-later party.
I still have a bit of starting cash to spend.

So far though, as a starting character:
2 first level druid spells/day, which I can share at 30' range, one of which could be Endure Elements if weather is an issue. The other might be aspect of the wolf, shillelagh, or entangle as needed.
3 orisons/day
fly 40 (avg) 1 min/day (or one of several less enticing abilities)
3/day speak w/ animals or speak w/ plants
Starting AC of 16, 11hp, 7 skills including Diplo at max ranks
Animal Companion who is cooler than I am.

Any suggestions to improve before we play on feats, equipment, skills, etc.?

[Solo]

Why did you talk the warmage out of Elemantal Savant? Having him suck would have made my day.

[Iskajir]

@Solo- LMAO. Funny for you, maybe. I think the chances of making him a useful member of the party for 20 levels are nil. Avoiding maximized, empowered, twinned, widened, searing, fell-draining fireballs as a valid use of an epic spell slot seems unlikely. I will happily pass on stories of his antics to the boards.

Same player, dragonborn kobold favored soul in heavy armor in a an all-kobold, very sneaky-oriented game. (His 3rd PC, so he knew the party tactics when making it) He knew no healing spells, only personal buffs, and blasties. We made him tromp ahead of us, with his -3 move silently, only about +5 to hide, on the first portion of his first adventure with the party, as we decide how to deal. Rest of party was sorcerer w/ greater invis, a ninja, and a fighter/rogue: very quiet, light, stealthy, fast.

He is not paying attention to the description of the tunnel (4' high, 3' wide) which opened into a small room 10'x10' cavern crawling with angry agitated shocker lizards. He chose, to activate his boots of spider climb, and hanging from the (4' high) ceiling, blasted into the cavern, without waiting for the party to (decide whether to) catch up. Line of massive lightening follows, right up the hall, for, I think 10d8. He to this day cannot understand how that line hit him if he was on the ceiling, and they were on the ground.

He has more PC-deaths than any other player we have ever had.

[X-Codes]

1) Just because the Warmage shouldn't be an Elemental Savant doesn't mean he shouldn't PrC out of Warmage as quickly as is humanly possible.

2) Rogue should add 4 levels of Swashbuckler using this web material right here and also the Daring Outlaw feat from Complete Scoundrel.  He should also use Complete Scoundrel in general, because sneak attacking someone 4 times while the psywar wails on them and causing 8 strength damage despite Fortification when it's not even your turn is just plain awesome.

3) The beguiler should look for another way to get Turn Undead and devotion abilities.  His spellcasting is already set back a level because he's a Beguiler instead of a Wizard.  Setting it back another is pretty harsh.

[veekie]

Get him into the Rainbow Warsnake?

[Iskajir]

1) Just because the Warmage shouldn't be an Elemental Savant doesn't mean he shouldn't PrC out of Warmage as quickly as is humanly possible.

Trust me, there's nothing he would willingly prestige into that would be better for the party. He'd only go for things like Elemental Savant, Bonded Summoner, Blood Magus, etc. Can you suggest a better prestige class to enhance blasting? There is no way he will take another standard action if a fire-and-forget direct damage spell is handy. Rainbow Servant in particular gets me the stink-eye, since if he had access to all those spells someone might expect him to use them or something.

2) Rogue should add 4 levels of Swashbuckler using this web material right here and also the Daring Outlaw feat from Complete Scoundrel.  He should also use Complete Scoundrel in general, because sneak attacking someone 4 times while the psywar wails on them and causing 8 strength damage despite Fortification when it's not even your turn is just plain awesome.

The rogue player is fairly new to 3.5, and very busy with a demanding job, and grad school. The chances of her devoting more than 20-40 minutes to character creation or build design are slim. I will put the Complete Scoundrel under her nose asap though.

3) The beguiler should look for another way to get Turn Undead and devotion abilities.  His spellcasting is already set back a level because he's a Beguiler instead of a Wizard.  Setting it back another is pretty harsh.

Another non-optimizer. Fluff > crunch. He is doing the dip for a) no material component, 1st level identify, and all knowledges in-class to build more believable illusions.

YMMV, but in my experience, getting philosophical non-optimizers to engage in CO is like this:  

[X-Codes]

The only knock against Bonded Summoner is that it's class abilities are more-or-less duplicated by a single 7th-level spell.

Of course, that spell isn't on the Warmage spell list, and he probably wouldn't cast it even if it were.

Bonded Summoner it is!

As for the Daring Outlaw build, it's not substantially more bookkeeping.  I mean, if she's just going to draw from core and a single splat, then make that splat Complete Scoundrel.  It'll seriously be better than anything else for that style of character.

As for the last character, you can't do anything?  Not even something like Earth Spell + Heighten Spell -> MT and Earth Dreamer (since he seems to be into that kind of diviney stuff)?

[Iskajir]

MT might be possible, but early entry to double-casting classes is well-and-truly pooped on by this DM. CC3/Beguiler4/MT 10 doesn't look very tasty. UM would have been better, even with illusionist on the prepared side. While I could certainly help him with a better build, I think he is pretty solidly optimized to the level of the party, which is admittedly rather low.

[Mixster]

What you are looking for in this case is in fact not a druid.

The 2% chance of you actually needing a Master spellthief has occurred.

Rejoice, for this is one of the most awesome builds around.

[CantripN]

As for the Warmage? Offer him to go for War Mage!

Yes, I'm serious.

It's from Age of Mortal (Dragonlance Campaign Setting Book). CHA to AC to 3 party members, free MM feats, and HUGE BLASTY SPELLS (+3/die)! Also, have him get the Snowcasting + Frozen Magic + Cold Spell Specialization feats. Sure, blasting may not be perfect, but getting a 20d6+100 Chain Lightning, at level 12, is possible, and painful.